THE WINTER THAT WOULD NOT DIE
There is the potential for snow on Sunday 4/1 into Monday 4/2.
This is not an April Fools joke.
(I will pause for a moment for you to react to this news in whatever way you feel.)
Alright. So let's talk about what to expect on Saturday 3/31 through the first week of April.
Saturday 3/31 - sunny for most of the day with a high in the upper 50s. Kinda breezy at night. Only getting down to the mid 40s.
Sunday 4/1 - today is the day that Christians celebrate Easter. It is also the birthday of reggae legend Jimmy Cliff (1948), The Minutemen's D. Boon (1958), and YouTube douchecanoe Logan Paul (1995).
[Incidentally, The Minutemen are my favorite band of all time. I could talk about them for days, but I will not abuse your attention in that manner.]
So it's going to be partly to mostly cloudy on Sunday. High of around 55. A bit breezy, but jeez, deal with it.
Expect scattered rain showers to develop by 9 or 10pm Sunday night, so this action should not impact Easter plans or travel.
Temperatures drop into the mid 30s overnight, but are even colder aloft, so it's likely that the rain showers will change to snow - maybe 3am-8am is the window for potentially accumulating snow.
Possible accumulation is an inch or two at most. But the timing could impact the morning commute.
The sun will rise on Monday 4/2 at 6:46am, so the sunshine (even obscured by clouds at first) will melt/mitigate any slippery accumulation.
Becoming mostly sunny with a high near 50. Some rain may develop overnight Monday into Tuesday 4/3, but that will just be plain rain (nothing wintry). High in the low 50s.
Kinda rainy / showery on Wednesday 4/4 as well with a high in the mid 50s.
Clear and sunny and breezy, but chillier again, on Thursday 4/5. High only in the low to mid 40s.
Chilly and rainy on Friday 4/6 - high in the upper 40s.
The first full weekend in April looks (mostly) dry but still unseasonably chilly - highs in the mid to upper 40s.
If you insist: here is a video (just contains audio) of one of my favorite songs by The Minutemen.
Stay tuned for updates!
Monsoon salutes Salute!
The last thing one expects to find in a sleepy strip mall in the middle of Sinking Spring, PA is a dynamic, sophisticated, scrumptious, authentic Italian restaurant. (One would expect to find a tanning place, a secondhand shop run by a ministry, a used furniture store, and some sort of Asian buffet - anything willing to pay the cut-rate rent on a sliver-sized parcel in a dying shopping center. But not a really, really good Italian restaurant.)
But that's just what Salute (sah-LOO-tay) Ristorante Italiano is: a truly great Italian restaurant, right here in Berks County.
It's best to make reservations, especially on the weekend - our server told us they get in the neighborhood of 150 reservations on Friday and Saturday nights (that's 150 each night) with no advertising.
That's right: Salute, which opened November 20th (Monsoon's birthday) of 2014, has survived--nay, thrived--on word-of-mouth recommendations only.
So let me add my mouth to this.
(I fully acknowledge that just sounded wrong. I will rephrase.)
So let me add my words to this mouth-party.
(Maybe I will just move on.)
The place was hopping by 5:00. All staff members were dressed in crisp black outfits and everyone who greeted us was warm and solicitous.
The chef is a guy named Peppe Agliano, and if that name sounds authentically Italian, it's because it is. He is an actual Italian person who is from Sicily, which is in actual Italy.
It's got a fancy outer entrance that, I think, is designed to cut down on the coldness seeping in, but also to make sure you realize that the place you're going into is not your ordinary little shabby strip-mall offering. It's a proper restaurant (that's what "ristorante" translates to in Italian). There's even a guy holding the door open for you. (I think he was employed by Salute. Maybe he was just a nice, door-holding fellow.)
The food, it was delicioso (delicious)!
We started with the Mozzarella In Carrozza (fried breaded mozzarella), which was divine. Best I've ever had. The server (who was attentive and responsive) brought us a basket of assorted breads (with assorted sauces), which we didn't even have to ask for.
The main dishes--damn right, they were good. The Cotolette Di Vitello Alla Parmigiana (veal parm) was the best I have ever tasted. The pasta it came with was aneletti. To my knowledge, it was the first times I have ever had it. It was wondrous. There were even different sauces on the pasta and veal, which was bold. (It was even marginally better than that of Mom Chaffee's, which is saying something.) The Fusilli Alla Carbonara (Mrs. Monsoon's entree) was outstanding, and was presented with an actual fried egg white, which was super fancy. And the Tagliata Di Manzo (sliced grilled beef), which was enjoyed by the mother-in-law of Monsoon, was a dream within a culinary dream.
And the presentation! Oh, the presentation. The most delightful little plates and saucers and vessels. And around each of our dishes, the chef had "painted" a flourish, as though signing his masterwork. It was as though the hand of God Himself had brushed the plates in benedictory blessing.
(I have veered into hyperbole. I will try to rein it in. But the presentation was impressive.)
We were stuffed, but I insisted that we try the desserts, because by then I knew I was going to write this thing, and I believe in thoroughness above all else. I suffer for you people.
I had the ricotta pie, which was good but not great. The thing was drowned in chocolate sauce, which Mrs. Monsoon said was a bit much, but which I relished. Mrs. Monsoon had the tiramisu (from the Italian phrase meaning pick me up) - she said it was good but not the best she's had - and the MOMM (Mom of Mrs. Monsoon) had the pistachio gelato (she said it was great).
It's not a place that you can go every night, unless you're rich. Appetizers are $6-$12, entrees are $15-$25, desserts are $6-$8. So that'll add up. Well worth the money, but still.
So go there and tell me what you think.
Buon appetito (enjoy the eating of the food)!
Monsoon's NYT letter; Boehringer's rave; weather update
My good blog-readers...
I am pleased to announce that your old pal Monsoon has written a letter to the editor of the New York Times, and it has been accepted for publication in the 13 March edition of the Sunday Magazine. You can check this link and scroll toward the bottom; my entry is headlined "Dislike Button."
My letter was edited for space due to the new format of the Letters page, so here (for you Monsoon completists out there) is the unexpurgated version:
Editor:
I have long enjoyed the Sunday Magazine as the must-read component your increasingly expensive publication. However, the February 27th issue was, for me, a barrage of bad news. I understand that Mr. Lindgren, the Magazine's new editor, felt he had to take steps to remake the glossy in his image, eliminating those columns or features he deemed outdated or redundant. When I read of Deborah Solomon's firing from the Magazine's interview segment, I felt it made sense to rid the magazine of her combative, repetitive, and sometimes misleading pieces.
But the tale that unfolded in the February 27th issue was one of wholesale attrition. First, I read that this column would be Randy Cohen's last as the Ethicist, later learning in an online article that he had already been replaced. Mr. Cohen's elegant, understated responses to ethical quandaries were the first words I read in each edition of the Magazine, and I am already wondering how Sundays will be the same without his work.
Next, I read that this would be the final column for Virginia Heffernan and "The Medium." As the internet becomes an ever more integral part of our lives--my wife and I often ask one another as we look up a recipe or bit of trivia, "What did we do before the internet?"--it would seem that such a column would be indispensible.
Finally, and perhaps most troubling for a high school English teacher and lover of language, was Ben Zimmer's announcement that this would be the final "On Language" column. Mr. Zimmer performed admirably in the unenviable task of replacing the late William Safire in writing this feature. In this time of rapid changes in the development of language--the redefinition of what is acceptable, the spectrum of global influences, and so on--makes a column like this essential.
Mr. Lindgren's apparent policy of taking a scythe to the Magazine in an effort to improve it and make it more relevant seems to me shortsighted and impetuous. It's a classic case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and neglects to consider the deeply held loyalties and preferences of your readership.
As you can see, the editors chopped my references to Hugo Lindgren, the Magazine's new editor, while tightening up some of my more longwinded tangents.
It's almost spring, and the March 11th opening of Boehringer's, Route 272 in Adamstown, is a most welcome sign of that season's approach.
A note about the pronuncation of this throwback drive-in's name: we have been calling it "BOAR-in-jerz" (rhymes with "Four in Purrs") since have been frequenting the joint; most locals say "BERR-ing-ers" (rhymes with "Herr Ringers"); I have even heard it pronounced "BOW-ringers" (rhymes with "Foe Flingers") and "BAY-rin-jerz" (rhymes with "Day Fin Curs").
The German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim provides some guidance here: the "oe" construction is an Anglification of the "ö" (o umlaut) in German. The "ö" is difficult for the typical English-speaking mouth to pronounce, but the proper pronunciation is something close to "BAY-rin-gers" (rhymes with Jay Fingers) or "BOH-ring-ers" (rhymes with "Foe Thing Burrs"). Given the tendency of most Pennsylvanians in this region (of German or Penna. Dutch descent) to swallow the "g" in their pronunciations, I'd say either the locals' version ("BERR-ingers") or the second German version ("BOH-ring-ers") is closest. Can anyone shed some light here? Is anyone still reading this?
Well whatever you call the joint, it's fantastic. Boehringer's is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, and has just created a Facebook presence so you can "Like" them, keep up with goings-on, and generally rave about the place.
Mrs. Monsoon and I went there today for the first time this season. Saw some of my students there (two former, one current) and exchanged pleasantries while waiting for our order. Had my first cheesesteak there (plain, of course). I wasn't expecting Pudge's (the best cheesesteaks in the history of the world; they're in Blue Bell. But I had heard they were good, so I gave it a shot.
My good people, it was damn good. Far better than a cheesesteak from a roadside drive-in has any business being. The roll was good, the cheese was intermingled nicely with the chopped beef, and the overall feeling I departed with was one of pure gustatory pleasure. (Of course, the perfect fries and ice cream cone chaser didn't hurt, either.)
Etiquette is key at Boehringer's: order up at the counter, then step back to wait for your food. The holding open of doors is particularly helpful. Pay with cash only--credit cards and checks are not accepted. Some jackwagon trying to pay for his hot dog, fries, and vanilla milkshake with a platinum card can really gum up the works. Boehringer's is a well-oiled machine, Tucker. Get with the program.
You can't really go wrong at Boehringer's--hot dogs, burgers, steaks, fries, and homemade ice cream. And milkshakes! Oh, the milkshakes. You have to find just the right green-shirted employee, but I have had a few chocolate-peanut butter milkshakes there that made me forget my name.
The ambiance is nice, too. Not inside the place--though there is a sort of controlled chaos that I find strangely calming. I'm talking about the creekside picnic tables where you can enjoy your food and watch the ducks pad about. It's like a little park: dogs, fowl, trees, rocks. It's usually quite comfortable and breezy there, even on a really hot and humid day. Sometimes the ants can be a little vexing and the bees a little threatening and the ducks a little aggressive, but what do you want? You're outside and it's lovely. Eat your butter brickle and stop your frickin' complaining.
It's open Tuesday through Sunday, 11am to about 9pm.
I'd love to hear your favorite Boehringer's memories, stories, foods, etc. Email me!
Now on to the weather...
Today was nice - a bit brisk, but plenty sunny. Sitting outside at Boehringer's got a little chilly as highs only reached into the mid 50s.
Sunday will be nice, but a little cooler: mostly sunny and rather windy with highs in the lower 50s (but this high will feel like the lower 40s due to the whipping winds). Low just below freezing Sunday night.
Monday will feature more clouds than sun and highs in the upper 40s. Just light breezes on this day. Overnight lows in the upper 20s.
Tuesday will begin with plenty of sunshine, but clouds will build in late. Expect milder southeasterly breezes to make the mid-50s high feel even a bit warmer.
Wednesday looks rainy and mild with temperatures in the mid 50s for much of the day. We'll see showers and drizzle rather than the soaking downpours of last week.
Thursday and Friday will be sunny and milder still--Thursday's high will be in the upper 50s, Friday's in the low 60s. Maybe an overnight shower Friday into Saturday, but nothing too bad.
Saturday and Sunday look nice: highs in the upper 50s to low 60s, lows in the mid to upper 30s.
Next week looks rainy and cooler. But it will officially be spring! So there's that...
Close Encounters and Autumnal Vicissitudes...
Weather-Shieldings,
(Sorry – I’m teaching Beowulf right now and it’s difficult to get it out of my head.)
Watching Close Encounters on the big screen reminded me of a time when the movies were about humanity as much as they were about spectacle. The movie was utterly riveting and genuinely breathtaking, but did not contain one explosion, car chase, or murder. And yet, given the lack of those elements, it wasn’t tame or simplistic or cloying, like so much Disney fare. On the contrary, it made powerful statements about who we are, how we want others to see us, and about the power of wonder to cut through even the most entrenched cynicism, the most thickset rationality. 
Last night, went to my favorite movie theater (Penn Cinema, Lititz) for the latest installment in their “Monday Night Movies” series. I’ve written before about this outstanding theater, which features state-of-the-art screens, Digital 3D, and impressive amenities. And construction is nearly complete on a new IMAX theater next door to the main building, slated to open in time for the Harry Potter release on Nov. 19th.
The experience reminded me of seeing Poltergeist in the early 80s and being terrified by the scene of the mother trying desperately to get out of a pit dug to accommodate an in-ground pool, clawing at the mud in the pouring rain and sliding again and again back into a nightmarish clutch of skeletons. No one cut off his own foot, there were no meat cleavers to the chest, and no one was disemboweled—and yet it remains one of the most frightening moviegoing experiences of my life. (The creepy clown in that kid's room didn't help matters, either. Yeesh.)
Here’s a full-season list of the Monday Night Movies series. I highly recommend taking the short trip down 222 for one (or more) of these features. (Email me for easy directions.)
9/13 Gone With the Wind
9/20 Close Encounters of the Third Kind
9/27 Kelly’s Heroes
10/4 Titanic
10/11 Jailhouse Rock
10/18 From Here to Eternity
10/25 The Goonies
11/1 The Shining
11/8 Caddyshack
11/15 The Big Lebowski
11/22 Planes, Trains & Automobiles
11/29 True Grit
12/6 Home Alone
12/13 National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
So enough about me. How’s the weather?
Weather narrative: The next couple of weeks will feature highs in the 90s and highs that will barely make it into the 60s; that’s what I call a season of vicissitudes. The next few days will be increasingly humid and rather hot, with highs at or near 90 throughout the rest of the week. Watch for isolated thunderstorms on Wednesday afternoon.
The weekend is looking somewhat volatile, weather-wise. Saturday looks like the better of the two days, with the just the chance of some passing showers; Sunday may have more widespread showers. Highs both days will be in the mid 70s, considerably lower than the previous several days.
Next week, after a rainy Monday, we settle in for some weather typical of early autumn: highs in the upper 60s. By the end of next week, highs will struggle to get into the 60s at all.
The following weekend (the first weekend of October) is looking beautiful.
Beyond the forecast: By mid-October, we’ll see highs only in the low to mid 50s and lows dipping into the 30s…
Introducing ... ARMANI SPADE
Back in the early 90s, I was on the Campus Center Board (CCB) at Albright, an organization that brought comedians and recording artists to campus and set up events for the student body. We got some great young comics, including Jay Mohr (he was great, and I remember him raving about the new Beastie Boys album), Janeane Garofalo (she was rather unpleasant, and stood outside smoking until the last possible moment she had to go onstage), and Renee Hicks (she was bald, apparently by choice). We also received tons of demos, including one that stood out to me: A Recluse by a Brooklyn-based artist named Armani Spade.
Well. To say it “stood out” is actually a dreadful understatement; it resonated with me so profoundly that I soon became an Armani Spade evangelist, playing the cassette’s hottest tracks for everyone I knew. The cassette’s three main tunes—it also includes an extended instrumental piece called “India (Meditation)” that comprises all of side A, and an instrumental version of “More About Your Eyes”—are a mélange of synthesized rhythm and melody lines, potent and poetic lyricism, and unforgettable vocals. Each song is embedded in this post—though they’re on YouTube, the only video is a still image of the cassette cover.
(Special thanks to Bill Snelling for converting the songs from cassette to CD for me, so I could share them with the world.)
Allow me to deconstruct each track here.
The best place to start is with the first song on side B, “More About Your Eyes.” The piece is a study in the tension that exists in the space between desire and attainment, that magnificent limbo from which Spade sings and raps about his amorous intentions. At 1:21, the song’s energy shifts, underscored by an ominous tone, as Spade raps, “Gettin’ next to you in latitude.” The climax follows immediately thereafter as he then wills his voice into a previously unattained tonal range and sings, “Listen to what I say! / It feels better this way / Don’t tell me to go / ‘Cause I won’t leave you no / But if I do and I got spare time / I will think about you all the while / Nothing could take my mind from you / ‘Cause you’re all I want to do.”
Once the song has reached these heights and Armani has employed a sophisticated vocal overlay, the listener is left with the pulsing swish of a heartbeat—an afterglow, if you will, befitting the emotional and romantic journey he’s just taken us on.
Though spent by the power of “Eyes,” we have no time to recover before “Could I Get A Little Closer,” which begins with a fierce warning yawp from Spade that announces his passion will not be denied. Again, the lyrics best lay bare the astuteness of this piece: “I called you up on the phone / To come to my pad, my crib, my home / To talk about the birds and the bees / The chemistry between my bed, you and me / There’s nothing else that you can say to me / ‘Cause I’m lookin’ at your body in a sexual degree.”
The chorus consists of an iteration of the title in harmonized vocal overlay, which is followed by the somewhat more direct plea, “Could I get beside you? / Could I get inside you?” The song is then dominated by an extended keyboard solo—first in a synthesized xylophone, then in a synthesized saxophone—that fully comprises the final three minutes of the piece.
Thirdly, and lastly--but most definitely not leastly--is a composition called simply “Relax,” whose refrain, “Cool cool out, cool out / Cool cool out, cool out,” will be echoing merrily through your ears for many days to come. “Relax” is the dance club hit that never was. It features a jangly riff, throbbing beat, and manic vocals that must be heard to be truly appreciated. The opening lines here, about the singer’s attempts to initiate a romantic relationship through physical gyrations, are deep and instantly grab the listener’s attention: “I remember when I was at the club / Dancin’ with a girl, tryin’ to get some / Then you walked through the door / My eyes and yours made four.” Having laid his two eyes on her two, he then proceeds to praise her physical attributes in the most flattering terms: “You’re more than a man could feed on / Skin so smooth, legs so strong.”
Into this fledgling encounter comes an apparently exotropic Cupid, looking simultaneously with one eye at Armani and with the other at Armani’s quarry. The song concludes with negligee, romance, poor dancing, barely averted fistfights, and a final exhortation to relax.
Having been so affected by this man’s music, I embarked on a more than 15-year crusade to find him, and/or more of his tuneful output. Using clues from his cassette cover (his Brooklyn address, the people he thanked, etc.), I finally tracked him down in 2009.
As it turns out, Armani Spade is just his stage name; his given name is Walde Murray. In a few brief conversations, I learnt much about how Walde became Armani. For some reason, he was surprised (but delighted) that someone wanted to talk about his music.
A Recluse was the most professionally recorded piece he did; all else that exists are snippets and unfinished songs. He can see the other songs’ potential, he said, but to someone else it might sound like nothing. “Somebody could look into Stephen King’s book and they see scratches and scribbles and things, even in a verbal sense,” he explained.
He told me that he writes “straight out, from the inside out,” eschewing any pattern or methodology. “You write it in such a way that you amaze yourself, or somebody else comes along and says, it’s not much there,” he said. “But then, something came out of it.” He likened his songwriting style to that of the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Recently, Jackson released an album of unfinished songs that illustrated the need for a good producer to “draw out” the music’s potential. “Let’s use a real bass guitarist, or a real piano-ist [he or she might say],” making magic from “unrefined work.”
Armani Spade received “great responses” to the cassette when it was released. However, he had no luck taking his tracks to radio stations and asking them to play his music. “If it had been a known star,” he observed, “it would have been played.”
Walde Murray has spent the past nine years in the US Army, which does not afford him the time or resources to continue his music dreams. While it’s important to “follow your heart,” it’s also important to make a decent living, he said. However, when he retires to the reserve, he plans to renew his pursuit of music stardom, as he is still formulating ideas and writing songs. “I’m keeping my head into the up-to-date stuff” as a way to stay in tune with modern musical sensibilities, he said.
“I need to keep my eye on the ball,” he said, “and the ball is music.”
Monsoon's Newseum Review and Television Debut
If, as Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, hell is other people, then people in their hordes and crowds and maundering packs of listlessness must constitute a new circle in Dante’s Inferno. Trying to have a meaningful museum-going experience amidst the sweaty multitudes is a nearly fruitless pursuit. Dodging visor-and-fanny-pack-bedecked tourists, restless adolescent Boy Scouts and their harried scoutmasters, giggling imps, and fusty society ladies can take all the magic out of taking a look at some nice-assed art.
Seeing a large wooden track for homemade model cars bisecting a portrait gallery in the Smithsonian (it was some sort of Scouting and crafts weekend) was as disheartening as it was shocking.
Surely a museum of that magnitude can be appreciated by patrons of all ages simply on the basis of its cultural and artistic merits without being turned into a Night at the Museum come to life. Judging from the Scouting chaos, the little girl who almost knocked over a statue (prevented from doing so by my alarmed yawp, after which her parents ushered the stunned toddler from the gallery), the disinterested tweens texting obsessively, and the brazenly loud cellphone conversations carried on unapologetically in front of artistic treasures, the answer to that question is a resounding no.
But truly and sincerely, the Newseum was well worth the effort of enduring the inappropriateness, insensitivity, lack of museum etiquette and just plain presence of other people—teeming, snorting, prating, obstructing, farting, shuffling people.
As a person who teaches a journalism elective course, has worked briefly in journalism, and harbors a long-standing interest in the field, I have been excited about the Newseum since it was reported in its planning stages.
The Newseum is on Pennsylvania Avenue between 5th and 6th Streets, and is open 9 to 5 daily (closed only on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day). Unlike the Smithsonian museums, which are free, it costs $19.95 for adult admission. Let me hit some of the highlights of this museum; my recollections are by no means intended to be exhaustive, though by the end of this post you may feel much as I do when my mother says “to make a long story short” well into a longwinded saga.
Into the façade of the Newseum is etched the so-called Establishment Clause from the First Amendment, and the length of the building is lined with the current front pages of newspapers around the country and (on the sixth floor) world.
We began on the concourse level, one of the highlights of which was the largest hunk of the Berlin Wall outside Germany (including guard tower), which was supplemented with many informative placards and interactive touchscreens. (The Newseum, like most museums, integrates new technologies and media into its exhibits; however, unlike in many other places, the incorporation of these tools is seamless and overwhelmingly effective.) Another concourse highlight was the changing exhibit “G-Men and Journalists: Top News Stories from the FBI’s First Century,” which included powerful artifacts relating to the Oklahoma City bombing, the DC sniper case, the Branch Davidian compound siege, the fight against hate groups, and the Unabomber case (including Ted Kaczynski’s actual cabin).
From there we were whisked up a hydraulic glass elevator, past the gigantic LCD monitor and up to the 6th floor, which wasn’t great. (This is the recommended path for exploring the Newseum—concourse, then 6th floor and work your way down—and we followed it.) From the 6th floor we could see down to the 4th floor, which is dominated by a 9/11 exhibit that focused too much on the outrage of the American people and not enough on journalism’s role in covering the attacks.
The 5th floor, though—once we got there (it was a little difficult to figure out how to access it)—was staggering. Visitors are just overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of information: News History traces the history of news-gathering in the US from its earliest examples through its transformations and milestones and vicissitudes. The room is dominated by rows of drawers containing glass-encased newspapers and magazines, chronicling not only the story of us as a people, but journalism as a field. Ringing the room are interactive pieces focusing on various major topics—satire, plagiarism, Watergate, tabloids, the publishing barons, etc. All contain a masterfully conceived admixture of actual artifacts, news items, video clips, and more. There are also several small theaters on the outer edge of the room—and, in fact, throughout the entire museum—showcasing issues in journalism, exploring ethics and news values, discussing photojournalism, etc.
My only complaint for the 5th floor was that the lighting was too dim to read beyond the headlines, and the arrangement of the drawers at knee-level and in vertical columns meant that closer examination—to say nothing of sharing material with another museumgoer—was impractical. But really, these are comparatively minor quibbles.
The 3rd floor was a’ight: stuff about Edward R. Murrow, internet news, and a memorial to journalists killed while covering the news. It should be noted that throughout the Newseum are actual pieces of journalistic history that go beyond the newspapers and typewriters: news vans and helicopters, studio cameras, satellite dishes, and the like.
Friends, on the 2nd floor, I became a child again. The 2nd floor is home to the Interactive Newsroom, where one can queue up and become part of an actual “newscast”! To be honest, the opportunity was seized mainly by children, but I could not resist even the fleeting fulfillment of a longtime dream: to be a weatherman.
The results:
Mrs. Monsoon can be heard near the end of the video laughing loudly at my inexplicable antics: the saucy delivery, the tentative, pointless gestures, and just the obvious glee I took in being in front of the camera. Your comments are, always, welcome.
Finally on the first floor are the 4D theater (skipped it), the gift shop, and one of the most moving exhibits I’ve ever seen. The gift shop has lots of what you would expect—key chains, magnets, pencils, shot glasses, and more emblazoned with the Newseum name. It also has some great DVDs, mugs that read “Not tonight dear … I’m on deadline” and—the pièce de résistance —a book called Correct Me if I’m Wrong. This slim volume collects the best selections from the Columbia Journalism Review’s popular feature “The Lower Case,” which reproduces unintentionally funny headlines and press blunders. Some examples—which are also printed on tiles in the Newseum’s bathrooms—include:
Nuns forgive break-in, assault suspect
Crack in toilet bowl leads to 3 arrests
Literarcy week observed
Parking lot floods when man bursts
Drunk gets nine months in violin case
Farmer Bill Dies In House
…and my personal favorite…
Johnson Teacher Talks Very Slow
The first floor is also home to the permanent exhibition of Pulitzer Prize winning photographs. All of the winners are reproduced in small prints, but there are 30-40 enlarged photographs, each with a bit about the context of the piece and a reflective comment from the photojournalist responsible for the image. I had not seen some of these photographs, but even with the ones with which I was familiar—the execution of a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon, the iconic image of a firefighter carrying an injured infant after the Oklahoma City bombing, the famous photo in the aftermath of the Kent State massacre—seeing them in a gallery setting, presented not just as photojournalism but really as art, was profoundly affecting. Many museum visitors were moved to tears by some of the photographs. I marveled at how impactful, how intense a photograph can be—far more moving and eloquent, in many cases, than a video of the same event, or an eyewitness account.
Not to be missed, and never to be forgotten.
Monsoonian Rhapsody: Kyma Seafood Grill
Saying there’s a great seafood restaurant to be found in Lancaster County is a bit like suggesting that it’s feasible to get an authentic cheesesteak in Mississippi, or that a white person can look good with dreadlocks. Well, Topher, let your natty dreads fly and get your cracker ass down to Biloxi to order “one, widout,” because there is a great seafood restaurant in Lancaster County.
It’s called Kyma Seafood Grill (pronounced KEY-muh, from the Greek word for wave), and it opened on June 30th, 2009. Locale is 1640 North Reading Road (Route 272) in Denver at the former site of the Silk City Diner, in the same building as Johnny’s Steakhouse, which is located downstairs and is accessed at the rear of the building.
Brothers Nick and George Barakos, who own both Johnny’s and Kyma, basically gutted both the drab, pedestrian interior and the mediocre, family-restaurant menu of the Silk City Diner, leaving only the footprint of the former eatery. The result is a sleek, modern décor with upscale touches: neon blue and red strip lights lining the top edge of the main dining room, wave murals and a dynamic, wave-inspired logo, and lots of dark wood. The brightly-lit bar area is contrasted by more moderately lighted seating areas—booths and tables—accommodating about 160 patrons.
But it’s the fresh, masterfully prepared food at Kyma that will make us go back for more. Kyma’s single-page, oversized menu includes both cold and hot appetizers, all in the $10 price range, as well as a variety of salads (in the $10-$15 range). Kyma offers specialty drinks as well as more traditional fare, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. (Mrs. Monsoon recommends the Fallen Mermaid martini—and making sure you have a ride home.) Most impressive to me is the fact that they use Pepsi fountain products; most restaurants, to their detriment, use Coca-Cola or concoct their own, vaguely cola-like travesties.
The entrées include seafood and steaks—most of which are in the $15-$20 range, with some $25 or a bit more, depending on market price. Check the menu for details, but entrée offerings include ahi tuna, halibut, tilapia, steak & lobster tail, and various shrimp and crab dishes. Kyma is particularly known for its Colossal Crab Cake, if online reviews are to be believed. The steaks are the same that are served at Johnny’s Steakhouse downstairs, so the quality and preparation are outstanding. In addition, entrées come with choice of soup or salad and one side; sides include fries, roasted garlic mashed potato, steam veggies, rice pilaf, and more.
We visited Kyma on Saturday night, arriving at about 5:15. We were greeted immediately and seated in a small side room that offered privacy but did not leave us feeling “cut off” from the rest of the patrons. (We did not have to wait, but the place got crowded pretty quickly. On our way out, we noticed several parties waiting to be seated.) Our waitress, Madeline, was exceptional, offering drink and entrée ideas, answering questions, and chatting amiably about her own background and preferences. The timing of salad and soup, then entrée, was exquisite. She was also snappy with a Pepsi refill, bringing a replacement before I even had to ask. The ambiance and professionalism of the staff left the impression of a popular dining spot in the city rather than a restaurant along a mostly industrial stretch of 272.
After the obligatory bread and butter, Mrs. Monsoon and I settled in and made our choices: I would have the Snow Crab Legs (1 ½ lbs. steamed, with butter, $22), with a cup of the Chesapeake Crab soup and a side of fries; she would have the Chilean Sea Bass ($25) with the roasted garlic mashed potato and a side salad.
Friends, yum. The house vinaigrette on the side salad was very good; the thick-cut sea bass was grilled lightly and cooked to perfection. The crab soup had a bit of “bite” to it, but I have a lightweight palate for hot n’ spicy fare, and I was just fine.
The crab legs were freaking delicious. They’d been “scored” and steamed flawlessly, so the shells cracked easily and yielded large chunks of succulent meat. There was a little side of melted butter, too, but the sweet crab scarcely needed it. The fries were out of this world—batter-dipped, crispy, and flavorful.
The food at Kyma is prepared just the way the menu indicates, with no unnecessary ingredients or culinary-school flourishes. It is not fussy or pretentious, and the cook had not smeared old bay seasoning over everything. Those who know me can vouch for my persnickety-hood, and have probably seen a minor hissy-fit or two when an otherwise palatable food is unexpectedly slathered with a Hollandaise mushroom gravy. No such histrionics were needed at Kyma.
The food is well worth the money, but prices at Kyma are not cheap, so it’s not a place we’ll be able to afford on a regular basis. (A couple should expect a check in the $60-$70 range, before gratuity.) But I would highly recommend a visit for its delectable seafood and excellent service.
Kyma is open Tuesday through Tuesday from 4 to 10pm; Friday and Saturday from 4 to 10:30pm; and Sunday from 4 to 9pm; it is closed Mondays. Reservations are only accepted during the week and may be made by calling 717-335-3833.
Directions can be MapQuested from their website, but here are the basics…
From Reading, take 222 South to the Pennsylvania Turnpike/Denver exit. Make a right at the light at the end of the ramp. At the next light, turn left onto 272 South. Kyma will be on your right after about a mile.
From Lancaster, take 222 North to the Pennsylvania Turnpike/Denver exit. Make a left at the light at the end of the ramp. At the second light, turn left onto 272 South. Kyma will be on your right after about a mile.
From Philadelphia and suburban points, take the Pennsylvania Turnpike west to exit 286. After the toll plaza, continue straight for about a mile to the third traffic light. Turn left onto 272 South. Kyma will be on your right after about a mile.
Monsoon Martin's Desert Island Discs, Vol. 2
Well, I’m back to share my top tier Desert Island Discs with you (the ten absolutely essential albums I’d need to have with me in the case of sudden stranding). To remind you: I limited myself to studio albums, eliminating live recordings, greatest hits packages, and the like.
Before I reveal the top tier, though, we have a winner in the contest announced in the last posting! There were several good entries, but one reader in particular emerged well ahead of the pack. This reader correctly guessed two albums in the list below—and three of the other guesses named the correct artist, but the wrong album. Impressive, Megan King! You have now earned the right to select one CD to receive free from among my 20 Desert Island Discs.
[I can’t resist listing the albums that almost made the cut for my 20 D.I.D.s: The Who, Who’s Next; Cream, Disraeli Gears; Stevie Wonder, Innervisions; Miles Davis, Kind of Blue; Sly & the Family Stone, A Whole New Thing.]
Alright, without further ado...
John Coltrane – Africa/Brass, Volumes 1 and 2 (1961)
Coltrane’s first release for the Impulse! label is also the most searing and accomplished of his career. For the album, Coltrane’s backing quartet—which included McCoy Tyner (piano), Elvin Jones (percussion), Reggie Workman (bass), and Art Davis (bass)—was joined by a fifteen-piece brass section that included such luminaries as trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, trombonist Britt Woodman, and Eric Dolphy on the reeds. The compositions were arranged by Tyner and Dolphy, which contributes to the staccato (Tyner) and avant-garde (Dolphy) quality of the music.
In the liner notes for Africa/Brass (Volume 2 was released posthumously, and included alternate takes and an unreleased track), Dom Cerulli wrote, “John Coltrane is a quiet, powerfully-built young man who plays tenor saxophone quite unlike anyone in all of jazz. His style has been described as ‘sheets of sound’ or as ‘flurries of melody.’ But, despite the accuracy, or lack of accuracy, of such descriptions, it is a fact that Coltrane’s style is wholly original and of growing influence among new tenor players.”
The notes go on to describe Coltrane as a restless artist, always seeking to expand his musical palette and explore his influences—Cerulli remarks that Coltrane had immersed himself in the rhythmic character of Africa and had been studying folk musical traditions as well, and on Africa/Brass this is wholly evident. Two of the cuts are Coltrane/Tyner arrangements of traditional songs: “Greensleeves” and the elaborated Black Code spiritual, “Song of the Underground Railroad.” In the first, Coltrane uses a languid time signature to create plenty of space for the saxes and piano to open up; the latter becomes a propulsive hard-bop masterpiece, with goosebump-inducing brass swells and interplay between Tyner and Coltrane.
The Coltrane originals in the Africa/Brass sessions are “Blues Minor” and “Africa.” The former is solid but unremarkable in the Coltrane canon, but the latter is breathtaking. In “Africa,” John Coltrane takes full advantage of everything before him in the studio—the brass section, the work of Tyner in adapting his piano voicings for the orchestra, Dolphy’s artistry, and his own fearless improvisation, not to mention his own tireless investigation of African rhythms, aided by Nigerian percussionist Babatunde Olatunji—and brings it to bear. The music is by turns austere and florid, as Dolphy’s reed work seems to mimic human wails and joyful noise. And while listening to Africa/Brass, I can never shake the neatness of this fact: Coltrane sought to incorporate African musical elements into an art form that itself had already incorporated so many of those elements—jazz.
Crowded House – Time on Earth (2007)
I wrote about this outstanding album in a review post last summer, so I’ll just direct you to that page on my weblog for the details—standout songs, a bit about the band, and more.
The album has only grown more appealing since I wrote that piece. What is most remarkable about this fact, going back to my introductory remarks in Vol. 1, is that the album hangs together as a coherent musical statement despite the fact that part of it was conceived as a Neil Finn album and part for Crowded House.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Electric Ladyland (1968)
This is the one. On the BBC Radio show, the host typically asks the guest to name the one album (of the eight Desert Island Discs) he or she would select if only one could be taken. For me, the last album released by The Jimi Hendrix Experience would be that one disc.
The recording of Electric Ladyland began in fits and starts during the summer of 1967, but wrapped up in earnest during the spring and summer of 1968; the double album was released in September 1968, two years before Hendrix’s death of an apparent drug overdose.
The Electric Ladyland sessions are the stuff of legend, not only in their scope and the number of guest performers/devotees/hangers-on that packed the studio, but also in terms of Hendrix’s perfectionism. Not only did he record take after take of each song—“Gypsy Eyes” is said to have run through more than 40 takes before Hendrix could be convinced that the song was album-ready—but he also laid down the bass tracks (using a right-handed guitar) on the frequent occasions that Noel Redding became frustrated at the pace of things and stormed out to have a pint. The recording process is the subject of a documentary in the Classic Albums series and countless articles. In short, it’s been done. So let me more on and tell you a little bit about why I love this album so much.
First, the liner notes (or “Letter to the Room Full of Mirrors”) by Hendrix are a study in psychedelia (or more to the point, psychotropia) that can’t help but make one wonder what kinds of narcotics may have helped him envision this sonic landscape and make it a reality. A sample: “That sound was from those cellophane typewriters—exactly, constantly from the south side of those carpets.” It sounds profound, almost poetic, until one realizes that it doesn’t make a damned bit of sense.
The first cut is the trippy instrumental piece “...And the Gods Made Love,” replete with backward vocals, reverb, echo, and speed-release effects that Hendrix himself called “a 90-second sound-painting of the heavens.” This song is followed by the lovely title track, which sounds like a somewhat more fully realized version of “Little Wing,” and for which Hendrix himself performed both the lead and backing vocal parts. After the disarmingly straight ahead (but in reality, marvelously multilayered) “Crosstown Traffic,” Side A concludes with the 15-minute blues jam “Voodoo Chile.” Much of the track consists of an electrifying musical interplay between Hendrix’s guitar wizardry and Stevie Winwood of Traffic on the Hammond organ. It’s one of those perfect creations that demands the listener’s full attention. I can remember taking my dad’s copy of the album over to Mark Shewchuk’s house and playing this song; we just sat in dumb awe as every last second of “Voodoo Chile” washed over us.
[A note: I am a proponent of the vinyl experience in general, but for most music, there’s little discernible difference to the casual listener. I’m telling you, though: you haven’t heard Electric Ladyland—not really—until you’ve heard it on vinyl. It’s like the difference between seeing a very good color reproduction of Thomas Eakins’ The Gross Clinic and seeing the piece—with its brushstrokes, its subtle shadings, its minutest details—in person, as I did a couple of years back after it was acquired by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It’s worth the effort.]
I could go on, and on. Other standouts on this double album include the melancholy “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” and “1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)”; the reprises of “Rainy Day, Dream Away” and “1983”; and a furious reimagining of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.” Side D closes with “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” a composition that calls to mind indigenous creation stories and may connect to Hendrix’s own part-Cherokee heritage. “Voodoo Child” begins with liberal use of the wah-wah pedal and intersperses spare, iterant lyrics with Hendrix’s taut solos, which veer from the left audio channel to the right and back again: “Well, I stand up next to a mountain / And I chop it down with the edge of my hand / Well I pick up all the pieces and make an island / Might even raise a little sand.”
Jethro Tull – Stand Up (1969)
“Some new songs for you.” So ran the opening of the spare liner notes for the band’s second album, written by bandleader, principal songwriter, flutist, organist, mandolineer, and lead vocalist Ian Anderson. Stand Up was Tull’s first release with its most accomplished lineup—Anderson; Martin Barre on guitar; Clive Bunker on drums; Glenn Cornick on bass—and marked a revolutionary moment in rock.
[A note: I almost selected Tull’s Aqualung for the list, but ultimately decided that Stand Up is the stronger album, and the one I return to more often. And there just seemed to be something a little bit hinky about having a work that begins with the lyrics “Sitting on a park bench / Eyeing little girls with bad intent” on my D.I.D. list...]
The album kicks off with the propulsive blues “A New Day Yesterday,” which mixes Barre’s guitar artistry with Cornick’s progressive drum signatures and Anderson’s trademark flute. Other standouts on the release—whose original gatefold cover revealed a “pop-up” image of the band’s members—are “Bourée,” a reimagining of Bach’s classic piece; and “We Used to Know,” a minor-key rock ballad that reportedly inspired the Eagles’ “Hotel California.”
Two folk-inflected ballads, though, are the real centerpieces of this album. First, “Reasons for Waiting” is a celebration of love and how, in the best of cases, it can transcend space: “Came a thousand miles / Just to catch you while you’re smiling.”
“Look into the Sun” is one of the most evocative songs ever written, and is actually my dad’s favorite of all time. Its lyrics are an astonishing balance of loss and hope, bitterness and circumspection: “I had waited for time to change her / The only change that came was over me / She pretended not to want to love / I hope she was only fooling me / So when you look into the sun / Look for the pleasures nearly won...”
[A recent development on YouTube is that users have begun uploading complete songs accompanied not by video, but by still images of the band members or album covers. This is one such instance: Here is “Look into the Sun” – just the song, no video.]
Branford Marsalis – Royal Garden Blues (1985)
When one hears the name “Branford Marsalis,” one might think of his membership in a famed New Orleans musical family; the pretensions of his older brother Wynton, self-appointed guardian of jazz authenticity; or Branford’s brief stints as a member of Sting’s group or as bandleader on Jay Leno’s “The Tonight Show.” But the criminally underrated Branford Marsalis is one of the most exciting saxophonists working today, and has a mean body of work to back it up.
On his second solo album—the first was the very good “Scenes in the City,” built around a reworking of the kaleidoscopic title track by Charles Mingus—Branford stuck to the classics while paying homage to the Crescent City that gave him musical life. It opens with the taut “Swingin’ at the Haven,” with Branford’s father Ellis—the composer of the tune many years back—on piano.
[I have never before seen a jazz music video, but here is the video for “Royal Garden Blues,” another tribute to New Orleans with a bop twist. It was shot by Spike Lee in New York’s Bronx Botanical Gardens, featuring the quartet performing a four-minute version of the album’s title cut.]
The two most moving tunes on this warm, accomplished album are ballads composed by pianists. Larry Willis’ “Shadows” (on which he also plays piano) ebbs and flows and features a brush-wielding Smitty Smith playing at his most restrained. But it’s Kenny Kirkland’s “Dienda,” one of my favorite songs ever, which truly sets the album apart.
I always end up feeling some kind of way when I listen to this song, as I am doing now. It’s not sad, exactly—it’s wistful, reflective. Branford’s soprano saxophone takes the melody laid down in Kirkland’s piano intro and imbues it with new depth and color. It’s one of the most terribly beautiful songs I have ever heard. Rest in peace, Kenny.
[Here’s a 1987 performance of “Dienda” – the video and audio are slightly out of sync, but it is a fantastic rendition.]
Minutemen – The Punch Line (1981)
For those unfamiliar with the peculiar post-punk stylings of the Minutemen, the best place to start is probably the 1998 compilation Introducing the Minutemen, a 35-track retrospective covering much of the band’s roughly five-year career (which ended following the death of lead singer and guitarist D. Boon is a van accident). But its finest single release is not the uneven, somewhat meandering Double Nickels on the Dime—though there are great songs like “Corona” and “History Lesson – Part II” on that double-album—but the trio’s debut LP, The Punch Line.
An outstanding documentary about the band’s history was produced a few years ago. It’s called We Jam Econo (in reference to the band’s penchant for reusing recording tape and recording songs in the order in which they’d appear on an album, as they reportedly did on The Punch Line) and the film includes interviews with contemporaries as well as both Watt and Hurley.
The Minutemen’s sound is difficult to describe: Mike Watt’s two-fingered bass plucking and husky-voiced singing, George Hurley’s frenetic drumming, D. Boon’s high-treble guitar and hollered lyrics. At least at the beginning of the band’s career, few Minutemen songs reached beyond a minute, but the band could pack more insight and authenticity into 40 seconds than many bands could squeeze out of an entire album.
Here’s a video to acquaint you with this incredible band: it’s the Minutemen performing “Little Man with a Gun in His Hand” in 1984.]
Indeed, the album’s 18 songs clock in at little more than 15 minutes, and each of the three members sings vocals on the album, though in later years only Boon and Watt handled the vocals. Standouts include the instrumental “Song for El Salvador,” “Straight Jacket,” “Tension,” and “Static.”
The best song on The Punch Line is the title track, a deliciously revisionist account of Custer’s Last Stand: “I believe when they found the body of George A. Custer / Quilled like a porcupine with Indian arrows / He didn’t die with any honor, dignity or valor / I believe when they found the body of George A. Custer / American general, patriot, and Indian fighter / That he died with shit in his pants.”
Ozomatli – Ozomatli (1998)
“O-zo-mat-li / Ya se fue / Ya se fue!” So goes the chant as Ozomatli leaves the stage at the end of one of its live shows (it means “Ozomatli have left”) and continue to play as the band members wend their way through the crowd. The best way to experience this multicultural Latin/funk/hip-hop collective from Los Angeles is live, in concert, during one of its rare appearances on the east coast. Mrs. Monsoon and I have seen them six times—once with Jon and Megan, once with just Megan (what what!), both at the World Café Live—and I’ve been lucky enough to meet some of the band’s members.
Ozomatli’s constantly evolving lineup finds as few as eight or as many as twelve musicians onstage, but the “original six” (who have been with the band since its formation in 1995) are Asdru Sierra (vocals, trumpet); Wil-Dog Abers (bass, vocals); Ulises Bella (reeds, guitars, vocals); Justin “Niño” Porée (percussion, rap vocals); Raúl Pacheco (guitar, vocals); and Jiro Yamaguchi (percussion).
The band’s members met through their involvement with the Peace and Justice Center in L.A., and Ozo continues to be politically engaged on behalf of the rights of indigenous peoples, eradicating racism, and other causes. (Wil-Dog just sent me information through Facebook about an L.A.-based organization called Encompass, which develops and implements programs to eliminate homophobic bias from school classrooms.)
Ozomatli has released four studio albums, but its self-titled debut still stands as its sharpest and most engaging. Ozomatli is built around the band’s seamless blend of cumbia, funk, rock, hip-hop, reggae, and Middle Eastern elements, with Spanish and English lyrics—sometimes in the same song. Many of the cuts are punctuated by sections rapped by Chali 2na, who left the group after this album to join the hip-hop collective Jurassic 5 (but recently rejoined Ozo for its autumn and spring tours). There’s not a weak cut on the disc, but highlights include the infectious “Cumbia de los Muertos”; the strident “Chota,” a Spanish-language song of resistance to police brutality; and “Aquí No Sera,” which is a remake of Enrique Ramirez’s protest song against U.S. intervention in El Salvador.
[Here are two videos from the BBC show “Later with Jools Holland,” both of which are performances by Ozomatli from 1998, the year Ozomatli was released. In the first video, they perform “Como Ves”; in the second, they perform “Super Bowl Sundae.”]
The Roots – Do You Want More?!!!??! (1995)
Back in May 2008, I wrote an open letter to The Roots asking them to reconsider their championship of the noise-rock outfit Deerhoof.
While The Roots regrettably ignored my pleas, I received plenty of feedback from those who also attended An Evening with The Roots or The Roots Picnic and wondered what in sunny hell they had done to earn the aural assault of Deerhoof. Now, sadly, it’s too late. The Roots’ downfall happened more rapidly than even I anticipated: as of March 2009, The Legendary Roots Crew has been working as the “house band” for Jimmy Fallon’s late-night talk show. Yes, Black Thought is now a third-rate Doc Severinsen. (Breathtakingly afroed drummer Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson playing in and out of commercial breaks on an after-midnight chat show is a little like Miles Davis sitting in a corner and playing the “Jeopardy” theme while the contestants record their responses during Final Jeopardy. It hurts just to talk about it.) Hip-hop is dead. Not to be dramatic or anything.
But hey! Let’s talk about what The Roots accomplished during a 15-year recording career before they sold out. Their strongest album is The Roots’ major label debut, Do You Want More?!!!??! Though 2002’s Phrenology and 2004’s The Tipping Point came close, ultimately I had to choose Do You Want More?!!!??! for my Desert Island Discs list.
Again here, I am drawn to The Roots because they bend and blend genres deftly, as did A Tribe Called Quest in the same era. Present on this album are the boastful rhymes, beat-boxing, and heavy beats one would expect to find on a hip-hop release—but what listeners also found were a jazz sensibility; live instrumentation; bagpipes (!) on the title track; and the graphic, uncompromising spoken-word poetry of Philadelphian Ursula Rucker. The album begins with Black Thought’s announcement that “You are all about to witness some organic hip-hop jazz,” and the listener is transported from there.
It’s an unforgettable and impressive album from beginning to end. Outstanding tracks include “Proceed” and “Distortion to Static.” “Silent Treatment,” a lost-love lament, is superior even to later, more well-known Roots songs of that ilk like “You Got Me” and “The Hypnotic.” Longtime Roots collaborator Dice Raw makes his debut (at the tender age of 15) on “The Lesson, Pt. 1.”
[Check out The Roots’ first music video, for “Proceed.”]
U2 – The Joshua Tree (1987)
Each U2 album—particularly through to the early 1990s—has its own tone, its own heart, so it was difficult to select one for my D.I.D. list. In the end, the roots majesty of The Joshua Tree beat out the atmospheric anthems of The Unforgettable Fire and jaded reinvention of Achtung Baby.
The Joshua Tree was bigger than an album; it was a phenomenon. It made the world take notice of U2 and turned even casual popular music fans into devotees of the quartet from Dublin.
In a post earlier this year, I wrote extensively about this album specifically, and in general about my love for this band. There’s not really a whole lot I can add to that, as there’s not much that hasn’t already been said or written about The Joshua Tree. It’s a masterwork.
Incidentally, I consider the seven songs on B-sides to the “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” “With or Without You,” and “Where the Streets Have No Name” 45-rpm singles to be legitimately part of The Joshua Tree, as the album was originally conceived to be released as a double album. I’m just saying.
Every single song is great, and the songs themselves are really hard to consider outside the context of the entire album—a testament to its cohesion. The album as a whole is quite a bit darker than one might realize at first: its songs deal with heroin addiction (“Running to Stand Still”), bellicose U.S. foreign policy (“Bullet the Blue Sky”), and death squads in San Salvador (“Mothers of the Disappeared”). The words that most haunt me, though, are at the conclusion of the swelling, shattering “Exit,” the tale of a desperate man driven to violence by his own demons: “The hands that build / Can also pull down / The hands of love.”
Bunny Wailer – Blackheart Man (1976)
The lilting strains of Tommy McCook’s flute on the opening title track welcome the listener deep into the Jamaican hillside, and one feels instantly transported to a back-to-nature Rastafarian commune. Blackheart Man is the first solo album by Neville Livingston, aka Bunny Wailer, one of the original Wailers (with his half-brother Bob Marley, as well as Peter Tosh). Following the international success of the Wailers, Bunny began to feel marginalized as Bob’s was featured more prominently as the leader of the band—he also disliked leaving his homeland and became more entrenched in the Rastafari faith—and so both Bunny and Peter left in 1974 to begin successful solo careers.
Blackheart Man is a masterpiece, and surely one of the finest reggae albums of all time. Subtitled on the album jacket The Ten Messages, its ten songs elaborate on mystical Rasta teachings, Biblical messages of deliverance, and on the struggles of the African diaspora against oppression. Bunny is backed by most of the Wailers band, not to mention Peter Tosh on rhythm guitar and backing vocals and the Skatalites’ Tommy McCook on horns and woodwinds. Bob Marley even shows up to contribute backing vocals on the album’s richest, most redolent track, “Dreamland,” a fantasy of African repatriation: “We’ll get our breakfast from the tree / We’ll get our honey from the bee / We’ll take a ride on the waterfalls / And all the glories, we’ll have them all...”
[Here’s the song “Dreamland” as uploaded to YouTube—no video, just the song and a series of still images of Bunny Wailer.]
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Whew. This list of Desert Island Discs was more difficult to write than I’d anticipated. It’s hard to articulate why I love something that reaches me on such a pre-verbal level. Why does Edge’s guitar leave me in awe? Why does Coltrane’s “Song of the Underground Railroad” make the hairs on my arm stand up? Why do I well up sometimes when I hear “Dienda”? These are matters of emotion, of subconscious association, and it’s best just to accept them and enjoy.
I’ve had lots of musical mentors throughout my life—Mark, Amy, Rob, Dave, and others—who have introduced me to new bands discovered great music with me.
But I might not have so deep an appreciation for music—nor would it likely be such an integral part of my life that it’s impossible to imaging existing without it—if not for my dad. From the time I was very young, his massive record collection and patient indulgence of my curiosity have guided me in discovering my own musical preferences. He has never been hemmed in by labels and has never confined himself to one specific genre; his record collection includes classic and progressive rock, jazz, bluegrass, comedy, classical, fusion, blues, folk, metal, and so much more. The extent of his musical palate continues to amaze me to this day.
I always caution my students to avoid ending their work with someone else’s words, but in this case, I’ll break my own rule. In the last scene of the must-see film Almost Famous, fifteen-year-old William Miller finally gets an interview with lead guitarist Russell Hammond after following his band, Stillwater, around on tour. Sitting in William’s bedroom at the end of a poignant exchange, Miller thrusts a tape-recorder microphone at the rock star and asks, “So Russell ... what do you love about music?” Russell considers the question, settles in for a long response, and says, “To begin with ... everything.”
Desert Island Discs Contest Deadline Approaching
Hey, people...
Just wanted to remind you about the contest and approaching deadline. Here's the deal:
I have selected all of my 20 Desert Island Discs and posted the "second tier" 10. To enter the contest, email me your predictions for what albums I will include in my "top tier" 10 Desert Island Discs, to be posted on the weblog this weekend. Deadline to enter is tonight, Friday 6/26, at midnight EDT. Winner (the person with the most correct guesses) gets a free CD of his or her choice from among the 20 D.I.D.s on my list.
No purchase necessary. See weblog for details. One entry per reader. Consult your physician to see if Monsoon is right for you. Avoid driving a car or operating heavy machinery until you are sure how Monsoon will affect you. All rights reserved. ¡Si, se puede!
Monsoon Martin's Desert Island Discs, Vol. 1
The Desert Island Discs list is a concept that dates back to the 1940s, when it was created by Roy Plomley on BBC Radio—and still runs to this day (though Plomley is now shuffling around on that great Desert Island in the sky). Public figures are asked to name the eight pieces of music they consider indispensible, and at the end of the hour, they are also asked to name one book and one luxury item they’d take with them.
So here’s my spin—no pun intended—on the Desert Island Discs format.
First, whereas the participants on the BBC show often chose pieces of music or individual songs, I will confine myself to entire studio albums. I realize that the studio album is an endangered format in the age of iPods, when so many music lovers can simply buy individual songs rather than having to get a whole album. But I would argue that the studio album, as a coherent, fully-fledged musical statement, is inherently valuable. On an album, an artist can draw in a listener with a single straight-ahead rock and roll tune, for example, and then expose him or her to blues, to folk, to bluegrass. An album lets the artist explore a range of influences and experiment, to engage the listener with more expansive ideas and expound upon musical themes.
The album is really a creation of the 1960s, and the heyday of vinyl platters lasted into the 1980s, when cassette tapes, and later CDs, supplanted records as the dominant format. Technology actually broadened what could be offered on one release—albums can generally hold 25 minutes or so per side without loss of sound quality, while CDs can hold more than 70 minutes of data—and now, with low-cost mp3 files, has truncated what most music fans hear from a single artist.
The changes in format are quite staggering to consider: since I became aware of (and in love with) music in the early 1980s, the way music is consumed has undergone several major transmutations. I can think of albums, like U2’s War, that I purchased in vinyl format, then got the cassette because it was more convenient and portable, then got the CD because it was supposed to be clearer and more durable (meanwhile, I still insist that vinyl usually has the fullest sound, but that’s a rant for another time), and now I’m ripping the tracks off the CD and onto my computer in mp3 format in anticipation of the purchase (someday) of an iPod.
Because I believe in the primacy of the studio album, I have limited myself further: no “greatest hits” or “top singles” compilations (eliminating the work of such artists as Bill Withers, Dionne Warwick, and the Commodores, which I would like to have with me on the island, but their strongest output was scattered throughout their careers rather than on a single album. Maybe another series of posts will focus on my favorite songs of all time). In addition, I considered no posthumous collections of unfinished or unreleased material, which eliminates more than half the catalogues of artists like Jimi Hendrix and Tupac Shakur.
And I have decided to eschew live performance albums, so Live by Bob Marley and the Wailers, the Rolling Stones’ Get Yer Ya-Yas Out, and even comedic masterpieces recorded live, like Richard Pryor’s Is It Something I Said? or Bicentennial Nigger, must be removed from consideration.
Other favorites of mine that didn’t quite make the cut include Living Colour, G. Love & Special Sauce, Robert Cray, and the Dave Matthews Band. The Skatalites aren’t here because they primarily released singles and backed some of the greats of ska and rock steady in the germinal days of Jamaican reggae; Neil Diamond isn’t here, and neither is David Hasselhoff, because their greatness really transcends one album, one list—or one career, for that matter. Not sure what that means, but we’ll forge ahead.
Lastly, I realize the whole Desert Island Discs notion is a conceit—if I am stranded on a deserted island, I am overwhelmingly unlikely to lack the electricity and the equipment necessary to enjoy these discs, in whatever format. (The D.I.D. show began talking about phonograph records, of course, and modern participants are generally referring to compact discs.) And furthermore, anyone who knows me at all understands that if I were actually stranded on a deserted island, I would not be sitting around thinking about which CDs I wish I had brought; I would be alternately curled up in the fetal position, screaming for Wet-Naps to combat the ubiquitous sand, and bemoaning the fact that the only thing to eat or drink is coconut, which is about my least favorite thing on earth. So do me a favor, folks, when it comes to the D.I.D. thing: just go with it.
I’ve ditched Plomley’s eight D.I.D. selections in favor of 20. (I know, I know. When have you ever known me to be disciplined, or precise? But I’ve divided that number into two lists: second-tier D.I.D.—included in today’s post—and top-tier D.I.D., which will be posted next week.)
Before I reveal the second tier, I want to unveil a Monsoon Martin contest: email me at monsoonmartin@gmail.com with the list of albums you think I will include on my D.I.D. top tier next week; the person with the most correct guesses will win one CD of his or her choosing from my D.I.D. list. Deadline for entries is Friday, June 26th, 2009, at midnight EDT; winner will be published in the next posting...
Here goes the second tier, in alphabetical order by artist...
The Black Crowes – Amorica (1994)
The Crowes have always seemed a bit anachronistic—a group of southern-fried hippies making music that would not have seemed out of place alongside the Allman Brothers, The Band, or even Little Feat in the early 1970s. And yet there is a modernity to the Black Crowes in its employment of Middle Eastern influences, its inventive blending of seemingly disparate guitar lines and rhythm time. Chris Robinson’s souful, smoke-wrapped vocals are deeply evocative, and among the most recognizable in rock; his brother Rich turns in piercing, wickedly effective lead guitar work.
The first thing one may notice about Amorica is its cover—and many hand-wringers, so-called patriots, and inveterate prudes surely did. As the illustration shows, the cover depicts a woman wearing a skimpy, stars-and-stripes thong while wisps of pubic hair poke out of the top of the draws. It’s actually from a bicentennial issue of the magazine Hustler, and the record company capitulated to complaints by cropping the skin and hair around the flag image.
Here on Amorica, the Crowes more completely explore the heartbreak of “She Talks to Angels” (from their debut album) and tighten the arrangement evident on such messy, seemingly slapdash songs like “Thorn in My Pride” and “Sometimes Salvation” from 1992’s The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion. Standout tracks include “A Conspiracy” and the sweeping double-ballad, “Ballad in Urgency” / “Wiser Time.” The album’s concluding track, “Descending,” is a dirge for the addict’s helpless repetition of mistakes—a plea for steadfastness and against sanctimony in the face of self-destruction: “No sermons on ascending / No verdict on deceit / No selfish memorandum / No confusion for me.”
Dead Kennedys – Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (1980)
The early and mid 1980s were my punk/hardcore period, and I still listen to a couple of artists from that period whose greatness transcends any genre or craze: The Minutemen and the Dead Kennedys. The nimble, furious guitars of East Bay Ray and the uncompromising, manic vocals of Jello Biafra are unnerving and enthralling. The Dead Kennedys’ influences are as diverse as the Ramones and the Mothers of Invention.
I will admit that song titles like “I Kill Children” and “Let’s Lynch the Landlord” were jarring for my parents, and that I only gradually came to appreciate in Biafra’s deft lyrics the irony he had clearly intended. With an unmistakable wink to Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, in which he suggested that the Irish address their financial dire straits by selling their children to by eaten by the UK’s rich, Biafra wrote lyrics that sought to question United States foreign and domestic policies from the far left; this was particularly meaningful during the Reagan administration.
One of my favorite DK songs is on this album; it’s called “Kill the Poor” and centers around the notion that the U.S. could deploy nuclear bombs domestically to address its poverty crisis: “The sun beams down on a brand new day / No more welfare tax to pay / Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light / Jobless millions whisked away / At last we have more room to play / All systems go to kill the poor tonight.” Jello Biafra continues to disseminate his trademark satirical wit and storytelling prowess via a series of spoken-word albums with such titles as I Blow Minds for a Living.
Digable Planets – Blowout Comb (1994)
Doodlebug, Ladybug Mecca, and Butterfly had a brief run (they released only two albums, of which Blowout was the second), but their impact on hip-hop is immeasurable. Digable Planets burst onto the scene in 1993 with the single “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat),” which featured a walking bass line with a sly beat and lounge horns. The rapping was self-assured, but also understated: the rhymes were floated to rather than spit at the listener. Their debut album also included the masterful pro-choice study called “La Femme Fetal.”
Expectations were high for the Digables’ 1994 follow-up, and the resulting masterpiece was disappointing only in the commercial sense. The album instantly immersed the listener in an aural landscape that recalled spy movie soundtracks from the 1960s, blending jazz and political hip-hop in ever more sophisticated ways: the opening lyrics of the first song are “One time for your mind / Two times for Mumia’s saint crew.”
[Check out the music video of "9th Wonder (Blackitolism)" from this album.]
Digable Planets also revolutionized the nature of sampling; while rap artists had been sampling the likes of James Brown and Curtis Mayfield since the genre began in the late 1970s, the Digables sampled from jazz greats like Roy Ayers and Miles Davis, hip-hop pioneers The Last Poets, and funk/soul stalwarts like The Crusaders and The Ohio Players. All of this was reimagined in an urgent, incisive, and fiercely independent creation. The resultant work, Blowout Comb, is remarkably seamless and compelling.
Isaac Hayes – Hot Buttered Soul (1969)
Isaac Hayes began his career as a songwriter for the legendary Stax records, where he and writing partner David Porter turned out a string of hits that included “Soul Man” and “When Something is Wrong with my Baby.” Hayes was invited to record an album for the label, but his first effort resulted in commercial and critical failure. He decided to reinvent his music and his image for the next album—while insisting on complete creative control in its recording—and the results were wildly successful.
Hot Buttered Soul turned Isaac Hayes from an unknown songwriter to an African American icon—who would become known as the “Black Moses”—in just a few short years. The arresting album cover, which featured a bird’s-eye shot of Hayes’ clean-shaven head and the thick gold chain that graced his neck, was as instrumental in creating the Isaac Hayes mythos as were its contents. The album itself contained only four tracks, starting with a half-time, orchestral, rhythm-heavy reimagining of Burt Bacharach’s “Walk On By.” The next track is an original, “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic,” a blistering up-tempo funk ensemble piece propelled by a repeated wah-wah guitar and Hayes’ breathy bass vocal. His backing band, the Bar-Kays, really shine here.
Side B (remember, this was the time of vinyl platters, folks) begins with a rather pedestrian ballad about love and loss, yet what makes the song work is Hayes’ admixture of vulnerability and toughness. The album closes with a reinterpretation of the country classic “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” a song which opens with a seemingly ad-libbed monologue and builds to a crescendo of lament. Hayes, of course, is known for his starring appearance at Wattstax, but may be more well-known by today’s audiences for his role as Chef on TV’s “South Park.” But Hot Buttered Soul is where the legend began.
Linton Kwesi Johnson – Tings an’ Times (1991)
LKJ pioneered the “dub poetry” genre of reggae music, which consists of speaking over a dub, or reggae track. His first albums, Dread Beat an’ Blood and Forces of Victory from the late 1970s, are his most well-known, and dealt with racist police brutality in Britain and the struggle for autonomy among the African diaspora. Johnson’s work paved the way for other well-known practitioners of dub poetry like Oku Onuora and Mutabaruka.
His 1991 release on Shanachie Records, Tings an’ Times, redefined the genre. The album features his most sophisticated musical arrangements and his most biting, accomplished lyrics. Musically, the dub of longtime collaborator Dennis Bovell hinges mostly on a mid-tempo rock-steady beat, but also includes such disparate instruments as accordion, flute, and violin to provide a foil for the urgency of LKJ’s lyrics, delivered in a measured Jamaican patois.
The best song here is “Sense Outa Nansense.” In this cut, LKJ ponders the difference between the innocent and the fool: “Di innocent an di fool could pass for twin / ... / Yet di two a dem in common share someting / Dem is often confused an get used / Dem is often criticized an compromised / Dem is often vilified an reviled / Dem is often foun guilty witout being tried / One ting set di two a dem far apart, though / Di innocent can harbor doubt, check things out, and maybe find out / But di fool ... tsk!”
Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV (1971)
Sometime in the early 1980s, when I was 9 or 10, we were visiting my uncle and his family up in Red Hill (where my dad grew up) and I was hanging out with my cousin Troy, who was a couple of years older than I. To say we were opposites would be a gross understatement: he liked to ride dirt bikes in the mud, while I felt bitchin’ jumping my Huffy over a low curb; he liked to play army games in the marshes and creeks near his house, and I liked to organize my baseball cards or arrange my Star Wars “people” into dramatic battle scenes; he and his friends liked to make me ride up to the McDonald’s drive-thru window and try to place an order, then laugh hysterically when I was informed that sort of thing is not allowed, and I liked to avoid any such potentially embarrassing situations. (Come to think of it, he was kind of a dick.)
Anywho, on the aforementioned visit he turned on some AC/DC and when I did not readily begin nodding my head in approval, he asked, “Don’t you like AC/DC?!” Having only heard the racket he was playing, and seen their videos on MTV in which the guitar player bobbed his frizzy mop so insistently that I took to asking questions of the screen—“Are you a jerk? Does your music suck?”—and he would just keep nodding in the affirmative, I said no. “Well, who’s your favorite band, then?” he asked. “The Pointer Sisters,” I heard myself reply.
Now, I was a little dork, to be sure, but even in that moment I knew that was not going to go over well. I mean, the Pointer Sisters? It’s the first thing that popped into my head. At least he didn’t ask me what my favorite song was, or I might have blurted out “Slow Hand” or “He’s So Shy” and sent him into another paroxysm of derisive laughter. As it was, Troy now felt it was his duty to introduce me to music he found acceptable. And so, a few years later, he yanked me out of our grandmother’s funeral as it was wrapping up, took me to his older brother’s car, and played a cassette recording of the song “Stairway to Heaven.”
Putting aside the obvious inappropriateness of my cousin playing me a hard rock epic about drug abuse while I was mourning my Nannie’s death, the song did stay with me, and before long I sought it out among my dad’s massive record collection.
I could have easily selected Led Zeppelin I or Led Zeppelin II here—and almost did—but Led Zeppelin IV is really the supergroup’s most accomplished and well-crafted album. Obviously the cut I mentioned above is hauntingly beautiful and one of the most popular and enduring hard rock songs of all time, but the album has so much more: the ethereal “Battle of Evermore,” the fierce, straight-ahead “Black Dog,” the plodding blues “When the Levee Breaks.” Led Zep co-opted the motifs, the arrangements, and sometimes even the lyrics of its blues and soul heroes, but the band always paid tribute to these influences. Led Zeppelin IV represents the band at its most consistent, incorporating the best of the sonic experimentation, exploration of American musical traditions, and impeccable musicianship of its first three albums.
Meshell Ndegeocello – Bitter (1999)
Neo-soul icon Meshell Ndegeocello has experimented with dance, drum-and-bass, spoken-word, R&B/funk, ambient, rap, hard rock, and much more in a mesmerizing oeuvre that now spans more than a decade. But her most coherent release is the gorgeous Bitter. It is an album of spare, folk- and soul-inflected arrangements, orchestral accompaniments, and sweeping emotional turmoil. The songs center on the themes of love and loss, trust, loyalty, and faith; and the austere, seemingly simplistic lyrics belie a depth and insight that is revealed by Ndegeocello’s deep, versatile voice.
The album’s crowning achievement is the closing pair of songs, “Wasted Time” and “Grace.” On the former, Ndegeocello sings an unconventional duet with indie artist Joe Henry (though for all these years, I could have sworn it was Marianne Faithfull singing with her). “Wasted Time” is a five-minute lament of unrequited love set over orchestral flourishes, steel guitar, and an insistent, dirge-like beat: “You rarely notice but I hang on your every word / Everything you say / You’re much too busy to notice me / You turn and walk away / Into another’s arms, hopeless ashamed / I wish I could hold you that way / Brokenhearted I dream for you to notice me.”
When it ends in the middle of a word (they don’t quite get out the words “broken-hearted” in a later verse), the song “Grace” begins. Over an acoustic arrangement and a metronomic beat, Ndegeocello ends the album with a statement of renewed hope in finding love: “Your love’s my only saving grace / You caress my heart, kiss my face.”
Augustus Pablo – East of the River Nile (1977)
Augustus Pablo (born Horace Swaby) was a progenitor of dub reggae, and one of the first (and only) musicians to prominently feature the melodica—an instrument which is basically a combination harmonica and keyboard and had theretofore been used primarily to teach music to young school children. Pablo’s albums typically consisted of instrumental explorations of Rastafarian truths set in an almost trance-like sonic milieu. The “dub” label meant that echoes, reverberations, loops, and cut-outs (abrupt removal of certain instruments) were used liberally while emphasizing rhythmic elements to create a composition that is both unpredictable and fluid.
East of the River Nile was no different, and yet it ascended to new heights in terms of its melodic structure and continuity. Produced by the great King Tubby, it featured Pablo not only on his trademark melodica, but also on organ, clavinet, synthesizer, and other keyboards. Also included were some of the greats of Jamaican musicianship, such as Family Man Barrett and his brother Carlie; the Soul Syndicate’s Chinna Smith; and Robbie Shakespeare (one-half of the celebrated dub/production team Sly & Robbie). The songs are imbued with Pablo’s “far-east” style, an eclectic blend of Asian influences and dub reggae. The album’s best song is the title track, a crucial, atmospheric track propelled by a nimble bass line, exhibiting these Asian inflections.
On a personal note, listening to this album is like entering an ancient dimension. For a long time I would only listen to the album when it was raining (seriously) and at one point in my early teens I even had a nature sounds cassette (“Thundering Rainstorm,” I believe it was called) that I would play at the same time in my dual-cassette stereo. Dweeb.
Rage Against the Machine – The Battle of Los Angeles (1999)
Rage burst on the hard-rock scene in the early 1990s with such iconoclastic anthems as “Killing in the Name” and “Bullet in the Head,” boasting the guitar pyrotechnics of Tom Morello and the relentless, politically charged lyrics of Zack de la Rocha, who hollered his words with anarchic abandon. The band had both deepened its ideas and broadened its sonic palette by the release of its third studio album—and its last featuring original material—The Battle of Los Angeles. Named after the infamous 1942 incident a few months after Pearl Harbor when Los Angelinos were awakened by air-raid sirens and a barrage of anti-aircraft artillery—only to later find out it was a paranoia-induced false alarm—the release explores the abuses of U.S. power, the efficacy of protest, heritage and the plight of illegal immigrants.
Here on Los Angeles, the creative tensions that ultimately undid them—the band broke up in the late 1990s, unforgivably going on hiatus during the criminal Bush administration, when we needed them most—are laid bare, with thrilling results. This is perhaps nowhere so evident as on tracks like “Mic Check,” which skews heavily toward de la Rocha’s hip-hop preferences, and “Sleep Now in the Fire,” a straight-ahead rock song that reflects Morello’s hard rock inclinations. The almost hymn-like “Voice of the Voiceless” pays tribute to Philadelphia journalist and cause célèbre Mumia Abu-Jamal, but the most biting comments about Abu-Jamal’s case appear in the song “Calm Like a Bomb”: “There’s a widow pig parrot / A rebel to tame / A whitehooded judge / A syringe and a vein / And the riot be the rhyme of the unheard.”
Rage put on one of the most electrifying live shows I have ever seen (circa 1997, in Camden). I think what appeals to me most about RATM is that they are uncompromising and direct in their criticism of government, of industry, of the justice system, of religion. Most people with strong opinions are forced to tone them down, make them more palatable, sugarcoat them. Rage is a release, a furious cry against these stultifying forces.
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Freaky Styley (1985)
This remains the best album—even better than 1991’s breakthrough Blood Sugar Sex Magik or 1999’s Californication—by one of my favorite bands ever, Red Hot Chili Peppers. After their self-titled debut album failed to capture “the groove of who we were all the way,” the Chili Peppers decided they needed a producer who could harness the seemingly disparate musical directions the band seemed to want to take: punk and funk. Soon the band had its answer in George Clinton, the legendary architect of Parliament-Funkadelic, whose musical sensibilities could help the boys achieve maximum funkitude while staying true to their hardcore/punk roots and indefatigable energy.
The result is Freaky Styley, a loosey-goosey funk masterpiece distinguished by Flea’s snapping bass lines and the wah-wahs and nimble harmonics of guitarist Hillel Slovak (who died of a heroin overdose a few years later). I remember back in 1985 when the album came out, my friend Mark Shewchuk played the album for me, and I was immediately hooked. The music fell into a hypnotizing groove, but also wore its eccentricities (off-time beats, psychedelic guitar diversions, affected vocalization) proudly. This is apparent even on the outstanding covers that appear on the album, the Meters’ “Africa” and Sly Stone’s “If You Want Me to Stay.”
[Check out the music video for "Jungle Man." Be warned that there is brief nudity; it seems the boys' penchant for performing nude with only sweat socks covering their genitals dates back to this period.]
Maybe the most recognizable aspect of Freaky Styley—aside from George Clinton’s knob-twirling—is Anthony Kiedis’ employment of gleefully bawdy lyrics: one relatively mild example from “Sex Rap” runs “I can tell you’re like a horny bloodhound / Feel the bass line hump the ground.” The most amusing lyrical story here, though, might actually be the one surrounding the song “Yertle the Turtle.” The song itself is a languid interpretation of the Dr. Seuss book bearing the same name, but the truly incredible part comes at the beginning and throughout the song, when George Clinton’s drug dealer says, “Look at the turtle go, bro.” Yes, that’s right: Clinton owed money to his drug dealer but couldn’t pay up, so offered him a part on the Chili Peppers’ album.
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Well, that marks the end of my “second-tier” Desert Island Discs, with the top tier forthcoming. Remember to send in your guesses about what albums might grace that list; the winner gets a choice of any of the 20 D.I.D.s...
Monsoon's New U2 Album Review
As U2 releases its latest studio album, No Line on the Horizon, tomorrow, I got to thinking about how long I’ve been a fan of the band. It turns out it was spring 1984 when I first heard and saw them—it was a clip from Under a Blood Red Sky, their concert film. I was immediately hooked, and have been a devotee for 25 years now.
Twenty-five years. In that time—more than two-thirds of my life—U2 has been there with me for events great and small. (Perspective: only a handful of the very first students I taught were alive when I became a U2 fan.) In the 80s I purchased my U2 albums on cassette (supplemented by vinyl records), and in the 90s I bought it all (including what I’d previously gotten on cassette) on CD. Now I’m in the process of ripping the CDs to mp3 files for the computer and (someday) an iPod.
Before I provide a brief review of their new album, I thought I’d share some reminiscences of how U2 has impacted my life...
I heard “Pride (in the Name of Love)” when it was released in 1984, and was changed. It wasn’t just the music—soaring, sweeping, passionate—it was the discovery. Thanks to my dad and his legendary vinyl collection, I had already been steeped in the music of the 1950s and 1960s in myriad genres: from the Beatles to the Mothers of Invention, from Cream to Captain Beefheart, from Black Sabbath to Jethro Tull, from Jimi Hendrix to the Mahavishnu Orchestra. And my friend Mark Shewchuk had begun getting me into the Red Hot Chili Peppers and punk bands like Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys. But U2 was, for me, a discovery. I felt as though I had stumbled onto something truly unique, something transformative. In a middle school Industrial Arts class during a printmaking unit, when we had to choose a mast to print at the top of a notepad, I blocked out “U2 – Bono Vox.” My teacher, Mr. Eckel, was as perplexed then as he was when I just couldn’t seem to figure out how to make a goddamned jewelry box.
I bought The Unforgettable Fire as soon as it came out in late 1984 and was captivated by its moody soundscapes, interspersed with epic compositions like “Pride,” “Bad,” and “A Sort of Homecoming.” I listened to the cassette constantly, and I can vividly remember sitting alone on the balcony of our motel in Ocean City, NJ in the summer of 1985, looking out at the sea on a gloomy day, listening to the album’s atmospheric, instrumental cuts on my Walkman as though something heavy was on my mind. I was emo before there was emo, baby.
When The Joshua Tree was released in 1987 to rave reviews, wild popularity, and eventually a Best Album Grammy award, I was ecstatic. It was like a brilliant, talented friend had finally gotten the recognition he deserved. I consumed every bit of U2-alia I could: magazines, books, interviews, b-sides. (The b-side singles released with this album are among the best b-sides I’ve ever heard—songs like “Spanish Eyes,” “Silver and Gold,” and “Walk to the Water” could have made on The Joshua Tree or even Rattle & Hum.) The album is not only the best in U2’s impressive catalog, it’s one of the best ever made—the deepest, the most resonant. Two of my favorite songs from the album are lesser-known: “Red Hill Mining Town” and “Trip Through Your Wires.” The former is special because I remember excitedly playing the song for my father—who grew up in Red Hill, PA, though the song is about a Red Hill in Ireland—during a particularly difficult time for our family. And I remember stating with absolute certainty while playing the latter for my mom, “This is the first U2 song to ever feature harmonica.” (I think that’s so, but still—what a dork.)
In 1988 when U2 released the Rattle & Hum album, I remember going to the movie theater with a huge group of people to see the film. It was like a concert, with people singing along and hanging around for a long while afterward.
U2 left the stage for a few years to, in Bono’s words, “dream it all up again.” In 1991 they released the long-awaited Achtung Baby. My new roommate at Albright, Dave, and I had bonded over our mutual love for U2, so we hurried out to the record store on the day it was released (I believe it was Record Revolution in Reading, R.I.P.) and brought it back to the dorm room to give it a listen. From the first treble-heavy, feedbacking guitar riffs, we knew we were in for something different. We looked at each other quizzically as we forwarded from track to track to track, searching for something familiar, something that was instantly recognizable as U2. The only song that was instantly palatable to both of us was one of the great U2 songs of all-time, “One.”
Soon, though, we both came to love the album for its daring cosmopolitan flavor, and went to see them in concert (with the Trabants hanging from the rafters). Dave “slept out” for tickets at Boscov’s with his girlfriend at the time. Four of us went to the concert—Dave and his girlfriend, and her friend, and me. (I was already “attached” to my beloved by then, so it wasn’t a double date.) I remember that the four tickets we got were in different parts of the same section—two here, two there. Instead of sitting with his girlfriend, Dave sat with me, leaving his girlfriend and her friend to spend the concert in bewildered exile in another part of the section while Dave and I belted out song after song side by side, basking in each other’s friendship and the headiness of the night.
Subsequently, U2 had some strange experiments (Zooropa; Passengers) that had as many moments of self-indulgent bombast as they had moments of brilliance. They went back to straight-ahead rock in 2000’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind and 2004’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, the stronger of which, by far, was Atomic Bomb.
U2 has been there, marking life—its passage, its meaning, its milestones—in many more ways, ways I haven’t even considered. Sure, I’ve sometimes cringed a bit when Bono seems to linger a bit too long in his superhero tights. But for twenty-five years, I have found them to be the most captivating band there is. (That, and I think I would honestly pee in my pants and scream like a little girl if I ever met Bono.)
A little “brush with greatness” tale with a twist: a few years back my mother-in-law returned from Hershey, where she had traveled for a conference and stayed in a nice hotel. She said, “Oh yeah, hey, I rode up the elevator with that guy you like. What’s his name—Boner?” I don’t recall if I ever peeled myself off the ceiling long enough to explain this to her, so: Con, it’s “Bono” (nee Paul Hewson) and he’s only the lead singer of the greatest band in the world!!!
For now, allow me to present my exclusive Monsoon Martin ranking of the U2 oeuvre from most accomplished to least (and the lowest U2 album is still better than most of the rest of what’s around):
1. The Joshua Tree (1987) – as I said above, this is one of the best albums of all-time. From the first chiming notes of “Where the Streets Have No Name” to the furious “Bullet the Blue Sky” (which has only gotten better in concert), from the rueful “Running to Stand Still” to the infectious “In God’s Country,” this is a classic.
2. Achtung Baby (1991) – Bono was at his peak lyrically here, and the band took chances by incorporating sparer compositions and more distortion of the instruments. The risks paid off, with some of their greatest songs: “One,” “Love is Blindness,” “Mysterious Ways,” “Until the End of the World,” and on.
3. War (1983) – it was close for second place between Achtung and War. This album saw the lads find their voice as rockers with a conscience. Best songs are, of course, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “New Year’s
Day,” but lesser-known but no less accomplished are “Drowning Man” and “Two Hearts Beat as One.” There’s not a stinker in the bunch.
4. Boy (1980) – U2’s first studio album; best songs, “Out of Control,” a celebration of youthful exuberance, and “Shadows and Tall Trees,” which takes its name from a chapter in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.
5. The Unforgettable Fire (1984) – it was critically panned, but I liked it, and still do—mainly because it’s the first studio album of theirs I bought. It’s when they first collaborated with Brian Eno to expand their sonic landscape, and the effect was uneven, but tremendous. There are well-known cuts from their catalog like “Bad” and “Pride,” but songs like “Homecoming,” the title track, and “Indian Summer Sky” stand the test of time too. (The 1985 EP Wide Awake in America had nice live versions of a couple of Unforgettable songs, as well as two very good b-sides, “Love Comes Tumbling” and “The Three Sunrises.”)
6. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (2004) – this album is a burst of furious energy—creative, musical, lyrical—from a band that had been together already for 25 years. “Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own” is a moving, riveting song; “City of Blinding Lights” was used by the Obama campaign right after his nomination speech; “Miracle Drug” and “One Step Closer” are other standouts. Even rollicking flirtations with 100+ beats per minute like “Vertigo” and “All Because of You” are gratifying. And the concert I attended (again with Dave) when they were touring in support of this album is one of the best I’ve ever seen.
7. No Line on the Horizon (2009) – see review below.
8. Rattle & Hum (1988) – it came off as too self-congratulatory and redundant to be a classic U2 album, but there are highlights here. “Van Diemen’s Land” showcases the Edge’s strong (and underused) tenor, and live versions of “Silver and Gold” and “All Along the Watchtower” are stirring. “Angel of Harlem” is a nice one, too. And two of my favorite U2 songs of all-time are “Heartland” and “All I Want is You,” either of which would have been right at home on The Joshua Tree.
9. Zooropa (1993) – this bit of euro-trash contains the only U2 song I always fast-forward past: “The Wanderer” featuring Johnny Cash. It also contains Bono’s ill-advised extended foray into falsetto (“Lemon”) and the silly, monotone “Numb.” High points include “Dirty Day,” “The First Time,” “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)” and the title track.
10. Pop (1998) – this is the nadir of the band’s glitzy Mephisto period, and on this tour they emerged from a giant, mirrored lemon onstage. They’d lost control of their own caricatures. There are some high points—“Gone” and “Do You Feel Loved” among them—and some interesting ideas like “Miami” and “Please,” but over all, they blew it. (I’ll also comment here on Passengers: Original Soundtracks I, which was an avant-garde release that contained music predominantly by U2. I remember reading somewhere that drummer Larry Mullen was particularly peeved about this foray into Eno-land. There are a couple of good songs—“Miss Sarajevo” and “Your Blue Room”—but otherwise it’s an amorphous, incoherent waste of time.)
11. October (1981) – this album was a rush job during a turbulent period for the members of the band—spiritually and interpersonally. Best songs are “I Threw a Brick through a Window,” “Tomorrow,” and the sparse piano-and-vocals piece “October.” Almost every U2 song has a special place in my memory, but you can safely skip “I Fall Down” and “Is That All,” which are subpar.
12. All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2000) – I can’t really explain what I don’t like about this album. It does have its finer points, like “Beautiful Day” (in moderation) and “Walk On” (there’s a remix that’s better than the album version). But for an album that was, according to Bono, U2’s application for the job of “best band in the world,” it felt a little forced and designed for broader appeal. Songs like “Wild Honey,” “Kite,” and “Grace” seem intentionally harmless and lack the “bite” of the best U2 work.
The new album, No Line on the Horizon, is an interesting departure of sorts for the band. On the one hand, it’s very different from the taut, straight-ahead commercialism of the previous two albums this decade. On the other hand, its elements are unmistakably U2, just bent in a different direction. There are high and low points, as with any album. The ridiculously titled “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight” and “Get on Your Boots” are subpar, with too modern and derivative a sound, and they're almost out of place on this mostly meditative, sweeping album. “Stand Up Comedy” is a delightful surprise with witty lyrics like “stop helping God across the road like a little old lady.” “Fez – Being Born” begins with sound samples and little too much Eno, but becomes something lovely and piano-driven (like a lot of this album). The title track marries the guitar riff from “The Fly” with the slinky philosophy of Atomic Bomb’s “Original of the Species” to interesting effect.
But the best four songs on the album are the ambitious, lovely “Magnificent”; “Unknown Caller,” which sounds as though it could have been lifted from October but with a sharper, distorted guitar; the spare, folk-inflected, Mark Knopfler-esque “White as Snow”; and “Cedars of Lebanon,” the almost spoken-word final song describing the life of a journalist in a war-torn area. The lyric “this shitty world sometimes produces a rose” is at first blush heavy-handed, but has a resonance in this song that delves beneath the hackneyed. It also contains what might be Bono’s best lyric of the decade: “The worst of us are a long, drawn-out confession / The best of us are geniuses of compression.”
So am I recommending No Line on the Horizon? Of course; it’s a U2 album. Which edition—the digipak, the CD only, the magazine, the box set? It’s all bells and whistles. Just get the bonus tracks and skip the DVD film by the pretentious, overblown Phil Joanou (I haven’t seen it, but he directed Rattle & Hum, so one can only imagine). The cover image alone—by Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto—is a gorgeous, minimalist achievement.
Enjoy!
Penn Cinema Announces Heart of Lancaster Presents 2008 Fall Season
My friends,
I'm excited to annouce that my favorite movie theater has announced its Fall 2008 lineup for The Heart of Lancaster Presents! (If you do not recall from my earlier post, this film series presents one vintage film each Monday night at 7pm. The cost is $9.00 per person.)
The list of fourteen films actually includes two of the films I had suggested in my previous post--The Shawshank Redemption (November 10th) and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (November 24th)!
Getting to Penn Cinema is dead simple, even with a construction snafu. From points north, take 222 South and get off at the 772 exit for Brownstown. Make a right at the end of the ramp, then an immediate left-hand turn onto Route 272 South. Normally, you'd turn right onto Route 722, but the bridge is out, so you'll stay on Route 272 past 722 and make your next available right-hand turn onto Creek Road. You'll spend about a half-mile at most on Creek Road, then make a left onto 722 (you've bypassed the bridge construction). After about two miles on Route 722, you'll make a right-hand turn onto Airport Road, and Penn Cinema will be on your left very soon.
I visited the theater thrice this summer and--despite the fact that my Obama car magnet was swiped on my third visit while I was enjoying a film just a couple of weeks ago--I have been thoroughly impressed.
Here's the complete listing:
Sept. 8 Gladiator
Sept. 15 Sleepless in Seattle
Sept. 22 Psycho
Sept. 29 Grease
Oct. 6 Sixteen Candles
Oct. 13 On the Waterfront
Oct. 20 The Wizard of Oz
Oct. 27 Ghostbusters
Nov. 3 Roman Holiday
Nov. 10 The Shawshank Redemption
Nov. 17 Rocky
Nov. 24 Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Dec. 1 A Christmas Story
Dec. 8 The Polar Express
Enjoy!
Monsoon's Exclusive Interview with Five Guys' Molly Catalano
My friends,
A few months ago, I posted a review of Five Guys Burgers and Fries and contacted its corporate headquarters to let them know just how much I loved them. I began an email correspondence with Molly Catalano, who is the Public Relations Manager for Five Guys. Soon I had compiled a list of questions for Ms. Catalano and asked if she would consent to an email interview; she delighted me by answering the questions generously and thoroughly.
I am now proud to present these questions (MM) and Molly Catalano’s answers (MC) exclusively and without commercial interruption here on Monsoon’s weblog!
MM: I read that Five Guys has tried various additions to its menu in the past, but ultimately decided to pull these items. Can you discuss a few of these ideas?
MC: The menu originally included a Virginia baked ham sandwich and there is a rumor that they tried a chicken sandwich for one day. This was well before we started franchising and the menu has been the same for at least the past 10-15 years. We get many requests for chili and slaw in the south and sauerkraut in the north, but we will only add to our menu if we know it was the best item possible.
MM: Can you talk a little bit about Five Guys’ interior design? What is the intended effect of having fifty-pound bags of potatoes between the ordering and dining areas?
MC: The basic idea for the décor is to make sure that nothing takes attention away from the food. So it makes sense that we have an open kitchen; our cooking process is the décor! This way, we don’t have to talk about ourselves (hence the articles and quotes from others on the walls) and we don’t even have to tell you what we serve…you see it when you walk in.
Also, with our stacks of potatoes and boxes of peanut oil, along with our open kitchen, we can show guests that we are in fact making everything fresh.
MM: Have you thought about expanding your beverage and treat offerings to include milkshakes, light desserts, and the like?
MC: Besides the chili and sauerkraut, milkshakes are the third most requested item. We love milkshakes, but at this point we don’t think that we could serve the best milkshakes possible without sacrificing quality elsewhere…and we aren’t willing to do that.
MM: It has been reported that Five Guys was pursued for years by individuals who wanted to purchase franchises, but repeatedly turned them down. Can you briefly discuss why Five Guys rejected franchising offers for so long, and why Five Guys ultimately decided to franchise?
MC: The Murrells—especially the father, Jerry—didn’t want to franchise. I don’t know his exact reasoning, but I think things were going well and at the time it didn’t appeal to him. However, the boys were ultimately the ones who decided to franchise and they have done a great job focusing on what is important and not giving in to pressures to change. At the same time, we have learned a lot from our franchisees and I would say that our stores are more consistent now than ever before. Even small changes like our black ceilings and higher quality red countertops came from our franchisees.
MM: Given Five Guys’ unconventional business model, limited menu and untraditional practices, has the company faced any difficulties in attracting investors or selling franchises?
MC: Not at all. In the end, there is a reason behind everything that we do, from the way we cook our fries to the way we change our gloves, and people understand that. We do not advertise for franchisees and franchise inquiries are the highest volume of emails and calls we receive.
MM: I find the construction of your burgers to be artful and ingenious; can you discuss their assembly a bit? For example, why was it decided to put the bacon underneath the patties rather than on top, as is traditionally done?
MC: The assembly, as you may have noticed, is very finely tuned. This, especially, is the area of the business that the “boys” (the Five Guys) perfected in the 15 years before they opened. The assembly is the result of a desire to give optimal flavor combinations while encouraging speed in assembling the burger. With so many toppings, each burger is unique, so we have to have a method to the madness in order to make sure we don’t forget toppings!
MM: The Murrell family’s involvement in the Five Guys business is storied: to what extent is each of the Murrells’ five sons still involved in the business?
MC: All seven (Jerry, Janie, Jim, Matt, Chad, Ben and Tyler) family members are involved in different ways. Ben focuses on franchise development and meets with each franchisee candidate. Chad focuses on training operations. Matt focuses on operations and development, Tyler works with the bakery and Jim focuses on corporate-owned stores.
MM: What is involved, financially and logistically, in securing and setting up a franchised location of Five Guys?
MC: Five Guys sells exclusive territories to franchisees. A franchisee must purchase a territory with a minimum of 5 locations, but many of our franchisees purchase the rights to open much more than that. A franchisee pays a franchise fee for each location and then pays to develop the specific sites once they find them. So a franchisee really does it all: decides where he/she wants to open locations (generally), selects specific sites (with approval from Five Guys) builds out the store, and then opens and runs it. Five Guys provides training and support along the way and throughout their life as a franchisee.
MM: Five Guys reportedly conducts very little, if any, advertising. What is the reasoning behind this strategy, and how successful has it been?
MC: You are correct: Five Guys does not spend ANY national or corporate funds on advertising. We do allow our franchisees to advertise (with approval), so there are a few local items out there. The reasoning is based both on economics and our brand. We want to be known for a great hamburger and great fries and the best form of marketing to do that is word of mouth, so we focus on that. We know that word of mouth is the most effective form of marketing, so we focus on making sure people want to talk about us because they love our burgers and fries!
Additionally, to really compete with others using advertising, you need a lot of money and we believe that we currently get the biggest bang for our buck by providing a very large employee incentive program and by word of mouth. We believe this is successful…or we wouldn’t be here now! Additionally, our new stores open with stronger and stronger sales!
MM: How involved is the Five Guys corporate structure in the day-to-day operations of its franchise locations?
MC: Our franchisees, managers, assistant managers and crew-level employees run the true day-to-day operations. Five Guys Enterprises is involved through our District Manager program. We have District Managers who over see about 15 stores each, and they act as the liaison between franchisees and corporate. They are there to help make our franchisees successful and to protect the Five Guys brand.
MM: Have you considered adding a drive-through element to the Five Guys stores?
MC: We have opened a few locations in buildings that have drive-throughs, but we can only use them as call-ahead pickup windows. This is because it takes about 7-10 minutes for us to prepare an order and that is not fast enough for a drive through.
MM: Your pickles are heaven. How are they made and where are they from?
MC: I agree! Our pickles, like all of our toppings, are specially selected. They are Mount Olive brand kosher pickles. The “boys” (the Five Guys) are fanatical about the quality of our toppings. For example, our current mayo producer is going to stop producing the kind of mayo we use and as a result we are going to privately label mayo for our use because the boys think that this mayo has the right level of creaminess and taste for our burgers.
MM: The interior of the store I visited in Lancaster, PA was lit with fluorescent bulbs. Is this done consistently at your stores? And what other measures has Five Guys taken to minimize the restaurant's impact on the environment?
MC: Many of our stores use fluorescent bulbs (as do our corporate offices, which have the same type of lights). Our peanut oil is currently picked up by a company that uses it for various purposes, but we have researched giving/selling our used peanut oil for use in diesel cars. It is a hard process to do right now because there isn’t a national company that does that, but we have one or two stores that do give their used peanut oil to individuals who use it to power their cars. Finally, we are in the final stages of researching paper fry cups. We currently use Styrofoam, which is not as good for the environment. We hope to roll that out before the end of the year.
MM: Your organization's founder, Jerry Murrell, has been described as being “obsessed” with quality in choosing the ingredients of Five Guys' offerings. Are any of Five Guys' ingredients certified organic or antibiotic-free? If not, does Five Guys have plans to move in this direction in the future?
MC: Five Guys does not have any certified organic or antibiotic-free items. This is not necessarily intentional. Rather, “organic” and “antibiotic-free” are not synonymous with quality. You can have low quality organic items just like you can have low quality non-organic items. Our quality is focused on freshness, lack of preservatives, industry standards of quality (like peanut oil for fries) and then personal family standards. For example, we source whole heads of lettuce rather than that shredded stuff, we put 2 slices of tomatoes on a burger, and we use brand name items like Hebrew National hotdogs, Mount Olive Pickles and high quality bacon that is from a very old and established smoke house.
MM: My readers are anxious to learn what new franchise locations are planned in the southeastern Pennsylvania region: Philadelphia, Bucks, Delaware, Chester, Montgomery, Berks, and Lancaster Counties.
MC: We are opening in all of those areas although it is hard to say when as we don’t know opening dates until a few days before. My suggestion is to visit our website frequently as we add stores to the “coming soon” list every month. [Monsoon’s note: Exeter Commons Shopping Center will feature a Five Guys Burgers & Fries and a Red Robin, in addition to anchor stores Lowe’s, Giant, and Target. Rumors are swirling that a similarly-anchored shopping center planned for the area of the 222/Turnpike interchange in Denver may also attract a Five Guys!]
MM: Thank you for your time!
MC: I apologize for the delay in getting this information to you!
Monsoonian Rhapsody: Northern Lancaster County Shopping Destinations
My friends,
The time has again come for me to share with you some of my favorite things. Today I’ll be telling you about three northern Lancaster County businesses that make it a damned fine place to live.
Record Connection, 550 North Reading Road (Route 272), Ephrata, PA
Traveling south on 222 from the Reading area, Record Connection is just beyond the intersection of Garden Spot Road and Route 272 (where the gigantic Green Dragon sign is).
Hours of operation: Monday through Friday, 10 – 8; Saturday 9 – 7; Sunday 11 – 5.
Phone: 717-733-1641
Website: http://www.recordconnectionpa.com
The first thing you may notice about the store—and one of the reasons for its notoriety among residents of this area—is its rainbow-colored sign composed of large letters mounted above the overhang, advertising that it sells “TAPES RECORDS COMPACT DISCS.” But as the picture below clearly illustrates, the letters are arrayed—and their colors chosen—in a peculiar manner. Specifically, the only three yellow letters, when read top to bottom, spell out “P-O-T.”
Please understand that I am neither implying that this store sells marijuana, nor am I even suggesting that the letters were intentionally arranged to convey a subliminal message encouraging the consumption of illegal drugs by unsuspecting passers-by. All I am saying is that it is damned amusing and certainly distinguishes the establishment from the more staid, conservative businesses in the area. (Though I almost had an accident the first time I passed a neighboring antique store called Mother Tucker’s, whose old sign was in an ornate script and whose T looked at passing glance very much like an F.)
But the reason I love Record Connection goes way beyond a sophomoric visual joke about weed (hey, at least the street address isn’t 420). Record Connection is a kick-ass independent record store specializing in vinyl—at a time when there are very few stores around that exclusively carry recorded music, and even fewer that either specialize in vinyl or kick ass. I remember places like Repo Records and Plastic Fantastic on the Main Line, Record Revolution in Valley Forge and Reading. They’re all gone (though Repo Records has been reborn on South Street in Philly as an overpriced used-CD shop), but Record Connection keeps going.
You see, friends, I am a vinyl superfreak. Have been ever since I can remember, raiding my dad’s staggering collection of hundreds upon hundreds of LPs and 45s, listening to everything from Blodwyn Pig and the Mahavishnu Orchestra to The Who and Jethro Tull, from the Mothers of Invention and John Mayall to Grand Funk Railroad and Miles Davis, and every conceivable style and permutation in between. I’m a connoisseur of the crackles and pops of vinyl, the electric moment when the needle touches the record, the warmth of its tones and the richness of its timbre. And with all the advances in digital sound reproduction, the prevalence of CDs and mp3s, most music still sounds a hell of a lot better to me on vinyl. (A great illustration of this is one of the finest albums ever made, Electric Ladyland by The Jimi Hendrix Experience: on vinyl, the bass throbs and the guitar pulsates in a way that even remastered CD releases of the album can’t approach.)
So I find myself pulling into this little gem of a store and losing myself for hours on end, pawing through its overwhelming array of … stuff. Record Connection doesn’t just carry LP records and 45s—which take up three entire rooms and feature pretty much every conceivable release you might ever want—it has new and used CDs, new and used cassette tapes, used VHS and DVD, posters, and much more. Record Connection stocks over 100,000 LPs, 45s and EPs at any given time, and also purchases collections. The singles room is a wonder—boxes and boxes and boxes of records, filed alphabetically, most priced at $2-$3 apiece, including comedy, novelty, and colored-vinyl 45s. There is even a turntable with headphones so you can test out your finds before purchasing them.
Record Connection’s inventory is strong in most genres—including jazz, reggae, soul, country/bluegrass, and comedy—but has the most comprehensive holdings in classic, psychedelic, and progressive rock.
Maybe my favorite part of Record Connection is the fact that they have anywhere from 8 to 12 full crates of LPs—usually just outside the singles room—with “New Arrivals” generally priced at a mere $2 apiece. Here is where I make my most exciting finds: long-out-of-print rarities, ill-advised celebrity forays into music, K-Tel compilations, off-label bombs, hidden soul treasures, spoken-word treatises on the free market economy, children’s music, and on and on. I will sometimes buy LPs mainly because of the cover art, which I think is unique to the long-playing album and is somehow not the same on the cover of a CD booklet.
I’ve scanned in a few of my favorite finds (some for the music, some for the cover art, and some for the pure kitsch value) and picture them below, including And me…I’m Ed McMahon (you haven’t truly lived until you have heard the gravely-voiced “Tonight Show” sidekick relieve “Georgy Girl” of its kick and take “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” to creepy new depths).
Record collector Andy Kamm opened Record Connection in 1985 and, as one would expect at an independent record store, has a colorful staff—the most notable being a full-bore, 1980s-throwback, singing-along-with-the-tunes, head-banging, sometime profane, non-sequitur-spewing metalhead named Nathaniel Kinsey, who is almost too good to be true. (When I purchased several used videos last summer in the Black Belt Jones and Superfly vein, along with an Isaac Hayes LP, he said the following as he was ringing me up: “Oh yeah, gettin’ a little Blaxploitation here, huh?” and then incorporated the word into a previously unimagined death metal song called “Blaxploitation Nation” that he proceeded to sing, complete with guitar solo. It was magic.)
The ambiance of the place also adds to the experience. When you walk in, a motion detector sounds to alert the employees—who may be buried under stacks and stacks of LPs in a distant corner—that a customer has come in. The sound is disconcerting: a clear, doorbell-like chime followed by a distorted, death-throes tone, like an aural question mark. And once you’ve made your way in, you’ll find the aisles cramped and just as much merchandise in crates underneath the display bins as are in the bins themselves. It’s a down and dirty enterprise, but it adds to the mystique, the sense of adventure of the place. Record Connection has already gone through at least one expansion, and could easily fill a space twice its current size.
Record Connection is apparently a destination to which vinyl lovers flock from far and wide. Listening to patrons and reading internet chatter, it quickly becomes apparent that Record Connection is visited by folks from all across the US, Korea, Germany, and around the world. (An article on the RC website tells of a man from Korea who spent an entire day at the store and left with over 800 albums!) When I was visiting the store recently, and entire family from Alabama was there, having spent hours rummaging before making the trip back home.
They sell turntables and needles, too—so if you haven’t bought or played a vinyl record in 20 years and are looking to get back in the habit, they can hook you up!
Weaver Markets, Routes 272 and 897, Adamstown, PA
Hours of operation: Monday through Thursday and Saturday, 7am – 9pm; Friday 7am – 10pm; closed Sunday.
Phone: 717-484-4302
Website: http://www.weavermarkets.com
Mission Statement: To provide the customer with the best quality and value in regards to products and services and to help support and strengthen the surrounding community in every way possible.
I have a love for Weaver Markets (hereafter, and in local parlance, “Weaver’s”) that is sometimes belied by the actual quality of its goods and services, but over all this is a fantastic grocery store.
Founded in 1962 by Earl Weaver and now run by his sons Gene and Mike, Weaver’s has expanded several times and is now a 96,000-square-foot mecca of one-stop shopping and homemade goodness.
On the most basic level, Weaver’s is simply a very good grocery store, with a fine selection of grocery items (non-perishables), a very fancy new dairy section, a nice selection of meats and deli items at the lowest prices around, and a surprisingly broad assortment of organic and specialty foods, along with (less surprisingly) lots of local-made jams the like.
(Weaver’s also has an expanded produce section that used to be its crowning glory but has, in my opinion, fallen off in recent years. Green produce like broccoli, green beans, and zucchini tend to be consistently good, but their fruits—especially apples, bananas, and strawberries—are often aged, significantly bruised, or lack basic freshness. The tomatoes at Weaver’s have been a particularly bitter source of disappointment for me: too often the very old tomatoes are left to rot inside the pile, and more than once when foraging for a fresh one I have inadvertently poked a thumb or forefinger into the putrid guts of a rotten one. Screaming like a 9-year-old girl at a Hannah Montana concert in the middle of Weaver’s produce section does nothing for my street cred, folks.)
But the produce issue is a nitpick, and I can easily satisfy my unmet produce needs at an Amish-run produce stand on Route 272 near Ephrata called Evergreen Acres, or at Weis or Giant.
It’s the peripheral things, the specialties, the personal touches that make Weaver’s a worthwhile destination:
- Weaver’s has a full bakery on-site that makes all sorts of delectable confections.
- Weaver’s offers a dizzying array of party trays; most outstanding are their fruit and vegetable trays, which offer extreme freshness at very reasonable prices. Example: the veggie tray pictured below, which includes carrots, celery, broccoli, peppers, cauliflower, cucumbers, and choice of dip, is only $1.45 per person. If you need a tray for 8 people, you’re going to get out of there for under twelve bucks. Also, relating to the trays: when you’ve ordered a tray and want to pick it up, you go to Customer Service and pay for it, and then you drive around the building to Door 13 to pick it up. There’s something very clandestine about the whole process (and the fact that it’s Door 13 and not 12 or 14) that makes me feel like I’m on some sort of top-secret mission. Maybe it’s only me.
- Weaver’s has a full kitchen that cooks “homemade” soups, potato and macaroni salad, and lots of other hearty dishes that can be purchased and heated later. Their soups (and pepper cabbage, and deviled eggs) are so good that I tote a load of these delicacies down to Norristown whenever I go to visit my parents.
- At almost every checkout line, Weaver’s has actual baggers, actually bagging your purchases, and doing it carefully. Speaking of bagging, in addition to the traditional plastic bags, Weaver’s has brown paper bags with sturdy handles that hold plenty of food and lend themselves to myriad household uses—aside from being environmentally friendlier.
- The ladies at the Customer Service desk are happy to work with customers to order an item that is not in stock or difficult to find. A couple of years ago, the stores near my father stopped carrying cans of Musselmann’s BC Orange Apricot juice, so I worked with the Customer Service desk to order cases of it for him. When the juice suddenly became unavailable, these nice women made some phone calls and learned that the item had been discontinued, forever. When they broke the news to me and I said my father would be devastated, since he had been drinking this juice since he was a child, they seemed genuinely to share in my disappointment. Now that is customer service.
- The layout of Weaver’s is logical and pleasing—unlike what can be said of other local grocery stores. (In particular, whenever I make the mistake of entering a Redner’s, I am overwhelmed by the feeling that its layout was designed solely to confuse and frustrate the customer. I also question why, at places like Giant and Weis, peanut butter, jelly and bread products are found in the dairy aisle. Is it just me?)
- When you call Weaver’s, an actual person answers the phone. Right away. There’s no automated system, no menu of options, no circuitous “hold” purgatory. The same can’t be said of Giant, or Weis, or Wal-Mart, or nearly any other major retail establishment I can think of. It’s a rare treat.
- Weaver’s is closed on Sundays. Now, I have found this to be terribly inconvenient more than a few weekends since I’ve lived here, since it’s sometimes not until Sunday that I get my dook together and figure out what groceries we need for the coming week. But Weaver’s is run (and largely, staffed) by Mennonites, and while I don’t share their religious convictions, I have to admire their insistence on setting aside Sunday as a day of rest. I ain’t mad atcha.
- Weaver’s has a bunch of “in-store entities” that I avail myself of from time to time, especially Anderson Pharmacy. There is also an Ephrata Medical Laboratory, film developing (including a new three-terminal Fuji digital photo kiosk), and a small flower shop in-store.
In the coming two years, Weaver’s will face a new challenge in the area. Final approvals have been secured for a massive new shopping center to be built just off the Turnpike exit 286 ramp between Routes 222 and 272 in Denver. Its three anchors will be a 24-hour Giant, Lowe’s, and an as-yet unnamed large anchor (I’m hoping it’s Target), along with smaller shops and restaurants. At present, the closest major grocery stores to Weaver’s are Weis and Redner’s in Ephrata (6 miles south) and Giant in West Lawn (7 miles north). The construction of a 24-hour Giant will present a level of competition Weaver’s hasn’t yet faced. I’m convinced, though, the Weaver’s blend of personal service and homemade goods, along with reasonable prices and broad selection, will make them viable well into the future; I hope my neighbors continue to support this family-owned, locally-invested business.
Clay Book Store, 2450 West Main Street, Ephrata, PA
Take 272 South and pick up Route 322 West; follow this for about 4 miles until you see a sign for the Township of Clay. The bookstore will soon appear on your left (and is sporting a spiffy new sign, pictured below).
Hours of operation: Monday, Thursday, Friday, 8am – 9pm; Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, 8am – 5pm; closed Sunday.
Phone: 717-733-7253
Website: No internet presence. That is how they roll.
Mrs. Monsoon and I found this place when out on one of our Sunday drives (which have been curtailed significantly due to the high gas prices). Like Weaver’s, it’s owned and operated by Mennonites; like Record Connection, you could spend an entire day rummaging around here.
The variety of materials contained in this modest-sized store is incredible: maps (including Geological Survey and topographical maps, as well as road maps and atlases), school supplies (from scissors and glue to poster board and teacher planners), toys and puzzles and stickers, and of course, books.
To the left when you enter the Clay Book Store is a large section of new books that is dominated by fundamentalist literature. There’s some material in this section for the secular browser (books about Amish and Mennonite culture, how-to books, Pennsylvania history and coffee-table books, and so on). But it’s heavily geared toward Anabaptist theology (Mennonites and Amish fall under the Anabaptist umbrella) and Christianity in general: hymnals, bibles, bible study books, prayer books, and guides to holy living. There is also a generous helping of Christian values literature—mostly in the form of pamphlets and short volumes—that can quickly make a self-respecting progressive type feel out of place. This includes books about the evils of abortion, the unfortunate and fiery eternal bummer awaiting nonbelievers, and of course, the travesty of homosexuality. (The book pictured below considers the question, “Homosexuality: Is it Natural?” arriving rapidly at an emphatic and biblically-justified “No!”)
Looking at some of this literature, I was reminded of a George Carlin routine about religious morality, part of which went: “Catholics and other Christians are against abortions, and they're against homosexuals. Well who has less abortions than homosexuals?! … Here is an entire class of people guaranteed never to have an abortion! And the Catholics and Christians are just tossing them aside! You'd think they'd make natural allies.”
But it’s the rear portion of the Clay Book Store that has some great stuff: that’s where the used books and magazines are. In the rear on the right side are old textbooks (mostly from the 70s and 80s or earlier) that can be used for low-cost home schooling—or, in my case, for the sole purpose of nostalgia. Remember those old music and social studies books from the 1970s—the rainbows, the bell-bottoms, the wide collars, the children wearing red tees ringed with white, in motion shots in cityscapes? The vibrant, silly illustrations in children’s literature books evocative of Schoolhouse Rock? They’re all here.
(So are textbooks specifically geared toward Christian education, which are…interesting to peruse. You’re not going to find any talk about the universe being 13 billion years old, or that most species of dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago, in a children’s biology textbook called God’s Marvelous Works.)
Also on the right rear are reference books, including encyclopedia sets and lots of old dictionaries (of which I’ve purchased a few: just a couple of weeks ago, I got a massive 1940s two-volume set of the New Century Dictionary in great condition for five bucks).
Moving to the rear left, there are several stacks of used religious books (remember, folks, this is run by hardcore Mennonites) but it also has nonfiction books, repair manuals, hardcover and softcover fiction, pamphlets, field guides, old copies of Reader’s Digest and National Geographic (as well as lots of other magazines)—all for dirt cheap.
There’s even a section of foreign-language books, where I recently found a copy of the 1970s textbook we used in my late-1980s high school German class. It’s called Unsere Freunde (“Our friends”) and contains some sidesplitting pics and text.
The one that seized on our imagination was when we met the parents of the young people who were guiding us through the wonderful world of German language. Soon we met Gabi’s mother, who “managt die Tankstelle” (or “managed the gas station”). This phrase became the ultimate insult when applied to anyone else’s mother in the class. (Jeez, we were geeks.) And so, I send a shout-out to Amelia with the following allegation: Deine Mutter managt die Tankstelle!
It does not generally seem that a lot of sorting has taken place before the books (which are typically sold as collections to the store or donated) were shelved, so you should be prepared for a good, leisurely poke-around if you visit the Clay Book Store. But it can be great fun.
Enjoy!
Monsoonian Rhapsody: The Best of What’s Around
I wanted to introduce a new feature on the weblog: the Monsoonian Rhapsody. It will appear periodically and will consist of—as the tagline suggests—the best of what’s around. In these posts, I will rave about great music I’ve just heard; new television shows or movies; revolutionary, life-changing products; fantastic places to shop; and the like. It’s a little window onto the consumer delights that infuse my life with such joie de vivre.
The first installment will involve three rhapsodies: a CD, a television show, and a glorious new product. En-joie!!
Crowded House - Time on Earth
Witty, introspective songwriting, inventive instrumentation, ambient beauty and superb musicianship distinguish Time on Earth as the New Zealand/Australian band Crowded House’s finest, most coherent work.
Crowded House, formed from the shards of the very good early-80s new wave/pop band Split Enz, released its first album in 1986, which contained such popular songs as “Don’t Dream It’s Over” and “Something So Strong.” I had the cassette of this album, and listened to it so often I probably still know every word by heart. They moved on to a series of three uneven, sometimes brooding follow-up albums that produced memorable CH staples like “Better Be Home Soon,” “It’s Only Natural,” “Weather With You,” and “Distant Sun.”
After the group disbanded in 1996, lead singer and principal songwriter Neil Finn released a couple of fairly well-received (but little noticed) solo albums, collaborated with his big brother Tim (who led Split Enz and had collaborated with Crowded House periodically), and arranged for the release of CH compilations (1996’s Recurring Dream: The Very Best of Crowded House and 2000’s Afterglow, a compendium of b-sides and lost tracks, among which is one of the most gorgeous songs they have ever recorded, “Help is Coming”).
Neil Finn had been working on his third solo album when he received the news that Split Enz and CH drummer Paul Hester, who had a long history of depression and emotional volatility, had committed suicide. As a result Finn began collaborating with former CH bassist Nick Seymour on a series of songs whose underlying themes included loss and grief. They soon realized they wanted to make a new Crowded House album, and auditioned musicians to round out the group.
Released last summer in the US, Time on Earth is by no means uniformly excellent; it does have its lulls (“A Sigh,” “You Are the One to Make Me Cry”) and outright stinkers (“She Called Up,” “Transit Lounge”). But every other track on the album is outstanding, and only gets better with time. There’s the mid-tempo, guitar- and piano-driven lamentation on apathy which opens the CD, “Nobody Wants To.” There’s the upbeat, offbeat musing about GPS technology of “Don’t Stop Now,” the album’s first single and one of its strongest songs. (Its propulsive drums and dreamy melodies remind me of Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979.”)
The three biggest standouts for me, though, are “Pour Le Monde,” “Heaven That I’m Making,” and “Silent House.” The first is a song of protest against the war and tells the story of a soldier wounded in action and the indifferent, cynical politicians that put him there. (“Pour Le Monde” means “For the World.”) The second is an ambient, ominous piece about stumbling upon the meaning of life. The song ends with the lyrics: “If there is hell on earth / there must be heaven too / Both in one place / And not a second to lose.” The third song listed, “Silent House,” was dedicated to the memory of Paul Hester but really deals in a broader sense with all the confused regret and nostalgia that infuses our recollections of home and family. Shockingly (to me, at least, since it’s such a good song) it was co-written by Neil Finn with the Dixie Chicks, who have their own (not shockingly, terrible) version of “Silent House” on their latest album, Taking the Long Way. This powerful, achingly evocative song begins: “These walls have eyes / Rows of photographs and faces like mine / Who do we become / Without knowing where we started from?”
Here is the Time on Earth link on amazon.com’s site , where you can listen to song samples and purchase the CD.
Here is a memorable performance of “Pour Le Monde” from the program “Austin City Limits,” which I watched late one Friday night with my sweet wife.
Primeval
A new show (to us in the US, anyway) show called “Primeval” debuted on BBC America last night, and it was a fantastic bit of fun. It’s a science fiction series involving dinosaurs rampaging through the suburbs, and the first episode was fast-paced and engaging (if marred by a few too many commercial breaks).
It seems there’s a portal that’s opened up in the Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire, southwest England. The portal is essentially a “rip” in the fabric of the time-space continuum, allowing dinosaurs both large and small, huggable and snarling, to pass through into the present and wreak magnificent havoc in the surrounding area. The cast of characters was assembled (and their backstories introduced) rapidly: a jaded evolutionary biologist, a reptile expert, a curious young boy, a dinosaur fanatic / government conspiracy theorist, and a liaison sent by the Home Office (sort of a British FBI) to keep a lid on the whole thing. It’s frightening but not terrifying, and although the threat of horrid violence certainly looms, it’s not graphically violent thus far.
The first series (we’d call it a “season” here in the states) consisted of six episodes and originally aired on ITV in the UK beginning in February 2007; the 2nd series (7 episodes) aired in early 2008; the 3rd series (10 episodes) is currently being filmed.
Here’s a compilation of scenes from the first episode involving the menacing Gorgonopsid.
It’s on Saturday evenings at 9pm on BBC America, and it’s worth checking out!
Lysol Healthy Touch
Hand Sanitizer
Despite the fact that its name seems to be pulled straight from a health-class video for elementary schoolers about protecting themselves from child predators (“Know the difference between a healthy touch and a bad touch, kids…”), this product is an absolute breakthrough for the germophobic / mysophobic community.
[Mysophobia is fear of contact with dirt and filth and is often seen in OCD sufferers; I bet you can guess what germophobes are afraid of.]
The cleanliness of my hands is something I hold very dear—I wouldn’t say I am obsessive about it to the point at which I’m washing my hands over and over and over. But I eschew dirt and soot and like to have something with me to cleanse me of such contaminants should the need arise. And in my line of work, contact with the foulnesses and pathogens emitted by children is unavoidable.
Wet-Naps and the like are useful, but often do not have the cleaning power to do the job that needs to be done. Purell and other hand gels are adept at neutralizing germs, but their high alcohol content often dries out the hands, which makes them more susceptible to further sullying and the introduction of contagions.
Into this dizzying array of products comes the one I will call The One: Lysol’s Healthy Touch Hand Sanitizer, rolled out in spring 2008. I first found it while wandering around a grocery store called Kroger in Louisville during my trip there for the Shakespeare Behind Bars program. (Hey, I had a few extra minutes before I had to meet Curt, and I find it fascinating to see how grocery stores in other places are laid out, what their prices are like, what kinds of exotic products they carry, etc. So sue me.) It turned out that Healthy Touch had been rolled out on a trial basis in Louisville as part of some test marketing, and when I returned to the Reading area I was dismayed to learn it wouldn’t be available there for several more weeks. But when it did come in, I was all over it—as were my students, who loved to use the canister of the product I had on my desk.
Here’s a commercial for Lysol Healthy Touch, which is basically like a horror film for me--albeit one with a happy ending.
It definitely has its alcohol content—it had better, considering its claim of zapping 99.9% of germs—but it also has moisturizing agents and mild fragrances to keep the hands smooth and eliminate that tacky (as in, sticky) Purell feeling. It comes in two sizes—1.58oz and 5.1oz—and coupons appear frequently in the Sunday papers for Healthy Touch. It doesn’t yet seem to be available everywhere (not at Weaver’s or Redner’s to my knowledge) but you can find them at Giant and, I think, Weis.
Getcha some!!
Monsoon Emerges from Summer Hiatus!
Hello, my friends!
It’s your old pal Monsoon, emerging from my summer hiatus to send some warm greetings out to you all. The summer has been … well, how really can one sum it up succinctly? It’s had its ups (Megan’s baby shower, Marina’s surprise party, sojourns with the wife, etc.) and downs (many of you know my summer began with a professional situation that caused—and still causes—me deep disillusionment). I’ve been watching a bit of reality television (no, not the moronic likes of “Big Brother” and “America’s Got Talent”—the latter irredeemable by the Hoff’s presence). My preference is for shows like “Intervention” on A&E, “Cash in the Attic” and “How Clean is Your House” on BBC America, and I’ve become absolutely addicted to “It Takes a Thief” on the Discovery Channel.
(A quick aside: if you’ve ever seen that show and enjoyed it, you’ve got to see this compendium of outtakes from season two , which I found on YouTube. Fair warning: it’s rife with mature language and sophomoric humor.)
I also have to confess that I watched the final two episodes of “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila,” and I have literally felt dirty ever since. (If you haven’t seen this show, it’s an MTV production involving the impossibly foul bisexual former stripper and all-around überskank Tila Tequila, who puts sixteen lesbians and straight men through tasteless stunts and competitions to vie for a “shot at love” with her. She also pretty much has sexual contact with all of them; as a result more appropriate titles would be “A Shot at Chlamydia” or “A Shot for that VD” or the more succinct “Ick.” Anyway, it’s not pretty.)
And finally, I think my new favorite show is “The Soup” with Joel McHale, airing Friday nights at 10pm on E! It’s a snarky look at the week’s best moments in reality TV, talk shows, and pop culture over all. Here’s a clip that I enjoy for two reasons: it’s funny, and it ridicules the dopey, journalistically obtuse Ann Curry of “The Today Show.”
Took in some flicks at my new favorite theater, Penn Cinema in Lititz, which I wrote about in the spring. Most impressive was Journey to the Center of the Earth in digital 3D. Visually stunning, and a highly entertaining movie…
Oh! And we got a new computer--one that actually, you know, does things. Our previous, nine-year-old Gateway had dialup service and took seventeen hours to load one webpage (perhaps you forgot my tendency for hyperbole; and perhaps I am actually not exaggerating all that much, sadly). Our new HP laptop with D&E Jazzd service is a sleek and multitalented machine.
Anyways, to celebrate a fine summer thus far, and to reorient you all into the world of Monsoon, I thought I’d spend the next couple of weeks posting an old favorite of mine from before I started the blog: The Many Jobs of Monsoon from the autumn of 2006. This five-volume opus is—as the title suggests—a compendium of my most memorable, triumphant, cringeworthy, and downright scarring employment experiences, roughly from the late 1980s to the early 2000s.
I’ll also throw a weather report or two in there, as some of you have been complaining vociferously of my lack of forecasting activity over the past month or so.
Enjoy—and as always, I welcome your comments!
Monsoon's Penn Cinema Review
Over the holiday weekend, Mrs. Monsoon and I took in the new film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It was marvelously entertaining, with real suspense, charm, and breathtaking visual treats. There are minor quibbles I have with the film—two great actors, Cate Blanchett and John Hurt, were utterly wasted in one-dimensional roles; the obnoxiously named Shia LaBeouf gave a bland performance; the film marked the unwelcome return of caricaturish Soviet stereotypes; the plot of every Indiana Jones film is based in paternalism, colonialism, and sometimes downright racism.
But honestly, all of this is beside the point in a very real sense: we go to see an Indiana Jones film to lose ourselves in the adventure, the wit, and (for those of us who remember going to see the original installment in the series multiple times when we were in elementary school) the nostalgia of the experience. We don’t go to interrogate its perspective and pick apart its shortcomings. It’s a thrill ride that, despite its flaws, is not to be missed.
Enough about the film, though—what I really want to tell you about is the venue where we saw it. Rather than heading to one of the three theaters in the Reading area showing Crystal Skull, we ventured south to my new favorite movie theater, Penn Cinema in Lititz. (It’s in Neffsville, technically, I believe, but whatev.)
Penn Cinema is a ten-screen theater that opened in December 2006 after a feverish six months of construction, plopped in what seems to be the middle of a field on Airport Road. (Construction is underway to add four screens by July of this year.)
Catching a flick at Penn Cinema is a delightfully gratifying experience. (First of all, there is a dramatically lower danger of either Mrs. Monsoon or me running into one of our students either working there or attending a film, as can be a hazard at the Berks theaters; the teenagers there are from Warwick and Ephrata school districts, primarily.)
The theater is generally not that crowded, at least during the matinee hours when I tend to visit the theater. It has a large parking lot, clean facilities—there are trash receptacles on the way out of each screening room, stylishly concealed—and lovely, spacious restrooms whose fixtures are all automated to ensure minimal contact with the germs emitted by your fellow theater-goers. The food is just fine, with about-average prices, and local favorites are included in the offerings, lending the establishment a real sense of place. (Speaking of which, there's a charming touch in the theater's lobby: three clocks situated adjacent to one another all display local times in the manner of newsroom clocks with times in New York, London, Moscow, etc.)
The screening rooms themselves are top-notch, and some films are digitally projected. All theaters have stadium seating with extremely comfortable, high-backed seats and movable armrests; the use of curved screens ensures that every seat in the house will enjoy a pleasing view.
Ticket prices are very reasonable when compared with movie houses in the Berks region: evening shows are $9.00 and matinees are $6.50; Cinema Center Fairgrounds Square is $9.25 and $6.25, and Carmike Wyomissing is $9.50 and $6.75.
The real draw to Penn Cinema for me is the fact that many of the annoyances of modern filmgoing are (quite deliberately, it would seem) absented from the experience.
First, I don’t know if we’ve just gotten lucky the few times we have been to Penn Cinema, but distractions like cell phone usage, kicking chairs, crinkling bags, general tomfoolery, and the always-popular inane conversations—“What did he say?”; “Now who is that guy?”; “Hey! Isn’t that the girl who was in that other movie? No, not her, the other one…”—are gloriously absent (or at least minimally present) here.
And the moviegoer is not forced to sit through thunderous commercials for Coca-Cola, the US military, or the like, played at deafening volumes, which go on (pun intended) ad infinitum at other theaters. Allow me to share the strongly-worded pissy-pants letter I sent last year to Carmike Cinemas regarding this very issue, along with a portion of the response I received from a Carmike district manager soon thereafter.
My snotty letter:
On Saturday, December 8th, my wife and I went to the Carmike Cinema in Wyomissing, PA to see the film American Gangster (the 7:10 showing). Once the theater went semi-dark, indicating previews were about to begin, we sat through no fewer than eight commercials for various products, including a full-length music video by the band 3 Doors Down played at incredibly high volume touting the merits of the National Guard.
When the first preview appeared on the screen, we felt that showtime was finally imminent. However, we then sat through six full preview trailers for upcoming movies, all of which were once again played at ear-splitting volume. I realize that trailers are a part of the moviegoing experience, and the newspaper ads for movie theaters include the caveat “all shows include pre-feature content.”
But for this particular movie, we sat through fully 26 minutes of pre-feature content before the film began. I feel this is excessive and a horrible example of taking advantage of one's customers. Given the high ticket and concession prices, I feel it's reasonable for moviegoers to expect that they won't be forced to endure a 26-minute bombardment of noise and ads before the movie they've come to see. I hope you will take seriously into account my observations.
And a portion of the corporate jibba-jabba response I received:
As far as the pre-feature content goes, this program has been in place for the past ten years and longer. We have placed five to seven minutes of commercial advertising at the beginning of our feature to offset the increasing costs associated with doing business. In this way, we do not have to pass these costs on to our customers in the form of higher prices. In fact, theaters that do not show these ads are currently charging up to $18.00/ticket.
We follow these ads with about fifteen to twenty minutes of coming attractions, something that has been done for well over fifty years. The film distributors request these be played, if we do not comply, then it becomes very difficult at negotiation time to obtain their films. This content is generally about twenty to twenty-five minutes long. Please note that these types of ads are becoming more prevalent in all areas of entertainment.
I highlighted one sentence of the district manager’s response in boldface because it is a lie, a damn lie, and a statistic (apologies to Benjamin Disraeli), and my experience at Penn Cinema proves it.
At Penn Cinema, one enters the theater to see a scrolling series of local goods and services being advertised onscreen. The theater lights dim and two or three previews are shown—after which the room descends into a more complete darkness and the film begins. And yet far from necessitating a doubling of ticket costs, Penn’s prices are actually lower than those at Carmike Wyomissing. What now, sucka?!
The owner of my new favorite theater, Penn Ketchum, seems to go out of his way to establish an authentic relationship with his customers and with the community—unlike corporate behemoths whose ties to the community are chiefly within the consumer/business paradigm.
Penn sends out a free weekly newsletter loaded with trivia, facility updates, a few tidbits about his own life, upcoming events, movie showtimes and synopses.
The most distinctive aspect of Penn Cinema’s relationship with the community is its “The Heart of Lancaster Presents…” program. Each Monday at 7pm throughout the spring and fall, Penn Cinema screens a classic film based on customer requests, Penn’s ideas, and availability of prints. Aside from connecting with another business in the Lititz region (Heart of Lancaster is a medical center in the area), the program allows for direct interaction with customers and enables people to see some of their favorite films on the big screen again. Previous classic films screened through “The Heart of Lancaster Presents…” have included Raiders of the Lost Ark (attended by Mr. and Mrs. Monsoon), Casablanca (attended by Mrs. Monsoon and her ma), The Princess Bride, Top Gun, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Raging Bull, The Goonies, Footloose, Citizen Kane, Caddyshack, Witness, and many others.
At a HOL screening, Penn greets the audience and welcomes them to the show, full of enthusiasm for the film. He shares tidbits about the making of the film, some historical perspective when applicable, takes questions from the audience, and gives prizes to audience members who can correctly answer his trivia questions about the movie. The HOL screenings are generally crowded and are marked by a festive atmosphere; people from all over the region are brought together by a genuine love of cinema.
The spring season of HOL has just ended (with a showing of 1989’s Batman at the end of April) but Penn is already hard at work planning the fall 2008 (September through December), spring 2009 (February through April) and subsequent seasons. He is constantly soliciting suggestions, so I’d like to offer forth this list of twenty very different movies off the top of my head that I would enjoy seeing on the “big screen” once again (or, in some cases, for the first time).
The Shawshank Redemption
The Rock
Fletch
All the President’s Men
Drop Dead Gorgeous
Poltergeist
Hoosiers
Action Jackson
The Breakfast Club
Die Hard
WarGames
Legend of Billie Jean / Turk 182! double feature
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Romancing the Stone
Three Amigos!
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Shining
Dog Day Afternoon
Malcolm X
Please leave comments below ranking these ideas and/or offering suggestions of your own! (I think he’s looking to show films that were in original theatrical release at least ten years ago.) I will keep you posted when the next season’s offerings are announced…
Penn Cinema is only about 40 minutes from Laureldale, a half-hour from Shillington, and 25 minutes or so from A-town.
Simple directions: Take Route 222 south past the Adamstown, Denver, and Ephrata exits to the Brownstown/Rothsville exit (Route 772). Right at the end of the ramp, then an immediate left onto Route 272.
Go a bit less than 2 miles, then make a slight right onto Route 722. (There may be a slight detour here due to some road/bridge construction on 722; just follow the signs.)
After about two and half miles, make a right onto Airport Road (where you see a sign for the airport) and continue less than a half-mile; Penn Cinema is on your left.
See you at the movies!
Monsoon Martin’s Open Letter to The Roots re: Deerhoof
Dear Legendary Roots Crew,
Have you heard of “tough love”? It’s when a friend or family member sits you down, fixes a grave stare upon you, and initiates a frank discussion about some shortcoming you have or some baffling behavior you’ve engaged in.
And before we get to the “tough” part, let me—as one should in any intervention that hopes to be successful—talk about the love I have for you.
I have been a rabid fan of your Grammy-winning, authentic hip-hop selves since hearing your song “Proceed II” with jazz institution Roy Ayers on the Red Hot + Cool compilation way back in 1995. I bought your first major-label album, Do You Want More?!!!??!, and instantly loved Black Thought’s flow and witty rhymes, ?uestlove’s inventive percussion, and the organic sound of it all. At a time when hip-hop was succumbing to widespread sampling and stale, programmed backing music, The Roots burst on the scene with live instrumentation, a multiplicity of influences, and fierce talent.
When you released your second major label album, Illadelph Halflife, I was at the release party at the now-defunct HMV Records in Philadelphia at midnight on September 24th, 1996.
Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson, I’m sure you recall greeting us at the door and shaking my now-wife’s hand as she gaped at your massive, Afro-topped frame—6’ 5”, with the Afro 6’ 9”, apologies to Fletch. I’m sure you also recall that I excitedly notified my then-girlfriend as we walked away, “That was a Root!” (for I was not yet a dedicated enough fan to know the name of each band member). And you might finally recall—and who could blame you?—thinking to yourself at that moment, “White people.”
You played for free that night and rocked that store off its foundation with songs like “Concerto of the Desperado” and “Clones,” among others. Rahzel, the human beat-box who was in your employ for a time, was particularly outstanding during this intimate performance.
[For those of my readers who are unfamiliar with The Roots, might I direct you to two videos on YouTube—which you’re free to explore further to find other Roots treasures—that exemplify their artistry and energy in concert. In the first they are performing the song “Game Theory” from the album of the same name; the second video is a recent performance of one of their original hits, “Mellow My Man.”]
We followed you loyally from record label to record label, through band departures (Malik B., Hub) and additions (Kamal, Captain Kirk), through awards, critical successes, and disappointing sales, and popular breakthroughs.
But Roots (here comes the tough love part), What in funkless hell is up with Deerhoof?!!!??!
Deerhoof is an avant-indie-rock band based in San Francisco and has been described by the otherwise competent and reliable music critic Ben Ratliff of The New York Times as “one of the most original rock bands to have come along in the last decade.”
I was blissfully unaware of Deerhoof before I attended my next Roots concert. Billed as “An Evening with The Roots,” the show was held on September 15th, 2005 at the Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall. I had noticed a full roster of at least five opening acts—none of whom I had heard of—but thought little of it. I had an outstanding ticket, having splurged on a box seat, and would see The Roots in a state-of-the art venue in their (and my, sort of) hometown. I was psyched.
I arrived midway through the “lesser” opening acts, which consisted mainly of local acts, close friends of the band, and other up-and-comers. The two most prominent openers for The Roots were TV on the Radio and Deerhoof. TV on the Radio was quirky but decent, though their set went a little long, and we (along with the overwhelming majority of the crowd) were anxious to see the headliners.
And then, Deerhoof came onstage.
My friends, I like many types of music and have been known to embrace unorthodox or experimental acts in my time. I remember listening to my dad’s Mothers of Invention and Captain Beefhart albums with a perplexed awe. Some of my favorite artists of all-time—Minutemen, John Coltrane, Jethro Tull, Fela Kuti, Rage Against the Machine—are artists who are notable for having blended genres, changed the rules, taken a stand, and dared to be distinctive. I am not some kind of musical ingénue who only likes to hear three-minute pop songs or something with a good beat. I like some goofy shit that ostensibly no one else does.
But I say this to you now: Deerhoof was the most upsetting aural experience of my lifetime.
Onto the stage stepped three slender, indistinctive white dudes who looked like they could have been plucked from any suburban high school’s A/V club. Accompanying them was a short Japanese woman, who appeared from her position onstage to be the bassist and vocalist.
The drummer, Greg Saunier, stepped to the microphone and offered a brief, endearing introduction to the band that went something like: “We’re Deerhoof, and we came from California. We hope you’ll like the sounds we make for you.” It was the very last moment I felt anything but fury toward Deerhoof.
And then they began to play.
Saunier instantly became a human Herky Jerk, playing spastic runs that sounded like snippets from a free-form drum solo, never really falling into any recognizable pattern or tempo whatsoever.
The other two guys held guitars and summoned tuneless, often distorted rock chords and the occasional tortured, miserable single note from them, and looked as if they believed they were playing actual music. Their guitar sounds seldom matched the percussive seizures that were happening behind them at the drum kit, as if they were isolated in some sort of invisible soundproof room. (If only I could have found such a room at that moment.)
And then there was the band’s diminutive singer/bassist, Satomi Matsuzaki. Dressed in what appeared to be pajamas, the Japanese-born Matsuzaki—who apparently speaks little English—flailed away inexpertly at her bass guitar, further adding to the musical cacophony. She also sang unintelligible lyrics in a high, gibbering, childish voice devoid of any attempt at consistent pitch.
The aforementioned Ben Ratliff of The New York Times described her thus: “Ms. Matsuzaki, who also plays bass in the quartet, never sang or played an instrument before joining the group 10 years ago, and her thin voice is an acquired taste; many of the English lyrics she sings do not use stresses where normal speech puts them, which can make them nearly impossible to understand.” This is all a very learned, affected way of saying, “The singer is atrocious, but those of you who are so shallow as to demand talent from your musical groups are too unsophisticated to comprehend what Deerhoof is all about.”
What she actually sang about is anyone’s guess. At one point she seemed to be crying, “Don’t eat meat! Don’t eat meat!” as if it were some kind of vegan manifesto, but she could also have been saying “Dominate!” or “Mosley Street!” or almost anything else at all. The lyrics of a song they sang that night, entitled “Flower,” run in part: “Flower, flower, flower / Power, power, power / I come over / I take over!”
[I admit that even my purple, overwrought prose may not be able to convey the actual sounds that confronted us that night when Deerhoof performed, so here are two videos from YouTube of their live performances. The first is entitled “Panda Panda Panda” and encapsulates pretty much all that is wrong about Deerhoof; the second is a live performance of “Flower,” some of whose lyrics are transcribed above. I want you all to check out at least one of these videos, but I must also apologize in advance for the adverse reactions—skin rashes, ear bleeding, and vertigo are not out of the question—you may experience from doing so. I feel like a man who has eaten a bite of a putrid sirloin steak, turns to his dining companions and says, “There’s something hinky about this. Try it.”]
The collective effect of a Deerhoof performance is the musical equivalent of postmodern philosopher Jacques Derrida: inscrutable, pretentious, and infuriatingly obtuse. The sounds stop and start jarringly; the noise threatens fleetingly to fall into an actual meter, then veers wretchedly off into oblivion; and overlaying it all are the Minnie Mouse-like screechings of its lead vocalist, indecipherable and ridiculous.
I looked on with an ever-deepening, bewildered despair that I shall never forget as each song set new standards for unlistenability and horridness. At one point I tried to insist that even though the cumulative effect was horrific, I could tell that the drummer in particular was actually quite an accomplished musician; my companion glared at me with such betrayal in her eyes that I quickly realized any attempts to mitigate or elucidate this auditory travesty would be foolhardy.
I looked around at the diverse crowd that had assembled in Verizon Hall to hear their hip-hop heroes, The Roots: hardcore hip-hop fans; WXPN types who had been turned on to the band by their young urban professional friends; fans ranging in age from teens to fifties, easily. I saw everything from tautly polite expressions to gawping outrage, from bitter resentment to trying-to-make-sense-of-this confusion, from naked rage to blissed-out euphoria.
Wait—“blissed-out euphoria”? Yes, there they were: two art-school types, clearly dedicated Deerhoof fanatics, bopping along and gyrating to the strident din being blasted forth at the audience from the stage. They, I said to myself, and probably to my companion, are goddamned insane.
As I endured the hideous din onstage—which by now was calling to mind the irregular, heaving kecks of a vomiting mule—I fully expected one of The Roots to come onstage, halt the performance, and offer profuse apologies for its lack of quality. But unforgivably, and unforgettably, no such Root forthcame.
Deerhoof’s unceasing, blaring racket stretched on and on, seemingly for days, and I began to wonder why you, The Legendary Roots Crew, would have felt it necessary to inflict this desolate clamor upon your loyal and true fans. Have we—who came to support your joyous homecoming, your ascendancy to Philadelphia musical royalty, your acceptance by polite society—have we failed you in some fundamental way? Is this a punishment of some sort? (And if so: message received.)
The other possibility—and this one was almost more painful to consider—is that you guys actually like Deerhoof. And it’s this potentiality that brings us here to this intervention.
Roots, please hear me: Deerhoof is not, as its fans and some critics have asserted, deconstructing traditional structures and eliding the foundations and boundaries of popular music. Deerhoof is not delightfully turning the industry on its head, interrogating accepted paradigms, or meaningfully subverting compositional rules.
Deerhoof is sucking. That is all they are doing. They are sucking, and they are doing it hard. The sooner you come to terms with this, the better off you (and your fans) will be.
The one bright spot during Deerhoof’s set—aside from its eventual conclusion—occurred immediately following a rousing “tune” that featured Satomi Matsuzaki on cowbell, when a member of the audience bellowed, “More cowbell!” alluding to the “Saturday Night Live” sketch about a Blue Oyster Cult recording session.
Happily, you, the Legendary Roots Crew, played a blistering, two-and-a-half-hour set that night at Verizon Hall and I even met Black Thought—which, again, I’m sure you recall vividly—so the Deerhoof unpleasantness receded into the background of my memory. You came into the room led by a New Orleans jazz band (whose members had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina, and whom you—The Roots—had actually invited to stay at your homes), you had great guests like Dice Raw and even a surprise appearance by the incredible, incomparable Jill Scott.
Since that night, I have tried many times to explain to my friends the horror of—and explain to myself the appeal of—Deerhoof, who evidently has quite a cult following. I have a theory I regard as strong, and—as I am anxious to put the whole Deerhoof matter behind me, as one would any trauma—I will share it here and move on with my life. Deerhoof has set itself up as a truly alternative artist in a world of supposedly “alternative” acts that sign with major labels and “sell out.” Critics have decided that Deerhoof is operating on a more complex and urbane musical level than the average person can really get his or her mind around. The net effect of all this is that music critics or indie fans are afraid to not like Deerhoof because they fear being exposed as Beyoncé-loving troglodytes who are incapable of appreciating dense, intricate music.
No one—not even their fans and fawning critics—understands Deerhoof because Deerhoof is unknowable. It is impossible to derive meaning from the nonsensical, just as it’s proverbially futile to try and get blood from a stone. Deerhoof is a stone that has been thrown at my earholes repeatedly, and I want it to stop.
And this brings me to the renewed sense of urgency that necessitated this little talk, my dear Roots.
Last month, I learned that you would be hosting The Roots Picnic at the Penn’s Landing Festival Pier in early June, which promised to be a wildly entertaining show. I was even looking forward to seeing your co-headliner, Gnarls Barkley.
But as my eyes rested on the third name on the billing for this show, I gasped (literally, audibly; I have a bit of a tendency for the dramatics): Deerhoof. And all the old questions came rushing back: Why do you, my beloved Roots, keep wreaking this dreadful band on your fans? How have we forsaken you?
Again, I understand that Deerhoof has opened for plenty of well-known bands, whose devotion to Deerhoof has been described as “evangelical”: Sonic Youth, Wilco, Radiohead, and The Flaming Lips among them. The only explanation I have for any of this is that there’s been a massive psychotic break in the music industry, and that the members of these bands—and yours—are afraid of not seeing the “genius” in Deerhoof, as I posited above. It’s the only explanation I can live with.
Legendary Roots Crew, my plea to you is this: cease and desist any association with the band Deerhoof and drop them from your June show at Penn’s Landing so that I, and legions of your true hip-hop fans, might again feel able to come and see your concerts without fearing exposure to the rancid, devoid musical stylings of Deerhoof.
Sincerely,
Monsoon's Brief "Your Mama Don't Dance" Update
Friends,
Some of you have asked about the fate of Gilbertsville’s Noelle and Doug Croner, the daughter-father duo competing on the creepily vapid (or vapidly creepy?) Lifetime series “Your Mama Don’t Dance.” The season finale aired on 4/18, the day of my original post on the matter.
Well: they won.
The Reading Eagle, of course, was all over the story with a piece appearing nearly a week later, buried on B10. (I guess profiles of old white women and their gardens, pecan pie recipes, and Eagle Scout notices really jam up the news hole.)
Noelle and Doug’s triumph even earned a disapproving nod from the E! series “The Soup” as its Clip of the Week.
The prize for winning “Your Mama Don’t Dance” was a trip for six to Aruba (with a luggage set) and a $100,000 prize. Now living the high life, a triumphant Doug promptly resigned his post as a floating substitute at Mifflin…
Monsoon Martin's Weather Update for Friday, 18 April 2008
My friends,
If you’ll permit me, I have a couple of odds and ends before I bring you the weather.
First, I have an exciting announcement: After six long, pointless seasons, I have officially kicked my “American Idol” habit! I wasn’t “feelin’ it” (as Randy might say) as the season began, but typically became more interested when the field was narrowed down to 12 in previous seasons. But this year, I haven’t watched more than an hour of the show altogether, and the feeling is wonderful. I have missed some truly awful guest stars and song styles: the Dolly Parton songbook, “inspirational” music, and Mariah Carey’s oeuvre come to mind most readily. At long last, I can honestly say that I have absolutely no stake in who wins this thing, no simmering hatreds of overly perky contestants, no hotly contested, cheating-wracked Idol pool with my (current or former) colleagues. I am free!
And yet, I have not quite emerged unscathed from the morass of televised “reality” show competitions. No, I haven’t become hooked on the gleefully vile, gyrating humpanalia “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila 2” or the cloying ego-fest “Oprah’s Big Give.”
It’s almost worse.
Back in February I heard that a man who substitute teaches in our building once in a while was going to be on a reality show called “Your Mama Don’t Dance.” The premise of the show is that young, professional dancers must partner up with their parents (female dancers with their fathers, male dancers with their moms) and perform a series of routines, week after week. Doug Croner of Gilbertsville—the aforementioned substitute teacher—would be paired up with his daughter, Noelle.
Let me try to state in the briefest terms what this insipid Lifetime network show, airing Friday nights at 9pm, is all about.
First, it is hosted by the almost unbelievably smarmy and cheesy Ian Ziering (pretentiously pronounced EYE-in ZHEER-ing) of “Beverly Hills 90210” “fame.”
Each pair prepares a dance based on the week’s theme—it might be cowboy music, it might be hip-hop dance, it might be showtunes; it will be ridiculous—and is shown in a short taped package rehearsing the routine. Then the pair perform the routine and are rated on a scale of 100 by three judges—choreographer (and former J-Lo beau) Cris Judd, the inexplicably well-known Vitamin C, and the wildly eccentric and inscrutable dancer extraordinaire, Ben Vereen. The scores are invariably inflated, the feedback stunningly incoherent. The two pairs with the lowest scores at the end of each show land in the bottom two; call-in votes determine which pair will survive to next week and which will go home.
On the first episode, Noelle and Doug, horrifically clad in sequined costumes, danced the most cringe-inducing, inappropriately seductive routine (remember, they’re father and daughter) to Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” which was highlighted on the snarky weekend wrap-ups “Talk Soup” (on E!) and “Best Week Ever” (on VH1). We were hooked. (I say “we” because I have involved Wendi in my sickness, and I am not sorry.)
[A note here: I tried and tried to find a clip online of this performance, but could not. For this I am sorry. It really defies description, so if you can ever find it, you won’t soon forget it.]
In subsequent weeks, the performances have only become more disturbing, and somehow Noelle and Doug have made it through week after week. Two weeks ago they performed a hip-hop routine (go to the video entitled “Bottom Pair – Episode 6” if you dare) that surely made Jam-Master Jay spin like a top in his grave—and it wasn’t even the most offensive or “urban” stereotype-laden performance of the night.
In my defense, I typically only watch until Noelle and Doug are on—which, for some reason, happens to be very near the end of each episode. I watch with a mixture of revulsion and bemusement, schadenfreude and an unshakable sense of the coming apocalypse, ultimately rooting against them so I could stop watching this infernal show.
And yet, that strategy has never paid off, as they’ve now made it to the last show, and I’m still tethered to it.
Anywho, this deeply sucky show mercifully has its finale tonight at 9pm, during which the final three pairs (including Noelle and Doug) will perform, and the several hundred people watching live on TV will vote for the winner.
Thanks for allowing me that confession. And now…
Weather narrative: The temperature got into the low 80s in most places within the forecast area (Reading, central and southern Berks County, central and northern Lancaster County) yesterday, and I think we’ll get at least that warm again today and perhaps even again on Saturday.
On Sunday, a front comes through that will cool things off and kick up some breezes; it may bring a few showers, but I don’t think we’ll have significant rainfall. Behind that, we’ll start next week with temperatures that are still higher than normal, but more moderate and pleasant than the highs we’re seeing right now. (“Normal” conditions in our region for this time of year are highs in the low 60s and lows in the low 40s.)
Things get somewhat cooler by the end of next week, with highs only getting into the low 60s and windy conditions making it feel like the 40s or 50s. High temperatures will dip into the 50s in the last several days of April, with the chance of significant rainfall on those days.
Beyond the forecast: As we head into May, things will cool off a bit, as the WeatherTable trend bears out. By the second week in May, though, highs should perk back up into the 60s and perhaps even 70s, for those of you who like that sort of thing.
Monsoon