Das Geheimnis des fliegenden Fisch...
...or, the Mystery of the Flying Fish. Allow me to explain.
On Wednesday evening, I parked my car on the street across from my home. On Thursday morning, I returned to this vehicle to find a dead fish lying next to it. I called Mrs. Monsoon over to take a look, but neither of us could make sense of it. Then I noticed that the dead fish had evidently been flung (with more than a little bit of force) against the driver's side door/window/side mirror of my car, leaving a telltale slick of fish guts and scales but no damage. I have illustrated the incident for you below with two pictures taken at the scene and time of the fishy discovery.
The creature in question. It is a perch, according to friends, and it is delicious when prepared with a little bit of butter and lemon. This one, not so appetizing.
The aforementioned fish guts and scales. Difficult to see, but I promise they're there.
I made my way to school and began to speculate (with the help of my trusty colleagues) what this could mean, if anything. A Google search revealed that a dead fish left on one's doorstep is a warning that he or she is going to be killed (i.e., will soon be "sleeping with the fishes" in organized crime parlance).
[In response to this revelation, a very wise acquaintance of mine wondered aloud, "If a fish means you'll be sleeping with the fishes, what does a horse head in your bed mean, that you'll be sleeping with the horses? What would that even mean?" What, indeed.]
Today, my good people, there was another fish--not in the same place, and this one had not been flung at my car. But it was a fresh fish on the other side of the street (more or less in front of our house) nonetheless. There was also a dead baby animal, possibly a squirrel, not far away.
I have just one question, and perhaps you fine readers can help me out with an answer:
Several theories have emerged to explain this piscine perplexity--some plausible, some delightfully implausible, some so crazy they just might work. Here is a mishmosh...
- This is a tragic case of the rare but heartbreaking phenomenon of serial ichthycide: catching (or even purchasing) live fish, only to end their lives by flinging them against an immovable object at high speed.
- Fish suicide. Too sad to even elaborate.
- The random acts of local hooligans. Young tom-fools, well lubricated with liquor and laden with a bucketful of fresh-caught fish from Muddy Creek, decided to drive down our street in the wee hours and fling the fish at cars. Makes cow-tipping look like a night at the opera.
- I am being targeted by someone I have rankled: a mouthbreathing tea party type, a disgruntled student, an unabashed white person. The theory is that these fishy incidents will chasten me to stop whatever behavior is causing the objection (in the list above: thinking, grading, and listening to hip hop).
- I am being targeted because I am a teacher, and according to many right-wingers, teachers and their unions are the root of all the social and economic evils now faced by our society.
- I am being targeted by broken-nose types for reasons I cannot fathom.
- I am being targeted by any number of organizations, for any number of reasons that I will not enumerate here: the Victor Emmanuel Society, the Knights of Columbus, the Boy Scouts of America...
- A hawk with missing talons has caught the fish in the creek, but then dropped them due to its disfigurement. This would explain both fishes and the baby rodent, mind you, and I thank Wendi for her demented genius.
- The nine-year-old girl in the pink jacket who lives nearby is actually a child prodigy who has built a fully functioning catapult out of twigs and acorns; she has been testing it out using creatures killed by her pet cat and left in their yard.
Well, that's it. Vote for your favorite, or provide another idea. The best ones will be included in my next post. I've gotta move on: bigger fish to fry. (Sorry. I showed admirable fish-idiom restraint throughout that story, I think.)
Friday night, rain tapering to scattered drizzle by the evening. Low 38.
Saturday, foggy to start, and then mostly cloudy; slight chance of showers in the morning and early afternoon. Breezy. High 58, low 44.
Sunday, cloudy and rainy, mainly in the afternoon. High 64, low 53.
Monday, partly cloudy with warm southwest breezes. Look for strong thunderstorms in the late afternoon and evening. High 79, low 56.
Tuesday, very windy and markedly cooler with the chance of a lingering shower or thunderstorm in the morning. High 61, low 36.
Wednesday, sunny, breezy and pleasant. High 63, low 40.
Thursday, partly cloudy and warmer. High 69, low 46.
Friday, cloudy with rain possible. High 65, low 54.
Next weekend (the 16th and 17th), rainy and warmer with highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s.
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...
Monsoon's Forecast: Winter isn't finished with us yet...
Temperatures on Friday will reach the mid to upper 60s, challenging record highs in some places. So we’re finished with sub-freezing temperatures, winter weather, and school scheduling disruptions, right?
LOL, my hopeful friends. Your optimism truly has me ROFL.
Anywho.
The answers are no, probably not, and possibly not. I mean, the angle of the sun is changing every day, becoming more direct; and a good deal of the snowpack has melted. But still, those are my answers.
Here are the details:
Friday 2/18: partly cloudy and breezy with strong winds developing Friday evening and overnight. Afternoon high of 66; there is the slight chance of a passing shower in the afternoon. Clearing overnight and markedly colder with a low of 38.
Why do I have a picture of Charles "Boobie" Clark, famed Bethune-Cookman alum and 1970s Cincinnati Bengals running back, on this blog entry? Is his glowering, afroed presence somehow germane to my discussion of the weather? No, my good people. I have invited him here simply because it seemed like the thing to do. Enjoy.Saturday 2/19: partly to mostly cloudy and really damned windy. The afternoon high of 48 will actually feel more like 32 because of the winds. Winds diminish later; overnight low of 22.
Sunday 2/20: overcast with a chance of rain and drizzle, especially later in the afternoon and in the evening. High 44, low 32. Becoming rather breezy late.
Monday 2/21: cloudy and windy with a bit of rain likely. High 45, low 24. (But wind chills at night and overnight will be in the single digits.)
Tuesday 2/22: a lot depends of track and timing here, but we could get some snow overnight Monday into Tuesday morning. Be sure to check back on Monday (or before, if new information comes to light) for updates, but as of now I’d say you should expect an inch or two of wet snow and minimal travel/school disruptions. I know, you’re all, like, ONNA, but I’m all, TWIS, so GOI.
Whatever the case, it’s going to be windy and colder on Tuesday. Look for overcast skies; high 36 (wind chills in the 20s), low 21 (wind chills in the teens).
Wednesday 2/23: sunny, nice, calmer wind. High 43, low 28.
Thursday 2/24: partly cloudy and cool, but seasonably so (average high for this time of year is 43 or 44 degrees). High 46, low 30. IMHO, this will be the last day for a while that will see below-freezing temperatures. JK! See Friday. And Sunday. And beyond.
Friday 2/25: clouds build in ahead of a system that will affect our area next weekend. Look for warm southeast winds that will usher in warmer air. High 44, low 29.
Next weekend: at this point, it looks like a hot mess. We’ll get up into the upper 50s on a rainy Saturday, then nosedive into the teens overnight into Sunday. People will be, like, OMG, it’s cold! And someone else will be, like, WDYM? It’s still winter! Look for highs barely above freezing on Sunday and Monday, the last two days of February.
Beyond: this system really has my attention. It’s looking like the first two days of March could signal a slam-bang, lead-blanket, charging-rhino type of winter weather event. (I don’t know precisely what I meant by all of those terms, but they sound good and alarming, do they not?)
TTYL,
I decided to provide a "key" for my chat/texting abbreviations... I will confess that while writing the post I had to look a few of these up to make sure I was using them properly...
LOL = laugh out loud
ROFL = rolling on the floor laughing
ONNA = oh no, not again
TWIS = that's what I said!
GOI = get over it
IMHO = in my humble opinion
JK = just kidding!
OMG = oh my gosh
WDYM = what do you mean?
TTYL = talk to you later...
Monsoon on next week's potential baaaaaad mother-(shut yo mouth)
Already following that strange little storm system overnight--which gave a delay to some, converting a half-day into a nearly full day--the streets are abuzz with talk of a monster storm next week. So here's my initial take and a heads-up...
Check out the closed low in the top image, and just look at all that moisture on the GFS. Keep in mind that these models are only forecasting tools, but if this comes to fruition...oooo-wee!It's a classic Nor'easter setting up, most likely arriving early Tuesday morning and ending by Wednesday evening. Right now it looks as though it'll snow heavily throughout that period--with strong winds blowing the snow slantways and greatly diminishing visibility.
The forecast models are blowing this into a major storm, but there are several factors (including storm track, warm air aloft, and the amount of moisture available) that could mix the snow with rain or give us just a glancing blow.
Here's what I think: due to a trough of cold air settling into the area, I think this'll be all snow, at least for us in the Berks region. I also think it'll be a slow-moving system that has the potential to churn away over our area for up to 36 hours. The damage: two feet of snow and at least two more snow days.
But hey - there are 3 1/2 days between now and then, and a lot can change in that space for the reasons mentioned above. I'll be able to give a more definitive forecast on Sunday and/or Monday. Until then, it might not be a bad idea to reassess your travel schedule for Tuesday and Wednesday...just in case.
It's a complicated storm, and no one understands it but Monsoo-oon
Daaaaaaamn right.
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 Time Capsule: Today was like a terd struck me!
Today boggie shnot was dripping out of my nose!
Today is art. Nodbody hardly talked to me!
We had art today. Today is a fartty! day!
Yesterday I could of pooped! My mom drived me nuts!
As I opened the box, I felt as though I was revealing the contents of a time capsule, sealed nearly thirty years ago. In the box—obtained from my parents, who are cleaning out their storage cellar—were artifacts from my first few years of school. I took a deep breath and dug in.
In excavating my wonder years (at Cole Manor Elementary School - what what!), I found stories I had written, pictures I had drawn, simple poetry and yellowed report cards and autograph books. But what I found most engrossing were two journals I wrote in 1st and 2nd grade, respectively. As the note from the teacher stapled to the front cover explained, the journal’s “purpose was to encourage the expression of thoughts and feelings in writing. Some of what is written may by very personal to your child.”
Here is the first entry of the first journal, written when I was seven years old:
In combing through these journals, I found much of value: reminders of old feuds and crushes; evidence of the deeply nerdy and spastic manner in which I conducted myself; remembrance of happy times in what, in recollection, often seems to be a somewhat less than happy childhood. (And some of it confirms that perceived unhappiness.) Most of all, many of the entries are just a jumbled mess of goofiness, still-developing syntax, scatological humor, and utter confusion.
I present here a selection of the most memorable entries—the masterful similes, the eloquent summative statements about lousy days, the beginnings of my storied fussiness, the obsession with fecal matters, the allusions to 1980s television, the burgeoning awareness of girls, the angry denunciations of my peers, and more—all of which is presented unedited, as written. Please, enjoy.
The first journal was from first grade, so I was 7 years old.
Today boggie shnot was dripping out of my nose!
Today is art. Nodbody hardly talked to me!
We had art today. Today is a fartty! day!
Yesterday I could of pooped! My mom drived me nuts!
Today ain’t very good. Today was like a terd struck me!
Ah yes, the great cosmic terd (properly spelled "turd," but whatever). As Longfellow famously wrote, "Into every life a little terd must fall."
Today I went to the bathroom at scholl, and I didn’t have the runs.
I must break in here to observe several patterns already emerging: I was preoccupied with fluids and secretions; I was fond of the exclamatory; I did not care for art class—more on that later—and I was actually kind of lonely.
Today smells like poop!
Today Roberrt brought a picture of naked wimmin in today. I’ll show you.
And I did, by drawing crude renderings of the breasts and buttocks that lingered in my imagination after Robbie Mitchell—he’s to my left in the class picture—showed me the smut. I am in the white plaid shirt; Robbie’s shirt is red and blue.
Aside from those identified in the text: middle row, far left is Luke Embree; middle row, third from left is Craig Smyser; top row, fourth from left is Robbie Fisher; and top row, next to teacher is Christine Oliver
Everybody kiss my grits!
Today Dee was hilarious.
That would be Dee Herbert, top left in the photo, who gave me my first kiss in Kindergarten.
Today Amanda was hit by alot of cheese!
Note the passive construction here: Amanda was hit avoids the delicate question of who did the throwing of the cheese. I don’t recall that it was me, but I cannot rule it out.
Today was like a fart.
Today – toilet.
Today Robert was on the stage for the 9th time!
Again, Robbie Mitchell. Children who misbehaved during lunch were forced to stand on the stage to be ridiculed by the rest of the student body. In reality, few dared ridicule these kids, as they were usually the baddest asses among us.
__________________________________________________________
The second journal was from second grade, so I was eight years old. Here I acquired a more sophisticated vocabulary, wrote more complex sentences, and must have even learned “cursive” (script writing), as there is evidence of such writing herein.
Today is the first day of school. I feel Absouluteley, Positively, lousy!!!! about coming to school today.
Today Sucks!
Today was suckey.
Glen learned a new word over the summer, evidently.
Today we had Mrs. Farb for reading. She is terrible.
I don’t recall what was so terrible about her, but seeing the name did evoke a sort of visceral revulsion in me.
Today I ate my finger.
No, I did not.
Today Adam is DEAD! Because Adam likes Denise and so do I, and Adam likes STEPHANIE and so doe Bruce!
Detail: Monsoon, grade 2That would be Adam Vogin—front row, right side, smartly dressed in a navy blue three-piece suit and docksiders—and Bruce Jacoby—front row left, maroon checkered blazer. Oh, and Stephanie Smith, to my right in the light pink dress. I had my first date with Stephanie in 5th grade: my mom took us to see A Christmas Story and went to see another movie. Stephanie sat in the aisle seat and put her coat in the seat next to her. I spent the beginning of the film brooding from two seats away, but quickly got caught up in the hilarity of the movie. And check out Mrs. Bair, whom I had a major crush on. But I digress.
Today I wanted to sit next to Denise in the play, but I didnt.
Today is really cruddy!
Today I wen’t nuts! Everybody says “Like yer lady shirt”! I was about to kill them!
I know not what shirt had drawn the ridicule of my peers, but I recall having clothing-related distress even in Kindergarten. My mother would dress me in a tan, ribbed turtleneck shirt and brown corduroy pants, and each time I was forcibly clad in this earthy fashion tomb, I suffered untold anguish. In addition, I was beginning to get a bit of a belly (as you can see in the baseball picture), so when my mother took me to Penney’s to shop for school clothes, she would blare as we entered the boys’ section: “Where’s the husky section? Do you’s have husky pants?” And I would die, die, die.
Eddie Oceluss’s _____ is grass today! Kendall is gonna beat his _____! I’m sure were gonna win the fight.
Clearly “ass” is the omitted word, and I think that I took no part in any such dust-up. Sadly, no picture of Eddie, or Kendall. Kendall was a young black man who was always getting in trouble. Usually we were on good terms, but in 3rd or 4th grade I called him a “fartface” while getting off the bus, and he pummeled the ever-loving shit out of me by the monkey bars.
Geic! We have our book test on Monday. My black eye is healing up. I had the most terriblist dream of all of the centurys!
No word on what the dream entailed, or what “Geic” means. Lost to the ages.
I am frusturated! My friend [crossed out theatrically] bruce told denise that I made a crank phone call on her! (But I didnt!)
Really: I may have.
Today we are having spaghetti for lunch and having a play at 11:00. The play is cinderella and I think I’m going to hate it!
Today I think is going to be a bad day Because Kendall has been picking on me. I think kendall is every curse in the world that anybody ever said!
This was around the time we got HBO and my parents would let me watch George Carlin specials with them, so I could have actually supplied more than a few of these curses.
Today I am buying lunch. We are having Cheeseburgers. I like them. Today Kendall is picking on me like I was a nose!
Today I fell in love. This sexy fox came walking down our bus stop. I fell down. And that is all I have to say today.
These were apparently my first blues lyrics. Really, though: can there be any more succinct statement of the devastation that results when love strikes?
Yesterday I saw flash gordon on home box. I might to Denise to the movies if she wants to go and her parents let her go. I am paying for it. We are seeing Robin Hood. I love her. I hope my mom sits in the row in front of us so we can be necking during the movie.
Today we have a contest. I don’t know what it is though. I think it is going to be a dumb contest.
Here we see the beginnings of my cynicism: I do not know what the contest is, but I know it will be dumb.
Today Denise is absent. I think Stephanie likes me. I don’t know why but I think she likes me. Kathy has poison ivy so she better not touch me.
Reality check: Denise is trying to avoid me; Stephanie does not like me (see above); Kathy does not even want to get near my cootie-ridden self.
We have art today. I HATE ART!!!!!
Today I am going to a Phillies game. They are playing the Giants. I hope the Phillies win. I really like Mike Schmidt.
Little League, right around this time. I would spend much of my time standing in the outfield swatting at chiggers, or riding the bench. The outfit in which I am clad is just stone cold sexy: rolled-up jeans, polo shirt collar poking fashionably out of uniform t-shirt, sweatshirt under the t-shirt. Need I go on? Oh, and that's Adam Vogin again, sitting closest to me.
Art was fun yesterday. I am going to be so bored because you know how I hate violin music.
Alright, so I like art now, but I have a well-renowned aversion to classical music.
Today we didnt go to the zoo! I am so mad I could spit nickels! We are going on June 3!
Either my mom or my nana or both used this phrase: “spit nickels.” Could I have really been this worked up about the postponement of our field trip? Or did I just want to wield that cutting phrase?
Today we are seeing the Muppet movie. I liked it the first time and I am willing to see it again.
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And that’s that. First grade began with my favorite hanky, and second grade ended with a frank, controlled keenness to see The Muppet Movie for the second time.
It’s all so much clearer now…
Two bat wings, one Einstein quote, countless profanities, and a tender hug
My good people.
On Tuesday, I witnessed the smarmiest, most unrepentantly rank speech I have ever seen in my teaching career. It was so irredeemably repugnant, so gallingly putrid, that at times it almost rose to the level of art.
The assignment was the farewell address, which is an opportunity for seniors to reflect on their formative years as they prepare to graduate—in terms of academics, activities, relationships, interests, and the like—and present these well-formed and organized ruminations to the class. Many students use the opportunity to talk about an aptitude or pursuit of which many of their peers may not have been aware. Others talk about drug-addicted parents, profound losses, and even psychological struggles of their own. Still others confine their remarks to lighthearted remembrances of the ordinary vicissitudes and occasional monkeyshines of adolescent life.
And then there are those who are seemingly engaged in some sort of unseen scavenger hunt to cause the most offense, draw the deepest gasps, and elicit the most soul-sick groans from the instructor.
Me.
Allow me to hit the highlights of Tuesday’s final speech in my final senior class of the school year. I have inexplicably changed the names to protect the vile. So let’s call Tuesday’s presenter Ignacio Boondoggle.
The speech, it goes without saying, received a grade of zero. And while there were some innocuous reflections and even some sweet moments, they were drowned out by the relentless flood of foulness recounted below. Some of it is nearly amusing; some of it is vaguely troubling; some of it is downright disturbing. All of it is profane. You have been warned.
- The speech began with Ignacio's exhortation to the class to “settle the fuck down!” And settle the fuck down, they did.
- Ignacio lamented that he didn’t have a lot of pictures of him and his friend Travis Banjo because “we’re not gay.” He later reiterated the statement, lest anyone misperceive their special relationship.
- Ignacio reported that he and Travis would often engage in a “ball-grabbing war” to pass the time, and that often, when one of them was feeling down, they would just “grab each other’s balls” to lift one another’s spirits.
- Ignacio also reported playing “The Penis Showing Game” when bored in class. (Apparently this game originates from the film Waiting.) Bart would show Ignacio the “Bat Wing”; Ignacio would show Bart the “Shy Turtle.” This would be done at the most inappropriate moments possible in order to enhance their enjoyment of this pastime.
- Ignacio likes to get, and be, naked. He met his good friend Bart when he screamed “Group hug!” in the showers one day after gym class. Bart was the first (and only) respondent to Ignacio’s invitation.
- He frequently plays strip rock-paper-scissors and admitted that quite probably—on a subconscious level—he purposely loses these games so he can remove more clothing. Ignacio also reported getting in trouble for a nudity-related stunt in chemistry class last year: he climbed inside a cabinet and pressed his bare buttocks against its glass doors, giving the teacher (and his peers) an unwanted show.
- Once, in accounting class, the teacher was conducting an exercise and needed a fictional name for an imaginary checking account. Ignacio obligingly supplied “Gum Cuzzler,” and the teacher began writing it on the board. Once she realized the suggestive intent of his suggestion, the teacher sent Ignacio from the classroom. “I got in trouble for that one,” he recalled blithely.
- Reported playing “Smear the queer”—in which a target is identified and all others attack him—when he joined the soccer team in high school. He helpfully had this phrase in his PowerPoint presentation so there would be no question as to its proper spelling and usage.
- A portly young man's shirt ripped during gym class and his “boob” came out. Ignacio threatened to “titty-fuck” him. (At this time, I interrupted Ignacio to ask him if he remembered the conversation we had last week, in which I cautioned him against including inappropriate content in his speech and he had promised he would tone it down. He said he did remember, and he would tone it down. But by this point he was like a runaway train of ribaldry. He could not—would not—be stopped).
- In Ocean City, Ignacio, Travis and Bart spent the time “trying to pick up fat chicks.”
- Ignacio made reference to a film called Two Girls One Cup, and the fact that it changed his life. (The film's title also graced a PowerPoint slide.) A cursory Google search indicates that the film is actually the unofficial title of the trailer for a scat-fetish pornographic film called Hungry Bitches. If you don't know what “scat-fetish” is, you are lucky, and you should not find out. The appearance of the title and mention of the film was met with uproarious laughter from many of the boys in attendance. (There is apparently a spate of videos taken of people’s reactions when seeing the video in question for the first time. Search “2 Girls 1 Cup reactions” on YouTube for examples of this fascinating phenomenon. My favorite is also from one of my favorite musical groups of all time, hip hop giants The Roots; be warned, you need to turn down your computer’s volume, because there is lots of horrified screaming. None of these reaction videos shows the actual pornographic clip, rest assured.)
- Ignacio stated, in a matter-of-fact way, that his prom date this year was a “whore.” Just as notably, he seemed untroubled by this young lady’s apparent harlotry.
- Ignacio admitted losing many leg-wrestling matches at family functions because he was competing against “grown-ass men.”
- Ignacio's penultimate slide read as follows: “Your only young once so fuck shit up.” - Albert Einstein. I have several problems with the inclusion of this quotation: first, some in the audience apparently believed it was plausible that Albert Einstein had uttered the phrase attributed to him, which their bewildered questions revealed; second, the use of ‘your’ where ‘you’re’ would have been proper proves that my efforts to teach Ignacio the difference between a possessive and a contraction were an utter failure; third, I quit.
- The slideshow—and his speech—closed with a self-portrait which Ignacio had shot the previous evening. It featured Ignacio recumbent on a bed, completely nude, with a blanket covering his groin. At this, I sprang up from my seat and turned the computer projector off. Though the photograph was not revealing in any specific way, its horrifyingly suggestive tone—and its subject’s unmistakably lascivious gaze—were very much the last straw for me. In so many ways.
- After the rest of the class had left and I was still reeling from what had just happened, Ignacio approached me gingerly, said he was sorry that things got out of hand, thanked me for putting up with him all year, and gave me a tender hug. And with that, he was gone.
Never shall I forget that speech. Not if I live a thousand lifetimes, not if I have ten thousand more students. Notwithstanding any hypnotism, primal scream therapy, traumatic brain injury, or other Eternal Sunshine-esque method of targeted memory erasure I might visit upon myself. Never.
And so I ask those of you who are not in the education field: remember well what I have told you, and consider gently the grim task of the teacher in dealing with these sorts of tom-fools.
Thank you for your time. I am getting an early start to summer vacation.
Monsoon's Forecast - Presidents Day storm and beyond...
So…do you want the good news first, or the bad news first?
If you’re an optimist, you’d like to get the bad news out of the way so you can focus on the good.
If you’re a realist, you want the good news first because you need to steel yourself for the bad, which you’re convinced will be much more bad than the good news is good.
If you’re a nihilist, nothing matters at all, so the concepts of “good” or “bad” news are meaningless.
If you’re a hedonist, you’re only interested in what can give you pleasure, and therefore you want to revel in the good news and utterly ignore the bad news.
If you’re a Zen Buddhist, you have worked to transcend the concepts of “good” and “bad,” and believe that all things just are; therefore, you welcome any and all pieces of news with equanimity.
If you’re a defeatist, you think there is no good news, so the above question is really just a cruel bait-and-switch.
I could go on. I suppose I’ll do it the old-fashioned way and present the “bad” news first:
We’re getting more snow. Here in the forecast region (Berks, Lancaster) we’ll see all snow from a system that will bring much more mixed precipitation to Philadelphia and areas south and east. Light snow arrives around mid-afternoon Monday and is heaviest later Monday night, then overnight into Tuesday. Snow will taper and end by late Tuesday morning. Some models are suggesting that the snow could linger into Tuesday afternoon, which is potentially a factor in school closings and delays.
For accumulation, I’m going with 4-6 inches in central and southern Berks, Lancaster County, and the north/west suburbs of Philadelphia. A bit more is possible in isolated areas, and especially north of Reading and in Allentown, where folks could see 8 to 10 inches. Wind will kick up on Tuesday afternoon and blustery conditions will be with us into Wednesday.
I know this is a minor to moderate storm in terms of accumulation, but this is falling on top of historic amounts from last week's blizzards, and some back roads are still snow-covered. These factors make this storm potentially something more than a mere nuisance.
Delay and cancellation percentages; most schools have off Monday (including Mifflin), but I'll include it here for those schools using it as a snow make-up day...
Monday cancellation, 10%
Monday early dismissal, 35%
Tuesday delay, 75%
Tuesday cancellation, 40%
On Wednesday 2/17 and for the remainder of the week, we’ll see partly sunny conditions with highs in the mid 30s and lows in the upper teens to low 20s.
Cloudy and milder for the weekend with highs in the upper 30s (and perhaps some snow flurries or showers on Sunday), but I think we’re going to miss the accumulating snow that seemed destined to drop more on us.
Next week looks cold to begin with highs struggling to reach the freezing mark, but high temperatures will rise into the upper 30s and perhaps low 40s (!) by week’s end.
A bit of a warm-up will welcome us into March.
Here’s the good news I promised: this may be our last accumulating snowfall of the season.
But…stay tuned for updates.
Hasselhoff to star in new television show; Monsoon on tenterhooks
It’s been some time since I’ve mentioned the World’s Greatest Entertainer in this space—in fact, I had to go back to my pre-blogging days (when I used to send out my ramblings via email newsletter) to find any sustained discussion of this man. Well, it’s about damned time I brought you the latest about this living legend.
I am talking, of course, about David Michael Hasselhoff.
I’m not sure why it’s been so long since I have done a Hoff-focused piece. Maybe it was the video of his drunk, incoherent, and shirtless self, seated on the floor of a hotel room, trying in pathetic vain (and with plainly impaired dexterity) to consume a burger—a video shot by his daughter and reportedly released by his ex-wife—that kept me mum.
A still frame from the video in question; despite appearances, I SWEAR TO YOU that burger is going in and not coming up.
Maybe I was moved to silence by his several-season stint on the putrid, overblown NBC summer freakfest “American’s Got Talent”—which could not even by redeemed by his élan, his witticisms, or The Hoff’s annual live performance which would be the highlight of each season finale. (Here's a video clip of last year's performance.)
But, friends, Der Hasselhunk is about to break out the box—in a big way. He is poised to, once again, take his rightful place atop the entertainment throne.
Two weeks ago, Sir David, Knight of Hard Bodies announced that he was leaving “America’s Got Talent” in order to “be able to follow my dream to do my own TV show, which will be announced very shortly,” as he told the grey lady of gossip rags, People Magazine. “AGT” has already hired the wanky baldster Howie Mandel, formerly of the dimwitted game show “Deal or No Deal,” as Hasselhoff’s replacement.
[Tongues were wagging straight away in speculation that Hasselhott was actually fired from “AGT” for being drunk on the job, and these naysayers pointed to recent struggles he’s had with alcoholism as proof. Why else, the thinking goes, would he quit a top-ranked summer show at the height of its popularity? But of his three hospitalizations last year purportedly for alcohol poisoning—in May, September, and November 2009—only one was verifiably tied to his drinking.]
I reject this wanton conjecture, this scurrilous scandalmongering, my good people, and choose instead to focus on the future: David Hasselhoff will soon be on the TEE-vee in his very own show. It got me to thinking…what might this show be? Or is it still in development? Or is he entertaining several competing offers?
I hereby breathlessly offer here my top pitches for Hasselhovian television programming:
- “Hoff the Cuff.” In the tradition of “Shatner’s Raw Nerve” on the Biography Channel starring the “Star Trek” and “Private Practice” star, this series will feature awkward, one-on-one conversations between the Hasselhost and his celebrity subject. Suggestions for interview subjects include Luke Perry, Neil Diamond, Kiefer Sutherland, and Stephen Hawking. (You see, given his egomania, it’s important to find guests with whom Hasselhoff can bond over a common trait or experience. In the above list, it’s having perfect hair; gaining wild popularity as a musician and international sex symbol; starring in a number-one action-adventure series; and employing a staggering intelligence to probe the mysteries of theoretical cosmology and spatial relativity.)
- A remake, or more accurately a continuation, of the show “Baywatch Nights.” This criminally underrated series spun the Mitch Buchannon “Baywatch” lifeguard by day into a private detective by night. It co-starred Angie Harmon, Lou Rawls, and Gregalan Williams and was really rather good. The show sought to embody the casual sensibilities of the greatest detective show ever (“The Rockford Files”) in an L.A.-after-dark milieu. They could even bring back Angie Harmon (even though she’s a Republican who had publicly said she’d support Sarah Palin for President in 2012) and Gregalan Williams, though Lou Rawls has been unavailable since his death in 2006.
“Get it Hoff your Chest.” A double pun here in the title, since Hunk-o-hoff is renowned for his barrel chest, his rock-hard pecs, and the lustrous fur that adorns his torso. This is a talk show—which may seem like a step backward for Hasselhoff, but it comes with a twist: anyone willing to come on the show and confess to a betrayal or outright crime on-air will be eligible to win a prize. The David will employ his trademark tact and sensitivity to shepherd the guests through the resultant emotional minefield. - “Show Hoff.” Ordinary people are invited on to show the extraordinary things they can do: play “Yankee Doodle” on a nostril flute; stilt-walk through an out-of-control bonfire; perform an eye operation blindfolded and only using one’s feet; perform a flawless rendition of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 using only flatulent and eructative emanations. It’s kind of a cross between “The Gong Show,” “That’s Incredible!” and “America’s Got Talent,” except “Show Hoff” would have the good sense not to cheapen the word “talent” by applying it to a family of Irish dancers (or more impressively, would not even allow said dancers through the stage door).
- “Piss Hoff!” On BBC. It’s a hidden camera show, hosted and orchestrated by Hasselhoff, on which the marks can earn money and prizes by keeping their cool in the face of pranksters and provocateurs. Kind of a cross between “Punk’d” and MTV’s “Boiling Points.”
“Hoff by That Much.” It’s a sitcom, which is the one performance genre Hasselhoff has yet to conquer. In this series—about a divorced, 40-something (he can pass for it!) dad raising six troubled foster kids on his own—David will display a razor-sharp sense of comedic timing and earn near-universal praise for his chops. Liam Neeson will stun Hollywood by accepting the role of Hoff’s zany, eccentric neighbor Herman; Lorraine Bracco shines as Hasselhoff’s tart-tongued ex-wife and (in a madcap twist) boss at the ad agency where he works.- Yet another spin-off (or here, spin-hoff?) of the CSI franchise. This one is called “CSI: Pasadena” and stars Hasselhoff as the lead investigator, Meshach Taylor (of “Designing Women” and Mannequin semi-fame) as his saucy partner, and Nancy McKeon (of “The Facts of Life” and subsequently, of made-for-television movies) as the sassy forensic lab technician and Hoff’s on-again-hoff-again love interest. I smell a hit!
- A reality show in the vein of “Denise Richards: It’s Complicated” and “Being Bobby Brown” entitled “Don’t Hassel the Hoff.” (The title comes from a popular t-shirt featuring his moniker, which he co-opted for the American release of his autobiography back in 2006. The series will air on A&E or TV Land and will feature the dizzying day-to-day hi-jinks and manufactured crises that comprise his “real” life, plus a generous helping of his daughters (ages 19 and 17) as they embark on teen-pop careers, aided by their ultra-supportive dad. Possible alternate titles include “Hoff and Running,” “Hoff the Hook,” and the simple, yet elegant, “Hasselhoff.”
Of course, when he made his announcement, he very coyly failed to specify whether the show would be featured on American television. It could be that he’ll be the star of a new series to be aired where his genius is most appreciated: Germany. Of course, he’d have to pick up a little bit more of the language, but he’s got it in him. Here are some very real possibilities…
- “Hoffnung.” This word—which bears an etymological kinship to its star’s moniker—literally means “Hope.” The David will host a one-hour series inspired by the likes of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” and the Make-a-Wish Foundation. In it, he will visit the moderately depressed and slightly challenged, easing their minor troubles by singing them songs and shadowing them for a week. Each participant gets an “I’m with the Hoff” t-shirt—in Germany, it might be rendered “Ich spaziergang mit den Hoff”—to commemorate the easing of his or her vague malaise or nagging toe-ache.
- “Hoff Tanztastisch!” This word blends the verb tanzen (to dance) with the adjective fantasticsch (take a guess) to produce the delightful title of this song-and-dance variety show. Featuring guest comedians, actors, and entertainers from the bustling world of German show business, “Tanztastisch!” will contractually include at least two full-length performances by The Hoff—one auf Deutsch—and at least eight minutes of airtime picturing The Pecsational One with his tucked shirt unbuttoned to the navel, revealing his hairy chest.
- “Der Hasselhoff Verschiedenartigkeitsspektakel.” This translates to “The Hasselhoff Variety Show” and is essentially an alternate title for the show described above.
- “Haariges Hoffbrust mit den Glänzender Schönheit.” It’s a refinement of the variety hour, more pointedly sensual and more demographically specific. The title translates roughly to “Hairy Hoff-Chest with the Glistening Beauty” and will consist of nothing but a full hour of … what the title describes.
- “Der Fall der Berliner Mauer.” This show, which translates to “The Fall of the Berlin Wall,” grows out of Hasselhoff’s own oft-repeated claims that he felled the Berlin Wall with his 1989 concert there. (The concert was actually right after the wall fell, but his single “Looking for Freedom” was at the top of the German charts at the time it came down. So clearly he has a claim.) Anywho, in this lighthearted homage twenty years on, David counsels troubled couples—one of whom grew up in West Berlin, one in East Berlin—and helps them tear down the wall of anger that divides them. It could work.
Breaking news, for those few of you who are actually still reading this: Last week it was announced that, in fact, David Hasselhoff will be starring in an as-yet-untitled new reality series on A&E which will follow his life and his daughters’ burgeoning pop careers. The series will begin airing sometime later in 2010.
I cannot wait.
Flashback: Monsoon Hasselhoff's "Looking for Freedom" Forecast
My good people...
In the description of this weblog, you have been promised "Forecasting, Minutae, Jibba-Jabba, and Hoffophilia." In the first two years of its existence, there has been a glut of the first three and a regrettable dearth of Hasselhovian content.
That is about to change.
In anticipation of a post currently in the works following the jouncing pecs of The Hoff's life and career, here is one of the first pieces in which I declared my strange love for Sir Chisel of Hairwicke. It's from April 25, 2005 and was disseminated via email, in the old-school fashion, years prior to this weblog's genesis. And it follows below, enhanced with weblinks.
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Monsoon Hasselhoff’s “Looking for Freedom” Forecast
Monday, 25 April 2005
The entertainment dynamo known simply as The Hoff was born David Michael Hasselhoff born July 17, 1952 in Baltimore, Maryland.
The Greatest Photo Ever Taken; foreground, L to R, Gary Coleman and David Hasselhoff; background, KITT
David Hasselhoff, of course, is a multifaceted, multitalented conquistador of stage, small screen, and song. His distinguished television career has been distinguished (so far) by three unforgettable roles: Dr. Snapper Foster on “The Young and the Restless” in the 1970s; Michael Knight (and a memorable turn as the goateed evil twin Garthe Knight) on “Knight Rider” in the 1980s; and Mitch Buchannon on “Baywatch” in the late 1980s to early 90s (Mitch was also spun off onto the underappreciated early-90s adventure drama “Baywatch Nights,” co-starring Gregalan Williams, Angie Harmon and Lou Rawls).
Hoff as Garthe Knight; Garthe once growled: “Michael Knight is a living, breathing insult to my existence.”
His theatre career has recently included roles in the American production of “Jekyll and Hyde” and a leading role in the London production of “Chicago.”
But it is The Hoff’s music career that truly sets him apart as a triple-threat and one of the seminal artists of our time. He busted onto the scene with 1985’s Night Rocker (“I am the night rocker; I wanna rock you in my song.”). He has since released more than a dozen albums in Germany, the only place his true greatness has been acknowledged. The David has achieved the popularity of a Michael Jackson or Tom Jones in Germany. Most recently he released David Hasselhoff Sings America in 2004 and The Night Before Christmas this past November.
From “Flying on the Wings of Tenderness”:
We’re flying on the wings of tenderness
Riding the rivers of gentleness
Into the garden of love we’ll flow and watch it grow together
We’ll build a castle out of honesty
Fill every room with the harmony
Seeing the world trough each other’s eyes
We’ll live our lives together…
In 1994 His Hoffness decided to make a run at the musical stardom that had so eluded him in his homeland. He released a self-titled American “debut” album and hooked up a sweet Pay-Per-View star-studded concert event.
Based on eyewitness accounts (and the opinion of the Hoff himself), he rocked. I mean—he rocked the house like the house had not theretofore been rocked. He left the stage, though, and members of his management team inexplicably wore long faces. “What gives? I rocked it hard,” intoned the breathless David, who had truly “left it all onstage.” It was then that he saw a television—tuned to the live O.J. Simpson white bronco chase. Alas, while the hirsute Hoffmeister was delivering a mind-blowing concert to signal his triumphant emergence onto the American music stage, America was watching a slow-speed chase that would kick off the “trial of the century”—and not his performance. Ach!
His Bemulleted Grace played “Looking for Freedom” at Berlin Wall, New Year’s Eve 1989, to celebrate its crumbling. Hasselhoff himself feels his popularity in Germany was instrumental in bringing down the Berlin Wall and ending the Cold War: “I find it a bit sad that there is no photo of my hanging on the walls in the Berlin Museum at Checkpoint Charlie.”
It was rumored that he was going to release a rap album with Ice-T, but these rumors, tantalizing though they were, proved to be false.
The Hoff once gushed about one of his wildly popular projects: “Beyond its entertainment value, ‘Baywatch’ has enriched and, in many cases, helped save lives. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to continue with a project which has had such a significance for so many.”
On a similar note, commenting on the monumental impact his worldwide stardom—nay, superstardom—has had on children: “There are many dying children out there whose last wish is to meet me.”
Regarding his cameo in the film Spongebob Squarepants: “I've gone from talking to a car to swimming with Pamela Anderson to starring with a sponge.” The David also had a cameo in the film Dodgeball as a German soccer coach.
And finally, in the following oft-repeated quote, The Buff One manages to cram an astounding four clichés into one statement: “Keep smiling! Believe in yourself and never give up; dreams will come true.” And indeed they have: In 1996, His Hairiness received a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.
One of Der Hoff’s most well-known and finely-crafted songs is the German language “Du”—a portion of which I have included (and translated) here for you all:
Du bist alles, was ich habe auf der welt,
Du bist alles, was ich will.
Du, du allein kannst mich versteh’n,
Du, du darfst nie mehr von mir geh’n.
Du, ich will dir etwas sagen
Was ich noch zu keinem anderen mädchen gesagt habe,
Ich hab’ dich lieb, ja ich hab’ dich lieb
Und ich will dich immer lieb haben
Immer, immer nur dich.
*******************************
You are all I have in this world,
You are all I want.
You! You alone can understand me,
You! You may never go away from me.
You…I will say something to you
That I have said to no other girl,
I love you; yes, I love you
And I will always love you
Always, always for only you.
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First Weather Forecast of the 2009-2010 School Year!
...but before we get to the weather, let me offer hearty and enthusiastic birthday wishes to Mallory King, who turns one tomorrow! As the Germans would say, "Alles Gute zum Geburtstag; auf dass den Hasselhoffskraft lächelen über Sie an!" which means, "Best wishes on your birthday; may the power of the Hasselhoff smile upon you!"
Now, onto the weather...
We've been in a dry period of late, and it looks like high pressure will predominate for the foreseeable future here in the region: even when I'm forecasting rain over the next two weeks or so, it's just a sprinkle here and a shower there for the most part. Enjoy...
Mon 9/7 partly sunny, clouding up late; slight chance of a shower or two. High 76 / Low 56
Tue 9/8 more clouds than sun, breezy; perhaps a bit of drizzle or even a shower. High 79 / Low 58
Wed 9/9 breezy, clouds dominate; drizzle or a few showers in the evening or at night. High 74 / Low 62
Thu 9/10 partly to mostly sunny, breezy and cooler; isolated showers late. High 69 / Low 56
Fri 9/11 partly to mostly sunny and pleasant. High 75 / Low 58
Sat 9/12 mostly sunny with patchy clouds. High 78 / Low 60
Sun 9/13 sun mixed with clouds. High 79 / Low 61
Mon 9/14 increasingly cloudy. High 76 / Low 54
Tue 9/15 partly sunny, more humid and cloudy with a few showers in the evening. High 79 / Low 53
Wed 9/16 cloudy with periods of rain; clearing late. High 72 / Low 53
Thu 9/17 mostly clear and pleasant. High 68 / Low 50
Fri 9/18 cooler; sunny and pleasant. High 65 / Low 46
Sat 9/19 sunny, clear, and damn near perfect. High 70 / Low 48
Beyond high temperatures climbing through the 70s for a few days following the forecast period, then seasonably cooler as we head into autumn.
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 How Hot Will It Get / Bunk-a-bration
How hot will it get? No, that’s not the title of the newest jam by Thugg Mugg featuring Flexx Nutz and Neecie Flambé. It’s a reference to the near-record temperatures, 20 degrees or more above the seasonal average high (the low to mid 60s), that await us this weekend.
But first, allow me to celebrate: Friday is the eight-month anniversary of The Bunk’s birth, and he’s still a delight. He is fully healed from his surgery and seems to be coping well with his no-nad-hood.
Some personality (caninality? clumsy as that sounds, I think it’s actually a word) quirks continue to emerge: he is an inveterate finger- and toe-licker, for reasons that even he would be at a loss to explain; he prefers to sleep whilst jammed up against a door, preferably lying on his back with his extremities in the air; one of his favorite pastimes is to splash around with his paws in a shallow receptacle—like a water bowl, for example; he has a weakness for toilet paper sur la rouleau (on the roll); he likes being brushed, but things take a sour turn when someone tries to brush, however delicately, in the area of his nethers—then he emits a reedy lamentation (which is unfailingly hilarious) and tries to bite the brush, and the brusher. In short, we love him.
So here are some recent pictures of The Bunk for your enjoyment.
The Bunk on The Couch 
The Bunk Examines Backyard; Gets Scritch from Monsoon 
The Bunk Slumbers in Splayed Contentment
Now, on to the weather. Let’s look first at the next five days or so...
Friday 4/24: Mostly sunny and warmer with mild southwest breezes. High 77, low 49.
Saturday 4/25: Plenty of sunshine, breezy and still warmer. The temperature should easily eclipse the record of 84, set in 2001. High 87, low 56.
Sunday 4/26: Sunny, clear and very warm. The temperature could challenge the record of 91 set in 1990. High 90, low 58.
Monday 4/27: Partly cloudy and continued very warm. We could again challenge a record: 92, set almost a century ago in 1915. High 89, low 56.
Tuesday 4/28: Partly cloudy and still warm, but not quite as balmy; increasing clouds and humidity. High 82, low 56.
The second half of next week is looking grey and wet (no, that’s not Rue McClanahan’s memoir of struggling to maintain her libido into her 70s, it’s just a description of the weather) with highs in the upper 60s, lows in the upper 40s, and rain possible on Wednesday and Thursday.
Next weekend, as we limp into May, we’re looking at conditions a bit below normal with highs in the 50s on Saturday 5/2 and the mid to upper 60s on Sunday 5/3, with cloud cover and rain possible on Sunday.
The first full week of May (Monday the 4th through Friday the 8th) is looking seasonably pleasant and right about average, with highs in the low 70s and lows in the upper 40s to low 50s. The next really good chance of rain comes in around that next weekend, the 9th and 10th.
Monsoon's Weather Update and Jibba-Jabba for Tuesday night, 23 March 2009
Habari mori,
Sorry I haven’t posted any weather (or jibba-jabba) for a little while. Kind of a lot going on in the world of Monsoon. The good news is that spring is here and everything is now looking up. Thanks to everyone who sent flowers, well-wishes, emails, texts, gifts, and of course, scrumptious meals (big-ups to Megan!!). We really are lucky.
A brief update on the weather appears below. Soon I’ll have a Bunk update, as tomorrow (Tuesday the 24th) is the seven-month anniversary of his birth!
Tonight will be clear and quite cold, especially for this time of year. Strong winds will diminish overnight; low will be in the upper teens.
Tuesday will be sunny and continued chilly, with temperatures a bit below normal. Expect a high in the upper 40s with moderate winds, and an overnight low in the mid 20s.
Wednesday looks partly cloudy, windy, and seasonably milder with a high in the mid 50s and an overnight low around 40. A few showers a possible late.
On Thursday temperatures will be nearly steady in the mid to upper 40s with overcast skies. Expect showers and drizzle off and on.
Friday looks quite nice: partly cloudy with a high creeping into the upper 50s to perhaps the low 60s; low only around 40.
The weekend will be overcast, chilly, and rainy. Expect rain mainly on Saturday, but showers and sprinkles* could linger into Sunday. Highs will get into the low 50s on Saturday, then only into the mid 40s on Sunday. On Sunday into Monday, temperatures could dip below freezing—possibly for the last time this season.
*A note about “sprinkles”: that is the proper term for precipitation that is steadier than drizzle but not quite steady enough to send people running for their umbrellas. “Sprinkles” is not the term for those small, oblong toppings that are used to coat an ice cream cone or doughnut. The proper term for these dessert toppings is “jimmies.” Anyone beg to differ?
Jimmies.
A postscript to the note: some have speculated that “jimmies” (used to refer to chocolate ones, with “sprinkles” being used to refer only to the rainbow-colored ones) is a racist term whose origin lies in “Jim-Crow” laws. I am just the sort of fellow who would all-too-eagerly believe in such conspiracy-theory bigoted origins. However, my own exhaustive research has revealed that this is not true; the term “jimmies” refers to the machine operator at Just Born, which made the “chocolate grains,” later known as “jimmies.” Further confusing the matter is that these items are also sometimes known as “hundreds-and-thousands” and “on-tops” (particularly in Britain, but these also refer to such cousins of jimmies as nonpareils). And that “jimmies” are slang in Canada (and elsewhere) for the genitals, and slang in some parts of the Northeast for prophylactics.
Where was I?
The last couple days of March (Monday and Tuesday) are looking partly cloudy with temperatures a bit lower than normal: highs in the mid to upper 40s, lows in the mid 30s.
Wednesday (April Fool’s Day, and Megan’s birthday) will see a sharp drop-off in temperatures as a moisture-laden system moves through. High will only get into the upper 20s, and we could get as much as six inches of snow from this event. Expect widespread school closures.
April Fool. (Come on—you didn’t see that coming?) Expect seasonably mild conditions with a high in the mid 50s and a low in the upper 30s for the first day of April.
The rest of the week is looking rainy and cool with temperatures mainly in the low to mid 40s.
The following weekend (and beyond) will see clearing and spring-like conditions: highs in the 50s and reaching toward 60!
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!
Nothing Neither Way?
It’s been a season of near-misses, with lots of storms either heading to our north or to our south, and few direct hits. (Actually, shouldn’t the term be “near-hit”? I present this George Carlin monologue to honor his recent passing and celebrate his unassailable logic.)
Here's one they just made up: “near miss.” When two planes almost collide, they call it a “near miss.” It’s a near hit. A collision is a near miss. (WHUMP!) “Look, they nearly missed!” ... “Yes, but ... not quite.”
The storm has taken a turn well to our south, so I don’t even think we’ll see a whole lot of cloud cover—let alone any precipitation—for Valentine’s Day. The next good chances of a snow event are Monday and Thursday. See below for details.
Today will be partly to mostly sunny with those high winds subsiding by late morning or so. High in the mid 40s, low in the low 20s.
Valentine’s Day looks partly cloudy with a high in the low to mid 40s and a low again in the low 20s.
Sunday will bring more of the same: seasonably cool weather and plenty of sunshine with highs in the mid 40s and lows in the mid 20s.
Presidents Day could bring some snow late—though it’s looking increasingly as though that system will also slide to our south. I will let you all know if that changes. For now, let’s call is partly to mostly cloudy and colder with a high of 37 and a low of 20.
Tuesday will be partly to mostly sunny and seasonable: high in the upper 30s, low in the mid 20s.
Wednesday will be mostly cloudy with a chance for sleet and snow, particularly late and overnight into Thursday. High 34, low 28.
Thursday may begin with some snow showers or flurries; remaining cloudy and windy for the day. High 37, low 24.
Friday will see the beginning of a trend toward colder-than-normal conditions: windy with perhaps a lingering snow shower or flurry; a high only in the low 30s, a low in the upper teens.
Next weekend (the 21st and 22nd) is looking interesting weather-wise, particular toward the latter half, which holds the chance for snow and sleet.
Beyond: seasonably cold with highs in the upper 30s to low 40s; lows generally in the mid 20s. Next good chance for snow is Tuesday the 24th.
We Want the Bunk! Gotta Have that Bunk! (ow)
Habari mori,
The purpose of this post is twofold: to update you regarding my thinking about the potential storm next week, and to update you about the growth of The Bunk. Starting, then, with the most important news of
the two...
Bunk just turned five months old on January 24th and is filling out nicely. He’s every bit the delight he was when he first came into our lives two months ago, and his training continues to go swimmingly. (He’s mastered “sit” and “down” and is working on “stay,” “come,” and “leave it.”)
I thought I’d share some new pictures of Bunk, who now weighs 32 pounds—he was around 22 when we got him—and will apparently not stop growing until sometime this summer! In the first picture, Bunk is happily stretched out on the rug in our bathroom; in the second—an action shot—Bunk is furiously trying to bite the hot air that is being blasted from the hair dryer by his cruel daddy. And the final picture is a close-up of Bunk’s sweet face as he sleeps serenely at the end of the couch.
The Bunk at 5 months
The Bunk vs. Hair Dryer
The Bunk at Rest
An update about the Nor’easter that could affect our weather on Monday and Tuesday: the models continue to be out of agreement, but trends suggest this is going to be a bust. We’re still nearly 48 hours from the event (or at least the part of the event that could be interesting), so a lot can happen between now and then, but here’s what I’m thinking as of now...
Monday will bring rain showers by late afternoon continuing into the overnight hours, with a few snowflakes mixing in. Maybe as much as a coating to a half-inch by Tuesday morning, but nothing to worry about. High 41, low 33.
Tuesday will see some snow showers and increasing wind, but since the low looks to be positioning itself off the coast, the storm will track to the east of what was originally thought, the amount of moisture will be less, the foot-plus snow dump will be averted. High 34 low 18.
Wednesday will see some lingering flurries, high winds, and much colder conditions. High 26, low 14.
The remainder of the week looks sunny, seasonably cold, and dry: highs around freezing and lows in the low 20s.
The weekend looks cloudy and milder with highs in the upper 30s to near 40, and lows just below freezing.
The following week is looking a bit colder; I’m still looking at the 13th and 14th for something interesting...
Bunk is a star!!
Yes, Bunk was featured on NBC10 this morning in a segment called "Take This Job" in which Terry Ruggles goes to area businesses and learns about the job. Bunk attends doggy day care at Total Dog and a Little Cat in Adamstown, where Jon and Lori take great care of him. (I know: we are those people, as in, I can't believe those people who lavish so much attention on their dogs and pamper them like they're actual human beings. Never thought it would happen, but Bunk came along and changed all that...)
Anywho, Bunk is at the beginning of the video trying to climb up the gate (and barking), and he's pictured at about the 42-second mark milling around on the floor. ("Little Bunk"--so named because he has the same coloring as Bunk and the two are constantly palling around together at Total Dog--can be seen at Bunk's feet.) That's Bunk's tail at about the 10-second mark too.
Enjoy!