Empty Wallet Hodgepodge

Thanks to the various illnesses of Heather Samuels and our multiple visits to the Vet's office, my record purchasing for the rest of the year will be non-existent. Plus, I have holiday purchases to make...

Which is to say that the entries for my favorite records of the year are all in. Am I prepared to discuss them? My iPod Shuffle Project has dominated my listening over the past seven weeks. Therefore, I haven't given my usual obsessive attention to new records in the past couple of months. I like to listen to music when I'm walking around, moodily gazing at the bare winter landscape, that sort of thing. So, I'll spend what's left of the year listening to the records at home and then say what I have to say about them. Plus, a couple of favorite new old discoveries as well...

At the Uncorrected Proof, Psychedelic Eskimo, Couch Terrorist household, we've been watching a lot of Sopranos lately. Sometimes I wonder if the show's been on too long, if motifs are repeated intentionally or out of creative stagnation, but then a subplot like Vito, the gay gangster on the lam, gives the show a fresh narrative shot (pun possibly intended?). Don't tell me what happens in the final episodes of Season 6, Part One, we'll be getting there this week...

It's only November but it's hard not to feel excited about the Warriors after watching them slug it out with the Spurs last night. Nellie has turned this team around, and there's no doubting the continuing development of Ellis and Biedrins. Opposing teams are paying attention to them--especially Ellis--and they're rising to the challenge. The W's will no doubt lose their share of games this season, but if they play this hard, it's going to be a hell of an entertaining season.

Finally, I'm back on the Russian literature. Recently finished Isaac Babel's Collected Stories. I know his reputation rests on The Red Cavalry Stories--the bespectacled Jew riding with the Cossacks, but the stories I dig the most are the Odessa Stories and some of the other autobiographical ones of Babel's boyhood. Babel's fellow Jews aren't saintly sufferers, they're just regular people--vain, proud, sweet, stupid, drunk, pious, funny, tragic. No doubt a model for Philip Roth's portrayals of New Jersey Jews. My Dad's people were from Odessa. So, a shout out to Isaac Babel, my homeboy.

Currently, I'm reading Chekhov stories ("The Kiss") and finishing up Richard Ford's "The Lay of the Land." More on that when I finish it.

Ending the Curse of '94

When was the last time we Golden State Warriors fans had any hope? I submit that it was during the beginning of the '94-'95 season. It was Chris Webber's second season. The team had acquired Rony Seikaly in a trade. Latrell Sprewell and Tim Hardaway were in the back court. Chris Mullin was the other starting forward. What a lot of firepower! After all of those years of only getting into the second round of the playoffs (with Don Nelson as coach) it looked like maybe we had a contender. One of the basketball magazines even picked the W's as the favorite to win the NBA championship! Heady times!

The '94-'95 W's got off to a hot start, winning something like seven out of their first ten games. And they had done this without CWeb (NBA Rookie of the Year the previous season)who was sitting out the first part of the season because he wanted to renegotiate his contract, right? No? Actually, he wanted coach Don Nelson to be fired or himself traded. He put this ultimatum before the new owner (why? Nelson yelled at him a lot. Hey, maybe Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan could get their coaches fired, but not you, C Web). The owner ultimately sided with Nelson and traded Webber to Washington for the I-didn't-ask-to-be-in-the-middle-of-this Tom Gugliata (sp?). The W's are ripped apart. Some players rebel against Nelson, some say nothing and quietly seethe. An emotionally exhausted Nelson leaves the W's. The team goes on a so-far ten year tailspin. And how many championships has CWeb won since then? (a big, fat zero)

I recall all of this because the first game where it was evident that the W's were screwed was a Thanksgiving (1994) night matchup against the Indiana Pacers. The W's were shellacked, and went on to lose many, many more games that season. I also remember that game because Thanksgiving dinner turned out to be without doubt one of the most traumatic nights of my life, thanks to various insane members of my family behavin insanely. I'll write about that somewhere else...

My ultimate point is that ever since the traumatic Thanksgiving of '94, I've tied in the W's demise with my own fall and rise. The thing is, I've made the playoffs of life since '94, but the Warriors haven't. With an older and wiser Nellie back as coach will the W's rebound? Pun intended.

Culture Vulture

The other night I was at work playing some of my own CD's over the stereo. A fella can only listen to so much KDFC (Death for Classical) per day. A "classical" music station owned by the Mormon Church whose programming is the Top 40 moldy oldies to pacify office working drones so that they won't kill their cubicle mate with a stapler. Anyway, how many fucking times can a person listen to the fucking "Four Seasons" and the "William Tell Overture"? We have to play it at the bookstore where I work because, you know, Classical Music is sophisticated, like you, the sensitive reader of literature...That's the theory anyway.

That's the sort of snobby thinking that makes me hate classical music and books and tasteful art films. If "art" doesn't have the sex and blood and laughs and misery in it, what's the frickin' point? You might as well just die in your easy chair, choked by your own good taste and PBS membership!

Anyway, I still happen to like so called classical music. Is Beethoven any less intense than Ozzy Osbourne? Is Stravinsky any less brain melting than the late work of John Coltrane? I have to remind myself that after another brain softening day or night "listening" to KDFC.

Anyway, anyway, I was playing some of Brahms's Piano Quartets in the store the other night. This guy comes up to me and says, "Thanks for the music. I work at the music conservatory." I've had plenty of people thank me for playing my own music before--everything from Sonny Rollins to the Zombies (don't tell the boss!)--but never "thanks for the classical music." That's because I went outside of the accepted playlist! I told the guy, "I thought I could improve on the usual KDFC claptrap." The guy stared at me uncomprehendingly, but that's not an unusual response to one of my obscure jokes.

Next week at work: The Late Beethoven Quartets! Yeahhhh Boyyyyyyyy!!!

I'll just say it now: Scritti Politti's White Bread Black Beer is my #1 album of 2006.

Finally, let's give the Gilmore Girls credit where credit is due. They didn't play horrible Hinder during the last episode--it was just the promo music. The episode featured French pop music and more music references than they'd had all season.

What with that and the Warriors' improved play, I'm beginning to wonder if this blog doesn't wield some sort of supernatural power to have people do my bidding...

The Emotional and Mystical Life of an iPod and Ice Cube

I'm currently on song # 1,372 on my All the Way to Song #5,274 Project: "Hercules" by Aaron Neville.

Yesterday, I was walking down Clement Street to the bus stop on my way to work. Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road" came on the iPod. With the drizzle falling and cars whizzing by, I felt the excitement of the open road that Bruce sings about in the song. It excited me when I was a fifteen year-old trapped at home and it excites me today when I'm only trapped by my own self-assembled shackles...

Ten hours later, walking up that same hill toward home with a heavy mist hanging in the darkness, John Coltrane's "Crescent" began to play on the iPod. Oh mystical, meditative Coltrane playing in the mystical mist! The balm for this unimaginative wage slave!

Meanwhile, I spun Ice Cube's 1990 solo debut, "Amerikkka's Most Wanted" the other day. It's the first "I" record in my neglected Alphabetical Listening Project. Produced by Public Enemy's Bomb Squad. I'm no Hip Hop expert, but I think the record holds up pretty well. Doesn't sound dated, for the most part. Some of the raps are better than others. An interesting piece of work that states what's goin' on right before the LA riots/rebellion. I've always loved Ice Cube's voice. I also like the fact that the female rapper Yo Yo shows up on a track or two to call Cube on his endless use of the word "Bitch." And now Ice Cube is directing Hollywood comedies...

Reincarnation and Radical Changes of Subject

It's been a while since I've written about Heather, my 15 year-old plus cat. Heather, my faithful pet, my excuse for avoiding social invites ("Gotta take care of my sick cat"). She has diabetes, a chronic (but treatable) bladder infection, intermittent constipation problems, occasional asthma, a bad tooth, and possibly a hyperthyroid condition. We've probably made close to forty trips to the vet in the past two years. I kid you not!

Still, she keeps kicking, albeit more slowly each year. Sure, she sleeps for most of the day, but she's still the Big H, The H Bomb. She may only have a couple of lives left, but she's still basically the same sweet natured cat, if a bit leakier than she used to be. In some ways, she's a lot like my late great grandmother, Miriam, who was the matriarch of my mother's family. She was tough as nails, opinionated, bossy. Four feet ten of 'tude! "Get your hair out of your eyes, you look like hell!" she yelled at three generations of us. "You're so handsome," she'd say to me, "why do you want to cover your face up with all that hair?"

"Nana," as we called her, had a defective heart, and was always going to the hospital for surgery or blood transfusions (the transfusions may be what finally killed her). Nana bounced back time and again. She lived to be eighty, which was really something when you consider how much she went through. A tough, funny, mean, beautiful lady. She used to make me sit with her and watch soap operas. She'd explain every character and their back story to me, and I'd find myself getting interested. I miss her. Sometimes I think there's a piece of her in the indomitable Heather, although H is a good deal more loveable.

Changing subjects, they say that a good deal of being a successful coach in the NBA is to get your players to buy what you're selling. It looks like the Warriors are buying what Don Nelson is selling. Not counting the first and third games of the season, the Warriors do look like a better team under Nellie. Baron Davis is playing at an all-star level; Jason Richardson is getting back in shape; Troy Murphy, and to a lesser extent, Mike Dunleavy, are fitting into the system. But the most thrilling thing is to see Mikael Pietrus (sp?), Monta Ellis, and Andrei Biedrins (sp?) blossom as players. One thing you can say for Nellie: he knows how to utilize the best in his players. You could single out Tim Hardaway, Chris Mullin, Mitch Richmond, and even the ultimately ungrateful Latrell Sprewell, and say Nelson is the one who initially guided their talents in the NBA (and that's just former Warriors, we're not even mentioning Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitski). Whether or not the Warriors make the playoffs, they'll be exciting to watch this season. Let's see if these words hold up.

Changing subjects again: Are there any other long time Gilmore Girls watchers that are with me when I ask the question, what happened to the cool music references? Remember how episodes used to feature the occasional XTC and Elvis Costello songs? Remember when the Shins appeared in the Spring Break episode? Remember when an episode wittily featured a Claudine Longet song after Lorelei made a Claudine Longet reference? All of that seems to be gone with the arrival of the new writing regime. Overall, I think the new head writer has, um, righted, the show, but I get worried when the background music for next weeks' episode is by some generic rockstar band like Hinder (according to my Youth Correspondent, The Psychedelic Eskimo). They really need to end the show gracefully this season!

Changing subjects again: Finished Season Three of The Wire. Brilliant! The execution of Stringer Bell by Brother Mouzon and Omar was almost too stylized, but ultimately I dug it (RIP Stringer). After all, my man George Pelecanos wrote the episode! (something tells me George P had a specific Western movie showdown in mind when he wrote the demise of Stringer scene)Somebody buy me Seasons Two and Three for hanukah, please?

On the subject of HBO shows:Just beginning Season Six of the Sopranos. Nobody writes a dream sequence filled with psychological questing like David Chase. I think it's the most psychologically rich of the HBO shows.

Currently listening to a recent purchase: Archie Shepp's "Attica Blues." "What's Going On" meets Charles Mingus meets Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka. A definite period piece with good music and vocals of varying quality.

Borat and Babel

All week long I've been watching Sacha Baron Cohen making the rounds of the comedy chat shows in the guise of his Borat character. As everyone knows, the Borat movie is out this week, and Cohen has been promoting the film. What's been impressive is that he's stayed within the Borat character in every appearance. Also impressive is that he's managed to improvise some funny schtick with hosts David Letterman, Conan O'Brian, and John Stewart (I suppose you could say that Larry the Cable Guy also does the chat shows in character, but in this writer's opinion, he ain't too funny). Any number of cultural critics have been writing pieces on the meaning of Borat as a clever commentary on bigotry (the anti-Semitic Borat is portrayed by an observant Orthodox Jew), yadda, yadda, etc. Is Borat a comical caricature of the rabidly anti-Semitic Eastern Europeans of recent yore(the ghost of the stupid, bullying Jew Hater)? Is he, as some have worried/criticized, a manifestation of S.B. Cohen's own Jewish self-hatred? Is Borat a commentary on this historical hall of mirrors?

Anyway, all of this ruminatin' got me thinking about Isaac Babel, the Odessan Jewish intellectual who rode with the Cossacks during the Russian Revolution and lived to write about it--until he was executed by Stalin. In his "Red Army" stories, Babel writes with a combination of fascination and loathing as he rides with the men who killed his own people in numerous pogroms. The very short story, "Crossing into Poland," perfectly captures Babel's mixed feelings. The narrator and his fellow soldiers occupy a Jewish home in Novograd. The narrator describes the wrecked Jewish home with a combination of disgust--"...human filth, fragments of the occult crockery the Jews use only once a year, at Eastertime"(he means the Passover dishes, which were the pride of this impoverished family. Also, interesting that he says"at Eastertime") and shame ("Faint hearted poverty closed in over my couch"). The narrator's conscience is pricked. When he falls asleep he has bad dreams. He is awakened by a young Jewish girl who points out that he is sleeping next to the corpse of her father who was slaughtered by the Poles. She makes him up a new bed and then asks, "I wish to know where in the whole world you could find another father like my father?"

The narrator doesn't answer and the tormented Jewish girl has the final words of the story. She is its true conscience.

Um, so how did I get to that from Borat? I guess what I'm saying is that Borat is Sasha Baron Cohen's madcap comical version of the Jew riding with the Cossacks.

In the meantime, I'm currently listening to Andrew Hill's Grassroots record. An interesting mix of Andrew Hill music, soul and Latin jazz. The CD release features alternate takes with a different lineup, so it's sort of like getting two records for the price of one.

The Sublime and the Third Quarter

Let's start with sublime: Andrew Hill at Herbst Theater! Sometimes you go to a live musical show and can feel your molecules rearranging and your spirit expanding. I've been listening to jazz composer/pianist Andrew Hill for a while now, but I realized on Sunday night that I still have a lot of work to do. As some critics have pointed out, he's not a dazzling pianist, and his compositions can sound "monochromatic," but all of a sudden he throws in harmonies and colors that are breathtaking and deeply moving. I found myself with a lump in my throat several times throughout the show. Hill often uses Afro Cuban rhythms that give his strange compositions a hypnotic drive. I thought of Ellington and Mingus, although Hill isn't as dramatic as those masters. Still, his music sneaks up on you and keeps you thinking about it long after you've heard it. Sign me up for the Andrew Hill army!

Now for the ridiculous: the third quarter of the Warriors' season opener last night. Um, am I the only person who thought they looked like the same exact team as last season? Maybe because they have the same players lapsing into the same bad habits?
Will Don Nelson's style of play really elevate the games of Pietrus and Dunleavy? Didn't look like it to me. Monta Ellis and Ike Diogou looked much better than those two, although I wonder about Diogou's defense—or maybe I should just say The Warriors defense. They made Lamar Odom (of the Lakers) look like the second coming of Michael Jordan. Phooey! Still, it was only one game, and Jason Richardson looked like he needs a few games to get into condition. At times Baron Davis looked fantastic (but then, we've seen that before). I just don't see how he's going to last the whole season. And Jesus Christ, make those free throws! Not good to have your home crowd booing you on the opening night. A real stinker of a game!

I'm currently reading Richard Ford's "The Lay of the Land"--the third book in the Frank Bascombe trilogy, and Richard Aleas's "Little Girl Lost"--part of the Hard Case crime fiction series. More on that in the future.