Our Lady of Perpetual Hell

While Mom and Dad were busy dishing out the mini-chocolate bars (”candy bars” to you Yanks) tonight, I went out for a walk around the neighbourhood to check out the jack o’ lanterns and the costumed kids on their rounds.

Well, shit. I’m certainly glad I’m not a kid nowadays because the number of participating homes has dwindled so drastically that you’d hafta be out for hours and walk for miles before you could ever get as many treats as we useta get just going around the block. Seemed like only one out of every half a dozen homes had the front porch light on and even fewer homes actually had any decorations up. I was out walking for about an hour on a dozen streets in this subdivision and counted perhaps thirty jack o’ lanterns. There were three homes that had really taken the holiday to heart and had set up some really great displays: front yard graves, scary sound fx, and skeletons dangling from the trees. Prolly 75% of the homes ’round here, though, were either dark or otherwise had no indication that there might be treats available if you knocked on the door. What LAME-Os!!

When I was trying to figure out what I wanted to use to illustrate this skinny post, I thought of one of my favourite artists: Mexican-born Utah sculptor Guillermo Colmenero. I absolutely love his Day of the Dead-themed work

and his booth was always my first destination each year I went to the Utah Arts Festival. He sculpts these beautiful and delicate, tiny and detailed colourfully-painted clay figures of skeletons

in all manner of activity–dancing, golfing, horseback riding… you name it.

His sense of whimsy appeals to me.

I have his sculpt of a gorgeous skeleton vaquero on his skeleton steed, and I treasure it.

So I looked him up on The Google (*cough*) to find some images of his work, and was dismayed to learn that he was being deported! It will be no uncertain loss to the local arts community in Salt Lake if this happens. To my friends down there, I hope you are willing and able to help. According to the Trib, local writer/filmmaker Terry Hurst and his wife, painter Ruby Chacon, are raising funds to help with Colmenero’s legal bills and a letter-writing campaign has begun. You can contact Chacon through her website.

There are Hallowieners everywhere, it seems.

Whoever this guy is, I’m in love.

(*Later* Okay, well, one comment… And thanks to Randy (again!) for the link.)

We are having a “mock emergency” here at work today. I am disappointed to discover that there is no actual mocking involved, however. I feel I’d’ve been a natural for that.

So it’s just a kindergarteny Let’s Pretend exercise, wherein our server room is (not) flooded with (imaginary) water and our network is (not) down. Our computers have, thus, (not) been rendered giant paperweights. I hope I am not going to be expected to make (crank) phone calls to (fake) clients to apprise them of the (non-) situation.

I feel (un-)prepared for the worst.

I can remember exactly where I was the first time the song “Easy (Original Mix)” by Trick & Kubic ft. Valeska knocked me ass over tea kettle… I was headed west on Churchill Line, stopped for a red at the traffic lights where Highway 40 finishes the eastward part of its jog around Sarnia and turns south–down at the south end of Chemical Valley Beautiful Bluewaterland. It was just after 9pm and it was a warm, cloudless late August night. A lovely night for a drive with the windows down and the sunroof open and the stereo cranked, as a matter of fact, and that’s just what I was doing.

After I’d followed his recommendation and picked up a copy of The New Pornographers’ Twin Cinema down at Vortex in Tronna and then raved about the album here, my friend cy sent me–[squeak]unbidden! out of the generosity of his heart![/squeak]–some home-built mixes of other music he likes. I was thrilled when I got home from work that day and found them waiting for me, and I decided to try one of ‘em out in the way they’d be most frequently used: as a driving soundtrack. So I grabbed one he’d named girlie mix–it was decked out with a picture of The Pipettes on its girlishly pink cover and the track listing inside–and headed out for a drive after dinner. Figured I’d just listen to a few tunes and see how akin cy’s musical tastes were to mine…

‘A few tunes’. Pfffffffffffffft.

I could hardly believe it: I fuggin’ lurrrrrrrrrrrved each successive song I heard, and ended up driving around the countryside listening to the whole damned disk! On a school night, no less! I can’t remember the last time I was so delighted with some new music. (Oh, wait. Yes, I can. Twin Cinema. Ta-dah!)

So. To get back to that moment… Shortly after 9pm, my Tiburon is idling at that red light on Churchill. It is otherwise dark and deserted out there. I can see the stars twinkling down on me through the sunroof. The stereo volume is up around 24 (what Nigel Tufnel would call “11”). The Stars’ soaring “Ageless Beauty” ends and there is a second or two of silence. Then… THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP HOLY HELL WTF!?! I am lifted out of my seat and the whole world is vibrating–I can see it so in all three mirrors, which remind me of that glass of water in the Jeep in Jurassic Park–the one in which the ripples of water announce the approach of the T-rex. You know what I’m talking about. C’mon. Ev’ryfreakinbody saw that film…

So… as I was saying… THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP and my eyes are as wide as saucers and my jaw is in my lap. And I think my right ear is bleeding. And I might have screamed. With delight, that is.

Ya gotta keep in mind that I have never been much of a dancer. Am kinda uncoordinated and my sense of rhythm when I’m on the dancefloor is (unintentionally) syncopated at times. (I can’t sing my way out of a paper bag, either, but that’s beside the point.) So I’ve never really been into so-called dance music. I mean, I liked New Order back in the early 80s (still do, actually) but, geez, it’s not like I ever tried to dance to it. But the almighty THUMP of this song grabbed me (and I’m not sure how explicit I wanna be about where it grabbed me–although I guess I’ve never pretended this blog was anything less than R-rated, so you should already know what you’re in for when you check for new posts ‘round here–but I will say it wasn’t “by the scruff of my neck” and let you draw your own conclusions) and when the light turned green my foot hit the floor.

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP down between the industries and the Chippewa reservation, my little car jumping with the beat. I am laughing and yelling, my head bobbing and my hair flying. Thirty seconds into the song, vocals enter, quietly repeating “easy” over and over. A minute into the song, the bass sneaks in and the vocals expand. This first time through, I haven’t a clue what the heavily-accented lyrics are but, at this point, I don’t give a shit. At around 2 minutes, the song starts to swell. It’s building… To what? I wonder… At 2:20 into the song, there is a changeup and more instruments swarm into the mix and I let out a whoop. I cannot believe it. This is as good as sex! Seriously, this is what is running through my mind! The rhythm of it (and I don’t mean just the beat–I mean the overall rhythm of the song: the way it is constructed through the intro and the verses and choruses and bridges and the denouement) strikes me as extremely sexual. Don’t get me wrong–the lyrics themselves aren’t about that at all, although the voice is definitely sexy. I’m talking about the underlying structure of the song and the way the weight of it builds then abates then builds then abates then builds then abates. Gawd, it’s, like, the best sex I’ve (n)ever had! At 4:47 comes another swarm of sound and, for me, the climax of the song–at which I am helpless to not let out another whoop–and then a long wind down and, sweet jayzuz, I prolly should pull over to the side of the road to mop my brow.

Dunno if you’ll like it or not, but it was good for me. Hell, it still is.

I couldn’t’ve been much more thrilled about an upcoming dvd release than I was when my bud Frank pointed me to this, coming from Criterion in January:

   *screams*

Once in a while I’ll see a VHS copy of Border Radio available at Amazon (I see a few there at the moment, actually), but the descriptions always sound like they’re too beat up for my tastes. (I’m pretty picky when it comes to some things. And this is one of ‘em.) So news of a release of this film by Criterion (!) is fanfuckingtastic to me.

My memories of my Records On Wheels days hang in a murk of smoke and beer, loud club shows and hangovers. So I can’t say for sure if my friend/coworker Christine actually owned a VHS copy of Border Radio or if we simply rented it from Queen Video whenever we wanted to watch it. I do remember stocking up on beer and smokes and nesting in blankets on the floor of her big apartment above the variety store at Harbord & Bathurst to watch it and X–The Unheard Music and The Decline of Western Civilization umpty-umpt times, back in the day…

Note to Frank: Will you see if Leslie Lane can find Christine for me, plz? Actually, how ‘bout a Record Weenies reunion? Think you could round up the remaining Weenies who are still actually on speaking terms with each other? I’d love to see the old gang close down the Dodger again for old time’s sake! And yes, I’d wanna stay at your place. But warn Mike to not mention my burn anymore, k? You know I’m sensitive about it.

Christine and I were the rabid X/Flesh Eaters/Divine Horsemen fans at RoW. We used to plead with The Garys to bring Chris D. to town for a show, but they never did. (Damn you, Garys!) So while I’ve seen solo shows by John Doe and Exene and a coupla shows by X, I’ve never seen a Chris D. show—with either the Flesh Eaters or the Divine Horsemen. It’s one of my Life’s Regrets (along with never having seen Bobby Darin perform—how’s that for a case of One of these things is not like the other… One of these things just doesn’t belong, eh?). But he is more interested in things other than performing music, now, so I am prolly S.O.L. on this one.

I s’pose many of you have never even heard of Chris D. He’s an LA-based post-punk singer/songwriter/musician/filmmaker/actor/writer/film programmer at American Cinematheque. A Renaissance Man for our age. And he’s the star of Border Radio, Allison Anders’ first film—made under the aegis of the Sundance Institute while she was still a student at UCLA. The extremely small budget, loosely-scripted film is about characters on the edges of the L.A. music scene back in the mid-80s. Its soundtrack is a great collection of post-punk/rootsy music from that era: Dave Alvin, John Doe, Green On Red, Lazy Cowgirls, and, yeah, Chris D. Hopefully the release of the dvd will prompt re-release of the soundtrack on disk. I only have it on vinyl.

And, y’know, it occurs to me—after I’ve written all this!—that the film may not actually appeal to anyone who isn’t already a fan of Anders or Chris D. or any of the other principals involved in the film. But I’m gonna blast this out there anyhow in hopes that somebody is curious enough to check it out and discover that they like it. It won’t appeal to everyone. Just like Chris D.’s music doesn’t. I like to think of him as an acquired taste.