Drawing A Line Under The Past

I was pleasantly surprised some months ago to read an online review of Tales To Demolish, a new comic book by one Eric Haven—surprised because I worked with Eric and knew him slightly, once upon a time; pleasantly because he's a good egg, and it's nice to see him garner some accolades.

We were comic-strip artists together, Eric and me. During the second of my two years at Syracuse University, Eric was the Art Director at the student newspaper, The Daily Orange. He also drew editorial cartoons and a daily strip. In those days, I had the temerity to fancy myself an artist, and was drawing a strip myself, and writing it with my good friend Steve George. Our comic was much-maligned—mostly by the other artists: though not without humor, it was an adventure serial on a page filled with gag strips, and other artists would sometimes use their strips to take shots at ours. (I found it bizarre then, and still do.)

Eric wasn't like that. I always got the sense that Eric appreciated what we were trying to do, even if he didn't always fully understand it. At one point, we even did a little crossover in our two strips, where we each drew the other's characters. Ours never looked so good as when Eric drew them.

When you look at a college paper's comics page, you can tell who's doing this because they dig the craft, and who's doing it for shits and grins. Steve and I fell somewhere in the middle—in love with the artform, but lacking the chops to make a serious go at it—but Eric, man, Eric; this guy was the real deal. A great line, beautiful composition, talent for days. You could also tell he was restless, and chafing at the strictures of the four-panel gag setup.

Since most of the strips (including ours) were published pseudonymously, I never knew most of the other artist's real names. Eric was the only one I ever actually met. Well, no—I take that back. I was in a class with one of them—with one of the artists who'd attacked our strip, actually. He revealed himself during a before-class conversation one day—a discussion about how much he hated our strip—but I kept schtum instead of tipping my hand and causing a stink, so he kept ranting and raving and never had a clue and now it's fifteen years later and WHO LOOKS STUPID NOW, JACKASS?!?

Ahem.

Anyway, most of the names I never knew and most of the ones I knew escape me—but seeing Eric's work again inspired me to try and track down some of the others whose work I remember.

Gabe Cattani ended up in management in a gymnastics education company. Unsurprising: he was a double major in Phys Ed and Philosophy, and his strip had the feel of a youthful lark.

Mark Ching is making movies now. Knew him only by reputation, but I liked his craftsmanship. His strip, Raventown, appeared only sporadically—I think he would do a bunch of strips until he ran out of ideas, then stop. Many comic-strip artists would do well to follow his example.

Kyle Outlaw drew under a pseudonym, though, remarkably enough, "Kyle Outlaw" was not the pseudonym. I forget the pen-name now, but I know (via Steve) that Kyle kept his identity secret because he feared for his safety! He did a fraternity-themed strip that apparently ruffled a few feathers in Syracuse's sizable Greek system. Well, I'm outing you, sonny Jim: it's been a decade-and-a-half, and I think the heat's blown over by now.

(If not, brothers of Tappa Kega Bru interested in settling old scores can contact Kyle at his digital media design business. Tell 'em Jack Fear sent you.)

(Or, you know, you could take some anger-management classes and get over it, you beer-soaked, paddle-happy pack of drone-souled, old-money, organization-man, herd-mentality clusterfuck jockrockets.)

(I'm just sayin'.)

As for Eric: the second issue of Tales To Demolish is out now. It's called "I Killed Dan Clowes."

Well, thank God; it's about time somebody did.

No Rules, but Just Not Right

With a gift certificate to spend and a deep reluctance to cook dinner, I bundled the family in the car for an evening at one of America's great chain restaurants. Now, as avid readers will doubtless know, I, having grown disenchanted with the prospect of entering my forties as a big fat slob, am trying to shape up a little. Okay, a lot. To that end I've been keeping scrupulous records of my intake of calories and nutrients.

Greg Critser points out, in his brilliant and damning book Fat Land, that it is difficult, even counter-intuitive, to exercise self-restraint in the face of apparently limitless abundance; our bodies are designed by evolution to function on a feast-or-famine paradigm. But the gargantuan portions are only part of the problem here. The biggest issue, when one does not prepare one's own food, is that one simply does not know what goes into it—and thence into one's body.

I wasn't overly concerned, at the time. I assumed that I'd be able to find nutritional information for the chain online—because (I assumed) chain restaurants are required, aren't they, either by law or by basic ethical standards, to make the nutritional content of their dishes available to the dining public—aren't they?

Well, guess what?

These faux-Aussie lardmongers don't play that game. The issue, it seems, is an intellectual-property concern—that is, a paranoid fear of having their recipes stolen. As if knowing the saturated-fat grams and fiber count would somehow allow me to reverse-engineer a Bloomin' Onion.

In this time of blighted plenty, with the Western world awash in cheap calories and obesity reaching epidemic proportions, a corporate policy of stonewalling concerned consumers who ask nutritional questions seems deeply irresponsible. The creepy corporatespeak only makes it worse: "Outback Steakhouse does not make nutritional claims about our menu items..." Hey, buddy, I'm not asking you if the Cheese Fries cure cancer, okay? I just wanna know how much sodium is in the dish, so I'll know how much of it I can safely eat without making my head explode. Jesus.

Best of all is the last para. Dig it: it's not a restaurant, it's a "concept." So presumably it's exempt from the ethical rules governing, y'know, actual dining establishments. Perhaps next time I go, I'll pay my tab with Monopoly money; conceptual payment for my conceptual meal.

Unfortunately, though, I don't think there's going to be a "next time." The calories and fat are quite real—and so is the corporate arrogance that suggests that we as consumers not worry our pudgy little heads about such things. Well, sorry,"mate," but that's poor citizenship in my book, and not an attitude I care to support with my dollars.

Come on, guys—what are you hiding? For Christ's sake, if McDonald's can come clean, why won't you?

The Marimba On The Landing

Long years ago, when D was still at school, I lived with her in the basement apartment on University Avenue, below West Campus. Ithaca is a city of hills: the ground drops away so steeply in places that the city fathers in their wisdom built stairways instead of footpaths.

One warm, sunny day in early Fall, having spent the morning in the library, I was homeward bound down one of those staircases following a ramble down the Slope. It was about noon, and the day was growing hot. I passed Llenroc and the Boneyard and picked up the stairs. The stairway cuts a Z-track down the hill; as you round the bend, there's a sort of mezzanine—a walled platform of paving-stones jutting out from the hillside and overlooking the street. On the mezzanine, partly blocking my way down the stairs, stood a man playing a marimba.

I can't imagine it could have been a full concert-size instrument. Still, it seemed improbably huge and unlikely in this context—like a subway busker playing a grand piano. The man was about my age, perhaps a bit older. He moved gracefully, bronzed and shirtless in the sun, four mallets dancing over the rosewood bars of his instrument as if by their own volition. The music had a Baroque precision, with a Spanish tinge. I paused on the steps to listen.

He finished the piece, and we talked a little. He was a student at Ithaca College, he said, working on a degree in performance. "Is there much of a repertoire for solo marimba?" I asked. He smiled, and admitted that he was building his repertoire largely from scratch. Much of consisted of his own transcriptions of pieces written for classical guitar; the two instruments, seemingly so dissimilar, share certain tonal qualities—a sharp attack, a swift decay, a way their notes have of seeming to linger in the air even when the instrument is silent.

I forgot his name almost immediately, registering it only as something WASPy and faintly absurd. My memory of the entire encounter seemed suspect, as if I had been drinking (I had not). He was a bright, intense fellow, and if, in retrospect, he seems like a bit of an attention-seeking prick—lugging a marimba across the street and up those stairs is the act of a man begging to be noticed—his talent was such that surely a bit of ego was surely permissible.

Over the years, I have thought often about that strange encounter. It was, it seemed to me, one of those random things that can only happen in the hothouse environment of a college town. But until today, it had never occurred to me to try to find the man on the landing. After some time sifting through Google results (Ithaca College connections apparently run deep in the world of professional marimbists, thanks to the residency of renowned percussion professor Gordon Stout) I think I've found my man. He no longer looks like a surfer, but I'd be willing to bet that the guy on the landing all those years ago was Gifford Howarth.

And by God, he lives just a few towns over, even teaching at Nazareth, right here in Rochester.

Gifford—if you read this, drop me a line. If you are indeed my man, then at the very least I owe you a beer for all the times I've remembered that afternoon and shook my head with wonderment.

Thalia

Claire, who is seven, is in a reading enrichment group at school. The kids have been getting an introduction to the concepts of literary analysis by doing a close study of the old story of Jack and the Beanstalk (the text used in the class is strikingly similar to that used in the Rabbit Ears Radio version, read by Michael Palin, that we have long known and loved). Some months ago, the class was casting about for a group project based on the story, and it was decided that they should stage a play.

Claire was cast as the Ogre's golden Harp: this role would require her to shout "Master! Master!" in an alarmed fashion, and to sing a lullaby. (There were also non-speaking roles for the Bag of Gold, the Hen, and Milky-White the Cow.) We worked together on her "costume," her drawing a harp-shape on a big piece of cardboard, me cutting it out with a Stanley knife and spray-painting it gold, her attaching faux jewels and stringing the frame with twine. She debated over what song to sing, and eventually settled on a vocalese version of the closing theme to Spirited Away. (An exquisite ear, this girl: makes me proud.) She practiced and preened and agonized. For months.

And today, at last, was showtime: a "reader's theatre" (i.e., on a single rehearsal and scripts-in-hand) for a select audience of second-graders and parents.

I'm not going to go all Thaddeus Bristol here: I will just say that I wanted very, very much to laugh—to the point where I experienced physical discomfort—and restrained myself out of a parent's weary, desperate love.

Where to begin? Perhaps with the bits of gender-flipped casting (necessitated by the makeup of the cast), beginning with Jack's widowed parent—a change which the kid playing Jack had not fully internalized, which led to such line readings as "Mother, Mother—I mean, Father, Father!" Or that Milky-White was played by an African-American boy who, this day, was dressed in a top-to-toe black tracksuit. Or the generally chaotic state of the entrances, exits, and scene changes.

The high point of the production, as with many blockbusters, was the big special-effects sequence—the sudden growth of the beanstalk, accomplished by a stagehand tugging on one end of a cord looped over a high-hung pulley, the other end being attached to the short edge of four yards of rolled-up butcher's paper, painted green.

But even this spectacle was overshadowed by the story's climax, when the beanstalk is chopped down. "Jack" swung his prop axe mightily, but the paper sheet refused to fall; and suddenly the stage was aswarm with seven-year-olds batting and swiping at the "beanstalk," shouting encouragement and advice to one another—the Harp, the Cow, the Hen, even the Ogre's Wife joining in the destruction, everyone out of character, everyone in the moment. It's a wonder the play didn't go off the rails entirely, but somehow it fumbled its way toward its denouement.

Claire carried herself with aplomb, and pronounced herself satisfied with her own performance. Her striking of ostentatious poses during the post-show photo session boded ill for a diagnosis of rampant ego, but with the news that her newfound celebrity status was not enough to secure her an early release from school, her head deflated to its normal size.

For the foreseeable future, though, she'll be confining her thespian endeavors to the endless drama that is her home life: within these walls, God knows, she's a regular Meryl Goddam Streep.

Images Of Abundance, Parts I & II

Indulge me, if you will, in a moment of avarice; for things, yes, just as it seems, but moreso for states of being, for selves I never was—but may yet be: for Blesséd George tells us it is never too late; and Blesséd Shakti points the way; and Blesséd Julia advises us to surround ourselves with these "images of abundance," on the theory that seeing leads to being.

The National Reso-Phonic Style "O" is simply one of the most beautiful and strange musical instruments ever crafted. And a tool (which is what a guitar is, after all) should be pleasing as well as functional.

Now, in days gone by, O Best Beloved, when this world was young and I had all my hair, I wore gaudy shirts and listened to The Church and dreamed of music that roared like the ocean and sang like the wind. I dreamed of '68 Fender Custom Telecasters. Perhaps you've seen the Pink Paisley model—James Burton played one for years—but I've always had a soft spot for its lesser-known companion, the Floral Blue. It brings out my eyes, don'cha know.

Dreaming also of an acoustic-electric nylon-string classical, with a single cutaway and a full-scale neck. I love the classical guitar; I love the snap of the strings beneath the fingers, the sweetness of the tone, the finger-stretching broadness of the neck—it's so responsive, but requires such delicacy and discipline. As my playing has developed over the years from hard, primitive strumming to a more deft, almost pianistic approach, it's become clear to me that this is the instrument I've been working towards.

There's no picture now, because I haven't found it yet. But I'll know when I see it. Or, more properly, when I play it. And I'll know me, when I am who I should be.

I Say I Say I Say Unto Thee

Almost despite myself, I love First Things—"the Journal of Religion and Public Life," as it bills itself. I started reading it occasionally back when I was working at the College, and, even as I found myself in deep disagreement with its more conservative theological stances, was immediately attracted to its vast erudition, its lucidity, the way it never backed down from a fight and never wriggled when it reached an uncomfortable conclusion.

Along with the late, lamented Lingua Franca, it pointed a way towards a new model of magazine journalism—more engaged (and less precious) than the academic journals that cluttered the faculty lounge, more intellectually curious than even the best "general interest" magazines. You didn't have to be a theologian to follow the arguments, but you felt yourself growing smarter as you read them.

Now, of course, there are a lot of journals covering the same sort of beat as First Things: I've linked to some of them in the "Sacred and Profane" section of my sidebar. First Things is the least sexy of these, and the most traditional in its viewpoints; it makes the least concessions to our Therapeutic Culture, by refusing to be anything but moralistic and judgmental; but it is perhaps the wisest, the most rigorously-thought, and frequently the best-written of the lot. I don't talk it up as much as I should.

But feast your eyes on the best of the many Johnny Cash encomia written last year—even if the writer, who demonstrates a passing familiarity with Nick Cave (enough to compare his version of "The Mercy Seat" to Cash's), nonetheless claims rather bafflingly to have "never heard of" Einsturzende Neubaten.

Then, if you're ready for something a little weightier, an examination of why Holy Scripture, as read in your local church, is so damned uninspiring. King Jimmy wept; today's translators recoil instinctively from metaphor, from figure—from poetry. The ideal they pursue is a Bauhaus Bible, where form follows function, where the Word of God is communicated efficiently, purged of any distracting traces of useless beauty. There's no dumbing-down worse than that perpetrated by clever people. Read and be horrified, even if you're not religious (Mencken wasn't, but he recognized the centrality of beauty-for-its-own-sake in worship, and reserved special praise for the Catholic Church in that regard).

A new contender on the block: a promised quarterly, The New Pantragruel, is in its first issue now. Promising. If it survives to a third issue, I might start linking to it from the sidebar.

Desafinado (Slightly Out Of Tune)

So on my way home from the video store last night, I decide on a whim to stop into this place I've played a couple of times, to check out who's on tonight. In part this is because I've got seven dollars in my pocket from Friday's efforts, and karma demands that I put some of it in someone else's bucket; in part it's because I'm curious as to what kinds of acts the owner's booking when he's not booking me.

Mostly, though, it's because (as noted before) I'm looking for perspective on how I'm doing at this gig business, and the best way to get that perspective is by comparison. So while I'm watching and enjoying the gig on one level, I'm very much taking my own measure, as well.

There's a Brazilian fellow on tonight, playing guitar and singing. "Have you seen this guy? This guy's fantastic," the owner tells me as he hands me a decaf latte. Certainly the crowd seems to dig him; there's a raucous little cluster near him as he whomps his way through "Just Like Heaven," a couple of Beatles tunes, "Garota de Ipanema," and a few songs em Portuguese.

And, you know, he's not bad—but he's far from great. He makes his way through the jazzy changes of the Jobim okay, but is clearly flummoxed by the waltz rhythm of "Hide Your Love Away." Mostly, though, he sounds—well, kinda like me. Me with a Brazilian accent.

Except that, frankly, I think I put on a better show. For one thing, I have a better sound mix; he's using a single mic, aimed roughly at his sternum, to capture both guitar and vocals. It works close-up, but it doesn't fill the room—it's thin and trebly towards the back. (For the record, I mix my CC67's horrible tinny pickup signal with a mic close to the soundhole, which gives me a serviceable balance of warmth and punch.)

Also, he sits throughout. I suppose he has to—he's playing a nylon-string classical on some numbers, and, as is traditional, there's no strap—but it robs the show of energy. I've tried sitting for gigs, and I just end up tired and depressed: I need to be up and bopping. Personal preference, I guess.

And the pauses between songs are interminable. When I don't actually segue song-into-song—and I'm doing a lot more of that these days, crafting my set lists as a series of mini-medleys—I'm always engaging the audience with jokes and stories. Some nights it's hard for me, but I make myself do it. Why? Because I can't afford to lose them.

My Brazilian compatriot just stops dead, takes a while to change instruments or tune up (insight: the appeal of my electronic tuner is not primarily its greater accuracy, but the way it speeds up my tuning process), squirming in his seat, sipping his drink, staring into the middle distance. The seconds drip by. Five seconds is an eternity in stage time; the gaucho lets a full minute elapse before unleashing another three-minute pop blast. And so it goes.

In a typical hour, I'll play twelve or fourteen songs. This guy averages, I'd say, ten. Bang for your buck? Advantage = Fear. ( All right, so no one pays to get in. Still.)

Two peculiarities: the Brazilian pins me instantly as a fellow player when he sees me staring at his technique—he's a lefty but plays a standard right-handed guitar upside-down, brushing the bass strings with his fingertips and the treble strings with his thumb, Libba Cotton-style.

Secondly: his girlfriend (or wife) sits stone-faced in the armchair closest to him throughout the performance, reading a magazine in Portuguese and studiously ignoring him as he plays. Occasionally he murmurs to her in the long pauses between songs. God only knows why she's there: her impassive presence is strange and uncomfortable.

D rarely comes to my gigs: it's not her duty, she says, to gaze at me adoringly all night. This once distressed me, but dammit, she's got a point. And her absence, if anything, forces me to extend myself more fully to the audience, instead of retreating into a hermetic solitude à deux. A lesson, there? Maybe.

In the end, I have a good time. I enjoy the show for what it is, have a few useful insights, and come away with a set of new questions to chew on: Am I trying too hard to engage the crowd? Is eclecticism a viable strategy after all (let's face it, Brazilian pop in Portuguese is as obscure to the wholly-Anglo audience as anything I'd ever play)? Where's the proper balance between the familiar and the exotic? Et bleedin' cetera.

Overanalyzing? What else is new?

Gig Diary, cont'd: ¡Viva Monkey!

Date: Friday 23 January
Venue: One Way Café, Gates, NY
Duration: two hours (7:00 PM - 9:00 PM)
Proceeds: Seven dollars. Oh, the pain...

Wore
black jeans
cranberry three-button henley
blue chambray workshirt
black belt
white socks
lucky rock'n'roll shoes

The Crowd
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha FUCK.

The Rundown
On the plus side: this is probably my most consistent show ever in terms of quality. There are only a couple of brief moments of uncertainty—a missed chord here, a mumbled word there—but never that familiar, horrible deer-in-the headlights what-am-I-doing-here feeling. Given the unfamiliar surroundings and all the new material, that's both surprising and gratifying.

On the minus: I'm starting to get tired of playing great shows to empty rooms. Aside from two guys who stayed for most of the first set, I was playing most of the evening for five people—the owners and a few of their friends—while patrons came and went. It's practice, sure, and it's experience, and it keeps the rust off—but at this point I think I've got the fucking point, y'know? What good am I getting out of this that I can't get out of sitting in my living room learning new songs? I'm left with an awful emptiness at the end of the night.

Now, part of this is my own fault—I haven't promoted the show at all (my budget won't allow for posters, these days)—and part of it's the brutal cold, and part of it's a lack of awareness, because (a) the One Way is a relatively new shop and (b) I'm their first show ever, so there's simply no buzz in place, no rep. And part of it is the time, I think; I talk to the owners about it at the break and after the show, talk about their traffic patterns and gently suggest that, given their proximity to a movie theater and the relation of their spikes and troughs to showtimes, they might want to schedule the music for, say, 8:00 - 10:00 instead of 7:00 - 9:00.

The fact that there's an avalanche of patrons at 9:10, as I'm beginning my loadout, seems to bear out the wisdom of this suggestion. Ah well. Live and learn.

Highlights

A guy's watching me as I set up, and I hear him murmuring to his companion, "He's got a tuner, down by his feet, there..." and indeed I do. "Would you like to have a look?" I say, and he does. He's a guitarist himself, of course: we talk shop for a minute, talking about gear and such. I'm left both chuffed and a little anxious—Shit, now I've got to impress a guy who actually understands what I'm doing up here.

"In honor of the Chinese New Year," I say, as I strum my opening chords, "I'm doing nothing but songs about monkeys tonight." There's some laughter. I shake my head no, dismissively, and then, Eddie Izzard-style, nod a grave affirmative. Finally, I equivocate: "Well... some will be more obviously about monkeys than others, y'know?"

Just as all pop songs are CCM, if you're mentally substituting "Jesus" for "baby."

It's a new room, so the game plan tonight is to fade into the surroundings as much as possible, to not hog the foreground until and unless the atmosphere of the venue invites it. Start accordingly soft and mellow, kicking things up a wee bit with a hard-strummed, bluesy "Man Of Constant Sorrow." The crowd (such as it is) digs this. Maybe rockin' out is my strength, after all. Lord knows it's fun to do.

Torque down again with "All The Diamonds"—another song brand-new for me; I added it to the set list four days ago after deciding I was kinda sick of "Lovers In A Dangerous Time." It's achingly pretty, but slight—if I hit it too hard, it will fall apart. I don't hit it too hard.

"Seven Steps" has been giving me conniptions—Victor Feldman's tune rides a tricky groove and lightning changes, and I don't have Cassandra's luxury of handing off solos or scatting; I've got to make the interesting—make it essential—by approaching it as a singer/songwriter piece. Tonight it seems to work. It's quick and sharp and playful. I'd planned to interpolate a verse of Prince's "Seven" into the coda, but in the heat of the moment I forget. The ascending chromatic riff does inspire me to quote a couple of lines from "The Wind Cries Mary," though.

As with the Bruce Cockburn song, I've decided to rotate "Walking The Long Miles" out of the set for a while, to keep it fresh; I'd hate to grow either bored or boring. That said, I could play all Richard Thompson all night. "Wall Of Death" is an old favorite, and always fun to play.

"All God's Children" is another delicate beauty. I first heard it in a Wim Wenders movie, and I've loved it long. Self-indulgent? Sure. But it's still not the most obscure song I'll play tonight. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

There's a cassette tape among the promotional materials that I give to potential employers. I'm planning to record some upcoming shows so I have a new promo tape, because the one I use now was recorded years ago and doesn't reflect my current repertoire at all. For instance, I haven't played "One Way" in half a decade—but I'm inspired to pull it out tonight in honor of the venue's name. It's still a barn-burner; I've got knots in my shoulder and aches in my arms when it's through.

Brian, the manager, calls for "A New England"—which he heard me play on the same tape—and I'm happy to oblige (Christ, it's Old Home night). It's basically the Kirsty MacColl version, with the third verse but without the key change. Again, I haven't played it in ages, but it falls under my fingers like a dream.

I'm two verses into "Hallelujah" when a guy says to his wife, "Check it out—it's that song from Shrek!" It's all I can do to keep from cracking up. He's right, though; my version hews a lot closer to John Cale's than to Jeff Buckley's, or (eek) Bono's—or even, God help us, Leonard Cohen's original, which is frankly dire. Like "All Along The Watchtower," it's a song that would never truly blossom until it left its composer's hands.

Now, for the most obscure song I'll do all night: "Heartbeats," of course. I nearly struck this from the list a number of times, for a number of reasons—too hip for the room, too self-indulgent, too new, too untested, too difficult. And it's true that the guitar line, while not complex, demands a degree of precision that's not always easy to muster when one is trying to remember a set of unfamiliar lyrics. But, you know, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And if it's not a rapturous high point (it's probably too low-key for that, anyway) neither is it a godawful, blood-on-the-saddle catastrophe. A competent break-even.

Then on to a gender-swapped version of "Orphan Girl," one of those Gillian Welch songs that sounds like it was written two hundred years ago. The open G tuning works really nicely for what's basically a midtempo blues progression, lending the whole thing some of the ringing spaciness of Emmylou Harris's version (which was, of course, touched by the hand of Daniel Lanois—of whom more later).

Second set begins amiably with a string of recognizable oldies and no one in the place. Cut "The Walking Song" at the last minute—I'm running slightly long, it feels too musically similar to "Hallelujah," and I really don't feel like pouring out my guts to an empty house. It takes more out of me, singing one of my own songs, and the rewards are less immediate. Tonight, I just don't feel like putting in the effort—and it's never missed.

I've never played "Looking For Jack" live (though I've loved the song for years) because (in addition to being relatively obscure) it could be taken as hugely egocentric. Fuck it: it's a great song, funny and wistful in the best sense. The Sting-stylee cod-jazz arrangement of the album version does it no favors, mind, Herbie Hancock's piano notwithstanding—but I like the way I sound doing it.

My G string, which has been fraying at the second fret for weeks, finally breaks during "Join Together." It's nearly 9:00 by this point, so I just bring the song to a quick finish and call it a night, rather than restring just so I can play one wore song. It's a bit of a shame, though: I'm pretty happy with my workup of "The Maker" (which I play in an open G tuning), and have been looking forward to debuting it live.

Seeing Daniel Lanois at the Paradise, years ago, was a pivotal show for me. This was shortly after the release of For The Beauty Of Wynona. That record was a bit of a slow grower for me, after the warm immediacy of Acadie, and I wasn't sure what we were gonna get. I guess, given Lanois's careful attention to sonics, I was expecting a large, well-drilled backing band and a mellow groove. Instead, a revelation: Our Man Dan brought the Rock, fronting a nimble, tricksy power trio, fingerstyle Fender Jazzmaster cranked to Hendrix proportions. It was like a street-magic show—I could clearly see his hands at work and I still couldn't figure out how he did his tricks. That night, "The Maker" was just blistering, the long simmer of the verses (Dan's throaty murmur mingling with Darryl Johnson's gospel-angel croon) exploding into a long guitar-and-percussion coda. It sounded appropriately Biblical; like the Voice Of God, only louder.

I think I've caught a spark of that in my arrangement, and that's really all I can ask. So—yeah, slightly disappointed there.

What I Learned

Timing is everything.

First through the door doesn't count for as much as you'd think.

Sometimes, having fun is not enough to make the night worthwhile.

Being a professional will only get you so far when you're dealing with amateurs.

Gig Diary: Too Hip For This Room

In the duo context, the division of labor was pretty mutable—our roles were, for the most part, not ironclad. While I acted mostly as the engine, motoring the songs forward with strums while Dan provided color and ornament, that equation could easily flip from song to song; while Dan was the primary theorist, shaping the sound around our strengths and limitations, I brought my share of arrangement ideas to the mix. There was one clear line of demarcation, though; Dan was a populist, while I was ever an obscurantist.

That's not to say that Dan pushed us to pander to the lowest common denominator—far from it, his disdain for what he dismisses as "Happy Hour stuff" is still sharp (we took it as a point of pride, for instance, that we never did a Jimmy Buffett song). But it was nearly as important to him that our material be accessible as that it be quality—accessible while shying away from the obvious. If we were to do a Dylan song, for instance, we'd steer away from war-horses like "Hard Rain" or "Mr. Tambourine Man" or "Like A Rolling Stone" and towards things like "Positively 4th Street"—songs that would bring a pleasant shock of recognition, not the rolled eyes of "Oh, God, that again."

But neither would it be "This is cool—what is this?" So no "Political World," no "Cold Irons Bound," no "Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll." And certainly no Nick Cave, no Suzanne Vega, no John Wesley Harding, no Sixteen Horsepower...

Does it sound like I'm complaining? I'm not. My brother is and was the most supportive and adventurous musical partner I could ever ask for, and we brought our powers to bear on a dizzying range of material, all of it chosen and worked up in a spirit of equality and fairness, with no diktats, no quotas, and remarkably little ego. We were a democracy of two; in such a system, compromise is inevitable.

In my infrequent solo shows, I was uncompromising to a fault, indulging my taste for quirks and obscurities even when inappropriate. I remember one show I did in a community hall, a show that was taped for broadcast on local cable TV; there's a moment on the tape when I'm pounding my way through John Cale's "Dying On The Vine," spitting out the lyric Meet me when all the shooting's over... as the camera pans away from the stage over to a group of happy babies crawling on the floor. That about sums it up, right there.

During the break in that show, as I went out onto the fire escape for a smoke (I still smoked, then), the sound engineer came up to tell me how much he, personally, was enjoying the show: that's quite a set list, he said, some real buried treasures. Then he looked at me thoughtfully and said, "Maybe too hip for this room, though, y'know?"

SET I

Winter Song (Lindisfarne)
These Days (Browne)
Man Of Constant Sorrow (traditional)
What Is Life (Geo. Harrison)
All The Diamonds In The World (Cockburn)
Seven Steps (Miles, Cassandra Wilson)
After The Axe (J. Fear)
Wall Of Death (Thompson)
All God's Children (Simon Bonney)
One Way (Levellers)
Hallelujah (Cohen)
Heartbeats (The Knife by way of José Gonzáles)
Orphan Boy (Gillian Welch)
Ring Of Fire (Cash)

SET II

Sweet Thing (Van Morrison)
My Baby Just Cares For Me (Nina)
Tracks Of My Tears (Smokey)
Downtown (Petula)
Can't Help Falling In Love (Elvis)
Every Little Kiss (Hornsby)
Earn Enough For Us (XTC)
The Walking Song (J. Fear)
There She Goes (The La's)
God Bless' The Child (Lady)
Angel Of Harlem (U2)
Looking For Jack (Colin Hay)
Join Together (The Who)
The Maker (Daniel Lanois)

Everything in context: a coffeehouse isn't the family concert at the town green or the community center. There's a little more leeway to be dark or odd. At summer concerts and Happy Hours, the audience expects (and fairly so) to know every song by heart, or at least to recognize them all; in a coffeehouse setting, they'll accept a song that's new to them—usually assuming that I wrote it myself, unless I tell 'em otherwise.

The One Way Café, where I'm playing tonight, is a different kind of gigging experience for me; although it's not an explicitly Christian-identified establishment, its owners are Christian; there's a rack of Christian literature by the door; the usual ambiance is CCM—Christian Contemporary music. I'm their first "secular" booking—the first artist the owners have booked whom they didn't know from their church. I would like to make a good impression, and perhaps be invited back. I do not want to offend. I do not want to shock. I do not want to be too hip for the room.

Now, you might think this would be an easy gig for me, given my extensive background in church music—but that experience is of little help here. My expertise is in liturgical music, rather than (for lack of a better term) Christian entertainment; these are not songs to listen to, they are songs to pray.

CCM has its own conventions—as the joke goes, it's easy to write a CCM hit; just write a pop song, then every time the word "baby" appears in the lyrics, cross it out and write in "Jesus" instead—and its own audience, with its own tastes; if you try singing "Abide With Me" to this crowd, you're gonna get laughed out of the room. Whatever you think of CCM (and I can't stand most of the stuff, myself—to me it all sounds like jingles for house paint), its fans are vociferous and don't cotton to fakers. So I'm sidestepping the issue entirely, and sticking with my usual mix of pop, jazz, and postpunk rock—albeit with a spiritual kick.

A higher proportion than usual of new material this time around, much of it added at the last minute—maybe a bit reckless, given the disastrous consequences of under-rehearsal in recent shows. But many of these are songs I've been playing around the house for years, but have never taken live. The one I'm most worried about, though, is "Heartbeats": I first heard the acoustic version of this song just a few days ago, courtesy of Matthew's blog, and (as you can tell from the Comments section to that post) I've been debating ever since whether or not I should include it in the set. It's exactly the sort of thing that can lead to accusations of being too hip for the room—but in the end, it's too beautiful to not play.

And, there, if anywhere, is a clear line of demarcation.

What's My Line

Know what I've decided? This year, I'm going to end as many conversations as possible by crying, "An-n-n-n-n-n-n-nd SCENE!" You know, just like the whole thing was a theatrical improv.

Because, you know, that's so damned funny, and not obnoxious or played-out at all.

I Have Heretofore Tarried Excessively

Move over, T.a.t.U.; here's the ultimate cover of "How Soon Is Now."

(via dictionaraoke.org, with a tip o' the hat to Chu)

Chrysostom

Spent this morning working the coffeehouses, hustling for gigs, and Jesus Christ! when did I become such a sweet talker?

I still think of myself as a stumbling, stammering teenager when it comes to social interaction: but here I was, talking to the young and earnestly Christian owner of a brand-new café—so green he was that he asked in all seriousness if he would have to pay me to play (and why oh why did I not say yes?)—and within moments it was clear that I was in charge.

He had the power to hire me or not, but it was a forgone conclusion the moment I started talking—establishing my credibility with references to other places I've played, confirming my standing in his community by casually mentioning my sacred-music background, answering his questions about my technical needs with offhand confidence. I was open, reassuring, approachable—just the kind of musician you want as an ally when you're starting a new venture.

And I'm still stunned by my success. How did this happen?

Maybe it's genetic. My Dad was salesman, though he never really wanted to be; he was, I think, an introvert by nature. My brother is a salesman, and damned good at it—the proverbial consummate, in fact: extroverted, friendly, entirely genuine. He's got an expansiveness, a personality that fills any room he's in—and frankly, I find it kind of exhausting to be around him for a long time.

I've held sales jobs, in the past, and did fairly well at them, but vowed years ago to never work in sales again. I was never entirely comfortable with the process; neither, I think, was my father. I could never invest so much of myself—my reputation, my identity—in any product for which I could not be entirely certain of the quality.

That, I think, is the key difference, the source of my silver tongue: for the first time, I am selling the one product for which I can, at last, vouch 100%—myself.

A Few Brief Explanatory Notes on Überlist Items

#8 Bring the Bling!
Y'know, I've always had this weird puritanical horror of ornamentation. Aside from my wedding ring, I've never owned a piece of jewelry that I've worn regularly—not even my high school class ring. I don't wear a wristwatch: for a long time, I didn't even use cologne.

That changed a few years ago, when I finally found a scent that suited me. That opened a lot of doors, psychologically, guiding me to realize that while being decorative is no substitute for being useful, there's no reason you can't be both. After borrowing D's wolf-hammer-cross pendant a few times (and with Queer Eye goading me and the rest of the het-male population to be unafraid of adornment), I'd like to find some other accessories that work for me, even if it's as simple as a crucifix and a braided-hemp wristlet.

#48 Recycle
One of the greatest disappointments of our move to Rochester has been the loss of curbside recycling, Theoretically, the county offers it, but as far as I know our apartment complex is not signed on for pick-up. Back in Massachusetts, we recycled religiously; now I'm appalled by the amount of garbage we've been producing. There's got to be some sort of drop-by recycling center in the county, and I'm gonna find out where, when, and how to use it—and then use it.

UPDATE: As it turns out, our complex does have drop-off bins for county recycling. In fact they're about a hundred yards from my front door: I literally stumbled across them while on a random stroll with the kids. What makes this particularly infuriating is that repeated calls to the rental office months ago yielded me no useful information about recycling—everyone I spoke to was clueless—when those bins are within sight of that selfsame office!

#67 and #68 Finish OGN script Seven Souls; find an artist for Seven Souls
The specifics of this item are likely to change: I've got a number of scripts of middling length, in various stages of completion, that I need to buckle down and finish. It almost doesn't matter which one I finish, so long as I finish something. I plugged Seven Souls in there at random because it's the one I feel most enthusiastic about today.

#72 through #85—the "Our Fair City" category
We moved here six months ago and have only really started to explore the region: these exercises focus on integrating ourselves with the ccommunity.

Sublist 2: The Songs

Pages from the American popular songbook—and a few imports: my personal checklist of jazz standards, each to be crossed off the list when I know it cold, changes and lyrics, and play it live from memory to my own satisfaction.

All Or Nothing At All
All The Things You Are
Aos Pes da Cruz (with Portuguese lyrics)
As Time Goes By
A-Tisket, A-Tasket
Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered
Blue In Green (Sky & Sea) (Cassandra Wilson lyrics)
Blue Skies
Brazil
Caravan
Cheek To Cheek
Come Sunday
Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars)
Darn That Dream
Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye
A Foggy Day In London Town
Get Thee Behind Me, Satan
The Girl From Ipanema
Heart And Soul
The House I Live In
I'll Be Seeing You
It's Only A Paper Moon
I've Got You Under My Skin
La Vie En Rose (with French lyrics)
The Lady Is A Tramp
Meditaçao (with Portuguese lyrics)
My Funny Valentine
My Ship
The Nearness Of You
Nice Work If You Can Get It
A Night In Tunisia
A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square
On Green Dolphin Street
Rockin' In Rhythm (as arranged for guitar by Richard Thompson)
September Song
Seven Steps To Heaven (Cassandra Wilson lyric)
So In Love
Speak Low
Stella By Starlight
Stompin' At The Savoy
Swinging On A Star
Thanks For The Memory
That Old Black Magic
These Foolish Things
They Can't Take That Away From Me
Tuxedo Junction
The Very Thought Of You
Wait 'til You See Her
Weird Nightmare (as arranged for guitar by Bill Frisell)
When the Lights Go On Again (All Over the World)
Why Do I Love You?
Willow, Weep For Me

Some notes on my approach and relationship to this canon here.

Sublist 1: The Films

Being a selection of movies that, for whatever reason, I missed out on completely—or that I've never seen in their entirety—or that I haven't seen since I was a kid—or that I've seen only in a butchered edited-for-television form.

I started developing this list in the mid-90s, when I was working at the college; I was repsonsible for renting and buying videos, and there was a copy of the big Facets Video catalog lying around the office—300 tabloid-sized pages of small print and blurry photos. On slow afternoons, I'd just leaf through it and dream of darkened cinemas.

I still have my original paper list, as typed on my office typewriter. About half the items are checked off: this is the remainder.

Alamo Bay
Alien (all four films)
Altered States
American Me
Apocalypse Now Redux
Baby Doll
The Beguiled
Being There
La Belle Noiseuse
Betty Blue
The Bicycle Thief
Black Robe
Blood Simple
Cat People (1982 remake)
A Cry In The Dark
Curse of the Cat People (1944)
Cutter's Way
The Deer Hunter
The Devil's Playground (Fred Schepisi, 1976)
Dial M for Murder
Diva
The Draughtsman's Contract
Dudes
East of Eden
Eat the Peach
Every Man For Himself and God Against All (a/k/a The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser)
Fanny & Alexander
Fitzcarraldo
The Foreigner
The Fountainhead
The Fourth Man
The French Lieutenant's Woman
Full Metal Jacket
Fun House
Gaslight
Hammett
Hearts Of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse
Heart of Glass
The Hit
The Holy Mountain
Insignificance
Irezumi
Ironweed
Kiss of the Spider Woman
The Krays
The Lightship
Liquid Sky
The Man Who Would Be King
Man of Flowers
Marat/Sade
Meet John Doe
Mona Lisa
Monsieur Hire
My Own Private Idaho
Nashville
Night of the Iguana
North By Northwest
The Philadelphia Story
Poison Ivy
Rashomon
Repo Man
Restless Natives
Sex Drugs Rock'n'Roll
Shane
The Shootist
The Shout
A Soldier's Story
Stalker
Straw Dogs
Suddenly, Last Summer
Talk Radio
Targets
To Sleep With Anger
Touch Of Evil
The Verdict
Videodrome
Vincent & Theo
White Hunter, Black Heart
The Wicker Man
Withnail And I
Woman of the Year
Yojimbo

That'll do for starters.

ÜberList 2004

Idea lovingly ganked from Kelly Sue, who in turn lovingly ganked it from Nikol Lohr...

PERSONAL

1. drop the first 30 pounds: use DietPower

2. see a doctor

3. see a dentist

4. get the moles under my arm looked at

5. get new clip-on shades

6. investigate contact lenses

7. investigate Lasik

8. bring the bling!

9. keep up a skin care regimen

10. get back waxed

11. less coffee, less soda, more water

12. eat more vegetables

13. eat less fat

14. aerobic exercise three times a week

15. walk a half-hour every day

KULCHAH

16. see one good movie a week...

17. ...starting with movies on the List (see sublist 1)

18. read one book a week...

19. ...starting with the ones you own but have never read

20. go to the movies at least four times

21. subscribe to The New Yorker

22. subscribe to The New Republic or TNR Digital

FRIENDS & FAMILY

23. [ private ]

24. [ private ]

25. [ private ]

26. go out to dinner once a month

27. have Jeff & Tammy over for dinner twice a month

28. write to Steve once a month

29. call Mom once a week

30. write to Cathy once a month

31. write to Dan & Mimi once a month

32. have dinner with Charlie & Renée

33. have dinner with Holly & Brad

34. read with Claire every night

35. keep up with Claire's school work

36. send Christmas cards & photos

37. visit Aunt Anne at least once

MAKE YRSELF USEFUL

38. get a job

39. volunteer with the Girl Scouts

40. investigate paid church choir positions

41. spend less time overall online: 2 hours/day max

42. use online time more productively: action plans, prewriting, etc.

43. vacuum twice a week

44. TV: 1 full-length movie or 1 hr/night, not before 8 PM

45. cull books & CDs

46. rip choice CD cuts to .mp3

47. donate old books & CDs

48. recycle

49. get everything out of the old house

50. get a new computer/get old computer running (new hard drive)

51. set up a home network

BUY STUFF

52. a house

53. a new black suit

54. an electric trimmer

55. multitrack DAT recorder

56. acoustic-electric nylon-string guitar

57. effects pedals (delay, chorus)

VERBIAGE

58. update blog three times a week

59. recommence dream journal

60. start reading journal

61. start film journal

62. participate in Nanowrimo 2004...

63. ...and finish my novel!

PROJECTS

64. write a general interest magazine article

65. sell a general interest magazine article

66. cultivate comics artists

67. finish OGN script Seven Souls

68. find an artist for Seven Souls

69. find out what it would take to get jackfear.com up & running

70. get jackfear.com up & running

71. fill a sketchbook

OUR FAIR CITY

72. find a local comics shop

73. take a summer house at the lake

74. get a membership at the Strong Museum

75. spend a day at SeaBreeze

76. take two day-trips to Ontario

77. see a film at the Eastman House

78. see a film at the Little Theatre

79. day trip to Spencerport

80. go out to see a local band

81. see some live local theatre or dance

82. day trip to Skaneateles, including lunch at Doug's

83. day trip to Ithaca

84. two day trips to state park(s)

85. attend Scottish festival this summer

MUSIC

86. play out once a month

87. write at least three new songs

88. find at least three new places to play

89. learn one pop standard per month (see sublist 2)

90. learn more about digital recording

91. record some shows

92. investigate affordable studio time

93. record some studio demos

94. make CDs to sell at shows

95. play at a summer festival

SPIRITUAL

96. get Sam baptized

97. church every weekend!

98. pray every day, morning & evening

99. recommence Morning Pages

100. work through The Artist's Way

101. work through The Vein of Gold

102. work through Tarot For Your Self

103. keep up with Claire's religious education

104. more compassion, less anger

Spit & Image

You know, they could have warned us, or something...

To All Free Users of Villagephotos.com
At this time, most of you are aware that external linking for the free accounts has been shut off. Free accounts are still able to upload and store images in their accounts, but you are unable to link them at this time.

The change that we had to make, came as a very hard decision for us. We were supporting over a half million free users, doing over 20 million image hits a day. Lately, we have been getting an average of 5 thousand new free users a day, signing up and we got to a point where we were unable to support all of these free users without our service suffering for our paid users. We have more than enough equipment to support all of our paid users and many, many more, a long time into the future, but it is getting to the point where it is no longer within our budget or good business sense, to continue spending tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment and thousands and thousands of dollars a month on bandwidth, just to support free users.

We know that our free users depend on our service and we have every intention of bringing back the free service, with external linking abilities in the near future. There will most likely be some changes with the free service, but at this time we are unsure of what they will be. We are working on finding a solution that will allow us to continue to have free users, but will not cost us more money than our budget will allow. As soon as we have a solution in place, we will post something. At this point I don't have a time frame, but hopefully within the next week. We will keep you updated through the account page.

Also, it is not our intention to "force" our free users to pay, as some of you have voiced. We have been providing a free service for three years now and would like to continue to do so, but not if it is going to put us out of business completely. We hate losing any of our users, whether you are free or paid, but you all have choices and we are not forcing you to make any choice that you do not want to make. We are not trying to force you to do anything, we are just looking out for our paid users and our business. Hundreds of image hosting companies go out of business each year, due to poor business practice and we refuse to be one of those businesses, just so that we can keep supporting hundreds of thousands of free users.

Hundreds? Somehow I doubt it. And, hey, guys--pissing off your constituency by cutting the legs out from under them without warning isn't exactly a sound business practice either. Neither is assuming a snotty, finger-wagging tone.

Nor is being simultaneously condemnatory and venal; the reason they didn't give us a week's notice, of course, is that it would have resulted in a mass migration away from their service. This stick-with-us-while-we-figure-something-out tactic (and the simultaneous heavy guilt-trip) is as obnoxious as it is transparent: what it boils down to is we're keeping our options open.

If VillagePhotos were your boyfriend, it would be saying "I think we should see other people. By which it would mean, "I think I should fuck whoever I want for a while, and you should wait until I say we're going steady again."

(Peppering the notice with typographical errors and misplaced commas, misusing the adverb hopefully, and switching between we and I--implying that the whole business consists of one guy in his bedroom, which, for all I know, it might--didn't score VillagePhotos any "professionalism" points in my book, either.)

One of the things on my to-do list for 2004 is to get my own website up and running. Not a minute too soon, either.

In the meantime, enjoy my red X's.