Monthly Archives: April 2012

a minor obsession: faces, “ooh la la”

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Yesterday, on my way to work Red Bird’s live version of “Ooh La La” popped up on my iPhone. The opening strums of  acoustic guitar and the fist line, “Poor old granddad, I laughed at all his words,” made me stop in my tracks and brought tears to my eyes. Embarrassingly enough, this happens to me more than I’d like to admit. I had heard the song before — first in Wes Anderson’s excellent “Rushmore” — and it’s one of those songs that I’ve been meaning to pick up, but I didn’t realize I actually owned it. Red Bird is an obscure folk “super group” and the cover is included on their live album – one of two that they’ve  produced.

But anyway, back to the crying… Since hearing this yesterday, I’ve had a minor obsession with the song. I’ve downloaded the Faces album it appears on and listened to the original and the Red Bird cover at least a dozen times — it still causes me to well up. The sentiment of the song just hits me in the gut. The opening lines, combined with the jaunty’70′s rhythm, acoustic guitars and the refrain, “I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger. I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was stronger,” speak to where I am and who I am right now.

The current granddad in my life is my father, granddad to my two young sons, and they laugh at all his words, not in the rueful way the song talks about but in a joyful way because he is so silly and loving when he is with them. And I know, without getting into it, that certain events make  these moments precious for him and for them and — because life carries on — they are, perhaps, fleeting. I want my sons to remember that laughter.i want them to remember laughing with granddad.

Also, I’ve reached that magical point in my life when I am an adult and I have all of the trappings that entails. Yes, yes, I know I’ve been an adult for quite awhile now, but right now is the time that what I do, what I say and what I do are making a lasting impression with my oldest son. That the memories he has of me now will remain with him forever. When kids are two, three and four years old, you can always tell yourself, “Oh they’ll forget about how I royally screwed this up someday,” when they reach six, you realize that’s not necessarily the case. So the idea of learning from all of the mistakes I’ve made and going back to a time when there was less responsibility with the knowledge I have now is appealing.

There’s always a part of me that wants to travel back in time, experience my younger days with the foresight of age, make better choices and try different paths. But here I am, time marches on faster than anyone can stand, I do the best I can and sing, “Ooh la la, ooh la la, I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger… ”

(photo: Screen grab from You Tube of Ronnie Lane playing, “ooh La La.”)

superman, a dream transcribed

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I drive through a Pennsylvania valley, rimmed on each side by Appalachian foothills. To my right in the near distance is a family farm: a cornfield, a red barn, a silo and a white clapboard house with a red brick chimney.

I’m traveling home — home, I suppose — to retrieve goggles for my son’s swim meet at some unknown location.

The skies darken, then blacken. Funnel clouds drop from the sky, one and then two. The red barn explodes sending timbers flying and twirling through the air. I am calm. “You can’t outrun a tornado,” I think to myself. “And there’s nowhere to take shelter. It’s best to drive directly into the storm. I have heard this advice somewhere.” So that is what I do.

The funnel approaches and I feel it lift me up. I float momentarily in the truck before being set down with a not-too-heavy bump on the side of the road.

I look up to see the farmhouse coming down, floating at first, but then with a great slamming velocity — it’s red brick chimney looming, ready to smash my body. Still, I am calm. I cannot die with my sons so young in the world. It is impossible. I simply duck into the seat well and allow the engine block to take the brunt of the impact. The farmhouse smashes into infinite pieces — wood splintering and brick crumbling.

I step out of the truck and the world is still and silent, the air and all sound have been sucked out in a vacuum. I imagine a quarter and a feather falling at the same rate and clanking together at the bottom of their plastic tube.

I remember the swim meet and feel the boys at the pool, standing on the deck, shirtless and vulnerable as the sky turns black and they are sucked up by the funnel into oblivion. I run down the road. It is chip and tar with a double yellow line. The air is hot now and I am sweating. I stop because it is pointless.

I stand in the middle of the road, my feet on the double yellow line. It is a cool evening, the sky is black with a million stars. In front of me is an idyllic barn flanked by a silo standing sentry. There is a man there in well-tailored pants, a shirt, tie and black suspenders — his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He raises his arms, his fists balled tightly and looks up. He zips into the sky in a steak — straight up in perfect perpendicular. I look for him in the heavens, but I can’t see him, he’s so high or so far now he’s no longer visible — gone in a second. And then I realize, he is Superman.

photo credit: RaGardner4 via photo pin cc

orson welles, herman melville and led zeppelin all got together and took ‘shrooms

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Orson Whales from Alex Itin on Vimeo. (Hat Tip to Open Culture)

At least that’s what it feels like in this amazing video, called “Orson Whales,” from Brooklyn-based multimedia artist Alex Itin, which combines the voice of Orson Welles reading Moby Dick with the soundtrack of Led Zeppelin’s Moby Dick and animated interpretive drawings over the pages of Moby Dick. It is a crazy tour de force interpretation of the opening lines of Melville’s classic novel.

My interest in reading Moby Dick (full confession: I have never read the novel, despite earning a BA in English Literature, getting a Masters of Fine Arts for fiction and working for the top ocean conservation organization in the country) was piqued recently when I heard the Moby Dick installment of Studio 360′s American Icons series. In the program, artists, writers and filmmakers, including Ray Bradbury, who wrote and directed the 1956 film adaptation of the book starring Gregory Peck, talk about how the novel has shaped their lives and careers. For example, 360 host Kurt Anderson interviews an artist who has created a sculpture for each of the novel’s 135 chapters. After hearing this piece and seeing Itin’s interpretation, well, I just have to read Moby Dick now.

As a bonus for all you drum enthusiasts, here’s Led Zep’s John Bonham playing Moby Dick at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

why i so love “texting guy almost runs into a bear”

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It’s early morning, the sun is shining, the trash cans are out, and the traffic helicopters buzz overhead. It’s just another day in La Crascenta, California, between the sheets of Burbank and the Angeles National Forest. Vaz Terdandenyan steps out of his house in his t-shirt, sweats, flip-flops and socks. He’s face-down in his smartphone texting his boss that he’s going to be late for work. Maybe he slept too late and he’s already grumpy. He looks up and comes nose-to-nose with a black bear that’s come out of the hills to sniff the garbage. He jumps, runs and is back in the house before the bewildered bear can even react. As crazy as this is, Terdandenyan manages to keep his shit completely in tact. He doesn’t drop his phone, he doesn’t panic, he doesn’t even lose a flip flop. It is, it seems, just another day in the Los Angeles suburbs on the edge of the Angeles woods.

If you can’t tell, I am completely enamored with this video. It is quintessential America. It could happen in a suburb of almost any major U.S. city — somewhere where the nearly insatiable roll of human progress bumps up against a still protected patch of wilderness where some, but few megafauna still reside — but it could not happen anywhere else but here. (Well, it could happen in Canada, but who’s counting…)

Only here, in America (and Canada) have we protected enough wilderness to have black bear and other mega fauna in such abundant numbers, while at the same time crowding that wilderness with dense suburbs and their sweet smelling fast food and garbage to lure these animals down into our neighborhoods to poke around. Only here, do we have such intense curiosity to spend millions of dollars flying helicopters with cameras over our cities and towns to capture traffic, high-speed car chases, riots and black bear sightings. Only here do we poses the Schadenfreude to watch a man jump out of his skin and “run for his life” 850,000-plus times and create 8.4 million pieces of content around this small human event. Only here, could Vaz Terdandenyan turn into an overnight 50 second sensation.

By the way, like most good stories, this one’s already been covered by The Simpsons.

up against it

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Up against the wall on an empty street, the cold cutting through my leather gloves and wool cap. I’m on my way to the job, the tie round my neck pinching, my earbuds blaring the Pogues and a last drag of the cigarette before throwing it to the gutter. Across the way, they’ve started the fire in the pub. I wish I was there with you again, drinking coffee and pints and watching a Friendly. We’d listen in silence to the announcer’s smooth call – the thunder and echo of the chants – and we’d be close again.

photo credit: risa-i via photopin cc

matt damon to star in anti-fracking movie

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via Politico: Matt Damon To Star in Anti-Fracking Movie :

The project also boasts some other big names.

John Krasinski (“The Office”) and Rosemarie DeWitt (“Mad Men,” “United States of Tara”) have signed on to the film. Director Gus Van Sant, who shot “Good Will Hunting,” “Milk” and “Finding Forrester,” has signed on to direct the film, which is in pre-production, according to IMDB.

Filming is slated to begin in the Pittsburgh area later this month and run through early June, according to the Pittsburgh Film Office. The film is holding a casting call in Pittsburgh on Saturday to fill parts for “great character faces, farmer looks, senior citizens, baseball players, upscale men and women with formal wear, teens and kids.”

Damon also co-wrote the film and Van Sant’s inclusion assures it will at least be an interesting film.

video: a little part of it in everyone…

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Laura Marling The Needle And The Damage Done from TheMemeticArchitect on Vimeo.

Laura Marling sings Neil Young’s “The Needle And The Damage Done.” Great version and a nice stop-motion animation video that pretty much nails the meaning of the song. Produced by Jack White.