Spring Music and Tropical Wishes

Spring is the time of music. I always listen to music, regardless of time or place. Music is one of the rare constants in my day. But spring is when it matters the most to me.

Even though spring is pretending to come to the Mid Ohio Valley, I know it's a lie. Winter will reassert itself in a few days. But soon... Soon it will be spring.

This week I've been revisiting one of my favorites, Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain. It's an incredible record, something of an oddity for Davis. It's an attempt by Davis to connect jazz and other traditions, mostly Spanish folk and classical. The first track is based on a piece by the Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo, who reportedly was not fond of the final result. Which is astounding to me, because I find the record to be nearly perfect. It's certainly not the modal jazz of his masterpiece, Kind of Blue. But it was perfect.

And it's a spring record. It's fun, light, engaging. Which is what spring is to me. Spring is light, fun. Spring is easy going and casual. Maybe that's why I listen to more music in the spring. My tastes range all over the spectrum, but I do find myself coming back to music that is energetic and fun. It's a nice counterpoint to my tastes in literature, I guess.

So as I post this the warm spring day has turned back into rainy, chilly winter. I knew you were a lie, fake spring. I didn't trust you. But I'm still putting on Sketches and pretending. Miles and I know the secret. It's spring when we hear it.

Drive Towards Motion and the Wackiness of Weeks

Single Fun! 

Today was a nice morning. Exhausting, but in a good way. I took the kids for an extended downtown Ithaca sojourn, picked up a few good records (first Queen! R.E.M. single!) I'm quickly discovering that Angry Mom Records is one of my new favorite places.

Generally, I spent some kid time on a sunny summer day having fun. I needed a walk and a romp through some playgrounds to clear my head. We've been having a crazy week. Nothing spectacular, of course. But sometimes the little crazies can bond together to create an amalgam of wackiness that needs to be addressed. This week was filled with those little sticky blobs of wacky. (Sticky Blobs of Wacky, by the way, is a terrible name for a restaurant.) (Buffet the Appetite Slayer is a great name for a restaurant.)

After the busy morning, I've spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning, listening to music, and thinking about next steps.

This year is all about evaluating those next steps, and deciding where to go next as a family. In two key ways: we want to understand where we can live and settle down, and what our next steps are in terms of career. (Jaime and I, that is. The kids are busy being kids. Although Viri has career on his mind as much as we do, at this point.) (Arkaedi, however: "I'm just having fun!")

It looks like we're headed back to the NW next year. At this point I can't imagine anything else, and nothing here is really tempting in the long term. It was a fun experiment- good for us, especially me. I needed this time back east, back in a small town. But I've learned what I needed to learn, and I'm ready for the return journey. I wouldn't be a good hobbit without a There and Back Again story. And I am nothing if not a good hobbit.

The kids are too young to really have input into a decision like moving. But it's funny to see what they have to say. Both of them are excited to live somewhere with animals and zoos. They don't remember Seattle, really. They are the most important factor in the discussion, however. Soon they'll be too old to be comfortable uprooting and transplanting. They already have friends and connections here, relationships that make moving complex. J and I are more mobile. In part because our best friends are people we stay in touch with regardless, and in part because we chose a life of rambling the moment we moved to Japan in 2000. Maybe earlier- leaving our tight circle of friends in 1998 for college in Japan was a major step. We knew once we made that choice that our world would never be as small and cozy again. And we're okay with that.

There are some factors to consider that may shape the decision. We're always on the lookout for a new country to explore. Viri especially is excited to try Australia, and I'm never one to totally rule out A) foreign adventure or B) Viri's ideas. (Seriously, every day that boy is growing more powerful. "Join me, Arkaedi. Together we can overthrow the Papa and rule the galaxy as Pretty and Bubba!") But barring some wonderfully insane stroke of crazy, we'll be headed back to the NW. Either Portland or Seattle, or an outlying town near enough to one of those. Maybe even Olympia, if we're feeling nutty.

Maxence Cyrin Pixies Cover

Music Supreme

I used to be a big fan of jazz. I listened to jazz most every day, I owned some nice vinyl, I knew tons about jazz from 1939-1960. Then, I slowed down. I listened less and less, sold some of my records and cds. I eventually stopped listening to music in general, barring the occasional car trip or interesting song I'd choose to plug into my ipod. I'm not sure exactly why, though I suspect a busy schedule and kids made enjoyment of sound a problem. Children are noisy, and I imagine I wanted quiet. Or maybe I got bored with my choices. Either way, I stopped. Recently I unearthed some of my digital music files I'd stashed away, including some of my jazz. I only kept the greatest hits, like Coltrane and Charlie Parker. Some Mingus made it to the computer.

Oh, I didn't know what I was missing. It's heaven. Perfect music. I realize why I fell in love with it in the first place. Unlike my other musical interests, there isn't a narrative. No story, just intensity. I'll always have a soft spot for bluegrass, or country, or early punk rock. It's fun. But jazz is music. It's analogous to the feeling I get when I compare baseball to other sports. I love other sports. I enjoy watching them with friends, and cheering for different teams. But baseball is the game, it is powerful in a way that others don't approach.

I wish I understood exactly why I drifted away. Maybe it was a necessary change, a chance to better understand why I loved it. I'm almost glad I did, in a way. It gave me the opportunity to jump back in and see what is so amazing about it. Now I need to run around to used music stores and gather up my old favorites. I can no longer live in a world where Sketches of Spain and Blue Train aren't available at the click of a button. That'd be as bad as not knowing Ichiro's single season hits record.

(262.)

There Were Times Like Before

I have really reworked my music collection in the past few years. I haven't added a ton, but I have filed away a good portion to digital storage. Or purgatory. I don't really listen to a lot of music that I listened to in college, much less high school. I occasionally listen to a song here and there, and Jaime listens to more than I do, so I hear it. I feel like they do not have the resonance with me they did, even the ones I can still artistically appreciate. The few I can artistically appreciate, I should say. The one band I will periodically dust off and really enjoy is Avail. Jaime has a real soft spot for them, since she hung out with them more than me. She even helped them with their Japanese during their tour in Osaka. She has some funny stories of karaoke with bewildered Japanese girls and tattooed Virginia boys that I still get a kick out of hearing. That was in '98, I believe, which seems like a really long time ago. Of course, I first heard Satiate in 1992, almost exactly 17 years ago, which really seems a long time ago. I greatly enjoyed the first four albums they did, and didn't hear anything after that.

I don't know what it is about that band. The music is fun, and pretty good, but they don't blow you away with amazing work. There is just a consistent quality about the sound, and a relevancy to the lyrics that most punk rock, and especially most of that era, miss. They weren't exceptionally ponderous or dull, or pseudo-poetic. I can't take a lot of the early 90s hardcore now for that reason; so much of it sounds like it was written for an English class with an especially pompous professor. Avail was made up of reasonably smart but normal guys. They embodied a style we (mostly) jokingly referred to as "southern hardcore," and defined how I dressed to this day. If you see me on a normal day, I am wearing Dickies, a black tee, a boy scout belt, with a hoodie or simple fleece zip up. I don't wear boots as much, simply because I need running shoes to chase my kids. But I dress how I dressed in 1992 when I first heard of Avail, and saw they dressed like me. The only difference is I typically don't wear the shop shirt. I still have a closet full, though. I could break 'em out at any time.

When my kids ask me about my high school and college experience, I think I'll be honor bound to point them towards Avail. If I am totally honest with myself, they were the band that I liked the best, and listened to the most. That's not bad; there are a lot worse bands out there. There are probably better, I suppose. But there are none that my young self more resembled or appreciated.

Spring Music Bloom

The spring has actually arrived here in Seattle. It's wonderful. There are flowers, the weather is not quite so cold, the rain only dominates most of the day rather than the entire day. Jaime is calmly listening to my pleas for a motorcycle. It's a normal spring. One of the things I like to do to prepare for the mood of the season is change over the music in the car.

This means that Waylon, Willie and the boys get a little less play, and the old punk rock standards peek their heads out and see their shadows. The Vandals, Screeching Weasel, and a host of strange Japanese bands ring in the spring. I can't resist a few bluegrass songs, of course, but spring is a time for fast goofy fun. Something about moving in the warmer weather, with windows down, just calls out for intense and silly music. I resisted Hi-Standard's version of California Dreamin' so everyone should be proud.

I'm ready for the nice weather, certainly. I've had a long winter, with illness and stress. Today, we walked around Green Lake and soaked up the sun. Not coincidentally, I felt better today than I have for months. I'll need reminded of this day when the rain starts up again and the quarter is weighing me down.

But for now, the Vandals remind me that people who are not nice are going to hell. And that's fun.

Waylon and Willie, and the Pretty

Unlike the lad, Arkaedi Sue has developed quite the love of music. She is a big fan of Elvis, at least the rendition sung badly by Papa, and she absolutely loves late seventies country. We have done a good bit of dancing to "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies" and "Ain't No God in Mexico," which is no end of fun.

I really enjoy this musical period myself. There is a humor and self-awareness that I really like, and you know that they are just having a blast. Some of the most quotable and strange lines come from these songs. "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies":

[Cowboys like] little warm puppies, children and girls of the night.

"Ain't No God in Mexico":

If I'd never seen the sunshine then I would not curse the rain. If my feet could fit the railroad tracks, I guess I'd been a train.

Jennings got strange in old age, and rumor has it later took seriously goofy songs he wrote in jest, like "Okie from Muskogee." If that's true, it's sad. At least Willie has kept his sense of fun.

Growing up, I was surrounded by the dueling stupid periods of country music: 80s and 90s country, pop beats and stupid hats, with boastful songs and rich suburban kids claiming they were truly country, repeatedly, and had the mullets to prove it. And Vegas style, shiny sequined jackets and short hair. The Willies, Waylons and Johnny Cash artists were out there, I imagine, but they didn't trickle down from the smoky old pool rooms to my television in West By God. Which is for the best, I suppose. I like them now, and I can give them to my kids without any preconceived ideas or fantasies of my youth. I wasn't a cowboy, I was a bored child in the country reading comic books. Now, Arkaedi Sue can be a dancing child in Seattle, but there's plenty of room to pretend to be a cowgirl. Or an outlaw musician. She'll look better in the braids than Willie.

PS. That first image is Willie, pre-braids. I like the turtleneck. The hippies did bad things to you, my friend. Braids AND pot? Sad.

Dancin' Party

It is always interesting to me how I love working with children, but have no patience for various children's activities. This isn't a weakness in my field: on the contrary, kids see that about me and love it. Listening to Raffi uncritically gets blank stares from children. Telling children you are quite certain Raffi is high as a kite gets appreciative, knowing nods. Kids get this stuff better than we think.

I love having little dance parties with the kids. I complain about the music, and they laugh at me. They love it. Direct Source, some bizarre and probably evil music company, puts out a lot of music marketed to kids about dancing and fun. Mostly they are creepy songs, with strange lyrics that are either not meant to be comprehended or are missives from Hell's black heart. I hope the former. (They also publish Conway Twitty. Obviously the latter.)

Viri doesn't usually get into these, but occasionally he'll break out some choice moves. When the ladies are present and not biting on his typical "I'm a shark monster you're a giant turtle" line. You know, the real ice queens.

One song on the cd "Best of Dancin' Party" has a line, and I hope desperately that I'm wrong here, saying "That's what I call ballin' the jag." Either I am hearing it way wrong, or this isn't meant for a kid's cd. I mean Conway, maybe. But not children! I don't understand who puts together these compilations, or really why. I can't imagine there is any benevolence in a company called Direct Source, but who am I to judge.

Oh, wait, I'm the guy who spends his days surrounded by the stuff. I'm exactly the guy to judge. And I do!

On a side note, this is a goofy and light post because today I made a huge mistake and screwed up Jaime's residency application. I opened a sealed envelope that was meant for the school, and now a new one has to be ordered, and there may not be time before the deadline. So I feel like the load of loads, and don't want to keep beating myself up over it. J is being very sweet, but the fact is it was a stupid mistake and shouldn't have happened. Sometimes I don't really pay attention, it's a major fault of mine. I live in my head, and today I saw how that can screw up real things, like our plans for the next year, with one careless moment. So, lesson heard. I hope I can really learn it. My goal from this is to break that habit, and really think things through before stumbling around town like an idiot man-child. I'm going to make more mistakes, of course, but I'll be damned if I'll make them so easily now. The loading stops here!

My Time

I spend a large amount of time involved with my work and my kids. The free time I get is like this evening, after nine, when everyone's asleep and I can relax and prepare for tomorrow. I spend a disturbing percentage of this time online, writing this or wasting time at the AVclub. (Goodreads takes up some energy too... sites that talk about books or movies are dangerous to discover.)

I'm spending a lot of this evening catching up on the wonderful collection of Bruce Springsteen that Herc gifted me.
After getting past how eerily similar he looks to my father, I can delve into stacks of the Boss from the seventies.

(Like George Lucas and certain members of Metallica, it is common knowledge that Bruce was kidnapped halfway through recording Born in the USA and taken to another planet. He now hangs out on the beach watching "Star Wars Seven: The Galaxy Sees True Awesomeness" while snuggling beautiful alien women.)(For your own sake, never mention the horror of the prequels in my presence. If it don't have Lando, dammit, it ain't Star Wars!)(Lando's not a system. He's a man.)


Therefore the current version that will play the Super Bowl in a few weeks is not the Boss. For the sake of convenience, to avoid confusion when referencing the different musicians, we can call him the Temp. The actual Boss, however: his early work is downright amazing. I live version of Dylan's "I Want You" alone is worth building a time machine to travel back to 1975. It's strange to here this music and think that I wasn't even born yet when he was playing onstage in Ohio. My parents were 100 miles away attending high school.

I never want to be one of those people who thinks everything prior to now is somehow better to now. I hope I'm not too guilty of that. I do find myself being gently tugged to the past more lately. I don't know if it's a slight bump, or a real trend. I just cleared out my hard drive, and noticed that I am not listening to anything made in the 90s or later. Granted I listen to a lot of jazz and classical, which skews the numbers a bit. My hardcore and punk is not getting played, though, and hasn't been for a few years. Maybe I will come back to it: I still feel as though I like it, I just don't want to hear it. I imagine many people my age are like that with the jazz and classical on their ipods, I suppose. They load it up, intent on listening, then go for the punk. I put the Ebullition catalog on mine, thinking it'd be fun to hear... then skip to Bach when I actually have the time to listen to music.

The Boss is starting Jungleland. That's my cue. (Danny Federici is amazing on that song, God rest your soul.)

Music Comp for Christmas, Marriage Vows for Xmas, Wisdom for Boxing Day

I just got the most awesome gift, a compilation of music from the mighty herc that has twenty five of my thirty current favorite songs. Among the amazing songs are They Might Be Giants doing a (typically) sweet and funny song, a cover of "New York City," An old Less Than Jake song from the Grease soundtrack, and Bruce Springsteen doing a classic rocking "Mountain of Love." Springsteen has an ability to be sincere that blows my mind. Even when you know he's just messing around knocking off a song in his studio, you get the idea that he's unemployed writing on the bathroom wall of some tavern in Hackensack. I don't know how he does it.

It got J and I talking about doing a similar love song comp for Valentine's day, to send to friends.

Which got us on marriage. One of my failings, one that I'll admit to, is a tendency to think of the world in terms of abstractions and avoid real world complications, which are not easily evaluated on an intellectual plane. This is a common "smart" person problem. I'm aware this could sound a little odd, and I hope I say what I say with humility: not meaning I am wise or anything but the ability to process information and apply it often creates a bias towards modeling and away from practical experience. In reality, problems as variable as love and children and national economic crises are very large and complex. Not easily modeled and therefore in danger of oversimplification by pretty much everyone. I certainly do it. But I also feel that I have a nice marriage, and some of the things I've learned could be useful to people trying to make a go of a relationship.

I thought a lot about that this week, a I was sick and J was working on finals and our life seemed insane for a few days. We set aside everything we could and just plowed through, checking in with each other, asking for and giving help...It reminded me of one thing we've always talked about as a strength: We aren't going to let any little things (even careers or money) push aside the commitment we've made to each other. I may not succeed at much, but in fifteen years I have succeeded at trying to grow as a person, admit mistakes, and share with Jaime. She jokes that I couldn't lie to her if I wanted; and I find it a little amazing that I never have. Well, I try and say it wasn't me who gave Viri cupcakes at 7pm, but she doesn't buy it. I may be wrong, but searching my memory, I think the last time I even avoided telling her something I thought was important was in high school. Spouses have aspects of themselves they don't talk about, sure. But if I think it impacts J or the kids I say.

This tendency to focus on the deeper issues is something I don't hear a lot about from my friends and coworkers. I worry that people today get together for superficial reasons: I like this band, She looks punk rock, She shares my taste in art. These are fun things, but they don't make a relationship for life. That comes when you say, "I love you. Our love means something. I will do anything to help you fulfill your life, including improving myself and sacrificing for you."

Paraphrasing from my Christian comrades, faith, hope and love abide in the world. The greatest of these is Love.