Musings: Five Great Beards for the Ages

As I take another break, mid-afternoon, here on campus, and run my fingers through two-weeks of new beard growth, I find myself contemplating the great hirsute icons who've inspired me to put the razor away again.

So, Casey Kasem-style, in reverse order, here they are:

5. Croatian tennis great Goran Ivanisevic



Goran tried to revive the Bjorn Borg look in the 1990s, long after the Ice Man had retired from the game.

4. Soul music legend Marvin Gaye



If I had to choose which vision of Marvin to put on a stamp, I'd pick this one. "Let's Get It On"-era Marvin. Never has somebody who embodied virility so thoroughly been able to hit notes so high.

3. All-Star outfielder Johnny Damon (pre-Bronx makeover)



When Johnny Damon first arrived in Spring Training for the Boston Red Sox with full beard and long hair flying out of his cap, I thought baseball had finally again discovered a quirky superstar in the best Mark Fidrych vein. Then Johnny got famous and got interviewed and I realized he's, sadly, a lout. Then he joined the Yankees and went clean-cut. Still, look at that beard. It was a good run for a while.

2. Tintin's seafaring buddy Captain Haddock




Slubberdegullions! That's some kickass facial hair.

1. Inventer of modern fiction Ernest Hemingway



You know this was coming. Pretend to be surprised.

Musings: A Redeeming Googlism

Somebody found me today by googling four of my favorite words: "donald fagen philip roth."

I could not be more pleased.
Jimmy Buffett be damned.

The Whining Stranger's Song of the Day: 16 August 2006

"Every Little Bit Hurts" by Brenda Holloway (1964)

This ranks for me as one of the top ten, maybe top five, greatest songs in the Motown catalogue. It's got a great gospel pulse, bluesy piano, and a scorching pained vocal from the sadly under-appreciated Ms. Holloway. She's a textbook case in considering how arbitrary fame is. She sings better than Diana Ross, she looks better than Diana Ross, and yet-- Well, as far as I know Brenda Holloway didn't date Berry Gordy, so maybe that's the kicker.

In any case, seek this song out if you don't know it. Seek it out too if you're only familiar with Alicia Keys's recent live version. The Keys version is hot but--to quote another Motown classic--"Ain't nothing like the real thing, baby."

The Whining Stranger's Daily Haiku: 16 August 2006

[Note: And here I introduce another regular, or semi-regular, feature to the blog, a brief poetic interlude each day to keep my whimsy afloat and my pretentious pseudo-Zen practice a-rollin'. Today's inaugural entry is composed in honor of snacks in my desk drawer here on campus.]

rice crackers assuage
my mid-afternoon hunger
tonight, a cold beer

Musings: My Life is Good, But--

I woke up this morning feeling that my life is good. Tremendously good. Last night we drank red wine and had potato-rosemary bread and ate jambalaya. We walked the dog. I smoked. I played the piano. I finished Don Quixote and read a bit of Dostoevsky ("White Nights") in bed. Good life, right?

And then, surfing the web for Plimpton content I read this, from Daedalus Howell, on his blog: Drawn and Quarterly.

My life is grand, it is, but there's still room for jealousy.

The Whining Stranger's Song of the Day: 14 August 2006

"Rapture" by Blondie (from the album, Autoamerican, 1980)

This one is best appreciated in video form, in all its early-MTV glory. Deborah Harry--as Marc Jacobs knows so profitably--remains iconic, not just a sultry chanteuse but an image for the ages. And look for Jean-Michel Basquiat's cameo around 1:57 into this. Look, too, for the grafitti, and listen to DH's rap, which for many pop music fans was an introduction to an emerging culture that was about to storm big on a national level in the next few years.

Proustian Years in Review: Part 4: 1981

For me, 1981:

• my first ever taste of chapati, experienced while visiting the Indian family who lived across the street.
• a handheld General Electric tape recorder that I got for Christmas and which I used to record top hits off the living room stereo, by holding the microphone up to the speaker. (Songs I recorded included Kim Carnes's "Bette Davis Eyes" and Olivia Newton-John's "Physical.")
• the confetti I helped clean up off my grandmother's rec room carpet, the night that my aunt got married.
• the communion wafer I swallowed to tick another Catholic sacrament off my checklist.
• Raiders of the Lost Ark, viewed with my father at a theater downtown.
• being introduced to Mad magazine by my best friend.
• die-cast metal "dinky" cars kept in a blue plastic case.

And what, may I ask, was 1981 for you?

Musings

Unfortunate Googlisms, continued--

So somebody found me by googling, "Writing a Eulogy Jimmy Buffett Style."

Hm.

Frankly, I'd rather just be writing Jimmy Buffett's eulogy.
OK, I know that hurt my karmic ledger, but dammit, you know how I feel about Jimmy Buffett.

The Whining Stranger on Music: Ten Recordings To Get a Jazz Collection Started

As promised, this is my response to Caleb McDaniel's Jazz Primer. First, a few disclaimers about my bias as a jazz fan. One, I'm not especially big on vocal recordings. Granted, I love Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Hartman, Blossom Dearie, et al. But given a choice between a long saxophone solo and a vocal interpretation of a standard, I'll always go for the sax. Secondly, in terms of periods, I'm especially weak for jazz between 1955 and 1964, a preference that's obvious if you look over this list. That said, here are ten recordings I'd recommend. I think you could pick all of these up for around two hundred bucks if you wanted to be a sudden jazz expert for (maybe just over) two bills.

1. Louis Armstrong, The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings (1925-1929)




Armstrong, as historian Ted Gioia reminds us in his History of Jazz, essentially ushered in the Age of the Soloist in jazz history. This collection (on 4 cds) features many of the early highpoints in his career. As a bebop-favoring late-teenager, I used to think Armstrong's music was corny, but somewhere in my mid-20s I saw the light. I can't listen to "West End Blues" or "Big Butter and Egg Man" now and not be awestruck by the sublime logic of his playing.

2. Miles Davis, Kind of Blue (1959)



I don't think I've ever seen a best-of-jazz list that didn't include this album. It constitutes one of those legendary moments in the history of recorded jazz for its stellar line-up alone: Davis on trumpet, John Coltrane on tenor sax, Cannonball Adderley on alto sax, Bill Evans on piano (with Wynton Kelly, in my mind the greatest accompaniest of the post-bebop era, on one track), Paul Chambers on bass, and Jimmy Cobb on drums. Kind of Blue popularized modal jazz, of course, but it also features one of those rare moments of every musician bringing his best game to the studio. Imagine a pro basketball game in which a team makes no turnovers, perhaps. Everything went right like that here.

3. John Coltrane, Giant Steps (1959)



Most canonical lists, having to choose only one Coltrane recording, would likely cite his magnum opus, A Love Supreme, from 1964. I've always been partial to Coltrane's Atlantic recordings from 1959-1960, though. This is the first flowering of the confident improviser who emerged over the next few years as (in my opinion) the greatest soloist in the jazz pantheon. Coltrane's tone is still bluesy here; his musical vocabulary is becoming increasingly comprehensive; but he'd not yet exploded into the full realization of what Ira Gitler called "sheets of sound." Great writing too: "Giant Steps," "Naima," "Mr. P.C.," "Cousin Mary," all became standards.

4. Duke Ellington, The Blanton-Webster Band (1939-1942)



Much classic Ellingtonia over three discs here. The tunes, dating from the 78 rpm era, are short at under three minutes each, but you'll find many high points from Duke's early mature period represented here: Billy Strayhorn's "Take the A Train," "Concerto for Cootie," "Never No Lament"... This probably isn't my favorite Ellington album (the more anomalous trio session Money Jungle, with Charles Mingus on bass and Max Roach on drums likely holds that honor), but this is certainly the one I would more readily cite for canonical representation, as a definitive marker of Ellington's genius as a composer and bandleader.

5. The Quintet, Jazz at Massey Hall (1953)


Five names: Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, Max Roach. 'Nuff said. But if you need me to say more, I will say that this isn't the cleanest recording available of Bird and Diz's complementary genius, but it is an important one. If you'd rather just hear Parker, I'd recommend his sessions for Dial. Or for Diz alone, go to his RCA Victor sides.

6. Charles Mingus, Mingus Ah Um (1959)



An accessible introduction to the great rowdy compositions of this post-war genius of the upright bass. Famous numbers from the Mingus book, like "Goodbye Porkpie Hat" (his elegy for Lester Young) and the churchy "Better Get It In Your Soul" are represented here, as is his political anthem, "Fables of Faubus." As you get used to Mingus, though, you'll want to move to more challenging records, like the less restrained records on Candid, or the brilliant, Black Saint and the Sinner Lady on Impulse.

7. Bill Evans, Sunday at the Village Vanguard (1961)



This, for me, is the high water mark for jazz piano in the trio format. Evans's rapport with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian is legendary. There's never been a more poetic voice on the keyboard, either. He'll break your heart.

8. Thelonious Monk, Monk Alone: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings (1962-1968)



I'm actually more of a fan of Monk's quartet recordings--especially those with John Coltrane or Charlie Rouse on tenor sax--but hearing this angular, dissonant virtuoso of the piano by himself is a nice way to immerse yourself in his idiosyncratic style. Marvel at the cubist way he approaches familiar tunes; lose yourself in his spaces and tension-building moments of hesitation.

9. Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus (1956)



Call me a trite, but never has an album been more aptly titled. Sonny is a giant. Still.

10. Dexter Gordon, One Flight Up (1964)



Because every jazz collection needs some representation from the amazing Blue Note records catalogue of the 1950s and 60s. And because, as I just said to my partner in the car this morning, no Dexter Gordon record has ever disappointed me. This one is gold just for the epic opener, "Tanya."

The Whining Stranger on Politics and Current Events: This Just In...

According to a headline from my favorite junky news-source (not for news junkies, of course, but just plain junk), Yahoo News: Poll: Bush May Be Hurting Republicans.

And in other developments, scientists have discerned that cancer may be harmful to one's health.

Also, Peter Schweizer, of USA Today, author of the provocative (by which I mean nauseating) tome, Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy, points out--as his headline reads--that Gore Isn't Quite As Green As He's Led The World To Believe. Read the piece, and then perhaps, like me, you'll find yourself asking, "Why do conservatives challenge dissent by trying to expose hypocrisy? So Al Gore is a spoiled rich guy who leads an overly indulgent life. Big deal. That's what rich guys do. But does that negate the problems regarding global warming to which the (Real Elected) President has tried to call attention?"

I'm tired of so-called critical thinkers in the public sphere playing I've-called-you-on-your-hypocrisy as though it's a trump card in public debate. Is this what passes for political engagement? If so, I'll open another Colt 45 and continue to wait for the oceans to boil over.

The Whining Stranger on Music

Debating the Jazz Canon

Caleb McDaniel has an excellent post on his blog, Mode for Caleb, in which he offers his introductory picks for stocking a new jazz recording collection. Read it here.

I vow now: as soon as I get through some of the work on my desk I will write my own primer in response.

Some Art I Have Seen and Liked: Part 4: Aztec Josephine Baker by Alexander Calder (ca. 1929)

This wire mobile is maybe the best way for a modern artist to try to capture the ethos of La Baker, she who is so visible, but so little understood. At the heart of Baker's elusiveness was movement--the uncopyable dance step; or the savvy use of her much-photographed body in an ongoing subversive commentary on the nonsense of modernity--and this work captures that.

The Whining Stranger's Big List of Ultimate Fetish Objects and Talismans: Part 4

My bike.

The thrift store steal of a lifetime, I found this enviro-friendly vehicle at Goodwill for twenty bucks about a year and a half ago, and had to have it, not just for mobility's sake, but to complete the professorial cliche. It has one speed (pedal hard) and uses those old-school throw-your-pedal-in-reverse kind of brakes. (After riding a mountain bike for years, I admit I've nearly propelled myself into traffic for not having a feel for the pedal-brake). On days when I ride to campus I look forward to the end of the day, when I cruise through our residential neighborhood with the wind in my hair.

And I always pretend I'm George Plimpton, riding home from The Paris Review.

The Whining Stranger on Books and Reading: One Book, etc.

[Note: To date I've resisted memes in filling my blog content, if only because I'm fixated enough on my own various small obsessions never to lack content. This one, which I came across on Light Reading (by way of Kate's Book Blog) was too good to pass up though.]

1. One Book That Changed Your Life

Without a doubt, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. It's a novel that contains the whole history of American culture (and even crosses the pond in meaningful ways) yet offers such a completely personal version of experience. It's comprehensive without sacrificing accessibility. It's erudite but steeped in the vernacular. Novels should contain multitudes, it convinced me, but they need also embody the writer's best sense of hope. This one does all that.

2. One Book That You've Read More Than Once

While I've read Ellison's novel many times (maybe five, six), I'll say J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey here. I'm smitten with the Glass family. I admit I'm enamored with the thought of New York apartments and genius families. ("Oh, to have more academic relatives to talk with!" says the guy who has to explain what he does exactly every time he returns home for a family visit.) As an adolescent reader I was taken with Salinger's prose style. Now older, I find myself drawn to the book's major problem: where does the cynical, ironic deep thinker turn to settle his/her monkey mind and find true spiritual calm?

3. One Book That You'd Want a Desert Island

This may appear to compromise my reading tastes, but I'm an unbashed lover of baseball, and so I'll say Bill James's Historical Baseball Abstract for its heft, and for its digestability. Anecdotes, sidebars galore!

4. One Book That Made You Laugh

I'll say the first half of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections or the first half of Robert Sedlack's The African Safari Papers. Apparently family dysfunction really hits my funny bone. Go figger.

5. One Book That Made You Cry

The second half of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. Apparently family dysfunction really hits my--

6. One Book That You Wish Had Been Written

...or at least finished according to its author's plan? Definitely Ralph Ellison's second novel, posthumously published in much-edited form as Juneteenth. I actually cried when I first read this one too--for its flashes of greatness, and for its tragically unfinished quality.

7. One Book That You Wish Had Never Been Written

Now that's just mean. If I answer this, instant karma's gonna get me.

8. One Book You're Currently Reading

Still trudging through Don Quixote. Oh, to be a faster reader!

9. One Book You've Been Meaning to Read

Where to start? David Bodanis's E=mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation. Or Zadie Smith's On Beauty. Or George Plimpton's Shadow Box: An Amateur in the Ring.

There. Now wasn't that fun?

Musings: The Cruel Part of the Summer

One of the few downsides of living a life governed by the academic year is that August inevitably carries a bit of melancholic weight. These are the last few weeks of unstructured time before the rigor of classes, and meetings, and stringent commitments sets in. Autumn's cool, crisp winds come nipping in at the corners of your sun-bleached, laissez faire existence. Soon you'll be living by alarm clocks and datebooks again.

This is the month of Jay Gatsby's downfall. This is the busy time of looking ahead to the busier time of school starting.

I sigh.
And I wonder how another summer has so quickly passed.

The Whining Stranger's Pantheon of Great Heroes and Key Influences: Part 5: Marcello Mastroianni (1924-1996)

He makes the pantheon for his performance as Guido Anselmi in Fellini's 8 1/2 alone. When Mastroianni turns to the camera, wearing chunky dark shades at the spa, in the film's opening section, I coo, I melt. My man crush speeds like a runaway train. He's suave, with his baritone voice. He's dashing with his slicked back hair. But Mastroianni also offers a moving vision of vulnerable narcissism. (Spare me the invincibility of your Steve McQueens, this cat hurts.) His character is self-obsessed but recognizes that self-obsession as a potentially loathesome quality. He loves those close to him but inevitably disappoints them for not being able to slip the bonds of his own gigantic ego.

And those sunglasses! I always buy chunky shades--always!--in tribute to him.

The Whining Stranger on Music: The Whining Stranger Digs Classic Album Covers, Part 1

I know I'll seem like an old grump in writing this, but I do long for a time when records (a word I use in talking to undergraduates at times, to raised eyebrows and general confusion) were bigger, and their sleeves gave them a real objet d'art feel. I like the shine of the compact disc, true; I dig the portability of the mp3 (after venturing around NYC with my girlfriend's mp3 player in my pocket, I'm sold on the new technology--finally), but aesthetically I just can't get past the grandeur of the long-ago album sleeve. Here are five noteworthy covers:

1. The Beatles by The Beatles [aka "the White Album"].



This cover is so zen in its simplicity. Maybe I'm especially inclined toward this one because its my favorite of their recordings--so diverse, so chaotically lovely--but I admit I've always been mesmerized by the slightly crooked setting of their name.

2. Porgy and Bess by Miles Davis



An elegant record with a saucy cover. What's with the flash of knee? What's with the not-so-demure feminine hand hooked around the trumpet? Meow.

3. The Hissing of Summer Lawns by Joni Mitchell



Joni's covers--usually painted by herself--are always amazing. This one has a certain baroque charm in the intricate pattern on the snake's belly. All that greenspace is hypnotic too, befitting one of the greatest album titles in pop music history.

4. Bookends by Simon and Garfunkel



I dig san serif fonts on album covers. I dig candid photos. Paul and Artie look so wide-eyed here. I know the inticmacy is staged, but even if its a performative candor it's so suitable for the music you hear within.

5. Gettin' Around by Dexter Gordon



The recently released Van Gelder Edition of this album is in frequent rotation on my stereo right now. But the cover! I could compile a list of fifty favorite album covers just by sorting through Reid Miles's designs for Blue Note Records back in the 50s and 60s alone. I love the use of space. I love the bicycles. And look--another san serif font! Brilliant.

Musings: Scrapple from the Apple: The Whining Stranger's Back from NYC

So, Friday night I landed, tired, back into my quiet college town, after ten days in the greatest city in the universe. It's over: I took Manhattan, the Bronx, and the Staten Island ferry too. A good trip overall. I was sufficiently productive with the library research I was supposed to do, and I maximized my time in the city, enjoying ten days as a flaneur in midtown, Greenwich Village, Chinatown, SoHo, the financial district... Baseball brought me to Queens and the Bronx. The unlimited-ride MetroCard I bought on Day 2 was my greatest resource. Some highlights and things I did, and discovered:

1. Midtown Manhattan hotel rooms at twilight invite shadowy self-portraits:



2. Ms. Liberty's a looker, even on an overcast afternoon, as viewed from the tip of Battery Park. (I also saw her from the Staten Island ferry, but didn't have my camera to record that first meeting of wayfaring intellectual and gigantic female icon.)



3. My favorite on-the-go lunch is, without a doubt, gyros bought on the cheap from the vendors around the corner from Radio City Music Hall, where I stomped on the avenue in bad sneakers, but sans transistor or large sum of money. A good lunch: greasy, sloppy goodness in a pita with an ice cold can of Coke, and all for five bucks.



4. This unassuming basement venue is--as I knew it would be--the greatest jazz club in the world. The staff could be a little more personable, but man, I sat three feet from Greg Osby (who was fantastic) and couldn't settle the litany in my mind of famous musicians who'd played (and recorded seminal albums) on the stage before me ("Trane!" "Sonny Rollins!" "Bill Evans!" etc.).



...but I also heard amazing jazz from the Mingus Dynasty group here, at Iridium, on Broadway on Tuesday night. A great pick-up performance, and a personal highlight for me, when Ku'umba Frank Lacy acknowledged my applause from the front table with a nod and a finger pointed in my direction.



...and the best serendipitous jazz moment of my visit was getting to catch the Dave Holland Quintet for free at Castle Clinton in Battery Park on my last night in town. Chris Potter and Robin Eubanks were particularly otherworldly.



5. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is overwhelming in its grandeur. I had to limit myself to my bread-and-butter, the modern and contemporary collections. While I can't pretend I wasn't disappointed that they didn't have Romare Bearden's The Block on view, I was moved at seeing Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein in person for the first time.



6. At Yankee Stadium, you get this for forty-five dollars:



...but at Shea Stadium, you get this for only sixteen:



So what if Shea's a dumpier ballpark. I like the Mets better anyway. (Though I did have a blast joining the boo-birds in the Bronx when A-Rod struck out three times. I could strike out for less than 25 million bucks a year, dude.)

And those are some highlights from my time in the big city. Sadly, now I'm staring at a mess of work to do in the next three weeks. When-oh-when will those syllabi be finished?

The Whining Stranger's Song of the Day: 24 July 2006

"Theme from New York, New York" by Frank Sinatra (1979)

OK, I know this is Liza's tune originally, but the Chairman's take on it really makes it for me. Here's to little town blues melting away, and waking up in the city that never sleeps, etc.

I depart tomorrow. By dinner time I should be in the Big Apple.

The Whining Stranger on Film: "Say it ain't so, Tina."

Tina Fey is leaving Saturday Night Live. Now I don't have her Weekend Update wit to justify my unfailing fidelity to television's longest-running, but straining-for-relevance once-countercultural institution.

The Whining Stranger's Song of the Day: 22 July 2006

"Trans Europe Express" by Kraftwerk (1977)

Was reading about the early days of hip-hop culture before dinner tonight, and was struck by Nelson George's reminiscing about Bronx block parties at which African American DJs would spin this Kraftwerk track, and the spacy synth sounds could be heard throughout neighborhoods. Not the music I'd choose to be blasting through my neighborhood every day, but a quirky enough delight for this summer evening--even if it's just me spinning it, from an mp3 file on the laptop, in the localized neighborhood of my home study.

Musings: "The horror..."

Among the various idiosyncrasies (by which I mean manifestations of my ongoing mental illness) that make me who I am, I have to include a genuine phobia of the telephone. I wasn't always this way. I used to have conversations on the phone with people as a child, and into my adolescence and teenaged years. And living far away from my family, as I have since 1996, necessitates the occasional phone catch-up, especially since my mother has email access only a few times a week at work and isn't so great a typist to begin with.

But somewhere along the way, in the past ten years, the phone became a fearsome object for me. Was it during the impoverished grad school days when I would fall behind on bills and spend weeks dodging creditors? Is it because some of the most traumatic memories I have begin with unexpected phone calls? In any case, I have to admit that I'm afraid of it. I'm afraid to answer when it rings; I'm loathe to phone people myself. Friends have grown to accept it. They know the drill. There are countless messages that turn up on our answering machine in the, "Hello? You there? Well, I know you're there, but anyway, this is what I want to talk about..." vein. For a while, I thought this was just a quirky affectation--say, me doing my best Buddy Glass impersonation. But it's not. There's some component of my brain that sees the phone as something to be avoided, an evolutionary impulse on which my well-being defends.

But.
I did phone my mom this morning and talked for an hour.
And I returned a phone message just now that was work related. (Bad luck though--the person was gone for the day, which means I have to call back again on Monday. Rats.)

Still, maybe there's hope for me yet.

The Whining Stranger on Sport: 5.5 is the magic number.

5.5 is a meaningful number. That is how old I was (in years, of course) when I started to really take an interest in world events. My parents left copies of Time magazine around the house, and I would peruse them. I remember being particularly interested in the Iran hostage situation, as covered, for instance, in the issue depicted above from November 1979.

Well, seemingly more trivial, 5.5 is also the number of games by which the blessed Detroit Tigers lead Ozzie Guillen's surly Chicago White Sox after this afternoon's splendid victory back in the Motor City.

Go get 'em, Tigers!

The Whining Stranger's Big List of Ultimate Fetish Objects and Talismans: Part 3

The Lacoste polo shirt.

The original iconic polo shirt, made famous by Rene Lacoste oh-so-long-ago. The shirt with the whimsical gator on chest. More cheeky that Ralph Lauren's ponies; almost as absurd as Munsingwear's penguin (which is a close second for my favorite kind of polo shirt). I love these. I love how they embody vintage preppydom--that is, I'll keep wearing mine even when their current vogue subsides--and country club pizazz. I grew up, of course, in a poor neighborhood, and merely passing for a Todd or a Biff. But from a distance, who can tell?

The Whining Stranger on Books and Reading: Wanted: Slim, Elegant Volumes

Every year since 2000, I have assiduously recorded every book that I've read in its entirety. I type the list into a file of my computer, and sometimes go back and look at past years to see where my reading has taken me. It's another way of documenting my existence. There are rules, of course. I can only record a book on the list when I've read the entire text. (Sometimes, with Penguins or Oxford Classics, I skip the Introduction and let myself off the hook.) If I start a book in one year but finish it in another, I record it in the year in which I completed it. Each year I strive to read fifty full books. Each year I fall short: sometimes by just a few, sometimes by a dozen.

This year, I'm on an embarrassingly slow pace. I got busy with university administrative stuff in the winter. I traveled a lot in April and spent more time listening to my Discman than reading on planes. Don Quixote is, of course, killing me. And the next read on my agenda, Ralph Ellison's Complete Essays, at 800+ pages, threatens to slow me down all the more.

So, I'm in need of slim, elegant volumes. What are the greatest novels, for instance, under 200 pages. Or better, under 150. My partner and I just did The Great Gatsby again. That's surely on the list. As would be, hm, Nella Larsen's Passing? Don DeLillo's The Body Artist? The new Philip Roth, which is short and well-reviewed, should go on my to-read list. I have a copy that a friend passed on.

But others?

Musings: "It's what we drink around here."

Anybody who doesn't think this is the tastiest soda in the world is wrong.
Or allergic to ginger.

The Whining Stranger on Politics and Current Events: Taking It to the Streets: A Primer on the Whining Stranger's Politics

As I try to resolve the various subtleties and possible contradictions that befit being an non-dogmatic, politically engaged critical thinker in these troubled times, I think I can say safely that I am all of the following.

• pro-choice; anti-middle-aged-white-guys-jockeying-for-control-of-women's-bodies
• anti-war; pro-trying-to-use-the-boundlessness-of-our-human-intelligence-to-resist-resolving-differences-in-unevolved-ways
• pro-social programs; anti-rich-people-trying-to-amass-more-money-than-the-next-three-generations-in-their-family-can-spend
• pro-Affirmative Action; anti-stupid-sons-of-oilmen-getting-Ivy-League-degrees
• pro-gay marriage; anti-ignorant-assholes-being-afraid-to-sanction-loving-commitment-among-sensitive-adults
• pro-waffle cone; anti-ice cream sandwich
• pro-Tigers; anti-White Sox
• anti-dogs-being-made-to-ride-unsecured-in-pick-up-trucks; pro-dogs-driving-themselves-while-their-yahoo-owners-bounce-around-in-the-back-on-sharp-turns
• pro-Batman; anti-Daredevil
• pro-Katie Couric; anti-Star Jones
• anti-Jimmy Buffet; pro-Steely Dan

So, there, that's what I'm all about politically.

(And you thought I wouldn't find a way to get yet more Steely Dan content in, didn't you?)

The Whining Stranger on Books and Reading: So Long, Mike Hammer.

RIP to Mickey Spillane, the great profane king of hardboiled crime fiction. Here's to one of the few writers who could get away with starting a novel, "The guy was dead as hell."

Read his obituary here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-2275844,00.html

The Whining Stranger on Music: "No, we can't dance together." (But it's fun to watch you go to it, MJ.)

I found this on YouTube last night, while trying to assuage my post-SD concert longing with some Steely Dan video action. After laughing so hard my stomach ached, I had to post it here.

The Whining Stranger on Music: "They Got Their Steely Dan T-Shirts," Part 2

So this is the new one, wrinkled from wear yesterday.

The Whining Stranger on Music: "They Got Their Steely Dan T-Shirts," or, A Midsummer Evening Well Spent with the Dan of Steel

Ah, bliss. The Year of Fagen continued, perhaps rose to its crescendo for me, with a lovely summer night, and two hours of Steely Dandom. We arrived at the venue early, found a perfect seat, front and center, on the lawn. We drank seven dollar Budweisers (ah, the liminal space of the concert--or the ballpark, or the airport--that allows you to suspend all notion of acceptable prices for everyday goods!), and ate cheesy pizza. I bought another Steely Dan t-shirt. (Photo to follow at some point when I'm not feeling lazy). We sat in excited anticipation.

Michael McDonald opened the show. He played for an hour and was formidable. (Indeed, MM's voice has held up way better than Donald Fagen's over the decades...) I'm not a huge McDonald or Doobie Bros. fan, though I will admit that I will usually sing along loudly with "Takin' in to the Streets" or "Minute by Minute" when they show up on my car radio. My mom loves McDonald though, and I love my mom, so I was happy to bob my head and think good thoughts about my mom during tunes about which I otherwise wasn't stoked. The biggest crowd response that MM earned was likely for "What a Fool Believes." I got chills--as I always do--at that big noisy rush of crowd appreciation.

At about 9pm, the Steely Dan Orchestra took the stage and played an old Stan Kenton instrumental jazz number ("Turtle Talk"). A nice warm-up, charmingly hip. Its post-WWII jazzy appeal helped defuse some of the annoying local marketing blitz (you know, barking classic rock radio DJs just inside the venue gates, jockeying on the microphone for some Becker-Fagen affiliation). Towards the end of the number Becker and Fagen took the stage. Donald--even admitting that I have no critical distance--was uber-cool for the night: dressed in black, with a tight buzzcut, and dark shades over his eyes. Becker is looking more and more like a calculus teacher on summer break, but Steely Dan are nerd champions, so I won't fault him for that.

What followed was a splendid mix of Steely Dan favorites. No solo material from either WB or DF this time around, and unfortunately, from my perspective, no music from the Steely Dan renaissance efforts, Two Against Nature and Everything Must Go. There are a few chestnuts that have found their way on to the setlist this time around (like, say, "Time Out of Mind," and "I Got the News"), but mostly it's a cornucopia of popular favorites. The highlights for me were "Hey 19" (the second verse of which, in which aging hipster has to explain to 19 year old who Aretha Franklin is, seems more eerily appropriate to me with every passing semester); "Show Biz Kids" (reconfigured as a James Brown-ish funk number); and the two encore tunes, "My Old School" and "FM." Seriously, is there a more fun song to sing along with than "My Old School?" The answer is no, (though "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" perhaps comes closest) and Guadalajara still won't do, child.

In all, a totally satisfying evening out. The Fagen show we caught in Vegas in March was definitely tighter and more polished, but this concert was a good one given the loose, get-your-ya-yas-out feel of outdoor summer concert venues.

If I were rich, I would totally hit the road and follow them around for another handful of concerts before Labor Day rains on all our summer fun.

The Whining Stranger's Song of the Day: 15 July 2006

"FM" by Steely Dan (from the original soundtrack album, FM, 1978)

The Song of the Day returns today after a brief hiatus. I know that this is the second time in a month that Steely Dan has earned a nod, but come on, it's summer, they're on tour, Morph the Cat is still in solid rotation on my CD player, and I will be in their presence tonight.

This tune is less ambitious than other works from the Dan ouevre, but it's infectious in its rhythm-and-blues-tune-like celebratory lyric ("Kick off your high-heeled sneakers / It's party time") and swampy bass groove. Pete Christlieb's tenor sax solo is one for the ages (he is after all the genius who provided the instrumental break on "Deacon Blues" too), and I love singing along unbashedly with the layered vocal part on the chorus.

"No static at all."

Damn straight.

The Whining Stranger's Pantheon of Great Heroes and Key Influences

Part 4: Donald Fagen (1948- )



The pride of Passaic, New Jersey; a champion for whiney white pseudointellectuals who want to sound like Ray Charles. A guy with a degree in English literature who plays piano like the great hard bop soloists of the 1950s. His admitted influences include Vladimir Nabokov and Thelonious Monk. He's the greatest thing to happen to American popular music since Cole Porter or Brother Ray himself. An electic, who fashioned original music out of an unlikely bricolage.

Tomorrow I will be wearing his image on my t-shirt as I scream wildly when he takes the stage.

The Whining Stranger on Music

"Give us some funked up Muzak, we'll treat you right..."



Butterflies well up in my stomach. At this time tomorrow night, we will be watching Steely Dan take the stage. A second Fagen encounter in one year.

Pinch me.

Musings

Road Trip: Day 30

It's over, baby. Finito. A month of wayfaring existence, living out of suitcases, sleeping in motels and other people's homes, has come to an end. It's good to be back. The garden survived without us, thanks to a timer on the hose. The house was stinking hot without the A/C on since early June. The dog rediscovered one of his favorite spots on the rug in the front room. And I am blessed with good friendship--my homebrewer friend left a sixer in the fridge when he checked on the house in our absence.

Glad to be back. Like Ulysses, I was tired of being away.

Musings

Another Unfortunate Googlism

I was discovered yesterday by some bloke looking for the lyrics to "What Would You Do With a Drunken Sailor?"

Damn.

Why not something Steely Dan-related?
Or how 'bout "hipster in Lacoste."

Damn.

Musings

Road Trip: Day 29

We settled this evening in a motel we stayed at on this leg of the journey home last year: maybe the best kept lodging secret in this friendly state--a region memorialized on a certain album by a certain famous New Jersey singer-songwriter back when I was a kid. The motel is golden retriever friendly, is reasonably priced, has complimentary high-speed internet. What's not to like? Plus we lucked out and go to hear Donald Fagen and Walter Becker interviewed on XM Radio on the last stretch of the drive today. Becker was his usual articulate but smarmy self; Fagen was charmingly taciturn. I am excited--just days now till I'm in their presence. Dinner tonight was cheap (read screwcap) red wine, supermarket roast chicken, cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, and roasted garlic artisan bread. We are nearing the heartbreaking last pages of Gatsby, our summer solstice ritual deferred to the drive home. It's been a great trip, but after a month I am surely ready to return to "real life," especially after an anxiety dream last night about being unprepared in my job. Yikes. I need to get those syllabi written. And that academic article for October. October, in my experience, comes quickly.

My favorite road snack this year is Rold Gold's multigrain honeywheat pretzels. Best road drink is Sobe Green Tea.

Bad road lunch today: a BK Angus steakburger. Made a mess of my shirt as I tried to scarf it down at the wheel. Yuck. I am thinking of starting a website that rates road foods to aid drivers in roadtrip lunch choices. Anything with any kind of goopy special sauce will get a low rating.

Steely Dan on tour.
NYC to be visited at month's end.
A new Woody Allen movie coming out in weeks.
The Tigers in first place.

I remind myself of these things so I don't feel like the summer is suddenly over now that this trip is coming to an end tomorrow night.

Musings

Road Trip: Day 28

Is it just me, or are residents of North Dakota the rudest bastards per capita in these United States? This is the third time of been through this state, and every time at least one person has left me royally pissed off because of their poor manners.

Today's winner was the terse proprietor of a crappy motel who tried to charge us twenty five bucks extra for the dog. And did so as in completely "I don't give a fuck whether you stay here or not" terms.

Idiot.

48 hours from now we'll be back in our own home. Whew.

Musings

Road Trip: Day 28

An action packed final day here. Laser Tag was closed so we took nephew for bowling, and then to Chuck E. Cheese's. I was delighted to find Space Invaders in the house. I still suck though, but now it's chic retro suckage. Then back to partner's parents' house for one last family barbecue. Quality visiting time, much dog and young child hijinx. Just the sort of pyrotechnical send-off we need before we hit the highway tomorrow. Hope to be deep into the drive back home by this time tonight, settled in a motel watching Kenny Rogers do the Tigers proud as an All-Star starting pitcher.

Don Quixote has been gathering cobwebs the past couple days, but I made it through another New Yorker from the back issue stack I've been dragging around throughout this trip.

Home soon. In three days if all goes well.

Musings

Road Trip: Day 27

I slept late after tossing and turning with worry over 1. how the Pistons will survive the loss of Ben Wallace; and 2. the fact I've not yet planned my reading lists for fall courses yet. Today was spent mostly out at the lake, first visiting with old friends at their cabin, then on to another aborted fishing venture when another boat died on us. (Is my karma that bad?) We cast off shore for a while after that but not a bite to be had. Then a barbecue at the lake and home for more visiting. Tomorrow I'm to take seven year old nephew for Laser Tag. Zap!

We leave here Tuesday morning, back on the road. It'll be three days on highways before we're home home again. A long satisfying trip with so many friends and family. Fortunately there's the Steely Dan concert to look forward to to survive the inevitable vacation hangover.

The Whining Stranger on Sport

Say It Ain't Fro!

What the Sam Hill? Catching up on news and sports since my return from the woods yesterday, I discover that while I was happily removed from civilization for most of the week, the Pistons have lost Ben Wallace to the Chicago Bulls?

Oy.
Drat.
Weltschmerz.

Life suddenly ain't so good anymore.

Musings

Road Trip: Days 21-26

We disappeared with family into cabins by a lake. I listened to Regina Carter on the drive up and thought of my dad when she played, "I'll Be Seeing You." We ate greasy breakfasts and spent afternoons reading and playing volleyball on the beach. We ate dinner after 10pm every night and tumbled into bed with full bellies when the night turned cold after sundown. We rented a boat for fishing but had to row it back when the motor died. We played Wiffleball lazily at twilight. We returned back from the wildnerness pleasantly exhausted.

Two more full days here with partner's family and then back on the road, homeward bound, Tuesday morning.

500+ pages into Don Quixote. Miffed that Verlander's not on the All-Star team, but happy that Ordonez is an injury replacement and Kenny Rogers will likely be the starting pitcher for the American League. Tigers, improbably, amazingly, will be in first place at an All-Star Break for the first time since my adolescence.

Life is good.

The Whining Stranger on Sport

Vote for Verlander; earn karma!



Dear Reader,
Now if you're anything like me (and my condolences if you are) you are likely incensed this evening that the wretched White Sox of Chicago have six representatives on the American League All-Star team, while those overachieving Tigers of Detroit have only two.

You can right this wrong. Together, we can right this wrong.

Vote for Tigers rookie phenom Justin Verlander for the final spot on the American League All-Star team, at this location: MLB's Final Vote.

To do so is to combat injustice, to earn karma, to win the Whining Stranger's eternal love and esteem.

Musings

Road Trip: Day 20

A quiet day before the cabin getaway. I slept late, and woke up to discover that everybody else had already done much (calisthenics, laundry, cleaning) before I dragged my ass out of bed. (Last night, my partner's nephew, aged 7, tried to corral me into staying up till dawn. Fortunately, he changed his mind and saved me the embarrassment of being outdone by a little kid.) Had toast, read Don Quixote (how can I still have seven hundred pages left?), showered, dressed, and wiled away the afternoon. The Tigers won a sloppy game. I blogged and ate too many oatmeal cookies, and prepare for tomorrow's escape to the woods and the horrible anniversary.

Some times quiet is good.

Musings

Memories That Never Fade or Grow Dull

Tomorrow my partner and I will be in the car, en route with her family to cabins in the Northern wilderness, for four days of escape on a group vacation. Happily lost (mostly) away from civilization, I will not be near a computer.

But tomorrow is also the day that I usually need (even crave, some years) some time to write, to muse, to contemplate. It is the single most difficult day of my calendar year. Tomorrow is the fourteenth anniversary of my father's sudden death. I am a person who recalls most things well. I excell at trivia games. I can impress people with my Proustian recollection of seemingly insignificant details from my distant past. But 3 July is easily the only day of my life that I seem to remember with perfect recall. I remember each torturous hour vividly: from the phone call I received in morning from a distressed neighbor who was entrusted to tell me that my father had been taken away suddenly in an ambulance, to my horrible collapse late that night, when I passed out after drinking way too much scotch while sitting, dulled and confused, in our backyard.

While the anniversary is the day that marks the worst of my experience (it was, after all, in its swift cruelty, the day that made me understand that for all our efforts life will never be completely as good as we hope it can be), it also is the day that convinced me that people--for all of their errors, their shortcomings, their arbitrary malice in moments--are inherently good. The moment that offered this revelation is much too private to share here--even in anonymity--but it's a certainty of which I'll never let go, and it's the thing I hope to remember tomorrow when grief wells up within me.

People are inherently good.
Within everybody lies compassion and goodwill and perfect love.

And here's to my father, fourteen years gone.

Proustian Years in Review

Part 3: 1992



For me, 1992 was:

• a Penguin Classics copy of Dickens's Hard Times that fit into the pocket of my anorak, and which I seemed to have with me throughout much of the fall.
• a pair of pre-faded Gap jeans that were darned (by my grandmother, oddly enough) on one leg because they got torn in the first week I had them.
• Mariah Carey's heretical cover of the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There," which seemed to be on the radio much of the summer.
• a bootlegged copy of the computer game Hardball III, which featured Al Michaels's play-by-play, and which I played obsessively when I was supposed to be studying.
• the abysmal Drew Barrymore film, Poison Ivy, which I saw with friends in a supercool air conditioned theatre one summer evening.
• pizza with tomato, mushroom, and onion, consumed by my friends and me on late Friday nights at a 24-hour Italian place.
• the sturdy black box that contained my father's ashes, which I carried from the car to the gravesite, on the day we laid him to rest.

What was 1992 for you?

The Whining Stranger on Music

We Know It's Not Elvis Anyway

As I work through my long-standing issues with Elvis Presley, I direct you to go vote in the new poll, just up for July.

The Whining Stranger's Song of the Day

2 July 2006



"Mystery Train" by Elvis Presley (1955)

I have to confess, even though it invites charges of blasphemy in some circles, that I don't care for Elvis very much. Maybe it dates back to my late adolescence, groomed at 16 as I was on Chuck D. bellowing bassily, "Elvis was a hero to most, but he never meant shit to me, the sucker was racist straight-up simple and plain..." Since then Elvis always had the stink of redneck imperialism and appropriation on him in my mind: another white dude who recklessly copped licks from African American greats and got fat on the theft. For every black rhythm and blues giant living in impoverished obscurity, the so-called King was living large in a Barcalounger with a surplus of PB and banana at his grasp.

I will admit though that I am aesthetically drawn to the sound of Elvis's Sun Sessions recordings from the mid-1950s. This track is a good travelin' number, with ethereal vocals and a good click-clack locomotive rhythm as its pulse. Its association in my imagination with Jim Jarmusch helps ease my resistance to liking it too.

The Whining Stranger on Books and Reading

A 500-Word Short Story Writing Challenge for Summer

OK, this time of year we hear much--including from yours truly--about summer reading plans, but what about summer writing plans? Here's an idea. Write a 500-word short story (brevity is a challenge, kids) based on the following theme: For fear that my mother would sell the house before I returned home again, I made sure to write a sentence in permament marker in the closet of my childhood bedroom.

Now turn off the TV, get out your number-2 pencil, make some notes on foolscap paper and come back here to post the results of your labor.

The Whining Stranger on Music

What Are the Five Songs That Define Who You Are?

OK, here's the challenge. Think of five songs that cumulatively address the various multitudes you contain. What five songs are the soundtrack to your existence? Not desert island songs, but songs that vocalize the very essence of your being.

Here are mine:

1. "Deacon Blues" by Steely Dan. This is the easiest for me to pick. This is so much of my inner workings. Geeky adolescent (or post-adolescent) narrator, with a love for jazz music, who longs to transcend the prosaic limits of his daily life by re-emerging as a scotch-drinking, romantic tenor sax virtuoso, only to die behind the wheel.

2. "Blackbird" by The Beatles. This is the vulnerable me of my long-ago salad days. A ballad about that moment when you became what you are. Fittingly, I heard it one August 1996 afternoon, on the radio in a rental truck, when I was driving away from my hometown for grad school, the dog by my side. Naturally, I cried.

3. "'Round Midnight" by Thelonious Monk. Hard to say how an instrumental song sums up the core of one's inner being, but this one does. Haunting, and angular, and a tribute to nocturnal beings the world over.

4. "Swanee River Rock" by Ray Charles. I like to substitute "Detroit" for "Swanee," but otherwise the bluesy, "All the world's so sad and lonely" observation that Brother Ray makes in summarizing his travels seems apt. And yet there's such hopefulness in his voice too!

5. "Love's In Need of Love Today" by Stevie Wonder. On the hopeful note, this one gets at my idealism, my big pseudo-Buddhist hug for people, no matter how often they disappoint me. Stevie is one of the great prophets of goodwill and this one represents that small flicker of people-are-inherently-good that I always aspire to maintain.

Now tell me yours!

The Whining Stranger's Song of the Day

1 July 2006



"Working for the Weekend" by Loverboy (from the album Get Lucky, 1981)

Some North-of-the-49th-parallel retro-kitsch to celebrate Canada Day. Synth plus guitar plus party-hearty lyric plus Canadians in leather pants = classic.
'Nuff said.

You want a piece of my heart? You gotta start from the start. And pass me a Labatt 50 in a stubby bottle. And quit hogging the poutine or there won't be any left when The Beachcombers comes on, eh?

Musings

Road Trip: Days 17, 18 and 19

We ate beef jerky and drank green tea. We saw the hometowns of another American literary great and two pop music legends. We passed by Annie Hall's hometown. We left blonde doghair all over Motel 6 rooms in two different states. We jammed to jazz music at the dashboard. We saw the home ballparks of two of the Tigers' AL Central rivals. We listened to the Tigers continue to play otherworldly baseball on XM Radio. We stopped to visit my partner's aunt's grave. And we landed back with more family after another epic drive.

Settled in now. Off to cabins and campfires and beach come Monday.