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.