Bad Vibes Everybody

Man, I unleashed some bad karma on myself with my harshin' on the beatification of Mother Theresa. I've (though I'm pretty sure my wife brought it home from work) come down with a cold/flu-like thing where my joints ache and my head burns and my throat is raw and my glands swollen. My reactions are a little slow as well - this morning, I went to back out of the driveway, forgot I hadn't shifted to reverse from first and jolted forward into my grill (no harm done to car or grill). But the bad juju isn't my first fall cold. What's disturbing about this whole thing is that my joint aches are worst in my hands and feet; I have stigmata pains.

On the back of my hands, between the metacarpals leading to my middle and ring fingers (I don't know the correct medical terminology, so bear with me), there is a more acute ache, with some tenderness. On my feet, the pain is between the metatarsals leading to my big and second toe, and again, it is sensitive to the touch with a general aching feeling. If your wondering, I have no pains in my side anywhere, but the hands and feet are disturbing. Maybe it is just my Catholic upbringing haunting me with guilt, but I'm making a public apology to Mother Theresa for my mocking of her ceremony. Though I'm sure it's just a weird localization of my flu symptoms, I'm taking no chances. I wrote a little poem for Mother Theresa:

She's nigh a saint, not missing much
Do do do do do do
oh, yeah
She's well acquainted with
the touch of a leper's hand
Like a lizard's yet wrought with pain
The man in the crowd with the
multicolored pustule in his hairline's roots
Crying with her eyes while her
hands are busy working overtime
A Pope's impression of her life which
he gave and anointed her a canon first

I need to be fixed 'cause I'm going down
Downed by stigmata and a swollen crown
I need to be fixed 'cause I'm going down
Mother Theresa's juju won
Mother Theresa's juju won
Mother Theresa's juju won
Mother Theresa's juju won
Mother Theresa's juju won
Mother Theresa's juju won

Happiness is a warm Nun
Happiness is a warm Nun (Mama)
When I hold you in my heart
and I feel stigmata with my fingers
I know nobody can do no harm
Because Happiness is a warm Nun (Mama)
Happiness is a warm Nun, yes it is
Happiness is a warm, yes it is, Nun
Ah, don't you know that
Happiness is a warm Nun (Mama)

I'm going to hell now, aren't I?

Hot October Nights

It is a coming out of sorts - a public admission that I am a Neil Diamond fan. Some of you who have known me since back in the day will be like, "Uh, yeah," but I have hid behind a modicum of cool for over a dozen years. I was the alternative; my mohawk spiked high, casual references to Caroliner-add-your-own-cool-ass-ending, actually listening to Trout Mask Replica, and discussing Marzette Watts and the Borbetomagus "Bells Together" performances. Yet underneath my cool exterior was a love of flash, tin pan alley showmanship - complete with sequins and chains.

It would be easy to blame my mom, with her soundtracks to Jonathan Livingstone Seagull and The Jazz Singer, with Heartlight and His 12 Greatest Hits rounding out the set. It could have been my junior high chorus classes, singing "On The Robert E. Lee".

Proud and strong and made to be free
Can't go wrong on the Robert E. Lee
Got the sun in my eyes and the wind in my face
And it's good just to be alive
Gonna set out tonight for New Orleans
I won't sleep till I arrive

It could have been any of these things; or it could be the opening organ notes that introduce "Song Sung Blue". This was the song, let me tell you. In high school, I used to make tapes for the drama club set construction days (as mentioned before), and by senior year there was always a chance that "Song Sung Blue" would rear it's head. Back in the day I did a mean Neil Diamond, let me tell you. I also did Morris Day and Gordon Gano, but that's another story. In short, Neil was present for the first 18 years.

College changed this; I became cool. The freaks and weirdos attained an unheard of popularity in the wake of Nirvana - we were the cool new thing, and Neil couldn't be a part of that. So my life lost it's Diamond edge. Along with Liz Phair and Pavement, I spiraled to mediocrity after Kurt Cobain's death. As the years passed, I shifted uncomfortably in my skin, looking for a center. Things from the past resurfaced, and Neil raised his sequined and be-fringed arm in defiance. I remember in a letter I wrote to my then girlfriend (now wife), I rephrased "You are the sun/I am the moon. You are the words/I am the tune. Play Me" into something involving orbits and celestial objects and maybe an oobie-doobie-do at the end (though don't quote me on that!). My Diamond edge began to glisten.

So what is prompting this revelation? The perfection that is "Walk On Water." From the masterful Moods, "Walk On Water" is a kitschy masterpiece, a hidden gem of a tune. It begins with a slow fifties doo-wop sound, complete with "ooh, ooh, ooh" male backing. Neil sings with an Irish American street lilt - "Ain't it right. Ain't it right. Ain't it right." It morphs into an amalgam of singer-songwriter and gospel, with strummed guitar and full choir, faux congas and da-da-da-da piano stabs completing the effect (not to mention chain gang "Huh! Hah!" exclamations!). From gospel to pre-Meat Loaf bombast for twenty seconds of fist-pumping: "She. Walks. On. Water." (YES!) Then a gospel "Dear Lord ain't it right" and da-da-du-da piano to fade. In three minutes we have at least three song styles, all cribbed from African-American culture, sung by a Jewish Brooklyn boy in a inconsistent faux-Irish accent. What's not to love?

I'm a Neil Diamond fan. And "Dear Lord ain't it right."

This Year's Model

Ah, the Philippines. That bastion of freedom and democracy, a place where each and every child has the opportunity to succeed, where elections are fair and honest, the true heart of the industrialized world. You think I jest, mock, and lie? How could I say such outrageous things, when history shows hundreds of years of colonial oppression, a recent coup attempt, an active terrorist organization (Abu Sayyaf), and don't forget, Imelda Marcos and her shoes? I tell you, it must be the truth, because I read that the Resident said that the Philippines is a model for rebuilding Iraq.

Has your jaw shut yet? The Philippines is a model for rebuilding Iraq. With this model, we know we shall succeed. After a 48-year occupation, we will leave a broken and desperate people to their own devices, requesting only that they forever remain a puppet state, pliable and compliant to our wishes and whims. Who shall be the Iraqi Marcos, retiring after 20 years of tyranny to a Hawaiian estate? I'm sure Chalabi would volunteer, but I'm afraid he won't be around when we decide to let go. It will be great to visit in 105 years (the Philippines has been "free" since we "liberated" them in the Spanish-American war in 1898), when it still won't be safe for the President to stay:

[I]n a taste of the anger that Mr. Bush has generated around the world, several thousand protesters filled the streets near the Philippine Congress and forced an hourlong delay in the arrival of the president's motorcade while the Secret Service assessed whether it was safe to move him through the streets. In addition to the protesters, tens of thousands of others simply clogged the streets of this humid capital, including schoolchildren waving flags and eager to catch a glimpse of Mr. Bush's motorcade.

The extraordinary security around Mr. Bush's visit here underscored Washington's continuing concerns about the stability of the Philippines. Mr. Bush flew in with American F-15's off the wings of Air Force One. The Secret Service would not permit Mr. Bush to stay overnight.

I so look forward to an Iraq that resembles the Philippines. It will be a proud day for the Iraqi people when they taste the freedom that Filipinos have for generations been forced to lick off the bottom of an American boot. A proud, proud day.

Randy Newman Songbook Volume 1

Ah, Randy Newman (I'm kind of grooving on starting all my entries with, "Ah, ..." Sort of like Rush's "heh." I need some signature move, so for now it's "Ah, ...").

Columbus sailed for India, found Salvador instead
He shook hands with some Indians and soon they all were dead
They got TB and typhoid and athletes foot, diphtheria and the flu
Excuse Me! Great nations are coming through

A convenient segue from Ah, Columbus..., Newman's sickle-sharp lyrics (here from "Great Nations of Europe") feature prominently on the new Songbook, Vol. 1. Here we have an artist looking back - not to manufacture a "greatest hits with two new tracks!" compilation but to strip back lush production, studio sheen and luster to focus on the guts of his oeuvre. These are new recordings of Newman on piano, singing his songs like Kerns and Porter, placing before us a reference document for us to follow. So where does Newman lead?

From the opening chords of the penned-for-Sinatra "Lonely at the Top", Newman makes it plain that this piano man's tip jar is still empty, his sarky attitude sending patrons for the exits. By subtracting the oompah and horns from the original you get more bile than Weill. Where the original seemed more tongue and cheek (a knowing wink to the audience, a la Mischa Spoliansky's "Special Girlfriend"), the Songbook version holds both sadness and anger barely in check. At any point, the song could end with a tear or a gun.

While "Lonely at the Top" gains a bitter edge, the Good Old Boys tracks - "Louisiana 1927", "Rednecks" and "Marie" - lose something in the stripping process. "Louisiana 1927" is missing some poignancy without it's strings. "Rednecks" suffers too, though here it is Newman's singing that leads in the lose department. The original, sung so powerfully, proudly, from the narrator's point of view, is transformed here by Newman by his seemingly stepping outside the character. His singing has an urgency and disgust that the topic deserves, but this song is one of hypocrisy not condemnation. A definite step down from the original. "Marie" - the neglectful drunkard's love song - seems truer to life without the original string accompaniment, but I feel Newman's voice fails him. The Good Old Boys performance is so fragile and delicate, and as he's gotten older Newman's vocal performances have become more limited in range.

I feel cheap for criticizing vocal performances that are 30 years apart, but it is such a testament to the strength of his work, past and present, that you need to consider it a strong part of any critical differentiation. And yet, there are tracks here almost impossible to contrast. "I Think It's Going to Rain Today", originally recorded in 1968, is almost identical to the Songbook version. Strings v. No Strings is your only choice, as the performances are so strikingly similar in delivery and emotive power. The same can be said of "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)" - if they were mimeographs they would be less than three or four copies apart.

Kissing cousins, each and every one. A few missing guitar licks, soft horns and strings. These are set pieces, master takes to be embellished at a later date. Some add power - "In Germany Before the War" seems even more predatory, Robert Mitchum in a remake of M. Some subtract - "Political Science" relies solely on the biting sarcasm of the lyrics (We give them money/But are they grateful?/No they're spiteful/And they're hateful/They don't respect us so let's surprise them/We'll drop the big one and pulverize them) without the vaudevillian swing of the snare drum.

Which leaves us where? What journey have we made? We can't know without examining one of Newman's best, the slave traider's recruitment song, "Sail Away." The original is an anthem, resembling a mischievous cross of the TWA and Come Back to Jamaica commercial melodies, an advertisement for the Disney Song of the South theme cruise. The Songbook version hints at regret, the performer having made the trip back across the Atlantic too many times before. It's tempting to hear this as Newman's comment on his big money work of soundtracks and scoring - "I got on the ship, and see where I am" - a richer man writing jingles on company time. There certainly is a poignancy to this performance, whatever its reason.

This leaves Songbook an album touched with more than a hint of sadness, anger and regret. A crucial re-examination by the artist himself, reworking, recasting, and reclaiming his own history. With Volumes 2 & 3 slated to follow, I for one will wait anxiously while revisiting Songbook, Vol. 1 over and over again.

Tiny Voices Considered

It is dark and murky, the production muted like the sound of the lone clarinet in the bar as our protagonist contemplates infinity. The piano is an upright, tight against brick, tinny and sharp. A tired Wes Montgomery treats his guitar like Monk, a flourish or chord breaking through to illuminate a single word. On stage there’s a tape deck like in elementary school, the rectangular one with the single speaker that makes every word sound like a mumble from a backwards megaphone: “I’m Falling For You - Falling For You.” No loops needed as there is time to rewind.

The singer slumps on his stool, the Jack of Diamonds in the band of an old tan pork pie hat, and he sings “When you held me tight against you, I mistook your heart for thunder.” The cigarette burns down then out, left untouched in the ashtray. One smoke for one song, a collection of broken promises leaving cinders like snake skins shed and abandoned. Our protagonist looks up when he hears the PA clip and fuzz through blown speakers, any deep bass the rumble of a truck on an overpass. The piano player grabs a shaker and rubs it on his leg, waiting for a sign to care - a quick glance, a short chorus on the keys and back to the shaker. At the bar, the bartender says to no one, “it sounds like a tired blind man rattling for change,” as he checks his tip jar.

A middle-aged man and his daughter (she must be going to Columbia) dance the stilted waltz that non-lovers do, the stiff armed march with a slow rotation. The daughter sighs as her father rolls his shoulders. She smiles weakly and leans into him, but only her head. The arms are outstretched like paper dolls, her head turned with the left ear on the father’s left collarbone. Eyes don’t meet, and tenderness averted. Our protagonist lights another - one puff and done - as the singer pauses for a sip of some dark liquor that once knew the cool touch of ice. The hat comes off and sits like a child on singer’s knee. A hand comes up and tussles his hair, an uncomfortable gesture.
Monk is back on guitar - do do d. do do da do do. do do d. The drummer holds his sticks like spaghetti, the wet noodles resonating like the tender raspberry sound of a teasing lover. The bartender stops cleaning the glasses and wiping down the bar and stands enraptured. Our protagonist hears a soft vibraphone and peers through the smoke and the haze but sees only bass and drums, guitar piano and horns. And the tape deck is covered, wearing the tan porkpie hat with the one-armed man in red.

The singer stands, questioning, “Can you see the smoke rise, and curl? All the way, from your side of my world?” The middle-aged man and his daughter stop dancing and listen. The bartender leans on his towel, and from the shadows come a few young men and women, meeting near center. Our protagonist watches all their reflections in the mirrors, and sees the young woman let go her father’s hands and mount the stage. She stands in front of the singer, back to the audience, and echoes his words. Abruptly she turns and steps down, her father reaching up his hand to help. The band stops playing, and as the lights turn down the singer grabs the porkpie hat and our protagonist sees the tape deck is still playing. With a nod, the singer hits stop.