White Wine In The Sun

I like this song so much.  I would encourage you to listen to the entire song--it is not what it appears at first.  Philosophical and moving, very personal and entirely universal.  Anyway, this about covers it.

February 16, 2010 10:42 p.m.

This recording was made with the utmost care and professionalism. Microphones were chosen and placed in the general vicinity of each instrument in order to capture the sonic characteristics of the music performed. Each instrument was tuned before and often during the recording sessions and arrangements were rehearsed or at least discussed.

The lyrics or text were created to detract from the repetition inherent in modern instrumental pop music. Iambic pentameter was not always an option, however when possible, the last syllable of a line was manipulated in order to rhyme with the last syllable of the preceding line.

Finally, the best takes were chosen and the others were culled and thrown away or erased, otherwise this record could have easily been hundreds of hours long; much longer than the generally accepted running time of a modern commercial recording. Every measure was taken to keep this record mistake-free. The mixing engineer, Andy Wallace, who has mixd many top notch famous recording stars, often took the initiative and muted or "ducked" missed notes and unsavory textures.

The band and producer are confident that your money was well spent on an album relatively free of major sonic and musical problems.

      --the liner notes from Ben Folds Five's Whatever And Ever Amen

This tasteless cover is a good indication of the lack of musical invention within. The musical growth of this band cannot even be charted. They are treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality and bad poetry.

      --from a review of Spinal Tap's Intravenus de Milo

My last fifteen minutes.  Mixed by Bob Clearmountain at Studio One, London.

For those of you who may have forgotten, we used to have "record albums", which were plastic grooved discs constituting the summit  of technology with regard to playing recorded music in the home.  The disc was housed in a paper sleeve, which in turn was held by a cardboard sleeve or cover.  Often the sleeve and/or the cover contained pictures of the recording artist, lyrics and liner notes.  Sometimes the cover unfolded like a book.  It was a great time to be alive.

Liner notes were often self-indulgent, like the rock musicians who drafted them.  The language therein could be parsed by young fans, who would engage in Talmudic analyses aimed at understanding the hearts of the "talent" they lionized.  Also, the bloated prose aided in the self-deception needed to overlook the fact that, three tracks deep, it was becoming obvious that the rest of the album did not possess the musical quality of the song everyone was playing on the radio.  Eventually, record albums were replaced by CD's which, although more technologically advanced than their vinyl forebears, still contained booklets that carried on the liner note tradition.

Now music is downloaded and there are no liner notes.  You will never know who played drums on track 5.  Such a shame.

The First Amendment And A Courtroom Dress Code

A friend writes about the local rules promulgated by the Fauquier County Circuit Court.  Specifically, Rule 1:6 concerns "Courtroom Decorum", and my friend was particularly interested in the section of that rule involving the maintenance of "vibrator mode" and the court's position on stomach exposure.  However, a different passage caught my eye: "T-shirts are not to contain inappropriate language or images."  It seems to me that the court ought to read Cohen v. California.

On April 26, 1968, Paul Cohen entered the Los Angeles County Courthouse, where he was testifying as a witness, wearing a jacket bearing the words "Fuck the Draft" which were plainly visible. There were women and children present.  Cohen was arrested. He testified that he wore the jacket knowing that the words were on the jacket as a means of informing the public of the depth of his feelings against the Vietnam War and the draft.  Cohen was convicted of disturbing the peace, and was sentenced to thrity days in jail.   The United States Supreme Court overturned the conviction, since it turns out that there are certain constitutional guaranties regarding free speech.

Although the present Supreme Court is something less than fanatical about the doctrine of stare decisis, I think this case would go the same way if it was decided today, with Scalia joining the left wing.  In any event, the case is still "good law" as they say.  You can hear an audio recording of the oral arguments in Cohen here.

We're Still Fighting It

To the as-yet-unborn, to all innocent wisps of undifferentiated nothingness:
Watch out for life.

I have caught life. I have come down with life. I was a wisp of undifferentiated nothingness, and then a little peephole opened quite suddenly. Light and sound poured in. Voices began to describe me and my surroundings. Nothing they said could be appealed.

--Deadeye Dick, Kurt Vonnegut

Regarding the issue of existential angst, of which there was some discussion the other evening, two matters have crossed my field in the last day which I would like to share. The first was an interview with Woody Allen on the radio show Fresh Air which I cannot possibly recommend zealously enough. You can listen or download it here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105400872. In response to the question of whether he enjoyed the process of making films, Allen responded that making films was an activity beset with difficulty, but that (like many endeavors, artistic and otherwise) it was a distraction from the human condition and the "existential position" with which every person is faced. His prodigious output of films serves to keep him from the abyss from which we all seek to turn our heads.

His awareness of his own motivations was refreshing, but his exposition also led me to one of the great human emotions: surprise. Surprise is underrated. It is the soul of humor, the brick and mortar of rollercoasters and horror movies. It is in such short supply that society will enrich anyone who can provide even small amounts of it. Just ask M. Night Shyamalan.

Anyway.

The second thing was an essay by David Gessner titled "The Dreamer Did Not Exist (A boy's obsession with nonexistence.)" which appears in Dave Egger's wonderful annual publication of the Best American Nonrequired Reading. Gessner, similar to Allen, frontally addresses the fact that much of our activities and constructs are reactions to a fear of nonexistence, and that we seek to create something to stave off the nothing. This isn't new. By the turn of the century, philosophers and artists alike were dealing with the tension from the fact that we have a twentieth century intellect while our soul is still in the stone age. Nietzsche dealt with it. The psychologist and author Eric Fromm suggested that our only escape was spontaneous love and work. The playwright Eugene O'Neill appeared to advocate opiates. Sigmund Freud had a couch.

For me the "existential position" took on another dimension when my wife told me she wanted to have a child. My peephole was already open. There was nothing to be done about that. But could I pluck another innocent wisp of undifferentiated nothingness and open up its peephole? This felt to me then, and feels to me now, as a momentous ethical question. (I should say here that I am not justifying how I feel; I am merely explaining how I feel.)

And so, when called upon to make my moral case, to take a stand in defense of the gospel of reason as I understood it, I instead chose my wife. I chose my wife because--and there is no way around this--she is my religion. She is my reason. Her origin may be mysterious, her purpose clouded, but she is my scripture, my word-for-word truth transcribed. This is my faith. May I never lose it

[originally posted July 18, 2009]

January 20, 2010 12:21 a.m.

I have to post this somewhere.

November 22, 2009 8:15 p.m.

"Shoot him again. His soul is still dancing."

The film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans has just been released, and I think that we can all agree that I need to see this movie, probably immediately. Putting aside that it is directed by the brilliant and probably crazy Werner Herzog. Forgetting for a moment that it appears to star the Leaving Las Vegas Nicolas Cage, and not the National Treasure Nicolas Cage. Utterly ignoring its implicit claim, however tenuous, to the sensibilities of the insane over-the-top original Bad Lieutenant. Or even the return of Val Kilmer. Watch this trailer and tell me that you don't have a strong desire to catch this flick promptly. Because then I will know never to hang out with you.

November 19, 2009 9:53 a.m.

Everyone has a past. I was reminded of mine when my friend Mike wrote the following e-mail about his new interest in an the 80's band Loverboy and their song "Working for the Weekend":

I was not necessarily a big fan of this song when it came out, or even years later when 80's rock started coming back to the radio. Second, I generally do not care for cover bands. Nevertheless, I totally rocked out when I heard a cover band play this song a couple of months ago at the Clarendon Grill. Now I can't stop listening to the original. Am I just nostalgic? Also, is that Will Ferrell playing guitar? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E82ozXyNjk&feature=related

My response:

I saw these guys live in ’83 at the Brendan Byrne Arena in Jersey in ’83. I am not even kidding. I had seventh row seats. I was there for the opening act, a band called Zebra, a Rush wanna-be group that had some moderate success during the nascent days of MTV (you know, back when they played videos). You can look them up on YouTube--their “hit” was “Who’s Behind the Door?”, and I used a lyric from it for my high school yearbook quote. I wish I was making even part of this up. Having been there, though, I can attest to the fact that women loved these guys. By the second half of the show the first twenty rows had essentially rushed the front of the stage. They would have stepped over their grandmother to catch a drop of sweat from the bass player. Totally incomprehensible in retrospect.

Someday I'll be telling my kid, "I saw Def Leppard in '82 back when Rick Allen had two arms." I'm pretty sure it won't end well.

November 13, 2009 9:54 p.m.

For six years, every time I go grocery shopping, I see this and it makes me smile. And I don't even like yogurt.

November 5, 2009 8:19 p.m.

Dear Mom:

Howdy. Thanks for dressing me up like a gay cowboy. I really appreciate it. I guess they don't sell assless chaps at Babies R Us. You know, I think I'm a little young to be trying out for the Village People. Just a thought.

Love, your son

Dear Mike:

I know we haven't met yet, but this isn't me. You have to trust me on this.

Cheers, Jude

October 10, 2009 8:17 a.m.

Everyone has a plan unitl they get hit. My last fifteen minutes.

The concept behind this little project of mine was simple. Occasional semi-factual accounts of my recent past, to-wit: my last fifteen minutes. Unfortunately, my previous fifteen minutes is pretty much the same as any randomly selected fifteen minutes of my life since my son was born: a combination, in no particular order, of sleep, baby, work and fantasies regarding sleep. It's all a very good time, and very sweet, but it's not the tone I'm lookoing for. Before my son's arrival, I promised myself that I wouldn't write anything here unless I had something to say that wasn't either sentimental or cliche. It turns out this pretty much eliminates everything having to do with babies. So, in breaking what I'm certain is only the first of a series of promises regarding my son, I need a new plan. So, I'm going freestyle. Well, that didn't take long.

Acting Class

It turns out that spending time with the boy has given me the opportunity to work on some thespian exercises. The following is directly from the script of Pretty In Pink, the John Hughes film about a plucky girl in thrift store clothes who falls in love with a boy fron the country club set. In this scene, a young James Spader is playing a rich, good-looking, self-centered and arrogent, but secretly insecure, leader of the rich kids. Andrew McCarthy is playing Andrew McCarthy. Spader, who is upset that McCarthy is dating a girl from the other side of the tracks, is telling McCarthy that their friendship is in jeopardy. [For maximum effect, you can watch it here, at the 4:30 mark.]

As the scene opens, my one-month-old son is laying on couch in a onesie; he has just been fed, and he's looking out at me with those half-closed drugged-out eyes of a heroin addict who just scored a fix (or like Andrew McCarthy in most of the scenes in this movie). I'm sitting in a chair across the living room wearing an oxford with the first four buttons undone, holding a spit rag.

Me/Spader: I've seen your mother go to work on you, Blane. It's vicious. When Bill and Joyce finish with you, you won't know whether to shit or go sailing. [getting up out of my chair] Listen, I'm getting really bored with this conversation, Blane. If you want your little piece of low-grade ass, fine, take it. But if you do, you're not gonna have a friend.
My son/McCarthy: [moving his arms around until he holds them above his head, signalling a touchdown] La!
Me/Spader: Yeah, that's right. If you wanna make the choice, go ahead. I personally wouldn't trash a friendship over it, but I'm old-fashioned, so...
My son/McCarthy: [spitting up white formula through his mouth and nose like the android Ash at the end of Alien]
Me/Spader: [tossing the spit rag onto my son's lap] Why don't you take a shower? You look like shit.

And . . . scene. The kid is a natural.

September 11, 2009 10:42 a.m.

The times they are a changin', my friend. My last fifteen minutes.

So here's something interesting. I'm changing my kid for the first time, and there's Mexican black tar heroin coming out of his ass. And this prodigious output has continued. In other words, I've thrown away dirty diapers with a street value of at least fifteen thousand dollars, according to the chart I found at the Department of Justice website. And those are friend prices.

September 10, 2009 11:01 a.m.

Where snarky self-satisfaction meets sentimental reality. My last fifteen minutes.

I admit that the entire idea for this web page came about as a reaction to the here's-what-I'm-doing-right-now-blog-and-twitter nation, etc. I admit that it wasn't necessarily an original idea. I also admit that instead of commenting on this cultural phenomenon, I just endined up trying to do it smarter and with more restraint (with uneven success). Probably the only thing more pathetic than a person who spends his time publishing everything he just did or thought, is the man who spends his time making fun of that person.

That being said, I am now sitting in the delivery room with my lovely wife, waiting for her to deliver a little bundle of awesome. That's what I'm doing right now. I don't have a joke or anything, it's just that if you're going to have a blog titled "The Last Fifteen Minutes", you should probably take advantage on one of those occasions when something truly eventful is happening.

So instead of enjoying every minute of this special moment, I'm engaging in the kind of empty narrative and parochial commentary for which I have developed such a profound distaste. So, basically, on this one, I suck. Yay, me.

I am, for the moment, unredeemed.