Arts & Culture, Book Reviews, Essays, Slow News that Doesn't Break
“The music business is a cruel and shallow money
trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and
pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.
There’s also a negative side.”
― Hunter S. Thompson
What a great quote. Things have not changed at all but I thing now it would be a “long fiber optic trench.” Stay positive friends in the biz. The act of playing music, in the end, is the reward. The vultures are still in the suits, and be wary.
If you are looking for a job, any job, and want to work steadily for the next 20 years, become an appliance repairman. Ever since the good ‘ole US sent the manufacturing overseas and the big companies maniacally focused on quarterly profits, the quality of the appliances has diminished. Bad engineering. Cheap flimsy parts. Lousy workmanship.
Superhuman effort isn’t worth a damn unless it achieves results.
Ernest Shackleton
In 2012, we bought new appliances. The old ones had lasted 13 years. The dishwasher died. The stove and fridge were pretty beat up. Time to get new stuff. Because of the size of opening in our fridge, we got all Fridgidaire units, a package that cost around $3000 after warranties and taxes. We have had problems with every appliance but the most troublesome has been the fridge. When the fridge has problems, it is unlike the other appliances as food is going to go bad. My Fridgidaire model is the Fridgidaire Professional 21 HA20412058. They should have named it the Fridgidaire POC (Piece of Crap). How they put “Professional” in there is baffling. Even the doors do not close properly.
So here is my advice when buying any appliance in 2014, especially a Fridgidaire Professional 21 HA20412058 refrigerator.
If you begin to notice your fridge is frosting up, you really have about a day, so plan accordingly. Do not do any major shopping. Look for coupons to the local pizza and Chinese food delivery restaurants. Do not plan your trip to the South Pole.
STEP 1:
Call your warranty service number. They will tell you they can make it out to your house next March 22nd. Is between 1 and 4 pm OK? Proceed to STEP 2.
STEP 2:
Make sure you have about an hour and a half free and unplug the fridge.
STEP 3:
Empty the main compartment of the freezer.
STEP 4:
Use your ¼ socket and undo the two bolts in the back and the two holding in the ice-maker. Gently pull these out of the freezer. The electrical connection for the ice-maker is disconnected by squeezing on the outside. There is one such connection for the wall in the back too. That way you get both the back wall and the ice-maker, out of the fridge.
STEP 5:
Get our your hair dryer and melt all the frost on the elements. This is actually sort of fun seeing this frost just melt away. Use a towel or dishcloths and dry up the floor of the freezer. Water is your enemy at this point.
The dynamite was of no use. If only I had a hairdryer, I could melt our way out of this mess and free the ship out this icy grip of doom.
Ernest Shackleton
STEP 6:
Notice how cheap and shoddy the construction and marvel at the concept that they got a thousand bucks for this thing. Be gentle. This POC may make it another 6 months. If the mechanical temperature adjustment knob on the back wall that you took out does not click and seems broken because of the frost build up, take those two bolts out and put it back together so that it does not spin freely but clicks and works properly.
STEP 7:
Put the whole thing back together, making sure to connect the two electrical connections. Be gentle.
You are now done. Put your food back in the freezer and plug in the refrigerator. Make sure to have that appliance thermometer handy so that you can confirm that the unit still works.
Be ready to repeat this task every six months. Hey we’re Americans! We’re use to living with just 20 acres, a shotgun and a mule. A crappy fridge made in China is just a small obstacle to “living the dream.”
In 2008 my car was stolen right in front of my house. It was a 91 Honda Civic, near the end of its life. I would take it to the beach with a surfboard on top and it would sit there and just look out at the waves and slowly rust away from the top down. Its job was to hang out at the ocean, not get upset about having sand everywhere and take kids to school. You can read the two posts, Stolen Car and 1,192,809 that I wrote back then below, but here is another car story that turns out a bit better and sheds light on a nobler part of the human experience. Something for the “Datebook” section of your local paper.
This summer we were trying to sell a 2007 Honda Civic. Over 200,000 miles but in really great shape. It was my son’s car that he drove off to college for a year and now we really did not need it and wanted to lower the family car insurance bill. I had tried everything. Craigslist. Cars.com. A sign on the window. Nothing was working. Every now and then someone would email me trying to push the price down a thousand dollars. Sorry buddy.
Then I got an email from a guy who wanted to pay cash. I go down a few hundred bucks and two young guys show up at my front door with a stack of hundreds in their hands. It turns out that they work for a painting company in the East Bay and they and their buddies got together to buy a car for one of the new hires, who’s car was stolen at the company picnic. Pretty crazy that cars are stolen in broad daylight. Just when you think the entire planet is dominated by greed, disingenuity and selfishness an act of human kindness broadsides you.
So I counted up the Benjamin’s, we signed the papers and they drove away. Good thing this Honda has an alarm. They may need it.
2/9/2008 8:55:01 AM
There is nothing so strange as questioning your sanity. The things in life that are most alarming are when you find things out of their place. And so was the day of Friday, February 9, 2008. Same nagging alarm clock. Same race out the door. Same eggs on the house. When you realize that your car is not where you had parked it the night before.
It is but a small docile thing. Never can do more than seventy, maybe downhill. These thieves have no imagination! A better car would be one that can actually gain momentum.
To the Car Thieves
So, as long as you have the wreck. The glove box has a bit of damage. You know raising kids and carting them off to school every day tends to wear on a car. A few too many soccer cleats in the glove box, or a pissed of 6 year old can do some real damage. Also, the dash is way past its prime. The golden California sun has been pounding on it for 17 years. A crack here. A crack there. Remember, the car was made before cup-holders so there has to be about a gallon of coffee and a pint of half-and-half under that plastic dash. Actually for a year or so the car was but a house for mice. Way in the hills of Sonoma it sat as its owners were nowhere in site. The mice had a great time pooping and peeing in the air ducts and heater box, so you may want to roll down the windows from time-to-time. Just a simple public health suggestion.
Change the oil. The back windshield wiper should be changed. And while you’re at it, get some new floor mats… at least for the front. And I want the real ones from the dealer, not the crappy ones from Grand Auto. Let’s pimp this ride for when you have to return the beast.
One more thing. The gas gauge sometimes gives out. So you may at some point get stranded. Don’t put a gas can full of petrol in the back. Just make sure you fill the gas tank regularly. Best wishes and take care of her. New oil every 4,000 miles but hopefully she’ll be back home way before then.
2/16/2008 11:21:15 AM
In the United States in 2006 there were 1,192,809 stolen cars reported.
This means that for every 100,000 people, 398.4 cars are stolen.
In 2006 there were 17,034 murders in the US. Since the beginning of the Iraq war there have been 3239 combat US deaths. So, there are five times as many murders in the US every year than all the US combat deaths since the Iraq war began.
Of course the Iraqi civilian death toll is anywhere from 100,000 to a million – which is a genocide that rarely if ever makes it to the front page of the news.
See:
http://www.disastercenter.com
http://www.antiwar.com
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org
On Monday, February 10th a message was left on my answering machine. The Richmond police department had found my car that was stolen from right in front of my house the previous Friday. The thieves had stripped the doors, the headlights and taillights, the seats, the radio, the battery and assorted odds and ends. We got up early and went up to the new Richmond police department building. In front of the building was a bizarre scene. There was a backpack and some clothes and a significant amount of blood on the sidewalk. A police officer was standing there enjoying his morning coffee with a co-worker. They were talking as though a bloody mess ten yards away was normal. Was this some sort of strange psychology experiment? Should we bring this to the attention of the officer? In the end, we said nothing and probably failed the test. We walked straight into the spotless new, pristine police department lobby. Stainless steel and glass were everywhere. We filled out the necessary paperwork and then drove to the towing company a few miles away. We paid them $300 so that they could keep our car. It was a sad way for this old car to go. Sort of like an old lady losing her life to a bunch of muggers, when she had only five bucks and some really nasty Kleenex in her purse. We did find some evidence as to who may have stolen the car. A Yahoo map with a phone number on it dated the same day the car was stolen – all a bit peculiar. Recently, I relayed this information to Richmond police department but I am not sure why I bothered. They have their hands full. They have to clean up the bloody mess on the front walk of their station. Police departments around here do not pursue stolen car crimes. Period.
To the Car Thieves
So you actually did have a plan! You wanted my crappy seats! Cloth seats from a seventeen year old car that has been to the beach a thousand times. Good thinking! Good luck with all the surf wax that is impregnated into the headrests. If you figure out a way to get that off please send me an email with your magic formula. You also had a thing for the doors. They were nice white doors but just so you know, the windows leak. If you see a dark cloud around, it is probably best to pull the beast into a garage. Nothing like a moldy smelly car. Gives you that authentic, been camping for three weeks, road-trip vibe. The CD changer was pretty good and the CDs were fine but to tell you the truth I was a bit sick of them and have them all as MP3s. Whichever ones you do not like, just mail them back. You know my address as copies of the insurance and title info were in the glove box. The battery was less then a year old so that was a good idea. The floor carpet was a bad idea. In fact if I were so dense as to re-outfit this $1800 Kelly Blue Book vehicle, I would have taken out the seats, the doors and carpet (basically all the stuff you stripped – minus the odometer) and gotten new stuff. It’s funny how some people find value in things that are past their prime. The thing that was probably of greatest value in this car where the engine and tires. These you passed on.
Seeing this car all stripped down was actually interesting. It was a bit like that feeling one gets when moving out of an apartment. After all your crap is moved out and you see the morning sunlight bounce off of the nice hardwood floors and delicious open space you wonder why the hell you wanted to move out in the first place. Lastly, I would like to thank you for leaving my driving glasses in the glove box. You put them in the case – a classy final act of thoughtfulness and empathy. Perhaps there is hope for you after all.
Proposition E is the “Soda Tax” proposition and I must say that when I first heard about this I was thinking, “why do we need another tax?” In the first place, San Francisco is one of the most expensive places to live on the entire planet. Gas costs more. Food costs more. Housing costs more. Beer cost more. Need I say it, but parking tickets are outrageous. They are so punitive that when the City of San Francisco raised parking ticket prices a few years ago to raise revenue, and then were alarmed that revenue actually went down, they did not realize that $60 for a street cleaning ticket makes people be very careful where they park the Volvo. San Franciscans break into a cold sweat when the street cleaning truck goes by, in a mad mental dash confirming the last place they parked their car.
Anyway. About this soda tax thing. I don’t drink soda very often but when I do, I prefer a bottle of Mexican coke. The Mexican cokes, with the real sugar take you back about 30 years. Now that bottle of pop will cost another 24 cents, or 2 cents and ounce. I remember when a coke cost a quarter but that is another story.
So my first thinking on Proposition E was, why this regressive tax that in the end really only effects poor people? You work a crappy job pushing a broom all day, or cleaning toilets or hauling stuff to the dump and your simple gratification at the end of the day is a can of soda. Maybe they should tax the big folks like GE, Twitter and Google all companies with office floors of tax lawyers finding ways to shelter the profits? Let the common folk get their simple pleasures.
But then I read in the paper that the beverage industry has spent 9.1 million to try to defeat Proposition E. 9.1 million! San Francisco has around 450,00 registered voters. About 200,000 actually turn out to vote in any given election. So that means that every vote costs $45 to the beverage industry. By election day it will be $50. I think the beverage industry is nervous and does not want to have San Francisco set precedence for this type of taxation. Once it passes in San Francisco, it is all just a matter of time and that it will pass in other places. Just look at smoking. Thirty years ago who would have thought that smoking in bars would be illegal. And then I thought, why not tax soda? Obesity and diabetes are out of control here in the land of the free. Somehow we all will have to pay the medical bills for these ailments. Slowly I then went from a “stop taxing me to death” stance to a vote “yes” on Proposition E. My message to The Coca-Cola Company is you cannot buy my vote. Now, if you had only dropped off a case of coke and a bottle of Jamaican rum before our last party that may have done the trick, but in all honesty my vote is not for sale. As a matter of principle, you lost my vote on this one. San Francisco. Let’s prove the big money wrong and show them they cannot buy our vote.
Vote Yes on Proposition E. It needs a 2/3rds super majority to pass.
As is the case with years past, The Pelican Café gives out awards for the Best of Hardly Strictly. It is a great honor to have been chosen once again for this task.
Joe Spivey played some great fiddle on the Banjo Stage during this set on Saturday and for me it came at a perfect time. I had just had an earful of Deltron 3030 with The 3030 Orchestra at the Gold Stage (what a disaster that show was, especially in terms of sound) and needed to hear something down-home. There is something beautiful about bluegrass fiddle when played well. It combines speed, a singing sound and when done well a lot of funky polyrhythms. Joe Spivey has probably been delivering on this and more for years. He sounded great.
If you like in-your-face, soulful, Aretha Franklin southern Gospel singing, St. Paul is your ticket. He can simply belt out tunes, one after the other like there is no tomorrow. His stage presence, in a dapper blue suit and entertaining banter was perfect for his throwback style. If you are a singer or study voice, you must check out this guy. He does not take prisoners.
I must confess that I have a weakness for music from New Orleans. There is a beautiful combination of elements – spontaneity, virtuosity, soul, community, creativity and an artist to audience communication that transcends other music’s. Jon Batiste and Stay Human show at the 2014 HARDLY STRICTLY BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL was outstanding. It all started with just the drummer coming out on stage playing just a tambourine in a very funky style. He was then joined, one at a time, by other members of the band. Alto sax, then tuba then Jon Batiste on a trumpet looking melodica. They played in a very traditional but polyphonic style. The set was full of surprises. For many tunes they would get behind there instruments, Jon at the piano, the drummer at his kit and just make magic. Funky numbers. Traditional tunes. At one time the sax player picked up a curved soprano and played a tune that harkened back to Sidney Bechet. Other times they would break into a sort of modern jazz, free-jazz thing that would make Ornette Coleman smile, then in the next moment they played a corny 70s tune, Killing Me Softly with just horns. The ensemble playing was impeccable. They closed out the set by heading out to the crowd in a line, playing their instruments, marching band, second line style. Pure magic.
From Brooklyn, New York, The Lone Bellow’s set at the 2014 HARDLY STRICTLY BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL just made you wonder were this alt-country band will be in a few years. Fine guitar playing and really impressive, authentic vocals by the entire group. Kanene Donehey Pipkin (mandolin, vocals) can really sing this stuff. As group singing goes, The Lone Bellow was amazing. Strong. On pitch. Well rehearsed.
I suppose of you like that sort of formulaic 70s pop tune sound with the predictable hooks and uneven singing this would be your band, but they could have thrown in a “drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry.”
The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival always takes place the first weekend of October in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. In 2014, the weather was superb, with clear skies both days. Unlike some years, it was actually a bit too hot for some people and at many stages people sat far away preferring the shade of the trees. Ocean Beach had a long period swell running, sixty degree water temperatures and east winds so the surf was good. The Giants were in the process of defeating the Washington Nationals in playoff baseball. On Saturday, the festival was not as crowded as usual as the baseball game was in the afternoon. That game lasted six and a half hours and was won by the Giants in the 18th inning on a Brandon Belt home run. Life is good in the Bay Area.
Next year I think I am going to hang out a bit further west at HSB. Closer to the old time stages and the music from Appalachia. Ralph Stanley, winner of a 2013 HARDLY STRICTLY BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL OFFICIAL PELICAN CAFÉ AWARD played the Banjo Stage on Sunday but I was already parked with my family at the Star Stage listening to Rosanne Cash. The difficult choices we have to make this time of year.
There are many neighborhoods in San Francisco that seem to have a paucity of parks. Parts of the Sunset. The Excelsior. Endless square blocks of houses, squeezed together like sardines. There may be huge beautiful parks like Golden Gate Park and McClaren Park, but there are not many little ones where you can just get out and escape the confines of your house to walk the dog our throw a ball around. People in each neighborhood really know about these little parks, but outsiders often require time to even find and explore them. One such park in the Sunset District is Grand View Park.
Grand View Park is simply a good-sized hill off of 19th Ave. It is surely used by the local dog walkers and morning exercisers. An interesting way to get there is to go east from 19th avenue on Moraga. When Moraga ends park. There is a most amazing stairway that leads up the hill. This stairway, a product of the Golden Gate Heights Neighborhood Association, has a beautiful mosaic running up its steps.
After climbing these steps, one winds ones way up more steps to the top. The views at the top are stupendous. One can see downtown, Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Marin Headlands and of course the immense Pacific Ocean. Below are some photos of Grand View Park where tourist buses rarely venture.
I have just finished a series of transcriptions of Toots Thielemans solos from a various albums. After having done a few in 2013, I made it a New Years Resolution to do ten. Why someone would take on such a maniacal task is beyond me, but people have done crazier things. Ten for Toots – 10 Toots Thielemans Chromatic Harmonica Solos – Transcribed and Analyzed, will be available in both ebook and paper form in September 2014. If you are interested in adding a few jazz albums to your collection that feature the great Toots Thielemans, start with three. This is after many years of narrowing down the list. Toots is the man!
Here are my top three.
1. Bill Evans Affinity (Warner Bros., 1979)
Toots playing on this album is magical. The rapport between Toots and Bill Evans is great and just about everything about this album makes it a must have. It is one of those albums where in many ways the music is so collaborative, who the leader is not needed. Toots had a lot of input on the choice of material for this album. The tunes bounce back from jazz standards to interesting takes on more contemporary material. A few really unknown tunes are also played. The quality of the harmonica micing with this recording is probably the best I have heard. Great band!
2. Man Bites Harmonica! (Riverside, 1958)
A great straight ahead jazz album and Toots plays with a lot of drive throughout. The pairing of harmonica with Baritone Sax (Pepper Adams) is unusual but works really well. I am putting this as number two as it will give the listener some perspective as to how Toots’ music developed over time.
If you love Brazilian music and want to discover artists that will blow you away, this is your album!
anonymous
3. The Brasil Project (BMG, 1992)
I have not heard The Brasil Project 2, but after hearing The Brasil Project, I must say that this is a phenomenal album. Not only does if feature a who’s who in Brasilian music, Toots playing is simply outstanding. The songs by Joao Bosca and Djavan are excellent. Luis Bonfa playing his song Black Orpheus in a definitive way, will make you rethink this now jazz standard after may years of abuse north of the equator. Outstanding production values.
By Paul Lyons
Now available at Lulu Press – Print
Now available at Lulu Press – Digital
An in-depth look at the style of one of the great improvisors of the last 50 years. Excellent for not only chromatic harmonica players, but jazz players of all instruments.
Table of Contents
I was organizing my vinyl the other day when I came across an insert to an album. It was from a Elektra, a division of Warner Brothers and it was a plea to consumers to stop making copies of the album. The insert was signed by a lot of leading jazz musicians who were probably all Elektra artists. At the time most people had a turntable and a cassette dubbing deck. Copying vinyl to tape was pretty standard practice. That was how we listened to music in cars. Everyone had “mix tapes” that were essential for any road trip. It is pretty funny to think that the record industry was concerned about cassette tapes. That was nothing! The digital era, fifteen years later made taping look like the good ole days.
An Open Letter1983 Elektra/Asylum Records
We musicians thank you – for buying this album, for supporting our music and our careers.
But we have a problem, a serious one, we can do little to cure without your understanding and your help.
Very simply put, the growing practice of unauthorized home-taping of our albums is doing each one of us a great damage. Yet most people don’t give it a second thought.
It’s no big thing, it might seem, to let one of your friends make just one copy of this album. After all, just one copy can’t hurt too much.
Or can it?
Look at it from our point of view. Home-taping is now so common-place, so unrestrained, it has to put a sizeable dent in our incomes, is jeopardizing our recording and “live-appearance” careers and is already causing record companies to limit the number of new artists and new albums they invest in and promote.
The plain fact that your friends ask to make their own copy of this album means they are fans. Obviously they must like our music. That’s great – for us as artists and great for our futures
But we need more – more understanding and appreciation of the bind we’re in.
Jazz is not a mass-market phenomenon. We wish it were. Our art form is not for everyone. It’s appeal is to a select, sophisticated audience – a one-on-one kind of music.
We rarely reach anywhere near “Gold” or “Platinum” certifications for sales. The truth is that even big-time bootleggers ignore our product because they have learned even our biggest “hits” add up to too-small numbers. They figure it hardly pays them to rip us off.
So you do not have to be a computer expert to realize that just one single, unauthorized, home-taped copy may represent a significant percentage of our total volume. And shouldn’t be dismissed as merely a meaningless free-for-all. It’s more than just a numbers game to us.
If the practice doesn’t stop, we are all losers. You are losers too – what with record shops cutting down the number of jazz albums they normally carry, your ability to choose from the wildest possible selection is shrinking everyday.
(If you or your friends can’t find another copy of this album in your regular record shop, please let us know. We’ll attempt to get it there as quickly as possible.)
Some people may not want to hear this. But the only way we and other jazz artists know to stop the of home taping and other forms of copying is to appeal to you and your sense of fair play.
We welcome any thoughts, suggestions, comments, questions or answers (pro or con) about this letter or about our music. Of course, we’ll reply to as many as we can.
We need your support. It’s not charity we’re asking for – just your helping hand. We can only suggest that this album be limited to one to a customer.
Thank you.
Thinking has its own laws. It functions of its own accord and does not follow our will. To merge with the object of thought – that is, to direct one’s attention to it is voluntary, but I think perception is the same in this respect: we are able to see what we want to see by freely turning our attention to it.
Kitaro Nishida
From a stone on the Philosophers Walk in McLaren Park in San Francisco
For people who are tired of that old drab happy birthday song, here is sheet music for a birthday song that has to be sung like a drinking song. It has been known to mend a relationship on the rocks. It can also brush over the fact that you forgot a present…
The Year Now Cometh – Public – Download
Yes the photo is of the author.
Beauty Operators in the house this weekend. Great song writing. Amazing harp player. A mix of old tunes, originals and interesting adaptions of standards from the 70s and 80s.
What is pretty interesting about these venues, is that I doubt any doctors show up at the Doctor’s Lounge
and I never saw anyone drink milk at the Milk Bar.
THURSDAY 8pm Doctor’s Lounge
https://www.facebook.com/events/781986835153741/?context=create
The Beauty Operators play at the Doctor’s Lounge the 3rd Thursday of every month. The club has a great pool room in back. Bar food available.
SATURDAY 8pm Modern Times
https://www.facebook.com/events/305765432910139/
SUNDAY 5pm Bluegrass & Beyond- Sundays at Milk Bar.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1532011310358491/
San Francisco bluegrass.