let's poeticize

...few weeks ago, then. Long lost friend from La Grange Park posted a lyric from Van Morrison's Astral Weeks (1968) on his Facebook wall. I peepered on that verse and felt:

1) newfound respect for said friend
2) a vague urge to cry

Here's why 2) happened:

Back during summer ‘05, clown-carred into a middle seat of a Portland-bound flight out of O’Hare, I thumbed eagerly thru my new book (Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, a Lester Bangs anthology). Lester ain't a virginal blog topic; I referenced him here. Anyway, one of the articles in Carburetor Dung addresses Astral Weeks, Van’s second release as a solo artist. Here's how Bangs (an unabashed Van disciple) concludes his analysis of this seminal album:

"...it might be pointed out that desolation, hurt, and anguish are hardly the only things in life, or in Astral Weeks. They're just the things, perhaps, that we can most easily grasp and explicate, which I suppose shows about what level our souls have evolved to. I said I wouldn't reduce the other songs on this album by trying to explain them, and I wont. But that doesn't mean that, all things considered, a juxtaposition of poets might not be in order…”

[Lester then presents one Van lyric and a poem from Federico Garcia Lorca, a prominent Spanish writer who died in ‘36.]

If I ventured in the slipstream
Between the viaducts of your dreams
Where the mobile steel rims crack
And the ditch and the backroads stop
Could you find me
Would you kiss my eyes
And lay me down
In silence easy
To be born again

--Van (from the title track off Astral Weeks)

My heart of silk
is filled with lights,
with lost bells,
with lilies and bees.
I will go very far,
farther than those hills,
farther than the seas,
close to the stars,
to beg Christ the Lord
to give back the soul I had
of old, when I was a child,
ripened with legends,
with a feathered cap
and a wooden sword.

--Lorca

Tough-ass Mike lost his shit after reading Lorca's poem. It was just too much; I cried and cried. With those sixty-two words, Lorca issued my stale, sepian world a (much-needed) Randian shrug. I read and re-read that passage probably fifteen times whilst aboard the plane, tearing up every time. There's really nothing more life-affirming than a bare, minimalist work of art powerful enough to fell an emotionally armored man.

(…props to Lester for isolating two brilliant verses that warrant magnification…)

I'd like to give Lester the same treatment. One might argue that Lester (like a Nietzsche, say) was born posthumously. Though he boasted a rabid readership while alive, he's reached far more since his untimely death in '82. For us to ignore Lester's amphetaminic, electric prose would be to deprive our genius-starved society of a beautiful mind. In a crude attempt at an epitaph of sorts, let’s turn the mic on him as he sidles up to literary pioneer Mark Twain:

"It is a fact that nine-tenths of the HUMAN RACE never have and never will think for themselves, about anything. Whether it's music or Reaganomics, say, almost everybody prefers to sit and wait till somebody who seems to have some kind of authority--even if it's seldom too clear just where they got it--comes along and informs them one and all what their position on the matter should be. Then they all agree that this is gospel, and gang up to persecute whatever minority might happen to disagree. This is the history of the human race, certainly the history of music."

--Lester Bangs (from Carburetor Dung)

"When an entirely new and untried political project is sprung upon the people, they are startled, anxious, timid, and for a time they are mute, reserved, non-committal. The great majority of them are not studying the new doctrine and making up their minds about it, they are waiting to see which is going to be the popular side."

--Mark Twain (as quoted in the Dec. 22nd/29th New Yorker)

Someday, if I do it all right, if I tell it straight and true, perhaps someone will choose to juxtapose my words with someone of relevance…
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psychotic reactions re: wenner dung

Rather than offer up the snide, vengeful blog I first intended to write (Rolling Stone, thanks for providing glossy shit-catcher for my parakeet, or something in that vein), I’ve decided to go all Bacharach on y'all by adhering to his love, sweet love credo. There’s enough madness and misdirected ire skulking about to last us another two World Wars; for that reason, I’ll try to keep this rant relatively civil. It’s nearly Christmas, after all, and I’ve had a very pleasant day.

But you ain’t off the hook, Wenner (Jann Wenner is the co-founder and publisher of Rolling Stone magazine). Let’s take a moment to consider how RS, cultural fossil and THE one-time titan of the music print world, has baited and switched into a fanzine for indiscriminate rock fans and/or fifty-five year old men and/or naïve Top 40 receptacles interested in The Killers and/or Jackson Browne and/or Beyonce.

RS’s most recent list (The Top 50 Albums of 2008) says more than any blog can. Here’s a few artists that made the cut:

Bob Dylan (Saint Bob!), TV on the Radio (a safe, polite pic at #1), Lil Wayne (Wenner: “Alright, staffers: We’re gonna throw this Carter nonsense way the hell up there--top 5, say [it got #3]--for all the black readers. Gotta bring ‘em back over to our side after that Eagles cover.”), The Jonas Brothers (!), John Mellencamp (?), Randy Newman (haha!), Jackson Browne (there he is again!), Nas (see Lil Wayne), Taylor Swift (erm), Guns n’ Roses (wow).

Let’s wade thru this whiplash sea of greying goatees and tweeny glitter and break it all down. What happened here?

Well, a few things. Rolling Stone--many, many moons ago--wagered every last chip on standard guitar/bass/drums rock n’ roll. Granted, it’s hard to blame Wenner for his fanciful astigmatism since we know what was going on in 1967 (the year RS debuted): Doors, Beatles, Hendrix, Cream, Floyd, Stones, Kinks, Donovan, Velvets, Who, Love, Beefheart, etc., etc. All powerhouse rock bands, every last one of them releasing disgustingly great vinyl within a period of about nine months. RS got in at the right time (Wenner deserves credit for capitalizing on a golden nugget of opportunity, though--admittedly--said nugget was nestled square in a crease of the most affluent pocket of rock history we’ve ever seen) and recruited a readership the old-fashioned way: thru stimulating, no-bullshit analysis of the mainstream music scene.

Hunter S. Thompson and Lester Bangs (pictured at right) wrote for RS, as did Cameron Crowe and Robert Christgau. Four resident badasses. Thompson, of course, will forever be associated with the “gonzo” label. He blurred lines between reporter and subject, observer and participant, as effectively (and humorously) as anyone before or since. Lester Bangs is Lester Bangs, the greatest rock writer of all time [an aside: Bangs hated RS, and for good reason. Wenner wanted his writers to lick the asses of the rock stars, and an ass-licker Bangs was not.]. Crowe, an intrepid, precocious reporter who lived out every teenage rock fiend’s dream, went on to become a noted filmmaker after many years of dues-paying music writing. Christgau ranks as one of the greatest (and most influential) rock critics of all time, an inarguable distinction.

I cite the above fellas only to remind all three of my readers that RS once meant something.

Depending on who you ask, RS forfeited relevancy sometime in ‘68/9 (when it failed to recognize hard rock and heavy metal as legitimate movements, choosing instead to champion singer-songwriters above all others), ’77 (when they laughed off punk as a passing craze) or ‘round the time that hip-hop and rap broke (since--you guessed it--they paid the genre no mind). Some insist they’re still relevant, but I have yet to hear a viable argument in the magazine's defense.

In short, RS has always been a few steps behind the pace car. For a publication that claims to worship the forward-thinking Dylans and Lennons of the world, RS seems content reclining in its well-eroded rocking chair, head bobbing along to--oh, I dunno--Eric Carmen?

What I’ve witnessed whilst methodically dissecting this whole RS fiasco (believe me, I’ve been watching closely) is an all-too-common trend in the corporate world: a glaring lack of direction.

Businesses tend to fail not for wont of money, but for absence of vision and order. There’s a reason the MTA, NYC’s transportation authority, is going bankrupt, and it sure as hell ain’t from a lack of disposable funds. Well over half of the city's 8 million inhabitants swipe at the subway turnstiles on a daily basis, yielding untold MILLIONS in gross income--every day! per diem!--for the transportation authority. Now they're crying for a bailout. On Sunday my buddy Lucas and I discussed this over a slice. Our conclusion? Plump, handsomely-revenued companies have no room to bitch about money. You can trace the roots of MTA's bankruptcy to the corrupt, incompetent managers decisioneering from their swivel chairs. Let’s face it: the most effective product/service in the world won’t realize its potential without a sound marketing strategy or well-crafted financial objective…

…which brings us back to RS. Has Wenner ever called a closed-door meeting to discuss the future of the magazine? I get the feeling he hasn't sent that memo in well over two decades. When rock--in the narrow, 60s sense of the word--branched off into all these other subgenres (metal, prog, punk, post-punk, synth-pop, grunge, hip-hop, indie, etc., etc.), RS still had a choice. They could’ve decided--then and there--to tack one way (“let’s stick to covering radio-friendly rock…”) or the other (“let’s isolate a niche and exploit the hell out of it…”). Wenner, though, never called that meeting; as a result, his precious rag suffers from an identity crisis.

That’s why modern, well-respected RS oil-burners David Fricke and Peter Travers have no idea what the fuck’s going on with their magazine (though they certainly wouldn’t concede that, for fear of the AXE). Those wee voices in their brainiums urging them to craft faithful, honest reviews are allowed hardly a syllable ‘fore they’re bound and quickly gagged by Big Brother (a.k.a. Wenner, shown at right in a rather old photograph). Next thing you know, Fricke and Travers (zombie eyes marked by a tired glaze) toss out stars in a confetti fashion. Three and 1/2 for you! Four for you! Album of the year! Album of the decade!

Where’s the continuity?

Wenner’s recent decision to cover all vaguely-important artists (even the burnouts who clamored around during RS’s formative years) has resulted in the muddled mess you see before you today. It’s a shame. A damn, damn shame. You could’ve done it so much better, RS.

In semi-related news, I really dig the album Tim by the Replacements. Fantastic record.

Love you all. Happy Christmas. War Is Over!


(If you want it.)

i award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul

I don’t know you--to be fair, there was that time we “met” thru that one friend of a friend, but all we did was stiffly shake hands--yet I already know everything about you. See, I fine-toothed your profile when you sought out and befriended me on Facebook. Here’s what I discovered:

1) You are adamantly against country music, but you love “everything else.” This is highly coincidental. I, too, appreciate the late 70s/early 80s Manchester scene! We should talk about it sometime.

2) You like “wheat toat [sic] slathered with Smuckers strawberry jam,” but you do not like when the underside of the pillow is too cold. That freaks you out. Puppies, also, are great.

3) You do not read things unless they are glossy, colorful things with lots of pictures and exclamation points. I know this because you wrote “Us Weekley [sic]” when prompted to list your favorite books.

4) Some mysterious person with a one-letter name (-R) once said, “the blue one!” That is apparently one of your favorite quotations, as is “your [sic] totaly [sic] paying for that," a funnyism attributed to a person named -M.

5) You do NOT like when people ignore your phone calls. They are jerks.

6) You like sweet kisses.

7) I can tell by that heavily-shadowed, super-dramatic, overly-filtered profile pic of 1/8 of your out-of-focus face that you’re very, very beautiful. And, like, artistic. Look at all that negative space! Where was this taken? An aquarium? It's soooo ambient.

8) You're in a troubling amount of pictures, and I'm convinced you know every twentysomething in D.C. Wading through your indexed albums (SUMMER, FREINDS [sic], RANDOM), though, I'm having trouble differentiating one orange-skinned blonde from another. They all look the same to me. The babe--I mean, the girl--pretending to lasso that fauxhawked dude in album 2, picture 12…is she the same one spilling that obnoxious cocktail with the obtuse novelty straw in album 9, picture 48?

9) Politically, you are “moderate.”

10) Judging by your last four status updates, things are not going very well for you right now.

11) Emoticons? You’re for ‘em!

12) When it comes to religious views, you are “...”. (I have no idea how to punctuate the end of that sentence.) I don’t know what "..." means. Do you worship an ellipsis?

13) You “love to have fun” and you “love laughing.”

14) That David Nicholson guy wants to get in your pants. He’s posted on your wall six times since yesterday evening. He, like you, doesn’t shy from emoticons.

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
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i've decided that this:

is the greatest song of all time.
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a life in sports, part three

Being an irresponsible hedonist, I’ve whooped it up with the best of ‘em.

Can in hand, fist punching at the sky, freakin’ to a verse or a sledge riff or a guttural yelp emanating from stereos so loud they oppress every ear in range, awash in sweat, dreaming romanticized dreams of supple women and rogue adventure and decades that now exist only on moving film and in photographs and dreaming also of Europe and any place that is not my own, spending money I do not have on things that might provide--if even for a fleeting moment--reminder of why I’m alive, voraciously researching life’s curious minutiae (what hue is mauve, exactly?) by reason of pride, driving far too fast on a too-dark road, staying out past hours of decency and trailing the sun, saying all the wrong things whilst cowering under the dubious umbrage of proper intentions, wondering how some electric human beings--those who “get it”--manage to experience two hundred years of life in less than forty, grasping profound epiphanies while intoxicated from lack of sleep or overabundance of stimulae (and beer), laughing at the world, in on the joke, back behind the curtain interrogating the wizard.

Anyway, the reason I got on about all that hedonism junk is that I took in a ridiculously good film over Thanksgiving weekend, one that realerted me to the single greatest pleasure--running--I’ve ever known.

Nothing approaches the organic, corporeal high of a brisk 10-miler in the dark. There's really nothing else like it.

Sarah Cate, this one’s for you. Thanks for telling it like it is.

About a month ago I received this message in my Yahoo! inbox:

Elwood! The long awaited sports blog #2 just came across my eyes! Ok. Here's the deal, I am unhappy with it. But this is a good thing. Now you know that I really mean "that's awesome" when I say "that's awesome" and it's not just me being a kiss up or something. Elwood, that blog was not awesome. I was really looking forward to some insight to this huge mystery about you---you ran cross country in college?? Damn right you were sick of writing.

Sarah’s right; that blog was not awesome. Here’s part three (there will be a fourth, too—one running entry probably won’t suffice).

The aforementioned film (“The Long Green Line”) is a documentary about Joe Newton (ultra-tiny pic at right), who may be the finest high school cross country coach in history. He’s helmed the York squad in Elmhurst, IL for 50 years; 26 of those years have yielded a state title. Quite simply, he’s one of the most dominating, inspirational coaches--of any sport, and at any level--the world has ever seen.

York and Lyons Township (my h.s. alma mater) share a conference, meaning we’ve been on the receiving end of York’s trouncings on more than a few occasions. To put things in perspective, allow me to relate a few cold, non-negotiable figures:

York’s top 5 guys placed 1, 3, 4, 6, 10 at State in ‘99, making for a 24 point total (to determine a team score, one takes the sum of the finishing places). For comparative purposes, consider that the second-place team, Schaumburg, scored 139. It’s disgusting how convincingly York flattened their competition. Illinois--like California, Texas and other large, densely-populated states--boasts terrific depth and quality in prep cross country, but you wouldn’t know it by those results. York's 24-point performance came during the fall of my senior year. I was in the race.

I worked my ass off to compete in that meet. As a freshman, four years prior, I’d barely managed a 6:00 mile. Completely neophytic in all things running and grossly underdeveloped (I entered high school measuring in at just over five feet and barely 100 pounds), I hadn’t yet shown any real promise. During practice runs I lingered at the rear of the pack, clopping along in ill-fitting shoes.

Four years and a few thousand miles later, I toed the line at the state meet representing our top 7 (we numbered about 85 in total), competing for a school that hadn’t reached the state finals as a team since the 70’s. To earn our berth, we’d subverted a decades-long drought by placing third in our Sectional meet the week prior.

Let’s rewind, though. I logged 508 miles in the summer of ’99 (works out to about 6.5 per day), and that’s on top of the miles I walked while caddying. Seeing as I worked nearly every day that summer, I probably averaged 50 miles a week over at the country club. After four or five hours of bag-carrying, I’d arrive home, switch over to running tee and shorts and set off on my evening run--a solitary, cathartic affair.

Day One. I was ready. We were ready. Things went accordingly. Every day we put one foot in front of the other.

A month before state, I clocked my best performance to date: 16:33 on a hilly, slow three-mile course, good for 4th on the team. I’ll be the first to admit that time isn’t particularly impressive, but I felt smooth and controlled throughout, suggesting that I was ready to uncork a biggee in the coming weeks. Three days later, I lowered my mile best to 4:51 during a time trial on the track.

Then disaster struck. For reasons unknown, I peaked nearly three weeks early. My 16:33 was the apex, the toppermost, the high point, the gold star of my season. After that, the ol’ bod let me down. I felt sluggish and fatigued during practices, competed poorly in the Regional meet and went from being our 4th guy to our 7th (only 7 run).

Sectionals was particularly painful, selfishly speaking. Our team got third, as I said, and pandemonium ensued. LT had eclipsed all expectations, but I’d run one of the worst races of my high school career. Struggling through a pathetically slow last mile, utterly spent, I was our 7th and final finisher. When I heard we’d made it, I cried as I hadn’t cried in years. It was one of the greatest feelings of my life, albeit bittersweet. All those miles, all those practices, all those late-nite runs borne of desperation and a vague vision, took on new meaning. We were actually heading to the state finals. I couldn’t believe it. There’s an amateurish home video floating around somewhere; one of the parents shot it that day on a camcorder. I remember seeing my face upon replay and being taken aback. Is that what I look like when I cry?

Days later, I faced the unenviable task of appealing to my head coach for the chance to compete at the Big Show. My performances in the preceding weeks hardly qualified me for the task, but I pleaded my case. I remember breaking down in tears in the locker room, overcome. Coach, I said, I put in the miles, I’ve put in four years of miles. I’ve dreamed of this moment since I first fell in love with the sport, back when I was a freshman. Hell, I've been in our top 5 for the majority of the season. He didn’t answer me just then. Mike, he said, we’ll decide this on race day. Be ready to go.

One week after sectionals we took a chartered van to Peoria, Illinois. I awoke on the morning of the meet with my fate still hanging in the balance. Warmed up with the team, breathed it all in (to this day, the smells of fall make me ache for cross country), laced up a pair of well-worn spikes, safety-pinned a paper number to my torso, right across the abdominals. Wasn’t until ten minutes before the race that my coach took me aside and told me I’d be competing.

So then the gun went off, four years reduced to a race lasting just north of a quarter of an hour. I ran poorly, but the team impressed. Our top guy, Brendan Gaffney, grabbed 4th in 14:33(!), running the race of his life in the process. We secured 8th as a team, a solid showing. At the finish (I refuse to enter my time--you can look it up if you wish), we were greeted by an army of supporters, many of them crying those same tears I’d cried the week before. I grinned, stupidly, thrilled to be alive and fit and involved in such a beautiful sport, surrounded by the greatest friends and teammates one could hope for. As seems to be a trend, I look back on that day and wish I knew how to embrace such a scene in all its fragile, picturesque sublimity without sacrificing any detail. Alas, I’ve relegated it to fuzzed memory, a memory I’ve reconstructed for the better.
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