The Big Green House

Friday, January 31, 2003

 

I was a teenage jazz fusion/prog rock fan

or

Let us now praise famous wankers

At the risk of loosing the few tattered shreds of credibility I so desperately cling to, I am inspired by the new issue of Mojo to drag some of my less �cool� musical tastes out into the bright light of day.

As one careens around the go-kart track of life, one sometimes finds one�s self wishing to disavow certain preferences and choices one made earlier down the line � literary, fashion, tonsorial, musical. Especially musical. (Well, the hair thing usually comes back to haunt one, eventually, but I�m not gonna spend the evening defending the mullet. I�ll just say that it seemed like a good idea at the time and move on from there.) One spins a fave rave from X number of years ago & thinks, �Good lord, what could I possibly have been thinking?� or, if one is feeling charitable towards one�s self, �My goodness, this hasn�t aged well at all, has it?�

I am not immune to this phenomenon. Two words can sum it up quite nicely for me: Molly Hatchet. Yep. But aside from those guys & the odd Flock of Seagulls tune here & there, I find that A) I no longer the need to deny listening to the uncool, and B) I still like a lot of it. I don�t want to play it every day, but I don�t recoil in horror, either. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

So, without further ado � a trip through my boneyard. Bands that, at one time or another, I listened to on a regular basis & can still stomach to this very day, in no particular order:

Be-Bop Deluxe (I�m very glad to see this back in print. �Axe Victim� RAWKS!)
Little Feat (Lowell George version)
Journey. (Not, I hasten to add, the edition featuring numbnuts on vocals. You know, the guy that sings like a duck� I mean, let�s be serious: I�d rather lick a belt sander than listen to his helium squeal. No, I�m referring to the original line-up featured on the first three albums. I�d stack that first album up against any other prog-rock of a similar vintage.)
Rush (Geddy�s helium squeal, I like)
Supertramp (circa Crime of the Century)
Roxy Music (The stuff with Eno is best)
801 (Phil Manzanera�s side project)
King Crimson (I�m still pretty unfamiliar with their earlier stuff & haven�t heard anything past Three of a Perfect Pair, but Discipline got me through a bumpy patch in the early 80�s. Also, I�m told that I somewhat resemble Fripp, if you squint.)

I�m sure I could dig up a few more. I had originally included Kate Bush, but I�ve never felt compelled to deny that I liked her work. She was only here because I know so many people who despise her so vehemently. Y�all can go pound sand: Kate is an absolutely fearless vocalist, willing to fall on her ass in search of the proper sound for the song. I do wish she�d get around to releasing that new album hinted at in the Mojo story.

But that�s neither here nor there. I have laid myself bare to the slings and arrows of ridicule from absolute strangers; anyone else care to step up to the plate?







bmarkey 1/31/2003 07:09:00 PM

Wednesday, January 29, 2003

 

The grapes of math

Did I mention the sixty-degree temperatures we had over the weekend? My apologies to those of you on the wrong� er, I mean East Coast, but that part of the trip was especially nice. I know I�ve said that I like cold weather, and I still do, but a little early springtime can be good, too.

Much to my surprise, the wine that we shipped from Lodi on Monday arrived at The Big Green House today. Now, had I been on this trip by myself, this probably would have been an entire case of nothing but Zinfandel from various wineries. Due (mostly) to the influence of Science Girl, however, we also picked up a couple of Ports, a Black Muscat, a Barbera, a couple of Sauvignon Blancs, a Zinfandel-Sangiovese blend, a straight Sangiovese, and a somewhat Chianti-esque blend as well. I�m not complaining, mind you, since I picked out some of those non-Zins myself. In the past, though, it�s been Zin Zin Zin. (Another contributing factor is that we didn�t get to visit a couple of my favorite wineries. Amador Foothill was closed for remodeling, and we just flat ran out of time before we could get to Sobon Estate.)

We saw a lot of grapes left on the vine while we were buzzing around, a sight that�s always a little disturbing. There was a big frenzy, during the late 90�s, to get as many vines in the ground as possible. Prices were going through the roof, and everybody was going to get rich. (Sound familiar?) My parents even contemplated getting in on the grape boom; they had me look into planting ten of their twenty acres in wine grapes (probably either Zinfandel, Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc, but we never got that far into it). Their plans ground to a halt when I told them that several reliable sources had mentioned a minimum start-up cost of $10,000 per acre. Add to that the three or four extremely labor-intensive years before we�d ever see any marketable fruit, plus the fact that if we didn�t have a contract with a winery � and it would have been very difficult for us to have secured one, being first-time growers � we�d only be able to sell at the usually lower spot market price once we did have any grapes to sell, and you�ll see why I�m not running their vineyard right now. (Which I might be doing if they�d gone ahead with their plan.)

As it turns out, we�re lucky it was so expensive. There has been a glut on the market for the past couple years, and many farmers are finding it cheaper to leave the fruit on the vine or to actually rip the vines out. This may eventually translate into lower retail prices on wine (haven�t seen much evidence of that yet), but for right now it means a lot of very nervous growers.

bmarkey 1/29/2003 06:12:00 PM

Tuesday, January 28, 2003

 

What we did on our winter vacation

Still decompressing from the mini-vacation, but here are the quick & dirty highlights for those of you still awake at this time�

Friday: We actually land in Sacramento 15 minutes ahead of schedule. Yay! Dinner w/ mom & dad, and Science Girl gets to see cattle up-close & personal for the very first time. I find that I can still buck a hay bale when called upon, but that I feel it the next morning. Thousands of tiny frogs sing us to sleep.

Saturday: SG awakened by her new bovine pals. Mom takes us to historic Murphys, CA. (Small gold-rush town turned tourist mecca.) We shop, taste some wine, and go down into Mercer Cavern. SG bumps her head on what turns out to be very solid rock. (My experience is clouded by sinus problems; thank the gods for Sudafed.) Lunch at winery cut short by encroaching tule fog. SG meets my sister & brother-in-law for the first time.

Sunday: We devote the day to tasting wine in the lovely Shenandoah Valley. I am the designated lush. Much Zin is consumed & bought, along with a couple of Sauvignon Blancs. Home in time to witness the utter collapse of the Raiders at the end of the entirely-misnamed Super Bowl. I�m so ashamed of them that I fall asleep in my chair.

Monday: Off to Lodi, to send the wine back to The Big Green House via UPS & also to shop. Yes, that�s right. I get a couple of western shirts; SG is tempted by, and ultimately resists, a black leather & silver buckle purse; Mom scores a 70%-off jacket. (Go Mom!) Lunch, then off to the teensy Sacramento International Airport. (I ask you � what good is an airport terminal that shuts down before the last flight has left and only has one tiny bar?) We have a relatively crash-free flight back to Seattle and go to bed.

And there it is. I will probably expand on portions of this later in the week. Right now, I�m trying to get back on my work schedule. Also, alas, no wine allowed at work.



bmarkey 1/28/2003 07:46:00 PM

Wednesday, January 22, 2003

 

Goin� to California

Science Girl and I are gearing up for a trip down to California to visit my parents this weekend. I�ve always enjoyed flying, but SG is a little nervous about that part of the trip. I predict Bloody Marys at the airport bar.

Mom & Dad live in the Central Valley. The nearest town of any size is Lodi (which is where my sister & her husband live). There�s not a lot of there there, if you follow me. But that�s fine with us, as we�re looking to relax for a bit & visit with the family.

Also on the agenda: playing with Peanut, my mom�s Welsh Corgi; visiting our calf (long story short � my dad gave my sister & brother-in-law a calf, then decided that SG and I should have one, too. The calf will stay in CA, as I don�t think Lucy would share her yard with another animal. Stand by for pix, as the calf in the link is just to show you what a calf looks like); touring the wineries of Amador County & drinking the best damn Zinfandel known to humanity. Those guys in Napa have no clue what a Zin is supposed to be like. They do OK with the Cabernets, but they don�t get enough hot days there to grow proper Zinfandel grapes. They thrive on heat. Zin is the badass of the vineyard. Y�all can keep your panty-waist Merlots; I like a wine that beats me up and leaves me bleeding in a ditch. Big, inky, rough & ready, scrape-it-off-your-tongue Zinfandel! (We will not speak of the abomination that is White Zinfandel.)

So if I don�t have time to update tomorrow, I�ll be back Tuesday.


bmarkey 1/22/2003 07:57:00 PM

Tuesday, January 21, 2003

 

Do the right thing, pt.2

I finally got that western swing boxed set I�ve been drooling over. I�ve been listening to it in bits and pieces over the last week or so. It�s good, for the most part. The trouble is, I�ll be listening to it, bopping around the house and grooving in my own inimitable style (not that anybody would want to imitate it), when out of the blue a song that I�m enjoying will make a reference to, uh, �darkies� or �niggers�. As in, �Yonder come a nigger with a pack on his back�.

You know how when you�re eating popcorn and you accidentally eat a burnt piece, it will taint the taste of the rest of the popcorn? I get the same response here. It just sorta takes the fun out of it.

I�ve always enjoyed music and film from the 20�s and 30�s, yet I also find them troubling. Just as an example: I�m a huge Marx Bros. fan, as I believe I�ve mentioned in the past, yet they have the same sort of wince-inducing moments of �humor� in many of their movies. As fascinating as I find that time period, it bears keeping in mind that it was rife with casual racism. (Which is very easy for me to point out at this late date, it�s not always fair to judge the actions from previous times by our standards, blah blah blah. Wrong is still wrong, though.)

And, in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that that same casual racism was in full effect when I was growing up. Which was pretty ironic, seeing as there were maybe three black families in our little suburb. (I can tell you that I didn�t really interact with African-Americans on a daily basis until I was 17, and that was only because I spent a summer working with a couple of guys in the Forest Service.) All we knew of what used to be called The Black Experience was gleaned from Social Studies class in school, various sitcoms, and the bullshit our parents may or may not have fed us. So it was easy for us to bandy the word �nigger� about, mainly because we didn�t really have a context for it. It was just a word we�d been told by our folks not to use, even though many of them used it themselves. It had no more real meaning to us than �damn� or �fuck� did. I�m not trying to excuse our ignorance, just to show how it came about.

So, what�s my point? I�m not really sure. I�ve had this stuff buzzing around my head lately, and the western swing episode just brought it to the forefront. Make of it what you will.

bmarkey 1/21/2003 07:13:00 PM

Monday, January 20, 2003

 

Do the right thing

I spent the early 90�s living in Oakland and studying theater. In 1993 I was playing a part which required me to shave my head. Being the �anything for my art� kinda guy that I was I gladly shaved*, even though it was early in the year & still relatively cold.

Now, this was back before the shaved head thing became the hipster look for young men. I got a lot of strange looks walking down the street, which I attributed to the oddity of my gleaming dome. The fact that a white man with a shaven head, dressed in a black T-shirt, flannel shirt, black leather jacket, torn jeans & black hi-tops (my standard uniform back then), walking down the street of a predominately black city might put some people on edge didn�t occur to me.

That is, not until MLK Day of that year.

I had the day off, so I decided to take advantage of the free time & go see Malcolm X, which was then playing at the neighborhood theater. There was a large line of people waiting to get in, so I went to the back of the line and took my place. I noticed that I seemed to be drawing some stares, and one or two downright nasty looks, from some of my fellow movie patrons. I put this down to their probably thinking that I was doing my duty as a White Liberal by attending that particular movie on that particular day (which wasn�t entirely inaccurate, by the way).

Eventually, the young African-American woman standing behind me said hello; we lived in the same building & had a nodding acquaintance. We chatted for a bit, exchanging the �what do you do and where are you from� stories that people who see each other all the time but don�t really know each other do when stuck together waiting in line. And then she said, �You know, when you first started going around with that shaved head, I thought you were a skinhead.�

I just about dropped my teeth right there and then. I don�t think I�ve ever denied anything as quickly or as completely as I did at that moment. And I made sure never to leave the house without a hat on until my hair grew out again.

And that�s my lame MLK Day story.

*Off-topic, but I must relate this: since my head had to be 100% without hair for every show, I was assigned my own make-up assistant to shave and apply make-up to my head each and every night before a performance. Fortunately my friend Carol drew the duty, so I could relax and trust her to take care with the razor. Plus, I should mention that she was pretty easy on the eyes. I am here to tell you that having your melon shaved clean by a beautiful woman is not an unpleasant experience.

bmarkey 1/20/2003 08:11:00 PM

Thursday, January 16, 2003

 

A call to arms

I�ve been thinking. (This is where you say, �I thought I smelled something burning�. Then I hit you with my hat. Oh, if only life were more like vaudeville! True, it would be a more violent world, but no one would actually get hurt. Arguments would be settled with seltzer bottles rather than guns, Congress would be arguing over the right to carry a concealed rubber chicken, and Bush would be accusing Iraq of stockpiling cream pies. He�d probably have wittier dialogue, anyway. And so would we all. I want snappy patter! If we�re going to have to live in times like these, we should at least get better writing, don�t you think?)

Um, what was I saying?

bmarkey 1/16/2003 06:32:00 PM

Monday, January 13, 2003

 
Hiya-

Still working on that other project, so there probably won't be any updates until Thursady or Friday. Sorry.
bmarkey 1/13/2003 09:01:00 PM

Tuesday, January 07, 2003

 

Twenty bucks is twenty bucks

Hey, those critters at the RIAA owe you money if you purchased CDs between January 1, 1995 and December 22, 2000. Make the bastards pay! (Via the always wonderful & informative Boing Boing)

bmarkey 1/07/2003 05:51:00 PM

Monday, January 06, 2003

 
Hiya-

Updates are probably going to be somewhat spotty this week, as I�m going to be working on a couple of other projects and training someone at work at the same time. Rest assured that I�m thinking of you always, o faithful reader(s).

bmarkey 1/06/2003 06:31:00 PM

Friday, January 03, 2003

 

Yum

Is there anything better than roasted, salted cashews? Anything that doesn�t involve taking off your pants?

bmarkey 1/03/2003 07:24:00 PM

Thursday, January 02, 2003

 

Fence Update

Repairs have yet to begin on our fence, which, as you�ll recall, blew over last week. We�re still looking at a huge gap in our perimeter, and the neighbors are looking into our basement. (Sorry, no pictures at this time. We still do not have a digital camera, and are too lazy to get the regular camera out, snap pix, take the film to the developer, etc. You�ll have to use your imagination until we can get it together. In the meantime, here is what the fence used to look like - the hinged sections are the second and third from the left.)

One of said neighbors has provided some insight into the whys & wherefores of the infamous hinged fence, though. Apparently, the previous tenants were involved in, oh, let�s say the import/export business, as well as the unauthorized vehicle resale business. (If that�s too subtle for you, email me and I�ll spell it out.) They kept their boat on the front lawn & washed various cars & trucks there as well, so they took it upon themselves (without the foreknowledge or consent of the landlord) to hinge the fence for easy access. It also came in handy when they beat their hasty retreat; my neighbor said she�d never seen people move out of a house so fast, which would go a long way toward explaining the multitude of things left in the basement, crawlspace, etc. I�m really curious about what may have been left in the (seemingly) inaccessible attic, but having seen Drugstore Cowboy, I�m in no real hurry to go up & check it out.

Besides, I think we have bats.

bmarkey 1/02/2003 04:57:00 PM

Wednesday, January 01, 2003

 

Ain�t nobody�s business

I hope you all made it through the evening in one piece, and are enjoying the new year so far.

I took a cab home last night, something I very rarely do. I wanted to get home in time to toast the New Year with Science Girl (and give her a big smooch, of course), and the bus might have done the job but I wanted to be relatively sure. As it is I barely made it on time � I walked through the front door at 11:58. The toast was made, the smooch was given, and that�s all I�m sayin�.

Since that�s all you�re getting out of me, why not go say �Hi� to Iconomy? She�s got this mystery mp3 thing going on � a different romantic-type mp3 each & every day until Valentine�s Day (February 14, for the amorously-impaired). Impress the object of your desire with loooooove songs. Release your inner Barry.

bmarkey 1/01/2003 05:17:00 PM