6/23/08
One Who Made It (His Own Way)
Just starting a book now, The Ten-Cent Plague, that delves into the Frederic Wertham comic-book scare back in the '50's. The McCarthy-esque flame-up involved televised congressional hearings and everything else. It resulted in the death of EC Comics and the birth of the Comics Code Authority -- an industry self-policing censor.
Some comics creators had their careers go up in smoke (along with their comics). But others forged ahead.
What's new in the book (so far, for me) is the elegant detail in the background narrative -- how the social forces that created the scare also created "Crime SuspenStories" and other comics EC brought out. The big deal here is not so much that an overweening comics publisher crossed the line and got what it deserved, but that a highly creative company used the means it did to talk about the times surrounding it -- and got burned in the process. Rod Serling (I believe) and many other TV and movie pioneers have cited EC Comics as big inspirations for "The Twilight Zone" and others. That's why people interested in the creative process for popular consumption (like me) are still interested in EC. You can get high-quality reprints now -- not like when I was a comics buyer in the 60's. EC was absolutely verboten then.My first comic was the Spiderman Annual #2 (I think), in which the Avengers seek Spiderman's help in tracking down one of its original members -- the Hulk. They offer the Web-slinger membership in the Avengers (with much reservation -- Spidey was an outsider, like the Green Guy, back then), something he declines after finding the Hulk in some alley and seeing him change into Bruce Banner and then back again.
My father was horrified that I'd just wasted 25 cents on a comic book! However, I showed him. Specifically, I showed him a word in a dialogue balloon: "neophyte." That's what Thor called Spiderman when the Avengers first approached him. I promised Dad I would look it up as soon as I got home. I did. It means "newcomer." Stan Lee's script saved the day.
Ten-Cent Plague also lists hundreds of artists and writers who never worked in comics after the Wertham scare. One who isn't on the list was an EC standout: Alex Toth.
Toth (which I believe is pronounced like "oath") was a singularly creative artist, who, with absolute minimal pen-strokes, created vivid scenarios and dramatic characterizations. His architectural approach to telling a story (you have to see one of his pages to grasp what I mean) was unlike anyone else. He claimed as his inspiration Noel Sickles, a comic-strip artist (briefly) whose work is soon to be released in a retrospective volume. But I have a feeling that Toth was largely his own man.
His best work (that I've seen) was in romance comics of the 50's, a section of the Ten-Cent book I haven't gotten to yet. Toth's pages move like a three-camera TV set -- but with the style and grace of a pen-and-ink master. Beginning comics artists would do well to absorb his every lesson (as their predecessors have done) on every page he drew. And he kept at it, long after EC was a memory.
His most famous creation? Space Ghost. (I loved that Saturday morning TV cartoon -- even in high school!)
6/25/08
Live (again) at Fillmore E ...
It was the day (after school, I believe) when I ran down to the basement (cellar anywhere outside The South) to the family console stereo to play my favorite LP one more time.
But I'd already heard the side with "Whipping Post" a bunch, and the side with "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" and "Hot 'Lanta" a bunch more ("Whipping Post" in edited version was on FM those days) and that other side with the rest of "Whipping Post" a bunch, so that left the one I'd never listened to before, which was ...
Side One. It starts with a pumping, rollicking ear-blaster with acid-etched slide guitar: "Statesboro Blues." T-Bone Walker's song, about a ... shall we say ... "domestic encounter" in rural (and very segregated) Georgia, ripped out of the stereo and straight into my head forever. I was 14. I had no idea what the song was about, or about the condition of the rural poor in the era in which it was written ("Wake up, mama, turn your lamp down low ... " because that part of town still used kerosene lamps!). I just knew the damn thing rocked and rolled like nothing else I'd ever heard before.
The follow-up, "Done Somebody Wrong" -- about a nearly equally (I know that's wrong grammar ... uh, incorrect ... uh ... .) horrendous domestic situation -- by Elmore James, was not as hard-hitting, but still had me jumping around the floor in some kind of teenage spastic ecstasy. Then (as dim memory recalls) came the last thing I would have expected -- a soft, sad number anyone can relate to called "Stormy Monday." I forget who it's by right now. I just remember Brother Allman's intro, correcting himself, that it wasn't a "Bobby Bland song" after all, but a song by ... no use, it's gone from the hard drive in my head.
The musical work on all these tracks is by a band clearly in love with every note. And it wiped away forever my superstition against "blues" music as something crude, dumb and "not as good as jazz." These guys -- the oldest only a decade or so older than me -- played with such mature understanding, underlined with a lyrical sweetness nothing less than poetic, that I grew up a little just listening that first afternoon.
The afternoon I first fell in love with the blues.
Afterward came B.B. King's Live at Cook County Jail, then, laboriously, those Chess reissues I posted about more than a year ago. Then, the London sessions of BB and Howlin' Wolf, then ... . it just kept on going. I later stopped buying blues records, as such. I don't think of it as a loss, really. The blues is still behind it all. It was just that wonderful afternoon I met Lady Blue in my parents' basement nearly forty years ago that matters.
Now? "kings of leon" "vampire weekend" "my morning jacket" "drive-by truckers" ... all very talented, all with a touch (or two) of what I heard back there and then, but none with the whole package. That's OK. I have what I recall.
Ooops! Log-out time ...
6/27/08
Not so Live (in memory of ...)
"... what I recall." Right.
The previous post was done in the "old" mercurius_21 method -- which means, there was no method. I just posted whatever came to mind, and I double-checked the facts later, sometimes much later. To all serious Allman Bros. fans, I apologize for the mess.
So, here goes ...
The forgotten side contained only one song: "You Don't Love Me" by Willie Cobbs. The reason for this omission was, as a young teen, I did not like that side very much. It was only later, as an "older" teen, that I learned to like it more. The delicate rhythmic interplay and the serious, but sometimes more muted, chops of the two legends on lead 'g' bore focused listening to appreciate that fabulous side to the double LP.The other mess was in writer attribution: Aaron "T-Bone" Walker wrote "Stormy Monday," not "Statesboro Blues." The latter song was written in the 20's by "Blind" Willie McTell. My fractured memory of Greg Allman's intro was trying to tease me into recalling the entire line, but I failed.
I also seemed to think "Whipping Post" took up an entire LP. It only took up one side. I may have confused it with "Mountain Jam" from the Eat A Peach LP (*checks* Yeah, I did.)
Lots of things I learned on Wiki re: this whole t'ing. Walker's middle name is "Thibeaux" -- which could easily morph via dialect into his famous nickname. I'm not the only one who recalls the Bros' version of "Statesboro Blues" fondly: Rolling Stone magazine recently listed it as one of the top 100 "guitar songs" ever recorded. The LP it was found on (in my day) is one of the magazine's top 500 albums -- ranking #49.
Also, the Wiki entry on the album itself reminded me of its famous cover, and back cover. It's shot back home in Georgia, with the band smiling and laughing on the front, and the road crew on the back cover, drinking PBJ "tallboy" beers.
I remember being shocked as a conservatively raised 14-year-old, exclaiming to myself at the time: "They're all drinking beer! In public!"
Oops! Time to go again ... .
7/9/08
"First there is a mountain, then no mountain, then there is ... "
Some time ago (I forget when), I talked about how to use a gold watch to hypnotize someone. You know, the typical scene in old-timey Westerns, when the snake-oil salesman pulls out a gold pocketwatch (the ancestor of wristwatches) and waves it back and forth in front of the farmer, saying "count to ten backwards, then sleep ... sleeep ... sleeeeep."
The farmer's head bobs back and forth as he stares at what he really, really, really wants -- the gold pocketwatch. A little clock he can carry with him into the field, would fit just right in that little pocket there on his overalls, and it's ... gold.
The swaying and the counting backwards do not hypnotize anyone -- they relax a person, instead. What fascinates, then hypnotizes, is the timepiece itself -- that not-so-obscure object of desire. Be it an SLK or an ultraportable, a silk dress or custom shoes, it's what we want that holds our interest. Or so I said, at the time.
I think television's "reality" shows are today's gold pocketwatches, though. They fascinate us because we tend to identify with one of the contestants (or more -- you need a backup, right?), there is a desireable prize at the end of the rainb-- er, contest ("a million dollars!), and there are the "twists and turns" getting there that are familiar to us all.
Who gets eliminated? Why, oh, why did they have to vote him or her off? Who will win instead -- oh, who? (*twists hands anxiously*)
They're harmless fun, at the end -- and that's OK with me. After all, isn't it better to learn from others' mistakes, instead of by making them yourself?
But if the stakes were really real -- if the loser of the week didn't just get "voted off the island" or get their publicity photo burned in effigy, what then? And the game were not played in an arena for entertainment, but on the street -- in earnest?
An "indie" movie a few years back explored that idea with a pregnant woman characterized as the ideal assassin, targeting her fellow contestants. I forget the name, never saw it, but it just occurs to me how far ahead of "reality" it was.
But another wrinkle -- what if it looks like reality, but isn't, but is... ? And someone figures that out -- ahead of the green door.
6/19/08
My European Theatre
"Dancin' Queen/Young and sweet/Only seventeen ..." (Ba-dam, Ba-dam, Ba-dam-Ba-dam)
I just remember that cover photo from ABBA's first LP. And her ... .
My first thought? "Gothenburg!"
Wha?
Gotta explain: As a lad (only 18), I was sent with about 10 others to Scandinavia for a six-week summer tour. The Christian denomination I belonged to then sent a group like us every other year there to visit churches and congregations also in that denomination (Methodist). The Scandinavian church would send a similar group of youth in exchange the following year.
We weren't entirely on our own: a minister and his wife went with us (naturally ;) ). Still, it was lots of fun. While I have many stories from the trip, I'll have to save them for another day. What's relevant here is that all the Swedish towns were either very village-y, or kind of button-down (Stockholm). But the bohemians were in Gothenburg (Goeteborg, if you're Swede).
Gothenburg is Sweden's second city, and it's on that country's west coast. Also a river city (like Charleston, SC ;D ), it attracted (still does, I suppose) a diverse population. And just right for North European bohemia.
A very nice historic city too (also like ... OK, I'll quit). And I could just see Agetha Faeltskog there, in my overheated little head, with that little raspberry beret (was that what it was?) perched atop her lovely blond tresses (*catches self in middle-age swoon*).
No disco (the Nordic youth then loved either folk or heavy metal -- "Ragnarock" was a big festival then, with posters for it everywhere in Norway, at least). That came later. But when I got to college and saw that LP cover, my head just swam (in many directions!).
(BTW -- I'm putting the "e" after vowels where I think umlauts go. I don't know the ASC stuff.)
9/1/08
The (Re)Birth of the Cool
I have a definitely noncool job. It wasn't the way I planned it. Really, it wasn't.
The job definitely _was_ cool when I started doing it. Heck, we were rock stars of the neighborhood! Some of us were nationwide, even. We were cool. But that was 30 fracking years ago ... .
Now, this job is not cool, period. It plain just is no fun at all. And no one else thinks it is, either. Unless they're stuck in the 70s. (And where I am, that includes a lot of people -- "lot" being relative, of course.)
It felt cool -- at least to me -- before this, when I was just talking to you guys off the cuff, as they used to say. Now, I don't feel the same. The job really has nothing to do with this. But somehow, I don't feel the same -- at all. It's a head trip, I admit.
And that's what I've decided cool is. It's in your head.
Nothing -- outside of time travel -- is going to make my job feel cool again. That died a long time ago.
But maybe, just maybe, I can keep my own little inner "fridge" goin' -- even when the goin' isn't. Cool, that is.
Cool is not -- I've decided again -- what you wear or who you know or where you go or what you do to keep living. It's how you live, how you feel, how close you stay to who you were made to be. It's what I've tried to do (and who I've tried to be) in this LJ.
That definition -- broad, I admit -- may be one even ol' Miles could agree with.
8/6/09
Brap!
One of the things (the only thing, mainly) I regret about my Nordic Adventure as a teen was my inability to see the future.
OK, so maybe an 18-year-old is not supposed to do that. So, I'm good.
But what I mean by that is, if I had thought to take a half-decent camera (not that 110 mm plastic thing) and a cheap, but usable, composition notebook, I could have done on paper and celluloid then what I'm doing now -- except it would have been travel journal for real (not the imaginary kind, as I do these days).
In short, I would have had something I could refer to: names, places, experiences, etc., all there for me to have and reflect on whenever I wanted to. The sum of true journalism, really. "Professional" journalism is -- in my book -- just doing that well enough for others to read, see, etc.
A "journalist" is a believer in the truth of that kind of experience, and in the innate abililty of writing, or tape, or photography, or videography or whatever to record, and to convey, that experience somewhat faithfully.
Journalism is that -- not what we're usually told: some high-falutin, navel-gazin', does it up tight tonight, ridiculous travesty of an excuse of what we call "journalism" now. And I'm talking about the "good" kind -- your basic superethical, knows it all, does it all and never makes any mistakes (he'll ever admit) at all kind of Uber-American Mega-false-God.
Not at all.
Ugh. Excuse me. My brain just f&r%ed.
8/12/08
Never Can Say Goodbye
Some things you can't forget. Some things you can.
There was that summer I bought two LPs that remain in the former category. What one of them looked like was in the latter.
Thank you, Wikipedia ... .
It was a sound I can't forget ... It was an album cover I could. Isaac Hayes recorded The Isaac Hayes Movement with, as was his custom then, only four songs on it, two a side. It was inconceivable then to pay full LP prices for only four songs. But they were renditions of familiar tunes re-arranged as only the masterful Hayes could.
I wasn't familiar with "I Stand Accused," but I soon became that way. I played it (on an old stereo in the back) for the very straight-laced and gracious black man who minded me as I helped him clean the store my father managed back then. He was a gospel musician, but Hayes's version of that song completely tripped him out. Yes, he asked to borrow it. Yes, he kept it a week. And yes, I was glad to be getting it back. But I had to loan it back to him again, and I got it back again, and ... .
The rap (or, really, just a monologue) that starts out the track was a stone mindblower. I felt as though I was violating some cultural taboo (theirs, not ours) by just listening to it. But I did. And it was great -- a slow jam to beat them all.
Wiki says you can get The Issac Hayes Movement now on SACD. You won't regret it.
The other was one my best friend's family (four brothers) played for me, maybe the year or so before. I waited and bought it the same summer The Isaac Hayes Movement came out.
Simply called Led Zeppelin, the stark black-and-white photo was just that -- stark. Yes, I'd heard "Dazed and Confused" "Your Time is Gonna Come" and "Communication Breakdown" on the radio and at my friend's house.
But I wasn't prepared for the rest of it. I still remember gasping at the end of "Black Mountain Side." While it was playing, I guess I had forgotten to breathe. I'm sure the SACD is out there.
Neither album got a lot of spins on the family stereo after that. I'm not sure why. Nor years later, as I lugged my LP collection from dorm to dorm, apartment to apartment, until I got rid of it all by necessity in 1998. Led Zeppelin I went to the guy that paid me for the whole thing.
The Isaac Hayes Movement wasn't in it, though. Yeah, I left it on permanent loan, intentionally.
But I never forgot that sound.
How could I?
8/21/08
Yes! I did it AGAIN!
Theme changing time once more. The previous theme, which I really liked, was "Folio" by Dave Shea. Kudos.
The new one is called "Expressive" and it's by Teresa Jones. Thanks.
There's a purity in darkness, isn't there?
8/28/08
My Little Cabaret
They wondered what on Earth I was doing. Wandering around my grandma's yard in mid-summer, pointing a little black box at whatever struck me as photogenic.
The little black box was a camera. I was looking through its viewfinder, pretending to take photographs.
The Kodak had not been manufactured for years, and no film was available for it any more. That didn't stop me. My little 8- or 9-year-old's mind just pretended there was film in the camera and took imaginary pictures anyway.
Grandma was amused, but looked at me funny: "Why would anyone ... ?"
Simple, grandma. It's called "image-ination."
Little did I know that this memory would hit me when I needed it most. When I found another black box, a cabaret. Maybe I'll tell that story, too, someday ... .
BTW, she did look a lot like Selma Blair's character! (The girl in the cabaret, that is, not ... .)
9/4/08
"It's dark down here ... ."
In darkness are dreams, in dreams are light behind the darkness. If, in the way of our entry into light, we fear the darkness, then we fear the light. And thus we are exposed.
Light is evermore, darkness is in the moment. The moment makes the evermore real, and the real makes the moment happen. In purity, there is light and darkness -- there is no other than other there, except for itself. The exception makes us real, when we experience either darkness within or the light without.
We are each other, and each other are we. The darkness is not the enemy of light. The darkness was first.
9/11/08
Rest in Peace
Somewhere in silence those loved ones lie
Who wait for us to restore their souls;
Sincerely they ask, “Where does Time fly?”
We ask them how a heart fans its coals.
The only “too late” is “nevermore” --
The one chance missed is the one forsaken;
This is true no matter our fortune’s store,
No matter what we’ve gained or undertaken.
And truer yet that, when we sense our need,
We provide with a gesture a precious gift:
The one that takes the truest heed
Of things we miss while Time’s sands sift.
So it’s late we come to this moment owed
But better that than let it slip away;
And Time’s swift treasure’s more bestowed
Than let stop what we forgot to say.
Copyright 2008 Mark Gabriel (.rtf from author's original typescript)
9/18/08
Something in the water ... ?
She starts out with a childlike "Your Song" and, as each thread of the song-cycle winds ever tighter, she ends with Guy Fawkes Night ... .
And between the two, her voice will either heal your heart or tear it out.
All I know of Kate Walsh came from a live performance on World Cafe back when her album was first released in the 'States. Recently I had an opportunity to hear "Tim's House" all the way through. Something bad and twisted inside somewhere in my chest just came loose and floated away. (Hellboy's expression reflects my own consternation that it was even in there in the first place.)
Maybe it was something else that did the trick ... but that record is haunting.
Use with caution.
:)
BTW, links are avail on Wiki to her MySpace page and official site.
9/24/08
If Only She and Brian Wilson ...
A few months ago, I posted on my memories about Doctor Who and his first appearance in the US.
What stuck with me most, as I said then, was the show's theme, one of the first (and finest) examples of electronic music exclusively for television. Following what I'd read elsewhere at the time, I casually mentioned that the "recipe" for the original music was lost somewhere in the archives of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Maybe not.
It seems that legendary workshop had an even more legendary member, whose identity has remained, well, maybe not exactly a secret, but definitely in the shadowy background ("Do not look behind the screen! There's nothing in there!").
Now, we can see inside.
Her name was Delia Derbyshire. A private legend among aficionados of electronic music, she was the genius arranger who put composer Ron Grainger's orginial score to tape, using techniques that are only now coming to light.
The theme she helped create did not earn her credit at the time, because it apparently violated BBC policy to credit arrangers. However, it is said that when Grainger first heard her arrangement of his theme played for him, he exclaimed, "Did I write that?" "Most of it," was Derbyshire's reply, according to the tale.
You can start digging on Wikipedia for the rest of her history, including the b&w photo that all the sources use of a stylish young Delia in period hairstyle and hairband and miniskirt expertly synching up a tape loop in the Beeb's sound lab.
This is just amazing stuff.
BTW, her legend appears to be growing, now that her work has made the Proms. Somewhere, someone's evanescence must be smiling.