Problems I have

All my favorite artists are old. Or dead. Okay, all might be a little extreme, but as far as "people I can listen to for the rest of my life" I think I've made some poor planning decisions. I don't think about this too often. I try not to, frankly. But, the other day, I was listening to Dave Carter, peeked at the last CD, realized it was about three years ago and I was due one, and looked him up. He's been dead since 2002. Heart attack. And it makes me feel strange. For two reasons.

1) I really need to keep better track of the people I listen to. With very few exceptions, I don't really know much about the musicians I listen to other than their music. Which is fine, until crap like this happens.

2) He was 49. That is not necessarily young, but it's young enough that I sweat a little about everyone else I listen to that's getting up there. Which is way too many people. Not to mention the idea of how he died is so dramatic, in his partner's arms on a hotel room floor. It's sort of your romantic musician's death.

Colin Hay is 56. Leonard Cohen is 74. Joan Baez is 68. Bob Dylan is 68. Phil Ochs is already dead. Elliott Smith too. And, God help me, Jonathan Richman is 58. See what I mean by poor planning? Death is such a strange thing anyhow. And for certain people, I feel like it should be negotiable, instead of one of those things that just happens. Either that or I need to start grooving with the next generation. Or I'm going to have nothing to listen to. It's not like I don't enjoy anything from the next generation in folk, it's just that so many of these men (and Joan) fostered something in me, they are the reason I listen to the music I do, and the idea of never hearing anything new from them again rattles me. And not nearly enough people will notice when some of these people are gone.

When Michael Jackson died, the entire world had this outpouring of grief. I reflected on how lucky his fans are to have that feeling, that the world is upset with them, and gets it. I know not everyone was as sincere, but I imagine it would be a small comfort. Everyone will notice when Bob Dylan dies. I'll get the feeling that I'm not the only one upset about it. Not so for everyone else on that list. And mostly, I'm okay with that. Most people die unnoticed, and I imagine I wil be no different. But I won't lie, it'll be depressing for me when these people go. And it won't be depressing for most of the people I know.

It's not something that people understand, really, mourning someone you never really knew. Not everyone has music that moves them in a way they can't explain to everyone else. I know if I tried to explain, I would come out looking like an idiot. Hell, I DO look like an idiot most of the time. I feel like a fool loving someone I never knew. Mind you, that doesn't stop me.

I'm putting you all on notice: The day Jonathan Richman dies, I will be a little bit of a wreck. You've been warned. And I don't care what you think of it.

The late, great Dave Carter:

Symphony under the Stars

Every year, my town holds this little event. This year's theme was Rogers and Hammerstein. Good times were had by all. Though the mojitos may have helped with that.

Lovely fireworks, no? This was for the finale. Which they did to "When the Saints Go Marching In". Unfortunately, it was probably my least favorite from all three years. Better luck next time, I guess. Here's Cathy lecturing me.

It always weirds me out how many people actually show up for this event. I don't actually think of that many people being around here, much less willing to go to a big, cultured event. Okay, so it's not that cultured. But fun! There are more pictures on my flickr.

Jonathan Richman in Salt Lake City

Anytime I go to a Jonathan Richman concert, it ends up being some sort of epic adventure. It really can't be stopped, being as I live in a place with very few concerts to speak of, and even less than aren't bands from the 80s trying to scrape by. So when Jonathan comes to Salt Lake City, I'm always very happy, since it's only 7 hours away. As opposed to my all time record, which 12 hours. In one direction. SO when I set upon planning this little escapade, I called on some reliable friends. My second, Caitlin, as been to, counting this one, three out of the four Jonathan shows that I have been to. I take all the credit for introducing her, and she took all the lovely pictures that I have here. Cathy, one of my best friends of a good number of years, agreed to come along for her second Jonathan experience. And John, oh John...he was actually a last minute deal. The girl who was coming along skipped out, so I called John in a panic.

Randi: John, do you want to go to a concert in Salt Lake? Ticket's free.

John: Who?

Randi: Jonathan Richman

John:Who...Oh, is that the guy on your wall?

Randi: Yes, John, yes it is. You coming?

He answered in the absolute affirmative, even though we would have to do a (minorly disastrous) pickup in Pocatello. Knowing nothing about Jonathan except that I liked him, he adventured along with us. I wasn't entirely sure we were going to make it in time. The Pocatello pickup from hell had taken longer than figured, and we were barreling down the highway, trying to get there in time for when the doors opened. We made it. I had told Cathy that it was a ramshackle little place at the end of an alleyway, but I'm sure she believed me until we were gazing upon its tin-sided glory. While John used the window to primp, we sat down and played with the cat of Kilby Court.

We finally got in the doors, and I saw a familiar face standing next to the stage. The guy we met last time! Who, I discovered, has an actual name. It is Mike. He and I talked Jonathan until the show started, while my friends either rolled their eyes or ignored me. I defended Jonathan's only playing his new stuff, we talked about the essays I'd managed to work Jonathan into, and our favorite albums. Good way to kill time.

The show started, with no opener, just pure Jonathan. They were about 15 minutes late, but once they started, nobody cared. He was even better than the last time I had seen him at Kilby, and though he didn't dance much, he was incredibly talky. While singing my affected accent, he told us that he was such a brat, and "40 years later, I apologize". He did his own backup singing on this tune, telling us that it was the chorus of angels. At the end of the song, he said, eyes upraised, "I'm sorry, the angels are sorry. Everybody's sorry". He also gave us a little speech about self-confidence during Pablo Picasso. "If he didn't care, the girls didn't care. It's not a problem". He sang this wonderful new song in Hebrew about this very sexy yet modest dress, "It looks like one of those dresses from the 40s"and how it just looks so great on her when she walks down the street. He told us that they have no problem keeping the electricity up when they sit at home together, doing nothing too exciting, just reading, although "It's not always poetry, right now it's Alexandre Dumas. The Three Musketeers. Oooh, some people say 'I won't pick up that big 600 page book', but it's wonderful". He also told us a joke during He Gave Us The Wine To Taste It, his encore:

So this rich guy gives his butler a bottle of wine for the holidays, and when the butler gets back, he asks him how he liked it. The butler goes, "It was just right". And the rich guy asks, "Well, what do you mean by that?", and the butler goes, "If it was any better, you wouldn't have given it to me, and if it was any worse, I couldn't have drank it!"

At one point during the show, the aforementioned Kilby Court cat wandered onstage. Jonathan stopped playing for a moment and watched it, everyone laughed as it circled the stage and decided this was boring, and it had better things to do. Jonathan assured us that this was not a humans-only show, and everyone was welcome here, quadruped or sextuped alike. The show ended, and Jonathan stood on the stage by the door, shaking people's hands as they left. No matter how long he plays, it's always over too quickly.

And I still didn't get to hear My Baby Love Love Loves Me. But I'll forgive you, Jonathan. Just this once.

You can see more pictures, there's like 80-90 from this show, on my flickr.

Via The Gallery of Regrettable Food

Folks, this is NAPALM IN A CAN. "Holds each coal in a clutch of fire." Oh, the hell that I could have wrought with this. Oh, to be alive in the sixties.

I do not believe, however, that this would help my interpersonal skills any.

Ebony and Ivory of Rick and Steve really exist- and they're straight!

You know, I'm all about breaking down gender roles. That's awesome. Do that. Dress your boy in pink, your girl in blue. Awesome double thumbs up. Are we square? Okay.

There's this couple on the hilarious LOGO series Rick and Steve, which is essentially a gay version of South Park. Ebony and Ivory decided that their kid was going to be too progressive for boy/girl identity, so they just called Echinacea...Echinacea. Everybody laughs. Oh, silly lesbians, you do like your social change.

But wait. It's not a joke anymore. via Autostraddle:

A couple of Swedish parents have stirred up debate in the country by refusing to reveal whether their two-and-a-half-year-old child is a boy or a girl. Pop’s parents [see footnote], both 24, made a decision when their baby was born to keep Pop’s sex a secret. Aside from a select few – those who have changed the child’s diaper – nobody knows Pop’s gender; if anyone enquires, Pop’s parents simply say they don’t disclose this information. In an interview with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, the parents were quoted saying their decision was rooted in the feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction. “We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset,” Pop’s mother said. “It's cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.”

I get what they're trying to do. No really, I do. But saying that gender has NOTHING to do with the way we are on the inside discredits a lot of people that have a strong sense of what they are. Trans people, for example. If gender is all a construct, then they should be fine not being the other. See what I mean? The article also cites the case of David Reimer, who knew that was meant to be a man despite being raised as a girl his entire life.

There are so many things that are useful in fighting against gender stereotypes, but this is just silly to me.

With my Pride or on it

So, I went to Pride last weekend. 'Tis the season, you know. Getting there was the biggest of all possible fiascos. Originally, we had six people who were going to split a hotel room.
My buddy and I were supposed to be giving a talk on internet dating for all the old folks who have no clue what Facebook is. I'm serious, Sandy asked us to give a talk, and made a point of mentioning the facebooks. Here was the problem: one person showed up, and he had multiple Facebook profiles already. We felt a little a silly. But, as the saying goes, if one horse comes to eat, you still feed him. Or it's something like that.

The rest of Pride, however, went much better! The parade was great, despite everyone's reservations, there was only a small collection of wing-nuts trying to spoil everyone's fun time. Our silk flag worked out really well, and I was surprised to see that we were one of the few that had your sort of traditional Pride flag wafting in the breeze. The other one was HUGE. I mean, big enought that they had to actively recruit people to help carry it. It was crazy.

Of course, the center of Pride for me was probably the dance. I always forget how much I actually love to dance until I am, you know, actually dancing. I, luckily, did not do anything too scandalous, although a new friend that we met at Pride was all up in it with some other girl in ways that sort defy the imagination.