Five Songs (and now you can listen)

My friend Shane is blogging his top 200 songs of all time. The thought of doing it myself makes me bonkers. I just can't. Instead, I will post now and again about songs I really like that people may not have heard of. This here is the first such post. (Click on the song title to download the song, listen to it, and then delete it from your hard drive because such file sharing is bad. The song links are good for a week or 25 downloads, whichever comes first. Click on the artist [if such a link exists] to purchase the CD.)

16 Horsepower, "American Wheeze" (from Sackcloth 'n' Ashes, 1996). 16 Horsepower is a weird alt-country band from Denver that uses accordions, jaw harps, fiddles, and various other instruments along with traditional bass, guitar, and drums. Their songs deal with Southern Gothic themes, like if Flannery O'Connor had started a rock band. Sometimes their lyrics are a tad opaque: "American Wheeze" seems to deal with pedophilia before segueing into an old-fashioned challenge to a duel. "Yeah you may be the only one/Come on son/Bring your blade and your gun/And if I die by your hand/I've got a home in glory land." Their lead singer's braying voice, along with the jangly music and florid lyrics, makes paranoid romps of all of the songs.

Wipers, "Return of the Rat" (from Is This Real?, 1980). The Wipers were a major influence on Kurt Cobain, and nobody's ever heard of them. You'll recognize the structure of the song, which sounds a lot like Nirvana's faster songs. If you google this song, you'll get Nirvana first, because they covered it—they even asked Greg Sage (who basically was Wipers) to open for them on tour. He turned them down, so I guess I can't complain about him being unknown. Anyway, the song has a hard-driving beat, fuzzy guitars, a heavy bassline, and plenty of paranoia.

Desperate Bicycles, "(I Make the) Product" (from Desperate Bicycles Anthology, date unknown). The Desperate Bicycles formed in NYC London in the late 1970s. They started their own label and released some songs; each single included an exhortation to other bands to start their own labels. They released one album and a handful of singles, then broke up. Their songs are really lo-fi: I have to crank up the volume to hear them very clearly. This one has a driving beat provided by a frantically played bass and guitar, along with lyrics that seem to be about the drudgery of working in a factory. "I make the product/I use the product/I hate the product" or something like that.

The Dinning Sisters, "Buttons and Bows" (from the soundtrack to The Paleface, 1948). Why do I love this song? It's goofy. "My bones denounce the buckboard bounce and the cactus hurts my toes/Let's vamoose where gals keep usin' those silks and satins and linen that shows/And I'm all yours in buttons and bows." It's one of those silly 1940s songs, sung in this case by one of those sister vocal groups. But it's catchy, the singing is beautiful—with a really cute semi-southern diction—and I'm not ashamed to have it on my iPod.

Charlie Feathers, "Nobody's Woman" (from one of his many albums, probably late 1950s). Charlie Feathers is called the father of rockabilly by some (including himself). I haven't listened to him much—I just got a compilation CD a few weeks ago. This simple song, praising his current love, combines everything I like about him: the distinctive delivery, the sometimes chirping voice, the wit. "I gave her all my money and let her make me blue/But I am hardly fool enough to give her up to you/She ain't nobody's woman, nobody's woman but mine." He sounds a bit like the early Sun Records stuff, but he sounds more country.

J'Accuse! The Congress Edition

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) have released a list of the 13 most corrupt members of Congress (aside from DeLay, of course). It's interesting reading. I'm happy that none of the congresspeople representing either of my states are on the list; I'm curious about whether the inclusion of 11 Republicans and only two Democrats means that Republicans are actually more corrupt or that the report-makers were biased. (I'm leaning toward the former, but it's good to be a little skeptical.)

Highlights:

Rep. Randy Cunningham (R-CA) sold his $1 million house to a defense contractor for $1.7 million. Federal agents investigating Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) found wads of cash in his freezer. Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) got legislation passed that benefited his dad's company to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. There's evidence that Rep. Charles Taylor (R-NC) was personally involved in fraud and money laundering at a savings and loan he chairs, including firing an employee who was cooperating with investigators.

The real point of interest is in the names: three of them are named Rick or Richard. Need I point out that our nation's most famous corrupt politician was Richard Nixon? What is it about this name that causes our elected leaders to go bad? (There's a joke there, but I'm not gonna make it.)

Four Things

Cab Whistlers

I hate it when people whistle for cabs. During half of the year, the cabbies have their windows rolled up because it's hot outside and the AC is inside. During the other half of the year, the cabbies have their windows rolled up because it's cold outside and the heat is inside. In normal city traffic, it's too loud to hear a whistle anyway, and the outstretched hand (with optional snapping fingers) is enough of a signal. I have decided that cab-whistlers fall into four categories.

1. The newbies. These people have seen other people whistling for cabs, so they think that's how you do it.

2. The poseurs. These people want you to know they're calling a cab. Hey, look at me! I'm calling a cab. I'm important. I'm going somewhere. Enjoy your bus ride, loser. I'll be in air-conditioned cab comfort.

3. The employees. Outside of hotels, men with loud whistles summon cabs with annoying blasts. They're paid to call cabs, and the hotel knows that their patrons want to see a guy in a uniform with a loud whistle. It means service: he's whistling, and he's doing it for me.

If I know and like you, and you whistle for cabs, none of this applies to you. If you're thinking that there are better things to get annoyed about, you're probably right.

My Crane Movie

The shoot a couple of Sundays ago went really well. The actors hit it off; the crew worked well together. We got through most of the scenes featuring my costar, but we have three more to shoot before he moves to Arizona. Then I have to shoot the Evil Crane Woman scenes, and then it's down to chasing Shawn around town with a video camera.

Firefly

If you're a fan of Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), a fan of sci-fi, or just a fan of good television, you should check out Firefly, his short-lived TV show (it lasted 14 episodes, only 11 of which aired). The movie Serenity, which is opening this Friday, is an outgrowth of the series. I started watching the show yesterday, because I want to have seen it before I see the movie. The show, set 500 years in the future, is about a transport spaceship crew that exists on the fringes of the law, taking questionable jobs and generally trying to stay under the galaxy-ruling Alliance's radar. Many of the crew members were part of an uprising against the Alliance a few years earlier. They take aboard a fugitive brother and sister, the latter of whom the Alliance desperately wants back because they've been doing some kind of experiments on her.

It's a mix of Western (meaning Wild West) and Eastern (meaning Chinese) themes, with a strong nautical feel. It's hard to describe, really. It's just really wonderful.

Mountolive

I started reading The Alexandria Quartet because it was on that MLA list of the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century. Lawrence Durrell was a British functionary stationed in Alexandria, Egypt, in the years leading up to WW2, and he transformed his experiences into one of the greatest sustained pieces of painfully beautiful writing that I've ever encountered. I'm on the third volume, Mountolive, now, and he just let slip a zinger about characters described in the first volume, Justine, that actually prompted me to say "Oh my god!" out loud on the bus this morning. I heartily recommend it, but you probably already know if it's the kind of thing you'd read or not.

This Will Be My Only Katrina Post

I came across this story (from MetaChat) about some paramedics who were trapped in New Orleans by the hurricane. It recounts their horrifying efforts to flee; notable is the fact that they faced the most danger not from looters or snipers, but from the police.

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads....

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City.

Back from Maine

I was in Maine for most of a week, in case you were wondering. I left Sunday afternoon and landed in Boston at around 5. My favorite art historian was there to pick me up, and we drove into the wilderness of the upper northeast. I find that I'm not in a "discuss every detail" mood right now, so here are the highlights:

It rained most of the first three days, which was fine, because I had a freelance editing project to finish. MFAH and I made daily trips from the family cottage, in beautiful Robinhood, ME, to Bath or Brunswick, where the coffee shops have free Wi-Fi. We had dinner with two groups of friends/family, and I found another someone who won't mind my sending him discs full of music I think he should hear. We went to the beach where I first confessed my love to the art historian, three years ago; it was misty and windy, the way I always pictured Maine anyway. We had lunch at MFAH's grandmother's house, where her great-grandparents' art lines the walls and sits on pedestals in the lawn. Her cousin took us on an extended boat tour of the coves and fjords that surround the island (Georgetown island?) where Robinhood is. We even saw seals.

We drove into Portland, saw The Constant Gardener, spent too much money on CDs (including the Zombies' Odessey and Oracle, which, after a few listenings, I believe is one of the best albums ever released). We went to the great new Mexican place in Brunswick, where MFAH grew up and where her mother still lives; I believe I had food poisoning, which made Thursday night quite disagreeable.

Between the chorizo and the late night, we drove to the strangest town I've ever seen. Freeport used to be a regular little town, with shops and houses and credit unions and suchlike. Now it's an outlet mall—but it still looks like a town. There's the old Carnegie library building, but it's really Abercrombie and Fitch. The tasteful brick courthouse is really a Banana Republic. All along the quiet streets are outlet stores disguised as houses and historical buildings. The Starbucks is an 18th-century Cape Cod house. The McDonald's used to be a three-bedroom dwelling. And all of the houses that are not inhabited by major retailers are now bed and breakfasts. There are probably people living in Freeport, but I don't know where they live.

Friday evening I caught a bus to Boston, where I stayed with my old friend Moosie and his new wife Erin in their suburban apartment. Rent is sure expensive around Boston. $1200 for a one-bedroom apartment a half-hour's drive from the actual city? No thank you.

Um, I guess that's it. It was a nice vacation, except for the food poisoning, and even that passed pretty quickly.