Art, Music, Pop Culture, Science

Sting, biochemical love, loss of mind.

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Sting is an example of an artist with a strong personality needing other strong personalities for balance/combat to create better art. The Police was a better act than Sting as a solo artist because the band had two people who could tell Sting to shut up.

Yet I poured over his first two solo albums, so great was the devotion to The Police. Grant me wisdom! Musical genre dabbling! Dribblings of wisdom! Then realized he was a dork. A slow period of acceptance.

I laughed when he appeared in diapers extolling the virtues of yoga in the early 90s (I later took on yoga). His tantric sex boast about maintaining a state of orgasmic arousal for four hours caused tittering across our Puritan nation (including me). Now? Dude, if you can manage it, bully for you. When I made that boast in Oregon shopping malls instead of MTV, it failed to pay dividends.

Sting claps during the Nothing Like the Sun tourWhen the song “Straight to My Heart” off his second late-1987 solo album Nothing Like the Sun came up as a topic, my girlfriend at the time and I mocked Sting (not around to defend himself) about being so showy over writing a pop song with a 7/8 time signature. In the Nothing Like the Sun tour, he had a little drill for the audience to teach us all to clap in 7/8 time. Nailed it! I can also clap on the 2/4 and 4/4 (noted on my résumé) but for genetic reasons cannot clap on country music’s 1/4 and 3/4 (not noted on résumé).

Video below is from a “Symphonicity” tour he did a few years ago. Sting/Police songs played backed by a symphony. I refused to attend, for religious/aesthetic reasons over the title. Haven’t gone to a Sting show for over 20 years. Yet on top of that “Synchronicity” = “Symphony” = “Symphonicity”? Yeesh.

YET, years later, I find myself charmed by the song. (1988 Me and Then-Girlfriend laugh at Present Me. I nod obeisantly, then turn with a grin and think: “Oh, brother, what you’ve got coming…”) The song is a defiance of the knowledge that romance is a state caused by biochemistry, not metaphysics.

A sub atomic chain
Will maybe galvanize the brain
A biochemic trance
Will eliminate romance

But why ever should we care
When there are arrows in the air
Formed by lovers’ ancient art
That go straight to my heart

Here are lyrics that would make a great Valentine’s Day card:

But what will make me yours
Are a millions deadly spores
Formed by lovers’ ancient art
That go straight to my heart

In an interview Henry Rollins did with Howard Stern years ago, he shared many insights. Two that have stuck: 1.) U2 may have the worst rhythm section of any major rock act 2.) Sting is a wickedly talented person, but if you buy a Sting CD then you have pretty much given up on music.

As “Straight to My Heart” has earwormed me the last couple of days, I have to allow for my own aesthetic/mental entropy. It’s possible to draw a straight line to a day when I will be in an old folks home (as an old folk) standing on a chair and singing Sting’s song “Russians” at the top of my lungs until the orderlies are summoned. Present Me mourns Future Me’s diminished mental state, but nods at what a kind of small bad ass moment that would be.

Poetry, Writing

Beats

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Giving semi-solace to mock sadness during a fast song.

Salmon, smoked salmon, on that salad, please (as a smart choice).

Shiva playful poses through a mist frosted bathroom’s glass pane.

Hard plastic inside soft plastic rattling of kinship to say hey, me too.

The drawer openings and closings, faucet openings and closings, day over day would hit a rhythm more measured than the most meticulous drummer. Not a rhythm that shakes the world, but a pulse.

Eating

When chocolate leapt to attack, and I wanted more.

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Veronica’s Dad: Will someone tell me why I smoke these damn things?
Veronica Sawyer: Because you’re an idiot.
Veronica’s Dad: Oh yeah, that’s it.
— Heathers, 1988

For about the last month, I’ve become fond (won’t say addicted, can quit at any time) to this tasty offensive chocolate with chipotle, salt, and popping candy inside.

“Offensive” not as in violating sensibilites, offensive in that it once attacked me.

The other chocolates I’ve tried by Chuao Chocolatier have been so-so (no revenue for me if you click the link). Chuao Chocolatier is from – from the fancy name, did you guess Quebec or someplace in Europeland? Mais non! – San Diego, Cali-forn-i-a!

While chocolatier may be an apt phrase, to me, burgeoning curmudgeon, it connotes someone who takes him/herself a bit too seriously. Say, if it’s a dude, someone who grew an ironic mustache then began to cherish it on its own, then began to conduct himself in an affected old-timey-time manner.

This dark chocolate is a tad bitter, the chiles give it a sassy meanness, but the popping candy gives it drama. The candy within is a little like Pop Rocks, but with its Fruity Pebbles DNA taken out. It pops. It crackles. It snaps. (Disordered the tag line from Rice Krispies to disconcert you. I am an agent of chaos.)

I’m pretty sure it releases gas inside the pouch.

Taking a sealed blue pouch from car to a room, or room to the car, the pouch poofs out. It also poofs if kept in a room for a while. While opening it in such a state, it doesn’t sigh so much as gasp. Or maybe it’s a wheeze.

Like with most good chocolate, it’s meh if you eat it fast. This one really rewards a slow dissolve. A bit of sizzling as the fizzy kernels work their magic.

One time I opened a pouch and a little kernel cracked its way free and hit me on the face, bouncing off my right cheek then falling unconscious to the floor.

This candy’s sentience makes it even more appealing. Entire tribes of creatures dissolving and sliding down into my gullet.

“Get into my belly, ye kernels, and despair!”

Poetry

“Who goes with Fergus?”

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Who will go drive with Fergus now,
And pierce the deep wood’s woven shade
And dance upon the level shore?
Young man, lift up your russet brow,
And lift your tender eyelids, maid,
And brood on hopes and fears no more.

And no more turn aside and brood
Upon love’s bitter mystery;
For Fergus rules the brazen cars,
And rules the shadows of the wood,
And the white breast of the dim sea
And all dishevelled, wandering stars.

Earlier I lamented about having no poems memorized, then recalled a few days later I had this one memorized about 20 years ago and am pleased it’s still rattling around in there. And “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll will NEVER be shaken. A head injury may knock “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold or “God’s Grandeur” by Gerard Manley Hopkins loose.

“Leda and the Swan” by Yeats was part of a high school English class. Other than that, I didn’t encounter Yeats until studying, then re-reading, and re-re-reading, then re-studying and re-re-re-reading Ulysses by James Joyce. The younger lead character, Stephen Dedalus, has memories of singing the poem to his dying mother and fragments work their way into his day.

Poetry fragments sometimes pop in while out and about. Often context-free – more an echo of a word or phrase or the rhythm of something nearby. “And no more turn aside and brood” is the one that most often gives its (to my conscious mind) advice flicking its tongue into the corners of the day.

Parenting

Oh, shit! You’re 12!

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Science says your neurology will change. Your ability to empathize can be expected to diminish while the rest of your metabolism shifts to making you taller and voice deeper and other things that will cause you to think “What the heck is going ON?” the next few years. Or sometimes think “What the heck is NOT going on?”

Those frights will go away. At least it will be a while before you ask your body “Why isn’t this working?”

I like that you are getting older. I like your observations. Your questions.

I like your curiosity about music we sang to you. I like hearing you start to quietly sing back.

I like walking with you and chatting about cartoon violence, or politics, or Lord of the Rings, or school, or the politics of the Lord of the Rings and that you still grab my hand when we walk together. Or when you run your arm through mine. It usually shifts to tug-o-war where we contend which is the mightier (which I still win for now).

I like biking with you, and your keen memory, and the animosity you still bear toward the Screw You Bridge that bit into you twice. I like when we stop after crossing the bridge and yell taunts at it.

Even though you’re becoming less of a boy, you are still very much my son. And I am proud of you and glad to see you get to twelve.

Art, Music, Parenting

“Montauk”

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New song from Rufus Wainwright’s “Out of the Game” album. His daughter having to navigate between her two dads. Daughter whose blood grandfathers include Leonard Cohen and Loudon Wainwright III. Worry that is daughter will not stay. Thoughts of his mother whose ashes are scattered in the nearby ocean. Cyclical structure. What’s not to like?

Art, Music

“3 Second Rule”: DIY control-freak doomed-relationship anti-music

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This is terrific. Whatever is the opposite of AutoTune (AntiTune?) this uses it.

While not astonishingly attractive, there is something to admire about the confidence she has. Make me a hot teacher! Give me a class full of white-shirted cowboys preoccupied with dancing and looking away from me, the one woman around! That edginess gives her a bonus +2 points on the hottie scale.

She has difficulty standing upright, or walking in a straight line. Am left to guess that she has recovered from some trauma that gave her the gumption to fulfill a 20, 30 year-long dream to star in a music video. Bully for her! Don’t dream it, BE it!

-3 points for controlling behavior, allowing for three seconds of a wandering eye and then, snap to attention, buster! Contemplate me and my odd fashion choices!

Actually, three seconds is more generous than some who would allow NO visual meandering. Maybe a sense of ovary competition gets her going. “Three seconds of looking at another woman, then I’m taking you HOME and will order you to do what I want.” Maybe her album features tracks detailing what she demands in recompense for the three seconds her man’s gaze strayed. Each second he stared leads to ten minutes complying with her demands. I’d listen to those songs, would probably stay away from those videos.

Lisa Gail Allred’s website

Uncategorized

Knock knock

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Tick tick tick tick.
What? Whatever. Groggy.
Tap tap tap tap.
For real? Ugh.
Tap TAP tap TAP.
What is IT? Through the hole a prim petite redhead in a company issued suit stands with a cranky keyboard, fidgets, irritated by the course of her day. I’ve no idea. Angry knuckles reach out to just beneath view.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.
No way I’ll make her day worse by subjecting her to my throttled-down lucidity.
Ignore. Another round?
Knock knock knock knock.
After this, bet it’ll be done.
Done.

Music

I am the zombie Tupac “hologram” from Coachella

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Sorry to disappoint everybody, but the “hologram” of Tupac that appeared in Coachella was me in body paint. Anybody notice how undead Tupac was almost as tall as Snoop Dogg? ‘Cause I’m 6’ 2″.

I kept stepping around thinking, they’re gonna know this was a put-on, right? But people didn’t seem to laugh. They seemed happy. Looked to Snoop over and over to tell the crowd I was just playing at being Tupac, and Snoop gave me a look like: “Nope.”

There’s talk about taking this on the road, but it’s not possible. Daytime and family obligations make touring impractical. Also, the body paint gave me a rash. At least someone got it on video, though!

Always enjoy your gangsta party! Thug life!

Poetry

“The Country Wife” by Dana Gioia

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She makes her way through the dark trees
Down to the lake to be alone.
Following their voices on the breeze,
She makes her way. Through the dark trees
The distant stars are all she sees.
They cannot light the way she’s gone.
She makes her way through the dark trees
Down to the lake to be alone.

The night reflected on the lake,
The fire of stars changed into water.
She cannot see the winds that break
The night reflected on the lake
But knows they motion for her sake.
These are the choices they have brought her:
The night reflected on the lake,
The fire of stars changed into water.

 

Dana GioiaAnother poem from Rebel Angels: 25 Poets of the New Formalism a friend recommended. The form used here is double triolet (which I had to look up, as I barely understand poetry) defined as “ a three stanza poem of eight lines. Its rhyme scheme is ABaAabAB and often all lines are in iambic tetrameter: the first, fourth and seventh lines are identical, as are the second and final lines, thereby making the initial and final couplets identical as well.”

I liked this poem (tending to read in bed when grogginess comes galumphing in), and didn’t even conceive that “the winds that break” would bring a laugh during alert waking hours.