City boy on a train ride through the country

A week in New York, city and upstate. Exhausting. I returned home sick as always -- either from planes, handshakes, air quality, activity, or all of the above. Remarks:

*The Louis Armstrong house in Corona, Queens, was very much worth an afternoon. Tacky furniture notwithstanding, the home was a very humble, low-ceilinged place for the man who created (perfected) the jazz solo to live out his years. They said his next-door neighbor never knew he was famous. He did have flashy taste in wallpaper, though, or maybe that was his wife. Impressive gold-plated swan heads for toilet fixtures as well.

I touched his piano. It reminded me of touching Allen Ginsberg's typewriter, in 1991.

Louis' study presents him as a compulsive documentarian, who would record himself to reel-to-reel tape playing along with a popular record of the day. There's also a portrait of him, painted by Tony Bennett, hanging across from the desk.

They said he was approachable enough that he would hang out on the steps with the neighborhood kids, maybe playing with his horn, on summer evenings.

*Great Lakes on 5th Avenue in Brooklyn has a nice jukebox. Really nice.

*The train ride up along the Hudson was awesome. Much of it was through wetlands. Few people take Amtrak trains on the West Coast. I missed this feeling -- gazing out the window at the river, the houses, the little towns, the birds and islands and stuff. I used to take them up and down the mid-Atlantic region all the time.

*The sky is brown and your snot is black in New York City. I'm happy to be back here, close to good burritos, India Clay Oven, fog and ocean. And my fireplace.

*Yeah. But they have Sarge's deli. And pizza with ziti all over it.


FMFM: Giants trying to finish off the D-Backs

When to walk away, and when to run

The Gambler gets feisty.


FMFM: Ted Leo & The Pharmacists' "Me and Mia," which has been kicking my arse for weeks. But I just learned this morning who "Mia" and "Ana" are, and now everything is different.

Namephreak alert

Herb Caen called them namephreaks: people whose names somehow corresponded to something else significant about them. Like, say, Edgar Ray Killen.


FMFM: Dizzy Gillespie's moon-eyed rendition of "I Can't Get Started"

They're standing up the block and down the street

"It's hard to imagine building a song out of less," I told my friend as Spoon finished playing "The Way We Get By" last night at the Fillmore, and I meant it in a positive way. Much of the song is played with only two instruments at a time, and the key riffs in the song each consist of fewer than five notes apiece. Britt Daniel even finds a way to pack two words into one syllable during the chorus: "That's the way we get by/'sthe way we get by/'sthe way we get by." Minimalism, they say. Econo.

I suppose one of the dangers of playing music this tightly wound is that it's hard to break loose onstage. That wasn't a problem last night. I have seen a show where the band almost seemed to be rehearsing their cues, but that wasn't the case last night. Daniel's entire body appeared to be fully tensed as he sang the first song, "The Beast And Dragon, Adored," and he seemed to choke out every line as if the words might not make it out of his throat. Eventually he was waving the guitar in front of the amps, making feedback, making noise. The whole show felt like a controlled explosion, like compressed air coming out of a can.

Jim Eno plays drums as you might expect a chip designer to play: very, very logically. I have the impression that his drumsticks arrive at the good ideas just before your ears do, if that makes sense. (He's a good houseguest, too.) I have heard criticism that Eno's creativity might have been stifled on the new record as the band tried to be as minimalist as possible, but I didn't see any evidence of that as he played the Gimme Fiction material last night.

Josh Zarbo's bass sound is ridiculously thick. Especially when the amps are only a few feet away from you.

Anyway the band ran through at least twenty, probably close to twenty-five songs, pretty much flawlessly. Last night's show was the second in two nights, and I know that a lot of bands like to take a day off from traveling when they get to SF. It's a fun town, it's eleven hours from Portland and seven or eight from LA, and there's usually a reason to book two shows and cool off in the comfortable weather for a day or so during a hot summer tour. A lot of bands seem to have great second nights here.

Separately: I will be tantalizingly close to Ted Leo and the Pharmacists several times this weekend on the East Coast, but will most likely miss them. Drat.


FMFM: The wonderful "Bragging Party," from Kim Deal's record as The Amps

"I don't believe what I just saw"

The other day, Matt mentioned the Cubs' track record at games he's attended. And the other night, Jordan and I fell into talking about memorable things that happened at ballgames we've seen. And so I give to you:

The three most famous things I've seen in person at a big-league ballpark:
-Cal Ripken sitting one out for the first time in 2,632 games
-Willie Mays handing the torch to Barry Bonds when he hit his 660th home run on Opening Day 2004
-Bonds hitting #73 off Dennis Springer, on the foggy final day of the 2001 season

Three very unusual things I've seen in a ballpark:
-Eric Chavez hitting for the cycle against Baltimore, and connecting for the home run about three seconds after I said, "Hey, he could hit for the cycle."
-The last of Mike Schmidt's three career inside-the-park homers, on my tenth birthday
-Paul Lo Duca going 6-for-6 on Memorial Day at Dodger Stadium

Heartstopping plays I remember distinctly, though not necessarily famous ones:
-Tino Martinez's opposite-field grand slam in the rain, in the 15th inning at Camden Yards, the night after the longest 9-inning game in major league history (spring 1996)
-Nick Swisher scoring from first on an infield error, beating Vladimir Guerrero's throw from right field to win a 1-0 ten-inning game
-Eric Young diving over the pitcher to score on a wild pitch, ending a 2003 Giants-Padres game at PacBell
-The Orioles' David Dellucci catching a fly ball horizontally on a dead run, in right field at Camden Yards (lots of serious O's fans seem to remember this one from 1997)

Most unusual ballpark experience:
-1994: My lone visit to Fenway Park, when the Sox hosted the Mariners in what was supposed to be a Sox road game. The Kingdome roof in Seattle had partially collapsed, prompting the league to relocate a three-game series between the M's and Sox to Boston. There were no season tickets and only a skeleton crew of park employees, and they had to squeeze three games into two days, so they sold general admission tickets for a Saturday doubleheader for $10. We showed up for the second game and sat in the fourth row behind the third-base dugout. As I recall, there were no vendors, scoreboard operation was minimal, and they may not even have had a PA announcer. The whole thing felt like a time warp, vaguely like baseball in 1950: no blaring music, small crowd, one-ticket doubleheader, historic park. A couple of weeks later they canceled the season, the bastards.


FMFM: Fontessa, the Modern Jazz Quartet's first LP for Atlantic (1956)

Wired city

Um, a teletype machine?

"You have a right to fight back"

It's amazing how one person's story can encapsulate so much.

Temblor tales -- "Fun stuff!"

Selected reactions to the 6/16 quake, 4.9 magnitude, centered near Yucaipa in San Bernardino County (Southern California). From the LA Times' quake blog:

"It gave a small jiggle to the house, but nothing important. The 1994 earthquake was a lot heavier." -- Posted by: Dan at June 16, 2005 02:48 PM

"Century City's tall buildings felt it pretty good. It started kinda lite for about 4-5 seconds and then it picked up the punch. A few folks started screaming. It tapered off shortly thereafter. Our building was still swaying for about a minute or so. This was stronger than the 'Paso Robles' one several months back (That earthquake only seem to affect Angelenos in tall buildings, nobody seemed to have felt that one at ground level at all!) The Pacific's 'Ring-o-Fire' sure has been busy lately, I wonder if we're finally due the for the 'Biggie'." -- Posted by: Ray McConn at June 16, 2005 02:40 PM

"I was eating at P.F. Chang's in Rancho Cucamonga and it shook very quickly. Lunch was yummy still." -- Posted by: Shelly at June 16, 2005 02:36 PM

"I was doing yoga, I we totally felt it. A couple of windows busted out an the sound was like a bomb was dropped!!! We are ok, but still very shaken up... Yucipa" -- Posted by: John at June 16, 2005 02:46 PM

"I'm not from cali, how frequent are earthquakes? Is it unusual to be having 3 since sunday?" -- Posted by: Anonymous at June 16, 2005 02:36 PM

"Woah. On the 33rd floor of the 350 building in downtown L.A, I first thought people were having a little party upstairs, and then realized the party was in my office. The room shook pretty good for 5-10 seconds." -- Posted by: Henry at June 16, 2005 02:36 PM

"Eating lunch at home on the second floor of my Pasadena apartment. My pooch felt it before I did- her wimpers told me something was coming! Fun stuff!" -- Posted by: Sam at June 16, 2005 02:33 PM


FMFM: Jazz Samba by Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd, which I have somehow neglected for all these years despite loving Getz/Gilberto unconditionally.

Everyone needs an editor, part III

And this is where disgraced non-scientists go to further their non-scientific research.

Wish you were here

I may have some funny ideas about what constitutes a vacation spot, but I've never seriously considered Chernobyl as a tourist destination.

I have, however, spent close to an hour of my life gazing at these photographs of a motorcycle ride through the dead zone -- which may or may not have been done by a person named Elena. Very worth your time.

Meanwhile, a coal fire has burned beneath Centralia, Pa., since 1962, resulting in a different kind of ghost town. Check it out.


FMFM: The Oranges Band's The World And Everything In It. A big leap forward from their previous album -- this one is more casual, open-sounding, and more in touch with their pre-1965 side. My summer has a soundtrack.

Everyone needs an editor, part II

Of course he wanted to "take the summer off to spend the time with his family."

Be gone, mister "no scientific training."


FMFM: The Silos' "Tennessee Fire," one of the all-time night driving songs... although it's still good in the home office at 10:34 am.

Everyone needs an editor

Weird. It's almost like they want to believe global warming isn't happening.

Frontera

"Being bizarre is not a reason to keep somebody out of this country or lock them up."

True enough. But something tells me I would've, uh, profiled this guy.

Benedict XVI, would you be my Valentine?

The new Pope said in 2003: "Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in [same-sex] unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development."

I guess that explains Joe Valentine's ERA.

"I know where I'm from, who I'm from. So it was something I didn't need to pursue," Valentine said. "I'm completely happy with who I am and who my family is."

Yeah, he sure does sound maladjusted.

Ways to be wicked

The Asian caricatures were one thing, but "antagonism to the name of Christ" and "wickedness" are another entirely. Unbelievable.

Thank goodness BJU (interesting acronym, that) has relaxed its policy on other forms of, um, wickedness. While welcoming others, of course.


FMFM: Oscar Peterson's The Sound of the Trio and Night Train

Darfur

Please watch the multimedia piece. Great reporting.

Sorry for the lameness lately. I'll be back soon.


FMFM: The Art of Hank Crawford on Atlantic. (MM: Please note a song called "The Peeper.")