Opposites attract

Barry Bonds is forever your girl.


FMFM: Vetiver's cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Save Me A Place"

Whooo!

Angel Island recorded a wind gust of 98 mph at about 7:10 p.m. and San Francisco International Airport saw a gust that reached 71 mph at about 6:55 p.m., forecaster Steve Anderson said. Sustained winds were recorded at 55 mph at both locations.

For those of you away from the West Coast, this is the mild winter you keep hearing about.


FMFM: Amadou et Mariam

Vacancy

Speaking of empty places, it doesn't get much emptier than this.

Wikipedia says it's the only county in the U.S. with no one living below the poverty line.

Obituary

The day he died, every newspaper in the country printed the words "skinny, lovable nerd."

Let us bow our heads in remembrance.

Please, make it stop

When I hear the word "MySpace", I reach for my volume control.

Have we learned nothing from SkipIntro.com?

(That little film, by the way, appears to have auto-launched someone's career.)


FMFM: Mr. Wilson and Mr. Gershwin, a classy live trio record featuring Wilson's chugging rhythms and springing touch

Salt of the earth

You may or may not know that the Salton Sea is a massive industrial accident in the Southern California desert that briefly turned into a booming resort before it became an environmental catastrophe. Two filmmakers, with one of whom I am acquainted, have created Plagues & Pleasures On The Salton Sea, a documentary that fits squarely with my interest in weird Americana. Narrated by John Waters, the 71-minute film is often fast-paced and witty, but raises serious questions about how to proceed with one of the worst ecological disasters in American history. It's playing all week at the Red Vic, so if you're in town I recommend making time for it. [Note: It's not this film.]

There are some remarkable shots -- the Park Service workers dragging dead pelicans across the same beaches where millions of dead fish wash up every year, the nonagenarian shutting down his diner for the last time, the aerial shot of the nearly-abandoned town of Salton City. There are some characters you couldn't make up -- the boozy Hungarian, the naked guy by the side of the road, the mountain-building Christian artist. The key lines? "This is the last frontier," says the one woman, and, "At this point, I can't really afford to live anywhere else," says the other guy (paraphrased). Damn. The Salton Sea: where the Old West goes to die. Harper's ran a great story about this a few years ago too, although the film doesn't mention the article's most memorable subject: the truly terrifying Slab City.

I met the Plagues filmmaker at the Jim White documentary I discussed last year. I bring this up because both films occasionally confront the same challenge in documenting an unprosperous America with little hope for a bright future: How do you avoid making fun of them when they seem like they're making fun of themselves unknowingly? As with the White film, there were times when the San Francisco audience laughed at things I didn't think were funny, and were probably not supposed to be funny. I suppose all a filmmaker can do is point the camera and use what's provocative, but there has to be a point when he must decide whether his edit is either too mocking or too forgiving. Anyway I think these guys got it right -- the film does genuinely convey that some people still find this place beautiful, and I bet if I went there I'd find something to like too, but the area is unmistakably going downhill and getting weirder by the year.

Still, the film saves its big question for the last section: What the hell do you do with a 375-square-mile sewer of agricultural runoff that has lost its tourism economy and turned into a poisoned bird sanctuary? With 100 million dubiously edible tilapia swimming in it, 7.6 million of which have died in a single day? Where it's 120 degrees in the summer, where you can buy a house for $3,000 but no one wants to? Do you let it waste away and deal with the problems, the alkaline dust storms? Do you nurse it back to health at enormous expense, and risk Mother Nature bringing in a whole new set of problems? (She always gets her way, you know.) Hell, I don't know. Nobody knows -- not even Sonny Bono, the surprising hero of the region's inhabitants.

It looks like there's a TV version that could turn up on PBS or cable, so if the film doesn't get screened where you live, you might see the edit one day soon.

More fascinating stuff here and here.

FMFM: Quincy Jones' Big Band Bossa Nova, which has its moments. The Mingus cover does not top the original, and the "Desafinado" isn't all that special. Jones' original, the opening track, is the best one.

Polk salad

I treated myself (sort of) to an evening in the Polk Gulch area of the city last night, with the ultimate goal of seeing Bart Davenport play by himself at the Hemlock Tavern, one of the city's best small venues.

After consuming a tasty saag/daal masala concoction at the unfortunately-named but well-enough-reputed Indian Aroma, then wandering into a couple of bookstores, I stepped into the Hemlock on one of its mellower nights. Sometimes the place is fairly aggro and full of Ramones; this night it was a little gentler. Someone kept playing X and the Minutemen on the jukebox (one way not to get your money's worth, in terms of dollars per second of music). I wonder if it was Michael Azerrad, who was there to play drums with the second band, King of France.

This Union Standard, a two-vintage-keyboard band, played first. I enjoyed their well-thought-out arrangements, though I couldn't really discern much in the way of lyrics. Sometimes it seemed like they were channeling the 10cc or some other 70s Music Explosion-type band. There are an awful lot of local San Francisco bands that seem to substitute retro references for actual creativity, and This Union Standard did occasionally tread that line, but ultimately I wound up on their side. I got the impression that six or eight years ago they would've been doing an alt-country thing, but that's so over now, right?

I didn't see all that much of King of France (hmm, they put "Critics" right next to "Home" on their Web site!), although I liked their guitar-keys-drums sound just fine. I think I would have liked them a lot more ten years ago, but that's mostly just me. Their singer projected a hell of a lot more than the Union Standard guys did, but he may have gone too far into the realm of the irritating on occasion too. I'm pretty sure the woman who was at the soundboard during the first half of their set turned into their bass player by the end. Odd arrangement.

Bart Davenport's songs are very strong, in terms of wordplay, musical creativity, structural integrity, and most importantly emotional commitment. There are times when he clowns a little onstage, and there are times on record when he dresses up the songs in obvious homages to Great Rock Records of the past. Sometimes it doesn't matter, because the fellow can write. Playing alone, without any Love horns or CSN harmonies or whatever, it's easy to see just how far ahead Bart is of nearly every other solo singer-songwriter I've seen in the city. (Perhaps Sean Hayes is in his league. I saw him in the catacombs of the Albion Castle in Hunters Point once. I can't really separate the rest of that experience from Sean's music, but it was captivating.) Bart brought out some new material too -- some bossa nova-type shuffle songs, some pop stuff that makes me think he's listening to Cole Porter, some that could be rock songs if he let them go that way. People loved it. I wonder why he's not huge sometimes.

I'm hoping to see the Salton Sea documentary tonight; will report back soon if I do.


FMFM: Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil. The band's fantastic control and dynamics really make the title track happen. Five stars from me.

Turn the beat around

Six seconds that changed the world. A film -- just barely -- about a very small bit of music that became extremely popular. I always thought James Brown's "Funky Drummer" was the all-time king, but this may now hold the crown.

More...


FMFM: Allen Toussaint, live at the 1976 Louisiana Jazz & Heritage Festival (better known as New Orleans JazzFest), at the peak of his powers and leading an unstoppable band

First-rate

Another hall of famer.

Coffee time

When I first got to the West Coast, I took a somewhat demeaning temp job running errands for a very wealthy family. (I won't say who, except that some of you are familiar with his bluegrass-festival-sponsoring former business partner, who is widely regarded as one of the nicest men in the hardcore finance industry. The guy I worked for, however, was a major-league prick to me on the one occasion when I met him.) The family had several full-time staff working at his house during the summer, even though no one was actually living there during those months.

The enduring memories of those strange few weeks:
∙Buying diapers and cat food, multiple times.
∙Experiencing a 5.0-magnitude earthquake on the first floor of their house. It was my official welcome, just three weeks after I arrived in SF. (Since then, I've felt one other substantial shock, missed another while rocking out, and noted a couple of very minor tremors while sitting or lying very still.)
∙Taking the Mercedes 500SL convertible in for service. This occurred in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday, during the height of the dot-com boom. It seemed like a lot of people were staring at this 26-year-old kid in a flannel shirt driving that car, thinking, "He's one of those people."
∙The attitudes of the house's manager, who got very pissy when the weather turned foggy but still chose to live in San Francisco. Odd bird.
∙The sad wastefulness of the extremely wealthy.
∙The family's insistence on Graffeo coffee.

Yesterday I went walking in North Beach, and wandered by the Graffeo coffee roastery. On an impulse, I walked in and asked the guy for a pound of dark roast. He reached in with a big scoop, dumped it on a scale, ground it with my French press in mind, and sent me on my way with a bag of still-warm grounds that substantially exceeded one pound net weight. Nice.

The verdict? Worth $13.75 a pound. Oh yes. I can see why they sent me out of my way for it. Trader Joe's Bay Blend will never seem adequate again.

Is it possible that finer coffee beans result in a "smoother" experience of the caffeine rush? If better alcohol results in milder hangovers, why wouldn't it stand to reason that better coffee would result in a mellower feel? Something's just different about this stuff.


FMFM: The Birth of a Band and The Great Wide World of Quincy Jones, found as a nice twofer LP. These are extremely exciting sessions from 1959, with highlights from Lee Morgan, Phil Woods and more. Great charts (not all from Jones), and flawless execution.

Hopeless Sandoval

How embarrassing for our city: Gerardo Sandoval tells Fox News that the U.S. should not have a military.

I know it's only a Fox News setup. Hannity & Colmes, whatever. But however well-meaning he might be, Sandoval needs to realize that he's doing much more harm than good by spouting this kind of nonsense on national television. He's making San Francisco seem ridiculous, he's giving the anti-war left a bad name, and he's inadvertently helping Red America get its way. If you can make Sean Hannity look sensible, you're not doing good work. Idiot. ("Useful idiot," perhaps.)

I think I voted for him for Assessor just to get him off the Board of Supervisors.

Look, 21% 22% 19% of SFGate readers agree with him! Who are these people? (As usual, I'm easy to spot on the political spectrum: pretty damn far left anywhere else in the country, strangely right of center in San Francisco.)

Remember SorryEverybody.com, the site where people apologized to the rest of the world for Bush's re-election? Well, I officially apologize to you non-San Franciscans across America for Sandoval's opinion, on behalf of the non-crazy 79% 78% 81% of our fair city. Oh, and I didn't vote for that proposition about keeping military recruiters out of our schools either. It wasn't me, folks, it wasn't me.


FMFM: George Benson's Beyond The Blue Horizon, featuring the incredibly expressive cello flourishes of Ron Carter

Breakout artists

It appears to be almost a year old, but I just happened upon Yo La Tengo's video game today.

It's easiest if you're James.

Back to school

A story that is at once remarkable and ordinary.

"After graduation, I'll be able to make a better commitment to the band," he says.


FMFM: The Band's Stage Fright, which somehow I had never heard in its entirety until recently. I think it's because of Greil Marcus. (Bastard!) Maybe Stage Fright may not quite rank with The Band's best moments on its first two albums, but it's still a remarkable effort. I could never figure out why "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," from The Band, made Greil Marcus all excited anyway, although I love his line about how Joan Baez turned Robert E. Lee into a boat. (Yes, she did.)

My Stage Fright arrived in a haul of $1 records purchased on the street one Saturday morning about a month ago. Some guy on Haight was unloading hundreds (if not thousands) of LPs for way less than they were worth.

"What, are you moving or something?" I asked him.

He shook his head and looked at the ground. "No," he said quietly. "I just want them out of my life." I can relate, man, I can.

"Those are good burgers, Walter."

So In-N-Out now stands at a crossroads. Today as I wait in line at the drive-thru, I wonder which way that giant arrow will point. Will the course of empire take it eastward, bringing Double-Doubles to Denver, Des Moines and Da Bronx? Apart from making those of us in the West feel a little less special, that wouldn't be such a bad thing, unless in the Starbucksification of In-N-Out Burger, something gets lost. If the old-fashioned, slow-rising sponge dough goes, then so goeth I. If celebrity hotties on TV begin dribbling special sauce down their chins, then none will dribble down mine. I don't think I'm alone in this.

Isn't it romantic?

You've probably heard me extolling the virtues of The Tipping Point, in which Malcolm Gladwell outlines the three types of people who make the world go around. (They're Connectors, Mavens and Salespeople.)

Now, courtesy of an Atlantic Monthly cover story on the science of human attraction as studied by the people who construct online dating services, meet your four new friends:

"So I had these four sheets of paper," Fisher continued. "And I decided to give each a name. Serotonin became the Builder. Dopamine, the Explorer. Testosterone, the Director. And estrogen—I wish I’d called it the Ambassador or Diplomat, but I called it the Negotiator." [An existing personality assessment tool], she says, "clearly knew the four types but didn’t know the chemicals behind them."

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.


FMFM: Maiden Voyage

Thinkin' of a master plan

He described how the looting of hi-fi stores during the 1977 New York City blackout propelled D.J. culture. ("It was like Christmas for black people," he said. "The next day there were a thousand new D.J.'s.")

Christ! You know it ain't easy

If you've ever tried to think up a winner in the New Yorker cartoon caption contest (or even if you haven't), this should amuse you.


FMFM: A bunch of Beatles songs in my iTunes: "Paperback Writer," "Anna," "Twist and Shout," "Ballad of John & Yoko," "Yes It Is," "I Call Your Name," "And Your Bird Can Sing"... on the warmest, most spectacular day of 2006. I'd be outside, but I already walked halfway across town today after jury duty let out at noon. There's still time left to stroll down to the ocean for sunset, though. Happy February, everyone.

Tactful

"Maybe she's more valuable out there not as a candidate," Boxer said of Sheehan and her anti-war effort.

Randle El!

I imagine you would've all been amazed if you'd been there yesterday during the early moments of the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl when I said to everyone within earshot, "Boy, Bill Cowher loves those trick plays, and he hasn't used one yet. You know, one of their wide receivers used to be a quarterback. I bet they've got a trick play coming soon."

And the rest, as they say, is history. You weren't there to hear it, but believe me, it happened just like that.

No, really.

Gladwell

"To be someone who does not believe in the power of the situation is to be a defeatist about the world," he said. "And that I can't abide."

Oranges and Stone

A thoughtful feature about some of my friends, and a short remembrance of a terrific record.

"I don't care how Christian we are. We have to get medieval with these people."

Here's an eye-opening story from the "other California." Long, but worth the time.


FMFM: Nick Drake, whose albums I have distilled into a very solid, deep single-disc collection. Some days I think he's become overrated as a cult hero -- as certain artists who die young and somewhat mysteriously often are -- but he did leave behind some elegant, ruminative and intense music. He was a fine guitarist too.

One of these days I'll learn how to upload an mp3 file so I can make this stuff easily available for you to sample.

Earning your wings

I'm totally going next year.

Related: If you haven't seen The 72-Ounce Steak, an eight-minute film about someone in Amarillo, Tex., trying to eat four and a half pounds of beef (plus baked potato, shrimp cocktail and dinner roll) in less than an hour, you owe it to yourself. Available as a bonus on the awesome Growin' A Beard DVD; music by Dale Watson.

Coincidence

Interesting.


FMFM: Freddie Hubbard's "Breaking Point": an example of controlled, compositional music that is also freely improvised. Striking.

Photography? Wink-wink, nudge nudge? Say no more?

The Balboa Theater's twinbill of documentaries about photographers seemed like an obvious choice for me. Midday matinee double features are my thing, you know. So I walked down there on Sunday to take in the films while I recovered from the One Night Stand, in which I had portrayed Gerry Roslie and a portion of Mick Ronson the night before.

I hadn't known much about Henri Cartier-Bresson before, but once he started holding up prints of his photos I started to recognize images that I've been seeing my whole life. (Kind of like that one room at the Met in NYC.) I enjoyed hearing the master talk about geometry and timing, and his story about being present moments before Gandhi's death was striking. There were a lot of audible gasps in the theater for that one. Arthur Miller and Isabelle Huppert, among others, added good commentary as well. The film was rather brief at 72 minutes, and I could've stood some more; maybe they were saving it for the DVD or something. Anyway the film's called The Impassioned Eye, and it's not rotten, though I'm willing to admit it may be "wispy".

I actually went down there more interested in William Eggleston In The Real World, having seen his exhibit at SFMOMA a couple of years ago, but I left a lot less interested. Quite honestly, I have no idea how the Chron's Kenneth Baker and several others could cheer this one. Caveat emptor: there is a nauseatingly wobbly five-minute-plus sequence of a squirming drunk woman ranting about how it's better to blow your brains out than die slowly of cancer while Eggleston draws quietly in the background, as R.E.M.'s Out of Time album plays so loudly that the conversation has to be subtitled. ("Shiny happy people holding hands...!") There are long camcorder shots of Eggleston walking around in the wind (noisy!) taking pictures that you don't ever get to see, and there is a final interview in which the documentarian asks annoying art-school-sophomore questions which a drunken Eggleston deflects as he tries to eat dinner in some barbecue joint. The parts where you see the photographs with voice-over narration are just fine, but those should hold together the best parts of the film, not be them. Incompetently edited, not illuminating, and certainly irritating. If I'd paid full price for just this film, I would've been really angry.


FMFM: Alberta Hunter, in the 1920s and again in the late 1970s.

Oh, Cindy, see?

Lest anyone think the post below refers to Cindy Sheehan's arrest last evening, I'd just like to clarify that I originally confirmed her shark-jumping clownhood because she said she is contemplating a run for Senator, not because she was hauled off by Capitol security for a silent protest.

Although I'm sympathetic with her on the arrest issue, and I support her original desire to ask a single question to Mr. Personal Responsibility President, I still think she's nuts for talking Senate bid. (Look who's applauding her stated political intentions, for one thing.)


FMFM: Yung Wu's Shore Leave, which I'm hearing for the first time in almost fifteen years. Yung Wu was essentially the Feelies, although percussionist Dave Weckerman stepped out in front to sing. Shore Leave finds the Feelies somewhere between their strummier Good Earth and janglier Only Life sounds, with Weckerman's guileless vocals on top. The band seems to have spent a reasonable amount of time on the arrangements, and the playing is spirited. I wonder what Weckerman's going on about sometimes, but it seems like it's worth the time to find out. And it's got "Powderfinger," too.

I seem to remember hearing that Weckerman was autistic; I recall having a very strange conversation with him after a 1990 show in Baltimore. He delivered a very memorable performance that night on "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me & My Monkey." Obligated to make a distinctive percussion sound by smacking a horizontal steel bar at an exceptionally high rate of speed throughout the duration of the song, Weckerman managed to break one of the cables suspending the bar, so that it hung vertically in the air. Weckerman responded to the challenge by contorting his body sideways, down on his knees, in order to continue drumming on it. It was quite a sight.

It's an appealing record. The great lost Feelies album! (Or, maybe, that'd be the Trypes' The Explorers Hold -- another one!)

Heads-up: This guy has an mp3 available. Oh, and it looks like the AMG has the wrong rhythm section listed in their Yung Wu bio; the record jacket says it's Sauter and Demeski, not the brothers DeNunzio.

[UPDATE: I don't think Weckerman's autistic after all. I don't know where I got that idea. He is, however, described in this interview as "an animated conversationalist, humorously graphic in his descriptions, and a touch hard of hearing," as well as the most charismatic member of the band.]