Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

From an article appearing in the Seattle Times, officials in New Mexico, Colorado and Utah, to appease Christian superstitions about what is probably a misreading of Revelations, will rededicate U.S. Route 666 to a different number. From the looks of the landscape in the picture, however, the original designation seems most appropriate. If you look closely, that glint atop the volcanic plug in the background is the sun reflecting off of a steel anvil with an “Acme” label, and that dust cloud moving on the horizon is a fast-approaching Road Runner.
While superstition can get you a highway renamed in the red states, officials in supposedly more progressive Washington state can’t bring themselves to remove the Confederate traitor Jefferson Davis’ name from U.S. 99. It is unclear how the Daughters of the Confederacy got enough clout in a state so removed, culturally and geographically, from Dixie that they got away with dedicating a highway. Even more inexplicable is why a Democratic state senator in the year 2003 is finding good things to say about Jeff Davis. She’s from Christopher Key’s county. Any word, Christopher?

Life is but a dream…Hedonism as performance art

More aquatic excess

Having it all on a rainy night on the Oregon Coast

Floating World

My hunch about the AfroCelts show was dead on - it was one of the best live shows I’ve been to. And I was wrong to deprecate the African component of their ensemble. The band had 10 musicians on stage, including electric Irish pipes and flutes, lots of varied percussion, violin and a large penile instrument called a kora that sounded like an electrified klemba. They referred us to their web site for information about the instruments they played, but the site is poorly designed, and I can’t find anything there about either instruments or personnel. They filled 2 hours with enthusiasm and energy.

The Showbox handled the “all-ages” issue by having a separate wrist stamp for over-21, and having secure access to the bar areas. The Showbox used to serve food, and we skipped dinner to get to the show on time only to find out that they’ve done away with all except chips. And while Seattle is a lot livelier than it used to be, it’s still nearly impossible to find anyone serving food at midnight, even in the toney Belltown district. There’s always the hot dog vendor outside music venues after a show, and we were fools to pass it up in search of something more upscale.

The lead act was pretty interesting, too. DJ Derek Mazzone and another guy performed, Mazzone spinning a mix and the other guy doing something like tubal throat singing. They were accompanied by a pair of lithe belly dancers. They’re appearing Friday night at ToST.

From CBS Sportsline:

PHOENIX — Randy Johnson will make what could be his final rehabilitation outing Tuesday night and could rejoin the Arizona Diamondbacks’ rotation for a start next Sunday in San Diego.
Johnson will pitch for Class A Lancaster of the California League in a game at Rancho Cucamonga.

Can you imagine being a Class A hitter, especially a left-hander, just getting your feet wet, and realizing you’ll be facing last year’s Cy Young winner tomorrow? And he throws 95+ miles per hour? And he’s pitching this game to see if his knee is healed and if he can get his control back?

Just bought tickets for the Afrocelts show Tuesday night at the Showbox. I got their latest album, Seed, a couple months ago and it’s been growing on me the last couple weeks (just add water). It seems a lot more “Celt” than “Afro”, but it rocks along, and I think I hear the ingredients of a good live show. Tuesday night’s show is hosted by DJ Derek Mazzone of KEXP, who has a world music show called Wo’ Pop. You can’t fail to come away from his radio show without at least 2 ideas for new CD purchases.
The show is listed as All Ages, which concerns me a little - I usually like to have a buzz at live events, and the Showbox bartenders are pros. I think I’ve been to so-called “all ages” shows there before, and they handled it by separating the drinking areas. Plus, I’m not sure what gives since they passed the liberalized successor to the Teen Dance Ordinance. Guess I’ll grab a ‘rita beforehand just in case, and see what happens. One advantage - I think the show starts a little earlier, and I won’t be out til 2am on a so-called “work night”.
We heard Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra at Chop Suey a week or so ago. I’d had oral surgery that morning (a dental implant) and needed the distraction as my anesthetic began to wear off. A felicitious combination of Vicodin and Bombay got me nicely through the evening. There’s a little more “Afro” in their sound, even though only 2 or 3 band members are black. We had heard them at Bumbershoot last year. I don’t know how they do it financially, but they travel with about 13 band members, including a 5-person horn section. On this night, the horn section played extensive solos. The baritone sax provides a singular voice to the ensemble, and they were tight and hot. Catch them if they get close. I’ve been playing their Liberation Vol. 1 album a lot.
We had designs to go up to the Capitol Hill Block Party and hear maktub, but we both had vigorous days Saturday (me kayaking on the Olympic Peninsula), and today has been sort of a chore day. We heard Reggie Watts, their lead singer, Thursday night at the Baltic Room as he released a solo CD. He’s got an amazing vocal repertoire, but my feeling is that he’s more of a performance artist than a soul singer, which you’d expect from Maktub’s music. Once your expectations are set in that direction, though, he’s a lot of fun.

I took this picture just before we did our pregame show at the ‘71 Rose Bowl

A couple days ago I was inspired to dredge up a story from my OSU days. It was the spring of 1970, during the Cambodia bombing campaign, and campuses all over the country were in turmoil. Each school approached these events according to its own personality, as I will relate.

I was more cynical than passionate about political issues at the time, and in my more cynical moments it seemed to me that Ohio State, with 50,000 students on campus and a Big Ten sports culture, approached student activism as more of an opportunity to party than to make a lasting political statement. In the core of any demonstration, of course, were truly dedicated activists, but milling at the periphery, and outnumbering them by a lot, were gawkers, sunworshipers, frisbee-throwers.

Many saw the demonstrations as a way to get classes cancelled and grading liberalized. For instance, two of my classes that quarter offered students the opportunity to state the lowest grade they’d accept, and to take ‘pass/fail’ if that grade wasn’t achieved.

Anyway. With this image in mind of how demonstrations went down at OSU, envision this one day on the Oval (a large grassy area at the heart of campus). Several podiums had been constructed for that day’s events, one run by the Black Student Union, one by someone like the SDS, and one apparently by the faculty senate, with crowds clustered around each one.

I had stopped at the ‘faculty senate’ one between classes and heard one or two earnest but unheeded profs plead for an orderly protest process that kept classes open. I think they saw the political upheaval of the day as perhaps the teaching opportunity of a lifetime, and didn’t want to be cut out of the dialogue. They garnered mostly derision from the committed and ennui from the groundlings on the periphery.

Suddenly, there was a disturbance from the back of the stage, and in a moment a ham-sized fist reached forward and grabbed the microphone. The body attached to the fist next emerged, and it was Woody Hayes. Some cheered, as many hooted, but everyone hushed a bit as Woody launched into a garrulous but impassioned exhortation. In the end, though, it was typical of a pep rally stump speech, minus the player introductions.

As he seemed to be winding to a close, he exclaimed, “If there’s one thing I teach my players, it’s not to HATE!”. This was apparently just one toke over the line, even from one of iconic stature. A girl who had been following intently stood up and yelled, “WE HATE MICHIGAN!”, and the place just erupted in chanting and howling. Woody was somehow disengaged from the microphone and squeezed from the stage.

In the next several days, the Kent State killings took place, our demonstrations became more chaotic and violent, and the National Guard stationed itself on the Oval to prevent anyone from congregating there. Tear gas permeated the air, even to the 7th floor of my dorm. One day, word came that the school would close at noon, and everyone had to be off the campus by 4pm. In no mood to go home, I decided to head for Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon and my girlfriend (now wife). A friend offered me a ride to Wheeling, and as we drove off campus, Columbus police were arresting students who were hitchhiking as a method to comply with the precipitous order to vacate.

Arriving on the Carnegie Mellon campus, I found a large congregation of students on a lawn in front of a makeshift stage, all seated on the grass. The president of the university was speaking, and answering questions from the audience. They were following Roberts Rules of Order. Carnegie Mellon does not play in the Big Ten.

School did eventually resume at Ohio universities, except of course for those four kids at Kent State. I took the picture above of Woody on the floor of the 1971 Rose Bowl just before we did our pregame show. We lost to Jim Plunkett and Stanford that day, and whiffed at the first of 4 or 5 national championships that would elude Woody during the 70s. Woody was enough of a wingnut that you had to cringe sometimes when he opened his mouth. But I credit him for his commitment to his values (even if I didn’t share all of them), and for taking the risk to speak that day when he could have hidden out and watched film.