Island
Life 2003
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DECEMBER 28, 2003
Last column for the year 2003:
A HOLLY JOLLY
Some of you may have noticed that the sixth day of Hanukkah and the first day of Xmas happened this week. I know just about everybody between the ages of 4 and 16 sure noticed. There was all sorts of scampering and jumping up and down and ribbons flying and squeals of glee all over the Island in the middle of the week. And so what if the boxes were fewer, matchbooks played on the dreidels instead of pennies, and the gee-gaws less shiny than in some other years. The stockings were still hung with care and the candles still twinkled just as bright, for it will be remembered in later days by the younger ones that "back then when we didn't have so much," the gatherings seemed better, warmer, more enjoyable than in the flush times.
Oh the cows have brain disease and they're closing the schools for lack of money and mudslides and rabid terriers on airplanes and jack frost is on the pumpkin and the whole world is going to hell in a hand-basket for sure. Well, as Aragorn would say, under different but similar circumstances we are sure, not today, not today. Today, humanity shines out, a pale and flickering victory in the darkness all around.
"And on the sixth day there was an end to fighting and there was no more war. They put down their weapons and entered the temple to pray and there discovered to their surprise the lantern remained lit and had stayed lighted the entire time although there had been barely enough oil for a single day. All who saw this were amazed and proclaimed this a miracle that the light of g-d had remained during the battle . . . ".
from Erinnerungen der Tzadikische Nebbish des Insels Mykonos
Because of the superior wisdom of the Islander, we do not depend upon PG&E with its flammable power stations, hence we confidently strung out our lights in secure knowledge that not one single penny of power went to line anything like the pockets of an Enron executive or a bloated Piggie bureaucrat. We had reindeer making ready for take-off . . .
We had entire houses draped with imaginative whimsy . . .
We had animatronic animals feeding in fields of light . . .
And even City Hall put on a "face" for the holidays . . .
It seemed every door had its own message.
No smugness here, Babylon. You too could take control over your own lights.
IF THE HOUSE IS A ROCKIN, DON'T BOTHER KNOCKIN
Aftershocks from the weeks 6.5 shaker keep rolling through, and almost certainly contributed to the mudslides in SoCal that really messed up one group's little religious retreat by killing about ten of the congregation. Up here, we all felt it pretty definitively as a short, sharp jolt, much like the pounding when Sean goes pounding down the back stairs at a gallop. We all laughed about it at the time; its those long, rumbling ones that start mild and then end up knocking your eyeballs around inside yer skull that we all dislike. Apparently, down south it was strong enough to toss a building onto a couple people with fatal results.
What a year. Nearly all of San Bernadino burns down, mudslides, privately funded governorship recall elections, earthquakes, and now we hear the 49ers are clear out of the running. Bummer, dude.
At least Cal is looking good. Go Bears!
HERE COMES THE RAIN AGAIN
This is the last entry for the year 2003. Island Life has grown, in this edition, to some 342 single-spaced 8.5x11" printed pages for the year. Right now the rain is sifting down, getting set for another major blow-in. We have had non-stop rain for weeks with a couple dry days when the temps plummeted to frost-on-the-rooftops kind of weather, making us all wonder what they are doing to the heavens up there to make it so ornery. Now the warning bar is flashing on the com-pooper screen with a flashing red exclamation mark and all sorts of grumbling (my com-pooper is no ordinary appliance, I can assure you; it's so smart that pretty soon, it won't need me any more, like HAL in 2001).
Lookin' in here we see warnings of whoop-ass winds at 50mph developing tonight along with hella rain, although the reports are phrased somewhat differently. Earlier yesterday we watched the seabirds coming in for landings, which is something they don't hardly ever do unless a Big One is coming in from the North.
Now we can hear that midnight train go rattling down by the waterfront, while all the streets run wet and long in the dark under the falling drops. Its another winters night in the Bay Area. Even the foul-minded are tucking out of sight and looking for shelter on a night like this. We are kind of hoping the Fat Man who sits swaddled in miles of blankets over at Jack London has found a dry nook beside the Men's Room in the parking garage there. And Jackie Jack, our House Stray, has found a humongous SUV under which to huddle during the onslaught.
Right now, it has been uncannily warm, with a dense fog cloaking the hills, completely obscuring the golden towers of the Mormon Temple up on Grizzly Boulevard. The lights of houses on the slopes just march up a black wall and then vanish into a pale Other World. There is a cold breeze that has started blowing and you can hear the moan in the high trees beginning. The Old Man behind the house, a coastal Sequoia that has stood their probably since General Potrero first dipped his scarred hands into the San Francisco Bay, has started to move his fingers a little bit. Sometimes he likes to swing and dance in the roughest storms, for the roughest storms are nothing to what the Old Man has been through.
Many times I have seen the moon rise, accompanied by Venus, first among the stars and among the best and tried to capture on film or some other method the silhouette the Old Man makes in partnership with the Moon. Many times I have sat out there in the back in the pseudo-chaise lounge and talked with his shadow arising from among the lemon trees and fences beyond. Oh there's a few who would like to do away with the Old Man, just chop him down as an inconvenience and a possible danger. "Just look at him, all scraggly and broken. He could fall any day and crush a house or two. Better to end it all now." Well he may be a danger and he may be not. If he is, I still will be sorry to see him go for there where over 100 feet of tree fills the horizon, his absence would leave a hole in the sky. Imagine that: a century and more of tree leaving a hole in the sky.
The Old Man stands in someone else's backyard and his fate is held in other hands than mine. Perhaps they would enjoy having a large flag-tiled patio instead of this immense tree trunk, but it seems quite clear that they have tended the Old Man, shaved his dead branches and tried their best in their human way to buck up the old fellow and have no thoughts of the lower kind. We Islanders love trees. And if Treebeard would ever have found himself here, he would have been welcome, here especially, in a world that seems driven mad by some demonic power of destruction. On this Island, however, Love remains a virtue, raised above pragmatism, honor, patriotism, and all those lesser values that some confuse as being important. It took my Significant Other, Sharon, to point out this obvious value to me. And so, I dedicate this last column of the year to My Significant Other, Sharon. I can only hope that you who read this, also have someone who can remind you of what is really important when the world comes rushing in with all its winds of confusion.
The casements are rattling now. The big wind had begun. Time to get down. That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great New Year.
DECEMBER 21, 2003
FIAT LUX
Rabbi Langer drove in on his one-and-only kosher Motorcycle to oversee the lighting of the Official City Menorah in Union Square Saturday, although the annual Hanukkah festival began officially by calendar Friday evening. Good thing somebody lit a candle for Babylon plunged into darkness around 6pm on Saturday, after a mothership power station caught fire, knocking out the lights to some 120,000 customers and throwing the entire City into a tizzy during the busiest shopping day of the year. Power stayed out well into Sunday morning, late, ensuring a major financial hit against the local retailers.
Understand that Babylon, for some reason, tossed down a measure only a year ago to free itself from the oppressive PG&E structure. Many shall be saying, "I told you so!" come Monday morning.
NIGHT OF A THOUSAND STARS
This night is the longest night of the year, the official start of Winter -- if the local weather has not reminded you of the fact as yet. Locally, we have had Michelangelo skies: the sort of skies that boil with gods and sun-gold among the massive clouds, while the rain has let up for today. Everyone today was scurrying about with packages and ribbons down at the Mall, and -- since Babylon has proved untrustworthy -- all up and down the Nimitz freeway, hatchbacks and sedans scuttled like bugs with firs and ornaments strapped to their backs in mossy abandon. Night falls and the steaming mugs come out behind the cozy windows of light and their is chatter and natter among the boxes and wreathes.
The flu season has done a major smackdown to all of us, and we are all slurping those zinc Hall's eucalyptus menthol whatevers like crazy while chicken soup is being gulped down by the gallon.
By late nightfall, the presents are all tucked away in the closet or the garage, the kids are all tucked into their beds or away on visitation, and the mugs have all gone cold by the cupboard. Stars begin firing off incendiary rounds and so begins this winter's solstice, the longest night of the year.
WALK THE DOG
The local political climate has gotten pug-ugly with sentiments running high against almost everything. A group has gotten together a petition to recall the entire City Council, and is aiming to replace the entire County Board, with a slate of contenders from the Island Animal Shelter, Canine Wing.
Clearly, the feelings of the common voter have turned against "business as usual", and have turned to the most extreme alternatives. This is hardly to wonder, since neither of the main parties has been exactly honest in its dealings with the public. The Democrats have hemmed, hawed and equivocated on every issue, largely to avoid offending anyone with any comment no matter how innocuous. The GOP has flatly lied about everything because that is their nature and we have come to expect it of them because they don't care who they offend as long as they get what they want for themselves and their friends.
So the choices have been historically somewhat limited.
As a consequence, the Island has given up on people entirely as any species worthy of governing the body politic. The dolphins were approached initially with an offer of 20% for running the human show, but being an intelligent species, quickly rejected the contract. Some genius glommed onto the phrase "man's best friend" and so the newly formed Canine Ticket came into being. A strong coalition was developed among the inhabitants of the Island Animal Shelter and there is strong hope for success. For one thing, no dog has done nearly as much damage as any human being in power has done, and this is a strong selling point which cannot be denied. If you would put up the most savage Alaskan Malmute or low-bred pitbull against the likes of George Bush, the Butcher of DC, or Saddam Hussein, you would have to agree that the hounds have it all in spades.
Who was it who came up with the phrase "Butcher of XXX City" anyway? Where did this phrase come from? Certainly no dog.
Look into the eyes of a dog, even a bad doggie, and you will know that a dog cannot lie. For this reason, proponents claim, a dog would make a far better President than any human being. Certainly a dog would have been far more successful as sniffing out the location of Hussein than Bush and would have certainly tracked down and cornered that odious Osama Bin Lassie by now.
Of after all, if the President is only a figurehead anyway, a sort of stand-in for powers that already control the Government, well, a better representative than the hapless George, who has never been successful at anything we can see in his personal history, would be a better symbol to the rest of the world. George Bush, you must understand, allowed his Texas oil company to go bankrupt even when it owned a preferred contract with the Government of Saudi Arabia.
It is very difficult to imagine how a Texas oil company that held a preferential contract with Saudi Arabia could go broke, but George Bush is no ordinary mortal and he makes his money when others typically lose theirs.
The present national economy is a good example. Are you making any money right now?
So it goes. Dogs don't invest in offshore dealings. Dogs don't hump their pages in the Oval Office in secret -- they do it in public. Dogs don't lie about the reasons they invaded the neighbor's backyard. A dog is an honest dog and always will be. So we in Island-life take this opportunity to endorse the Canine Ticket for the Island and for the Executive Office. And while we're at it, lets reverse a few gender roles. Our motto for '04: "Put a Real Bitch in the White House!"
Nancy Reagan wouldn't mind at all, we feel.
SOUTHERN CROSS
This brown cube, bounded by the pale lights of the monitor and the reading light, becomes in these hours before dawn a kind of ship's cabin, sailing forth on the seas. The midnight howl of the through-passing train is the foghorn of nearby Cape Fear. We are sailing out on the seas of the darkness of our times in our little boat, while above us the eternal constellations wheel in the everlong dance of the ages.
And if feels now as if the wind outside against the panes has become the pound of waves against the keel.
It is said that when you see the Southern Cross for the first time, then you will know why you came this way. For us, Orion has provided the guiding path for many a year. But whatever constellation that you choose, or whatever constellation chooses you, let the light guide you through the gathering darkness to the brighter day. And a brighter day will come for all of us, after this darkest night, we are sure, even as we guide our bowlines through dark hawsers by starlight.
Peace.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
DECEMBER 14, 2003
I'VE GOT A LUST FOR LIFE
Me and the Significant Other renewed what has become a sort of family Tradition of attending the annual Not So Silent Night concert, promoted by Live 105 this year. Thankfully, the venue has shifted from the execrable "Shark Tank" in San Jose, where poor booking, pitifully lousy sound and difficulty of access threatened to kill a series that has been running for well on fifteen years. It quickly became clear that the entire gang, including the performers and the audience was very glad to be back in the home area again. This time up the agents booked Black Eyed Peas (replaced by the Outcasts, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Rancid, The Offspring, a reformulated Janes Addiction, and, special coup none other than the Godfather of Punk himself, Iggy Pop.
We came in late to catch the end of BRMC, which ended up with a scorching finale which made me wish that we had managed to catch this very talented trio earlier. Rancid surprised us with a very professional and very capable set, showing this ur-punk band has staying power, despite the accusations of sellout and the obvious disadvantage in punk -- they all have managed to learn to play their instruments. I was a little put off by the personalized white track suit on lead guitarist, Lars, but they have returned to more of the ska-based Clash-influenced material and indicate development, rather than concession. Rumors that the band sold to Warner Brothers after performing on MTV are wildly unfounded and a short visit to their Hellcat shows why, for these guys have setup their website in such a way as to send fear into the all the old guard of the RIAA. From singles to entire CD's can be paid for and downloaded together with loads of multimedia content the old guard has yet to respond to in any effective way beyond suing 10-year olds for piracy. We wish Rancid all the best and earnestly exhort old fossils defending the ethic of Punk, a movement that essentially died a decade or more ago, to kindly evolve for music must develop and change if it is to remain vital.
The Offspring took the stage for an all too brief 30 minutes in which they ripped through all their old favorites, doing only one promo song from their new CD. Of note was a dual drum-set arrangement with an additional backup percussionist. Clearly, these guys from Orange County have evolved also, and Dexter has stated in interviews that he never expected the band to continue as long as it has.
An announcer for Live 105 came out to announce, "I was going to lead the pit here in a round of Jingle Bells, with maybe the left side doing harmony with the right, but instead, I should just let Iggy Pop take the stage. Whaddya say?"
The answering roar left no question as to what the sold-out crowd wanted. Iggy Pop, born James Jewel Osterberg in 1952, started out playing R&B but sometime during the flower-power and poppy time of the Beatles, things went seriously awry. Collecting a couple of his high school buddies in Michigan, the group titled itself The Stooges and commenced to tear apart the fabric of music itself to the extreme vitriol of music critics everywhere, who said the music was stupid, as were the musicians who did not appear to have the slightest idea how to play an instrument. Instead of layering on Phil Spector-styled orchestration and tossing in minutes-long solos of musical virtuosity, the Stooges stripped the third chord from three-chord rock and assaulted the ears of everyone within hearing with punishing guitar riffs and slamming backbeats as well as lyrics that ranged from the superbly inspired, calling for revolution of the heart and mind, to extraordinarily, well, stoopid. Their performances became legendary by the ferocious intensity that burned down the house with spontaneity to which the wildest stomper today still cannot hold a candle. For a time, Iggy became rather notorious for throwing his body on broken glass and scoring his torso with razorblades during performances.
In contradiction to all this manic activity, Iggy remained inwardly a highly literate, well-spoken and extremely intelligent individual with qualities usually associated with the term Renaissance Man, capable of quoted Kierkegaard and Sartre. David Bowie picked up the band on his own label when contracts fell through due to lack of volume sales with Electra, but by 1973, the band had fallen apart. Iggy did several solo projects before descending into the usual hell of heroin and alcohol through the 80's, even as the underground was picking up on his once-shunned music. They started calling this stuff by the name of "punk" and added trappings of their own, capturing the unruly and unrestrained music that Iggy Pop has often stated stemmed from the wild and discordant sounds of the old bluesmen, such as R.L. Burnside, also a music that was derided for atonality and "primitivism" in its time.
In the early 90's, he had gotten bored, apparently, with heroin and simply stopped using. Probably the first and only man ever to kick the habit out of ennui. He then astonished everyone by recording "Candy" which went straight to the top of the charts for 42 weeks, propelled by surprisingly cool and controlled baritone. We all knew he could really sing; it just had been hard to tell from what when before.
By surviving, contrary to all expectations, Iggy Pop stands as a marvelously irritating link between two traditions that appear at first glance to be wildly at odds with one another, but which share essential aspects of spirit. There is absolutely no doubt that Howling Wolf, who liked to climb the draperies in the middle of his sets would have understood what the Stooges were all about.
Into the mid 90's, believing his music career had no more chances, Iggy Pop embarked on a film career and has acted in well over 20 films, including works by respected directors such as Jim Jarmusch. But as the world in general appeared to grow more and more "stoopid", there has been a resurgence of interest in politically-charged music that avoids the misty-eyed romanticism of the 60's and Iggy Pop, at age 51, has come roaring back, having basically fathered Punk , heavy metal, garage rock and grunge with a 30 year background behind him.
Friday night the man hopped and skipped and danced about the stage with the energy of an 18-year old, pausing only to hurl his body from the stage into the sea of the pit, where loving fans caught him and passed him back over the barricade. He then shouted to the band, "Play louder, harder, faster!" In another "moment", during "It's Lonely", he suddenly shouted, "Everybody up here! Right now! I'm not finishing until all of you are up here with me!" and we then were treated to the spectacle of just about five thousand people in the pit rushing at and over the barricades while security struggled vainly to toss people back and Iggy had one fan by the waist hauling upwards while security had the fans legs hauling downwards. Fortunately nobody was killed and Iggy finished up several songs as the people on the stage began realizing that there was only one way off -- take a stage dive.
Notwithstanding the mayhem, the concert was remarkably pacific, with Rancid lead, Tim Armstrong halting the set mid-song to breakup a fight down in the pit. "Hey, any of you want to fight, you can just go out there up front, collect your money and go home in the rain."
For all their mohawks and tattoos, we personally, both I and the Significant Other, have always felt safe and comfortable with the punks, who usually have more real concerns on their minds than starting wars and picking fights. We had the Girls with us, and M., the Onetime and No longer Teen, spotted Iggy walking around out on the concourse. "Oh I saw Iggy! I saw Iggy!" exclaimed her friend.
"Oh that's nothing," said M. "I saw Iggy when I was just a fetus."
Iggy finished up with a rollicking "Lust for Life", waved at the crowd and then the Godfather of Punk was gone.
Sorry to say we missed Dave Navarro with Janes Addiction, as the Present Teen, Shelly, had started to snag a touch of the flu, but the word has it the closers for the evening really rocked the house.
CONCERTS FOR KIDS - KFOG
Copies of the annual Live from the Archives Vol. X are still out there and we really recommend snapping up copies as once they are gone, these rare collections of live performances will be gone forever. And besides, all proceeds go to Bay Area Food Banks, which, like a lot of service charities are severely overwhelmed these days. The number of Down and Out seems to be increasing exponentially lately.
Also this past week and this weekend, the annual Concerts for Kids took place, with the Barenaked Ladies having turned in a stellar performance on Tuesday in downtown Babylon. Robben Ford shared the stage with Blues Traveler and Los Lonely Boys at the Flint Center in Cupertino, which we would have attended but for the quadruple knockout of double-shifts at work, the Live 105 event, an office party at the Fat Lady and financial limitations. Word has it concert-goers filled two trucks at each venue with toys for under-privileged tots.
YOU SHALL NOT PASS!
In a couple days, we'll all be treated to the final installment of Peter Jackson's version of Lord of the Rings trilogy. Word has it that tix for combined viewings of all three in a sitting, in director's cut versions running to a total sit time of 14 hours, have been selling out on each announcement of yet another added show. Talk about dedicated fans!
We recently had the opportunity to review the DVD Platinum version of the Two Towers, the second in the series, with its 43 additional minutes and sets of explanations from the makers -- which turned out to be far more interesting that the usual "how we made the film" sorts of montages.
The Two Towers has been simultaneously attacked and praised with surprising energy, so much so that poor Peter Jackson had to sigh more than once during his interview segments.
For those sitting on the side of all this, an English linguist by the name of J.R.R. Tolkein wrote a set of six books, plus a sort of introductory novel aimed at the children's market, which were compiled by the publisher into a trilogy -- largely to save paper during wartime rationing. This trilogy, intended by its author to be a sort of subject treatise for linguistic specialists and mythology experts, described a pre-historic, pre-christian world of powerful wizards, dragons, trolls, goblins, elves and other creatures all doing battle in the last days of something called The Third Age, with intimations that this world was already quite old and the enmities had been continuing for quite some time.
Tolkein wrote the books during the two world wars and the material borrows very heavily from a wide scattering of the very martial-oriented ancient literatures of the Volsungsaga, the Icelandic Veddas, the Teutonic minstrel lays done by vates lauding this and that warrior chieftain, various Anglo-Saxon and Old English poems (including Beowulf), a scattering of Germanic folktales and legends that got made into the Wagnerian Niebelungenlieder, plus a smattering of Homer and more than a few of something called pastoral eclogues. Among other things.
The interests of those early poets focused largely on earning a place at the king's table by praising the good deeds of the said king up the wazoo, which usually involved descriptions of the king being victorious in battle -- against enormous odds, of course. Consequently, the old stories tended to have quite a lot of war in and about them and this is reflected in the makeup of the trilogy. It also should be mentioned that we have evidence that the notes for what became The Lord of the Rings were initially composed in the middle of the Battle of the Somme in 1916 -- without a doubt in a very committed attempt to preserve sanity amid colossal and murderous stupidity.
We also note that the writing temporarily halted as the "Moria" section was half complete -- during the London blitz. During which, Tolkein's own house was destroyed. Which may account somewhat for the darkness of that particular passage.
That said, the books do present a definite anti-war viewpoint, heavily stressed by the accounts of the tremendous losses suffered by the "good" side, which is not presented without attention to shades of grey in the morality of actions by its principals, while still including elements from the book's origins in pageantry.
In any case, the books turned out to be a fabulous best seller right from their release in 1949. They've been translated into well over 30 languages around the globe and have sold untold millions of copies. Some publishers estimate that this collection is only bested by the Bible in readership.
No wonder Peter Jackson had such an onus of responsibility upon him. Especially since the first movie -- estimated the fourth time someone has tried to adapt the work to film -- turned out to be wildly successful. Publishers have been rushing to fulfill orders for book copies in the hundreds of thousands while the internet is all abuzz with several thousand websites, chats, and BBB discussions taking up discussions on this and that arcane aspect of Middle Earth, indicating that Peter has glommed onto a powerful need in people to have some sort of mythic grounding in an age of violent uncertainty.
The second movie, however, has had mixed success, with accusations of "rampant warmongering", "incompetent dramaturgy", "miserable deviations from the text", and "changing the whole damn ending: what was he thinking, the idiot!" sorts of things. So powerful was the vilification that rumors of character changes that hit the internet actually caused Peter and the cast to re-shoot entire sections involving the character of Arwen, the main movie love interest. This had to have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
On the other hand, vigorous ticket, DVD, and spin-off sales as well as the obvious sellout of tickets for film #3 -- which has not even come out yet -- obviously indicate the man must have done something right.
This next paragraph is for those who have read the book, so skip on down for the look at the "warmongering" charge.
So now we go to the Two Towers. And the DVD version. Are the added minutes worth it? Well, more than the Extended version for film one, the minutes return segments to the story that were actually in the original book, but are "hooked" in to the story with a sort of hit or miss success. The elvish rope is presented in a nice humorous vignette, for example, but Gollum still is not given the line, simple enough to have added, "it burns -- it's Elvish. All things Elvish burn. . .". The Uruk-hai section is emended a bit, and the burning of the Westfold is extended, so as to highlight some of the horrors of war, but the terrible defeat at the Fords of the Isen never is presented in its enormity (conflating the battle with the death of Theodred), although the DVD does at least present some of the aftermath with soldiers searching desperately through piles of their own dead for the king's son. The battle is listed in the DVD chapter listing as a "massacre" and is described as an ambush, assumed as small in scale. In the DVD, as in the theatrical version, "bare 300 defenders hold Helms Deep", which is patently ridiculous in minimizing the power of the enemy who has a counted 10,000 well-armed troops who also have the weapon of gunpowder.
As one viewer noted after seeing the theatrical version, "These orcs are awful easy to kill, aren't they?"
The elves still send a contingent to assist the defenders, which works as a theatrical device in the DVD as in the movie version.
Treebeard fans will delight in the additional footage of the giant reciting poetry and the more ent-like extension of the entmoot to what appears to be two days. Fangorn is showed as arriving to aid the battle, as in the book, but Erkenbrand has been excised entirely. Faramir still takes his charges to Osgiliath, but the rather abrupt decision to simply send away the most precious weapon -- as the movie version would have had it -- is mollified with masterful edits, so at least the actor is not made to appear a foolish clown as he did in the theatrical version. The DVD ties up with "Gollum's plan", leaving Shelob for Film 3.
So, for those of you who saw the movie and feel something was missing. Well, something was. And still is in the DVD, which no amount of "additional footage" can replace. We think. First of all, let us remember that Jackson and Co, with New Line Cinema, which in fronting the bill over seven years of production to the tune of several million dollars, have absolutely no obligation to adhere to the book at all, for making a movie is a business enterprise after all with its own criteria for success. A movie "adaptation" must necessary be a creative work in its own right, as writer XX indicates in the "appendices". The fact that the cast, the director, and all principals involved felt a mission to be true to the book in spirit and look and feel is a testament to their artistic and human integrity.
Jackson and the writers admit that the Two Towers presented "difficulties" and then there is a fair amount of discussion on the part of all parties as the reasons of cutting this and adding that, ultimately deciding that the entire ending would be cut, for, according to the chief writer, "We already had a screen resolution at Orthanc with the Ent battle and then again at Helm's Deep. It would have been a mishmash, movie-wise." She also mentioned one telling thing in her rationale for having Faramir hold on to the captives for a while -- this was to show character development and preserve the aura of the Powerful Ring. "You just spent all this screen time showing how terrible and powerful is this object, so you can't have a new character simply turn his back on it and say, as Tolkein has him say in the book, 'I would not pick up this thing if I found it by the wayside.'"
Another tipoff that something went wrong early on in production was screenwriter Phillipa Boyens' description of her attempt to yank sunlight out of the darkness after basically writing themselves into a corner -- a common and very unenviable place to be for writers. "We had them saying to each other, "How can we ever go back to the way things were after all that's happened? . . . Why are we going on?" Well, Fran and I looked at each other and we were stumped. What on earth were we going on for? And then I simply had him say the corniest thing imaginable. 'There's some things worth fighting for, Mr. Frodo.' And it worked."
The writer really said worlds about what is missing from the Two Towers, what really irks the "true believers" beyond quibbling about missing scenes or whether one actor or another is a "believable Gandalf", and what really sets people off about warmongering. In the end, the material, pulled from something as widely read as the Bible (!) is well above the abilities of the principals to adapt. Boyens is, after all, a novice writer who has never written a movie and chief screenwriter Fran Walsh is known more for schlock horror pictures. When push comes to shove, when choices come down to hard, cold decisions, the film makers fell back on conventional movie tropes where radical and innovative choices needed to be made. This is what is bothersome about the some total of decisions regarding presentation minutia, which could have resulted in all sorts of allowed departures. Unfortunately, the film makers erred in playing safe.
Here's another example: the entire chapter on Helm's Deep occupies about 16 pages of writing out of a book that is well over 730 pages long. Quite obviously, other things were going on. Go figure.
Tolkein was not a professional writer, as the film makers indicated, but his resulted in his breaking all kinds of rules with amazing success. One of his favorites was the introduction of likeable bit characters which developed histories and connections only to be violently killed off. Even the enemy orcs had names with distinctive personalities and histories. What this does is personalize the combat and render it far more terrible and risky. Tolkein's Helm's Deep was not Roark's Drift by any means -- it was as he personally experienced it during World War I, and as he mentioned in the Foreword to the Second Edition, "By the end of 1918, all but one of my close friends were dead". War, according to Tolkein, was never glorious, but always stupid slobbering about in the mud and destroyed landscapes once clothed by his beloved trees.
The Lord of the Rings contains a profound pessimism, as Viggo Mortensen indicates in his DVD interview. The world of Middle Earth is in a state of unavoidable decline, with the elves slain or departing, most of the dwarves driven out of their once enormous cities, and signs of ruined civilization dotting the corrupted landscapes. In fact, the whole process of the book can be seen as the process of this world destroying itself, including a spectacular battle in which the elves and the dwarves allied with men actually lose. The Appendices describe how each character eventually dies and you can't have that depicted and expect lines around the block. That's bleak and true enough, but hardly makes for light movie entertainment -- or even a very good movie, unless you happen to be Wim Wenders or Petersen filming another tragic sea story. People go to see Ian Holm smacking his staff down on the bridge in Kazad Dum and shouting up at the fire demon, "You shall not pass!" That was a real "movie moment".
Tolkein's point was simple enough, besides the construction of a mythology for England that would last. The effects of the Industrial Revolution -- predating the Wars which were symptoms of it -- were destroying man's relationship to the natural world. Much of this does come out in Saruman's factories of war and Sauron's depiction in the films as a sort of electrical field between the "electrodes" of Barad Dur's tower.
Given their professional limitations, the writers performed admirably well, largely due to a sincerity and earnestness so often lacking in Hollywood productions and the look and feel of the books is captured faithfully, while avoiding some of the linguistic issues that simply would not have worked at all in a contemporary movie environment, for much of the dialogue in the books was couched in a form of Shakespearean courtliness that would have been tedious on film. As would have been the many songs and poems, which reflected the source material for Tolkein's stories. You really have to hand it to them, as at least four other productions have failed miserably to such an extent that the reels are no longer obtainable. Burnt most likely. They did, however, obtain someone to write quite a nice little ditty called "Gollum's Song", which plays as the final credits roll.
Not to be a complete apologist for New Line and Peter Jackson, let us add that there is no reason to have the king and a passel of knights scampering down the causeway with what appears to be about 12 men into a press of several thousand enemy spears, blithely knocking goblins aside like paperweights without a care -- as we have already seen in just about a thousand other epic movie "spectacles." That scene, Peter, is called being pretty damn lazy. And that scene was in the book. It just could have been set off better with more effort. And by taking a few chances. Beyond transporting the hobbits and Gollum to the wrong side of the biggest river in Middle Earth, thus confusing the audience as to geography in a really big way. But even these are relatively minor issues.
So much is good about the project, and Jackson, well, the Director looks so damn Hobbit loveable in person, that we really want to see it succeed. In fact, everything about Peter Jackson, from his pudgy stature to his curling black hair and beard reminds one of hobbits, so he just seems built for the task. The special effects, the magical brought-to-life Gollum, the irrepressible and delightful nature of New Zealanders in their appearances in the films, the dedication of the actors -- who have turned in a few performances easily the equal of any Shakespeare production done at the Theatre in the Round . . . it just goes on and on. So we just have to say to the "defenders of the Book", you are not ever going to get a pure and unadulterated Tolkein except by picking up the book and reading it one more time. So just be quiet and sit back and enjoy the movie. Maybe it will be good. Then go re-read the books.
Images here are all from the Extended/Platinum DVD versions of Lord of the Rings. Yes we have a picture of Shelob. No, we are not going to show it until after the 17th. Go see the movie. And visit www.lordoftherings.net .
THIS ISLAND LIFE SEPARATES RIGHTS FROM WRONGS
We trust you are all fixed for the Hollar Days. A series of storm fronts moving through here have dumped a fair amount of rain, indicating that the East is going to enjoy some real Weather. Good news is that the snowpack is already 107% above normal in the Sierra, giving this State another reprieve from drought. Officer O'Madhauen reeled in a fine fish the other day when the teller at the drive-up window at Carl's Junior had fallen asleep at the wheel. No, the service was not that slow. When the good officer showed up, the man launched his vehicle forward and attempted to shove a baggie out of sight. Turned out to be chock full of heroin. Let that be a lesson to all of you: no Junk food.
In other news some kids slashed the tires of Mike Ramsey's prize truck and a dog bit Ms. Ferguson on the hiney. So things are just about normal around here these days. Mr. Dominici finally took down the illegal storage racks that were blocking out the sun over by Paganos and the boys have been scurrying about ferrying the stuff over to the warehouse. The building next to this pile, in celebration of losing several thousand pounds of manure and liquid propane stacked three stories tall as a neighbor, held a party where there was all sorts of food and wine and jumping up and down.
Just over the wire, we hear that soldiers finally got a hold of that Saddam feller, and, much to the dismay of the White House, brought him back alive. Which gives rise to the lovely prospect of a trial in which we learn there never were any WMD at all, for the money to make them did not exist. But that is another story.
I WANNA BE YOUR DOGGIE
Here on the Island, flush with the success of ousting the Gubernador by referendum, a group is planning on replacing the entire City Council for reasons that are largely unspecified and confused. The weather has been blamed a good deal, as well as the nature of the electron and that most elusive of subatomic particles, the Prion, known for occasioning Mad Cow disease and quark dancing phenomena.
As a replacement, the ousters have proposed a slate that is entirely without reproach. There is only one group here that is entirely without reproach and that happens to be the present inmates of the Island Human Shelter, Canine Wing.
You may have heard of bad little doggies, but everyone has to admit, the worst little doggie -- poodles excepted -- hardly causes the extent of damage and loss of life our present politicians have.
Meanwhile, the local chapter of the Not Insane Party is once again gearing up for a go at the Executive Office. It's been several Administrations since we have had someone in the Oval Office who was officially Not Insane, so these folks feel they really have a chance. Especially given the latest blather coming from all sides. Remember this slogan: Papoon for President! Not Insane!
It should be an interesting Election, all things considered.
It's a jolly place, this little Island. Full of sound and fury, signifying everything. We have artists and businessmen and real people too. Things are not well in the World at large and the Kids are Not All Right, to paraphrase Townsend, but here there is a sense of timelessness and a suggestion that some good persists in the world. The oaks have all turned and let their leaves fall like embers, burning red and gold, just like moonbeams in our eyes. All up and down Webster the City has put up the same bedraggled wreaths they have been putting up for the past ten years, wtih each year those wreaths getting a little more homey and battered and unrecognizable. And somehow comforting for all of that. For if the Town hung up Perfect Arrangements, it would necessarily be a lesser town for it.
The House has been putting together donation packages to take over to the Senior Center, the Humane Society, the Salvation Army and such like places. Somebody left a bag of soup and popcorn outside the door of somebody else in the building who is having a hard time finding work. For in these small gestures, we earn the title of Humanity. Somebody has to take up the slack of so much neglect while the ones in charge are busy robbing the Treasury, after all. And we are all talking about Jen, whom we love very much, who has gotten herself married in Las Vegas before moving to Michigan, there to make a brand new start.
We are a human bunch, we Islanders. For us, to be anything else would be terrible. That's just the way it is on the Island. And if you want to fight, get your money back at the door and go home in the rain. Leave us alone. And have a great week.
DECEMBER 7, 2003
TIS THE SEASON
Oaktown held a holiday parade which filled the streets with 20,000 people braving blustery weather and threatening skies. There were all sorts of New York-sized floats and marching bands and such, which pulled people from as far as Los Angeles despite the threatening weather. Maybe Oaktown has gone Uptown.
Sunday was the scheduled Annual Lighting of the Yachts. When captains and crews get well lit up. Unfortunately, rains poured down and it is unknown how the event went, although it can be assured that the alcohol flowed freely in any case. Heck, if they reschedule, 'twill be only another glorious excuse to get royally soused.
Island-Life notes there are fewer lighting effects this year due to the poor economy and general uncertainty as to things. All down Lincoln and Grand, the houses are going dark this year. Seems for many there are few reasons to celebrate, but we'll be out and about this week snapping pix of the lights that do hang from the more festive houses, including that of our Significant Other, who, we may say with some pride, has the best on her block.
MEAN PEOPLE SUCK
Some Grinch tried to cover up attempted thefts from the marina by turning on the water hoses in an attempt to sink two boats. Someone passing by on the docks noticed one of the boats listing severely, and so alerted the Harbor Patrol. In true Island fashion, the would-be thief failed to consider the extremely large volume of water that would be required to fill and sink a sloop that was well over 60 feet long.
In another incident a group of five mugged a fellow trying to hold a phone conversation in the 500 block of Central on Thanksgiving day. They punched the victim, knocked the man down and kicked him several times before making off with his wallet and passport. He was more fortunate than some. In a similar attack in Oaktown a man was beaten so badly that he remains in a coma and as all identification had been stolen, the police are still trying to determined the man's name.
STARRY STARRY NIGHT
The nearly full moon hangs over the silver-chopped Bay this evening in a sky swept clear of cloud, leaving the harsh sparkle of stars to cut the wind keening over the hills of Babylon across the Bay. It's a Durer print sort of evening, with a cold so chill after the sunny day today that even Mad Mary has dragged her drunken reel from the street into a downtown flop among the smells of sweaty stew and grumble. The weatherbug says its dropping to the mid 30's before the dense fog rolls in tonight. All up and down Lincoln, the mists will come ghosting in through the trees, chasing all the fiddlers into snugs like McRath's Pub where the windowpanes will ice up on the outside while inside it stays warm with good company and music and beer.
The pair of raccoons that live across the street under the premises of the old Julia Morgan house have gathered into their dry huddle to grip each other and chatter in the universal chatter talk of raccoons amongst themselves.
In the windows of Paganos, the little Holiday Town that lives only for a while, with its snow-dusted houses and streets and train tracks shines with lights behind tiny windows in a miniature reflection of the larger world.
This evening, this town could be your town moving into the creaky depths of winter in the usual way of towns everywhere. But this town is our town; it's where we live. And everything down to the last detail, including the large man who always sleeps in his wheelchair in the entrance to the Jack London Parking Garage beside the bookstore, all this belongs to us in a very intimate way. For if this man would suddenly disappear -- which is entirely too likely these days -- we would say to ourselves, "Where has he gone, this figure larger than life with his smell and disturbing accusation of presence? He has always been here with his dreadlocks and his immense cloak; he was here even as I grew up and watched the tiles being glued to the wall outside. I hated to see him, but now that he is gone, I feel that every time I pass this stairwell something is missing." And because the people of Jack London recognize this simple fact, as do the legions of shoppers who pass this way, the man is left alone. To stink or not as may be his bent or his brand of madness. For we would not wish to make ourselves less than he by casting him out into the wet darkness to die.
Down by Buena Vista flats, Officer O'Madhauen nurses a coffee cup in a dark cruiser opposite the tricky traffic light. But nobody is coming down this way at this hour on this night and that is just fine by him. And no calls are coming over to howl over to the West End to resolve yet another methamphetamine argument. It's quiet even on the airwaves. Tonight is a night when nothing happens. And for a lot of people, that is just fine.
Outside the borders of this little Island, the Big World is engaged in all sorts of Big tasks: Invasions, Occupations, Wars, Troublesome Events . . . But here, tonight, on this Island, it is enough to be warm and snug, knowing that in this time, we are huddled together for warmth and protection in a temporary haven while the bombers scream overhead with explosions against the sky as if to outrival the stars in their sinful pride. Here we are like the raccoons in their huddle while outside its a knocking. Outside its a knocking. And we may find that the scattered stars have become the shattered glass of a new and more terrible Krystalnacht.
A dear friend of ours fled the northlands for the Socal regions, only to watch his mother die of cancer and live through the first ice-storm the southlands have experienced in memory. There are no more safe harbors. We survive now only what we have made ourselves.
But for now the keen wind blows calm over the grasses of Buena Vista flats under the cold glitter of distant stars and all is calm here, for the moment. And the witching hour has come at last. And here it comes: the long howl of the midnight train passing through the Jack London waterfront to places unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
NOVEMBER 29, 2003
THE POODLESHOOT THIS TIME
This November marks the 5th Annual Island Poodleshoot and BBQ. This year the Event was enlivened by the introduction of live decoys employed by the mother-son team of Lynn and David Lindberg of Pleasanton, assisted by David's lovely wife, Patty. A notorious Black Mambo Poodle was brought in restrained and under a phalanx of armed guards to a specially prepared holding tank. A large percentage of East German Schnapperhund and South American Cogere-Cojones Whippet in its bloodlines made the beast nearly tractable with higher than average intelligence, otherwise the entire affair would certainly have to have been called off due to the breed's natural atavistic viciousness, developed and preserved from prehistoric times as a consequence of its onetime habit of fighting dinosaurs for scraps.
It is an animal little changed since those times.
The plan was to stake the Mambo near a walking path in Washington Park while Patty was to feign involvement with a special Reese Witherspoon Vanity, done in shocking pink and set upon wheels for mobile deployment. David and Lynn were to crouch with flamethrowers and explosive nets nearby. Our dear Patty was not left undefended in these seemingly precarious circumstances, for a secret compartment was prepared beforehand with a loaded Smith and Wesson .45 caliber pistol and a 500,000 volt electric riot baton. The Mambo was kept quiet in the meantime by feeding it liberally with live Corgi's, which the Mambo devoured most daintily.
Everyone else made their respective preparations according to their own likes and dislikes, as well as taste for BBQ, and so the time led up to the start, delayed only by several lengthy toasts proposed on the part of Jim Kitson, of Santa Clara Avenue, in honor of the USS Hornet, the American Armed Forces, Our Island Home, his good friend Thomas, Mexican Independence, Nancy Pelosi and the staunch Democrats, each one of the Kennedys, plus a few causes too arcane to remember, the whole affair jolted forward and was announced via a hearty blast upon the Traditional Silver Kazoos.
The line of hunters then moved out into the field under a grey sky and the day began quietly while a selection of musicians performed at the main stage bandstand located in the middle of the baseball diamond. A real crowd pleaser was the Barbershop Quartet that performed selections from the works of Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart. Musical accompaniment was provided by Tobi Tucker on tuba, Eugene Gallipagus on kettles, Professor Schickele on Hardart with Inflatable, Robert Fripp on broomstick-washtub bass, and Chad Chadwick on the Banjo-Bandsaw Anomaly. Mr. Chadwick's 20 minute solo on the Bandsaw Anomaly can only be described as sublime.
All were well supplied with liberal portions of warm toddy punch, supplied by O'Brien's of New Orleans.
Once again, the Island Yappydog Walker's Association had been redirected by stratagem. This time, it was let out at the Eagle's Hall that a Benefit to Free Martha Stewart was holding a raffle for a donated life-sized portrait of Elvis as Jesus, holding a big-eyed doggie with one arm and embracing a sad-eyed clown with the other. All done tastefully in velvet fabric. Raffle was to be held in the newly dedicated Brittany Spears Shopping Center in Turlock and word had it that the Famous Dame might appear.
They fell for it like rats on moldy cheese and the Island was free of trouble for a while.
And so the day passed pleasantly to the sounds of live music and the occasional shotgun blast, hand grenade, and the particular report of the Mac-10 going full throttle, as it is wont to do in East Oakland and other parts.
Mr. Neil Tarkieff brought in a nice one impaled upon a saws-all from Johnson Tools and Julee Coover came successfully out of a melee that erupted in Pagano’s illegal parking-lot/storage facility when a brace of Norwegian Blues cornered her and Toni Savage behind the new illegal fence. The plucky pair climbed up onto the towering stacks of manure and cement -- also illegal -- with the snarling hounds snapping at their pumps. From this vantage point, Toni proved the vigor of her name by hurling sacks of hardware stock down at the curs, managing to brain three of them before John Maio, Director of the Altadena Playhouse, came out of the house dressed and made up like Kagemusha, which so astonished the enemy they fled before him and the tide of battle turned in favor of the armies of the White Rose and the enemy fell as leaves of grass before the wind.
At the end of the day, all the tired little hunters came trundling back with their kills or their wounds, as happened to be their luck. Jim Kitson smoked a fine one stuffed with a goose inside his special Poodle-smoker, fed with fires stoked by bundles of cigars from Cuba.
The odor was curious, to say the least, but at the end of the day, a fine time was had by all and we all had a Thanksgiving Dinner that couldn't be beat and we all went to bed and went to sleep and didn't get up until the next morning. When we got a call from Officer O'Madhauen.
But that is another story.
HONEY, DON'T TELL THE KIDS
Island-life has come across some extremely shocking footage and of paramount importance to all of us. Recent reports that, due to budget deficits and Homeland Security measures (Heimatsicherheit Geheimdienst Schutzbefehlen) have indicated that this year, there will be no Xmas.
In fact, the situation is much worse than that, for we have learned that Special Ops agents working directly under John "The Butcher of DC" Ashcroft have killed Santa Claus. Yes, that's right, Neo-Cons have killed Santa Claus.
Apparently, a handful of trigger-happy fellas implementing a few rather rusty components of the antiquated "Star Wars System" (which had been discarded by Edward Teller) observed an unidentified aircraft flying over Pennsylvania near New Hope. Mindful of Saddam's still missing missiles of Mass Destruction, and concerned about a repeat of the abominable breach of national security that took place on 9/11 when three aircraft of substantial size managed to wander about the National airspace for several hours before destroying the financial center of the country's largest city and nearly wiping out this country's central military command center. The third plane was brought down entire through the efforts of a few of its heroic passengers, but almost certainly would have polished the White House clear off the face of the earth without any hindrance.
Seeking to avoid a similar disaster, our heroic Neo-Conservatives launched a pre-emptive strike, much as was done in Iraq, by just blasting any old thing right out of the sky with all justifications to follow afterward should the object turn out to be a Korean passenger jet with the results as seen below.
Realizing their mistake, the Neo-Cons responded in typical fashion by denying there was any mistake made, that the Fat Man dressed in red was clearly a Communist bent on a Socialist program of anti-capitalist free distribution, that the sleigh had violated certain No-Fly Zones over Latrobe, and that a plan to replace the regime at the North Pole had been devised by the best thinkers at the Hoover Institute. In other words, no free handouts for you, my boy. A secret funeral was held and the animals were converted to MRE's.
Of course the whole affair is quite regrettable, and we confess we really enjoyed the old feller with his hearty laugh and generosity of spirit. He will be sorely missed and there really is not another quite like him. Naturally, the Neo-Cons have replacements in mind, as outlined in documents published in 1994 by the Center for the New American Century and as suggested by then-Secretary Baker under the Reagan Administration many years ago. Herewith, the recommended Neo-Con Symbols for the New American Xmas.
Since Neo-Cons have embraced these same two characters in the past, extolling their virtues, emulating their morality, and lauding their accomplishments, it seems only fitting that they become the proper symbols for the New American Century.
THROWING ROSES IN THE RAIN
A lady performed the Mother of All Stealth Turns Wednesday when he clipped a Mercury Capri with his Accura in the intersection of Oak and Lincoln -- coincidentally the corner that hosts the Island Police Department -- causing the Capri to veer into Nasira's flower shop, pushing the entire building into a city-owned vehicle parked behind it and spraying the area with shattered glass. The driver suffered only a slight glass cut on the hand. The shop was empty at the time.
Unfortunately, a pedestrian happened to be standing in front of the shop at the time and got pinned between the Capri and the building. The 61 year old female victim is recuperating with a broken clavicle and cranial hemorrhage at Highland Trauma Center. The Island hospital has no Trauma Unit and no telemetry, so traumas are usually taken to the County facility.
This is the second time within two weeks that a vehicle has crashed into a building on the Island due to an intersection contratemps.
NIGHTTIME IN THE SWITCHING YARD
We hope that you all enjoyed a jolly Holiday. And if you happen to live in SoCal, where the bitter labor strike against Albertsnobs continues, we hope you found someplace to get a bird to stick in the oven. Here, it is just past the witching hour again. The rain that has moved in for a good, long stay has let up and the lights of the Oaktown hills, so far away, glitter through the drifting fogs. Its the time of night, and the kind of night that it is, when Officer O'Madhauen huddles over a warm coffee cup down in the dark by Buena Vista where there still are open fields, albeit surrounded by fences. All the dealers and the addicts have taken the night off to sleep in under covers and even the stray members of the Yappydog Walkers association snuggle down in their blankies with their pets snoring contentedly beside or at the foot. Only the stray hookers stroll up and down their 20 feet of "turf" on Oaktown's San Pablo, looking for that infrequent pickup from Fremont to drive out of the mist and into warmth for a short while.
This is not a night to hold a grievance against anyone, for who really can afford to waste their inner lives on inner vengeance that ultimately goes nowhere? And there it is, the sound of the through-passing train, echoing long and lone across the flatlands from the chattering tracks at Jack London waterfront, across the estuary, through the tall grasses, over the roofs and finally to this little cubicle, another Island in the night all around us.
We are a forgiving lot, us Islanders. We have to be, since we are such great Sinners ourselves. And maybe are a little bit wiser because of it. And we are thankful for what we have for the moment: a gathering of very good friends, a warm place to rest and talk about old times, plenty of food to go around for the time being. In the long run, that is good enough for us. And that is the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
NOVEMBER 23, 2003
OOH I PUT MY SMILE IN A POCKET
Various reader comments provoked a revision in the Camping section that entailed a more specific declaration of adherence to State Department rules regarding pets in the wilderness. Domesticated animals are forbidden throughout the wilderness areas because their presence degrades the environment. The animals that live in the alpine regions have no natural defenses against your pooch -- neither do other hikers. And nobody who goes to a wilderness area wants to have some yapping hound turning the experience into a traipse through some white-trash backyard.
In addition, should something happen to your pet, inevitably the consequences fall against the wilderness and its natural inhabitants. If your dog happens to sniff up a rabid marmot, a woodrat carrying spotted-fever ticks, a bear carrying virtually anything, it can become a vector for all sorts of nastiness back in civilization -- or even throughout the rest of the wilderness area and adjacent parklands, resulting in the inevitable backlash of killing and extermination of native species. And of course, you just might have to add the weight of the dog to your pack in carrying out your pet, fo I have seen this situation more than once. With the current organized threats against wilderness areas throughout the US, we don't need any more nonsense behavior ruining what may escape the wrath of the Machines.
MUSIC
The Season really heats up in the coming weeks as KFOG and LIVE 105 both conduct their respective fundraisers. KFOG has its annual Live from the Archives sale going on, in which they put out a CD containing live cuts from various performers at their intimate "playspace" venues. Proceeds from these collector's edition CD's support Bay Area Food Banks. Only a limited number of these are pressed each year, and they typically sell out within days. Copies are available online at Walmart.com and in Good Guys brick-and-mortar outlets.
Not content with this bit of public-benefit activity, KFOG also hosts a series of annual Concerts for Kids. The first one takes place December 4 at the Masonic Auditorium and headlines the quirky Bare Naked Ladies with Rooney. The all-male BNL is known for lively and non-formulaic lyrics that describe offbeat situations that reveal a little bit about people under the skin. Their latest hit concerns a troubled man who receives a barrage of postcards from all around the world, all featuring images of chimpanzees.
The second concert takes place December 11 at Cupertino's Flint Center where guitar-god Robben Ford, Blues Traveler, and Los Lonely Boys while host an evening of rocking Blues. Robben Ford is known to present incendiary sets whenever he performs, so the rapid-fire harmonica of Blues Traveler ought to blow the roof off the house that night.
Not to be outdone, Live 105 hosts its annual Not So Silent Night of alternative music on the 12th at the Bill Graham Memorial in Babylon. Janes Addiction, Black Eyed Peas, Offspring, and the Grandfather of Punk himself, Iggy Pop, are slated to appear and ring the ears. It's been a family tradition ever since the event was called Green Christmas to attend. We missed the last couple years, due to the distance of the selected venues and the execrable quality of sound, but this year, for Iggy, we return to the Tradition. Yes, this is the same Iggy who used to throw himself on broken glass onstage. Also the same Iggy who quixotically worked with the light jazz trio, Medeski, Martin and Wood and who inspired David Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust days. His deceptively simple lyrics have tended to withstand the test of time, much unlike the vast majority of his legion of followers.
THE ANNUAL ISLAND POODLESHOOT REDUX
What it is. This is the fifth year which has seen the riotous celebration known as the Island Poodle-Shoot and BBQ. You may want to know more about this spurious celebration. Then again, you may not. But if insouciance and irreverence happen to be your bent, as well as a sense of humor this far side of Edward Gorey, well, then, check out the rules for this year at Poodleshoot Rules. For reports of previous Poodleshoots, especially the Infamous Poodleshoot of 2001 click here for 2001.
We promise a hyperlink document later on so as to enjoy the mayhem and joy of the other years.
BADGE
We have noticed a significant increase of late in what can only be termed "Dementia Driving", which has given Officer O'Madhauen a tremendous amount of work to do. On the return from obtaining Basic Sunday Night Dinner Supplies (limes, tomato juice, tabasco, Stoli), we noted a hatchback come to a stop, blocking traffic in the far left lane down on Otis Street. After a pause, the fellow found a hole somehow and darted from where he was across two lanes into the left turn assignment at a traffic light. No signal.
Hey, let's do the Stealth Turn again!
In the meantime, the Good Officer has been busy cracking down on the really serious malefactors. Herewith we provide evidence of his sharp-eyed, astute, and persistent vigilance in defense of Island safety.
That'll be the last time little Toby Tucker breezes through a stop sign without putting both feet down, you bet. Formidable is the long arm of the IPD.
In other crimestopper news, a retired West End man stopped to offer advice on how to change a tire to two men who were driving a Toyota with a flat tire. When the man indicated he would not obtain tools, jack the vehicle and replace the tire himself, the two men attacked the elderly man and beat him up. Officers eventually arrested the two men after a traffic stop for missing a rear license plate.
A woman was pushed down and her purse snatched on the 12th of November at a bus stop in the 900 block of Central Avenue. The mugger escaped in a primer-grey Ford Bronco, but since no traffic laws were broken, the perpetrators got clean away.
Not such a credit to the Department is one Edward Jaime, who resigned November 5 after investigators found he had removed 94 grams of methamphetamine from the evidence locker. When challenged, he returned most of the missing drug, absent 3/4 of a gram, which he stated had been accidentally spilled onto his computer terminal and under his desk while "contemplating snorting some of the drug". Forensics found no traces in those places. Jaime worked in the narcotics division for about three years.
ARS LONGIS, VITA EST COMEDY
Harlan has been at it again. This time he has used the entire 100-foot fence facing Lincoln as well as his usual spot. For your delectation and amusement, we present the latest edition of Harlan's House on Lincoln. Lincoln is the main thoroughfare bisecting the entire Island.
The newspapers pasted to the wall consist of full-page items on the war in Iraq. Harlan's signs frequently refer to current events, but the commentary is usually inscrutable. We have no idea what "1610" refers to.
EUGENE SHRUBB GOES STUMPING FOR SUPPORT
Report has it that Eugene Shrubb recently visited various foreign Heads of State so as to garner support for his continuing invasion of Newark. Long time readers know that Eugene, self-acknowledged President of the Bums, invaded the town of Newark last April so as to forestall usage of Weapons of Mass Doodoo and to root out the embedded presence -- suspected at the time -- of the notorious terrier, Osama Bin Lassie. Its been a number of months now and no WMDs and no Osama have been found and the invasion is proving to be quite costly day by day. Far from being welcomed as aesthetic liberators from strip-mall ugliness, certain recalcitrant grannies have formed a surprisingly vigorous Resistance Movement which features such highly innovative tactics as sneaking up behind bums and wacking them on the head with cast iron skillets.
The qualities of the bums and their superlative discipline under fire cannot be questioned, but certain unpatriotic individuals have begun mumbling about the expense, the veracity of WMD claims, and the basic silliness of the entire endeavor.
Eugene has gone to Hayward, where he was rebuffed by the City Council, and Sacto, where they said they had enough bums already living there, including a brand new Austrian of the most dubious qualities every bit as unsavory as anything Eugene had to offer. In far off Butte County The reception was quite otherwise, for the Council, headed by Tony "The Tiger" Snare, greeted Eugene's delegation in the marble rotunda of the County Seat with great fanfare for this was the biggest occasion Butte County had ever had opportunity to enjoy, being the poorest and most overlooked of all the 29 counties. Not to say the historic meetings did not occur amid protestations. The editor of the Butte County Journal went so far as to call the Butte County Administrator "Eugene's poodle", which provoked challenges of honor and demands of "satisfaction." Eugene got himself out of there with his buddies on the Amtrac livestock express headed south, leaving quite a hullaballoo behind.
Stay tuned for further developments.
'TIS THE SEASON
You know when the seasons change around here when Pagano's hardware swaps out its main display window. The displays occupy a good 20 feet of sidewalk frontage and almost never feature hardware items, but almost always entertain. Andy Pagano sold the onetime shoe store he converted into a little hardware place some ago before passing away earlier this year, but the owners have kept up the tradition of meeting the seasons head-on. Here we have a set of sleepers. Beside the Man in Red's foot is a note before a beverage glass, which reads, "Dear Santa Claus, we were good. Here's your warm spirits. Love . . ." .
On one side we have the Ancient Queen and the Old Guy.
On the other, we have Santa Himself.
Hope the old guy wakes up in time to make his rounds.
And please god, don't go driving that sleigh while Under the Influence.
NOVEMBER'S GOT HER NAILS DUG IN DEEP
The days are sunny with walls of cloud in the distance, or deep, high fog bringing a bone-deep chill and the seabirds that have come in to escape the winter storms complain with loud squawks about the crowding. Nights, like this one, are dewy hereabouts, or frosty inland. Every once in a while the little masked bandits hump across the road on basic raccoon business in the shadows. Newspapers bring daily reports of lunatics and we read about them while clutching steaming mugs of coffee and tea sweetened with thick milk and sugar, maybe to wash down the jagged little pills a little better. Here on the Island the City Council has denied everybody's request for money from the General Fund, on the bet that hard times are gonna continue and that reserve will be needed for emergencies. It's a practical set of decisions based on realities and a certain vote of No Confidence to the Powers That Be. Even the City Council is huddling down under financial overcoats these days, getting set for a long winter with no relief in sight.
Ah well, but to paraphrase some over-popular and underrated songwriter, hard times, we are used to them. The speeding planet burns: we are used to that. Our lives are so common they disappear. But the cool, cool river sweeps the wild, white ocean.
This weekend we had a chance to talk with old friend, Bea, who, it happens, is personally haunted by a ghost that goes by the name Imogene. Imogene was a klepto in life and this trait persists in the afterworld, much to the constant irritation of Bea, who is always losing personal items only to have them return at the most inopportune moments -- sometimes years later. A gypsy discovered the name of her personal ghost. That night, in fact, Imogene decided to swipe Bea's glasses -- worth about $700 I might add -- and there we were, with Bea blundering about in the darkness, and all of us blathering to one another with failing flashlights while hunting for this pair of glasses that steadfastly refused to appear in the spot last laid on the veranda. "I left them right here on this table," Bea said. Her glasses, possessed of black rims would have stood out quite well against the bone-white marble surface. Hours later, after a rather fine dinner prepared by long-term friends, Bea discovers the glasses on a last walkthrough. They lay upon a three-foot section of garden hose that we had personally picked up and examined not thirty minutes previously.
All we can say is that Bea is quite lucky, for here she has not only constant companionship, with all the attendant irritations of marriage, but also rather solid and convincing proof of an afterlife.
This is disappointing only if you are expecting choirs of angelic blondes with huge feathery wings -- something I personally find rather objectionable and somehow redolent of the worse of Russ Meyers combined with Broadway musicals. Which I detest. How much better to be accompanied by an aggravating ghost with a recognized character flaw. She just cannot help herself, this Imogene. She just swipes things. What she does with these objects in the Otherworld god, or the devil, only knows. But sure enough, everything always comes back.
We suppose you could always wring your hands eternally about adverse fate and whatnot. Life is certainly crappy enough to warrant that. But on the Island, we simply go about our business, keeping company with ghosts and each other, trying hard enough to keep body and soul together. We have madmen and saints who walk among us to remind us of these verities. And now, here it is again, the long howl of the midnight train steaming out of the Port along the flatlands rimed with ice this chilly November eve.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
NOVEMBER 16, 2003
LIKE THE WEATHER
The winter rains have settled in at last, but freak storms keep reminding us that All Is Not Right. SoCal reports floods and a bizarre ice storm that heaped up mounds of hail in downtown Los Angeles. So you still think this Global Warming is all a lot of who-ha, eh? Kids in Watts have been having snowball fights when not digging out cars from piles of slush. Something tells me something is going on down there. . . .
LIKE A BIRD ON A WIRE
So rare is the appearance of anything natural in East Oaktown such that people will perform the even rarer act of calling the police. There was all kinds of commotion and hullaballoo and nervous jumping up and down when It Happened. As usual, news reporters arrived to take pictures and the event was all over by the time constables showed up. The event in question? A Canadian goose landed on the corner of 85th and D streets. And as usual, the trouble had flown south before the Authorities could arrive. Maybe something is going on down there.
LIKE STEVE MCQUEEN ALWAYS NEEDS A FAST MACHINE
People doing laundry at the Washboard V on Park Street got rudely interrupted when a woman driving a 1988 Honda Accord smacked right through the windows, splashing glass everywhere, and taking out a main building support stud before winding up against a washing machine in the back. Island-life has noted an increase in the number of "stealth turn" maneuvers of late, which usually announces prior to the official announcement of the annual meeting of the Non Compos Mentis Chapter of the Directionally Confused and Traffic Enfeebled.
The stealth turn, as some of you may know, is the practice of signaling to go left, entering the left hand lane and then, abruptly yanking a 3,000+ pound vehicle of death and destruction to the right. There are variations on this theme, but you get the idea.
Last week a woman managed to duplicate the curious feat of launching her Honda from the foot of A Street as a pair of gentlemen had done about a year ago. Fortunately for the woman, her feat was observed, for A Street dead ends -- literally -- in the Bay. Pulled alive from her bubbling vehicle, which proved to lack hybrid floatation qualities, she was found to have a blood alcohol level twice that of the legal limit. Police estimate that her speed on take-off was approximately 60 mph after hitting the brakes at the last minute.
Whoa! Something went on down there!
THIS MEMORY IS JUST A DEAD MAN MAKIN' TROUBLE
This Tuesday it will have been 25 years to the day since the afternoon when San Mateo Rep. Leo Ryan, accompanied by aide Jackie Speier paused before boarding an airplane with NBC and Chronicle news-people after completing a firsthand examination of conditions at a religious enclave in Guyana where 1200 Bay Area residents had gathered to lead a sequestered life of the spirit under the aegis of a former Pentecostal preacher who was best known for being half of the first White couple ever to adopt a Black child.
The Temple had begun under idealistic and innocent-enough terms, with some ideals that featured attractive goals of racial and gender equality for the world at large. In those days, people believed that group action could change the world for the better and the general movement was in search of a vehicle to help fellow man. But as the decades rolled on, and the ideals ran up against some fairly harsh realities, the Temple moved from Ukiah with some 200 followers to San Francisco (in 1972) and there developed significant political clout with thousands of adherents and somehow some of the idealism ran into rough managerial waters. The Temple became a self-enclosed entity, acquired the status of a cult and by 1977 was under investigation by the IRS, the FCC, the SSA and a variety of other government agencies. Pressured by these agencies, the leader moved a large number of followers to a jungle compound in a small country bounded by Brazil, Venezuela and the Atlantic Ocean. Representative Ryan flew down at the behest of a Bay Area opposition group called Concerned Relatives to conduct a survey into allegations of illegal detention and violence.
After an overnight stay within the compound, Ryan departed with 16 defecting members who wished to return with him. Even at that point, at approximately 3:48 pm while approaching the airplane to take them all away, no one knew how bad things had gotten. Speier remembers seeing a tractor pulling a flatbed trailer across the landing-strip. The tractor stopped and several men stood up from the trailer a short distance away and began firing automatic weapons at the group, killing Ryan, NBC reporter Don Harris, NBC cameraman Robert Brown, San Francisco Examiner photographer Gregory Robinson and defector Patricia Parks. Nine others were severely wounded, including Jackie Speier, who fell with five bullets in her body. Survivors who could run fled into the jungle.
"I remember lying on that airstrip thinking, 'Oh my god, I'm 28 years old and I'm about to die." she says today. It was a trip she had not wanted to take, but, ironically, finally assumed as responsibility so as to show a female presence during a serious Congressional inquiry. She lay on the strip until near dawn, when Guyana soldiers found them.
These soldiers then moved on to the compound itself and found there a scene of horror that has not been seen since the days of 1945. The soldiers kept coming across hundreds upon hundreds of bodies. The entire compound was filled with corpses -- all of them were dead. All of them. Including men, women and hundreds of children, all gathered around vats of cool-aid that turned out to be laced with cyanide. Apparently the cult leader, Jim Jones, had ordered all 1000 remaining inhabitants of the People's Temple to drink the potion -- as had been previously practiced -- and to administer the potion first to the children. Anyone who refused was shot to death. Barely half a hundred escaped into the jungles about the encampment, listening to screaming and gunfire. A married couple who had come to reclaim their son and take him home survived in a makeshift jail where the cult followers had put them. The body of Jim Jones was found among 913 others. He had shot himself in the head.
The effect upon the Bay Area was catastrophic. Well over 400 dead hailed from Oaktown alone. Many more had come from San Francisco and outlying districts. If the disco me-first tenor had not eradicated utopian idealism with its drug-addled excess consumption, this event scorched the earth free of it and more besides. From then on, flower-power and hippies became anathema, hated symbols of lost sons and daughters, sure signs it must have been bad logic all along. From there the Nation moved into the savage social Darwinism of the Reagan-Bush era in which consideration for that pitiful trash, fellow man, became a jellybean joke and California became the Home of Nuts and Fruits within the increasingly Conservative Press.
It would take disaster in Waco, Texas, heart of Bush-Country, to suggest the real problem lay not in the ideals but in their lapses. They certainly can't blame geography any more.
Jackie Speier survived a year of surgeries and became a senator. She still carried two of the bullets in her abdomen. The adopted child of Jim Jones was attending school in San Francisco during the massacre. He has grown up to be a reasonably successful salesman for a biotech firm. 25 years later we are still dealing with religious fanatics who justify crimes in the name of a god that seems to talk to only a select few at everybody else's expense.
Oh yeah, 17 American boys died yesterday in a foreign. But that's not a matter of religion, oh no. It's not a Faith-based Initiative at all.
MUSIC IS A STRANGE BROOCH IN THIS ALL-HATING WORLD
Music heals the spirit like nothing else. And it is toward music in these times we move. The next few weeks have some real nice events coming up.
YOSHIS - Tuck & Patti - 11/25 - 11/30 - Tuck and Pattie are the salt and pepper of the acoustic world, granting the seasoning of Soul to an otherwise dry steak. The quirky pair have performed on the Island for a few bucks a shot and here they appear in the West Coast's premier jazz spot. Go figure. Get a CD and check them out live.
Also at Yoshis - Taj Mahal Trio - Dec 7, 8 - We cannot say anything bad about Taj, because the gravel-voiced Blues Master cannot do no wrong. At least, he has not up to now. With a definite I'm African-American Attitude that persuades, rather than hammers, Taj is the consummate cosmopolitan American. Would that he represented us in more places than he can go, we would do much better in the world.
At the WARFIELD - Counting Crows led off by the Wallflowers, 2 favorites - Dec 8, 9 12, 13 - We have always felt a certain affection for Adam Dewitz, lead singer for the CC., and are pleased as punch he and his band are going great guns now after long years in the pipeline. The Wallflowers are headed by Dylan's son, which fact everyone pointedly ignores even though its of prime interest. No, he's nothing like his dad, but you would not want that anyway. Should be a very tasty week over there.
Eric Idle - Dec 10-11 - Greedy Bastard Tour - You can count on a former Python to give you the Truth, straight up with no chaser. Eric ought to deliver, just as the forthright title of his tour package promises. No promises of exploding penguins however, everyone might be subject to a punishing roundel of "I'm a Lumberjack, I'm Okay." You know you deserve it.
FILLMORE
Either the booking agent has gotten very good at very good blowjobs or extraordinary luck has hit the Fillmore with a non-stop lineup of top-rated acts after Indigo Girls earlier this week.
Nov. 12 - Rusted Root - As close to the root as blues can get.
Nov15 - N. Mississippi Allstars - Blues as close to the root as you can get.
Nov 16 - Indigo Girls - The V-twin engines of the acoustic world are back. Hey, you have not lived until you have stood close to the stage while just about 10,000 radical lesbians are shouting the words to "Closer to Fine" right behind you. These gals rock like nothing else, and prove that nobody needs be weepy and sentimental on an old OM Martin to move the House.
Nov 20 - Lucinda Williams - 'nough said.
Nov 23 - Damien Rice - Ireland's newest phenom scorching the airwaves with his "Volcano".
Nov 28 - Bela Fleck and banjos to die for.
Dec 5 - Los Lobos. Will the wolf survive? Only the man with the heart and the pistol knows.
Dec12 - Dan Hicks - Dan plays a smooth sort of jazzy thing reminiscent of 1950's smoky bars and long overcoats in the rain while women with pompadours stroll with silk stockings past fountains stocked with goldfish and memories. If you don't know how to dance, better learn how to fake it or she'll be gone, leaving nothing but a memory like the smoky image in a gin-soaked daydream. "Live music, live music: my baby felt like steppin' out . . . ".
KFOG has its annual fund raiser CD for bay area food banks, Live from the Archives, now in vol. 10 is selling out at Good Guys and Walmart.com. Early December KFOG will host the Concerts for Kids with Blues Traveler, Los Lonely Boys and Robben Ford. These concerts have typically been monstrous sells with memorable performances.
LIVE 105 Not so Silent Night holds court this year at the Bill Graham Civic with Jane's Addiction survivors, Rancid, Black Eyed Peas, and Black Rebel MC Club. Show is December 12. Late news over the wire is that Iggy Pop and Offspring are late additions. Oh Mah Gawd! We got our tix already, so we expect to see you tossing your underwear up at Iggy in December. No razor blades this time, please.
Freight and Salvage hosted the always impressive Roy Rogers and long-time sidekick Norton Buffalo Friday Night. We had another engagement that night, but it had to have blasted the old roof off of the 30-year old hall. Jackie Greene, blues prodigy fills in the slot on the 20th. Box Set takes over for two days Dec 17-18 and Dave Grisman plucks his mandolin on the 28th.
SING OUT A JOYFUL NOISE
In a long season of disaster, we take comfort in small victories of Common Sense. Louisiana has elected its first ever female Governor over the Bush Administration supported Jendal. Kathleen Blanco defeated the favored challenger by emphasizing her Cajun roots and extensive experience over the far younger and more inexperienced Jendal, who would have been the first Southern non-white Governor had the people chosen him. Louisiana has suffered significantly under the economy as ruled by the present neo-con administration. New Orleans, which has tended to favor conservative GOP candidates voted overwhelmingly against the Bush-endorsed candidate this time out.
NIGHT TIME IN THE SWITCHING YARD
A high-pitched whir starts up, filling the entire room. Everybody looks at the clock: The nightly Backup is beginning. Must be well past the witching hour now. Time to take a stroll along the landing, take a smoke, gaze at the stars. In a few hours, the new week begins. In the far distance, the long howl of the through-passing train echoes across the flatlands. Here comes the rain again, sounding like a melody. Is it raining with you?
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
Haven't seen the sun for seven
days
November's got her nails dug in deep
Haven't seen my son for seven years
and the chances are we'll never again meet
If truth be told I don't even know his name
If truth be told he doesn't even know my name
I spend my spare time with my rosary beads
although I never learnt to pray
but you don't need the light
and it's best to pretend
that you've seen the errors of your ways
The darkness in here
is as heavy as a judgment
This darkne