Geography vs. cinema, plus DOXA note

It's tough for me to know if my lack of excitement at much of the cinema programming visible for the next couple of months is just due to my changed location. From Maple Ridge, even the Pacific Cinematheque's screening of Kiarostami's Close Up - a highly praised film by one of Iran's most respected directors - doesn't get me excited, since it means staying late after work to see it, and then catching a late bus home. Pardon my griping, but living in Maple Ridge makes this really inconvenient - if I were still a few blocks away, I'd be all over it.

I don't think that geographical distance is the only problem I'm facing, though. Much of the upcoming Cinematheque programme is devoted to a Kurosawa retrospective that I wouldn't be excited about if I lived next door to the theatre; given how widely-seen and easily-available most of these films are, it seems a bit wasteful to devote space to them yet again. True, there are some masterful films here - I really enjoyed Throne Of Blood last time I saw it, Kurosawa's adaptation of Macbeth - but that was at the Cinematheque just a couple years ago. Good as it was, are we really in need of another screening of it so soon?

For Shakespeare on screen, it's a bit more interesting that the Vancity - who have a nice new web design, by the way - are playing Branagh's Henry V and Orson Welles' Chimes At Midnight. (They'll also screen a 1974 version of Antony And Cleopatra that I don't know in the slightest, featuring what must be a very early performance by Ben Kingsley). Again, if I lived downtown, I'd possibly come see a couple of these films, especially the Welles, and would probably make it out for Encirclement, about the damaging effects and driving ideology of neoliberalism. But as things stand, about the only thing on the program that sounds fresh and fun enough to make me even consider enduring a bumpy long busride back to the burbs is The Socalled Movie ...

Sigh. This is depressing - having lived a few blocks away from both of these theatres for years makes it difficult to deal with my newfound distance from them. Maybe it's just as well that they're not playing a lot of films that I feel a strong need to see - because I probably couldn't make it out to a lot of 'em, anyways...

There are only two films I *know* I'm going to see theatrically this spring, and both are at DOXA, the ongoing documentary film festival: Bloodied But Unbowed (see also here), local filmmaker Susanne Tabata's much-anticipated Vancouver-centric history of punk, which Mike Usinger writes about here; I'm told that the initial screening, this coming Thursday, has already sold out, but that a few rush tickets may be available at the door, and that a second screening may be added (let's hope!). The gala premiere will feature various interesting guests, however, so that's the night to be at, no doubt... The other must-see is tomorrow's screening of No Fun City, about the difficulties faced by musicians trying to find places to play in Vancouver, which I think will centre largely around the Cobalt "closure" (ie. the decision to screw over and displace wendythirteen, since the venue remains open under another name).


There's lots else to see at DOXA - including a free seminar from filmmaker Thomas Riedelsheimer, whose film about Andy Goldsworthy, Rivers And Tides, is one of the most moving and compelling documentaries I've seen. (By the way, when Fred Frith led several Vancouver improvisers in performing a composition of his here a few years ago, I believe that the piece he chose was from the Rivers And Tides score). But again, my perspective on the whole thing is changed by geography. A Belgian doc on soccer referees might sound really interesting if it didn't mean two hours battling motion sickness and trying not to inhale the body odour of your stinky bus co-riders. You are where you live, I guess.

Anyhow, thank God for DVD players. Maybe I should start guzzling stamina drinks?

The Limits Of Control

...So I duck out of two possible concerts to come home, “unwind,” and turn on Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits Of Control, which I think came out about a year ago now. I’d intended to catch it theatrically, except the period it played was shorter than the time I needed to psychically prepare myself for the experience of seeing it. After that point - after it left the theatres and came out on DVD - there was simply no need to rush; in fact, there was good reason to wait. Having worked at a corporate video store in the past, I knew, based on experience, that this would be the kind of film that such chains - whose buyers at head office neither understand much about cinema nor mainstream audience reactions to arthouse fare - will buy in sets of six, based on the raving blurbs the distributors have compiled and the presence of big names like Bill Murray and John Hurt. (At the same time, they won’t carry one copy of Down By Law for their catalogue, though that one would actually rent, which many of their staff realize far better than their head office. Such is the sad nature of corporately-run video stores, which, save perhaps in real backwaters where there are no hip video stores, will surely be the next major facet of the entertainment industry to fall after CD’s...).

....Anyhow, the corporate head offices will do all this without realizing that many of us at all in the know about cinema are at a low ebb in our admiration for Jarmusch, and that reviews of this film have been largely mixed; Rotten Tomatoes, where it stands Rotten at 41%, is kind enough to sum up reviews, for those of us who really don't like to do our own thinking about cinema, by calling the film "a minimalist exercise in not much of anything" and "a tedious viewing experience with little reward." Head office, for all their charts and projections, is oblivious of all this, and doesn't much realize that those of us who actually care enough to want to see it have either already bought it, or have plans to do so when the price is right (more on which below), and thus have no need to waste money on a rental. Since middlebrow “fambly” folk won’t touch it on the rental shelf - perhaps trusting the no-neck pool of journalistic jobbos that Rotten Tomatoes draws on - or if they do, will largely find it objectionable or offensive and warn off their friends, the six copies the head office does buy (at a substantial discount and probably in a package with some other relative theatrical failure the distributor is pushing) will only generate enough rentals in two months to pay for three of the six, after which the video store will pragmatically dump five of ‘em into their PV bins at $14.99, to recoup their losses. They’ll sit in their bins - currently there are multiple copies at the Maple Ridge Rogers and Blockbuster locations, which are the only full-on video stores in this town - until it’s time for them to be marked down - a day which us few suburban cinephiles who understand this whole process have been impatiently awaiting; this was the next optimum time, economically, to buy and thus see the movie.

(I apologize to anyone living in the developing world or born into poverty for my refined shopping skills. Anyone who has to carry clean water for a few miles to be able to cook, drink, wash their dishes and bathe has full rights to resent that anyone should have thought enough about buying used DVDs to be able to discourse at such lengths on it. I am very sorry about everything. Please do not join Al Qaida.)

As for that “low ebb in [cinephile’s] admiration for Jarmusch” of which I spoke, I assert that based on conversations I’ve had with a few people: it ain’t everyone, but it sure ain’t just me, either. Though a few people I know find Ghost Dog delightful, there are also quite a few who find that it screws itself up with inappropriate bursts of coyly self-conscious Jarmuschian daffiness, like the whole gangsters-as-Indians-making-animal-sounds shtick: the fuck? These same people think that Iggy Pop in a dress reciting “Goldilocks” in no way improves what Dead Man appears to set out to do, and have similar observations about others of Jarmusch’s films; his fondness for silly non-sequiturs is often at odds with his more mature and disciplined impulses and ends up substantially lessening the impact of his films, even for those of us who admired his early work. Fussy, cruel pricks that we are, folks like us kind of enjoyed Crazy Horse guitarist Frank Sampedro poking fun at Jim’s appearance and cinematic ambitions in Year Of The Horse - tho’ we also enjoyed and admired Jarmusch’s decision to include these barbs in the finished film (which is either in third or fourth place on my list of favourite Jarmusch films, depending on when you ask me; and by the way, if you’re thinking I mustn’t have much of a sense of humour, Mystery Train is number two). Even as far back as the Neil Young film, see, we were getting a bit tired of Jarmusch’s self-reflexive and mannered weirdness, which only interfered with our appreciation for Ghost Dog, Cigarettes And Coffee, and Broken Flowers. Isaach de Bankolé receiving mysterious matchbooks and cryptic messages as he travels about Europe, in a film described as being somewhat cold, flat, and alienating? Um. “Well, if it’s any good, it could be great,” we thought. “It kinda sounds like he’s riffing on Antonioni,” we thought, but swapping Jack Nicholson out for a black guy, which seems quite appropriate and cinephilically crafty, deliberately riffing, maybe, on the camera flip from The Passenger; “I mean, it could be terrific.”

On the other hand, any description I read online made it sound like there was a lot of room for ol’Jim to make a full-on awful film, which certainly seemed within the realm of possibility, since the reviews weren’t often highly positive. The next question then is: are the critics who are panning the film doing so because it’s really not that good, or are they just brainless jobbers with no love or understanding of cinema at all? If you don't care what the people who write for The Province or Sun or most other local papers' film sections have to say about movies, you have to realize that the vast majority of reviewers polled by R/T are exactly the same sort of creature, three parts desk jockey to every one part cinephile. There sure are a lot of them sunsabitches in the newspapers of the world - which is why, oh, I dunno, Gregg Araki’s absolutely terrific pot comedy Smiley Face gets 62% on Rotten Tomatoes while Broken Flowers gets 87% and PT Anderson's embarrassingly bad (and apparently mercifully forgotten) There Will Be Blood gets 91...

Still, with so few people sticking up for it, there was cause to be wary about this film: hence the previous decision to just wait until I could buy it for the cost of renting it, which happened last week some time.

So why not review it now?

Problem: as I type this, I’m only about fifteen minutes into it. Understand that I put quotation marks around “unwind” in the first paragraph: thus unwound, I had to stop to write down my reactions “thus far” before I was prepared to proceed.

Reactions thus far:

1. Oh, my. I’m still thinking Antonioni, and the film has started. And better yet, I’m thinking about Zabriskie Point as well as The Passenger, and wonder if I’ll have cause to think of L’Eclisse or Red Desert or L’Avventura. You know how I knew before they appeared that the first words onscreen at the end of Signal 7 would be “dedicated to John Cassavetes?” I am wondering if this film will end with “Dedicated to Michelangelo Antonioni.” Might I be right, Jim?

2. Ohmigod I’ve waited all this time and now it’s going to turn out to be a fucking masterpiece. I should have just seen it in the cinema. Sorry, man! My faith was shaky, what can I say. If the film delivers on the promise of the first few minutes, this is going to be GREAT!

3. Hm. I suppose eating the math equation IS a bit daffy, but it has a poetic resonance that gangsters-imitating-Indians-making-animal-sounds just doesn’t have. It hasn’t broken the mood, I’m still with it.

4. Ooh, maybe not: my first moment of real worry is when the relative quiet that the film begins with is ruptured by music (by Boris, I think), as our protagonist commences his travels. Up to that point, I had been entirely engaged in the film, interpreting it, questioning it, and being grateful for its restraint, cinematic force, and intelligence. Then suddenly I’m being told how certain images are supposed to make me a feel by an extended abstract psych-y/ Krautrocky piece that is forcefully superimposed on them, and I’m shuddering, rebelling. Unlike the music that Kelly Reichardt uses for Old Joy, say, which actually really suited the mood her images conveyed - or, more relevantly, the discordant electronica that Antonioni used to compliment his images of LA in Zabriskie Point - the music here calls a great deal of attention to itself by not quite fitting with the images, or at least how I’ve been feeling about them thus far. It seems to want me to feel some other way. It’s trippy enough music, mind you, that within a minute or two, it has my attention, but I am also slightly in mourning, the powerful grip of the first five minutes or so having been replaced by a rather loose one. ‘Member Stephen King’s old observation, somewhere in Danse Macabre, I think, that certain films - he cites Deliverance - win our trust immediately with their opening scenes, letting us know that we can relax, because we're in "the hands of a master," or such? At this juncture in my viewing of The Limits Of Control, my trust has not yet been won; I have already been reminded that I am in the hands of someone who sometimes makes cinematic choices that are not altogether sound.

My interest is certainly piqued, however. I get back to it, and spend the next fifteen minutes in a tug-of-war. Sometimes the film works brilliantly. After half an hour, I still can’t judge what it will amount to, but as a collection of perceptual set pieces, it’s astounding, and features my second-favourite-ever deliberate visual confusion between paintings and cityscapes (after the brilliant start of Emile de Antonio’s Painters Painting). De Bankolé doing an unfamiliar version of Tai Chi in his hotel rooms, the way he looks at pigeons in flight from his café seat, the way the camera frames the Spanish town where the action is taking place - these images profoundly understand cineastic scopophilia and resonate long, just like musical notes played on a wooden instrument, which itself is an image used within the film to perhaps suggest an appropriate mindframe for viewing it. Contra the claim that this is an exercise in not much of anything, it's clearly an exercise in meta-cinema. That much you can tell from the gitgo.

There are things that don’t quite work, however. The repetition of the phrase “You don’t speak Spanish” - some sort of secret code - starts to seem a little too mannered and self-conscious, a distraction - like the soundtrack - from fully experiencing the film as a viewer (rather than a processor of words or music). And while occasionally the music works, a montage of images 33 minutes in of a glamourous woman (Tilda Swinton) walking down the street, set to more obtrustive alt-rock stuff, suddenly makes me shift my paradigm away from Antonioni to that of rock videos, which is not really a place I'd wanted to find myself. She will discourse about cinema, point out a references to a Hitchcock film and to The Lady From Shanghai that I confess I had not caught, and later appear in a movie poster within the film, so the self-consciousness with which Jarmusch frames her is clearly deliberate - but what it means I can’t really say; Jarmusch could use a class in meta-cinema from David Lynch, say, whose Inland Empire does a better job of waxing metacinematic without feeling didactic. The hat-tips to Godard are thankfully less obtrusive... It's starting to seem like the film will not deliver on the promise of the first few minutes, but it's certainly still holding my attention.

So it goes with the rest of the film. For all its compelling visual poetry, there’s an overall sense of strained self-consciousness to the film, as if it really, really wants you to be aware of it’s artifice - as if Jarmusch had so little faith in his audience's ability to read an art film that he felt the need to scream "this is an art film!" at them every fifteen minutes or so, which more refined viewers will not need and less refined ones will likely not benefit from. The odd little conversations that de Bankolé has on his journey (which climaxes in a murder) all fit together, obviously, with much talk of molecules and art and “bohemians,” though on one viewing, I can't quite tell you what they mean, other than, perhaps, "we are the good guys" - the film is all too eager to congratulate us for going along with it, like it's striving to create a little in-group of viewers who "get it" and who are thus superior to those that don't. Youki Kudoh, from Mystery Train, makes an appearance on a train. Bill Murray plays some sort of bad guy who appears to represent - oh I don’t know, mebbe mainstream Hollywood, the corporate influence of the arts, or maybe the "control" of the title, a word Jarmusch has him use explicitly without pinning down exactly what he means by it. At least he doesn’t make weird animal sounds, even when he's being strangled. The film seems to attempt to contain within it a theory of how to watch it - or how to watch cinema - which could be instructional for younger viewers, should they try to engage with it, and the tone of the film throughout remains within arm's reach of Antonioni - especially The Passenger - but the “poetry” of Jarmusch is so much clunkier than that of Antonioni that this must be noted. If The Passenger confronts viewers with the sound of one hand clapping, The Limits Of Control confronts us with the sound of one hand clapping really loudly.

By the end of the film, I’m exhausted, and straining to stay awake - no fault of the film’s, it’s just been a long week - but for my reservations, I’ve enjoyed the experience and want to revisit it; I can’t say exactly what I make of it, but I know I like it better than the last three of Jarmusch’s films, has been underrated as much as they were overrated, and I can say that it’s my fave of his since 1997’s Year Of The Horse. Certainly worth the $6 or so I paid for it, in any event! It's a bit late for me to advise my readers to rush out to cinemas to catch the film, but if you head to your nearest video chain’s PV bin, you’ll be able to scoop it up there without much difficulty, at a very reasonable price.

If you haven't already.

A final note: thank you, Wikipedia, for teaching me of The Sons of Lee Marvin, a “semi-secret society” of whom Jim Jarmusch is a member. So is John Lurie, saith Wikipedia. I don’t think I’ll trouble him to ask.

RIP Babz Chula

Damn, I didn't even realize she had cancer. Babz Chula - who created the marvelously memorable character of the pot-dealing dominatrix with mother issues in Bruce Sweeney's Dirty - just died. I really only know the one role of hers but she was great in it...

Tonight...

Didn't have time to find a Golers poster (they play Pub 340 tonight), but I ran into this online:


...I suppose I'm one of the few people who plan to see the Golers after this finishes, anyhow. (Are Theocide any good...? - they also play tonight. How do Deicide feel about their name, I wonder?).

New John Lurie paintings

John Lurie - one of my past interviews with whom is online here - has posted scans of some of his more recent paintings on his website. His work grows progressively painterly and rich, and his titles have his unmistakable candor and humour, though some are troubling ("I Need to Know if There is Life After Death and I Need to Know Kind of Soon"). Check them out, though!

Eugene Chadbourne in Vancouver?

...attentive music freaks will want to know that Dr. Chad is doing a jaunt of small-venue BC gigs, which may or may not lead to a show in late May in Vancouver. Watch his website for more...

Petunia Friday and Sunday

Photograph by Femke, of Petunia at Slickity Jim's (RIP). Not to be reused without permission


Not many yodeling cowboys in this here town, and the chances to see them perform with a singing saw player, a Theremin player, a washtub bass and a violin are few and far between. There's only about one guy that I know of who offers that. Before Petunia "takes to the tracks" on his train tour with the Minimalist Jug Band, thereby ending his tenure at Cafe Montmartre - at least for the summer, which he plans to spend on the road and on the rails - you have only a couple of chances to see him perform. Friday, May 7th, he'll be performing at Little Mountain Studios (195 E. 26th/Main) with his regular band The Vipers (no Theremin there - it's a different band from the one over which I am drooling). The special lineup plays on May 9th at Cafe Montmartre (Main/28th), dubbed Petunia's Valentine Glisse Orchestra - making "slippy, slidy, glissy" music with Fiona Salon on Theremin, Bronwen Jones on singing saw, and Marc L'Esperance on fiddle. Oh, and you-know-who on washtub bass.

Since at least a few of Al Mader's songs will feature during these gigs, I asked Petunia what his favourite song by Al ("so far") is. He says it's "Go, Boy" off the last album, Naive Ville (which I reviewed here). "I thought it was about me. And I talked to other musicians, and I talked to Al, and he said he's had the same - like, people come up to him and say, 'is that about me?' He starts off the song, 'Kicking Horse or Crow's Nest Pass - it's neither here nor there, you wanna be gone fast. Comin' back was a big mistake, this town don't give, it only takes." He's talking about what it's like to be a musician in Vancouver, or anywhere, as an artist. It always seems like you gotta get out of town and go. But you can't - where you gonna go, in Canada? It costs so much money, and it's difficult to get around..."

So the song wasn't actually about Petunia then? "It falls into a lot of people's pockets," Petunia tells me. I think I know what he means...

Patricia and Charlie, sitting in a tree...

Wow. In the last few years of her life, it develops that Patricia Highsmith - everyone's favourite misanthropic, alcoholic lesbian expat (from Texas to Switzerland) crime writer and recreational snail breeder, or at least mine - gave a very positive blurb for Charles Higson's King Of The Ants, calling it "Funny, very tough and full of action." Higson doesn't merit mention in her bio, so I assume the two didn't know each other, and I can't find mention of a full review (so I guess she just blurbed him), but she certainly seems to have enjoyed his writing. I can see why; having only recently learned of his work (see below), I'm proceeding happily through Happy Now, which focuses on various unhappy people whose lives intersect, and finding, in the disciplined transparency of the prose (which strives to accomplish nothing with the language aside from the telling of the story, something I much admire and doubt I could manage) and his interest in perverse psychology, unhappy marriages, and (I gather) murder, a great compatibility with and similarity to the work and themes of... yes, Patricia Highsmith herself. Guess it figures: Graham Greene gave an enthusiastic blurb to Highsmith's Tremor Of Forgery, which, it transpires, is NOT her finest novel, tho' he describes it as such - it's just the one that most closely resembles a Graham Greene book. (You are what you blurb?). Anyhow, I'm enjoying my Higson. Still don't think I'll make it to the Young James Bond books, but who knows...

King Of The Ants

Wow... caught up with a very enjoyable overlooked 2003 direct-to-DVD exploitation film last night, King Of The Ants, in which a young, ambitious, and somewhat amoral guy in LA gets rather over his head with some bad guys, but adapts in surprising ways. The story is based on a novel I have not read by one Charlie Higson, a British writer whose work I will be looking into - though I'll probably skip the Young James Bond novels he's been doing. The characters are so unpleasant, at times, and the choices they make so morally uncomfortable for the viewer that it seems like something Jim Thompson might have penned when feeling singularly masochistic. The director of the film is Stuart Gordon, whom you may or may not remember fondly from the Re-Animator films. While I've been at least passably amused by several of his movies (also including Dolls and From Beyond), I must admit - sorry, Stuart - that tho' his name was the main reason I picked it up, I expected nothing as compelling or interesting as this film (which also has a terrific performance from George Wendt, as a heavy, if you'll pardon the pun; ol' Norm is entirely credible as a ruthless thug, believe it or not). In fact, the most typically "Stuart Gordon" moment - the hallucinated feces-eating creature - is among the weakest of the film (as, alas, is the final image, which, as Ken Eisner notes in his Variety review of the film, is quite cliched - the guy-walking-away-from-burning-building trope). Whatever the shortcomings, however, the characters and dialogue are believable and delightfully crafted, and the narrative/thematic arc of the film will keep you very much engaged. A high tolerance for brutality is recommended, but as long as you can take a bit of torture, you really ought to seek out this movie; it even nets 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, though it has only a handful of reviews...

...think I'll go see what other films of Stuart Gordon's I've missed. He's done a Mamet adaptation, even... fancy that...

The Coca Cola Case

I haven't lived in Vancouver for half a year now, so I don't know if they're still there, but a fixture of my experience of living off Davie Street was seeing a cluster of animal-rights activists with placards and pamphlets - "KFC Tortures Chickens," that sort of thing - standing outside of the Kentucky Fried Chicken.

To be honest, I tend to have a bit of a prejudice against animal rights activists. It has nothing to do with animal rights - with the cause or the values at stake - but rather with the kind of people who are drawn to the movement. You'll be walking past a demonstration - surely this has happened to more people than just me? - and someone wants to thrust their information into your face; you politely say that you're engaged in something else - talking to a friend, on your way to work, what-have-you - but they'll bristle with indignity and self-righteous rage and make a snarky accusatory comment about your apathy and complicity. For all they know, you might be a vegan PETA member - you could be Peter Singer himself; you won't have made any more of a comment on their views or your own than saying "Sorry, I'm a bit busy right now" - but they'll presume that because you don't want to drop everything and talk to them just then, they've been slighted, and that they thus have the right to strike back. The last time I had such an encounter was in fact during one of my attempts to go vegetarian - something that I can never make work for more than a few weeks, but that I return to periodically - and the unfairness of whatever snarkiness got thrown at me probably did more to drive me towards my next burger than keep me on the straight-and-narrow. It's a sadly self-marginalizing universe such folks are trapped in - they might as well have "I am a personality-deficient asshole with a chip on my shoulder" on their placards, because in their confrontations with passerby, that's 95% of what they manage to communicate; by such aggressive tactics, they certainly aren't going to encourage non-subscribers to their views to want to join their club. They're far more likely to give their cause a bad name; however many reasonable and articulate animal rights people are out there, and however strong their case might be, if someone says "Animal Rights" to me, it's the nasty sting of such encounters that comes first and foremost to mind, and makes me bristle and guard myself.

To their credit, the KFC animal rights people were never insulting or harrassing to me as I walked by them. Not that I ever dared provoke them by going into KFC when they were standing out there (which I very rarely do; shitty food is shitty food, cruelly produced or not). But for protesters of the animal rights variety, they were generally fairly quiet and civil, enough so that on one occasion - having had a pamphlet offered - I paused to ask about their protest. This was a few years ago, and I didn't take notes, but it went something like this:

Al: So, uh - "KFC Tortures Chickens," eh? Let me ask you, though - are the chickens bought and sold by KFC actually treated any worse than any of the factory farmed chickens sold in Safeway or Save On or, well, any of the restaurants on this street?

Animal Rights Guy: Well, actually - no, they're not. But KFC are such a huge part of the market for chickens that if we can pressure them into making changes, it will have a massive effect on the industry as a whole.

To which - if I responded at all - I might have remarked something about it being kind of unfair to scapegoat one company for a practice that is widespread; it's in my nature, at that moment, to have felt kind of sorry for KFC, for being singled out for a protest when pretty much every restaurant on that restaurant-rich block was selling chickens raised and slaughtered in the same miserable conditions. That was certainly the thought that flickered in my mind at the moment. On reflection, I think a more significant objection to their highly localized protest, in fact, is that by picking one very visible target and ignoring the big picture, the protesters were doing something ultimately a bit misleading and counterproductive; because passerby might think that just because "KFC Tortures Chickens," they were morally okay to go have a chicken burger at Wendy's or Burger King or anywhere else, facilitating a general state of denial about the sort of conditions in which chickens are generally raised.

That's what scapegoating is all about - it's a variation of casting stones at the prostitute to ritually punish our own sins, a way of affirming our morality through the targeting of one particular "bad apple" in a system that is utterly rotten, which we continue to play ball with after having weeded said "bad apple" out. It doesn't matter if our shoes were made in miserable conditions in a Third World sweatshop, as long as they weren't made by Nike - that sort of thing. It is true that you have to start SOMEWHERE, in your attempts to change the world, but on some level, this sort of tendency to single out one company for abuse does more to maintain the status quo than it does to bring about change; a not-so-well-informed passerby might think that by lending his or her support to the KFC protestors and declining to eat at that one chain, s/he was making a meaningful contribution to the well-being of chickens, even while continuing to eat birds from factory farms and non-free-range eggs. They would be buying into a comforting illusion of moral improvement - an ill which might offset any good done by harrassing KFC.

Halfway through the NFB-co-produced The Coca-Cola Case, opening tomorrow at the Vancity Theatre, I started thinking about the Kentucky Fried Chicken protestors, and I started feeling kind of sorry for Coca Cola, for much the same reasons. It's an admittedly somewhat perverse reaction on my part - because, as the documentary convincingly demonstrates, Coca Cola has gotten its hands fairly dirty in the Third World, doing business, for instance, with Colombian bottling plants where management has been implicated in union busting, including harrassing and killing union organizers and activists. There is enough evidence presented by the filmmakers that there seems no question Coke deserves the bad publicity, and if the embarrassment caused by the film does anything to improve labour practices in the Third World, that's unquestionably a good thing. The problem that I have is, again, that it's my impression that the sort of behaviours that Coca Cola has engaged are in fact reasonably widespread throughout the world of globalized business, and that by singling one corporation out for abuse, we are unfairly scapegoating them as a way of blinding ourselves to the systemic rot - convincing ourselves of our righteousness in one ritual instance while closing our eyes to how we are complicit in injustice with a vast number of marketplace transactions. The Straight review of the film actually goes so far as to comment how the film will make Pepsi drinkers of all of us, but I would seriously doubt - based on instinct alone, mind you, and not any hard facts - that Pepsi's track record in the Third World is much better than Coca Cola's. However deep rooted and archetypal a cultural pattern it may be, it's a fallacy to think that by killing the scapegoat, we purge the community of sin; it's a fallacy we should guard ourselves against, and it seems to undermine the authority of this particular documentary - or at least it did for me.

It's an interesting film, though - reminding me of the Berlinger/Sinofsky film Crude, about Texaco in Equador, and the fight of Equadorians to find justice. It's fascinating that Colombians can have their case heard in the US; it's also interesting that in the name of drumming up support, hired-gun anti-corporate activists were brought in, the sort of mirror-image of the Pinkertons of yore, to generate negative publicity for Coca Cola and thus support for the Colombian cause. It would have been interesting if that aspect of the case had been treated with a slightly more jaundiced eye; it doesn't fit quite so well with the tone of the rest of the film, of a heroic quest to seek redress for the little guy, since at least some of what's done starts to seem a little cruel - a slur campaign, of sorts, about as emotionally manipulative as your average Coke ad, though considerably nastier (click the link above to see what I mean). Presumably people were well-paid for their labours, too; there's a cynical relish to some of the anti-Coke sloganeering that seems to be about a lot more than seeking justice for murdered union activists.

Anyhow, I probably should watch the second half of the film sometime, but I never much got past where I started feeling perversely sorry for Coke. It was such an unintended and unwelcome response to the story being told that it kind of interfered with my going forward; who knows, maybe by the end of the film, a more wide-ranging picture is painted of the nature of globalized labour and the problems we face. I strongly suspect that the filmmakers stick to their localized target. KFC Tortures Chickens, and Coca Cola Kills Colombians. In the end, all I know is this: whatever the solution to the problem framed by the film, switching to Pepsi probably isn't it.

The Minimalist Jug Band and such

Al Mader and Petunia at Slickity Jim's Chat'n'Chew (RIP). Photo by Femke Van Delft. NTBRWP, eh?


Haven't been around much lately - I've been keeping pretty busy commuting to work, looking out for my Mom, and trying to keep abreast of daily life. Not that I've been entirely unproductive in my freetime: for writing, I've been working on articles for a Japanese magazine, a German one, Canada's own Mongrel Fanzine, and The Big Takeover (out soon!), and talking to Bison BC, Nomeansno, and the Subhumans, among others. It's been more than enough to occupy my free time, so it's just as well that I'm not getting laid. Locally, to keep my thumb in there, I've also been doing a bunch of odds and ends for the Straight - most recently a Minimalist Jug Band CD review and a wee note on Al Mader (said MJB) and (musical cohort) Petunia's planned train trip this summer. Al and Petunia play Cafe Montmartre on the 9th, along with a theremin, a singing saw, and a violin; in their honour, I will presently re-present my first-ever print-media Minimalist Jug Band article, written a few years ago for The Nerve Magazine ('member them?).


Lots of other shows coming up I'm excited by and hope to get to, mind you: There's The Furies this Friday (whom I have not seen for quite some time, and also did a wee Straight piece on, to complement my various online articles on them). Then there the Golers May 7th (of whom I have become a fan since drawing "Al Goes To The Cobalt" - part one here, part two here). There's Isis May 31st, Nomeansno July 1st, and the Melvins July 5th. People should also note that Susanne Tabata's long-awaited Bloodied But Unbowed movie premieres May 13th at Doxa, with various people in attendance; Doxa also hosts the documentary on Vancouver venue issues, No Fun City, which I imagine will largely focus on the tribulations of wendythirteen. That's shaping up to be a pretty cool spring, in terms of film and music, and will be about all I can handle, given work and life and such...

...but that's about all I can say for the moment. While I do hope to have a couple of fresh blog pieces up in the next few days, in the meantime, here's:

The Minimalist Jug Band: Any Reaction Will Do
(from 2006 or something)
by Allan MacInnis

There’s this guy on the stage. He’s got a homemade instrument – a stick, a string, and a washtub – and he is plucking at the string with great abandon. (It’s hard to describe him as “playing” it, since every note sounds pretty much like every other note.) He is grinding his way through an angry, self-deprecating rant, which happens to rhyme. Several of the members of the audience who are listening to his lyrics – quite a few aren’t - seem not to know what to make of him: his songs tend to get rather personal.

I’m having dizzy spells,
Things are shifting, turning
And every day
Well my guts are churning
And I ask myself, I mean,
What’s the answer
Is it a brain tumour or stomach cancer? And I take a walk
And I talk to the doc
And I see what the doc thought and he says,
“You’re making yourself sick”
I’m making myself sick!

At the end of the evening, he may well destroy his instrument, which usually involves breaking the stick over his knee; the effect is somewhat underwhelming, though quite funny. The man is Al Mader – better known as the Minimalist Jug Band, also referred to in one of his songs as “A Washed-Up Guy on a Washtub Bass.”

“When I first started performing I think people generally felt sorry for me,” Al shrugs. “Occasionally strangers would ask if they could give me a hug. Several times I've been heckled, and then after I finished the heckler will come and sit with me, which always seems odd... One time this young guy was heckling me at the start of the show and then by the end he wanted me to come with him and help him quit his job.”

Asked why he favours covering disturbing emotional territory in his songs, Al says, “Are they disturbing? Good!” He elaborates: “I often write as a way of grappling with ideas and emotions and have no intention of sharing. Those are usually the most worthwhile pieces. I have some that are still in limbo, either to protect myself or others... I am a very private person, but prefer art that shows vulnerability and has some emotional impact (and humour), so some sacrifices are required.”

Not all of Mader’s songs have a discomfiting confessional quality, however. “Dead Man’s Pants,” inspired by Al’s experiences buying clothes from thrift stores and wondering about previous owners, is more likely to make listeners laugh than squirm. Also, many of his songs mix fiction with fact, affording him a bit of privacy. Still, songs like “I’m a Lousy Lay” tend to divide the audience squarely: between those who tune Al out - embarrassed, annoyed, or just plain uncomfortable - and those who whoop and cheer and egg him on, hoping, he guesses, that he will “act out their repressions.”

Mader is surprisingly comfortable with both extremes his performances inspire. “As long as people are reacting one way or another, as a performer it gives you something to go on. I don’t need them to feel one way or the other, but I need them to feel.” Some audience members have told him after shows “you’ve got a lot of guts,” which, Al points out, “is a kind of mixed review, if you think about it.”

Fans of the Minimalist Jug Band’s first CD, For Crying Out Loud – produced by Chris Houston, with homemade cover art drawn on pieces of old cereal boxes – will be happy to note that Al’s sophomore effort, Thrift Stories, is nearing completion, and may soon be turning up at Red Cat and Zulu. The title was supplied by Mader’s poet friend Susan Parker; unlike his previous one-man release, the CD boasts a wide range of guest musicians, including Steven Nikleva, Ronnie Hayward, Ed Goodine, and Megan Rose. The country blues/ roots music artist Petunia (“an amazing singer, in the Jimmie Rodgers vein”) makes a particularly noteworthy contribution in that he actually plays a jug, on the song “Love isn't Blue,” which, Al tells me, “is sandwiched in between verses of his ‘My Gal’ song,” which Petunia has re-recorded for the disc. “He sings the first half, and then it segues into my song, and then there’s like a real contrast in styles, which is kind of startling... and then when I finish up he goes back into the second half of his song. I don’t know why, but he’s putting it on his CD and I’m putting it on mine, and it kinda seems fun.”

Before the collaboration with Petunia, the only jug in the Minimalist Jug Band was in the name.

Though “spoken word and theatre audiences are the most attentive” of the crowds the Minimalist Jug Band has played for, Mader prefers the challenge of opening for bands, and has had some cool opening slots – including British punk poet and humourist John Otway. “Otway was charming and gave me a copy of his autobiography, which is fascinating and hilarious,” Mader tells me. Another highlight was a gig opening for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto. “They invited me to do more dates on that tour but I was moving to Halifax at that time.” Though Mader, who now makes his home in East Vancouver, often gigs at venues like the Montmartre and the Railway, he’s happy to play anywhere. “Sometimes the cabaret-style events are almost as fun. Doing shows with a stripping Elvis or recently with the Canadian yo-yo champion makes life interesting.”

Mader is a prime target for being labelled an Outsider Musician, but he isn’t entirely at ease with the term. “‘Outsider Music’ suggests a performer who is deluded and oblivious, who doesn’t really know what they’re doing. The performer is found art – you’re like a piece of wood that happens to look like something else, and it’s the person who ‘discovers’ you who gets to define you as an artist. You’re the soup can.”

Though Al is a fan of outsiders like eccentric rockabilly guy Hasil Adkins, he doesn’t think he has much in common with Wesley Willis. Still, he adds, “I understand how I fall into that category. When I listen to myself in the context of musicians, my first impression is ‘what an ass!’ But I do find something compelling in the tension that results. I don't create in a vacuum, which would seem to be an essential requirement for an outsider.”

Asked what pisses him off about life in Vancouver, Mader notes that while Vancouverites “may have passion towards kayaking or hiking or something, it seems like there’s a fairly small percentage of the population that is obsessed with art.” He smiles dryly when I ask how this affects him. “I try to be immune to it, I guess. And act as if someone cares.”


Al by Femke, NTBRWP.

Strange weather

First rain, then hail, now bright sunshine with dark stormclouds... I'm shutting down my computer; I don't trust this weather...

Joe Strummer vinyl reissues!

Speaking of vinyl reissues, Joe Strummer's three solo albums with the Mescaleros have been reissued for "record store day." I'm not sure how limited the editions were - Rock Art & The X-Ray Style has sold out, or never arrived, at the shops I checked, but Audiopile still has copies of Global A-Go-Go and Streetcore. They also have an original of Earthquake Weather on the cheap ($11.99). It deserves a good home somewhere...

Meat Puppets II vinyl reissue!

Wow! Just stumbled upon a vinyl reissue of Meat Puppets II at HMV today. I'm fonder of the craftier Up On The Sun - and it kind of galls me, truth be known, that this Pups' album is only as famous as it is because of the endorsement of Kurt Cobain, and Nirvana's covers of "Plateau" and "Lake Of Fire," both of which are on this album in their original incarnations. It would be a completely neglected American masterpiece if it weren't for Kurt - a poor overrated sap if there ever was one, who somehow got buried under all the praise that hundreds of more important musicians (like these guys, say) had been denied while the mainstream was ignoring anything that smacked of punk. I can't help suspecting that a goodly portion of the people who now acknowledge this disc's greatness would shrug and say it "sounds too weird" or something, if they didn't feel obliged to like it for Kurt's sake... all of which, in a way, might have been better for the Pups, who themselves had some very difficult years after the brush with semi-fame that Kurt brought'em... but anyhow, I'll take what I can get; if this isn't my fave Pups album, it sure by damn is my second fave, and it's probably "objectively more important" or something like that (and not just because Cobain liked it; he is not the yardstick, repeat, he is not the yardstick). And it has the original "Lost," which the Minutemen covered, many bizarre bits of acid-soaked poetry, and some truly amazing instrumentals, which do very very strange things to your mind if you let them. The new vinyl version sounds great, is nice and heavy with a gatefold cover with lyrics and liner notes; and a not-bad price! (Was $18.99 at HMV, which probably means it's a couple bucks cheaper elsewhere if you shop around...).

I wonder if Cris' troubled history would make it hard for this band to get into Canada? I've hoped for a 'Pups show here for some time... Hm.

Strange dream...

Often when I've dreamed, over the years, if "home" is figured in the dream, it's the home of my childhood in Richmond Court, a few blocks away from where I now sit. Though I haven't lived there since my late teens or early 20's - when my parents decided to sell off the condo, get out of debt, and move into an apartment (...whereupon they immediately plunged back into pretty much the same level of debt as before, but now without property) - this doesn't matter; wherever I actually do live at the time, in my dreaming mind, I still live in the room at the top of the stairs at #30, 21555 Dewdney Trunk Road.

Tonight, however, my dream was about my living there, which is a bit unusual. My father was alive. My mother hadn't had a stroke. He in particular played an important part in the early dream, but that part is foggy now - I know we spoke, and he was directing me in some way, telling me what to do. I'm not sure what age I was, but I was remodelling my childhood room to better suit me. Whether it's because I was moving back in or just dissatisfied with the way it was, I don't know, but in particular, I was running out of room for my record collection. I had to alter some old shelves, built into and extending out of the closet - not actually a feature of the room in real life, mind you - to make room for them. My property was piled out in the hall, and I was taking stuff off the shelves prior to re-doing them and junking it - old toys, but also jars of old food (I think), which were thick with bugs that had infested them. I hadn't looked at them for years and they'd gone very wrong in the interim. One jar shattered and I had to scoop up this writhing mass of dirt, speckled with fast-crawling little beetles of some sort. Somewhere in this process, as I scooped the garbage into a plastic bag, a young child, or two young children - or maybe they were the same size as me? - appeared beside me and they were watching me and wanting to talk to me about something significant, some "official" issue or point of order that I now forget... it was something about rules, something that seemed technical and unimportant at the time. I told them in no uncertain terms that they weren't to bother me just then; I had to get these shelves cleaned out - had to even knock a couple out and rearrange them - and since they were wood, I was concerned in particular about the possibility of bedbugs...

Somewhere in the midst of smashing up shelving - it seemed to be cedar - I woke up. I tried to fall back to sleep, but - here's a feature of life in Maple Ridge that wasn't much of an issue living in downtown Vancouver - the singing of songbirds outside my window kept me awake, a periodic whistle interrupting my slumbers. So now it's 6am, and I seem to be up for good...

Gerry Hannah writes again...

Photo of Gerry and Brian by Allan MacInnis. The blur ALMOST works (but was quite unintended).

Gerry Hannah has just posted a lengthy piece on his blog about the re-recording of the Subhumans' Incorrect Thoughts, entitled Same Thoughts, Different Day, out now on CD and double vinyl on Alternative Tentacles (I've seen copies at Scratch and Zulu about town; it sounds bloody great, by the way, and the added tracks are amazing - especially Gerry's "21st Century"). Those with an interest in local punk should read the post, as well as Mike's on the Subhumans' page, and then rush out to buy this album. Or, well - do it in whatever order you like.

Note: comments will be moderated.

420 Engrish

Heh.

...Otherwise, I'm away from my desk, so to speak. I have plans to do a Soulfly thing using Max scraps from my Straight interview, to enthuse about Susanne Tabata's upcoming punk movie (premiering onscreen at DOXA, also screening the No Fun City movie, which I have followed not so closely), and to sing the praises of the new Subhumans Canada release, now available at select stores. Somewhere in there I also plan to start transcribing some Bev Davies tapes, to watch a video Nardwuar sent me, and to write a Minimalist Jug Band CD review (among other things). However, I have more pressing obligations and can officially be said to be spread thin...

Kuniko Kato Thursday

I've never heard the music of Kuniko Kato before, but by damn Thursday's Vancouver New Music event sounds promising. Virtuosic Japanese percussionist who has worked - if I gather correctly - with the likes of Steve Reich and Toru Takemitsu, performing on "specially constructed steel drums?" No more needs to be said: I'm interested.

Mecca Normal Does Fake Jazz

Hey Anju! I'm really sorry. I didn't get around to this in time to mention the gigs on the 4th, 7th, and 9th. I've just gone back to work and my life has been pretty hectic. What can I say - I dropped the ball!

However, folks: this upcoming Wednesday, April 14th, the Fake Jazz lineup will be Mecca Normal, Twin Crystals - subject of a feature in the Straight - and Anju's band Ahna! Starts at 10pm at Lick, costs five bucks to get in. Mecca Normal are a long-lived independent, female-fronted duo associated with the old Vancouver punk scene; they still have a connection to punk values, but a lot of the recent work of Jean Smith has upped the humour in her music, with their recent album The Observer being a rather sardonic (if rather terrifying and heartbreaking) survey of Smith's experience of online dating. I like it a lot. Here's a video or two you might want to check out if you don't know their stuff - that second one is actually quite interesting as a short film, and it's got some of my favourite guitarwork by David Lester on it...


...and sorry again, Anju! At least I got ONE of 'em in!

Just what I needed

It's after 10pm. I've been on the go since 6:30 this morning, getting ready for work, commuting, teaching two classes in the city, then killing time to put in a few hours at a Vancouver New Music event I've agreed to volunteer at. I'm finally returning home, riding the 701 from Coquitlam to Maple Ridge, Melechesh on my headphones, feeling exhausted but okay, leaning back in my seat. In about half an hour, I'll be back here, finally - just in time to go to bed in order to wake up tomorrow and do it all again.

That's when he gets on the bus. I can't say if he's homeless or just indifferent to physical hygiene, but he's likely not rich, hauling as he is a big plastic garbage bag of what I assume are pop cans, representing his day's income. He throws these down on the row of sideways seats near the front, but rather than sitting on the FAR side of them, right at the front of the bus - where he'd be next to no one - he comes to sit immediately in front of me. Before I can actually smell him, I have a dread inkling that I'm about to experience something fairly unpleasant --not, thankfully, the sour smell of alcohol and tobacco that some such people exude, but still, the smell of a body that has gone unwashed for quite some time; the fetid, unwholesome aroma of caked-in dirt, greasy hair, unlaundered clothing, old sweat, and the various bodily fluids that might have oozed out into his clothing in one area or another over the last few weeks and there stiffened. It's a smell that is instantly recognizable and reasonably uniform among those who wash with great infrequency, and it really gets inside you, quite literally, since you realize all too well that being ABLE to smell it means that little particles of the the person's filth-cloud are going up your nose and entering your system, thereby becoming a part of you, welcome or not.

I sit for about ten minutes as the bus bumps along, trying to come up with a strategy I can live with to spare myself this particular respiratory experience. I try to ignore it, until the possibility that I might vomit starts to seem real. Then I try breathing through my mouth - no more welcoming the thought of his filth-particles lighting on my tongue than I do the thought of sucking them up my nose. It's marginally better, but still not really working. What I want to do is MOVE AWAY FROM HIM - to at least get out of the worst of it - but I don't want to do so in a way that might convey to him my disgust, which I somehow feel quite sheepish about. I have no idea what difficulties he faces in his daily life, no desire to blame or punish him for his condition - even if his choice to sit next to me was deliberate, based perhaps on some desire to act out his class rage through stinking up my life, it's pretty hard for me to hold that against the guy. To be without access to a bathtub - something most everyone can take for granted - is unfathomable to me, and alone proof of an extremely difficult and unhappy life. I want to be compassionate - I know from my experience of times when I have not been that I would feel guilty afterwards to be anything else.

At the same time, Christ, I can't bear the stink of him...

It finally occurs to me after some minutes to stand up and go make conversation with the bus driver - to ask him a question or two, and then use the opportunity of being up front to continue standing there until I get to my stop. Enough time has passed since the guy got on, I figure, that it won't be an obvious reaction to his presence. It works for awhile, though I get another noseful of buddy as he exits a few stops later... I don't appear to have hurt his feelings, at least. When I get home, I can still smell him on me, lingering in my nostrils an hour later. I guess I'll have to take a bath before going to bed. Too bad I won't have time for another one when I wake up...