brooding ’bout stuff
Years ago I was told by my parents that I had a Wobbly in my lineage on my father’s side. I asked them to write down what they remembered about him but never followed up. Until recently.
Continue reading “My Old Kentucky Home: Edgar, Willis and Green”
I wrote my first original post here three years ago this month after talking with a comrade at a prison strike support event. In part, that event commemorated the killing of George Jackson and the Attica uprising. During the event my memory went back to composers Steve Reich and Frederic Rzewski and their musical statements of solidarity with the Attica inmates and the defendants from the earlier Harlem “fruit stand” riot of 1964. In the course of conversation I realized I’d outlined the post. See Attica: Coming Together.
This week marks the fiftieth anniversary of Jackson’s murder and the Attica revolt that followed.
Continue reading “Attica @ 50”
On August 30, 2006, I received a “don’t break the chain” email from a relative, apparently by mistake. Appropriately it had no subject line because it had no substance. Nevertheless its sentimentalism compelled my response. I offer this as a snapshot in time with which to compare the present discourse.
Continue reading “False Flags”
Billy Idol has a new music video. And four dates in Vegas.
At the Chelsea. In October.
I remember first hearing Idol’s band Generation X on Rodney Bingenheimer’s show on KROQ. I thought the song was titled “Wild Dove.” Rather, it was the dub side to their second single, “Wild Youth.” It sounded so mysterious, this up-paced power-pop tune pulled apart.
Continue reading “Idol not Idle”
Saturday night, the Fall of Kabul, the Choppers of Cong, the mendacity of “Why didn’t we see this coming?” All I can think about is a poem I heard by chance on KPFK seventeen or eighteen years ago. Haunted then as I am now, remembering little, I wrote to the writer, Los Angeles poet Jan Wesley, asking for a copy.
Continue reading “Delightfully Brutal”
Last time, I said I planned to toot the horn of a new songwriter (relatively speaking), but I will toot my own—and that of my wife Andrea Carney—along the way.
Continue reading “Friendship Band”
Before I start tooting the horn of current songwriters—and shortly I will profile the thoughtful Dan Wriggins of Friendship—let me toot my own. Over the last six months my musical partner Rob Berg and I have released eighteen songs, ten of which never were issued before (unless you received a few as a homemade Christmas gift in 1987).
Continue reading “Bachelors In the Land of Nod”
This fifth in a series of portraits of Rudy Perez is akin to the third: an anatomy of a performance. For background on the dancer-choreographer Ruth St. Denis and her consort Ted Shawn, see Egyptian Deities and Jacob’s Pillow from Portrait of Rudy Perez 4. Continue reading “Portrait of Rudy Perez 5: Anatomy of a Performance 2”
CNN News Item, May 10, 2021: According to the Gun Violence Archive, at least 117 people were killed and 303 wounded in shootings across the country over 72 hours this past weekend.
Continue reading “420 Shot in 72 Hours: BFD”
I’m not a fan of royalty by any means. But being interested in design I was struck by Elizabeth II’s face mask, pictured above, prior to the funeral of her consort Philip. Continue reading “Modes of Mourning”