{"id":8245,"date":"2022-04-25T00:02:05","date_gmt":"2022-04-25T06:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/?p=8245"},"modified":"2025-07-08T00:25:42","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T06:25:42","slug":"picture-perfect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/2022\/04\/25\/picture-perfect\/","title":{"rendered":"Picture-Perfect"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Ten days ago Rob Berg and I rounded out the Bachelors Anonymous studio catalog with <em>The Big Picture.<\/em> Rob came up with the album title and the cover design: a rainbow emerging behind us as we frame ourselves (at a 1990 New Year&#8217;s Eve party held at the home of Anne Atwell-Zoll, who sang backup with Ann Russell). My first thought was that the rainbow is pass\u00e9, but with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/politics\/politics-news\/texas-school-board-ousts-teacher-over-pro-lgbtq-rainbow-stickers-1342040\/\">resurgence of a loathing<\/a> that never left, I&#8217;m reminded of those peace symbol posters from an earlier era: Back By Popular Demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 400px; height: 406px; margin-bottom: 20px !important;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=4096189936\/size=large\/bgcol=333333\/linkcol=4ec5ec\/artwork=small\/transparent=true\/\" seamless><a href=\"https:\/\/bachelorsanonymous.bandcamp.com\/album\/the-big-picture\">The Big Picture by Bachelors Anonymous<\/a><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p>My wife <a href=\"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/author\/andreacarney\/\">Andrea Carney<\/a> and I met one of the people who claimed to have created the rainbow flag. We were in San Francisco from L.A. for a demonstration against the impending invasion of Iraq and I&#8217;d obtained a <a href=\"https:\/\/subscribe.adbusters.org\/products\/corporate-america-flag\">corporate flag<\/a> from Adbusters for the occasion. We needed a pole for the flag and found a maker open that Saturday of the protest, October 26, 2002. A &#8220;Steve&#8221; ushered us into his studio. We gave him the flag and he went to work. &#8220;I created the rainbow flag,&#8221; he told us. &#8220;You can read about it over there while you&#8217;re waiting,&#8221; pointing to a framed article on the wall. I remember something about his having fabric remnants of several colors, and I think he denied being gay, but that&#8217;s about it. The pole he fashioned for us was nicely sturdy, measuring 8&#8242; x 1&#8243; with a gilt ball-style finial and a rounded toe, the flag fastened at its grommets with screw eyes. It barely fit inside our Prius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don&#8217;t know Steve&#8217;s surname, so I&#8217;ve been unable to follow up on his flag these twenty years later. I know I&#8217;d read about a controversy regarding whether the rainbow flag&#8217;s putative creator, Gilbert Baker, had some assistance in dreaming up its design. Baker died in 2017, just shy of the 40th anniversary of the flag&#8217;s 1978 debut, and in 2018 <em>The Advocate<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.advocate.com\/pride\/2018\/6\/29\/history-and-controversy-behind-rainbow-pride-flag\">named the names<\/a> of those who claimed collaboration. Last year the <em>Los Angeles Blade<\/em> posted a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.losangelesblade.com\/2021\/06\/13\/lgbtq-rainbow-flag-was-born-in-san-francisco-but-its-history-is-disputed\/\">lengthy interview<\/a> online with two of those collaborators, Lee Mentley and Lynn Segerblom&nbsp;(aka Faerie Argyle Rainbow).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In any case, you can&#8217;t play an album cover, as we used to say back in the day of dog-eared LP sleeves. The music behind <em>The Big Picture<\/em>\u2019s cover is some of the Bachelors&#8217; finest. Picture-perfect or <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20230206023218\/http:\/\/www.hickapedia.com\/dictionary\/item\/purt-near.html\">purt-near<\/a>, as my maternal grandmother would say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Album<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The Big Picture<\/em> leads off with &#8220;What&#8217;s This Feeling?&#8221; which I <a href=\"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/2021\/12\/30\/whats-this-feeling\/\">wrote about<\/a> in December, followed by &#8220;In Another Time,&#8221; written for Andrea&#8217;s 50th birthday celebration at which Bachelors Anonymous performed. I consider the lyrics to be my best, likely because I was not writing in the abstract. <a href=\"https:\/\/bachelorsanonymous.band\/2022\/04\/in-another-time\/\">Read<\/a> the story behind the song on our BachelorBlog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/bachelorsanonymous.band\/2022\/04\/our-creation\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/bachelorsanonymous.band\/2022\/04\/our-creation\/\">Our Creation<\/a>&#8221; and &#8220;Laissez-Faire&#8221; are reincarnations of\u2014improbably and respectively\u2014songs about the neutron bomb and a specialty coffee drink. The latter was an instrumental that Rob wrote in about 1992, asking me for &#8220;rap&#8221; lyrics last fall. I began my draft on a theme of the song&#8217;s original title, &#8220;Big City Latte,&#8221; but I took so long that Rob fashioned a tune that called for a new lyrical incarnation. As <a href=\"https:\/\/bachelorsanonymous.band\/2022\/05\/laissez-faire\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/bachelorsanonymous.band\/2022\/05\/laissez-faire\/\">I write<\/a> in a forthcoming post on the <a href=\"https:\/\/bachelorsanonymous.band\/news\/\">BachelorBlog<\/a>, &#8220;I imagined a protagonist less cynical than the typical Bachelor of three decades ago. And so it&#8217;s ironic that Rob&#8217;s original scratch choruses provide a cool counterpoint to the earnest entreaties of the verses.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Seriously,&#8221; as I&#8217;ll <a href=\"https:\/\/bachelorsanonymous.band\/2022\/05\/seriously\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/bachelorsanonymous.band\/2022\/05\/seriously\/\">explain<\/a> on the BachelorBlog, was &#8220;an answer to the voices in my head that questioned my moving to the dark side&#8221; in my conversion to Catholicism that began in 1989.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In &#8220;Father&#8217;s Day&#8221; I lifted a line\u2014and <a href=\"https:\/\/bachelorsanonymous.band\/2022\/05\/fathers-day\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/bachelorsanonymous.band\/2022\/05\/fathers-day\/\">overall inspiration<\/a>\u2014from a poem I wrote during an apprenticeship with Allen Ginsberg at Naropa in 1978. It&#8217;s a bittersweet song made more bittersweet by the memory of dedicating it to my father at a show my parents caught in 1990, with Madonna and Sandra Bernhard leaving before our set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The album ends with two cover songs, so to speak. &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/bachelorsanonymous.band\/2022\/05\/on-on-on-on\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/bachelorsanonymous.band\/2022\/05\/on-on-on-on\/\">On, On, On, On&#8230;<\/a>&#8221; appeared on the first LP by Tom Tom Club, the Talking Heads offshoot. We had only a vocal-less backing-track mix in our archive, with a peculiar lead-in featuring stock jungle-animal voices. We couldn&#8217;t recall its purpose, so we omitted it, but the song&#8217;s instrumental break gave us a chance in performance to introduce members of our live act, and gave us a chance on this album to repurpose that break, as you can hear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/bachelorsanonymous.band\/2022\/06\/exercise-in-revolution\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/bachelorsanonymous.band\/2022\/06\/exercise-in-revolution\/\">Exercise in Revolution<\/a>&#8221; was adapted from a score we crafted in 1987 for director Zack&#8217;s UCLA production of Megan Terry&#8217;s <em>Home<\/em>. The text is by Julian Beck, cofounder of The Living Theatre, from <em>The Life of the Theatre<\/em> (originally issued by Ginsberg&#8217;s publisher City Lights). We approached Julian&#8217;s son Garrick for permission to adapt his father&#8217;s prose and, gratefully, it was granted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The album credits are <a href=\"https:\/\/bachelorsanonymous.band\/2022\/04\/the-big-picture\/#credits\">available here<\/a>. As mentioned above, we&#8217;ll be telling the stories behind the songs (and recordings) on the BachelorBlog in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the mean time, it would help us if you can subscribe to our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCKwEG541cPkG2_44OH8JwLA\">YouTube channel<\/a>. Once we reach 100 subscribers we can customize our YouTube address from the unwieldy https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCKwEG541cPkG2_44OH8JwLA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCKwEG541cPkG2_44OH8JwLA\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"525\" height=\"542\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/BA_YouTube_Channel.jpg?resize=525%2C542&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"BA YouTube Channel screenshot\" class=\"wp-image-8268\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/BA_YouTube_Channel.jpg?resize=992%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 992w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/BA_YouTube_Channel.jpg?resize=291%2C300&amp;ssl=1 291w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/BA_YouTube_Channel.jpg?resize=768%2C793&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/BA_YouTube_Channel.jpg?w=1017&amp;ssl=1 1017w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Please <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCKwEG541cPkG2_44OH8JwLA\">visit our YouTube channel<\/a> and select the red SUBSCRIBE button.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Big Picture rounds out the Bachelors Anonymous catalog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[34,33],"tags":[1049,861,1227,388,1226],"class_list":["post-8245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lgbt-history","category-music","tag-andrea-carney","tag-bachelors-anonymous","tag-rainbow-flag","tag-rob-berg","tag-the-big-picture"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/BA_Picture_Frame_Rainbow_1920w.jpg?fit=1920%2C1344&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paF2cn-28Z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10017,"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8245\/revisions\/10017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}