Swinging in the City – My Night at a Swinger’s Club
What do you wear to a swingers’ club?
No, not a ’40s-inspired dance club. My wardrobe is well set up for such an establishment. I mean a down-and-dirty, no-holds-barred (whatever that means) sex club.
I stand in my closet, a space rather devoid of PVC and latex. And other than an ill-advised pleather skirt, I possess very few clothing items made from oil by-products, with the exception of a few lycra workout tops. Which even I don’t think are de rigueur at swingers’ clubs. Read More….Click on Headline.
The Many Spellings of Suppositori
He really is a boy. He really is a mother. He really is a drag queen. He’s also hungover. It is approximately 1:30 in the afternoon on an exceptionally bright and sunny Saturday in the Castro. You know, one of those days that companies take pictures for postcards. Ironically this is appropriate considering I’m essentially taking my mother out to lunch at the institution that is Orphan Andy’s.
I’m hungover too. I guess it runs in the family. You see, Suppositori Spelling, or Spaz, or Jarred, is bizarrely my drag mother. I say bizarrely because as she would say, “My tubes have been tied.” Evidentially that doesn’t prevent her from birthing drag sons.
While waiting for a table, he tells me that “I didn’t even expect to get that far gone last night.” Another aspect of any drag queen that anyone who’s ever partied with a drag queen will tell you is that, more often than not, they do enough living for more than two people.
It often seems though that all of the personalities or roles that Jarred or Suppositori may fulfill are all hard living – in one way or another. As Jarred says his mother would say though, “That’s not necessarily real work.” But as anyone who’s seen Suppositori near the end of the night can say, she looks tired.
To this extent, Jarred goes on to say, “I’d rather survive happily than flourish miserably.” From what’s apparent, that seems to be exactly what he’s doing. He “doesn’t spend much” or “spend extravagantly.” For the most part, he seems to use his boundless love and his extensive work for currency.
And it works well. He claims he’s actually terrible with names, but certain evidence proves the contrary. For example, simply just walking with him down any street such as Castro or Folsom you can’t help like you’ve been caught in the booze-y flurry of introducing yourself to people at a bar. There’s also his family – his drag family – that, as mentioned earlier, is so large that exclusivity, by necessity, has been introduced.
The house of Spelling though is only one of many drag houses of San Francisco. What makes her house particularly interesting and “of note” is that it is, like the day of the interview, is that it often seems like it would be appropriate for some delightfully fucked-up, alternative postcard.
The family itself has all the archetypes – the squabbling siblings, the siblings that have shared sexual partners, the craving for attention, the volume control. Most of all, the strongest archetype present is that of the loving, nurturing, understanding, and maternal Suppositori Spelling.
In this way, the idea of a “drag family” feels appropriate. Jarred often advertises that “Suppositori has many personalities” and in this way, his life, with all of its lovely concurrent shades – sociable or quirky, manic or quite, drunk or hungover, Playgirl-worthy or postcard-worthy, in woman’s clothes or in men’s clothes – could fully represent what its lead the life of someone who’s (currently) a career drag queen.
Except we’re all like that. We all have many personalities living together – living cohesively. How we express each personality – whether through choice of style or through a drunken pose – is indicative of each kind of person we could be. Most people just choose one pose, or one color, and not the whole rainbow, so to speak, to live with, or to express themselves with. The shades and the other personalities are still though. A drag queen just chooses to summon one forth and create an art exhibit (or a career) out of one. And that’s really what a good mother, performer, and an artist does.
As for Spaz, as we receive both of our steaks, he explains as to why his personality can be so seemingly polarized: “I used to have to be the center of attention all the time; now I only have to be the center of the attention…some of the time.” With his family, and with his show and his work, it seems that this “anti-diva” has finally found a good piece of mind. Or at least a good medium.
The Gay 90′s – Why Rock Radio Sucks
The only thing better than reminiscing about not listening to rock radio in the 00′s is reminiscing about not listening to rock radio in the 90′s. The 90′s was FM’s last gasp as a culture-defining institution in America. AM radio telegraphed the evolution of ideals in the 60′s. In the 70′s FM solidified the unity of a generation with respect to sex, politics, money, recreational drug-use, and ill-advised facial-hair.
In the 80′s, radio was a manipulator. It absorbed our discontent, boredom, gayness, quaint modernity and coke-fueled excess and served it back to us warmly in a caramel demi-glace, indulging our collective sweet tooth while tacitly allowing us propriety over our eccentricities. We were addicts, blissfully unaware of the conspiracy afoot. With sensei-like precision, radio reversed it’s polarity over the course of the decade, morphing from mirror to puppeteer.
In 1990, radio scampered into the theater like the director of Cats on callback day, ready to move units, make money and PUT ON A SHOW!!! The script was mighty clever; the angst and the party were there. The disaffected youth. The dedication to our friends, who were more ironically evolved than the rest. The industry was even smart enough to take a few darlings from the 80′s and anoint them 90′s superstars. “Ok, ok, you can keep REM, but tell that guy to stop mumbling…”
Waddle down memory lane with me. There were Sugar Ray and Matchbox 20. Kid Rock. Smashmouth. Everlast, Everclear and Silverchair. TLC, STP, EMF and Jesus Jones. Live, Bush, and Pulp. Creed, Tool, and Incubus. There was Garbage. LOTS of Garbage. There were Goo Goo Dolls, Gin Blossoms, Cranberries, Cardigans and Semisonic. Every decade claims at least one song geared specifically toward getting stragglers laid at last call. The 60′s had “Let’s Spend the Night Together.” The 70′s and 80′s had “Let Me Take You Home Tonight” (Boston) and “Take Me Home Tonight” (Eddie Money) respectively. The 90′s got Semisonic’s “Closing Time,” with it’s no-mystery chorus, “I know who I want to take me home …” meticulously under-crafted to be singable at otherwise paralyzing blood/alcohol levels.
Photo by Merkley??? www.threequestionmarks.com
It was when “dynamics” meant playing soft, then loud, then soft again, then loud again. Clever. Metallica charted hits. The Chili Peppers decided Anthony Keidis should croon. Third wave ska came into its own as a cult wherein the faithful got back-tattoos, smoked Mexican weed and faced Long Beach, bowing in daily prayer.
It was an era of empty platitudes; verse after vacant verse about how I woke up and got all angsty for no other reason than ” … well, I’m sketchy on the details but maaaan, it all just sucks … ” “What’s Going On?!!!” shouted Linda Perry, because she didn’t really know. Neither did we, although we were informed that she woke up in a shit mood, did an enormous bong-rip and was compelled into a wordless sing-a-long that she hoped might heal us all.
And it DID heal someone: the suburbs. Rock radio before the 90′s was biased toward the deeply urban and the deeply rural. The 80′s were all about the style and excess of New York, London and LA. In the 70′s the radio gods embraced southern rock (for example) because, with the rise of the Allman Brothers and Marshall Tucker, they could count on a stronger market share in places like Mobile, Macon, Tupelo and Jacksonville. This same process was applied in the 90′s with our pals, the ‘burbs, and this time it was a go-for-broke, hostage-situation.
Suburban culture had never been so celebrated, had never felt so accepted in the rock music world. Pre-90′s, only suburban outcasts had been granted rock radio credentials (The metal world mined the suburban-misfit dollar as early as the first KISS record in 1974). In the 90′s the Recording Industry put the thickening necks and fattening wallets of the proper suburbs in their cross-hairs and forged a product perfectly suited to mall-shoppers from gated communities everywhere.
The songs were pandering and about nothing. The production values were like fists of pure ham. The drumming was perfectly gibbon-like, consistent with a gnostic directive called (perhaps), “The 10 Beats That Work.” The guitars, squashed mercilessly between the monstrous snare drum and yarled lead vocal, were played with calculated abandon.
It was dreadful and brilliant. And it worked … for a minute.
Photo by Merkley??? www.threequestionmarks.com
By 1998 it seemed we were sentenced to a popular music trajectory that would always make room for the next generation’s Korn, Offspring, or Limp Bizkit and their endless soundtrack to meathead hijinks.
And then … poof! The genie exited the bottle in early 2000 when AOL leaked the code for decentralized file sharing and reintroduced music consumers to their own listening destinies. Napster was born, sued, and beaten into submission. When the dust cleared, music-seekers discovered that as an internet-savvy republic they could look somewhere besides fascist FM radio for music that spoke to them.
A thousand lawsuits later, old-world radio plugs along in denial of its own demise, but in truth, the landscape couldn’t resemble the 1990′s less. I couldn’t be more grateful. In the last decade it has grown infinitely easier to discover an amazing band or performer on our own or through our personal online networks. New artists aim to create viral online content as opposed to pursuing record-label signing advances. This formula makes for fewer aspiring rock-stars and a greater focus on making compelling things to listen to and watch.
To be fair, the concept of radio may have a (temporarily awkward) place in our future. Genome-based Pandora and Slacker show signs of longevity, which suggests music-fans are as much seekers as ever before. Social networking helps. If Facebook is to be believed, people talk about bands and forward MP3s and videos to each other. They invite each other to shows. In radio times, such things were unnecessary. Everybody heard the same songs on the same station and music-fandom meant bragging about how we slept out all night for Journey tickets. Its likely community-based radio will adopt a new, non-regional face, with happy dimples, worry lines and a farmer tan but I’d be surprised if it took less than a lifetime.
sex and design, music, sex+design, red devil lounge, radio, fetish, erotic, songs, 90′s,
Floor Drugs – Fuck Yeah or Just Fucked?
By Jane Parton
Last night I had a few separate conversations involving the phenomenon known as “floor drugs” – you know, the lucky moment where you spot a lost bag of some unfortunate soul’s drugs lying unclaimed on the floor. One of my friends recently dared to try his found drugs and this morning told me he was feeling pretty shitty as a result. I, on the other hand, have had a few floor drug experiences in my day, all of which were actually pretty decent.
So this is the conundrum – you’re in a bar and you’ve found some drugs. How do you decide if the obvious sketchiness outweighs the potential fun? And, if moments like these make you all warm inside, are you willing to risk experiencing the major shame attack sure to follow a night of doing what will most likely be shitty drugs in an even shittier setting? From my experience, a lot of it has to do with where you are. From this you can make educated guesses as to the source of the lost drugs, which give insight into the quality and potential shady factors. To help you answer these all-important questions here is my personal cost vs. benefit commentary.
COST VS. BENEFIT ANALYSIS
18 and Over Clubs – It depends on the night, but I’d say for the most part that floor drugs found here either belong to over-privileged suburban 18-year-olds or to weird, yuppie sex predators planning to offer them to said suburban 18-year-olds. Either way, cut as a motherfucker, but probably not with anything too shady.
Dudebro/Dirty Hipster Bars – You get the satisfaction of knowing that these drugs belonged to one of those lame dudebros who you hate for “ruining the Mission” on weekends. This dudebro is (or will be in 20 minutes when he goes to do a bump and can’t find his drugs) hella bummed, and you helped make that happen! But let’s be honest, this shit will be total garbage and if you’re over 21 you will hate yourself for doing anything you picked up off the floor at a one of these places.
Trendy Hipster Bars – Keep the following in mind – the nights one is likely to find floor drugs at trendy hipster bars are weekends, the same nights bridge & tunnel douche-bags are drawn to these spots like R. Kelly to pre-teens. As you’re considering floor drugs, evaluate your fellow patrons. See that pudgy Middle Eastern computer programmer guy in the sand-washed True Religion jeans and bejeweled Bret Michaels-esque cowboy hat? Yeah, that guy over there with his Bluetooth still in his ear. Those drugs could be HIS DRUGS. Do you really want to get high off of what that guy gets high off of? I think I’ve made my point.
Hole-in-the-Wall Bars – Most of these are so mellow and cozy I find it hard to believe that people would even do drugs in them … until I started doing drugs in them. If I actually paid for my own stuff, I’d save it and do it somewhere the setting would be more enjoyable, ie. do you really want to be high on stimulants listening to songs off of Neil Young’s “Prairie Wind” album? But if it’s free, why not? I will say though, that overall, I think finding floor drugs in these spots is pretty unlikely.
Music Venues – I would imagine that the floor drugs you find in clubs like these will typically be pretty speedy. People want $40 grams but are unwilling to sacrifice on potency, so shitty amphetamines are substituted to close the gap. If you just want to get fucked up and are on board with it regardless, I’m not judging you for it. Just take it slow …and be prepared to spend the next day or two feeling dehydrated and inconsolably depressed.
College Bars – If you find floor drugs here I’d say you kind of came up. They probably belong to someone you “kind of” know. 15 minutes after you’ve found a baggie, you’ll bump into this person in the smoking room. You’ll ask how their night’s going, they’ll say, “Good, except I just lost a big bag of drugs!” (sad face) at which point you’ll get to hug them and be like, “Bummer! Well, hey, want to come do a bump with me?” and now you’re the hero and everyone’s happy.
Bike Messenger Bars – The fact that there even are floor drugs to be found at places where people exercise for a living is kind of ridiculous, but I can vouch because last summer I definitely found some. I didn’t do them because it was like 6pm, still light outside, and even I have to draw the line somewhere. As far as sketchiness goes, they’re probably fine. Anyone who brings stimulants to a bar that only serves fancy beer and sausages is kind of winning at life.
Battlehooch Does America
Every once in a blue moon a band comes into your life that makes you want to shout its praises from the rooftops. Here I go. “Yay Battlehooch!” Whew. Quickly gaining steam amongst those music lovers “in the know,” Battlehooch, a ridiculously fun, six-man band from San Francisco, will make you daaaaaance! Make you yell (apparently), and make you question your conception of music and its supposed theory.
“Death Runs Wild”, the second video in a series of “Desolation Shows” highlights the beautiful and barren landscape of America. This video, set in Arizona’s Red Rock Canyons, is merely one in an arsenal of yet to be released work that will pretty much blow your mind and rock your pants off.
Catch Battlehooch LIVE in San Francisco @ their homecoming tour!:
November 19th, 2010
Bottom of the Hill
9pm
Check out their sites and songs and discover the band that is undoubtedly going to change your life:
Revenge Porn by Cee Lo
By Mr. Brownsuit
Like many of you, when I’m hit with a friend’s all-too-frequent “Dude, you have to see this video!” excitement, I curse YouTube and settle in for 2 minutes of life I’ll never get back. Yet, every so often, the baton is passed and before you know it – you’re that guy. Today, that guy is me. Seriously, you have to see this video!
Quite possibly the best song ever written and sure to be a viral success, Cee Lo Green kills it for all us guys who have ever dated cold-hearted bitches (yeah Stephanie, I’m talking to you) by spinning the sophomoric “Fuck You!” into musical gold. Thank you Cee Lo for giving all us jaded men a voice in a song equivalent to the Mona Lisa.
The Inevitable Demise of the Pop Superstar
Braincookies by Xifer Fortier
I recently browsed through Here Come the Regulars: How to Run a Record Label With No Money by Ian Anderson. No, not THAT Ian Anderson (godfather of hobbit-rock). THIS Ian Anderson owned an indie record label in 2003. He was 18. The book was published in 2009. To be honest, I didn’t get very far — it was in the bathroom, and my house-mate returned it to the public library later that afternoon. It’s informative enough, mostly about ways the modern recording artist can maintain a commercial identity without a lot of major-label money.
Anderson goes ass-over-tit wrong almost immediately, however – somewhere around page 2 – when he suggests that major labels still look to indie acts for the next Nirvana. He states this without a hint of awareness that he is writing from a 2003 mindset and is thus dangling an imaginary dinosaur dick in the faces of otherwise promising, aspiring musicians.
Later in the same page, he says something obvious but poignant: He acknowledges that the blueprint of modern super-stardom was defined and epitomized once and for all time by the Beatles.
A few weeks back, I went to see Paul McCartney (the cute one) perform to 40,000 fans at AT&T Park in San Francisco. Total bucket-list moment. A few friends and I threw our hands up and our heads back and paid for good seats. $250 each. Beatles don’t do comps. The show was amazing. In the 3 hours between note one and the final chords of the encore, I swear I grew a skirt. Pom-poms sprung from my hands where there hadn’t been pom-poms before.
photo by Helen Pogrel
It was sold out and the entire crowd was of one mind and heart. Somewhere between the singing along and the open weeping, I had a moment to recognize that in 2010, one kinda has to be a Beatle to pull that off. The guy who defined the medium and it’s bigger-than-life stature is among the few who can live up to the unsustainable business model — who can pay a staff of hundreds, finance the infrastructure, sell 40,000 tickets, park 20,000 cars, check 30,000 I.D.s, sell 150,000 Coors Lights (at $9 each) and 20,000 orders of plastic nachos and have everyone go home happy.
The superstar of the latter 20th Century is vanishing before our eyes. More will not be farmed from the indie world. We will try to manufacture a few in our lifetimes. They will not transcend. We will not remember them fondly a decade down the road. None will be as timeless as the volume that begins with Elvis, peaks with the Beatles and ends … where? No matter what I say I’ll get hate mail. Guns and Roses? Nirvana?
Its not important where or with whom the buck stops. We’re not speaking (directly) about a lapse in artistry. We’re discussing the phenomenon of the artist whose music spans generations, who “sells” untold millions of “records” to their fans who then flock to see them perform high-production concerts in arenas, stadiums and ball-parks. Their concerts sell out early because 40,000 people in every major market in the world will pay $50 to $1500 to see them in person.
Most of these artists are over 60. Some are dying off. Others have teamed up. Aerosmith AND Sammy Hagar. The Eagles AND Fleetwood Mac. The younger ones are canceling tours. The Jonas Brothers, Christina Aguilera, Limp Bizkit, Rihanna, and the American Idol summer tours are all canceled or scaled back and those are just the ones you don’t care about. The Lilith Fair considered changing its name to “Vagapalooza” as a marketing ploy but wound up canceling outright. U2, John Mayer and Mastodon? Also canceled.
To be fair, U2 would have pulled it off if Bono hadn’t hurt himself.
More pertinently, I include Mastodon — an example of a band that plays in smaller places AS IF it has packed an arena, which makes sense artistically and fiscally. The new rockstar plays smaller joints. A week after Paul, I saw Tool play to a mere 10,000 people in Sacramento and if they can keep that up for a while, they’re way ahead of the curve.
Photo by John Karr
Acts that can pack a 5,000 seater? They’ve got a good thing going. In my estimation, the band that can sell-out a 3000 seater (to we Bay Areans, that’s the Warfield, the Fox and the Paramount) in every major market has reached an enviable pinnacle of success. If you can make it happen in the 500 – 1500 seater (somewhere between the Independent and the Fillmore), good on you too.
A focus on smaller venues and a more reasonable level of celebrity has become the primary feature of live music’s evolution. It paints the artist in a more human and accessible light. It encourages more intimate and personal performances. It respects real financial issues — the fickle economy and the tendency on the part of the music industry to eat itself. It panders to certain cultural realities, to wit: we as a music-consuming people have grown too cynical to all like the same thing for very long, UNLESS its the Beatles or some other aging Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-caliber performer.
The Hall of Fame itself will become superfluous. It is only a matter of time before we run out of rock-stars to put in there. Madonna’s in. Talking Heads. The Police. They’re the YOUNG ones. The Ramones and REM. Prince and U2. Who then? Metallica? In there already.
Radiohead? Sure, someday. Coldplay? Do we have to? If there is justice, Motorhead, Ween, Beck, and the Flaming Lips will all be welcomed before we seal the Hall shut.
My friend, Nick, foresees Lady Gaga landing in the Hall. None of us know it now, he avers with a hint of 30-grit scorn, but she will matter and we will someday see her astride that Cleveland steamer with Paul Simon and Patty Smith. Honestly? Lady Gaga, taking her rightful berth next to Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop, Michael Jackson and AC/DC? Maybe my glasses are dirty, but I’m not seeing the longevity. I’m not seeing the deep catalog. I’m not foreseeing ground-breaking innovations or palpable cultural impact. I’m certainly not seeing a 3-hour multi-decade-spanning set performed by Lady Gaga at a baseball park in 2055.
I’d cheer her on every step of the way if I thought it was remotely possible. I’d make a documentary about her rise from over-hyped and disposable through her over-exposed years, and the dark period of excess and legal troubles (Amy Wine-who?). It might culminate in the unprecedented come-back, complete with sassy make-over and career-defining masterpiece. It could end with the super-slo-mo, teary-eyed fist pump that punctuates every unlikely triumph, and like “A Hard Day’s Night,” it would be a comedy, a drama, and a love story.
Read More Braincookies:
The Gay 90′s – Why Rock Radio Sucks
Caribou and the Art? Behind Math Rock
Cocaine + Music = Genius. Duh.
Braincookies by Xifer Fortier
Let’s talk a little about the longest lasting marriage in show business, shall we? I’m speaking, of course, about music and cocaine and the way they interact – for better or worse.
Cocaine-use, in my experience, turns up as a personality trait. This observation is glib and a little judgmental, but true. From a musical standpoint, I’m not convinced that this is all bad. Am I making a pro-coke statement in print? Is that a smart career move? Will my mom ever speak to me again? Answers: “No,” “No,” and “Probably” (she’d have plenty to say).
Maybe you do coke all the damn time so as to enhance every experience – which, btw, you actively pursue with your every waking moment: the magic, the transcendence, the wonderment, the pulse of the night.
Or MAYBE you tried it once (against your better judgment) after some show. Nobody wanted the night to end and your friend (who has a sweet gig in the industry) had a hookup. Quick text. Quick text back. Cab ride. Cash. Wait. Go to someone’s house after purchase of 12-pack and vodka from corner grocery that sells booze until 1:59 am (someone has lemonade).
It looked like a ritual you might wanna experience in this lifetime. You didn’t get high (maybe a little), but the process sure was dark and dirty and fun. Your personality was altered that day. The hang changed your life. Friends (new, old and not really) spilled poignant details of their lives with a rhythm approximating a Hanna-Barbera retrospective.
The thing that coke “does” for us (in musicland, in particular) is this: It allows us to think a moment we experienced made sense on simultaneous social and sonic levels. This moment respected everything we thought about growing up, through our adolescence, and touched vaguely on our so-called adulthood…indeed until this very evening. In a world characterized by degrees of disappointment, coke reminds us slyly and with bedroom eyes that another half hour might make all the difference. The only reason “we” do it is because the promise delivers — occasionally. For every seven disappointing nights that result in the Mount Rushmore of hangovers and 3 to 5 regrettable text messages, there’s a moment the drugs/music combo brought us momentary soul-mates.
I don’t do a tremendous amount of drugs these days. In the great tradition of funnyman, Bill Hicks, I don’t have a lot of bad things to say about them. BUT, I’m one of those guys who ‘used to smoke a buncha weed’ and ‘smokes really rarely now.’ It’s great fun – when the spirit moves, the music is good, conversation is a celebration and my inner rock-star wags its tail. I get really high. I’m not maintaining.
And yes, I’ve done some coke in my lifetime. In a society culturally reticent to express it’s immediate affections, coked out clowns who enjoy the same music bond in a way that allows them to express temporary love to the point of utter stupidity. And if THAT isn’t dangerous for the music-economy, I don’t know what is …
Again I’m paraphrasing Bill. He was discussing mushrooms, and how the spiritual clarity he derived from various fungus-oriented occasions made him realize we’re all one; Nature. Creatures, humans, that chick on the Progressive Insurance ads — all of us. He might have also discussed acid’s capacity to bring to light the fractal nature of the social universe.
If you’re still reading, you’re laughing. If you’re mocking me, fuck off. If you’re reading this, its because you’re thinking, “Hmmmm.. drug rant? This could be good ..” which means YOU have been that person, have spoken earnestly about the great patterns of our existence, have felt the heartbeat of the earth or have (at the very least) declared emphatically, in front of all present, that you love them and shall be their friend forever. No foul.
Read More Braincookies:
The Gay 90′s – Why Rock Radio Sucks
Caribou and the Art? Behind Math Rock
Caribou and the Art? Behind Math Rock
Braincookies by Xifer Fortier
I hated calculus.
I aced math through junior high and high school. Given my adolescent awareness of life’s contradictions, math was comforting. There was an answer that was correct or not. There was proof. Math helped feathered-hair, acne-pocked me understand what was happening: how tall I wasn’t, the price of beer versus the pittance of my allowance, would she ever kiss me, when, and how many times?
Two eighths made a quarter and we could split it 3 ways. We would divide it in half until the end of time eternal. A negative number had no square root — or so we were told. Until…. Calculus!!! Calculus, for those fortunate to miss it, is a way of describing an unnatural obsession with the integer i, or the square root of -1.
NEGATIVE ONE!!! I had been HAD!!! Math was ambiguous! My reliable, black and white math world was no more! Never mind that calculus was the gateway to most major science. I wasn’t having it!
I failed that class. How could I excel at something I was mad at? It wasn’t the first time I had been the victim of the ol’ bait-and-switch, and it would not be the last, but I had trusted math. When I caught it with its hand in the imaginary number jar, I took it hard.
Its all bygones now. We talk, math and I, but it isn’t like the old days. We’ve grown up, and I’ve come to appreciate math in ways I never expected I would.
Music, for example; You’ve got your beats and poly-rhythms, time signatures, and so forth. There’s even a sub-genre of rhythmically complicated music referred to as math-rock. At its best, math-rock is music played very seriously to men who are not having fun (in any classic sense), but are repeatedly nodding in a fashion that indicates they understand what is happening musically. This appears to please them a great deal. At its worst, it is as cumbersome to hear as it is to dance to.
The Independent, San Francisco 5.24.10
I spent last Sunday and Monday evenings working with Caribou at the Independent in San Francisco. Caribou is the artist name of Daniel Snaith. Much has been made in the music press about the fact that Snaith has a PhD in mathematics and has (in interviews) cited abstract math as a conceptual inspiration.
In the shadow of a psychedelic video-jam, Caribou played a 90-minute set that careened wildly from electro-dance party to noisy, epic space-rock explorations.
The sold-out crowd was an amalgam — burners, early-20′s dance-club kids, and fixed-gear bike-hipsters in full regalia. One pie-eyed gentleman was fully dressed as a leopard. By my estimate, roughly half the room was tripping balls. They were in love with this band, themselves and each other.
There was this level of abandon that is, in my experience, reserved for raves and jam-bands, which is compelling because Caribou is a jam-band for folks who grew up in a culture where the DJ is king. Go ahead and laugh. In the same way the Grateful Dead synthesized bluegrass and jazz into electrified sound-scapes for the ecstatic, Caribou borrows aesthetic cues from electro, techno and break-beat culture and jams it out so the psychedelically-inclined feel alright. Its not a ho-down with a noodley guitar-solo. It’s a remix, performed by human beings who are near you, playing instruments a few feet away.
The sum of parts is more metaphysical than mathematic; Snaith plays with our expectations, worries us, extending noisy or dissonant passages for as long he can before relieving us with a satisfying da-boom-tiss-boom, da-boom-tiss-boom, da-boom-tiss-boom, that encourages us to breathe.
Band and crowd connect. They agree on a lexicon of sonic touchstones and an arc of musical drama. It is interactive and nerd-sexy. It speaks to the cultural role of music in a way that might make DJ and hippie-rock cultures both blush.
Snaith and bassist, John Schmersal sing the word “sun” repeatedly for 5 minutes. Their voices disappear in a synthy lightening bolt. The snare drum rolls and cymbals swell. The writhing mass awaits the climactic corner where dedicated drummer, Brad Weber, and Snaith (on 2nd drum-kit), break-beating in unison, bring it to the next level. By the time they return to the “sun” chorus for another 5 minutes (5 minutes is a long time, btw), eyes are closed and arms are raised.
Smiles are downright goofy. Band and audience have discarded any concern with looking cool – They are 5 and it is Christmas. Snaith is drumming, hunched and squinty, like an accountant changing a tire in the rain (the way nerdy guys express joy). The room is a celebration.
They arrived at this place as a result of a group effort of soul and spirit, hope and faith, toil and sweat. There are enough variables to make ridiculous the question of how this formula fits neatly into an equation. In fact, it suggests Snaith has less in common with Isaac Newton than he does with Jerry Garcia.
Say what you want about Jerry. He was a guitar craftsman on a par with George Harrison, Curtis Mayfield, and Joe Pass. Jerry heard a sound that he chased for a lifetime and was fortunate to play for a devout audience that searched day in, day out for that same sound. He played on an empathy for desire typical to the human condition, to wit: We all desire a journey wherein comfort is threatened by chaos which is eventually conquered by joy itself.
Jerry was also the driving force behind the highest grossing concerts of the 90′s. Go ahead and laugh.
There are few creatures as idiotic and misdirected as the 17-year-old American male. I have no recollection of why I felt so cheated by a concept so tepid as predictability. After my breakup with math, I came to realize that a world we can count on to behave consistently isn’t just impossible. It is hopelessly over-rated and boring.
The Quadratic Equation isn’t funky. We don’t revel in the expected outcome or dance to the absolute value. We require the bravado of the incongruous. We pine for the algorithm of transcendence.
We invite the feeling of falling, that we have then been caught, and that we subsequently saved the world together. The idea that one of us, individually, arrived at a repeatable, correct answer is not only joyless. It is as imaginary as the integer i.
Read More Braincookies:
Snapshots From a Call Girl – Sanjay
Sanjay
$1000
I met him at his suite at the W hotel which was nice but I was expecting much more than just a normal looking hotel room with a corner banquette. He asked me to look “natural and sweet” which for him meant a cheap cotton dress from Nanette Lepore and cowboy boots from Justin. I put my hair into a ponytail because I know he likes to pull it down.
He had perfect lines of coke cut up on the glass coffee table and offered me one. Normally I never do drugs with a client but I know him well and he prefers it. He always seems to have a supply, though I’ve never seem him partake. As I bent over the table, he sat deep into the leather banquette seats and unzipped his pants. Before the cocaine had even begun to take effect he grabbed the back of my head and forced his hard dick into my mouth.
He likes when I struggle and he has to force. I put both my arms onto his thighs and try to pull away. He twists his grip onto my hair and uses it to push me back onto him. I gag and choke, spit coming out of my mouth with every thrust allowing his dick to slide back and forth easily. “My dick can feel the coke on the back of your throat,” he says. His free hand is down the front of my shirt squeezing my breast tightly. He rams deeper into me, causing me to gag quite a bit. Each time he hits my throat he pinches my nipple so hard and painfully I want to cry out. “God, I love to fuck your mouth you dirty fucking slut,” he says over and over again until he pauses and I can feel warm liquid spew into me, filling my entire mouth. He pulls my head off of him but in a very gentle way this time. “God, you’re beautiful,” he says. “There’s a toothbrush in the bathroom.”
I Will Never Go Hungry Again
Splatter Art by Holden Starstruck
The first and only thing you should know is that this life isn’t for everyone. This isn’t Carrie fucking Bradshaw pondering on the holy trinity of style, nightlife, and romance. This column is the Fight Club meets Disco Bloodbath of the online sphere.
The drugs, the alcohol, the sexual escapades, the drag, and the explicit life get to people after a while. Some people get tired, some people get apathetic, some people get psychotic. Other people say it’s sinful. My sentiment on that is irreversible evidence for an afterlife has yet to manifest. So for all that’s proven, this could be hell, and for a lot of people it is. Hell or heaven, the Odysseian path and Swiftian sensibilities I choose are those of the lover, the libertine, the scholar, the gypsy, and the party monster.
May I never stop wandering. This path, this life upon a moving hearth I’ve inherited, originated from the first time I ever read from a little book known as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, at the fresh age of fifteen.
For months all I wanted to experience was acid. I had never smoked a joint, taken a pill of Ecstasy, or even fucked another guy (that’s right, I’m a fairy). I eventually did locate Lucy after months of calling her number.
It was intense, to say the least. It seems as though that ever since my life has been nothing less than bohemian rhapsody. The following years of high school for me were full of stimulant binges, psychedelic experiences, poetic exploration, journalistic intrigue, and sexual deviancy.
I lost my virginity in a threesome in my senior year of high school. With a girl and a guy. They were a couple. My first near relationship was with a 29-year-old drag queen I met after drinking in a Castro alleyway at the age of seventeen. It lasted a good three or four months.
That brings me to my life now. I don’t live for “the scene.” I live for myself. You can choose to do so too, but I’m sure as fuck not going to tell you how to live your life.
I choose to live for myself because any other way of living leads to personal failure. No one is going to love you unless you love yourself. And in the end, taking care of yourself is the only way you can learn for all the hangovers, the vomit, the teeth chattering, the serotonin loss, the breakdowns, and the heartaches.
And I genuinely think a good majority of the populace don’t take care of themselves as much as they should. They should drink more water. They should sleep more. They should give less of a shit what others think and act through what they feel.
At such a young age, I’ve discovered that I’m not okay. I’ll never be. My emotions will always be a splatter painting from my personal experiences. Life is like that. And if I don’t cherish my emotional art, I’m ashamed, it’ll fucking mean nothing. And if it means nothing to me, then it’ll mean nothing to everyone else. I refuse to let the shame laid down by society prevent me from receiving the pleasure it has on hold.
So here I am. To experience all that the land, the waters, the offices, the bars, the papers, and the notes that life has to offer. And I refuse not to reciprocate with this life that I love.
To Do: Buy Kneepads
By Erin Feher
Remember when you were six and you had a list of incredibly cool things that you wanted to do when you grew up? Well, that list worked out pretty well for me (live in California, write a book, marry someone who hails from a sketchy South American country, own one of those one-piece bathing suits with the stomach cut out), so I never really abandoned the habit. And now I have a new item that has pretty much taken priority: dance like Ciara.
This idea came to me like many brilliant ideas do: coming home too late after too many drinks one night and watching MTV. Her newest video “Ride,” is the hottest fucking thing I have ever seen. And there is no reason—like being white, or thirty, or without access to a mechanical bull—that I cannot be just like her. So, being a woman of action, I told my yoga instructor to peace out for a while, signed up for three-months worth of dance classes, and most importantly, bought some expensive sneakers with metallic accents. It is SO on.
Heartless
By J. Broadway
The FRAY – Heartless from IE HAGY on Vimeo.
Editor IE HAGY has recently posted The Fray’s music video for their cover of Kanye West’s “Heartless” to his vimeo page. Not only is The Fray’s rendition of the song really quite dope, but the video is also pretty interesting and quirky, featuring an animated anatomically correct heart running around leaking pencil-drawn blood.
Interestingly, Kanye’s video for the original version of the track was animated as well, featuring Waking Life style rotoscoped figures. Both videos are up on MTVmusic.com as well.
Sex Therapy
The austere funk of “Make U Love Me” and the title track is cribbed straight from the FutureSex/LoveSounds playbook, but it works for the same reasons. The beats are insistent but not intrusive, the perfect canvas for Thicke’s breathy falsetto and carnal come-ons. But when he breaks from singing, in favor of Nelly-esque melodic chatting, he seems out of his depth; “Shakin’ It 4 Daddy” shines a more flattering light on it-girl Nicki Minaj, a guest star on an album with too many of them. Plus, without the vocal acrobatics, there’s more reason to pay attention to cringe-worthy lyrics like those on “Rollacoasta”: “Hate me in the morning, sex me up at noon / Girl, have me for dinner, baby tease me with your food.” But Thicke makes much of the album fly, especially the opening track, “Mrs. Sexy,” a surprisingly straightforward cover of Eric B. and Rakim’s “Mahogany.” The idea shouldn’t work for anyone, especially the guy known for “Lost Without U.” But this high tolerance for risk is what makes Sex Therapy admirable, even when it isn’t entirely enjoyable.