Empire Rocket Machine, Glass Elevator, Wizard Boots at Someday Lounge 3/9/11

Jotted down at the Empire Rocket Machine/ Glass Elevator/ Wizard Boots show at Someday Lounge 3/9/11:

So, Piotr, here's the notes:

This place is a delight for an old man like me– lots of room, no one at my elbow, plenty of white to fill with drunken schoolboy fantasy– loud but not too loud– crowd just learning to enjoy itself, not gone existential on its own predilections–

A roundabout way of saying the place is full of beautiful, naturally graceful women, none of which I am allowed to even consider as anything more than platonic definitions of "woman"– as anything more than a stark line drawing in a desktop dictionary–

Nevertheless, I have the great good fortune of seeing a young man on his way up, a guy I don't even really know but for whom I have so many genuinely good wishes– because if his future remains unbroken, so there is hope for my own– woven as he is into my childhood– and apart from this selfish reason, as much as anyone deserves success, certainly this serious-minded young man does– he wants to feed people's imaginations as he feeds his own and that's all. I only talked with him a few minutes and yet I know this– and who can argue with the rightness of this proposition? No one but a liar with something to sell... I must back his play, it is an imperative.

This means I buy him a drink and buy his cd. This is my "rent"...

Perhaps I can just drop all this foolish resentment I feel for the young– those younger than me that is– because they're better equipped than I to deal with this shit we're in, and can't I learn from them? Why not?

"Vincent of Jersey"– Big Head Todd & the Monsters

There is a bus line that runs across the ocean– to a rock island that has no close neighbors. The bus runs every five years. No one ever seems to take it– the fare is unbelievably cheap.

There's a station on the island– a peeling one-room cabin with a sink whose drain goes nowhere, points straight down into the cabinet like a surprised mouth– a sprung cot, some ancient, tattered porn and a Tecumseh refrigeration catalogue are the only reading material.

The structure is not well-insulated. When the wind blows, and it always blows, there's a chill blade in the cot and your ass feels like a popsicle. There's only room for one– but that's one more than is ever there.

There is a portrait on the wall– John McLoughlin, the Father of Oregon– the White Eagle, staring at you through the decades with those white daguerrotype eyes and the single most arresting and non-erotic image imaginable, guaranteeing that no couple, however misguided, however dominated by one incomplete intellect– would ever stay under his watchful gaze.

Provision there is none.

There is a battered locker outside with a corroded padlock, better than any cooler– anything left outside will stay cold, don't worry– but it's empty.

Incredibly, there are signs of habitation– in a surprisingly well-appointed desk opposite the cot there is a ledger– filled with fading script, pushed into the cheap paper with a fountain pen– but the pages have been torn out for fuel, at random.

The entries are not dated but record a mundane session of surf fishing and desperate masturbatory fantasies that attenuate into meditations on the last station before the island, a kiosk that offered soggy hoagies puncutated by gritty, blackened lettuce and a puckered tomato slice that announced itself on the tongue only– posing a question that only the violently ill could answer.

The man that sold the hoagies, along with month-old copies of Truck Trader and Nickel Ads, had a face like the wilted tomato– all seams and expectation burned and scraped off to a killing point. He spat frequently and copiously, yet never seemed to take in any kind of nourishment, liquid or otherwise. He disdained any sort of interaction, including trade– the sight of money triggered a dismissive hock across the bow, a revolting parabola of slime– the only change in expression one of angle, like a lizard eyeing an ant.

Nothing will ever be repaired, nothing will be quite the same again– only the mountains and the sky stay the same. We say they change so they can change with us, so we can pretend to swing in their stride– while we round out– in looking on them we look on infinity and build our expectation on this childlike lie– when it's as Hank Stamper says and it's nothing but working & screwing– and the mountains look down on us.

Perhaps the old man at the kiosk knows all this, I wouldn't put it past him. If he does, he doesn't have the time or the inclination to tell the likes of you. He is a place marker, a human null, and resists successfully all attempts to guess his "special case". And, of course, he could give a fuck about yours.

..........

Look at Empire Rocket Machine's page on Facebook and buy their album. You can preview the songs on Grooveshark here. These guys care about their sound, and you can't take that for granted, now certainly more than ever. They put me in mind of some of these earnest, careful indie bands of the early 90s whose serious approach has seemed to go by the board completely.

The music industry is so full of empty hucksterism and offensive leering now, it's practically a public duty to support guys like this. They are the glue that hold a rock scene together.

The Octopus Project and Man or Astro-man at Doug Fir

The Octopus Project

Birdstuff seemed kind of angry last night; even Coco noticed it, saying in a low voice "Lot of cuss words" after Birdstuff asked for a cheer for their home state of Alabama. "That's it? For chrissake, we invented the fuckin' Moon Pie!" Then later, as he wound down: "Who gives a fuckin' shit about this band?" He had stayed quiet most of the set, saving his anger for the drums, so when he finally talked, the contrast between his angry humor and Coco's good-natured banter was stark.

I myself was none too patient; a crowded show at the Doug Fir is honestly not my idea of a good time. Man or Astro-man made it a good time, but there's a lot to sour your mood. I guess I just don't like crowds: I don't like people so close they're almost leaning against me, I don't like the endless chain of "sorry"s as I'm jarred by people's elbows and bags, I don't like all the standing around and the ache in my lower back.

I also don't like the waiting around for a half-hour to hour past showtime to see the band actually start, because I know it's just a cheap dodge to get people to buy more drinks and beer.

But the Octopus Project and Man or Astro-man made me forget all of these things for a while. It didn't happen right away; but eventually the easy grace of Yvonne Lambert and the unsinkable Coco lifted me out of my raw mood. Now I realize that perhaps this is the best a band can hope for; they're sort of trapped in their context, the ear-splitting volume that sometimes muddies their more subtle effects, the resentment caused by people kept waiting to buy overpriced liquor, the general excitement, impatience and mood of disappointed expectancy... They take all this on their shoulders when they perform. These two bands did it with style and grace, even Birdstuff, who, though angry, retained his sense of humor.

And Octopus Project had the double burden of opening for a band they seemed to genuinely admire, which I always thought would be tough. But they were very interesting, very engaging; I don't think they have to apologize to anyone. And it was wonderful to see another accomplished theremin player in a band that can rock.

The music of the Octopus Project is of a type that's attracted a lot of adherents these days: I suppose some would call aspects of it "emo", a deplorable bit of music jargon that cheapens the powerful and elevates the derivative. Their rhythms are driving, but back slower, more sentimental melodic lines in the keyboard sections. The effect is powerful, and in some ways, easy. But they manage to combine this popular style with other, less predictable effects, and that driving beat is still there... There, in fact, is their individual style, as it should be with any rock band. For reasons to watch them live, Yvonne Lambert's theremin playing alone would be reason enough, but there's plenty more to like. For one thing, they came out in shirts and ties. Sure, they were wearing sneakers, but I won't hold that against them. I mean, the Beatles first played in black turtlenecks and tennis shoes. And Yvonne wore a very striking green satin dress with flaring skirt and managed to look easy and natural in it... The contrast of her graceful and precise movements and the red-haired guitarist and all his angular bopping was arresting. (Buy their music on Amazon here).

Man or Astro-man

As for Man or Astro-man, their set was pure mayhem. Later, Celeste said they weren't as tight as the last time she saw them (she did qualify this statement by mentioning that they'd been playing together for a short time since their breakup. She was just as impressed as I was and owns way more of their albums). Maybe I'm not as much of a music lover or as observant, but I didn't notice. I think listening to them or Sun-Ra (the great man was also from Alabama) is the closest most of us get to space travel. Tragically, I have less to say about them because I'm no musician and can only describe the performance in very clumsy approximations... Suffice to say that Man or Astro-man's engines are still quite operational. The term "space surf" approximates their sound (see Destroy All Astromen!, Project Infinity), for those of you who haven't heard their music. They're basically a latter-day Ventures obsessed with 50s and 60s sci-fi and the early NASA program. This appears in their music as dialogue samples from the films and video clip reels running on screens behind the performance; last night the images flickered on a screen and gigantic radar dish behind the drums. Occasionally Coco pulls out the tesla coil.

I gathered from Birdstuff's words that they feel they've been pushed aside. Well, if my opinion is shared by any other, this is simply not true. Their fan base is intact and always ready for more of their rock ray treatments (to treat yourself in the privacy of your own home, buy their albums).

I hope some of Birdstuff's disappointment and anger was zapped by the high-inensity Van Allen Belt of rock generated last night; I know the treatment did me good.

N.B.: We cast around for eating places in the neighborhood and settled on Pambiche on NE 28th and Glisan. That was a good choice. Since it was a Wednesday night there were plenty of empty tables, and once you're in, you're in; there's no tedious probation period while the staff decide if you're hip... They just come and take your drink order, then your food, and it's excellent. I had the Lengua en Salsa, a slow-cooked pork dish in spicy/sweet tomato sauce and rice, and a couple sangrias. I've only been there on a couple other occasions, but each time I was treated well and the food was very good. Think of them anytime, but especially when you're going to the Doug Fir or Laurelhurst Theater.

More Beer Please

Swanee... How I love ya, how I love ya... Am I regressing, to some future past flavored by woodsmoke, homebrew and the smell of rotting apples? Am I going back to my Indiana home? Perhaps. Sometimes, especially when Robs and I are knocking around together, I feel my well-hidden clumsy white boy rising to the surface. Jesus God!

Is that really all there is? No rope end quivering in the nothingness, no Dougie Fairbanks leaping in and out of clay jars, no Captain Blood, no Indiana Jones, no chance to break through, behind the sweet pine 2 x 3s and into the outer darkness of gaffer's tape and klieg lights... Nothing out there but unfulfilled dreams and final ridiculousness. It's all this side of the set, this moment under the lights, an endless string of pearls, each pearl a moment rolling downstage and into a gutter somewhere... Never to be seen again.

For now it seems this is a year that was all winter; there was a spring, a sort of businessman's spring that existed on a calendars only, then a final, sick sort of green in the leaves... Then frost and squelching mud and death. How 'bout that?

And somehow I am still here, I drink, I breathe, I sweat, I hear the jazz like a fast train carrying me somefuckingwhere, anyway... The things that used to please me please me all the more now, now when I need them to recede into a decent background, become set dressing for my adult life... They come out mugging, leering, snapping fans and striking provocative poses, just when I need to forget my own lack of drive, my own lack of, well, shall we say oomph... Like some burlesque put on for you and you alone and you can't leave... Ah, what the hell... At some point it all dries to a sort of fine, faint smell that you barely remember, like the memory of water on baking cobbles... Yet the hard outer layer remains, a stubborn old stump whose sweetness was long ago leached out into the ungrateful sand. That's where we old men go, right? Into a kind of desert? Or a swamp, roots drowned in alcohol... So laugh now, cry now, while you still can... Even if it's just a play, even if it's all for show.

The bushes outside the restaurant make a map of intriguing little cul-de-sacs on the panels below the windows. For a moment I give the designers too much credit, imagine that they've cleverly pasted an appliqué of a foliage pattern on the outside of the panel. But no, it's just the traffic on Division on a Monday night, just the glare of big, bad life intruding on our interior; just the dreary reality of a Portland Monday night punctuating our consumption of pasta in identical white bowls. I've learned to lean forward into this rain of blows, learned a stance that will protect me from the worst of the bruising checks and bone-crunching blows against the half boards. I mean, what the fuck? What do I expect? I am technically adult, supposedly and on paper able to deal with these little frissons.

Why then am I sore? Why am I still not quite numb? What the fuck? The real purpose of a stocked bar: it's there when you need it.

We stop in at Apex Brewing. There's a granny smith-green tandem bike hanging from the ceiling with a block-printed tag hanging on: "Double Douche". The walls are covered with bicycles and motorcycles, code for the faithful. I ignore it all and enjoy my beer. Live and let live. Just drink, drink and forget. Or no, not forget, no, no, not forget. Reset. Reboot. A human who's learned to mimic his technology. Ingest the right chemical and reboot, magically regress to a specific moment, defined by not so much a hope of an outcome, but an ignorance of one, a willingness to entertain the best possible. Does that make sense? No matter. I am insulated by a sovereign tonic: ginger ale and rye whiskey. Honestly, it takes out pretty much everything.

Listen to this while you read the rest of my bullshit.

While I sit there listening to the loud and not too annoying music and the sounds of the pinball machine in the next room, a group of twenty- or thirty-somethings walk in, one of them on crutches, but all clean-cut and obviously in some bracket significantly higher than mine... They walk in and sit at another high table, glad but not joyous, happy but not over-happy, sexual but not unhealthily so, just glad to be there and enjoy some brews and be clean and well-adjusted. I instantly hate them, with an unreasoning, totally unjustified, contemptible hatred. Just another pudgy Portland hater eating his liver over a cool brew. But I plug in, I pitch in my dollar a drink, I get service, I get a smile. It's all part of the deal. After all, I am an aging freeloader, an improbably lucky man whose luck is the wrong flavor and who resents the fact. Where's the pathos in that?

On the other hand, the beer is pretty good. Those Germans, you have to hand it to them if only for their beer alone. Even the inexpensive stuff is pretty good, not like the head-pounding, bilious piss that the big American brewers dump into the public trough. I think this while I hoist a great glass stein of Warsteiner Dunkel, drink a silent toast to any unknown German forbears that may have been brewers. Then I think of Germans on Our Side: Günter Grass, Werner Herzog, Jörg Buttgereit. All they want is to tell the truth as they see it. See that place. See only that place. Don't look back, don't look back, just see that.

The little Iron Monger figurine waits in his coffin at the center of the board for a steelie to hurtle along and jar him into life. What would happen were no one to put in their fifty cents? He would just sit there, waiting, patiently, for someone to drop their quarter. Perhaps he would wait a long time. And when they did he would have to act as if he had been paid the courtesy just recently, just a while ago, when in fact he had waited through millenia, through endless golden and silver arcs of day and night, endless dusty hours... And who am I, who are we at any given moment? Are we the player or the figurine? Ah well, fuck it.

Lemmy

We just came home from a trip to the Clinton St. Theater to see Lemmy: 49% Motherfucker, 51% Son of a Bitch. A fine sketch of a true original and one of the greatest rockers Britain ever produced. Lemmy and Motörhead are still kicking ass after thirty plus years of solid rock. Go see it before the print moves on. It's showing through January 20th.

The one song I wished they'd included in the movie: "Shoot You in the Back", from Ace of Spades. I want to see an ultrasplashy spaghetti western with music by Lemmy.

Southeast Loops 1: Two Bridges and Bushwhacker

I've wasted endless hours trying to diagram my walks around town on Google Maps. There's just too many lines and points; pretty soon the map is unreadable, unless you want to save a new map for each loop, which is also impractical. So I'm going to describe them as posts on this blog and link to the places on a Google Map. Open the links in a new tab or window so you can refer to the map without toggling between map and text constantly. For a map to take with you, I recommend the very good and free maps from the Portland Department of Transportation. They show fairly all the features that are important to a pedestrian: food, drinking water, bathrooms, sidewalks, signals, and many other points of interest (including Heritage Trees- see below).

The first walk on the list is also probably the one I take the most: the Two Bridges/ Bushwhacker Loop. It takes you through some quiet neighborhood streets and even a little industrial: you get to cross the rails twice on two different pedestrian overpasses.

Start at SE Milwaukie and Mall. Cross Milwaukie at Center and walk down the hill to SE 15th St. Head north through Brooklyn Elementary park, then turn east on Lafayette. Cross SE 17th and climb the stairs of the footbridge there. At the other end of the bridge walk north up SE 20th. At Division cross to Ladd and walk northwest to Ladd's Circle. Follow the circle west to SE 16th and walk south through the south square. Worth a look there is the impressive old brick structure on the St. Philip of Neri lot. At Division you'll find a nondescript tan building that I suppose is a garage, based on several muscle cars I've seen there in the past. Cross Division and walk south on 16th. Follow 16th to SE Brooklyn St. Here Brooklyn ends at another footbridge that crosses the tracks behind a lumber yard. Take the steps and turn right, or northwest, up Brooklyn, then turn left on SE 13th Place. Turn left and cross Powell at the crosswalk in front of Southeast Grind coffee. Walk south through the Subway parking lot to find Bushwhacker cider and have a pint (or two, or four). If you can still see straight, turn south on SE 12th and walk to SE Pershing. Turn west and cross Milwaukie at the light. Walk south along Brooklyn Park and turn west again at SE Haig, a narrow cobble street that really ought to be one-way but isn't. Admire the hot rods and various collectible cars in Majhor Murray's lot. Walk up the steep hill to SE 10th and turn south. On 10th see some interesting architecture: a rolled-eave craftsman, a handsome roman brick veneer home and, if you look one block east at Center, the 1901 Sacred Heart church. Walk down 10th to Cora, then head east to 11th. Turn south and walk to SE Mall St. Don't miss the handsome China Fir that was recently designated a Portland Heritage Tree. Turn east on Mall and end at Milwaukie. The whole loop is about 2 1/2 miles.

I'm thinking of L.O. again-- the Gemini-- because Scooter, Jay and I went there a few times-- and Scooter came with the map of Southwest-- Barbur, Luradel, where he used to live with Carl--

My tenth high school reunion rented the Gemini. I resented it first of all, once the nostalgia was rinsed away by the sight of all these people that really could have cared less-- then-- and why would they now? Except for one reason: the most I could hope for at school was a role as some kind of character... Someone whose unfitness became the central fact of their being... And perhaps my subsequent failures were seen as an inevitable outcome of this bad character design... An affirmation of a certain upper-middle-class Calvinism-- designed to show the utter necessity of conformity-- I imagine ninety-nine percent of any reference to me by those who knew me slightly consisted of observations along these lines... And it's a measure of the fragility of my state of mind, how much I agree with these shadowy judges...

But once I overcame the first rush of apprehension and hostility-- a physiological reaction I have at all parties and social functions-- I realized there were faces I'd never known and wished I had-- and now, in an important sense, it was too late. And now when I feel sorry about that I feel sorry for myself.

All of these pointed thoughts rise to the surface again, all of these knives in the water... I remember a constant wishing, if not striving, in those school days, for a belonging, a good standing that could never be mine... Illuminated by periods of wonder and peace that came only with a resignation to who I was as opposed to who I wished I was... But now, all the things that endure are those most fragile: light under clouds... A flash in a water droplet:

The warm, sweet smell of the Iron Mountain trail in Tryon Creek-- the carpet of gauzy cottonwood seeds

The musty smell of the lake in the swim park

The orange light on the blackberry canes by Country Club

The smell of burgers, exhaust, the waft of perfume on the walk to the Tillamook Creamery on B Street

The baking vinyl in my mother's 1969 VW Squareback

The maple seeds furry with splinters, covering the front walk

The broad blue squares of sky between the steel posts of the breezeway behind the parking lot at the high school-- a glorious vault that had no limit, a warehouse plenty big enough for my modest romances--

All of these things remain, but only as pointers. The place and the map have both changed. The signs do not signify the same things anymore-- even the big landmarks, the ones that seemed so permanent, so solid, are gone-- Gone so completely that it takes a mighty act of will to sketch in even their broad outlines...

Meantime, the sky has cooled, become alien. If I didn't belong there now, boy I sure don't now.

Am I summing up like this because it's Christmas and no one seems to give a fuck? Perhaps, perhaps. Is it death? Also a person of interest, this death, especially now, as every year this time. He knocks over all the signs, burns all the thickets, plows up all the old footprints.

And now I must make sense of this new terrain-- The problem being that I never really did have the exploring bug... The problem being that I really just do not want to know now that everything's been flattened.