I remember the first time I saw Government Mule. It was, appropriately enough, in a field, at the New Orleans Jazz Fest. I had never heard of Government Mule, but their guitars spoke my language and we soon fell in love.
I don't know if guitar-loving optometrists experience this when they come across another guitar-loving optometrist, but it seems there is a new sub-genre of garage band springing up--one I'm in favour of.
Optometrist jam bands.
After all, these guys aren't trying to change their world with their jam band. They're just trying to work off the stress of the work week. They've discovered that playing music, when you're not relying upon digital downloads to pay the mortgage, can be hugely psychically healing.
We've tried electroshock therapy to cure our blues. We've tried psychoanalysis. We've tried Eastern Meditation. We've tried multiple marriages, kids, no kids, cocaine, bling, reality tv, real estate porn, real porn--so why not a jam band?
http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Jammin/1512048/story.html
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Bemidji State Hockey!
Slowhopes has always had a soft spot for Minnesota and Wisconsin and Michigan, the states dad spent many summers driving the fam through en route to our summer sojourns living in a campsite, circa 1967-1970. (More about that at another date)
While the people aren't what you'd call lookers, the states themselves are quite gorgeous. They're green, quiet and modest places--well, Minnesota and Wisconsin, anyways. Michigan is a little more torn up. But Michigan has its charms as well.
Still, pop culture manages to pretty much avoid this verdant corner of the planet. Apart from the film Fargo and Prince at the top of his game, you never really come across these places.
Until tonight, when the NY Times website featured Bemidji State's hockey team on its front page. I have been to Bemidji any number of times, and of course the first thing I thought, upon seeing the word 'Bemidji' on the front page of the NY Times website was: the statue of Paul Bunyon was sleeping with Babe the Blue Ox!
But no. The college hockey team is on a win streak for the ages, and all the town's t-shirt shops are selling out of Bemidji State memoribilia.
To which, all I can say is: go Bemidji State!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/sports/hockey/08bemidji.html?hp
While the people aren't what you'd call lookers, the states themselves are quite gorgeous. They're green, quiet and modest places--well, Minnesota and Wisconsin, anyways. Michigan is a little more torn up. But Michigan has its charms as well.
Still, pop culture manages to pretty much avoid this verdant corner of the planet. Apart from the film Fargo and Prince at the top of his game, you never really come across these places.
Until tonight, when the NY Times website featured Bemidji State's hockey team on its front page. I have been to Bemidji any number of times, and of course the first thing I thought, upon seeing the word 'Bemidji' on the front page of the NY Times website was: the statue of Paul Bunyon was sleeping with Babe the Blue Ox!
But no. The college hockey team is on a win streak for the ages, and all the town's t-shirt shops are selling out of Bemidji State memoribilia.
To which, all I can say is: go Bemidji State!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/sports/hockey/08bemidji.html?hp
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Stuff Blue Eyed People Like
Throughout this latest economic crisis, we've been desperate to find someone to blame.
After all, there is a lot of lag time to fill, a lot of op-ed pages to opine on, between a multi-trillion dollar crash and eventual recovery.
As any studio head worth his seven figure paycheck can tell you, it's hard to hate a system. There's no payoff when the evil villain is all of us.
When bad things happen to good countries, there's got to be someone to indict--(and we haven't yet figured out how to make A-Rod take credit for the credit crisis.)
For a while, there was Richard Fuld, the former CEO of Lehman Brothers. He looked like a bad guy--heavy brows, a pompous manner. There was even something mildly Nixonian about his jowls that just made the hair stand up on the top of Andy Rooney's eyebrows.
But then the Fed let Lehman go under, and Fuld was out one multi-billion dollar brokerage house.
Then, there was Henry Paulson, the secretary of the federal treasury, but that was so unsatisfying, really. Let's face it: he had just taken over the job from Alan Greenspan.
Alan Greenspan actually may be the man most responsible for this mess, but he's so kindly-looking--particularly for someone who revered Ayn Rand.
Bernie Madoff stole $65 billion, a lot of it from charities and foundations. He was good to hate, but then he pled guilty and went to jail and he's already 70.
When each of the auto giants flew corporate jets into Reagan International to ask for a federal bailout, GM CEO Rick Wagoner became someone to hate--but it's hard to really, really hate anyone whose primary residence is Detroit. I say this with all sincerity. (And now I suspect Rick is just another unemployed Michigan guy looking to scalp some Final Four private box seats).
Over the last few weeks, anyone associated with AIG has been feeling the hot, sticky breath of a planet full of angry, broke people--but at the end of the day, these are insurance people. The optics suck.
It would have been nice if we could have pinned it on Dick Cheney, but he's gone hunting.
No one quite worked out as a bad guy--until Lula met Gordon.
Lula is Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the President of Brazil. Just the other day he met with Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of England, and this is what he said.
"This crisis was caused by no black man or woman or by no indigenous person or by no poor person," Lula said after talks with the prime minister in Brasilia to discuss next week's G20 summit in London, (according to a Guardian article by Nicolas Watt).
"This crisis was fostered and boosted by irrational behaviour of some people that are white, blue-eyed. Before the crisis they looked like they knew everything about economics, and they have demonstrated they know nothing about economics."
Challenged about his claims, Lula responded: "I only record what I see in the press. I am not acquainted with a single black banker."
Finally, the credit crisis has a face, and a gender. It is, to be blunt, white guys.
As a white guy myself, whose book The White Guy: A Field Guide comes out in the U.S. May 1, my reaction to Lula's comments can probably be summed up in a single word.
Guilty!
Now this is a broad, ultimately superficial verdict based on the lowest-common denominator factors one can judge a person by--their race and gender. (All things I am sure critics of my book will enjoy pointing out to readers).
However you want to parse the facts, there is an essential truth to what Lula says: this crisis was created by white people--the same white people who spent decades telling everyone else how to manage the economies of their (broke, indebted, poorly-regulated, corrupt) countries, no matter what the human or political cost.
Who could have forseen the delicious irony that the single most broke, indebted, poorly-regulated, corrupt country of them all is the not-so-good, old, U.S.A?
Besides, it will help when Oliver Stone decides to film his version of The Credit Crisis: he can cast a real A-Lister to play the bad guy. (Anthony Hopkins as Greenspan? Frank Langella as Fuld? Leonardo DiCaprio as Wall Street?)
Memo to the banking industry: next time you're up on Capitol Hill, testifying to save your annual seven and eight figure bonuses, spare us the garbage about how those bonuses are necessary to attract the best and brightest.
What you really mean is best-(connected) and whitest.
After all, there is a lot of lag time to fill, a lot of op-ed pages to opine on, between a multi-trillion dollar crash and eventual recovery.
As any studio head worth his seven figure paycheck can tell you, it's hard to hate a system. There's no payoff when the evil villain is all of us.
When bad things happen to good countries, there's got to be someone to indict--(and we haven't yet figured out how to make A-Rod take credit for the credit crisis.)
For a while, there was Richard Fuld, the former CEO of Lehman Brothers. He looked like a bad guy--heavy brows, a pompous manner. There was even something mildly Nixonian about his jowls that just made the hair stand up on the top of Andy Rooney's eyebrows.
But then the Fed let Lehman go under, and Fuld was out one multi-billion dollar brokerage house.
Then, there was Henry Paulson, the secretary of the federal treasury, but that was so unsatisfying, really. Let's face it: he had just taken over the job from Alan Greenspan.
Alan Greenspan actually may be the man most responsible for this mess, but he's so kindly-looking--particularly for someone who revered Ayn Rand.
Bernie Madoff stole $65 billion, a lot of it from charities and foundations. He was good to hate, but then he pled guilty and went to jail and he's already 70.
When each of the auto giants flew corporate jets into Reagan International to ask for a federal bailout, GM CEO Rick Wagoner became someone to hate--but it's hard to really, really hate anyone whose primary residence is Detroit. I say this with all sincerity. (And now I suspect Rick is just another unemployed Michigan guy looking to scalp some Final Four private box seats).
Over the last few weeks, anyone associated with AIG has been feeling the hot, sticky breath of a planet full of angry, broke people--but at the end of the day, these are insurance people. The optics suck.
It would have been nice if we could have pinned it on Dick Cheney, but he's gone hunting.
No one quite worked out as a bad guy--until Lula met Gordon.
Lula is Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the President of Brazil. Just the other day he met with Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of England, and this is what he said.
"This crisis was caused by no black man or woman or by no indigenous person or by no poor person," Lula said after talks with the prime minister in Brasilia to discuss next week's G20 summit in London, (according to a Guardian article by Nicolas Watt).
"This crisis was fostered and boosted by irrational behaviour of some people that are white, blue-eyed. Before the crisis they looked like they knew everything about economics, and they have demonstrated they know nothing about economics."
Challenged about his claims, Lula responded: "I only record what I see in the press. I am not acquainted with a single black banker."
Finally, the credit crisis has a face, and a gender. It is, to be blunt, white guys.
As a white guy myself, whose book The White Guy: A Field Guide comes out in the U.S. May 1, my reaction to Lula's comments can probably be summed up in a single word.
Guilty!
Now this is a broad, ultimately superficial verdict based on the lowest-common denominator factors one can judge a person by--their race and gender. (All things I am sure critics of my book will enjoy pointing out to readers).
However you want to parse the facts, there is an essential truth to what Lula says: this crisis was created by white people--the same white people who spent decades telling everyone else how to manage the economies of their (broke, indebted, poorly-regulated, corrupt) countries, no matter what the human or political cost.
Who could have forseen the delicious irony that the single most broke, indebted, poorly-regulated, corrupt country of them all is the not-so-good, old, U.S.A?
Besides, it will help when Oliver Stone decides to film his version of The Credit Crisis: he can cast a real A-Lister to play the bad guy. (Anthony Hopkins as Greenspan? Frank Langella as Fuld? Leonardo DiCaprio as Wall Street?)
Memo to the banking industry: next time you're up on Capitol Hill, testifying to save your annual seven and eight figure bonuses, spare us the garbage about how those bonuses are necessary to attract the best and brightest.
What you really mean is best-(connected) and whitest.
Anvil
I wasn't a fan of Anvil the first time around, in the early 1980's. But now, 25 years later, they are the subject of a documentary look at their most recent world tour which they undertook on behalf of journeymen rockers everywhere, encountering a slew of tiny, perfect, personal indignities along the way.
Anvil are slowhopes kind of rock stars.
http://communities.canada.com/calgaryherald/blogs/bladerunner/archive/2009/04/01/anvil-coulda-woulda-shoulda.aspx
Anvil are slowhopes kind of rock stars.
http://communities.canada.com/calgaryherald/blogs/bladerunner/archive/2009/04/01/anvil-coulda-woulda-shoulda.aspx
Friday, March 27, 2009
I've been watching Catherine Keener since she played a thirtysomething New Yorker who ends up dating the video store guy (Kevin Corrigan) in Walking and Talking, Nicole Holfcenser's first film, back in the mid-1990's.
If you ever wondered what living in New York is like, it's sort of just like Catherine Keener: cool, smart, not too into itself, prone to little emotional disasters, and ultimately a bit of a closet sweetheart.
It's great to see that she has gone on to have a fantastic acting career, because she always fell a little bit in the cracks between the pretty girl (I think the other one in Walking and Talking was Naomi Watts) and wacky sidekick (think Joan Cusack).
Catherine Keener is the pretty, wacky sidekick, and her presence in anything makes it worth checking out.
She has two new flicks coming out: Genova, and Where the Wild Things Are, a popular kid's yarn that Spike Jonze turned into a movie that has freaked out the studio who made it. (More about that later).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/mar/26/catherine-keener-genova
If you ever wondered what living in New York is like, it's sort of just like Catherine Keener: cool, smart, not too into itself, prone to little emotional disasters, and ultimately a bit of a closet sweetheart.
It's great to see that she has gone on to have a fantastic acting career, because she always fell a little bit in the cracks between the pretty girl (I think the other one in Walking and Talking was Naomi Watts) and wacky sidekick (think Joan Cusack).
Catherine Keener is the pretty, wacky sidekick, and her presence in anything makes it worth checking out.
She has two new flicks coming out: Genova, and Where the Wild Things Are, a popular kid's yarn that Spike Jonze turned into a movie that has freaked out the studio who made it. (More about that later).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/mar/26/catherine-keener-genova
The Great Withnail
You can have your Rocky Horror Picture Show, or your Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or any of those long ago films that have gone on to become midnight cult classics (OK, I love Rocky Horror). But for a certain generation of film lovers, one of the greatest cult comedies remains Withnail & I, Bruce Robinson's 1987 British classic about an aspiring actor and writer living the boho life in London, circa 1969.
Starring Richard E. Grant, a British actor who has worked plenty since but never in a role that quite demanded the brilliance that the part of Withnail did, it's a film that I loved. The first 45 minutes or so are just about the funniest 45 minutes of film comedy I've ever seen. The dialogue is great, the tempo spot-on and the little absurdities of London life for the poor, starving artist are abundantly on display--particularly the way the apartments in London don't really have any heat.
Here's Roger Ebert paying tribute to Withnail & I in the Chicago Sun-Times:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090325/REVIEWS08/903259987
Starring Richard E. Grant, a British actor who has worked plenty since but never in a role that quite demanded the brilliance that the part of Withnail did, it's a film that I loved. The first 45 minutes or so are just about the funniest 45 minutes of film comedy I've ever seen. The dialogue is great, the tempo spot-on and the little absurdities of London life for the poor, starving artist are abundantly on display--particularly the way the apartments in London don't really have any heat.
Here's Roger Ebert paying tribute to Withnail & I in the Chicago Sun-Times:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090325/REVIEWS08/903259987
Felder Rushing, The Slow Gardener
Some people like their yards to be nothing but a lawn, as manicured as the 12th green at Augusta National.
Others, like North Carolinan (if that's a word) Felder Rushing, have a higher tolerance for a little more variety.
Appropriating the term from the slow food movement, Rushing is preaching slow gardening these days: lo-fi, modest in scale and making use of all sorts of wacky junk most people do not associate with a garden.
He's also a radio host of a show called The Gestalt Gardener on National Public Radio.
http://the-gestalt-gardener.blogspot.com/
As you get older, the world sometimes seems to be divided between organized and disorganized people, and the organized people get all the year-end bonuses, (at least they did until year-end bonuses became little acts of economic treason).
Nice to see there's a third way: slow.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/garden/26slow.html?pagewanted=1&em
Others, like North Carolinan (if that's a word) Felder Rushing, have a higher tolerance for a little more variety.
Appropriating the term from the slow food movement, Rushing is preaching slow gardening these days: lo-fi, modest in scale and making use of all sorts of wacky junk most people do not associate with a garden.
He's also a radio host of a show called The Gestalt Gardener on National Public Radio.
http://the-gestalt-gardener.blogspot.com/
As you get older, the world sometimes seems to be divided between organized and disorganized people, and the organized people get all the year-end bonuses, (at least they did until year-end bonuses became little acts of economic treason).
Nice to see there's a third way: slow.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/garden/26slow.html?pagewanted=1&em
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