Travels with Grumpus

From James Lileks.

We did call him on his birthday, but Grumpus reminded me that I didn’t put up a birthday greeting for his dad, who turned another year older on March 3rd.  Here he is surrounded by his favorite people.  Below the age of 12.  We love ya, Dad.

Happy birthday, Superman. May this year bring you love, joy, donuts, and at least one visit from one of your adoring sisters.  Your family loves and misses you too.

I said I was keeping away from the madness this year, and so far I’ve been good about that. But for old times’ sake, and because I still think he’s adorable, here’s my official Elliott announcement: ELLIOTT YAMIN’S ALBUM WAS RELEASED IN THE US YESTERDAY AND IS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD ON I-TUNES! As usual, all the good stuff on Rickey’s blog.

Yes, I have my copy. No, I haven’t listened to it through. Yes, I like my R&B free of cheese and schmaltz. Yes, this album has both in copious amounts. Yes, despite this, he still sounds heavenly. No, I do not like his version of “Whiter Shade of Pale.” Yes, I still love him.

Glad that’s out of the way. In only tangentially related news, I was reading the Journal article on the decline in CD sales - down 7 years running, 20% this year alone - only slightly offset by the increase in digital downloads, and had to laugh out loud when I read this:

Jeff Rabhan, who manages artists and music producers including Jermaine Dupri, Kelis and Elliott Yamin, says CDs have become little more than advertisements for more-lucrative goods like concert tickets and T-shirts. “Sales are so down and so off that, as a manager, I look at a CD as part of the marketing of an artist, more than as an income stream,” says Mr. Rabhan. “It’s the vehicle that drives the tour, the merchandise, building the brand, and that’s it. There’s no money.”

Elliott Yamin. In the Wall Street Journal. Who woulda thunk?

From the New Yorker

I. A Conversation at the Grownup Table, as Imagined at the Kids’ Table

MOM: Pass the wine, please. I want to become crazy.
DAD: O.K.
GRANDMOTHER: Did you see the politics? It made me angry.
DAD: Me, too. When it was over, I had sex.
UNCLE: I’m having sex right now.
DAD: We all are.
MOM: Let’s talk about which kid I like the best.
DAD: (laughing) You know, but you won’t tell.
MOM: If they ask me again, I might tell.
FRIEND FROM WORK: Hey, guess what! My voice is pretty loud!
DAD: (laughing) There are actual monsters in the world, but when my kids ask I pretend like there aren’t.
MOM: I’m angry! I’m angry all of a sudden!
DAD: I’m angry, too! We’re angry at each other!
MOM: Now everything is fine.
DAD: We just saw the PG-13 movie. It was so good.
MOM: There was a big sex.
FRIEND FROM WORK: I am the loudest! I am the loudest!
(Everybody laughs.)
MOM: I had a lot of wine, and now I’m crazy!
GRANDFATHER: Hey, do you guys know what God looks like?
ALL: Yes.
GRANDFATHER: Don’t tell the kids.

All together now: Awwwww. We’ve all been at the kids’ table. Here’s the rest of the piece.

In belated acknowledgement of my ultra beeyootiful new computer, which has brought untold joy into my life, I shall raise my 3rd mug of coffee to Apple and their new Apple TV, the prospect of which has sent shivers up and down mine and Grumpus’ spines.

Not only does this little silver box allow you to put anything in your computer onto your TV/ home entertainment system (yes, this includes all of your mp3s and iTunes downloads - in case, you know, the prospect of seeing your Christmas pictures blown up across your 42-inch flat screen doesn’t excite you), it allows you to stream iTunes downloaded TV shows, again, onto your TV.

Ponder this for a moment, those of you who do not live in the United States of TV heaven and thus have to wait until the boxed sets come out to get your TV fix. For the bargain price of a dollar ninety nine, you can buy the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica, The Office, Heroes, Lost, 24, South Park, and The Girls Next Door the day after they air. And watch them. On your TV. Hoo-hah! We are in couch potato heaven!

And in typical Apple fashion, this little piece of equipment works like a dream. Here’s a review from the Journal’s tech guy who loves it, in his usual restrained fashion.

I continued my slog through the HK Festival of the Arts last night, this time with surprise slog-mate Grumpus. With Jona, the three of us saw Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdes. Leafing through the programme before the show, I suddenly exclaimed, “Omigod, he’s the son of Bebo!” to Jona’s puzzlement. “No, seriously, I bought this CD when Mickey and I were in Spain a couple of years ago, and I thought it was fantastic! I’m not making up the connection.” I pulled out my iPod, and Jona obediently stuck in an earphone, and came back with a smile and a thumbs-up. Not having lived with me for three and a half years, she still indulges me.

“Hmmm,” she said while leafing through the programme. “This Paquito D’Rivera that he’s talking about. I’m not quite sure that “genial” is a good adjective for a musician.”

“Yeah,” I responded. “We saw him last year, and you know, he was pretty genial. Amiable. Friendly, even. It was great fun though, people up on the balcony were yelling “PAQUITO!” and there was a lot of back-and-forth in Spanish.”

Just then, Chucho ambled onto the stage with the rest of his quartet: a double bassist, a drummer, and a “percussionist” - who played the congas. “Oh wow, I love him already,” I said. Tall, thin and with gigantic hands, he looks exactly the way a Cuban jazz pianist should look.

“Looks like James Earl Jones,” said Mickey.

“Yeah, but taller and skinnier,” I countered.

Then Mr. Valdes started playing, and I started smiling, and in short order I was grinning and bopping along. Turns out that I do love my jazz tinged with Latin rhythms. “Wow, I want to learn to play those congas,” I said.

Grumpus was unmoved. “Yeah, I knew you’d like them.” Pause. “I’m a purist,” he said. “I like my jazz melancholy and suicidal. Like Bill Evans.”

“Well I don’t mind mine happy,” I said.

“You’d like Dave Brubeck, then. Ugh, he’s playing ‘Birdland’.”

“Manhattan Transfer. I should get that song from iTunes. Do you have it in your library?”

Mickey rolls his eyes. “Fake jazz. Well at least it’s not Norah Jones.”

Our Dean was in town for a mixer today, and having rediscovered my love for my alma mater, I decided to head over and, you know, mix.

As many of you are no doubt aware, Grumpus not least, I have no problem yapping. Not everybody finds this charming, of course, and sometimes I have to stop myself when I notice my target’s eyes glazing over. I couldn’t really think of what I wanted to say to Dr. Hubbard though, since I do have some residual bitterness over how ill-prepared our Career Services office was for the crappiness of the job market in 2002, and deep regret over how poorly I have used my degree since then. No matter, the inner yap always takes over once I set it free.

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Jona and I caught three shows last week, and I’m beginning to think I’m cultured out. Last Thursday, we saw the Artemis Quartet. I wish I had the vocabulary to describe classical music, or expound on its nuances, but let’s just say I’m an idiot in that department. Jona enjoyed the subtleties of the quieter pieces. I found that I liked the wilder, bombastic ones more. I guess it’s sort of the way I need to get knocked on the head before getting a point sometimes. In either case, we did find our attention beginning to wander right about the time of the second intermission and we took off early to grab a bite to eat. It was 9:30 in the evening, after all, and the program showed no signs of ending before midnight.

Yesterday we took in a double bill. In the afternoon we saw the Amadinda Percussion Group, four guys and all sorts of percussion instruments, from Hungary and all over the world, respectively. The Amadinda, a giant wooden xylophone from Uganda, might have been the most interesting instrument of all, although the Basque Txalaparta, wooden planks laid out horizontally, played vertically, comes in a close second. Jona found the synchronization of the percussionists’ movements and timing completely fascinating - I’m thinking that perfect rhythm comes from practice. What I found most interesting was that there was a golden age of the xylophone - the ragtime era, 1920s and the 30s, and that “world’s greatest xylophonist” was actually a working accolade. Once again though, the bombast-lover in me found its rest in the final piece that the group played: a traditional Polynesian piece, complete with a pig dance, yells and growls. If I was to ever take up a percussion instrument, it would be a hollowed-out tree trunk that I could bash hard, and repeatedly, with no need for finesse or delicacy.

Last night, we caught the self-styled “opera singer who loves slumming it in pop, jazz and blues.” I have to say that I hated this show. As Mr Sokolov, speaking of burgers, said:

I do not love these “gourmet” burgers made by men who wear toques blanches instead of T-shirts. Their fancyburgers are as awkward and condescending as pop songs recorded by opera stars.

The “slumming it” phrase should have sounded the alarm bells but I wasn’t really paying attention since we had uber-fantastic seats, the drummer was cute, and we just had a completely satisfying meal of roast pork and goose. By the time the lady went through an over-wrought version of Alanis Morisette’s “Uninvited,” Jona was scratching her head. Then Ms. Migenes brought out a muscled Cuban boy-toy type and performed some weird supposedly erotic dance with him, and for a change my brain headed in the other direction and started begging for subtlely. “Let’s stay till the end though,” I said, since the last song on the bill was Bill Withers’ “Use Me,” which I thought was immune from butchering. Boy, was I wrong. She jumped into that song with a sledgehammer and pounded it until there was no life left.

“That really sucked,” I said as we headed out. “Yep,” Jona agreed sadly.

Many many years ago, the gang and I whiled away many a pleasant evening - and killed thousands of brain cells - downing bottle after bottle of this beer in our favorite Metro Manila dive. The beer packs a wallop and we grew powerfully attached to it. When my brother shot a commercial for the brew sometime in that era, we protested that we’d endorse it for free - heck, we’d actually pay money to sing its praises.

While I’m considering alternatives for gainful employment, and realizing that taking a job solely for the money is a sure-fire way of making your life miserable (I’m quoting someone near and dear to my heart), I’m thinking of things I’d actually pay money to do. I’ll admit I haven’t really been thinking that hard, but a few things come to mind.

The Thirsty Traveler’s job is one of them. Drinking his way around the world, and talking about it on camera. That’s already three things I love doing: drinking, traveling, and describing my travails to a receptive audience. I know Grumpus gets tired of my continuous yapping, so having that extra outlet can’t hurt.

Or how about this fellow, who’s just traveled around the US in search of the perfect burger? If there’s any part of that dependent clause that didn’t excite you, you probably shouldn’t be reading this blog. This paragraph alone made me hungry:

If you are any good at burger degustation, you should be able to add all those sensations up in your debauched little sensorium and then, and only then, try to sort out what went into it. It should start with beef, the humble ground chuck — not the pricier ground sirloin or any other variant. Chuck has the Goldilocks amount of fat, not too lean nor too much like hand cream. Chuck also has the right mouth feel; it gives the teeth something to do. You also want a patty thick enough so that it can be charred yet remain moist within. I like mine medium rare, because I want the fat in the meat to get hot enough to melt and spread its flavor. The patty should be seasoned with salt and pepper, at the very least.

And while we’re tooling around our default newspaper, this columnist’s job always seemed like fun: shopping on someone else’s dime for a living, and then telling the tale.

So I like to drink, eat, shop, travel and yap. There’s got to be something out there that pays me to do all these things.

Actually, if we expanded our search to include all known realities, I’d be cruising the universe with these folk, flying one of these, or just firing guns in this incredibly cool manner. Over and over again. For the good of mankind.