A quote from a friend, summarizing a recent Time Magazine review of the new Eric Clapton record:
For example, they say "the only genuine emotion Clapton musters is reverence," and when EC sings the line 'There's a hellhound on my trail' "you wonder if the hound's name is Patches."
I hate Eric Clapton. And this isn't like me hating the Grateful Dead or Dave Matthews (even though you can't really compare my aversion to the latter to my disassociation of the former; I never got the Dead, but respected them as people and as musicians and as an entity, while I still consider DM to be the anti-christ incarnate).
But whoever wrote that Time review nailed it for me. I mean, yeah, sure, groundbreaking and all that. But this is still the guy who said that if he was stranded on a desert island, he'd rather have one of his Armani suits rather than a guitar. Now, first of all, he should be taken to task on the sheer impracticality of that situation alone - what are you going to do with an Armani suit on a desert island? Seems to me the guitar would at least give you something to do.
But what got me was that here is this rock and roll guitar god who seems to care less about the instrument, and by extension, the music. It's not that I don't think "Layla" is a magnificent song (even if I could happily live the rest of my life without ever having to hear it again - hey, I'm a casualty of 70s FM radio). It's that he played with this dispassionate detachment that I could never identify with. For someone whose guitar idols were Keith Richards and Pete Townshend - well, yeah, talk about polar opposites. (And even if Keith is way more laid back than Pete ever was or will ever be, I still felt the fire in his fingertips.)
So, there. I admit it. I hate Clapton. And I'd never date a guy who worshipped him, that's for damn sure. Because that would tell me more about him than a long weekend at a B&B in Victoria would...
when trying to find the listing for
the artist currently known as prince
performing at madison square garden*
Hamlet "the Prince of Denmark" Starring Francesco Vitali
The Happy Prince
Prince George Cougars
Event Parking for Prince - Gund Arena North Garage
B.G. the Prince of Rap
The Arabian Prince
House of Prince
Frog Prince
** Parking Only - Prince
DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince
====
*1. As submitted to, and rejected by, mcsweeneys.net
2. Was researching for a friend.
3. Would like to attend.
4. Hope to be in NYC that week to see Elvis C. at Lincoln Center.
5. Said friend obtained a above-average floor ticket for the 7/14 show.
6. I contributed nothing substantive to this friend's ticket buying mission, except advice, counsel and encouragement.
Finally:
11 years later, justice for slain singer Zapata
When I heard the verdict on the news last night, a wave of unexpected emotion came over me. I mean, I knew I would feel something, but not quite that much.
Steve Moriarty from the Gits had asked friends and fans to be spectators during the trial, and I'd meant to make it down there, somehow, but work and life got in the way (lame, I know). And, to be honest, I also knew that being there and watching it would be hard to take. Which seems selfish in the extreme, because her friends and family and bandmates were sure there every single day.
Mia Zapata had already been murdered long before I moved to Seattle in 1995, so I can't claim that I knew her, or had ever seen the Gits play. But for some reason I always felt this odd - alliance is the best word - with her. Strong, independent woman making her way through the world, doing things her way, making it happen.
I guess the most obvious reason for this is that it could have been me. I walk the city streets at night, I come from a city where civilized people take cabs everywhere (originally, the police suspected a cab driver, since Mia didn't have a car and she took cabs everywhere). She wasn't stupid, she was razor-smart.
It could have been me.
I moved to Seattle in the aftermath of Mia's death, which had a profound impact on the music community (understatement of the decade, I realize). Home Alive had just became a presence, the whole concept of making sure the woman standing next to you at the rock show or the bar got home safely was suddenly something everyone thought about. And even as late as 1995, downtown Seattle at night was a truly scary place, even for a girl who honed her street smarts on Avenue A.
There is so much more that could be said - about the original attitude of the police towards Mia and the case after her body was found; about the tenacity of her bandmates and her family, refusing to let her be forgotten; and finally, the SPD making good, and the cold case squad running down that son of a bitch murderer through DNA.
If there was ever a moment that I believed in a god, this was one of them.