My Pain And Sadness Is More Sad And Painful Than Yours*

I just heard an Andrew Bird song in a Residence Inn commercial.

This song, as a matter of fact:



Vintage Luca (circa 1997) would be very angry at this apparent compromise of one’s artistic integrity in exchange for monetary gain and would certainly use the "sell out" phrase when mentioning said artist in any subsequent conversation.

Modern-day Luca (circa now) could care less what Andrew Bird does with his publishing rights and is happy to hear snippets of a song he likes featured on television.

Needless to say, Vintage Luca learned to chill the fuck out and to not be such a douche over the years. I already wrote a blog on the subject of bands selling their songs for use in commercials so I won’t expound on my feelings on the matter here. But this admission of past errors in judgement and the ensuing attitude modification was worth noting.

*I can’t take credit for the subject line, it is the name of Mclusky’s first album. With the exception of Cannibal Corpse, Mclusky had the best song titles around. I love Mclusky. If I was to play in a noise rock trio, it would sound an awful lot like Mclusky (but not as good, of course) and the similarities would be obvious to anyone privy to the Welsh band’s catalog (or as they would write, "catalogue"). As previously noted, it’s too bad they broke up.

A Few Things

A few things:

-I’m hearing a lot of talk lately about certain nations possibly boycotting the Beijing Olympics this summer. This is, of course, because of the recent violent protests in Tibet that have resulted in about 140 protesters (so far) losing their lives. I have mixed feelings about this call to boycott. While I find the Chinese government’s treatment of the whole Tibetan situation to be deplorable and certainly censurable and worthy of protest, I still feel for the athletes that would be affected by a boycott.

Of course, no nation has had the gallantry to pull out of the games altogether as of yet but it may indeed happen. French president (and noted drunk public speaker) Nicolas Sarkozy has said that he still hasn’t ruled out boycotting the opening ceremonies of the games, which is kind of an empty gesture if you ask me, but at least it allows the athletes to compete while still making a statement. Surely, economic sanctions would make a much bigger statement but that isn’t likely to happen.

My concern for the athletes is that some of these people have trained their entire lives for the Olympics and sometimes the window of opportunity to acchieve the gold is so small that a four year delay is not viable for them. It would be a shame for all their dedication to go to waste.

You’d think that China’s laundry list of human rights violations would have factored in the International Olympic Committee’s decision to allow Beijing to host the games, but I guess it was overlooked for obvious economic reasons, as usual.

The Olympics have a long history of exposing political undercurrents, from Jesse Owens defying Hitler’s propaganda of Aryan racial superiority by winning four golds in the 1936 Berlin games to the USA’s boycott of the 1980 games in Moscow because of (ironically enough) the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. These games seem poised to be no different.


-Meanwhile, in Luca news: I’ve been running myself to the point of certain incapacitation as of late. I’ve really stepped up the abuse on my body in a last desperate attempt to get fit. But as painful as it has been, I gotta say that it seems to be working. I’ve lost a bit of the beer belly and I’m actually (gasp!) developing some muscle mass.

I’ve been running about 25-30 miles a week for the last three weeks and have also been lifting weights with much more tenacity. Needless to say, I make it through the day with the help of Excedrin (and if cortisone shots were an option, I would certainly be sticking myself with needles as well). I don’t know how well my knees will hold up in the long run, but I hope to keep rolling.

-1/3 of the cast of Saved By The Bell currently hosts dance competition shows on television. Elizabeth "Jesse Spano" Berkley is hosting the insanely titled Step It Up And Dance on Bravo and Mario "A.C. Slater" Lopez hosts MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew. I have nothing to add to this, except that I’m pretty sure that this is a sign of the apocalypse.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Of course, with moves like these, we should have seen it coming:

Sexy.

The Things I Do For Love

I wrote the following review of an Ani DiFranco show for Paste Magazine several months ago but it didn’t make it through the editorial process (grrr!) so I figured I could post it here. I spent time writing it so I think someone should at least read the damn thing.

The thing is, I’m not really even a fan of hers and I was trapped into going because Adrienne wanted free tickets to the sold-out show and since some strings had to be pulled through Ani’s management by Paste’s editor, I was asked to write a review in return. What’s funny is that Adrienne ended up being too sick to go and Paste never even ran it.

But I did, however, end up spending a lovely evening with several hundred women (I made up approximately 25% of the male population at the show), so who am I to complain?

So here it is:

Ani DiFranco at the Variety Playhouse

"One Hundred and Fifty songs and no hooks", quipped Ani DiFranco halfway into her set to a sold-out Tuesday night crowd at Atlanta’s Variety Playhouse. Apparently, she was content with that deprecating characterization of her catalog.

The lack of catchy melodies certainly didn’t seem to matter much to her fans as they sang along to every word and mirrored every inflection of her vagarious voice; the impromptu choir soaring so loud that it occasionally drowned out the powerful P.A. and band. DiFranco welcomed the energy from the crowd and seemed fueled by it as she beat her instrument into submission with her signature percussive, finger-picked attack on such fan favorites as "Not A Pretty Girl", "Napoleon" and "Shameless".

In an industry so obsessed with colossal hooks and massive choruses, it’s hard to imagine an artist like Ani DiFranco being successful in any other way but on her own terms. From peddling cassette tape demos at shows in the late Eighties to selling over four million records on her own label, Righteous Babe Records, she’s consistently done things her way. She’s toured relentlessly and put out an intimidating number of releases over the span of almost twenty years, winning over fans like a true traveling minstrel --one at a time.

For this particular show she pulled songs spanning her entire catalog, much like her September release, Canon, a double-disc career retrospective. Still wanting to please her long-time fans, she derailed from the set list to fulfill some requests and pervaded the time in between songs with her charismatic banter, tackling a wide range of topics from her ten month-old baby daughter to her appreciation of the Atlanta-based Southern Center For Human Rights.

Hooks or no hooks, on this night Ani DiFranco had the audience reeled.

Things I Like, Part 1: Basketball

Basketball was probably the first cultural morsel I savored and developed a taste for when I initially emigrated to the United States. It was my leap into American culture. Granted, basketball was invented by a Canadian, but at the time the NBA was still quintessentially an American-dominated league with few international players to speak of.

I definitely bought in at the right time, in 1990 Michael Jordan and his Chicago Bulls began their campaign of domination through the decade that got them six championships in eight years. In that time, there was a seven year stretch that I watched every single game the Bulls played, home or away, thanks in part to Chicago's WGN which carried all the games that weren't otherwise televised on NBC or TNT.

When the Bulls weren't playing, I would watch other teams. I could name every player in the league and give you their height and weight and a close approximation of their statistics. I knew every nickname, from Charles "The Round Mound Of Rebound" Barkley (also known as "Sir Charles") to Dominique "The Human Highlight Film" Wilkins to Xavier "X-Man" McDaniel. I had t-shirts, posters and all sorts of paraphernalia associated with the Bulls.

On top of that, I would spend two to three hours playing ball every day, perhaps recreating scenarios I had seen on television the night before. I played at school, on the driveway at home, on the playground and at the Bellevue Community Center any chance I got.

I was a basketball junkie.

Eventually, other typical teenage activities --playing guitar, driving aimlessly, staring longingly at girls, hanging out in parks, watching my friends do drugs, etc.-- won my attention away from b-ball, but I always kept an oblique eye on what was going on in the NBA in the subsequent years.

Recently, the league has recaptured my attention and while I can no longer name every player in the league, I find great joy from watching a good game of basketball again. My ties to the Chicago Bulls were severed with MJ's retirement (the second retirement...not the first, when he started playing minor league baseball...or the third, when he was a Washington Wizard), so now I can watch without too much emotional involvement.

However, I have found favor for the Detroit Pistons since their championship run in 2004 for their pure brand of selfless team play and I also think the Phoenix Suns are fun to watch (although not so much since Shaq's arrival). I'm also amazed at how LeBron James has actually managed to exceed the already high expectation he faced coming in the league at just eighteen years of age and how Kobe Bryant looks more and more like Jordan every year, even down to his mannerisms on the court.

Lately, I've also felt a serious need to play again but I've yet to locate a public court around where I live or someone to play with. I need to do this soon because I find myself going through the motion of shooting jumpshots and lay-ups in my head sometimes. And as homoerotic as this may sound, I miss the physical contact that goes along with playing the game. Getting knocked around and colliding with other bodies in the heat of competition is just something men need to do sometimes; it's innate and deep-seated into our psyche. Adrienne points this out to me every time I try to roughhouse with her and she's just not having it.

I just need someone to bump up against, is that too much to ask? Is it too gay to ask?

Well, I'm asking anyways.