How much in depth rumination can an Observer of the Scene consider when, long after coming into the AC, he’s still shvitzing like a pig on a spit after a morning jog?
Let’s find out.
Toll Booths ‘R’ Us. Like most other reasoning humans, I was aghast at the first mention of possible tolls on the new bridges, which structures have been on the drawing board since, I dunno, Charlie Farnsley was mayor.
Three bucks to visit grannie in Cementville.
Three bucks to make it back home.
At first blush, and perhaps at second, it seems a heinous exaction. I know I was ready to pull out my dusty “No Taxation Without Representation” banner. Then I remembered I lent it to my Tea Party neighbor across the street.
The article in this morning’s C-J gave some perspective on the situation. I know when visiting the Bay Area last year, we stayed in Mill Valley and thought nothing of paying the toll when crossing into San Francisco. Much to our chagrin however, we got no discount for the flowers in our hair.
I have no idea how this is all going to play out. I do predict that there will be no new bridges in Louisville built in my lifetime. And I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, though my instinct tells me we’ll survive without them.
Pols ‘R’ Us. Another interesting read in this morning’s C-J was Jim Carroll’s take on our major party candidates to fill Jim Bunning’s senate seat.
Not only are Rand Paul and Jack Conway seriously serious 24/7, they are, let’s face facts, B*O*R*I*N*G.
The desk holding the computer I’m writing on has more personality than both combined. And it’s standard utilitarian office equipment company issue.
Being a good Donkey, and being more than a little scared of Paul — actually, what he stands for — I’m sure I’ll vote for Conway. Understanding he’s never going to be confused with Henry Clay or John Sherman Cooper.
Trolls ‘R’ Us. It’s Day #3 of Hullabaloo. And for the third day in a row, I’m sad to say I’m taking a Pasadena.
I know, for years I’ve been ranting about the lack of a real summer music festival here in Louisville. Now that we have a legit foray toward one, I’m staying away.
Trust me, it’s not out of protest at the lineup which I find less than compelling. I intended to go out today with the Film Babe, plunk down our $150 and show our support. Terry Adams’ new band intrigues me. But he’s about to start playing as I write. Dwight Yoakam and Loretta Lynn are certainly worth hearing. Though I’ve seen the former. But, Sweet Loretta, it’s just too damn hot to stand in the sun and listen. Sorry.
It’s not gonna happen.
I hope the event is a financial success. I hope Churchill Downs figures out a way to have it when it’s less hot and steamy. I also hope they find it in their hearts to present a future lineup of acts with a bit more zest. Like, oh, say, they do at Forecastle. And New Orleans. And Nashville. And Milwaukee.
All of which is to say I’m a troglodyte for the day.
There was a time when a fellow could adopt a nickname of some sort, and it would be just that.
A nickname. Puff Daddy. (Or, if you prefer P. Diddy.)
A moniker. The Splendid Splinter.
An affectation. Lady Gaga.
Or, say, the Culture Maven, to use one very handy example.
No more.
Turns out I’m now a brand. Just like Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.
Who knew?
And no different than Kleenex®.
Or Coke®.
Or Chevy.
Oh, wait a sec. Didn’t GM announce recently that it was eschewing the use of the shortened Chevy, pushing instead the more formal and official Chevrolet®. So customers won’t be confused about the brand. Or, so they believe.
It seems to me that Chevy is pretty ubiquitous. There are songs about this most famous of American cars.
Treat me like ya Chevy/ You can show me off.
Or,
26’s on my chevy (my chevy)/ Chrome on my chevy (my chevy)/ Candy on my chevy (my chevy)/ Flakes on my chevy (oooh)/ Dudes on my chevy (my chevy)/ Girls in my chevy (my chevy)/ Screens in my chevy (my chevy)/ Shove in my chevy/ I’m so hiiiiiiigh/ I’m so hiiiiiiigh
Okay, maybe lyrics like those are why some doofus in the Iron Belt, sitting legs up behind a desk, with too much time on his hands and way too much say so in GM corporate affairs, wants to drive Chevy off the levee.
But I digress.
My point is to decry the commercialization of, well, just about everything.
U of L basketball used to be a program. Now it’s a brand. So proclaims CEO Rick Pitino.
Kinda like Yum!®. Which, in case you haven’t heard, bought the naming (Read: branding) rights to the new arena where the Cardinals® will play starting next season.
We’ve sure come a long way since some wary rancher burned a symbol on the hindquarters of his whole herd, to psychologically ward off rustlers. (Quick aside having very little to do with this rant: The slyest rustler film ever made is “Rancho Deluxe” featuring Slim Pickens as Henry Beige, Cattle Detective.) The word itself comes from German, meaning “to burn.”
The term evolved to designate the identity of a certain product, business or service. So says Wikipedia. Which brand stands for the place we go to find an immediate answer for any question.
But now schools and teams and people are brands.
Most especially King LeBron®.
And, sigh, me too.
I sit here drinking my Heine Brothers brand coffee, typing away on my MacBook brand laptop, writing a piece to appear on my culturemaven.com brand blog.
(When I first registered the name, these things were still called websites. Now they’re branded blogs. But, hey, don’t get me started on the evolution of that appellation.)
So, you get my point. I find this whole branding thing a bunch of bunk, a trend most heinous.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Truth in Advertising Caveat: My name is Chuck Kaplan, actually Charles David Kaplan. I only started calling myself c d kaplan when I began writing professionally. Am I being duplicitous? You decide.
My friend David Leibson, a well regarded professor at U of L Law School, tells this tale on Bob Heleringer, a former student of his.
Heleringer is a hail-fellow-well-met, a former Kentucky legislator and very funny fellow.
After the professor greeted his student who entered his office, Heleringer proceeded to rifle through the documents sitting on Leibson’s desk, picking up papers, looking underneath, then setting them back down.
“Mr. Heleringer, may I ask whatever you are doing?”
“Searching for a point or two. I really could use a better grade on my exam.”
I too am now a seeker in need.
At Heine Brothers on Frankfort Avenue on a blistering Monday afternoon, searching for my muse.
If only Bob Heleringer were here to make me chuckle.
Lady Inspiration has been MIA for awhile. Where is it that she goes periodically? On vacation? To nestle across the river on Bob Hill’s desk? To the Upper Peninsula for vacation to avoid the humidity?
Perhaps she’s lurking over here by the railroad tracks. Or so it seems reasonable.
Which is why I’m nursing a cup of decaf and pecking away at my MacBook in the company of nine others, also taking advantage of free wireless and fair trade joe.
Anyway, I’ve written this far already. That’s a good thing.
Whether it’s of any consequence is yet to be determined?
That determination, I’ve long since learned, has little to do with how many, if any, of you eventually read this onanistic little essay? There are so very many of us fighting for your attention on the internet that any blogger of minimal emotional health realizes — or should realize — that page views do not self esteem make.
Short interlude to check email.
I’ve just received my weekly printout from Facebook. It advises that the monthly active users for my Page (Culture Maven c d kaplan) increased by 51.2% last week. That the total number of fans increased by 3.1%. Page views are up 14.3%.
Cut to clip of Sally Field accepting her Oscar, “You like me, you really really like me.”
Now, back to reality. Actually, the proof of value here will come when I stop typing and start reading. Will my sentences make sense? Will they be full with logic and perception? Will I have at least somewhat artfully considered and described some realization that has value in its statement.
Lord, I hope so. Don’t want this to turn into the type of dialog you might hear amid the cacophony in “Inception.”
It’s not that there isn’t a lot going on. Politically, there’s the whole Tea Party movement. Environmentally, there’s the BP negligence in the Gulf and the devastation resulting in the Gulf. In the world of entertainment, there’s the contemplation whether Lady Gaga is a worthy successor to Cher and Madonna or not?
Then there’s that novel I’ve been giving lip service to for several years now. And the opus that would be an enumeration of all the musical acts and anecdotes I’ve seen and heard.
We’ll see.
What I do know is this. The coffee worked. That the wireless connection here is a bit slow has been beneficial. (Can’t surf, must write.)
Maybe this will be read. Maybe it won’t.
What’s important, frankly, is that it’s been written.
My fingers haven’t cramped. My mind has thawed somewhat. The sentence make some sense.
And I swear I just saw Lady Inspiration slip in the backdoor for a latte. She’s already gone like a wisp.
Harvey Pekar wasn’t the only icon from the cultural unterbelly to pass away this week.
A moment of silence — followed by ironic cacophony, in order to display the proper respect — for Tuli Kupferberg.
The guy has been described as an anarchist, a beat, the guy made famous in Allen Ginsburg’s “Howl” for having jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge. (That it was actually a different bridge, and that it was a point of some embarrassment for the rest of his life to a fellow not easily embarrassed must be noted.)
He was an ironist of the highest order, if that’s what you can call somebody prone to irony in their art. He could deliver deadpan with but the faintest hint of a knowing smirk.
More important to those of us who are musically-addled, he, along with fellow Commie pinko Ed Sanders, founded New York’s first truly punk band.
Hearing this first Village Fugs album in ’65 was more than a might startling. (For those of you not familiar with the origin of the word “fug,” it was the euphemism used by Norman Mailer in “The Naked and the Dead.”)
Sure, there were Dylan and the Beatles and Stones. But the record charts at the time were littered with “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter,” “I Got You Babe,” “Hang On Sloopy,” and “Eve of Destruction.”
So, when a buddy showed up with this LP with lyrics like — “Do you like Boobs a lot?/ Yeah, I like Boobs a lot/ Why d’ you like boobs a lot?/ You gotta like boobs a lot/ Do you wear your jock a lot? . . .” — it was bound to grab my attention.
It did. “Slum Goddess from the lower east side” became part of my vernacular.
The satirical nihilism of Kupferberg’s “Nothing” still brings a smile to my face.
Ed Sanders, like Tuli, was a poet, political polemicist and a member of the bluejean literati. The Fugs were founded at his Peace Eye Bookstore in late ’64, where they played their first gig. It was there that he edited his periodical Fuck You/ A Magazine of the Arts.
Some of the band’s songs included the words of William Blake. Others dealt defiantly with sex and drugs. With irony, of course, they were at the forefront of a movement toward the expression of outrage led to the masses by Lenny Bruce. A classic example is Ken Weaver’s “I Couldn’t Get High.”
“Cause I couldn’t get high/ And I don’t know why?/ So I threw down my pipe/ As made as I could be/ And I gobbled up a cube/ Of LSD/ So I waited thirty minutes / For my body to sing/ Yeah I waited and I waited/ But I couldn’t feel a thing.”
Remember, kiddies, Louisville KY in the mid 60s was still a place where cruising the Big Boy after curfew was the apotheosis of rebellion, when the depth of our angst was having to implore Rhonda to help us get her out of our heart.
This isn’t the kind of album that will suffer repeated listenings. Truth be told, it’s probably been decades since I laid a needle on the vinyl. But it is one that every one considered a member of the rock & roll generation should know.
As we bid a sad adieu to Tuli Kupferberg, let’s hear the band’s paean to that “swingin’ little goddess from Avenue D”:
In parting, let me remind you to heed this admonition: Be sure to “wear your jock a lot” because “Down on the football, football field/ You never can tell what a heel may wield.”
For the first time in years I heard a band play a Chuck Berry tune as an encore.
Just the way the Good Lord meant for it to be.
So Bless Ya, M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel, you made my day.
Frankly, She and Him’s entire set was a wonder for me. I’m old school. Grew up with rock and roll. Have always had a sweet spot for 60s girl groups. (And there’s always been a space in my parking lot for crackly voiced Ms. Deschanel, truth be told.)
But I wasn’t all that familiar with the music of this conglomeration. My first impression after dragging the Film Babe down close was that Deschanel’s voice is a might brittle. After a song or two, she settled in, then starting morphing into Robin Ward (“Wonderful Summer”), Kathy Young (A Thousand Stars”), Leslie Gore . . . you know what I’m sayin?
Here’s a video of Zoeey and pal, paying their respects to Smokey Robinson:
When the backup singers joined the band on stage — the Paris Sisters incarnate? — they channeled the Murmaids (“Popsicles and Icicles”) , the Jaynettes (“Sally Go Round The Roses”) , the Angels (‘Til”), etc, etc.
I’m such a sap for those songs. (I’m listening to a great compilation as I write: “Girls, Girls, Girls.”). Okay, how about another little diversion. Thank you for making this the most wonderful summer of my life. (It really has nothing to do with Forecastle, but, hey, it’s my blog, and I’ll do what I want.)
Then She and Him came back for an encore, and I’ll be damned if the group didn’t rip into a rousing version of “Roll Over Beethoven.”
There was a time — and such a time it was — when any rock band worth its salt would at some time during its set would ask: “You wanna hear some Chuck Berry?”
So that’s one of the things — among many — I loved most about Forecastle. Sittin’ on the riverside, listening to summer rock and roll. A genial gathering. Food that was a cut above corn dogs and elephant ears, especially that from the folks at Basa.
I also enjoyed Minus the Bear, whose music was accomplished. And Spoon, with their spare but interesting arrangements. Neither of the bands’ music was familiar to me beforehand. I didn’t make it out on Saturday. Much to my chagrin. I did want to hear Devo.
None of the music on Friday really grabbed me. I’ve said it before, and I’ll repeat: Widespread Panic is B.O.R.I.N.G. And, while I understand the amazement at the extravaganza that is The Flaming Lips show, I find their music simply mundane. When I went to hear Heavyweight Du Champion at the Ocean Stage, he simply hadn’t caught a groove. Though I understand the techno deejay dance venue rocked most of the time. Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos, and Frontier Ruckus also caught my attention. When Dead Confederate played, I kept wondering where the song was amid the cacophony?
But I loved the festival. Great layout. Bucolic setting, especially the North Stage. Real activism.
Finally, after decades, Louisville has an annual event that’s a real honest to Betsy rock festival. Locally grown too.
J.K. McKnight, hats off to you, dude. You done good.
It’s forty years gone this weekend since those nicknames were bestowed upon my pal Stephen and me at the Atlanta Pop Festival.
Many if not most of the memories of that magical interlude have long been lost in the daze of time. But this I can say for sure. We came upon those identities honestly.
As for the rest of that Fourth of July weekend outside Byron, Georgia, the tales told here may be true or not. Only the synapses of my cerebrum know for sure. And they’ve long since lost most if not all connection to that time and place.
Stephen was The Mailman; I, Captain Canada. The sordid details:
We knew there was going to be triple digit Fahrenheit at the festival. So the day before we left, we purchased pith helmets. If such a chapeau provided protection for long lost Stanley Livingston in deepest, darkest Africa, we presumed one would work for us.
I went with basic khaki.
Stephen opted for that light grayish blue with maroon straps that we’ve come to associate with the United States Postal Service.
So hot was it that the very first day down there, we, along with our traveling companions Don and Merrily, sought respite in the nearest body of water. Which lake or river or pond — frankly I can’t recall — we found by following the gaggle of hippies on hoods of cars all headed, they said, as if guided by a stoned Trip Tik in that direction.
When Stephen jumped in, pith helmet firmly in place, one bleary-eyed bather adroitly observed, “It’s the Mailman.”
Firmer monikers have been borne of lesser tales.
The origin of Captain Canada is somewhat more convoluted. The statute of limitations having lapsed, the story can be revealed. With haste and for the last time, so we can move on.
The day before we departed Louisville, our friend Becker needed help moving from one furn apt. to another. Among the items he intended to discard was a flag of Canada. Which artifact I commandeered, immediately tying about my neck like a cape.
That’s only the germination of the nickname.
Which flowered fully on the first night of music at the festival. (Caveat: The imagery that might manifest from the description of the following interlude is not for the faint of heart, grannie or youths under the age of majority.)
That weekend marked my first experimentation with psychedelics. When the mescaline kicked in, it started to rain. At which point it seemed eminently logical to my then “experienced” mind to fully disrobe. No matter that we were sitting in throng of several hundred thousand. It seemed the natural thing to do.
Besides, I didn’t want my clothes to get wet. I had hand fashioned with a magic marker a “Who is Ron Dante?” t-shirt which I thought too clever and pithy to not be able to wear again once the showers had abated.
From such reasoning, wackier tales have been told.
The inclemency didn’t however prevent me from wearing my Canadian flag cape. From which point on, and for several years thereafter, I was known to a few as Captain Canada.
Enough of that.
Admittedly I am finding it difficult to accurately describe how wonderful and fun that weekend was. The experience is proving sensible description.
When I’ve attempted to do so through the decades, I have reverted to this. That weekend is something outside the timeline of my life. It is as if it was all a dream, so fantastic, so unreal, so joyous was the moment.
The performers included the following whose music I do recall if only to a limited extent. Jimi Hendrix, who played with fireworks filling the sky behind him at midnight on the 4th of July. The Allman Brothers Band, including a jam with Johnny Winter. The Chambers Brothers. (For which set, I stood directly in front of the speakers, as a result of which stupidity, my hearing has never fully recovered.) BB King. Grand Funk Railroad. Hampton Grease Band. Ten Years After.
Among the groups that I have no or only vague recollection hearing: Procol Harum. Poco. Terry Reid. Ravi Shankar. John Sebastian. Mountain. Spirit. Ginger Baker. Chakra. Cactus. Gypsy. Bloodrock. Captain Beefheart.
I know a number of folks who attended. I have read remembrances of the festival online. What fascinates me is how few speak of the musical moments.
The sounds were more a nucleus around which this grand, garish carnival evolved, an excuse for the gathering of southern tribes.
Considering the entire experience, I do have an acute feeling of personal evolution. I had taken the bar exam the weekend before the festival, didn’t think I’d pass it since I hadn’t studied much. And hadn’t a clue what was in store for the rest of my life.
It was your classic pivotal moment at the onslaught of adulthood.
So, hey, let’s go get stoned and rock.
I’d lived at home with my parents until my senior year in law school. My growth had thus been stunted. So my socialization abilities were still in their early stages.
Hey. let’s mingle en masse and talk jabberwok.
So, without getting too awfully philosophical, I’ll just offer that this eminently eye-opening weekend fostered a sense of freedom and wonder and creative possibility which I hadn’t previously conceptualized. Mostly it was just a load of fun.
As for specifics, there are but a few I remember.
An interlude where I handed a merchant enough Uniform Commercial Code razzmatazz in the middle of the night that he cashed a personal check for some biker dude. Which black leathered hulk expressed his appreciation by telling me he had my back in case I needed something taken care of during the festival.
Not wanting one blistering afternoon to walk all the way to the water spigot a mile away, I, much to the chagrin of Don and Merrily, filled our thermos with $3 worth of Pepsi.
Through my own personal haze, trundling back to our campsite on the final morning, while Richie Havens sang “Here Comes The Sun” at sunrise.
Camped next to us was a group, which included a gal who wore a wig the whole weekend in that awful heat, because she didn’t like the color of her hair after dyeing it. How antithetical to the whole counter culture ethos, I thought at the time.
A couple having sex the next blanket over, with the girl shouting in ecstasy “Ooooooooh, the stars!” While her head was resting on my lap. Trust me, it felt as odd at the time as it sounds now.
The pathway from our camping spot to the stage, lined with hundreds and hundreds of people selling drugs.
Laughter. Early. Often.
Juicy peaches bigger than my fist for a nickel.
The Heat. And I’m talking Fahrenheit not cops, which were essentially nowhere to be seen.
The Chambers Brothers doing “People Get Ready.”
Hendrix playing the “Star Spangled Banner” at midnight on the Fourth.
The Allman Brothers Band, whom I’d never heard before. Specifically, “Every Hungry Woman,” during which I was drawn closer to the stage as if it were a siren call.
The Hampton Grease Band.
Frankly, sadly, that’s about it for the music.
It’s not like I/ we weren’t paying attention to the sounds. It’s just that the entire experience was so overwhelming, that there was so much sensory input, so many diffused interactions that the music was but one element. An important one, but just one of many nonetheless.
I guess it’s fair to ask, beyond the fact that it was a super time, if there were any cultural imperatives to be learned from Atlanta Pop?
Well, yes. One, there is power in numbers.
Law enforcement was basically non existent. Byron had a couple of part time cops. A number of state troopers were sent to the scene. I’ve read that nobody was arrested, despite the drugs and nudity. There were just way more of us than them that weekend. Besides it was a ferociously peaceful gathering. (Apparently there was a brouhaha about opening the gates and freeing up the festival. It passed me by. We actually bought tickets in advance. $14 for the weekend.)
Pepsi doesn’t quench thirst like H2O.
Nobody had a clue who Ron Dante was? Nor much cared. (FYI, he was the studio guy responsible for The Archies. That’s right, “Sugar, Sugar.”)
Pith helmets are an effective way of protection from the sun.
Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman — both of whom died within months of the festival — were the best. I’m grateful that I heard them live when they were still around. That I remember at least some of their playing there.
And that I can now, forty years after the fact, lord it over today’s guitar fawning youngsters.
How much in depth rumination can an Observer of the Scene consider when, long after coming into the AC, he’s still shvitzing like a pig on a spit after a morning jog?
