“Commercial Eyes” by
tenor player Lucky Thompson is on. It
has one of those hooks in the head that so catchy you just want to play it over
and over again. Another one of those smooth,
classy players of the big sound who could also play bop but didn’t go in for it
wholesale. Silky, melodic lines, I’ve
been digging the man, his notes and his words from a live set 20 years later, all
morning. The Obit in the Times had him
dying homeless in 2005, having sold his sax for dental work. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/arts/05thompson.html
Part of Mr. Thompson's legend came from the fact
that he was rarely seen in public; at times it was hard for his old friends to
find him. But the drummer Kenny Washington remembered Mr. Thompson's showing up
when Mr. Washington was performing with Johnny Griffin's group at Jazz Alley in
Seattle in 1993. Mr. Thompson listened, conversed with the musicians, and then
departed on foot for the place where he was staying - in a wooded spot in the
Beacon Hill neighborhood, more than three miles away.
“All the lonely people.”
That’s one tough world, we’ve created.
His sound now, that much more mournful, understanding his demise.
Yesterday was the last day of school before the Chinese New
Year holiday. My older daughter’s
birthday always occurs during the holiday.
Every year we’re either off somewhere or all her friends are. So we rounded up a few and per their request,
went to a KTV spot. You enter in to
your own little sound proofed world where you can order food and drinks and sit
on a couch and croon away.
We piled in, ordered, and I noticed that for second time we
were viewing prepubescent pornographic pouting by a brat who pranced around and
pulling the collars of middle school boys.
She appeared to be from my home country.
She was on default mode. Someone
figure out the menu. Please. My younger one drove and found a song by her
band, EXO, and sang it. Then it was
quiet. I found a Beatles song “Don’t Let
Me Down” which had been my older daughter’s favorite in the days when she was
small enough to be carried. Then it was
quiet. The pouting girl returned to the
screen. Oh dear. Can somebody choose something?
My wife and I then got the hint. “Could you guys, like, leave?” Ahh.
Right. We are a drag. Gotcha.
For a moment it looked like my wife and I might head out miraculously
for a Friday night by ourselves but she appropriately pointed out that leaving
a room full of twelve year old girls with a nine year old to chaperone them in
one of these places as the night and the patrons got progressively drunk with
who knows what prowling the halls and bathrooms. So my wife and I took our drinks as stood in
the hall.
Leaning outside with my drink, considering the insipid decorations, revelling in the
stares of the washerwoman as she made her way by, again, noting all the
butlered traffic in and out of the various rooms, I thought about musical adventure when I was twelve. My mom took me down to the Palladium in New York to see shows. She and my friend’s parents would go have
dinner across the street. And we’d go
figure out what live Rock and Roll and live New York City Friday nights were in
the that tired, time-honored venue.
Live music halls were crossroads, where danger and magic met, publicly. Anthropologically you had
people from all walks of life, ethnicity, race, class, gender, geography and
age, coming together, showing off, dancing, romancing, indulging, fighting,
lurking, slouching, nodding off, and ideally you saw some cool music. And occasionally it floored you and altered
your whole orientation. KTV halls, by
contrast are not a crossroads. They are
sanitary booths, in a public setting where you can create a private basement
hangout environment and sing at knock off versions of things. Ten years on people will probably just stay
home, don Google-glasses and wirelessly link to friends in a virtual KTV booth
and people will lament the demise of the 'classic Kareokee culture' of yore.
Then again, perhaps I’ll be using Google glasses to enjoy
“live” music broadcasts from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, with zero carbon
footprint saying how much I dig this brave new world. If I do, I will likely have a choice of
enabling technology provided by either the Chinese or the Japanese vendors, it would
seem. Have a look at this article about
Prime Minister Abe’s visit to a number of countries in Africa. http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/between-china-and-japan-a-tug-of-war-over-africa/?ref=asia
One would assume that Abe, and his team bad mouth the
Chinese development efforts behind the scenes.
One would assume that the Chinese bad mouth nearly everyone else’s work
in the region, behind the scenes. But
Abe, while in Mozambique, has chosen to insult China’s effort, publicly. And, on cue, Chinese diplomats up the ante,
complete with reminder photos of Japanese World War II atrocities. Japan claims they were distinguishing themselves
from everyone else, but reading the quotes, this is ridiculous.
This, then, is part of Abe’s message that Japan will be a “normal” country from henceforth. That means, post-War Japanese nuanced reserve
will be tossed aside. Japan Inc.,
overseas will now behave in a fashion boorish, whenever it chooses. China Inc., that would like to appear stately
and pretend that there is a G2 of global relevance, cannot. Instead China replies in an even louder voice
with the rhetorical equivalent of “yeah, well you suck even more than we do.” I trust most Africans are appropriately board
by all this self-serving mud slinging at their own expense. No developed nation has much to brag about in
their sub-Saharan African track records.
Back in the hallway I’m bored. My wife’s off somewhere chatting on her cell
phone. 百无聊赖[1] Thumbs-up again to the
washer woman who can’t help staring at me intently. I peaked back in the
room. Entering, I filled my drink. My daughter was singing sweetly, but barely
audibly. I made my way over to the
digital menu. Sigh. Hairy eyeball. “OK.
OK.” I made my way back out
side. It was her scene.
“Y’all rock-on in here.
Sounds great. I’ll be . . .
outside.” I ducked into an empty room
across the way, where my wife was now sitting.
Same damn brat on the screen in here.
The walls are decorated with anime dolls and something that says
Harajuku Love. I laugh and my wife asks
“why?” And I explain that it's a hip
neighborhood near the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo that she and I’ve walked many times. And here in the land of mass produced
animosity, where people in clubs have been set upon for merely speaking
Japanese, is a room (and maybe there are dozens) designed to celebrate Japanese
cool, or at least Japanese attractive power. A public “crossroads” then, after all, perhaps. But appropriately rendered, I think, with a lower case “c.” “Commercial
Eyes” I’ll write with the "c" capped.
No comments:
Post a Comment