¤ jetless heights

makin’ tea in your underwear

+ Tue, November 30

The Pixies, Part Two

When one of the most consequential bands of the last 20 years goes on tour for what may very well be a once in a lifetime opportunity, what do you do?  You see them twice.

The Pixies - November 22, 2004 - Detroit, Michigan - State Theater

  1. Winterlong
  2. Where Is My Mind?
  3. In Heaven
  4. Vamos
  5. Nimrod’s Son
  6. Holiday Song
  7. Mr. Grieves
  8. La La Love You
  9. Wave Of Mutilation (UK Surf)
  10. Bone Machine
  11. Cactus
  12. No. 13 Baby
  13. Velouria
  14. I Bleed
  15. Crackity Jones
  16. Something Against You
  17. U-Mass
  18. Planet Of Sound
  19. Caribou
  20. Hey
  21. Gouge Away
  22. Monkey Gone To Heaven
  23. Broken Face
  24. Isla De Encanta
  25. Dead
  26. Wave Of Mutilation
  27. Debaser
  28. Tame

    Encore
  29. Gigantic

A good show certainly.  A wild bunch, they: Kim smiling like her heart pumped prozac, Joey doing his guitar thang, Frank layered up in eyeliner and good ol’ Dave taking vocals on La La Love You.

One thing of note. I’ve been to three shows outside of Detroit now, once for Radiohead, once for The Shins, once for The Pixies.  Defining characteristic of those three?  Far and away the most polite shows I’ve ever been to.  With the special advantage of seeing the same band on the same tour, once in Chicago and once in Detroit I can note distinct differences.  Let’s just say that in Detroit the moshing directly behind me didn’t even stop for Caribou.  Detroit, you’s a bunch of punks, on and off the court.

5:49 PM  ×  4 Comments  ×  0 Trackbacks

+ Thu, November 18

From An Island

I am a person for compassion.  I am a person with few beliefs.  I am a person with much trust in fact and empirical evidence.  I am a person for doing what is found to be best and for openly atoning when a mistake is made.

I am a person for reason and I am a person for justice.  It is for this that I am wholly against the Republican party.

I am a liberal man.  I am not a Democrat, I am not a Republican.  Not a Green, Reformist, Libertarian, not even an Independent.  Drop that capital I and call me a person independent from a political party and you’ve got yourself agreement.  I take issue with the political party system as a whole, of which I find none more corrupt and against the very fabric of what it is to be a loving human than the Republican party.

I know many of you are rather sick of hearing about politics and all that – I could certainly do without it for a while – but since the election this month I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on what it is to live in this country.  The politics of hate and close-mindedness that a clear majority of my voting countrymen seem to support makes me sick.  I am ashamed of much of what my government has done in the last four years and I am ashamed to see how many millions of Americans agree.

When I was a sophomore in high school I was bummed out about something and my dad did that thing they all do: give advice.  He told me that as he sees it, life’s a game.  The better you know the rules, the easier it is and the farther you go.  Being the cocky 16 year old I was, I blew it off.  Half a decade later, I think he might’ve been more right than I gave him credit for.  From what I’ve seen, if it’s a game, it’s scored purely in knowledge.  To see my government do everything it can to stifle the free flow of knowledge, especially on the cutting edge of the most important fields of the time, I have a hard time expressing what this does in me.  It’s so viciously disgusting I can barely get the words out.

Stifling research that has the potential to cure diseases that we can’t even begin to treat with present techniques because it kinda-sorta conflicts with the values of one religion takes the cake for repulsive blindness.  This is the most appalling antithesis to our human cognition ability being applied to the bettering of life for all.  Not funding the explosive field of stem cell research because it deprives one man’s god of the worship due from a five day old, microscopic ball of cells — this is insanity.  Mothers and fathers are dying from potentially curable genetic disorders because my government won’t fund the brilliant scientists of this country (just last month it was discovered how incurable brain cancer uses stem cells to continue its lethal growth).  I thank my leaders for this pinnacle of morality.

Global warming.  I can think of one man who doesn’t believe it’s an absolutely critical issue to everyone on this globe.  He is my president and he is incapable of acknowledging his mistakes.  I loathe him for this.

There is much more that this government and its supporters have done to smother scientific growth, which I encourage you to read more of.

So much for science, let’s look at the social end of things.  Let’s look at how 1 out of every 5 states has stolen away the rights and privileges entitled to two people in love because of their gender.  What the hell does it matter to anyone if two guys down the block like to get it on?  As long as they let me live my life as I see fit, I’ll do the same for them.  Hell, I’d let them do whatever they want in their private lives even if they tried to impose their beliefs on me.  I’m free thinking, I’ll make my own choices, thank you.  “Do unto others…”, as some old book once said.

None of the above is compassion.  It’s hate, fear, ignorance.  It’s the refusal to acknowledge a mistake.

At this point I can feel emotion entering into the mix and that is not conducive to making a rational argument.  For this, I will now stop, but not without pointing you toward my inspiration tonight.

The Urban Archipelago is a site I came across tonight.  They say much towards the values I hold, if a bit more polarizing.  I don’t live in a city, but I recognize the need for a government that cares about the human condition.  I think that if there’s a strategy in this day for attaining that end, it has much do with the angles they propose.

Here’s to the day when America is once again a forward thinking nation, not afraid to change and love.

8:33 PM  ×  21 Comments  ×  0 Trackbacks

The Pixies, Part One

You might think that I’d jump at the chance to write about one of the best weekends I’ve had in the last few years in which I had a successful road trip with friends, stayed up late and got up early each day, hung out in a big city that I’ve never really explored and saw the goddamned Pixies, but, well, no.

Before this weekend, the only parts of Chicago I’d ever seen were Michigan Ave. and the I-80 corridor (scenic, I know).  Seeing the hipster/small store areas and driving the streets, the city comes down in size and becomes more personal.  Add one to the list of big cities I might like to live in for a year or two.

The show was fantastic.  Being only three deep in the packed Aragon Theater with the person directly in front of you being your guide through the wild jungle that is Chicago  was a pretty intense experience.  When they took the smoke-filled stage, Kim Deal was perfectly silhouetted by a stage light as she broke into the vocals on “In Heaven”, providing one of the most ethereal concert experiences I’ve ever had.  Speaking of Kim, she was definitely the most excited person in the venue.  I think the only times she wasn’t smiling was when she was pounding cigarettes in the few seconds Frank gave up between songs.

The Pixies - November 13, 2004 - Chicago, Illinois - Aragon Theater

  1. In Heaven / Wave Of Mutilation (medley)
  2. Where Is My Mind?
  3. Blown Away
  4. Holiday Song
  5. Mr. Grieves
  6. Ed Is Dead
  7. Planet Of Sound
  8. Bone Machine
  9. I Bleed
  10. Crackity Jones
  11. Monkey Gone To Heaven
  12. Broken Face
  13. Caribou
  14. Velouria
  15. Cactus
  16. No. 13 Baby
  17. Subbacultcha
  18. U-Mass
  19. Gouge Away
  20. Dead
  21. Debaser
  22. Wave Of Mutilation
  23. Tame
  24. Hey
  25. Gigantic

    Encore
  26. Here Comes Your Man
  27. Vamos

27 songs and virtually all of the songs you could’ve hoped for.  Allison?  Yeah, I know.  But 27 other mind-blowing classics!  Amazingly enough, despite being organized by those bastards at Clear Channel, soundboard recordings were available immediately after the show and damn if it doesn’t sound fantastic.  Good swag in general to boot, too.

Frogcake is death

And then I ate Death à la Frog-Shaped Sugar.

5:21 PM  ×  2 Comments  ×  0 Trackbacks

+ Wed, November  3

American Homework

With the events of the past few days, we find ourselves in a worthwhile break.  Here we stand, at the end of one presidential term and the beginning of the second half.  Grab your popcorn, babe, this is the only break you’re going to get.

I often wondered throughout the election a number of things that the Democratic party either did or did not do.  In many cases I attributed the lack of the obvious jab to fear of being labeled that stigmatic word Unpatriotic.  In a time when so many feel that their centuries-old liberties have been stolen away by the gripping hands of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, I’ve often wondered why the Democratic party didn’t take a stronger official stance.

The answer is that they want to be elected and speaking against such aptly-named laws like The Patriot Act don’t get you elected.

I have the special privilege of not being up for election.  With this privilege, I will say what I please.

The years behind us have been so marked by the words of Orwell’s brilliant 1984 I want to cry.  What does it mean to fight a war against a concept?  When will we find the body of terrorism and say, “Look Mother, here is our enemy, I have killed him.  Now we are free”?  In 1984, there was a war with an invisible country that barely existed, forever waged to weaken the people with fear.  In 2004 there is a war with an invisible concept that exists only in our minds, forever waged to weaken the American people with fear.  Ask Dick Cheney.

With products named “Victory gin” and “Victory cigarettes”, the people in 1984 were subtly reminded that their government was honorable and just.  With laws named The Patriot Act, the American people are reminded that our government is honorable and just.  In 1984, the Ministry of Truth spun stories of deceit to misguide the people into a near-religious fervor, hateful to their enemies, endlessly loyal to their government.  In 2004, we have the CIA telling us of catastrophic weapons, misguiding the American people into a near-religious fervor, hateful enough to our enemies to kill 100,000 of their innocent, loyal enough to our government to reelect a too-proud man, blind with zealotry.

I give you homework this night.  If you have not read Orwell’s 56 year old classic, I ask you to do so.  Stunningly relevant, numbingly terrifying, this book has only become more pertinent to the lives of free-thinking individuals with every day since it’s publication.

1984 will open your eyes to things that many only sense today.  The next four years will be a very strange ride, but I have hope for 2008 and onward.

8:53 PM  ×  6 Comments  ×  0 Trackbacks

A Disaster

I weep once for my country and twice for the world at large tonight.  I pray that we, as a global community, can survive four more years of this madman.

3:10 AM  ×  7 Comments  ×  0 Trackbacks