Charleston SC October 29

Birdies, bunnies and black people. The 3 subjects of cute watercolors in a gallery in the historical district. This district seems to be about half shopping and half residential. Half the historical district has become a sort of colonial themed mall — with the occasional church or Confederate museum interspersed between Gap, Banana Republic, Calvin Klein, shoe stores, candle shops and colonial style furnishing shops. The other half of the center is mostly well-kept beautiful mansions, and may be entirely inhabited by the gentry and by interior decorators.

After a walk around, Tracy, Mauro and I have oysters, crab cake, shrimp and alligator sausage at a bar in town. It's delicious, though the oysters seem like they're on steroids compared to most I've seen.

I suggest to Tracy that the town has 2 opposite and complementary sides — the frilly feminine side of gift shops, colonial furnishings and chintz, and the macho side represented by The Citadel, a private military college which is also more or less right in the center of town, though tucked off to one side. Even in the romanticized past the Southern ladies in long dresses were protected by an impressive array of canons and fortified seawalls.

Tracy points out that there is a third side — the ever-present but sometimes out of sight Black population, who in this town appear to be relegated to the service industries. There is almost no integration or mixing whatsoever, although there are a few Black tourists here by the waterside, taking in the sights.

The Civil War started here. It seems it hasn't ended yet. There is a Daughters of the Confederacy neoclassic edifice, a Confederacy museum and numerous buildings housing fraternal and Masonic organizations.

I am reminded of the theory that it was not really about slavery. That was an excuse, a high moral justification by the North for subjugating the Southern agricultural lands. The North, so this theory goes, controlled the manufacturing and much of the shipping and finances, so the South felt under the thumb of the Yankee businessmen, manipulated and squeezed. No wonder they wanted to secede, if that was indeed the case. The anti-slavery crusade was real and just alright, but seems it may have been used like the words democracy and freedom are to today to justify an essentially economic war.

During the last week the missing 320 tons of high explosives that has been missing in Iraq (this was known by the U.S. government for over 6 months) has become a political football. It is the largest missing arms cache in world history. Today the Pentagon has produced a spokesperson and a soldier who claims he blew up some explosives — but when questioned whether or not it was these missing explosives they or he couldn't say. So basically they are muddying the water, confusing the issue, hoping for misinterpretation, as election day is only a few days away.

The issue is if the explosives were still in the bunkers when the U.S. troops arrived, as it seem they were. In that case they fall under U.S. responsibility, which makes the management look pretty incompetent.

This show was sold out weeks ago — it's in a nice theater right in town. When we enter the stage the audience rises from their seats and I am shocked, pleasantly, to see how young the crowd is — it seems to be mostly college age kids. In the course of the tour these kids usually make up some percentage of the crowd, maybe 1/3 or 1/2, but here they're in the majority. Furthermore, as the set proceeds and they're up and dancing and the whole front row seems to be young women. From the looks of it they're either on dates and definitely here to party — the crowd at times appears like a giant sorority mixer gone wild. Not that I've ever been to one of those, but I'm imagining what they must be like — a lot of screaming blondes and arm waving. They’re the loudest crowd we've ever encountered — they seem to revel in the incredible volume they can achieve. Terry, mixing from the middle of the floor, is doing his best to get the band heard above the din — he's got the PA cranked. My between-song patter is useless, it's met with a rising wave of indistinct yelling and conversations with friends who must be across the room. Afterwards Terry tells me he ended up putting in earplugs in between songs, the applause and yelling was deafening him.

Crowds need to express their crowdness, their existence. Sometimes we're just a justification for them to come into being, and a good show is one during which they can vent their joy and pleasure at the communal experience, the music is important, but secondary.

I hope not really, but there's an little element of truth there.

This will be the last show for a while... until a short Australia/New Zealand leg in February. After the show band and crew convene at the restaurant next door, a French place with good wines and a raw bar. I sort of say thank you and goodbye to some of our folks, then George, Paul, Mauro and I board the bus at 1:30 AM for a 10+ hour drive to New York. [It turns out to be more like 14 hours, though to be fair I suggested the driver rest during the night if he felt like it.] The rest are all dispersing to Austin, Milwaukee, Houston, Atlanta, Oxford Miss, Oakland and Minneapolis, where Terry is mixing an Alanis Morrisette acoustic show.

It's 10AM as I write this and we've just passed Spotsylvania, so we've got a few more hours to go. The trees have turned — the reds, yellows and oranges of fall have reached this far south — we've been in summer/spring weather for the last month, so it's odd to be returning to the chilly climate where some of us live.  

Over the next few days some of the gear will be returned to its owners and some of it will be checked, repaired and eventually put in storage until we go out again. Halloween and Election day are right around the corner. NY will be jumping. Daylight savings time is over at midnight tonight. I will have to adjust to sedentary life, which isn't always easy. I tend to feel restless without the focus of the shows at the end of each day. I'll have quite a few boxes of stuff to sort through — stuff I've collected and stuff that was given to me on the road.

Why do these exhausting tours?

Well, looking at it pragmatically, in North America I made money. In Europe, South America and Australia/NZ I will probably end up losing a little, but NA will cover it. [then why do the areas that don't make money?]

In the past, the rationale was that touring generated record sales. Well, this might be true for some, for new acts it generates a certain increased awareness and some press activity, but for me the connection is pretty indirect. I may have played to more people than have purchased my new CD this year. Granted the record company would be pretty disappointed if I didn't perform, so maybe there's an unspoken agreement going on there.

My business managers say that getting out there as a presence activates the catalogue [I own some part of much of my publishing and writers share income with record companies when stuff is used in movies etc]... this happens they say by reminding people of my existence, and possible relevance, especially the people who license music who might think of my name more than they would if I had stayed at home. So eventually more income is generated than just from the concerts. So the theory goes.

But there are other reasons to leave home for so long and return so exhausted. In the past I had to get on stage simply in order to communicate, to express a part of myself, as I was pretty shy socially. It was out of desperation. It was almost a matter of psychological survival.

I'm not as shy now, so that desperate need isn't there as much — but what has happened is that the performing now has become a pleasure. It has become, on many nights, a real joy to hear the music, to sing, to dance and try things out and see if they work (they don't always.) I think the band and crew partake in this pleasure as well — I hope so, because there is not a lot of glory in it.

Performing is also a way of letting the material evolve, breathe, coalesce into slightly new forms — some of which often hint at a place to explore next — a new musical direction with seeds in something that was tried on the road.

And, I love to travel, to see new places, to visit old acquaintances and to meet new people. I think of my peers as being scattered all over the place, a network that exists but isn't always humming, and traveling helps re-cement some of those bonds.

Thursday's paper says that a new species of human has been discovered. Miniature people- 3 1/2 feet (about a meter) high — once inhabited the island of Flores, an island east of Indonesia. Not dwarves or midgets — these beings were true miniatures who hunted 10 foot (3 meter) dragons (whose ancestors now inhabit nearby Komodo) and elephants that had evolved down to the size of a cow. There were giant rats on the island too, which were also hunted by the Floresians.

It was a lost world where size and scale realigned themselves. As one creature shrank another became giant. I imagine there are other lost worlds too — we tend to think these islands as figments of the imagination, quaint relics of novelists of the 19th and early 20th centuries — but if one such place really exists, until fairly recently, why not others? Granted this species is extinct, but not actually that long ago they filled this island. There were reports of them still inhabiting caves when Dutch settlers and explorers arrived in the 16th century. No wonder the novelists' imaginations ran wild. Other outposts in other parts of world might have, or may still shelter even smaller people, intelligent, industrious, inhabiting elaborate miniature cites, with tiny temples, tiny factories using tiny books to detail a science of time that posits a completely different and to us unimaginable universe.

I read that MTV has a new show premiering that they claim is ad free — except for the unacknowledged insertion of a segment created by an ad agency and staring a jeans icon. Oh. It's an example of imbedded advertising, a future trend in which the product is part of the program and therefore the ad and the programming are inseparable — there are no commercials to skip or ignore, which pleases the client, so the producers and the ad agency work hand in hand to integrate the story, the scene and the characters.

It was often said that commercial television programs were merely a means of delivering viewers to the commercials that ran every 10 mins (or less) but now it will be like much of the rest of the country's visual landscape — the advertising and the editorial and creative content will be hard to tell apart.

It is a nice taste of reality to see characters using real products and eating in real restaurants — we know more about the character by the stuff they wear, use and eat. But sadly much of this is paid for, not actually part of the writer's idea of character development or depth. It actually makes the program shallower, more fake, not more realistic. 

In the future this might reach a point where there are no producers, no studios and no TV networks anymore — the advertising agencies will make the shows, in their own studios. There will therefore be a nice savings to them of the cost of ads, money which could then be plowed into the "content", upping the budget of the "program". All this in turn paid for by the large corporations that sell diapers, drugs, beers, jeans and cars — granted, these are the folks who pay for most shows already, but by eliminating obvious ads they can meld with the medium completely and seamlessly. (Wasn't this the was TV began? Didn't even the newscasters on old 50s programs shill for products without cutting to a commercial?)

Entertainment values will be high in this future — as one has to keep the viewers attention, so we don't expect anything too difficult, or anything that takes a while to get into. Expect a lot of winks and irony, cleverness, smirking and smart ass behavior [a kind of inoculation of the empathetic heart]... and a big helping of sentimentality.

I also read that when Adam Smith proposed the laws of laissez-faire capitalism there were few if any huge factories of millions of workers packed into grimy cities. His model was based on a scenario that soon ceased to exist.

October 28 Jacksonville FL

Scene from the new Star Wars movie. Federation storm troopers terrorize a small village on Tatooine:

The pedestrian walkways on the bridge into town are closed in both directions, so the automobile wins again. At least in this town. Though it's right across the river from the hotel — I can see the venue out my window — there is no possibility of walking or biking to and from the it, a lovely old theater in the center of town.

On a jog through a nearby neighborhood I notice Kerry placards on some yards and Bush-Cheney ones on some adjacent yards. Must make for tough neighborly relations. Who in their right mind would support Cheney, a charmless bad-tempered toad?

October 27 Tampa FL

Jade Dellinger, an independent curator, offers to drive a small group to St. Petersburg to catch the Dali show at that city's Dali museum during the afternoon. It's maybe the first show there that isn’t made up entirely from their own collection — which is an incredible collection, I saw it last time I was here.

This show originated in Spain and is called Dali and the Media, so it's excerpts from films, some fake newspapers, the House of Venus from the '39 World's Fair, the Spellbound sequence (Hitchcock) and even a 7 minute Disney animated short that has never been seen. (Apparently the Disney folks, after stonewalling numerous enquiries about this legendary film, looked at their contract and realized that it said that none of the sketches and preliminary paintings for the film were theirs unless they completed the film — so it was completed recently. It sort of looks like a Daliesque sequence from Waking Life.)

There are a few video monitors with hilarious TV ads Dali did in the 60s — one for Braniff Airlines in which a parade of celebs exit a plane all saying, "If you’ve got it, flaunt it!" and a wonderful one for Alka Seltzer in which he paints the route to a woman's stomach on her unitard torso.

Miami FL October 26

Our hotel is cool, but really creepy. The universally attractive staff all wear white, some in shorts, some in trousers and jackets. The rooms are all white, immaculate, stylish, and some of us feel as if we have become inmates in some kind of Stepford mental institution — we're in for reprogramming. Everything is beautiful and perfect, but vacuous — they will help us by wiping out all troubling thoughts and by making us look better.

A man, all in white of course, by the elevator on my floor asked me in a soft dreamy voice "will you be taking some steam today?"

Down by the lounge and pool it's a meat market. Artificially enhanced specimens of both sexes stroll the grounds, even the hostess has enormous breasts. The staff speak in sweet breathy high pitched tones — like they’re all little girls. Nothing is real. It’s a shocking change from Mexico, even though I realize many of these folks might have come from south of the border.

Walking around the corner for an ice coffee there is another world. Gay prostitutes display their tummies on the pedestrian mall, a crew of teens from the 'hood talk tough in a mixture of Spanish and English. Geriatrics whiz by on motorized wheelchairs. And there are fat people.

The bank on the corner has a series of wacky ads that emphasize privacy and how no-one will know from them about your financial affairs. At first this doesn't seem odd in an era of online banking, where all transactions take place in the realm of hard drives, but then I think to myself, maybe there’s more to it. Maybe folks down here have others reasons for keeping their transactions hidden from view. Drug smuggling, for example, is one of the largest industries in and around the United States, so maybe the banks are simply catering to their customers' needs — money laundering and the various activities involving offshore banking.

The venue, the Gusman theater, is in the center of town, which is emptying out at this hour, one of the vast chain of over the top movie/theater palaces built by John Eberson across the country and around the world. The State Theater in Sydney and the Majestic in San Antonio are other examples. As in some of the others there is a vaulted deep blue sky with little stars that twinkle, fake classical pavilions create a kind of skyline, and serve as outposts for spot operators. A stuffed peacock sits on one faux balustrade theater chain — apparently the peacock was the architect’s symbol.

The place is not quite full, there are some empty seats in the big balcony. But the orchestra at least is packed. Maybe I lost some seats to Morrissey, who just did 2 nights ending yesterday at the Jackie Gleason theater in Miami Beach. Maybe others were lost to Laurie Anderson, who was at this venue a few days ago. Whatever, the audience is wildly enthusiastic, by the 7th song or so they’re up and dancing, a nice mix of younger and some who might even be my age. This being Miami there are young women intent to display their wares, one girl dances like a stripper, or a pole dancer, most others are slightly less obvious. This seems cheap and tacky to me at first, but by the end of the show I somehow find it hilarious, it’s so over the top.

The talk is about Ashlee Simpson, the manufactured rocker, who went on Saturday Night Live and for whatever reason decided to rely on her pre-recorded vocal tracks, as these singers often do. However, as I heard it, the band began playing one of her songs but the vocal track that suddenly everyone began hearing on live television was for a different song. Ooops. Someone is not on that tour anymore.

Sounds like a pretty radical concept if she’d only gone with it. But the press, who love nothing better than seeing one of these kids they helped build up stumble, had a field day.

I think if a show has enough spectacle then pre-recorded vocals are permissible. Then the show is not about the emotive and personal power of the singer, but about the flash, the sets, the dancing boys and girls, the cool effects and sight gags. One could also say that in these kinds of shows the singer might be more easily replaced — the singer in these shows is a just another modular part, like any of the technicians or dancers. This need not be bad, from a purely visual point of view it means the person can be chosen for their dancing and physical talents. A dark Goth pop spectacle, should one exist, would work best with a pale, dark haired waif, who moves in a dreamy ethereal manner — a buxom earth mother cast in this role would simply spoil the whole look.

But the Simpson gal doesn't revel in the fakery — they strive for the appearance of a real pseudo punky, emotive and expressive young girl fronting a band of her mates. Realness, but manufactured and carefully manicured realness. So when the curtain is pulled aside and the fakery is revealed there is embarrassment instead of pride.

Coming out of Miami in the wee hours of the morning, Bobby who was sitting in the front suddenly, noticed that the crew bus was on the wrong side of the highway. There was almost no traffic so it wasn’t immediately apparent. When he pointed this out to the driver the driver reacted by moving towards the center. "You’re not going to drive across the median strip, are you!" Bobby reacted. The driver was getting white-knuckled and agitated. A car was approaching in the distance. The driver decided to do a 180. Bobby said "wait, lemme warn the guys in back" (a big sudden turn can throw people out of bunks, smash glasses etc). But the driver didn't wait, and stuff and bodies went flying as the bus fishtailed around and pointed itself in the right lane but wrong direction from what we should have been headed. Bobby had been in a bad bus accident in which a member of Metallica was killed, so needless to say, this driver didn't continue on our tour.

Mexico Pt 3 October 25

I bike out to Polanco Pavilion, an American style mall where I was advised I could find some of the CDs that were recommended to me over lunch yesterday. I also need a second suitcase to transport all the books, CDs and DVDs I've been given and the few that I've purchased.

I find some of the CDs, the others will have to be found on the web. I get a small suitcase at Sears and pedal back holding the suitcase in one hand.

The distinct nasal twang of an "American" accent echoes thought the plane. We're flying American Airlines to Miami. The voices exude confidence, superiority (they don't sound like they're very flexible and they're not.) After the gentle sensuous vowels of Latin-American this language sounds harsh, cruel, authoritarian.

The reviews in the Mexican papers today are surreal. It's hard to tell if the writers were actually at the shows. Admittedly my Spanish is not all that good, but most folks understood what I said, and I even got a laugh, which is a big step in language. However, these writers quote me saying things I never said... and not just getting things a little mixed up, either, this is completely made up.

One paper quotes me as saying "Mexico, los quiero, mi desea es que esta noche sea magica", translated loosely as, "I love Mexico... and my desire is that this night will be magic!" Well, it goes on but I never said anything remotely like that.

Further down they quote me again as saying "se estan divertido? Que tal este noche?" (are you having fun? How's it going tonight?) — just the sorts of things I would never say. Maybe they have improved my performance, or are giving me subtle hints as to how to attract a larger audience.

Mexico Pt 2 October 24

Last night's show went incredibly well. Maybe the best audience response we've ever had. Lots of screaming, endless smiles and a sustained bout of cheering and yelling right in the middle of the set. A business man came up to me at the hotel the next morning and complimented me. He said he went by himself and thought it was an incredibly honest show, totally from the heart. It was maybe one of the most sincere and nicest compliments I've ever gotten. And from a somewhat unexpected source.

The venue is frighteningly clean, not just for Mexico, but for anywhere. It's a large club with standing room and a bar in the back and a balcony with bar type seats. But it sounds pretty good and it's filled up. [not really] It's incredibly dry — the altitude here — I forgot about that, and I wonder why my throat is continually dry and I keep gulping water.

Afterwards I say hi to some of the members of Los De Abajo and Déborah Holtz, who did the Sensacional! book of Mexican street graphics that I wrote an essay for, Lynn Fainshtein, who I've had e-mail contact with as she licenses music for films — and there are lots of good films coming out of Mexico now, and a bunch of others, some of whom I don't know. I bike back to the hotel.

We agree to meet the next morning as Déborah has arranged to go out to JUMEX, the giant juice factory outside of town where there is a contemporary art museum inside the factory with a show curated by Guillermo. After that she has arranged a lunch with a bunch of folks.
So around 11 AM we head on out. The rest of the band, those that are awake, have gone to the pyramids. The factory is huge, spotless, and silent (it's Sunday). It has its own water processing plant, its own water tower, this might be largest juice factory in the country. It's run by one of 2 brothers, the other runs the plant that specializes in canned foods.

The entrance to the museum has a sign which must be an artwork — it's in English — over the building it says "Love Invents Us":

It's a full blown international style art museum, grey concrete, minimal style, plopped in the middle of a juice factory. Of course it houses the owner's collection... or parts of it. Guillermo who accompanied us here, curated a show that is up at the moment. There is a catalogue and everything, the whole deal, though the public is not invited here…it's also pretty far on the outskirts anyway.

I think it was Guillermo who refers to a lot of the younger artists on display as "children of Orozco" referring to Gabriel Orozco, a Mexican artist who works in a host of media and has been accepted and is part of the big international scene. Santiago Serra has some pieces here, he who had the images of people paid to say things they didn't comprehend and people paid to sit in cardboard boxes.

There is a lovely video by a Belgian artist that is a collage of pretty much unrelated scenes — roller skaters, girls screaming, clouds darkening a mountain. I only wish it was shot in film, as opposed to video, as the images are beautiful.

Damian Ortega, a young up and coming artist (according to Guillermo) made a neat sculpture out of chairs, string and a cabinet that looks like one of the odd improvised constructions one sees everywhere here on the streets. Here are two of these "street" items I photographed earlier:

In a driveway in Polanco.

At the airport.

Surreal objects seem to exist as part of everyday life here — it's a fairly porous barrier between the objects seen on the streets and fine art.

The storage area has even more art hanging from ceilings and wrapped in hallways.

Our trip here is on the coat heels of a group from the De Menil museum/collection based in Houston. They arrive momentarily, older ladies and gents with accents- there is a spread laid out for them- champagne and juice, cevice served in shot glasses, squash blossoms filled with goat cheese and round chocolates. This will be my breakfast.
One man asks me what’s to see in Montevideo. I wonder who pays for their trip, is it a reconnoiter in view of a future show of De Menil holdings?, I don't think so. Maybe it's scoping out the competition.
A few of us head back to town for the lunch at El Bajio, a rendezvous Deborah has arranged. Most of the folks who meet us there are involved with music here in one way or another.
Here's who was at lunch:
Los de Abajo (Liber, Yoku and Vladimir)
Lynn Fainshtein (music producer)
Camilo Lara (mucic producer)
Oscar Sarquiz (best known music critic and manager for Los de Abajo)
Julieta Venegas (singer/composer from Tijuana) [didn’t show]
Guillermo Santamarina (art curator/ curated the last JUMEX exhibit, the most
important contemporary art collection)
Matt Holmes and Cristina Faesler (editor of ABCDF)
Guillermo Osorno (editor of DF, the most important culture magazine...
something like Time Out).
Uriel Weizel (Radio Ibero and music producer)
Déborah Holtz, Oscar Reyes and Juan Carlos Mena (Trilce)

The food is unfussy, tasty, and the tequila and sangrita are already on the table. There are a few altars in the restaurant, as the day of the dead is approaching.



I sit next to Liber from Los De Abajo, the band whose last two records were on Luaka Bop. Oscar (which one?) sits across from me and soon enough I was taking notes as he and Liber recommended either recordings by Mexican classical composers or Norteño singers I simply must hear.
Some of these folks, being in the music biz, have just returned from Miami where the Latin Grammy's were held. All were appalled that it was felt necessary to have some respectable Latin songwriters and singers be presented under the auspices of a salute to Usher. What is that about? Smells like multinational record label pressure to me...or TV pressure...or both. But it's pretty damn stupid.
Others mention how fake Miami seems in comparison to Mexico city which is dirty, crowded and messy, but full of life and energy.
 
After lunch Deborah says we simply must visit her friends, the family of an artist, Jaled Muyaes, who has a collection of about 5,000 Mexican masks, from all regions of country.
We arrive in nice neighborhood, it has character and seems old and people wander the streets comfortably. Down a dead end street is a gate and we are let in to a courtyard where the family has been celebrating a birthday. The tequila is out.
Jaled is, it seems, an obsessive collector, not just of masks. On a massive pink wall near is an artwork of his that is made of tools. It’s a veritable hardware store of saw blades, pickaxe blades, trowels and awls. Other pieces of his are scattered about- a "tree" of trowel blades, another of shovel blades.
In a hallway are maybe a hundred framed old French engravings of people dressed as their occupations. A furniture maker is made out of tables and cabinets, a book printer is made of presses and books. In a side room Jaled himself, 80 years old, is patiently at work on some Matisse-like colleges made out of cut-out bits of corrugated cardboard. He rises to answer some questions about the masks, where certainone's are from.
There are other collections here and there- a massive collection of Posada prints, massive antique fruit presses, ceramic cows and everywhere old books, 1st editions and encyclopedias.
The mask collection is incredible. I'm getting seriously overloaded today.
Beautiful to see this 80 year old quietly getting on with his work of creating while the family gets on with their birthday celebrations with the nieces and nephews. Some masks are very contemporary looking, abstract, or distorted and even hairy. Some have penis noses. We are told that they are not made very much any more- that villagers now buy the mass produced rubber ones that we all know and that the craft of making these is fading away.
 
Deborah wants to visit the house of the JUMEX owner for anther round of drinks and more art viewing, but as it's getting on and the tequila is taking it's toll so I beg off. This puts her in a tricky social situation, but none of these visits were planned, so I suggest she blame me.
 
9PM
Just got back to the hotel from lunch!! The Doors are playing across the street at the National Theater- which is a bit like the Kennedy Center, very prestigious- masses of people swarm outside buying tacos and soft drinks, vendors blow whistles. The Doors? Huh? The guy from The Cult is singing with some of the original guys, who make up most of the band. This is like channeling a singer from 50 years ago- who recorded before Ian Ashbury was born, or so I suspect. Creepy, if you ask me. But I guess they're cashing in. Conceptually, maybe it's no more creepy than an actor doing an historical personage, but somehow this IS just a little bit weirder...it's not billed as one of those Broadway or West End type reviews with a through line like the ones about Queen or the one about Buddy Holly.
 
The one tourist attraction I haven't checked off here is Xochilmilco, a kind of Venice of islands, waterways and water traffic. A UN Heritage site also known as the hanging gardens of the Aztecs. Farmers still grow crops on the floating islands. Typically a city dweller would go for a weekend lunch, hire a boat and oarsman, and then, when hungry, summon another boat which pulls alongside and prepares food. This second boat attaches itself, and your food is prepared. Likewise a marimba ensemble might attach itself on the other side and provide entertainment. I was told at lunch that one of the islands is a Barbie island, with thousands of doll heads hanging from the tree branches.
 
Whew, I'm exhausted. A lot of talk. Incredible food, and plenty of Tequila and cervezas.

Porto Alegre Brazil October 8

We performed in Sao Paulo last night as a club (Tom Brasil) modeled after Canecao the venue in Rio. Tables with drinks and snack menus in a vast room with a large stage.
The audience was more reserved than we are used to. Maybe this was because they were seated and it was sort of awkward for them to comfortably stand, but we've played in plenty of seated venues, some pretty fancy, and the audiences often are up by the 7th song or so. I suspect there are other reasons. I suspect that the patrons of these clubs are mostly the higher classes in Brasil- the tickets are probably not cheap by Brazilian standards, and therefore in these clubs one is supposed to be have in somewhat refined manner. It would be unseemly to be shaking and waving one's arms like any ordinary (lower class) Brazilian. The hole in this theory is that there were plenty of younger members of the audience- and usually they tend to disregard those class behavioral guidelines at least for a while.
 
The room sounds good, the PA is more than adequate and the gear all works- the show runs pretty smoothly, a change from the disastrous MTV event.
 
Afterwards I say hello to Tom Ze, who lives here. We agree to meet the next day to catch the Bienal of Contemporary Art that just opened here. I say hi to a few other folks and some of us quickly depart, as there's nothing in this part of town.
 
Flying in to this town one can see a nightmare vision of the future. An entire landscape, endless, monotonous, of banal and unremarkable high rise apartment and office buildings. They stretch to the horizon. There are almost no defining features, at least to an outsider. (well, actually, there are a few landmarks) It's a little like LA plus Tokyo plus Mexico city all rolled into one. Caetano and Tracy both pointed out the lovely purple flowering trees which seem like incongruous explosions of beauty amidst a the endless urban sprawl.
 
The next day Tracy and I catch a cab and meet Tom Ze at the Bienal. It's in a massive convention center building in a park. Near the Niemeyer designed auditorium and smaller exposition hall. There is a terrific Cai Guo Qiang piece that is an almost full sized small airplane made of woven basket material into which has been wedged thousands of object that had been confiscated by security-thousands of  Swiss army knives, scissors, screwdrivers, nail clippers, knitting needles, etc. They turn the plane into a porcupine. As we saunter around the massive space looking at stuff I get a call from Daniel who has headed to the airport an hour and a half ago with the rest of the band and crew. "We're stuck in traffic" he says, "It's the traffic jam from hell, it's biblical, I doubt we'll make our flight... I think you should allow 2 hours to reach the airport".
He's right, they do miss their flight, but thanks to Mauro they find seats on a small carrier that has a 10 PM flight to Porto Alegre. Their original flight was for 4PM.
 
According to Icaro Brasil, the Varig in-flight mag (is my research this limited?):
"The Bienal is the child of post WWII. In the wave of victorious euphoria and post WWII ideological and economic ties, the western bloc intensified the circulation of information and cultural assets. The Bienal was cosmopolitan, form the start, with the idea of bringing the international avant guard together every two years, not only to exhibit, but also to discuss and evaluate." [already this makes the avant guard appear an arm of western capitalist ideology]
 
There are documents that attest to the US State department's involvement in creating the Bienal. One person even called it, at the beginning, at "an international art trust headed by Nelson Rockefeller", a "machine for corruption and propaganda" designed to sink Brazil into the "morass of modern formalism". At the time there were heated debates on figurative and abstract art, where only the former was considered valid by leftist intellectuals, as a type of bastion of humanism. [nowadays, with abstract art not having the modern hegemony it once did (except in Ft Worth) this idea seems somewhat more valid to the international set] Abstraction was seen as alienating and a sell-out strategy of the right.
    
This sort of gives a different perspective on a lot of Northern art museums and institutions. Surprising to me that it would appear in an in-flight magazine.
 
Lots of school groups recognize Tom and have their pictures taken with him, other flock to Jair, a musician who is producing Tom's new CD. Tom jokingly says to me "you are a nobody", though in fact some of the school groups recognize me too. On our way out we run into Daniela Mercury, out of MTV makeup- she's touring the exposition with her parents and grandparents. I wonder what they'll think of the Bulgarian artist Rassmussen Rassim's video piece of him getting a circumcision. One screen had a close-up of the knife and the cauterization tool and the other screen was a wider shot of him watching the procedure.

Rio Brazil October 6

Mauro, Jacques Morelenbaum and I joined Caetano on the 10th anniversary MTV awards last night in Sao Paulo. All the live performances were collaborations- Sepultura was joined by Naçao Zumbi, Paralamas was joined by members or another rock band and Zeca Pagodinho joined by some rappers. Caetano invited me to join him doing Nothing But Flowers.
Caetano came down with the flu, so the day we arrived we did a rehearsal without him and then after that there was a run through of the whole show that evening. Then, when he arrived on the next day we did another rehearsal/soundcheck. We thought it was going to be a breeze, easy.
In the car on the way over Caetano gave a brief history of both Sao Paulo and the venue we will play in Rio- Canecao. Sao Paulo was a Jesuit outpost. They were everywhere, of course, spreading the word. The settlement is on a plateau, where Indian roads that lead both from the coast and from inland. Roads leading all the way to the Incas in the Andes. So it was a big crossroads, a meeting place.
And still is.
In the morning I went for a run in the Jardim district near the hotel. It’s like a Beverly Hills zone of curving tree lined streets and walled mansions. There's little traffic through the side streets so it was OK for running. The neighborhood is well maintained by an army of yard workers, and street cleaners, just like Beverly Hills, the only difference is that surrounding this zone is a wall or high rise condos, office buildings and hotels. It's like central park but with houses.
After soundcheck I have a delicious meal at the hotel's Italian restaurant. I am the only person there eating at that early hour.
The night of the day we arrived, after the run through of the show, I had a glass of wine in the lobby bar and was introduced to Toquinho, a musician whose recordings with Vinicius de Morais are lovely and legendary.
 
Backstage at the MTV awards I saw some musicians I knew- Marisa Monte, Arnaldo Antunes and the guys from Paralamas. Zeca Pagodinho came into our dressing room to say hi and told us he had plenty of beer in his dressing room and would be restricting himself to one glass (uh huh) so we were welcome.
I remembered a song of his was included on the Luaka compilation of sambas that came out in the early 90s and I often mentioned his name at that time as someone whose music I liked as well as that of Tom Ze, Caetano, Milton- all the usual suspects. I got some puzzled looks at that time, as he's a Pagode singer, a genre considered less refined and more street than the compositions of the MPB and Tropicalia generation. But it seems now he's been embraced by one and all- the rockers love his songs and Brasil's love of samba is pretty much universal, cutting across classes and colors - but I suspect it was partly his self destructive lifestyle that enamored him to the rock crowd as much as anything...and the humorous and clever wordplay of his songs that play off that life.
 
I call Malu from backstage who is impressed I'm doing an MTV awards show- but of course she's never heard of any of the artists- but I crack the door and she can hear a band doing a cover of the Ramones "I Wanna Be Sedated".
 
As we begin our performance the monitor mix is shockingly different that what we heard in our 2 rehearsal/soundchecks. I put it down to the presence of the live audience and Caetano begins to sing the first verse. Almost immediately there is a load howl of feedback, which shouldn't be as we have no monitor speakers on stage. My monitor mix is atrocious- there seems to be a live audience mic being fed into our mix, which doesn’t make sense, but that's what it sounds like.
Caetano stops the song at the next burst of feedback and we pause for a few seconds to allow any adjustments to be made and we begin again. It's live TV, so already it's a bit of a mess. But it gets worse.
When we start again the mix is just as bad, the feedback continues and by the second verse my mic cuts out completely. I mention that I think a mic is on in the audience but one of local tech guys says it's not possible. This is really weird as Caetano's monitor and stage guys are all top notch. He’s getting really pissed now, we stop the song again and he makes some "satan" finger gestures and starts a tirade saying basically "get your shit together...shame on you MTV"...he's shaking with anger.
They cut to a commercial.
He then walks to the edge of the stage and shakes hands with the young audience who are screaming his name in the front row...the MC reappears and we check our mics and give it one more try. It's still a weird ass mix, nowhere near the lovely balance that Caetano's guys had done in the past, but we actually give an energetic performance and I hope it sounds OK.
[This whole incident becomes front page news in the following days- cover pictures appear in the national papers of Caetano rebuking MTV and editorial comments such as "the old baiano (a person form Bahia) stole the show".]
 
Connie insists I stay at the Copacabana Palace when in Rio. It's the fanciest hotel on the beach, an incredible wedding cake overlooking the sands. I am tempted, but decline as it wouldn't be practical- besides, I feel that separating myself form the band, and to some extent, the crew, is unnatural for me and, who knows, it could lead to everyone feeling like employees.
Maybe this is an anglo saxon/prodestant affectation, while the brazilain desire for status and luxe is not mere bling bling but also a show of respect. I think Connie felt that as an important artist I should be treated and lodged in an appropriate manor. And who can argue that artists and musicians don't deserve the treatment that lying politicians and swindling CEOs feel is their right?
 
The hotel elevator has a sign explaining a law that prohibits discrimination in elevators. I suspect, but don’t know, that this might stem from hotel and office staffs telling the cleaning and maintenance people, most of whom have darker skins, that they cannot ride the same elevators as the guests.
 
Afterwards I chat some with Marisa Monte inviting her to our concert and later I am introduced to Daniela Mercury whose show at the Roxy in NY I'd seen some years ago- it was one of the most amazing energetic shows I'd ever seen. Most North American artists who dance and sing now use prerecorded vocals in case they get out of breath, but Mercury does it all live, full voiced singing and dancing right up to the moment she hits the mics. I don't know how she does it. She says she's doing a show of covers- including Janis Joplin, who is a vocalist she says she emulates sometimes.

NYC October 3

Lunch with Malu. The Billy Joel song "Piano Man" is playing in the sushi restaurant. Malu says- "I'm glad I was born when I was, so I don't have to live with this music." I point out that it's the same guy who sings "Uptown Girl," a song I know she likes. Her eyes widen in disbelief, is this possible that it's the same guy?
 
At JFK checking in for night flight to Sao Paolo. I'm excited and slightly anxious as there are many production and schedule questions still left unanswered. A date and venue in Montevideo got changed just the other day...and none of us were consulted beforehand...and the show is only a week or so away! I also just received an Email "confirming" that I would do a whole raft of press the day I arrive- after an 8 hour overnight flight and Mauro and I have a rehearsal with Caetano that night. I'll probably say no to most of them, it's just too much to ask.
 
The airport security confiscated my gaffer tape. I knew about nail clippers and tweezers- "give up the controls or I'll tweeze ya!"- but, well, I almost broke out laughing, but I didn't. I had the tape with me in order to secure the funky locks on my bicycle flight case- the baggage security guy understood, but said he'd use his own after they opened it up. But this woman held it up like a weird trophy. What did she think I was I going to do, tape up the pilot?
 
A kid here in the waiting lounge has one of those shirts that says, in really big letters - "New York Fucking City".
 
I read an article that claims there is a new form of matter, a sort of "super liquid". It seems when helium is cooled near absolute zero some of it becomes solid, as expected, but other atoms become a liquid that flows THROUGH the solid. This is some weird cosmic shit.
There was a beautiful sentence that said that "in quantum mechanics an atom is not a discrete object but a fuzzy blur of possibilities" To say nothing of people, who can be really fuzzy at times.

NYC October 2

Went to see Patti Smith and Television with Eno, who had just arrived form London for some talks. He was a bit jet-lagged so left early.
Television was always one of my favorites and they're as eccentric as ever. Tom Verlaine doesn't use a tuner-- between songs he crouches and we can all here the plunk plunk of strings being tuned. I suspect he feels his ears are better than a machine, and maybe he's right. Many in the audience have never heard of Television, as their "breakup" came rapidly and their reunions have been short lived...they sort of didn't align themselves with any movement either, and to my ears they are almost a jazz act, with the amazing dueling improvisiations from Verlaine and Lloyd.
Backstage afterwards Patti sat slumped on a sofa, talking to family. It was an intense show, she still mixes poetry with ecstatic rock rave ups and now has added slides and psychedelic visuals of Ghandi and other icons.

Rochester NY October 1

I am in Rochester NY, for an exhibition and talk at Eastman House, the former home of George Eastman, founder of Kodak, and now a photo and film archive and museum. I am mainly showing my PowerPoint pieces, which is slightly odd, as they don't really feature photography, but to their credit the museum wants to update their exhibition policy and become more current. In the past they pretty much just showed photography, unsurprisingly. I'm also giving a talk on PowerPoint later in the afternoon.
Mr. Eastman, as they refer to him here, never married, lived with his mother and killed himself with a gun. He left a one line suicide note (on display "To my friends: My work is done. Why wait?") and did the deed almost immediately after signing an updated will. Ever considerate, efficient, and maybe just a little obsessively neat, he placed a damp cloth across his chest to minimize any splatter, and then pulled the trigger. George was ill, and wanted to avoid further suffering.
There are clocks placed inconspicuously all over the residence- most of them hidden in corners and alongside paintings so he could keep his servants punctual. Every object and piece of furniture owned by him had an engraved tag (Prop of G Eastman) screwed into it on some hidden surface.
His mothers bedroom, across from his, has two small beds side by side. George's bedroom is empty- only the fireplace remains. It was the scene of the suicide. I sort of suspect that George and his mom slept side by side, but maybe I'm being cynical.

In the center of Rochester there is a wonderful waterfall, a smaller but still spectacular Niagara where the Genesee river plummets into a large gorge.

I biked by it last time I performed here, sort of stumbling upon it by accident. The falls are pretty spectacular and why the city hasn't made them more of a focus is at first a puzzle. 
I look around the gorge and dominating one side is the almost abandoned Kodak plant- which doubtless used the river for both power and as a dumping place for lots of photo chemicals - on the other side are more factories and remnants of a hydroelectric plant. It seems that this boom town (the fist boom was when the Erie canal connected here, allowing shipping from the Great Lakes up the Genesee down to NYC) happily prioritized industry which soon dominated the waterfront on all sides. The river was almost hidden from public view throughout most of the town. The mansions of the wealthy lived well outside this former industrial zone. George even had his own cows on his premises, he liked fresh milk, we are told.
Then, when those businesses slumped here the former industrial sites, they were abandoned and the riverfront became a not a very desirable place. It became derelict, a wasteland, as in many former industrial cities. A man driving Danielle and I to Eastman House says that the projects dominate part of the riverfront as it was not prime real estate when they were built - and they would soon become run down and then they'd tear them down and then those would become run down in turn and now developers are hoping to oust those folks altogether as the riverfront is becoming cool and desirable.
 
This area is home not only to Kodak, but to Xerox, Bausch and Lomb and, in a nearby small town...Jell-O.
 

March 17, 1993, technicians at St. Jerome hospital in Batavia test a bowl of lime Jell-O with an EEG machine and confirm the earlier testing by Dr. Adrian Upton that a bowl of wiggly Jell-O has brain waves identical to those of adult men and women.

All of these industries seem to me to be evocative of the last century. Kodak made some serious layoffs lately, and they seem optimistic, but who really believes that film will remain a large industry for long? I can see it remaining as an artisanal and sometimes technical material for quite a while, but beyond that? The huge demand for film, developer, photo paper, etc will disappear within a decade- that seems inevitable.
Kodak, as compensation, has made inroads into digital imaging, but really no one thinks of Kodak when one thinks of digital cameras or technology. Not to say they couldn't change all that, but being the biggest, the virtual monopoly for so many decades has got to encourage entrenched ways of thinking, so revamping themselves has got to be quite a task.
 
Likewise, what's up with Xerox? How much longer will people want finicky copiers when they can make copies from computer printers that cost under $100?
 
Wonder what will happen to this town then?
 
My talk goes well. Lots of laughs in the first part as I detail the development and attributes of PowerPoint. Then it gets more serious and sometimes maybe a little obscure- fewer laughs- but maybe that's good. I end by showing the PowerPoint piece I was sent by Mike Fincke from the space station- I guess partly I include it to show off and show how ubiquitous this program truly is. It makes a pretty nice wrap up.