Who Asked Me?

Young people don’t know anything – especially that they’re young.
-Don Draper

It reached ninety-two degrees in Central Park on Wednesday afternoon, making it the hottest April 7th in recorded history. I remind myself of this two days later as I cut through Manhattan at midnight, hood pulled tight, heading for the train on a chilled, wet Friday. My car remains more or less empty for one stop, where it fills at 14th Street with a group of young gay (not in the Great Gatsby sense) dudes, occupying the seat next to me. A weathered, older Irish gentleman, looking like the type who might admonish George Bailey on ‘characters giving the place atmosphere’ sits across in apparent disapproval. Minutes later at West Fourth some urban clubbers with custom fit pants and high-end sneakers add to the mix, grabbing an overhead bar and the remaining floor space. Like the weather, the vibe shifts and the people readjust. If nothing else, New York City keeps you honest.

Pat Jordan wrote the baseball memoir A False Spring in 1975, and I read it later in college. The Kansas City Star called Jordan’s book “one of the most fabulous failure stories of our time,” and I would agree. But Jordan’s work, documenting his unsuccessful attempt at becoming a major league pitcher, is much more than this. Despite failing to reach The Show, Jordan’s ultimate success in relating his journey is apparent from the first sentence: “I see myself daily as I was then, framed in a photograph on the desk in my attic room.” The writing continues as such to its conclusion, detailing in simple, vivid prose an experience as universal as the passing of the seasons. Even Willie Mays had to learn to face the winter – and not before doing a late-fall stint as a Met.

Perspective, not unlike Dodger fans, tends to arrive late and leave early. I saw the Stones play Candlestick Park back in ’81, supporting the release of their album Tattoo You. There was a video for the single “Waiting On A Friend” – a tune that was recorded in ’72 for Goats Head Soup, but didn’t make the cut. In the video, which played constantly on the just-introduced MTV, Mick Jagger sits on a stoop at 96-98 St. Mark’s Place in Manhattan, the same location used for the cover of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 Physical Graffiti LP. He waits for an approaching Keith Richards while mouthing the words to the tune – “a smile relieves a heart that grieves / remember what I said.” The jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins provides a memorable solo and Mick Taylor’s guitar work from ’72 can be heard also. I liked the song then and like it now, and had little idea I’d be wandering those same streets near St. Mark’s Place twenty-nine years later, reflecting on how old I thought Mick Jagger was at 38, back in 1981. And I have no idea what any of it means.

Walking home Monday at midnight in the driving late-March Brooklyn rain, I hit a good twenty minute stretch. I rarely use an umbrella in New York City as it presents an awkward space-management dilemma, like navigating the already populous cement with everybody’s head expanded to triple-size. But given the hour and conditions the sidewalks were clear, so I opened an under-utilized bumbershoot from my pack and watched the encasing runoff as though staring from the backside of a waterfall. The bars on Atlantic Avenue were closing early, even for a Monday, with stools stacked on tables and mops hitting floors. I was plugged in to some tunes, sheltered, on-foot and self-contained, a condition only sustainable for short bursts during a lifetime. But like I said .. twenty minutes.

Hillybilly Deluxe – that’s what I was listening to – Dwight Yoakam’s 1987 follow-up to his debut LP. I used to make an argument for Dwight on occasion in mixed company, back when I was young and had the energy. He’s an easy sort to slap a knee-jerk label on, what with the tight jeans and that ever-present Stetson pulled low over his eyes. “You like this guy?” David Letterman joked in trademark punk fashion to Alec Baldwin, about to introduce Yoakam on a ’96 show. “I bet you a hundred bucks he’s wearing a cowboy hat..” I’ve grown tired of Dave but still listen to Dwight. The hat, jeans and swagger are all part of a crafted visual that he’s pulled off well, but without them the guy looks like he might be pumping gas at a 50’s Mobil station in Porterville, California. Not unlike Tom Petty, another exceptional talent looked down upon by some “sophisticated” music fans, part of Yoakam’s appeal is in the genuine transformation he achieves while performing. Several observations could be made about this process, but really, it all comes down to the guy’s voice. When Johnny Cash names you his “favorite singer,” chances are you’ve got something going on. He’s been labeled “country” – a derisive term for the clueless post Hank Williams masses – but he crosses genres. Elvis analogies are not out of line. Listen to his cover of the Kink’s Tired Of Waiting For You and then try defining the guy.

But I digress. Brooklyn, transient ruminative relief, late-night pouring rain. I arrive at my building where an elegant woman with baby strapped to front is exiting a cab, attempting futilely to cover from the deluge. I grab her suitcase and turn my key in the door, helping her in to the lobby. “Thank you,” she says with educated English tone. “Nice night,” I observe with some irony, though I’m still feeling OK. “Just awful,” she says, extending the handle and rolling her belongings away. Inside my apartment it’s warm and I switch in to a dry t-shirt. A quick Internet search reveals that Dwight Yoakam is facing an IRS lean on his property; the result of over four hundred grand in delinquent payment. I switch over to Youtube and catch a clip of him performing in Wheeling, West Virginia – a two part medley starting with Suspicious Minds and segueing seamlessly into a sublime, Kentucky-fied cover of the Bee Gee’s To Love Somebody. Maybe I can nurse an extra ten minutes out of this run.

Spring has sprung – according to the window sign in Francesco’s pizza anyway. I typically look to Francesco’s for these reminders. Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Remember To Vote – this is the kind of stuff that slips easily past when you reach a certain age and don’t have a local food establishment there to clue you in. There’s still a particular communal, family-oriented vibe present in Brooklyn that’s lacking in San Francisco. It’s difficult to pin down, but I see it when I stop in Francesco’s to get a slice and small salad to go, and note two older Italian dudes having some pizza and talking about how they invest their money. “I’m getting at least seventy percent of it out of this goddamn country, I’ll tell you that ..” It’s there in the young family of four without time to plan a meal or make a reservation, sitting together and enjoying a casual dinner of just-ordered baked ziti while Frank Sinatra croons on Sirius Radio. It’s there in the fact that this joint is neither highly-touted nor exceptional, but consistent, always-open, and delicious. And it’s there in the fact that this place is far from one of a kind in Brooklyn.

I mean not to disparage my other main city out west; only to compare and contrast. Try getting an Irish Coffee in Brooklyn, for instance – particularly when it isn’t being served at my house or as a St. Patrick’s Day novelty item, in a ridiculous glass with half a can of spray-on whipped cream. Try finding some fresh, cracked Dungeness crab or comparing the Verrazano Bridge to the Golden Gate. Try finding a real hill, for God’s sake, or a view of something other than Manhattan that takes your breath away. Still, there’s something to those friendly, seasonal reminders posted outside the local pizza joint, and to being able to read them without being harassed for change or suspicion of being a Straight White Male.

I’ve noticed recent indications of the two respective cities (well, one city and one borough, technically) spilling over to one another. There’s the emergence of excellent new pizza restaurants in North Beach, and even a few spots where one can grab an average slice to go. Brooklyn has a few places to get a San Francisco Mission-style burrito, but if the Park Slope taqueria I tried the other night is any example, they’re about as close to figuring it out as Michael Jackson is to completing that European concert tour. Amazingly this place gets decent reviews out here. Somebody needs to call San Francisco for a delivery so they at least have a point of reference. Both the Park Slope and San Francisco restaurants see fit to give themselves the name “The Taqueria”, but only the latter lives up to this heady billing.  Perhaps it’s best that certain charms be left to certain cities. Vive la difference, as the French would be well-advised not to say in Brooklyn. There are enough constants in this world anyway… like Spring coming around just a little faster every year.

My buddy Tom Myers, who was in Los Angeles for his second consecutive Oscar nomination Sunday night, is on his way to becoming the Jeff Bridges of sound men. He lost to a Swedish dude with two middle initials who made a slightly less grandiose speech than the Indian guy who managed to work the definition of “Om” in to his thank-yous last year.  If Tom does follow Bridges’ route, and hangs in there until his sixties before taking home a statue, it may be the most savvy move in the history of technical awards. I don’t think they keep these behind the scenes types around if they’ve already won. They certainly don’t sit them front and center for on-camera eye candy like George Clooney, or even prop them up in back for the Ed Asner/Robert Duvall sympathy vote. My guess is that it’s a one and out kind of thing, so best to get in as many trial runs as possible while rubbing shoulders with Kate Winslet and Maggie Gyllenhaal at the concession stand. Tom sent me a text message Sunday afternoon (as close as I’ll ever get to the Big Show) telling me he’d suppressed the urge to yell “Hey now!” as Jeffrey Tambor passed him in the hall. I didn’t point it out at the time, but Tambor has never been nominated for an Oscar, and yet I’d put five minutes of his Hank Kingsley from The Larry Sanders Show up against anything I saw in The Hurt Locker.

Despite coming from a family with arguable ties to the film industry, my only interest in the last two Academy Awards has been in Tom’s nominations. It’s difficult to get past the self-congratulatory, celebrity circle-jerk element of the whole deal. If hearing Whoopi Goldberg tell her fellow actors “I’m really glad we do what we do, man – we are amazing” didn’t make me cringe, it would probably be time to call it a day. And this new trend of having one group of actors stand on the stage and shower glorious platitudes upon those nominated while the canonized touch their hearts and put their hands together in saintly appreciation is enough to make Joey Chestnut gag. Still, the brief mention of our company during a ’91 acceptance speech generated more attention than any ad campaign we ever ran. Tens of millions watch the broadcast every year, and I can’t make a solid argument that the interest is any more vacuous than my own in Joe Montana winning a Super Bowl or Tim Lincecum the Cy Young. Further, Tom Myers, the most prominent example among fellow employees to emerge from my era of working at our company, is also the most un-Hollywood type you could find. I just wish he’d worked a little harder on his pitching delivery, growing up playing baseball in Philadelphia. This won’t, however, prevent my rooting for his nomination again next year.

It’s dark in here; can’t see the sky – Tom Russell

Dave Alvin, who played the City Winery on Varick Street in Soho Tuesday night, has grown comfortably into his looks. Back in his punk/roots days with the Blasters, beside brother Phil, slicing through glass-sharp leads on his ’64 Fender Mustang, Alvin’s appearance was borderline unnerving. Red-faced and sweating, with a widow’s peak/pompadour that was a combination of the Eddies Cochran and Munster with a side of Joe Jackson, there was almost something too authentic about the guy. And indeed the Blasters were both ahead of and behind their time, never quite finding a fit despite opening for Queen and playing Farm Aid in 1985. They were hard to classify; Punk, Roots, American, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Rockabilly, Blues – they fit them all. Dave went on to play in several groups – X and The Knitters among them, and in recent years has hit a nice stride fronting multiple acts, most recently both the Guilty Men and Guilty Women. He’s also become to California what Springsteen is to New Jersey, including the state in many a song, album title, and musical theme. Alvin gets California in a way specific to his era and place of birth (Downey, in Southeast Los Angeles County.) He also understands an authentically western dimension to the state that’s as sprawling and rural as anything short of Texas, and that attracted Buck Owens, Dwight Yoakam and Merle Haggard. Los Angeles is a hard place to pin down, and if you drive a little in any direction it gets even trickier.

But it was Manhattan on Tuesday night, with Dave trying to get his chops down on the opener of his current tour with two of the Guilty Women – Cindy Cashdollar (on slide guitar) and Christy McWilson (providing inspired harmony and vocal leads.) He joked that this was the reverse of the typical tour that starts in Alabama and works the kinks out along the way before New York City, but promised a heck of a show for anyone making the trip to Birmingham. It wasn’t necessary – there was nothing substandard about Tuesday’s performance and at times it was sublime. His cover of Tom Russell’s “Blue Wing” kind of justified his admission that he doesn’t always correct folks who tell him “hey, I really like that song of yours.” He owned the piece and embodied the lyrics. “Potter’s Field” was equally good, and before its performance some guy in back referenced Amy Farris who sang with the Guilty Women before her apparent suicide last year. “You touched a tender subject” Alvin remarked, but said nothing more before seeming to channel Farris in the song, which he and McWilson nailed. There was a heavy spirit in the air, and while he didn’t speak of Farris, Alvin did mention his close friend and sidekick Chris Gaffney, who also died last year. There’s a tangible sense of Western Blues in Dave Alvin’s music, and somehow the heaviness of the evening mixed well with equal parts levity and nerves, and the music soared.

The next night at home, I found myself thinking about the show and curious as to who Amy Farris was. I looked her up online and came across the obituary in the LA Times, along with a few other postings about her death. There was a MySpace page and a few blogs, and a lot of comments from people whose children had been among her music students. She was angelic and beautiful, exceptionally talented, and according to those who knew her, full of spirit. And she killed herself. I didn’t know her music that well – although I may have caught her appearing at one of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festivals in San Francisco. Some guy who was close to her wrote a nice piece about what she had meant to him, and remarked “she confided in me about many things, and in me is where those things will remain.” I thought that was kind of cool, and it reminded me of Dave Alvin the previous evening, choosing not to elaborate and then singing that beautiful song. There are plenty of sorts out there who can go on and on about troubled people they’ve known and what, exactly, contributed to their makeup. But keeping one’s mouth shut and carrying that load is a bit of a dying art. It’s about as common as finding someone who can sing a song, and put something in where you can really feel it, whether it’s technically perfect or not.