Blast of Silence

Wikipedia has just blown my mind.  Get this: Lorenzo Music, the beloved voice actor who was the unseen doorman Carlton on "Rhoda," and the voice of Garfield on "Garfield and Friends" also did the voice of Peter Venkman on "The Real Ghostbusters."  Bill Murray, who played Peter Venkman in the movie Ghostbusters, later went on the do the voice of Garfield in the film adaptation.  Earblood.

I dicovered this little nugget of bizarre coincidence after stumbling upon a stub about a 1990 TV special entitled "Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue."  It it the Loony Tunes, Smurfs, Winnie the Pooh, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Duck Tales gang, Garfield (hello Lorenzo Music) and the Muppet Babies join forces to convince a teen that drugs are lame.  Needless to say, it’s a tour-de-force, like a deli mural come to life.   

This weekend I rapped, went to a birthday party, taught, went Zydeco dancing, watched a documentary about the Minutemen (the band, not the freelance border patrol), did a dirty comedy show, went to a Sangria Party with a bunch of young musicians, had a Bloody Mary brunch with my beloved Space Robbers, watched Ilsa: Tigress of Siberia at Delilah’s (boooooring), drank bourbon, and made a really super mixtape for Madonna.  Yeah!  Adult responsibility, I schooled you!

Dear makers of music, please include more of these FX in your tunes.

Smoking Herb.  Nothing like sound of a deep, raspy inhale followed by a nimbus-cloud exhale right before the beat kicks back in.  Madlib does this, like, thrice a song.  I want my records to give me a deep contact high so I can focus how delicious raw Ovaltine is.*

Lions, Tigers, and Bears Roaring.  Not just for wresting themes anymore!  It’s like, that chick from that band isn’t just going to do you, she’s going to eat you afterwords.  Bro, whalesong is for gay gay gays.

Walesong. 

The Sound this One Door in my Dorm Makes.  Seriously, if I had a sampler I would record this rusty hinge, give it the Matmos treatment, and turn it into a 12-minute opus.  Then it would be my dealmaker on dates.  I am going to get so laid.

Male Orgasms.  So guttural, atonal, and weird.  It’s like the roadside car-wreck of sound FX.  It deserves it’s own album.

*Very.

Below is a list of sound effects that are hereby forbidden to be used in any song, album, podcast, or cassingle. 

NO MORE

Thunder Rolling.  Lazy shorthand for ominous atmospherics.  Any song that used this after Garth Brooks’ lifetime movie "And the Thunder Rolled" is whipping a pile of fossilized horse bones.  The only excuse for using thunder is if it accompanies songs sung in Orc.

Cell Doors Slamming.  Rap’s answer to thunder, and they use a lot of thunder ya’ll.

Answering Machine Messages.  Don’t know how to transition gracefully between the 2nd and 3rd tracks on your breakup album?  Blow the dust off this od chestnut.  If you save all your ex-girlfriend’s messages you can be sure to have lots of emotionally-loaded fodder crackling with analog sincerity. Come to think of it, just record your whole album on an answering machine.  And distribute it on those teeny tapes.  You’re adorable.

Backwards anything.  .ti teg eW

Female Orgasms/Sound of Pleasure.  From "Rocket Queen" to "Wait (The Whisper Song)" and beyond.  If sound FX were sex this would be awkward, arrhythmic missionary on a bed of sandpaper.  Cliche, desperate , and crass.  Wait till you see my total lack of interest.   

Next time: Hot Sound FX

Hikikomori.

Damn son, what/who haven’t I done this past week?

I went to a goth club last week. 

It lived up to every expectation I had and more.  From the Siouxie and the Banshees videos behind the bar, to the fog machine, to the 6′5" dude in a floor-length skirt the colour of midnight who spent the evening doing his best Martha Graham.  We released the bats. 

I danced to Yaz’s "Situation" with Madeline and promptly blew the whole dance floor away.  The goth kids cheered, hoisted me up on their willowy shoulders and declared me King of the ShadowRealms.  Now I’m carrying Satan’s baby.

A few days later I was driving into Toronto at two in the morning Canada-time with a wallet full of Monopoly Money, and a brain full of no sleep.  Beatbox and Space Robbers were performing in the Toronto Improv Fest; so Kathleen, Sean and I bombed across the border and on to glory.

The city won me over in a major way.  The glistening spires of its downtown rise out of a comfortable, laid back city of neighborhoods.  The streets are very wide, and thus one is never overcome by a sense of urban claustrophobia.  Their width is due to another swell feature of the city: old timey streetcars!  They swoop punctually around town under a canopy of sparking wires.  It was Edward Hoppery without the ubiquitous, deafening silence of man’s loneliness.  Only the cool parts.  I should be an art critic!

I explored Chinatown and Kensington Market, got accustomed to the simple yet effective public transportation system, dined on mint Aero Bars, and bedded down on the floor of a really swank ultra-mod hotel. 

My favorite moment of the trip was the Space Robbers show.  It was one of our darkest and funniest.  Space got Robbed.  Very dark and personal coss pollinated with the very silly and fun.  ShadowRealms represent! 

Also, hanging out at the after party with all the Chicagoans and improvisers form around the globe was lovely.  Shout outs to Jill B!

I returned to Chicago, wasted with fast living, and watched the first half of Fitzcarraldo.  Klaus Kinski is…Klaus Kinski.  I’m also currently reading "My Century" by Gunter Grass (Magic Mountain R.I.P.). 

I’m excited about Team USA making it into the World Cup finals.  And I’m already getting psyched for xbxrx’s concert here next month. 

Life is magical and full of possibilities.

I’m also in debt to the IRS.

F.

Glitterbombs, everyone.  I’m out.

In one of the many results of Chicago’s ongoing urban "renewal," every building around 2851 N. Halstead is getting torn the fuck down and re the fuck built.  As a condomallplexsalondogparkbucks.  The once bustling patch of land around the ComedySportz theatre now looks like something out of 1945 News on the March: rubble-strewn lots and gutted brick facades, only instead of allied tanks and upended mule carts we have the occasional half-finished condo to glower down on the ruined street like a pallid, architectural grim reaper.  The ComedySportz theatre trembles with its own shabby mortality.

We in the ensemble were resigning ourselves to passively watching the walls come a’tumbling down, until eerie warnings started to be issued by the higher-ups at the theatre.  The empty buildings it seemed were providing a haven for VAGRANTS.  These warnings began to mount until it seemed not a day was going by that we weren’t receiving stern reminders to be on our guard, VAGRANTS were afoot!  HOBOS creeping and skulking under every rock!  An Egyptian plague of BOXCAR PUNKS!  HORRORS!

During this time I saw not one more panhandler than usual in the neighborhood.  Not one.  All the same, VAGRANT MANIA was on!

Bringing us to yesterday, where in lieu of rehearsal ComedySportz (from here on adorably abbreviated as CSz) was treated to a self defense class, instructed by the able bodied kickboxing experts of Crunch Gym.

After warming up with a series of jumping-jacks, stretches and squats (which made my thighs want to secede from my body) we settled in for the bloodsport.  Our Instructors Francisco and Cleffy Cleftchin led drills in punching, kicking, grappling, eye gouging, nut punching, nut slapping, nut kicking, nut flicking, and nut crushing ("only 2lbs of pressure, the same as a grape!").  The ensemble, wild eyed in the heat of VAGRANT MANIA, took to these exercises with barbaric gusto.  I was not exempt, soon after annihilating the punching-pad with series of well-aimed roundhouse kicks, ripped my tank top from my glistening chest and loudly challenged all comers to "step into the terror-dome."  The offer stands.

Cliffy Cleftchin made it clear that though he could kick as high as a man’s head (demonstrated ad nauseum), though a well placed kick to the knee was just as effective if not more.  He also encouraged us to be aware of passersby and size them up for nut battery:  "If he was to attack me, how would I get away?"  Answer: Go to town on his nuts.

Honestly, I really enjoyed myself.  The instructors were friendly and paranoiac in the most compassionate way.  Francisco was especially nice and impressed me with his personal trainers bedside manner.  I felt totally at ease and confident.  I’m really making progress at Krav Maga you guys!  So stoaked!

There Laura.  Are you happy?

P.S. I must break you.

Thanks Madeline.

My phone recently got disconnected, and thus my Mother understandably assumes I’m dead. 

The melancholy life and love of Erik Satie first caught my attention after I read a wonderful comic strip about him by one of my favorite cartoonists, local misanthrope Ivan Brunetti.  Brunetti’s seldom-published book Schizo is one of the most relentlessly nihilistic and funny autobiographical comics going.  Check him out ya’ll!  More tales of fin de siecle woe to come!

Speaking of comics and clumsy segues, I think it only proper to give an account of Wizard World, a massive comic book convention that took over the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL for one weekend of nerdtopia.  It was dork critical mass, and I fit in a lot better than I’d like to admit.  There were 20,000 Leagues of comic books, bootleg DVDs, movie promos, video game tourneys, costumed models, and dungeon masters.  I  saw three dudes dressed up as robin, EACH with their glasses subtlety wedged beneath their masks.  I wept.

Rumor had it that Brunetti along with comic wunderkind Chris Ware were wandering around, but I saw none of them.  I did see several people I knew, including Madeline L., who was dressed in Catholic schoolgirl attire passing out promotional fliers for a movie entitled Cry Wolf.  She was hit on by nerds all day.  Indeed, there was enough sexual tension locked within the Stephen’s Center to cause a multiversal catastrophe of Infinity Gauntlet proportions (See Thor Vol. 5 No. 112).

One big highlight for me was meeting Jeffrey Brown, who does Cuticle in the Reader, as well as a bunch of heart string harpsichords about his life and loves.  He did a little drawing on the inside cover of the comic I bought from him.  I tried to muster up the courage to converse, but not much came out other than a muttered, "I really like your stuff."  So maybe in this case "met" is a strong word.

My only other haul from the convention was an old Patsy Walker romance/humor comic from 1951.  The gentleman who sold it to me waxed nostalgic, remembering when major comic companies would put out comics about anything, for any audience.  Then a sexy zombie walked by.  Time and space burst asunder.   

My friend Ellemoney told me that it looks like I keep an e.e. cummings blog.  Sure makes me wish my wonky spacing was intentional and not merely a glitch of transferring text from Microsoft Word to Blog Box.  The genius is in the computer.

I’m sick.  My face feels like it’s holding back a reservoir of cement and my coughs are holding court with the Edgar Poe and Doc Holiday set.  Nevertheless, I have braved the elements and now find myself blundering through my workday.  I called in sick on Monday and spent most of my time hold up in the sub-tropical heat of my apartment, sweating like a revival minister.  Attempting to make the best of my idleness, I read on into the "Mynheer Peeperkorn" section of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, a book that I intended to read in 3 weeks but is taking me 7 years to complete.  I also gave myself a turntable workout in preparation for the Friend Power gig on Wednesday.   

I have bumped loudly into several doors today.  Updates to follow!

I close with a story.  The modern composer (or gymnopedist) Erik Satie had one romantic relationship in his entire life, and 1893 affair with Montparnasse artist Suzanne Valadon.  Valadon was the daughter of an unmarried laundress who became a circus acrobat at the age of 15 until she suffered a career-ending fall and turned to art.  Satie and Valadon shared a passionate relationship, but eventually she moved on, leaving Satie heartbroken.  Valadon went on to be the first woman admitted to the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts.  Satie  settled into a life of composition and solitary routine, eventually becoming one of the most influential figures in the European avant-garde.

When he died in 1925, no living soul save for himself had ever entered his lodgings at Arcueil.  What friends discovered there in addition to 84 identical handkerchiefs, 12 identical velvet suits, and dozens of umbrellas, was a portrait of Satie by Valadon, as well as their love letters. 

Suzanne Valadon died on April 7, 1938.