Gina Harris's Blog, page 152

Band Review: Count Me Out

Count Me Out is a pop punk band from South Wales.
It feels more serious than a lot of pop punk. Some of this may be that a large percentage of their online material is acoustic, which can underscore the more earnest aspects.
Still, if you listen to their newest release, "Guttermouth", there is a pounding energy and a sense of youth that are very familiar and at home in pop punk.
There are six tracks on Bandcamp, and that seems to be all of the musical material currently available. You can find artistic expression and reasonable prices with their merch at Big Cartel.
https://www.facebook.com/CountMeOutUK
https://countmeoutuk.bandcamp.com/
http://www.countmeoutuk.bigcartel.com/
https://twitter.com/COUNTMEOUTUK

Two quotes plus...

Having four months focusing on the history of the marginalized felt pretty intense.
I don't know if spreading them out would have made it different, because they are always kind of intense anyway. Current events, especially of the political kind, would have still been exerting an influence. This reading and watching occurred in conjunction with #BlackLivesMatter, and the Malheur occupation, and a presidential race that is fascinating in many terrible ways.
I think that I connected some things better because other things were fresh in memory, but they might have still connected.
I guess the question exists in my mind because I don't know that I have any grand summing up to give for how they relate to each other. It feels like I should have something to say now, but in reality it will be that I will have many different things to say at different times, when different issues are raised.
Therefore, I am going to focus on two quotes from just this last section of reading. Oddly, they are probably from the two sources that I would recommend the least (Monday's post goes over why I might not recommend them), but they stuck with me and I had to capture them.
The first is from The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James:
"Where imperialists do not find disorder they create it deliberately... They want an excuse for going in." (p. 286)
That is true. Kill. Spread disease. Disrupt the food source. Stir up different factions. Sometimes the disorder is already there, and there can be people with good intentions, but as long as there is this idea that this land or these resources or this labor that isn't ours should be, it opens the door to all manner of evil. Dehumanization becomes necessary, and then abuse becomes easy.
Ages ago, after first starting to read Ann Rule, I noticed how many of these psychopaths that she wrote about were really into acquisition. I wondered why that was, and eventually decided I had it in reverse. Being greedy gives you lots of motivation to turn of your conscience. Silence your conscience often enough and it loses its voice.
Maybe seeing the movie The Corporation helped me figure that out. If you analyzed a corporation as a person, that person would be a psychopath. The fact that the purpose of a corporation is the make money might just guarantee that. So thank you Citizens United and Mitt Romney.
The other thing that stuck out came from But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies. Some of the best parts were essays on educating and building activism in communities, including "Black-Eyed Blues Connections: Teaching Black Women" by Michele Russell:
"The oldest form of building historical consciousness in community is storytelling."
It stirred me then, and it reminds me now why so much study got crammed together. I had things to write, and I couldn't do it all, so I let the reading pause.
I have always been about learning stories and telling them. Even the non-narrative things I study fill in as parts of an overall story. That is me. My studies inform the stories that I tell, but I also have to take time for telling. I can make peace with this.
There was one other thing, and it wasn't so much that I wrote it down for me as that I had to share it with a friend, but it will be something I will also ask from myself.
Still in But Some of Us Are Brave, in the course syllabi section, for a Spring 1978 class at Hampshire College taught by Gloria I Joseph and Carroll Oliver, in The Insurgent Sister -- The Black Woman In U.S.A. This was listed as the first course requirement:
"Become insurgent in a politically appropriate manner."
Okay. Maybe it is time to start writing about politics again.
Related posts:
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/09/native-american-heritage-month-2014.html
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/12/black-history-month-2015.html
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/02/native-american-heritage-month-2015.html
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/04/black-history-month-2016.html

Nat Turner

Toussaint L'Ouverture has not been the only revolutionary I have wanted to study more.
I don't remember exactly when it kicked in; it's been at least a few years. At some point it felt important to read more about the actions people of color took on their own behalf than what was done for them, especially in situations of fighting slavery.
At first I tend to think of books that I have heard of, and I remembered that there was a book, The Confessions of Nat Turner. Perhaps it could be a good book for one of my Black History months.
No. It couldn't.
It was a Pulitzer Prize winner, which seemed like a recommendation, but it was a novel. I don't automatically eliminate novels, but it was by William Styron and apparently highly sexual, and it just didn't seem like it would be helpful.
That was a few years ago. This time around, my Native American Heritage and Black History studies for 2014 and 2015 got pretty crammed together, and that may have affected my viewpoint. Still, most of it probably comes from At the Dark End of the Street.
I read McGuire's book because of that initial goal of remembering that there are people who do a lot of work and don't get credit for it. It covers Black women organizing and male leaders getting the credit, but it also focuses on how sexual assault against Black women was used at the same time when the stated construct was that the big fear was Black men raping white women.
Maybe the news played a role too, with Damon Wayans - whom I have liked - calling Bill Cosby's accusers unrapeable, regardless of how often that very word was used to justify the sexual assault of Black women.
There is a lot that can be gone into with rape and race, and about sacrificing victims (no, I didn't watch Confirmation but it could relate), but that's not where I'm going with this now. I remembered Styron's novel and got curious.
No, that didn't mean reading it; it meant looking at a plot summary, but apparently a lot of Turner's conflict focuses on his desire for a fair and pure white maiden, and killing her is his only regret.
Okay, there is no reason that a white man born in Virginia in 1925 and writing about Black people in 1963 would go that way. Actually, he might have seemed pretty progressive for some of the other plot points. I'm still pretty disgusted, including with the award.
You probably know that there is a new movie coming out about Nat Turner. I am not positive that I will see it, because it sounds like it will be pretty violent, and I usually don't go to see rated R films.
I might see it anyway because I find it to be an important act of reclamation. I am thrilled that D. W. Griffith's ugly, lying, racist film, based on an ugly, lying, racist novel, is having its title appropriated for something else. I am glad that Nate Parker is reclaiming Turner's story. Early reviews are good. Sight unseen, I have to feel that it will be something truer and better than how Styron saw it.

Black History Month 2016

This took longer than I meant it to, but I kept adding, even though I have been in a busy time.
These are the books in the order in which I read them, and some thoughts on each.
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
I don't know why I never picked this up when I was a kid, as I know it was around. It may have seemed too realistic, and I was drawn more to fantasy then. This is very realistic.
Reading it as an adult, one of the things that struck me was how it would be hard for a Black parent to balance telling their children enough to keep them safe, but not so much as to break their spirits or have them live in fear all the time. The book does a good job of giving enough of an idea without being too traumatic.
The reason I decided it couldn't wait anymore came via Go Set A Watchman. I didn't read To Kill A Mockingbird until late in life either. While I liked it I never loved it the way some do, so reading that an older Atticus sounds pretty racist wasn't as traumatic as it could have been. However in those discussions, some people mentioned Thunderas superior to Mockingbird anyway.
I tend to agree. In Mockingbird you can care about the Black characters, and you can see ugliness to racism, but all of that is at a remove. Thunder has it all more vivid and real and children can relate to the characters: brave ones, timid ones, and obnoxious ones. This should be read.
Vixen: Return of the Lion by Willow G Wilson and Cafu
I'm still trying to keep comics included when possible. Black Panther had been disappointing, and I feel like I should be more of a Marvel girl than DC, but Vixen was a lot more compelling. There may be too much pressure on T'Challa to be perfect.
Mari is great, but she is also utterly human. She feels friendships and grief and self-doubt. In this storyline she faces a crisis of confidence and comes back stronger than ever, and with a greater understanding of herself. She has also missed something important that is probably going to come back as a problem. I really liked it.
The Last Crusade: Martin Luther King Jr., The FBI, and The Poor People's Campaign by Gerald D. McKnight
After reading Abernethy's book, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, I always wanted to know more about the Poor People's Campaign. That is why I wanted to read this book, but it is also why I was less satisfied with this book, because I feel like McKnight missed a lot of the important things that I already knew.
That being said, I think that even though he meant to write about that campaign, there was so much that was compelling about the Memphis Sanitation Worker's Strike, which King was supporting when he died, and the FBI's role under Hoover, that he probably should have just switched gears and wrote about that. To be fair, the FBI was a part of the problems of the campaign.
So I did learn a lot from this book, "Hands up, don't shoot" applied then, and what the government can and has done is disgusting, and things do connect, but it wasn't the book I was expecting.
Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat
I had been meaning to get to Toussaint L'Ouverture this round, and this book has gotten great reviews, so I thought that reading something set in modern Haiti near the time that I read about the history of Haiti could be useful.
I don't know that they connected that much, but it's a beautiful book so I have no regrets there. We do all need to look out for each other, but that can go wrong too.
Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party by Joshua Bloom and Waldo E Martin Jr.
I was really excited that for my multimedia aspect there was going to be a documentary about the Black Panthers on television, and then it got really slammed for accuracy, and I deleted it without watching.
I was going to read the book anyway, but one thing from the foreword of the book is that they were trying to be comprehensive. There was so much going on that it would be easy to focus on one part and think you understand, but there are other things that are contradictory.
This book tried to bring it all together, and certainly there could still be more to know, but this book has a lot. Pretty heavy, worth reading, and once again we see some patterns repeating, especially if you look at white support of the Panthers when the draft threatened white kids, and when it didn't.
But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies By Akasha Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith (editors)
What is not included in the official title, but helps it make sense, is "All the women are white, all the Blacks are men..."
This had been on my list for a while. I hadn't intended to get to it on this go round, but I have been running into so many things relating to intersectionality and misogynoir that I felt like I needed a better grounding now.
This is a very early work, so those terms are not really mentioned, but the concepts come through. I was also surprised to see no mentions of Octavia Butler, but again it is just a little early.
The collection attempts to give you everything, including syllabi and lists of resources and bibliographies. This doesn't make great reading, but it creates a very valuable reference source.
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley
I don't love her poems, but her mastery of the form common at that time, and her familiarity with religious and classical imagery, is impressive enough that the book needed to contain witnesses testifying that the poems were really written by her.
Wheatley obviously had a sharp mind and a hunger for knowledge. I can't help but wish she would have had the time and the resources to celebrate the place of her birth, instead of feeling like she had been delivered from it.
The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C.L.R. James
This was also a book that was not what I expected, because it was written as a response and defense against criticism of L'Ouverture that audiences today probably don't need. I don't know that people know a lot about him now, but I believe what is known tends to be favorable.
That was not always the case. The author wrote this book in 1938, where there were concerns about fascism in Europe, and African independence, and then added an appendix in 1963 where there was more on West Indian independence, especially as relating to Castro. Even though it is more than fifty years later, this still matters. So this book probably gave me the best reminder that history isn't really that far away
Black and Latino
I did still watch some multimedia: a short video about being multiracial. Having previously watched videos about being Black and Indian, well, there's interesting room for thought here. Not everything is race and not everything is culture, and sometimes the lines can get blurry.
http://remezcla.com/culture/video-mun2-explores-what-it-means-to-be-black-and-latino/

Concert Review: Iron Maiden

I had some friendly people in front of me at the show, and one of them asked me how often I had seen Maiden before (she left off the "Iron"; that wasn't me). She was stunned that this was my first time.
The truth is, I had never really been into metal or even harder rock. It was always around because I had friends and family members who liked it, but I never sought it out until I started aggressively, critically listening to guitar music. That has led to some interesting places, but one of the key early moments happened when listening to some guys talking about a song, and one of them said "You can hear it goes a little Iron Maiden here", and I could hear that! It made me feel like I was getting somewhere, but it's also where I started to grasp how influential Iron Maiden has been, not just on metal, and how justifiable their influence is.
It was in light of this that when I found out three of my siblings were going to Iron Maiden in Tacoma that I said "That should be a great show!", and where it was very exciting to find out that they had an additional ticket.
You can get a great deal from listening to the band alone, but you will be missing out on the sheer spectacle that they present for you live.
The set was convertible, changing constantly to mesh with the songs. At one point, one of the venue staff said they only had 5 songs left, but the show was supposed to last for another 45 minutes. Well, based on the setup and the showmanship and audience engagement, I can believe that the average number took around nine minutes.
There were two things that especially stood out to me. We have enjoyed tracking the progress of Ed Force One, the bands customized 747 piloted by singer Bruce Dickinson.
I should also mention that we were not close to the stage, though we were aligned with it perfectly. So it was helpful that they had screens that would do close-ups of the band and we could still see things. However, at some points, these screens ran video segments, including one incorporating the plane right at the beginning. That felt very right.
That segment also had a motif of ruins being lost and forgotten in the jungle, and then being re-launched. This worked with an older band going out on another tour, but it also fit in with the set for "The Book of Souls" number, which is certainly central to this TheBook of Souls tour. This ended up being my favorite number of the night, so I want to go into that.
First of all, I referred to them as an older band, which is true, but they are not a nostalgia band. They continue to produce new material, and it's smart and living.
"The Book of Souls" song does bring to mind the end of the Mayan empire, but Dickinson talked before starting about how all empires fall, which is true, and so it became part of a more universal theme, and as he spoke a reminder for kindness and respect toward others.
Perhaps that sounds kind of high brow, and that element is there, but also during this song a very tall Eddie (their mascot) came out. After making his way around the stage Dickinson dug around in Eddie's chest and pulled out his "heart", not only referencing Mayan sacrifice, but if I saw correctly also providing a souvenir for a lucky fan when he then threw the heart into the audience.
It was just cool.
And, for a third thing I liked, with no analysis whatsoever, they made great use of pyrotechnics. (I'm a sucker for fire.)
I am really glad I got to see the show.
And for whoever those Stereogum commenters were who posted Iron Maiden's "Alexander the Great" and "Number of the Beast" as tracks that should be on the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs list, well, it's hard to argue.
(But of course "Run to the Hills" is my sentimental favorite. It's my mother's favorite music video.)
http://ironmaiden.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ironmaiden
https://www.youtube.com/user/ironmaiden
https://twitter.com/IronMaiden

Concert Review: The Raven Age

The Raven Age is a melodic metal band from London. I thought they sounded kind of Sheffield, but that may simply be because I was listening to Bruce Dickinson - who is from Sheffield - later that night. I saw The Raven Age because they opened for Iron Maiden.
I greatly appreciate the melodic focus in their music, and it is accurate to emphasize that. While the music is hard and driving, it is never overpowered by discordant sounds into becoming something less than music.
That being said, they opened with a long drum solo that filled the stadium (I saw them at the Tacoma Dome), and the primal beats set the stage for what was to come.
I thought they did well. Engagement with the audience was good, and I appreciated the sense of teamwork as the lead vocalist took time to introduce the other band members. The opening slot can be hard, especially for a band as iconic as Iron Maiden, but The Raven Age held their own.
There is not a lot of material currently available, with one 4-track EP and one official video, but you do feel them, and you can feel that hearing more of them would be a good thing.
http://theravenage.org/
https://www.facebook.com/TheRavenAge
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_dPX-1nBKPAbwEh6YqdzYQ
https://soundcloud.com/the-raven-age
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/the-raven-age-ep/id891638658
https://twitter.com/theravenage

Reading for the brain

I have written before about my mother's dementia diagnosis.
Just to help keep things straight, Alzheimer's is a form of dementia, but not the only kind. Mom does not currently have Alzheimer's, but she does have it in her family. Dementia can refer to memory loss, but there are different types of memory and there are cognitive processes that are not specifically related to memory loss that can still be impaired. (The MCI book that I am going to list later does the best job of going over those.)
My normal way of trying to come to grips with things is reading and research, and then when I know as much as possible about something I can handle it.
I'm afraid my reading has not gone exactly as I hoped, but I have read various books on the topic, and it makes sense to collect some of the knowledge here.
The Brain Fog Fix: Reclaim Your Focus, Memory, and Joy in Just 3 Weeks by Mike Dow
We saw the author on television while we were waiting for the airport shuttle on our last day of vacation, and decided it was worth checking out. Although Dow indicates that the remedies recommended here can help stave off dementia, the target audience is not diagnosed patients but people who are at normal functioning levels but having moments of poor focus and occasional memory lapses from stress. This book is about getting your mind and body to work better through nutrition, exercise, and meditation. Some of the science may be a little soft, but none of the recommendations are harmful, and for a lot of people probably would help.
There are two main things I have tried to incorporate. One is increasing Mom's fish intake. She loves fish, and we all think it's gross, but of the different types of Omega-3's, fish is an effective way to get what she needs. We have done better but still have room to improve.
In addition, because it is harder for Mom to focus and be present, I could see where meditation would be helpful for her. We haven't really gotten that going yet, but I still intend to.
Meditation: A Practical Study with Exercises by Adelaide Gardner
This book was short and had "practical" in the title, which seemed like a good sign, but it wasn't. The author is not tied to any one tradition, but she mishmashes the different traditions together with no helpful analysis.
I think in this case the answer will be simple exercises found on the internet rather than another book.
The 36-Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring for People with Alzheimer Disease, Other Dementias, and Memory Loss in Later Life by Nancy L. Mace and Peter V. Rabins
Living with Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Guide to Maximizing Brain Health and Reducing Risk of Dementia by Nicole D. Anderson, Kelly J. Murphy, and Angela K. Troyer
I need to treat these two together, though there are differences.
Since my mother was diagnosed she has been going back for a yearly check-up for monitoring, and this was the first time in three years that she has lost some ground. The doctor said we could try Aricept, but I had heard bad things and started doing more online research. A Canadian site led me to the MCI book, and then when I did a library search for that I found the 36-Hour book.
Both have a lot of information. The 36-Hour Dayis geared more toward family members who are providing care. It is helpful, broken down into clear sections and covering all the topics you would expect and some you wouldn't. Living with focuses more on Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and is geared for the recently diagnosed or those who are worried they might have something. It should be helpful for spouses too, but assumes that the patient can take an active role.
Both books have a lot of things going for them, but a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and I was finding them very depressing. I could see where Mom was worse; was it because the doctor said it or because reading about the symptoms made me more aware? Was the reading even helpful if I was getting so down?
I think ultimately it is helpful. There can be good reasons to buy books instead of going with libraries and due dates, allowing you to pace yourself. It can get overwhelming where you really need to take a break. There are still things I should know.
There are also questions of whether some of the things I think I should do matter, or if they would have been helpful five years ago but I waited too long. Honestly, there are still a lot of unknowns.
As it happens, the last time I went to the my endocrinologist I was reading the MCI book and I was feeling pretty down, but then in the waiting room there was a Time magazine about the Alzheimer's pill, and doctors are making progress. If my efforts can't help, someone else's might. There's some stress though.
There is also a lot of variation in what symptoms you can see, and what resources you will have, and you just have to take it as it comes, with kindness and practicality and hope if you can manage it. We could be a lot worse off, and if thinking about what could happen gets me down, then I need to bring myself back to now.
Anyway, I haven't really changed my mind about reading as a strategy, but it doesn't always work as intended. To end on a lighter note, here's the outlier:
The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain by James Fallon
Although this is about a very different aspect of the brain, having been focusing on brain function anyway made this resonate more. The story is interesting. There are two weaknesses, one of which is that your narrator is a narcissist and perhaps that lack of empathy is what did not cause him to break down some of the technical information into a more accessible form.
I read an article on Fallon discovering he had the brain of a psychopath and exploring that, so meant to read it, but hadn't gotten to it until Julie was looking for something to read and I suggested it.
Here's the fun part. My sisters had seen a horror film exhibit at EMP, and asked me about Eli Roth, who makes some twisted movies. My only knowledge of Roth was randomly stumbling upon an episode of "TMZ" where Roth and Harvey Levin were competing at Jew or Non-Jew, and they both seemed very affable (and both with a decent but not perfect knowledge of who in show business shares their ethnic background).
Roth had Fallon scan his brain to look at it for an episode of "Curiosity":
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2095142/combined
And it all makes sense. Roth is twisted, but also a mensch.
Science for the win!

Not that kind of Romance

Some of you may know that my college degree is a BA in Romance Languages and History.
I added History because I still had a lot of history classes that I wanted to take, and adding the major meant that I could keep taking them instead of taking all of these other classes for the Social Sciences requirement.
Romance Languages should have been a completely natural fit. I loved learning languages, I already had some college credits in both French and Spanish, and I wanted to take Italian. However, I initially declared for Linguistics.
I thought if I studied the science of language, that would open me up to a lot more. That could be true, but it wasn't how I worked out.
Apparently Linguistics fell under the school of Telecommunications and Film. That doesn't seem like the best fit, which makes me wonder if I remembered it wrong, but at that time budget cuts were causing TCF to be absorbed into the School of Journalism anyway, and things may have been a little disorganized as that was all being sorted out.
I did take one TCF class, which was about how technology affected communication. Unfortunately it was right after another class that I had with a friend, and I ended up skipping a lot. I read all of the material and did all of the labs, and my grade wasn't horrible, but most of the things I remember from the class weren't really part of it. I remember a Star Trek joke the professor made (since people couldn't beam in and it bothered her when they came in late, which was one of the things that made it easier to skip). I remember her accidentally stumbling upon the book The Postman, which was apparently more cerebral than the Kevin Costner film it inspired. And I remember strongly a Russell Means essay that wasn't even assigned to us but was in the book our readings came from.
I totally wish I had taken more film classes now, and I know there would have been interesting information in Linguistics. There were some things about how people use language, but I found that I mainly just wanted to learn languages. That's when I switched to Romance Languages (languages descended from the Romans, i.e. Latin), with French as my primary language and Spanish as my secondary.
My Italian classes never counted for that, because they were lower division credits. That didn't really matter, as I took them to communicate with family, but knowing elements of three different related languages did give me an idea of how they developed.
I would think about it sometimes, like when there were things written in Portuguese and I could get the general drift, or when I learned the lyrics to Romanian disco hit, "Dragostea din tei".
Romanian is an Eastern Romance Language, so it is more different. At first I didn't even think about the connection, but then some words stuck out, and I realized how the words fit together. It made sense that this was a language that diverted earlier, but there was still a logic to it.
I was thinking about it more because of the fortunate confluence of two unconnected things: I happened to be reading a novel set in Haiti near the time that I saw a movie set in Romania.
The movie was Aferim! and it wasn't quite the rollicking good time that the reviews suggested, but it was interesting and beautifully shot. I was focusing on the subtitles for understanding, but then there was a reference to bandits: haiduk. That is a word in the disco song, and it was the last name of an actress in an interview once. I knew that word. Then I could start putting other words together.
The book was Claire of the Sea Light, and there was a lot of Jamaican patois used, but usually with a translation. Then, the character name, Claire Limyè Lanmè, suddenly made sense.
Light = La LumièreSea = La mer
It was already clear that was what her name meant, but then it was clear how, and then everything else that was said could be traced back and put together.
This is not necessarily an important or necessary thing. I would have been able to understand the book and the movie without it. It was just something that made me happy then, and putting it together makes me feel like I was right to pick the major that I did.
I still wouldn't mind knowing more about linguistics, but Romance Languages taught me more about Linguistics than Linguistics could have taught me about speaking and understanding languages. That was what I wanted all along.

What a day!

Saturday was really busy. It was also really good. I was double-booked, and I thought I was avoiding becoming triple-booked, and then I just went for it. There were quiet moments and loud moments and I want to share them.
My first event was a family history fair at the church. When I was first asked to be on the committee, I wasn't sure why. Then I was asked to work out the flow of getting people where they needed to be. I have never specifically been in charge of something like that, but I'm not opposed to trying new things and I am pretty competent.
There were some classes that people could drop in on, but the main attraction was one on one slots with family history consultants, to help people get started or get past where they had stopped. That's what I was trying to keep organized.
Things did not go according to plan, exactly. They still worked out. There was a time period right at the start that was a little frantic, but we did get everyone matched up, and people had good experiences. That was the main thing, really. I know that people got helped, and that was a good experience for them, and the consultants found it rewarding, so it was good for them. People left happy and more confident. Some brief chaos didn't interfere with that.
I was at the church from 9:30 AM to 2 PM, and all of my morning prior to leaving was getting ready for that. (I'd written the Saturday blog post the night before.) I could have been perfectly happy to crash at home for the rest of the day, but I had another event.
My friend Mel was holding a karaoke fundraiser for the American Heart Association in honor of her mother. None of those nouns are things I turn down. It started at 5, and that meant leaving home around 3:30 to get there. But wait, there's more.
One thing I had turned town - and this is where we go from double to triple booked - was the Sing Along showing of Greasethat night. My sisters and I have been looking at a Sing Along Sound of Music, but I think the Grease songs are a lot more fun. Still, it was already such a busy day.
Nonetheless, while I was briefly at home a friend, Jessica,  who was going to Grease messaged me and said she had a ticket I could use. She was asking me because she knew I would love it. I was not sure when karaoke was ending. Without committing, I did a quick Tri-met check and discovered that the Mission theater is really pretty accessible from the Alibi Lounge (just one transfer).
I made it to karaoke, and it's important to remember that starting at 5 does not necessarily mean everyone is there at 5. There was a good turnout, but not many singers yet. This meant I sang early, and was quickly able to sing "Basket Case", which I have been wanting to do a while.
I could have sang more, but I tried to space it out to one an hour. I am not a great singer. I try to make up for that with total commitment, but there are people who actually sing well. So I sang "Basket Case" around 5, "Dancing With Myself" around 6, and then "Dance, Dance" around 7. The first two of those were songs I had been wanting to do for a while. I sort of wished that I'd had my studded wrist band when I started "Dancing", but I just gave it a good sneer and went for it.
I had not specifically intended to do "Dance, Dance", but I thought I could pull it off, and I appreciate it more after singing it. You know from listening that it's like reading the journal of a smart but so emo kid, yes, (Hi, Pete!), but you feel it so much more when you're performing it.
To make it to Grease, I was going to have to leave around 7:40. I thought I was done after "Dance, Dance", but more people I like kept showing up. There was visiting, and a request for a duet. A duet has also been one of my goals, so right around 7:30 Becky and I sang "Don't Go Breaking My Heart", and that was a lot of fun.
I said my goodbyes and headed out. I did have a short wait at the Rose Quarter Transit Center, and there was a guy there sitting on an instrument case. Based on the size and the lack of a bell, I couldn't figure out what type of instrument and I really wanted to know. I asked. (Turntables.) Anyway, we started talking and another guy joined in, and they kept it up on the bus. I think they might collaborate on something. I'll review him in my blog eventually. It would have been really easy not to talk to him, especially because the first time I asked, he didn't hear the question. I'm glad I kept with it.
The crush of people at the theater was amazing. Many people had already gotten in, but there was a long line still getting in, a long line for the snack bar, and you needed to have your ticket already because it was sold out.
I say "long lines" not to complain, but to impress upon you that this was a lot of people - some in costume - and they were into it. It took a while to get started as they were getting everyone in, but there was so much enthusiasm, before and after. I had thought there would be words on the screen, which was not the case, and I thought I would need them. I knew more words than I thought, but there were so many people who knew every word and line. This was their night.
With my karaoke duet goal, I had often thought that "You're the One That I Want" could work well. Well, it wasn't my duet but I have sung it now, and on the same day as my first duet. Those were fun to sing.
I had noticed a girl in a wheelchair in the theater, and we had greeted each other, but I hadn't thought much about it. As my group was leaving, we passed her at the top of the ramp, with her friend trying to hold it steady. The ramp did not seem particularly steady on its own, and it was a little steep. 
I did not realize all of that right away, but Jessica caught on immediately, and helped steady the ramp, and then with the four of us plus the friend, keeping the ramp firm and keeping her from accelerating down and launching off the ramp was easy.
They were heading in the same direction as us for part of the way, and she was saying how not long ago she would have enjoyed the shaky ramp, but she has gotten more cautious as she gets older, and is looking forward to being 30 when there won't be any drama.
No, I did not choose to disillusion her that night. Instead I said that if you do it right, it keeps getting better. I am pretty happy at 44 and I am going to be amazing at 60.
This is true. It's not that there weren't frustrations on my way here, or that there won't be more on my way to 60, but what an amazing day, and it was all built up of people connecting, and coming together. It comes out of saying "yes" when "no" is easier. It comes because there are amazing people all over. There were people who thought of me, and people who were looking at for others and trying to make the world a better place. There were people having fun. Saturday was a day when I did pretty well at staying open to that.
Yes I got home late, and woke up tired and dehydrated, but it's allergy season. That was probably going to happen anyway.

Band Review: Phil Barnes

These reviews often end up touching on how the materials available affect the impression of the performer. There are so many different ways of presenting yourself, and so many bands who are unsigned and in charge of their own image, that there's a lot of room for variation.
In the case of Phil Barnes, there are many videos, but only one is a traditional music video. Otherwise there are question and answer sessions and time with friends. For music, there are more live recordings (primarily Live From the Culture Room, which incorporates at lot of partial covers) and remixes than traditional recorded tracks.
Putting that together, it feels more like Barnes is that guy you know who plays gigs than that musician you have been hearing. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, but it can be hard to market.
This may not be an issue as he seems to get a fair amount of work opening for other acts. There are not currently any dates listed, but his bio shows over 900 shows since 2010, which doesn't seem bad.
The songs are pleasant, and you can easily hum or sing along, but things stay pretty mellow. This is not unusual for solo acoustic performances, but one reason I would be interested in more studio recordings is to see if there are different moods in his repertoire.
http://philbarnesmusic.com/
https://www.facebook.com/philbarnesmusic
https://www.youtube.com/user/philbarnestv
https://soundcloud.com/phil-barnes-music
https://twitter.com/PhilBarnesMusic