Wednesday, October 02, 2002 :::
 
Blurbed excerpts from reviews of recent meals

Burger King Homestyle Griller Value Meal, Medium
"A terrible meal...a mistake"
---Brian Doherty

Tom Yum Kai from Thai-on-the-Corner
"A four-napkin weeper...big leaves!"
---Brian Doherty

Three-Egg Omelette with onion, avocado, mozzerella (homemade)
"Silky-smooth surface...a little runny inside. And is that avocado too old?...not a smashing success."
---Brian Doherty

Quarter-dark chicken platter, Zankou's on Sunset
"Reliably great...extra-salt [and] the tomatoes surprisingly sweet."
---Brian Doherty

Tuna steak chunks with half-bag of Trader Joe's oriental frozen vegetables in Soy Vay Teriyaki sauce
"Slight fish/vegetable imbalance...makes you want to stand up and cheer!"
---Brian Doherty



::: posted by Brian at 8:08 PM



Sunday, September 29, 2002 :::
 
Contemplating eternity beneath the vast indifference of heaven

More on the relentless march through books I've read this year soon.

Songwriter Warren Zevon is dying of cancer, giving his many fans and admirers the rare opportunity to eulogize him while he’s still here. Zevon carved a unique niche among singer-songwriters—the mordant one, the tough guy, who could veer precipitously from mellow L.A. sad love songs like his pal Jackson Browne to wicked and frequently hilarious celebrations of mercenaries, boxers, gamblers, addicts, gunmen, drug dealers, mad killers, international men of mystery, decapitated guerillas, and escaped gorillas.

He was good at all types of songs—frequently very good—a very writerly writer, with an unusually capacious store of interesting topics, lyrical apercus, and strangely moving images—foolish and desolate lovers throwing down diamonds in the sand and wondering who moved the moon; hopeful losers copping heroin near Echo Park’s Pioneer Chicken stand and Patty Hearst hearing the burst of a dead mercenary’s Thompson gun. He was a great writer of place—an undersung bard of Los Angeles mores and scenes and emotions—as well as blissfully un-self-obsessed songwriter whose observant eye was cast on the world more than on his own navel.

I’d be indulging in bullshit emotionalism if I called myself one of Zevon’s biggest fans—though it was a kick shaking his hand at a party at Brian Linse’s house a few months back, before he announced his looming death. I played it cool, didn’t act like I knew or appreciated his work at all. I think that was the right thing to do, anyway, even though finding out so shortly thereafter that he was dying made me regret it, a bit. I stopped buying Zevon’s records after Transverse City. It’s not that I didn’t like that one—it’s about my favorite of his, actually. But my musical interests in the ‘90s began shifting away from the standard singer-songwriter rock I couldn’t get enough of up ‘til I was 21, and I began thinking he might not have that much more to offer me than he already had. (I’m probably wrong about that. I did get my brother to tape the ‘90s live album Learning to Flinch and was surprised by how strong and moving I found new-to-me songs like “Piano Fighter” and “Searching for a Heart.”) I saw him perform twice, once with a band on Halloween 1987 around when Sentimental Hygiene came out, in a big field in Gainesville, Fla, and then solo in a D.C. bar in 1993 (or '92?). I had a good time.

Zevon was rarely either super tough or super delicate musically—he mostly fell squarely into the kind of sounds that LA studio pros were there to provide, in whatever era. But on occasion he could make the music as well as the words signify for both hilarity and pathos—witness the absurd grunting brawn with which the saga of “The Envoy” is delivered (“looks like another threat to world peace for the envoy!”), the eerily diaphanous way he memorializes our dead Savior of Rock n’ Roll in “Jesus Mentioned” (“can’t you just imagine/digging up the King/Begging him to sing/About those heavenly mansions/Jesus mentioned”). And he regularly doled out some of the type of superstrong melodies and hooks that will keep us searching for a heart, wanting to rock n’ roll (sadly) all night long, yearning for splendid isolation, moping about the hula-hula boys, for a long time to come.

It’s a weird record collector tick, to say of an artist you own nine albums by that you “aren’t that big a fan,” but in this great big world of art and music, all sorts of people—not just my “favorites”—have thrown marvelous gifts at my feet, and I’ve greedily and carelessly scarfed them up. Warren Zevon is most definitely one of them. Thank you, sir.

He’s most famous for a very silly but surprisingly enduring bit of absurdism about werewolves, and that’s just fine. He isn’t only funny, but funny he most certainly is. He’s good at his job. He’s done it well. Many, many people have spent many, many hours encountering his work with pleasure and insight. Beyond that, I’m with Tanya watching Quinlan’s body float away at the end of A Touch of Evil.



::: posted by Brian at 4:33 PM


 
Contemplating eternity beneath the vast indifference of heaven

More on the relentless march through books I've read this year soon.

Songwriter Warren Zevon is dying of cancer, giving his many fans and admirers the rare opportunity to eulogize him while he’s still here. Zevon carved a unique niche among singer-songwriters—the mordant one, the tough guy, who could veer precipitously from mellow L.A. sad love songs like his pal Jackson Browne to wicked and frequently hilarious celebrations of mercenaries, boxers, gamblers, addicts, gunmen, drug dealers, mad killers, international men of mystery, decapitated guerillas, and escaped gorillas.

He was good at all types of songs—frequently very good—a very writerly writer, with an unusually capacious store of interesting topics, lyrical apercus, and strangely moving images—foolish and desolate lovers throwing down diamonds in the sand and wondering who moved the moon; hopeful losers copping heroin near Echo Park’s Pioneer Chicken stand and Patty Hearst hearing the burst of a dead mercenary’s Thompson gun. He was a great writer of place—an undersung bard of Los Angeles mores and scenes and emotions—as well as blissfully un-self-obsessed songwriter whose observant eye was cast on the world more than on his own navel.

I’d be indulging in bullshit emotionalism if I called myself one of Zevon’s biggest fans—though it was a kick shaking his hand at a party at Brian Linse’s house a few months back, before he announced his looming death. I played it cool, didn’t act like I knew or appreciated his work at all. I think that was the right thing to do, anyway, even though finding out so shortly thereafter that he was dying made me regret it, a bit. I stopped buying Zevon’s records after Transverse City. It’s not that I didn’t like that one—it’s about my favorite of his, actually. But my musical interests in the ‘90s began shifting away from the standard singer-songwriter rock I couldn’t get enough of up ‘til I was 21, and I began thinking he might not have that much more to offer me than he already had. (I’m probably wrong about that. I did get my brother to tape the ‘90s live album Learning to Flinch and was surprised by how strong and moving I found new-to-me songs like “Piano Fighter” and “Searching for a Heart.”) I saw him perform twice, once with a band on Halloween 1987 around when Sentimental Hygiene came out, in a big field in Gainesville, Fla, and then solo in a D.C. bar in 1993 (or '92?). I had a good time.

Zevon was rarely either super tough or super delicate musically—he mostly fell squarely into the kind of sounds that LA studio pros were there to provide, in whatever era. But on occasion he could make the music as well as the words signify for both hilarity and pathos—witness the absurd grunting brawn with which the saga of “The Envoy” is delivered (“looks like another threat to world peace for the envoy!”), the eerily diaphanous way he memorializes our dead Savior of Rock n’ Roll in “Jesus Mentioned” (“can’t you just imagine/digging up the King/Begging him to sing/About those heavenly mansions/Jesus mentioned”). And he regularly doled out some of the type of superstrong melodies and hooks that will keep us searching for a heart, wanting to rock n’ roll (sadly) all night long, yearning for splendid isolation, moping about the hula-hula boys, for a long time to come.

It’s a weird record collector tick, to say of an artist you own nine albums by that you “aren’t that big a fan,” but in this great big world of art and music, all sorts of people—not just my “favorites”—have thrown marvelous gifts at my feet, and I’ve greedily and carelessly scarfed them up. Warren Zevon is most definitely one of them. Thank you, sir.

He’s most famous for a very silly but surprisingly enduring bit of absurdism about werewolves, and that’s just fine. He isn’t only funny, but funny he most certainly is. He’s good at his job. He’s done it well. Many, many people have spent many, many hours encountering his work with pleasure and insight. Beyond that, I’m with Tanya watching Quinlan’s body float away at the end of A Touch of Evil.


::: posted by Brian at 4:28 PM

ARCHIVES :::

Being the sixth issue of Surrender: A Journal of Ethics