December 2005 Archives

Goodness, it's been awfully hard to keep up lately -- lots I want to talk about across my nascent publishing empire (and hopefully will in the next few days) but no energy to do it.  I'm inspired to pop in now, however, by a lovely article from today's Washington Post about the urban murals of Philadelphia.  Hard to miss these as one wanders around the city -- in a very positive way -- we were just floored by the number and skill in our all-too-brief weekend in Philly over the summer.  For a couple fuzzy cameraphone (Treo 650) pix of the unbelieveable mosaics on South Street, and the always stunning City Hall at night), take a peek at my Philly photo album in the sidebar. 

I was pretty excited to see this article (AP/Boston Globe; unclear if this will drop to paid archive) pop up over the weekend, talking about the "feast of the seven fishes." My mom has done her own variation on this meal for many years on Christmas Eve -- baked or broiled scallops, shrimp (tossed with spaghetti, olive oil, and garlic), a white fish (cod or halibut) -- one of the finest meals of the year.  Definitely something to look forward to this weekend...

A little while back, I offered up my discourse/harangue on the idiocy of broadcast indecency standards in the US. I've now had a chance to revisit the issue and found it even more bizarre than before.

Washington, DC is known for having absolute garbage radio. Infinity and ClearChannel essentially have a lock on the entire FM market, and the congested nature of the eastern seaboard pretty much curtails the introduction of any new players in the market. (I'll leave the sad saga of WGTB for others to tell... but it's interesting to me that the Jesuits a few hundred miles north have taken a much more liberal approach to their radio license.).

WBIG-FM is the ClearChannel-owned "oldies" station (which recently rejected the notion of relevant music before 1964) and features a "Jammin Saturday Night" with lots of disco music. As some may recall, our pals at ClearChannel were among those who suggested that Americans might be offended to hear certain songs on the radio in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Also keep in mind that ClearChannel made a HUGE deal about firing Howard Stern from its airwaves on 2004, neglecting to mention that Stern's program aired on only 6 of over 1200 licensed stations across the nation.

Anyway, we were driving home from grocery shopping on Saturday night and turned on the radio (too short a drive to bother with my XM set-up), and were intrigued to hear the infamous "In the Bush" by Musique. A little while later, we were treated to "More More More" by the Andrea True Connection. Double entendres are one thing... but these songs are barely single entendres. The lyrics are unmistakeably (and in the case of "In The Bush," crudely) sexual.

To be clear, I'm no prude and I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with these songs. However, I do take issue with these songs being aired in the early evening on a Saturday night, when unaccompanied minors are likely to be in the listening audience. Major radio station conglomerates certainly have the ability to prescreen and limit the on-air play of 30-year-old records -- as opposed to the spontaneous utterances of an award winner in a live, real-time broadcast. If one were to complain, CC would just pass off the incident as the act of a rogue DJ, but I honestly think the FCC should be more outraged at this kind of display than the Golden Globes awards ceremony. (Yes, I kinda lost the train of thought somewhere in here... but that's bound to happen in the world of non-professional writing from time to time...)

I started writing this edition in the week or ten days after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and the New Orleans levees gave way. Now that we're close to 100 days after those tragic events, and FEMA is pulling its staff out of the Lower Ninth Ward, it seems as good a time as any to finish the story. The night before Katrina made landfall in Mississippi and Louisiana, the only thing I could think about was my first visit to New Orleans in the fall of 1995 and my host and friend Rebecca. (Olivelawn has nothing to do with Reb, but I've always sworn she was the cover model for this LP. Bonus points for the nod to the Ventures' Knock Me Out**.)
 

I was on my first major road trip and crashing for a couple days with Reb, who was living in Baton Rouge at the time. She decided to show me the sights on my first evening in town. We drove through the remnants of some tropical storm to get to New Orleans. I was amazed at the water cascading over the Bonnet Carre spillway at the southwestern edge of Lake Ponchartrain. I can't remember where we had dinner, but I got to try turtle soup (with dry sherry floated on top, of course) -- a classic local delicacy. We headed down to the Riverwalk and then to Jackson Square and Cafe Du Monde. Reb was telling a story about how high schoolers would go there after prom and the girls would make a game of blowing powdered sugar off the beignets onto the guy's rental tuxes. The 23-year old wise-ass version of me made some snide remark, while staring into my cafe au lait, along the lines of "what's the big deal with this french fried dough? " I looked up at her and saw a mix of tears and fire -- I immediately apologized, but I'm sure it came across as little more than damage control. That night wasn't the end of our friendship, but we lost touch about a year or so later as our lives continued to move in different directions. Ten years later, I'd like nothing more than to go back to CDM and treat her to beignets and cafe au lait, getting greasy powdered sugar blown at me. Anyway, two records are indelibly linked in my mind to Reb...