If You Can't Stand The Heat...

Well, there seems to have been a spike in readership these last few weeks, which I attribute solely to subject matter:  who doesn't want to read about weddings, especially one which unfolded in a, I daresay, unique way?  I suspect I may have gotten passed around by people sharing the link with friends, which I love.  The more readers, the better, says my ego.

Now I'm trying too figure out how I'm going to drive those newbies and maybe some oldbies away.  Understand, it is not my intent to do that; I simply know that my usual subject matter, whatever stuck subject I can rip from my craw, is hardly everyone's cup o' Jasmine Green.  What I aim for is to be thought-provoking, but I'm often taken for angry or insulting.  Would that I were a good enough writer to get my intended result.  Maybe when I grow up.

And, dear reader, rest assured there's almost always plenty stuck in this old craw: the fact that it's still legal for white people to kill black people (That the subject of race never once came up during the Zimmerman trial defies logic, belief, sense and sensibility--hey, that's not a bad band name, or something.  A classic case of blind justice?), the fact that so many states are rushing to return abortion rights--and civil rights, that great struggle we're still fighting, what with the recent gutting of the Voting Rights Act ("The country's changed," says Injustice Clarence "Uncle" Thomas.  Now there's the old Mark....)--to, oh, 1958.  It feels like the last gasp of the white guys, trying to get as much stuff set up the way they (We?  Truth in advertising: I'm an Old White Guy) like it as they can before we're totally overrun by brown, black, and yellow.  And then all Hell will break loose.

And speaking of Hell, how 'bout the weather this summer, huh?  Steamin'!  'Cause it's not the heat, it's the humidity, right?  Well, there's certainly a lot of truth in that old saw.  So what I'm wantin' to talk about this week is the heat, or rather our increasingly desperate attempts to escape it, with Air Conditioning.  Probably even you regular readers can't believe that I'm gonna argue against the evils of AC, can you?

Many of you know that I'm a big fan of The Week (remember magazines?), a great source for synopses of articles from around the world that deal with issues from, well, around the world, each week.  It's My Weekly Reader for (nominal, at least) grownups.  Each week there's a 350 word or so Op-ed piece from one of the mag's editors.  I generally agree with what they say in those brief bits, but in the July 26 edition William Falk has a piece extolling the air conditioner as humanity's greatest invention. 

Okay, I'll cop to it: during a wicked hot spell, when I walk into a bank or grocery store or some other place that has AC blasting all day, I dig it.  It's a great relief, and makes us all want to linger a little longer there, soaking up all of that coolth before venturing back out into the inferno.  And speaking of Infernos, does anyone recall Kevin Smith's film Dogma (the one where Alanis Morrisette plays God)?  In that film, the Devil, or his emissary, enters the world through central air.

And I know that there are folks who absolutely need air conditioning, due to various medical conditions; one of my best friends is one of those, as is my soon-to-be 89 year-old aunt.  But for most of us?  Let's quit the addiction, before it's too late.  Because, as even Falk acknowledges, at least sidelong, our reliance on AC sets up a loop of dependency and puts us further along the path to total global catastrophe, a path we're becoming more familiar with, realize it or not (how're the floods, fires, and/or severe storms in your area this summer?).  As with auto emissions, demand for new unnecessary goods, rampant consumerism in general, we're just now seeing the beginnings in the most populated countries on Earth, China and India.  As they become more affluent (certainly a relative term), they want the same stuff we have--and why not?  If we can escape the heat, why shouldn't they be able to?

The thing is, of course, that this sets up a self-perpetuating vicious cycle:  the hotter the climate gets, the more we want escape through air conditioning.  But the more we buy and use those machines, the more we demand electricity to run them.  So we build more electricity-producing facilities, most of which now are coal-fired, and coal is the dirtiest fuel we have--so far.  So those plants pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, making the planet hotter, increasing the demand for more AC, thus increasing the demand for electricity, and around and around we go.

Interestingly, the same week that Falk's piece ran in The Week, the Sunday Boston Globe (remember newspapers?) had, as the lead story in its "Ideas" section, a piece that examined alternatives to AC.  "What can they be?," I can hear you excitedly asking.  Well, as in the old days: build smarter (better insulation, open and close windows as needed and effective), site the house to take advantage of shade and prevailing breezes, plant trees that shade your house, wear clothes that make you feel cooler (not talking haute couture, here), don't try to live where most humans aren't supposed to live, and adapt to it, rather than trying to control it.  Hang out on your porches in the evenings, chat with your neighbors; don't work in the heat of the day: manana, man.  Likelihood of any of this happening, before we absolutely have to do it because of our own actions and stupidity: ZERO.  

Anyway, again, please try to remember that I'm not trying to alienate you, but to provoke thought and maybe even discussion.  It may be an empty exercise, but we hafta do something to try to alter our apparent fate, don't we?

So, the playlist:

I Love Air Conditioning                                                        NRBQ
Humidity Built The Snowman                                              John Prine
Turning Into Randolph Scott (Humid Child)                        Leo Kottke
As Cool As I Am                                                                  Dar Williams
Be Cool                                                                                 Joni Mitchell
Bootie Cooler                                                                        Shuggie Otis
But I Was Cool                                                                      Karrin Allyson
Can't Be Cool                                                                        Claudia Schmidt
Cool Blue Stole My Heart                                                    Joan Armatrading
Cool Blue Reason                                                                 Cake
Cool Down Boy                                                                    Garland Jeffreys
Cool Blues                                                                            Grant Green
Cool Dry Place                                                                     Traveling Wilburys
Cool Eyes                                                                              Horace Silver
Cool Jerk                                                                               The Capitols
Cool Paradise                                                                        Ben Sidran
Cool River                                                                             Maria Muldaur
Mr. Cool                                                                                The Crusaders

Coolsville                                                                              Rickie Lee Jones
Cooltide                                                                                 John Martyn
Everything Is Cool                                                                John Prine
On The Cool Side                                                                 Ben Sidran
One Cool Remove                                                                Greg Brown
Mr. Cool                                                                                The Crusaders
Colder Than The Mexican Snow                                          Dirk Hamilton
Cold                                                                                       Sonia Dada
Cold Cold Ground                                                                Tom Waits
Cold, Cold, Cold                                                                   Little Feat
Hot Hot Hot                                                                          Buster Poindexter
Hot House                                                                             Emily Remler
Long Hot Summer Days                                                       John Hartford

As usual: Tuesday, Noon til Two, 100.1 FM, wool.fm.  C'mon along.  And come see me at the Wool fundraising Block Party, Saturday, Aug.  17, from 6-11, at The Waypoint Center in Bellows Falls, VT.  I'll be tending bar, so if you treat me right, I'll treat you right.  Quid Pro Freakin' Quo, baby. 

...Find Yerself Another Planet.

Generational Continuum

GENERATIONAL CONTINUUM:

 TO OUR CHILDREN

Before we were we, we were not-we, and so, you see, you could not be. 

Before we were we, we were two I’s:  watching the world, looking for each other, and waiting for you.

When we became we, we made you you:  wee.

As you became eversomuch more you, not wee, you looked with your I for another I

Looking for its own other I, to form a we.

I’s met, and I’s locked: whee!

I am we, as you are we, as they are we, and we are, after all, together.

Nothingness to beingness,

Beingness to somethingness,

Oneness to we-ness to oneness.

So has it been, and so may it always be. 

You Can't Pick 'Em...

THE WEDDING, part deux:

So, it happened:  Sam and Carolyn got married on Saturday;  everything went off just as planned, without a hitch (well, they "got hitched," but let's stick to the original cliche).

Not.  (Do the hep kids still use that term?  'Cause I sure want to be hep.)  In fact, the hitches failed, and that led to all of the turmoil.

The ceremony was to be held at the home of Carolyn's parents, Mike and Betty.  She and Sam and her family spent hours uncounted, and mucho dinero, decorating and preparing the grounds.  Late last week, the chairs were set up on the lawn, and the tent erected--one of those (what has become) classic wedding tents, three spires, roll-down sides (in case of inclement weather--hoo boy!), staked where possible, ratchet-strapped to 400 lb. blocks of concrete where necessary.  The rehearsal was Friday evening, and there were two options:  Option One was to have the ceremony on the lawn, guests seated in the aforementioned chairs, then the reception under the tent.  Option Two was to have both ceremony and reception under the tent, if it rained, which the forecast said was not unlikely.  Rehearsal went off without a hitch, and we repaired to Popolo for a rehearsal dinner that couldn't be beat (thanks, Arlo--and Popolo).

At around 11 PM, Option Three elbowed its way into the mix.  A storm cell of very short duration and small area, but enormous force, passed directly over the intended wedding site.  Those 400 lb. blocks of concrete were upended and dragged 30 feet across the yard; the tent was reduced to a postmodern sculpture of twisted metal and ragbag remnant fabric.  One corner of the tent came within inches of smashing through the master bedroom window, on the second floor of the house.  The most amazing thing, and best indicator of the the incredibly compressed nature of the storm:  of the 130 chairs set up 75 feet from the tent, three (3!) were blown over.

Fortunately, Carolyn's family own Pinnacleview Equipment, a Kubota tractor dealership, with a large showroom.  So at 6:30 Saturday morning, with the wedding scheduled for 4:30 that afternoon, the calls went out: the whole showroom had to be stripped to the walls, display equipment moved out, and tables, chairs, flowers, lanterns, arbor, and dancefloor moved in and set up.  By 7:30 the place was filled with people working, including the whole wedding party, many of whom had had a GREAT DEAL of fun the previous evening at the dinner; the floor was cleared; soon, walls were denuded of their commerciality.  Tables got set up, decorations hung, flowers arranged, bar put in place, dance floor laid (I know of a great deal on 300 sf of Clicklock laminate flooring; call Mark at...); in short, the place had been transformed from a farm-and-garden implement showroom into a reception hall, virtually seamlessly.  I'm sure there are tons o' photos on YourFace or BookTube or TwitsRhere, or somewhere.

The wedding was beautiful, the reception a blast.  The place cleared out about midnight.

When I got back down there this morning at about 9 to help with cleanup and the Return Of The Showroom, the work was already 80% complete:  tables and linens were dismantled, folded, put into a trailer; the dancefloor had been disassembled and boxed up, vacuuming was underway.  By 10:30, the place was looking an awful lot like a commercial space again, pretty much ready for business Monday morning.  And this was all done by Carolyn's family, me, a little (and I'm sort of family, now) and my good friend Erik the Plumber (rather than a Viking sword, he wields a plunger).  Erik, with whom I disagree at least 187% politically, had absolutely no stake in any of this except his friendship and loyalty to Sam and me;  he's just one of those people, of whom I have many in my life, and I certainly hope you do too, who, when the chips are down, is there to help, no questions asked (Gary Smith is another; he lives at the end of the same road that Carolyn's folks live on; on his way to work Saturday AM, as he drove past the house and idly glanced up to see the wrecked tents, he immediately called me to say "What can I do?").

I found the whole experience quite amazing, somehow moving (pun maybe intended), and inspiring. I know, I know, on the grand scale--tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, bombings,--this event was less than nothing.  And yet it shows the importance of community, of family, of people pulling together to make okay that which appears not to be so.  In Boston this spring, a couple of people showed the worst side of humanity, blowing up totally innocent people and creating horrible chaos; and yet many many more people in that event ran toward the explosions, not away, intent not on saving themselves but on seeing how they might help others.  We are linked, and we need each other. You did not build that body.  As a species, we may not be totally hopeless, after all.

This week's show, then, is made up of stuff I could find which relates:  blowin' away,  family, help, maybe a little resignation.  Here are the songs from which I'll be choosing:


Salt Of The Earth                                                           Rolling Stones
Family                                                                            Dar Williams
Family                                                                            Pat Metheny
Family Affair                                                                 Sly & The Family Stone
Family Affair                                                                 Bobby Hutcherson
Family Man                                                                    Fleetwood Mac
Family Man                                                                    James Taylor
The Family Of Man                                                       Three Dog Night
My Family                                                                      Joan Armatrading
Ode To My Family                                                         The Cranberries
We Are Family                                                               Sister Sledge
Do For The Others                                                         Stephen Stills
We Are Not Helpless                                                     Stephen Stills
With You There To Help Me                                         Jethro Tull
Oh Well, Part 1                                                               Fleetwood Mac

Any Way The Wind Blows                                            J.J. Cale/Eric Clapton
Blow Away                                                                    George Harrison
Blow On, Chilly Wind                                                   Jesse Winchester
Blow Wind Blow                                                           Eric Clapton
Blowin' Away                                                                 Laura Nyro
I'm Blowin' Away                                                           Bonnie Raitt
Help Is On The Way                                                       Subdudes
Help Me                                                                          Joni Mitchell
Help Me                                                                          Sonny Boy Williamson
Help Me                                                                          Van Morrison
Help Me Make It Through This Funky Day                   Greg Brown
Help Me Now                                                                  Chris Smither
Help On The Way/Slip Knot!                                          Grateful Dead
Help Yourself                                                                   Joan Armatrading
Help!                                                                                Fabs
With A Little Help From My Friends                              Joe Cocker

Hope you'll join me, Tuesday Noon til Two, 100.1 FM, wool.fm on yer computer.

Oh yeah--in the continuing self-aggrandizement department, I'm also gonna post a little thing I wrote and spoke at the wedding.

...but you can still get lucky.

It's A Great Institution...

So this Saturday, July 20, my son Sam gets married.  As those of you who have gone through this already--the marriage of a son or daughter--know, it's difficult to realize that those babies we bounced on our knees, snuggled with at bedtime, carried on our shoulders, are old enough to be taking this step.  Obla-di, obla-da....

As any of you who know me or read me know by now, it's very difficult for me to write sweet and heartfelt sentimental stuff.  Alice, for instance, thinks I'm the most cynical creature to have walked upright.  I express it that way, although my knuckles are rubbed raw from dragging.  But I want to send the newlyweds off with all best wishes and optimism.

Sam and Carolyn have been together for 7 years (at the ripe ages of 23 and almost-22), and have owned a house together for 2 1/2 years.  At that age I still needed help getting dressed--and some of you will claim this is still true.  They have been clear about their path, set forth on it, and bless 'em for that.  They're sweet, loving, smart and capable, which certainly gives them a pretty damn good start.

In being even peripherally involved in The Great American Wedding Machine, though, all I can do is shake my head and say "whew!"  Like all things in American--probably global, though I think we lead--society, costs and expectations have soared beyond belief and control.  In 1960, just to pick a year, the average cost of a wedding was $1,000; according to the most recent stats, that has increased 2400 percent.  Not, of course, $2400, but 2400 times-- and I suspect that's somewhat conservative.  In fairness, though, and for comparison, in 1960, bread cost $.25 a loaf, stamps were $.04, milk $.49/gal, gas $.31/gal (!), and a new house cost $16,500.  No wonder all of us old folks remember the old days so fondly.  And by the way, this perspective is all by way of making (particularly) Carolyn's folks feel slightly better--hope it works!

So I'm playing wedding-related songs this week, again trying to focus on the positive (with some tongue-in-cheek, all-in-good-fun (another sale on hyphens this week) songs thrown in ("Married Man's A Fool,"  "Wah She Go Do?," "Better Off Without A Wife," for instance), but it turns out that, at least in my collection, musicians may not have the most favorable view of marriage.  Dylan and Arlo--one surprising, one not--are among the exceptions.  So here's the playlist:

Love and Marriage                                                                     Frank Sinatra
Marriage Chant                                                                          Greg Brown
The marriage                                                                              Billy Bragg
Marry Song                                                                                Band of Horses
Marry You                                                                                  Eric Clapton & B.B King
Plan To Marry                                                                            Lucinda Williams
Let's Get Married                                                                       Al Green
Married Man's A Fool                                                                Ry Cooder
I Married An Angel                                                                    Gerry Mulligan/Chet Baker
Single Girl, Married Girl                                                            Levon Helm
We Got Married                                                                          Paul McCartney
When Will We Be Married?                                                       The Waterboys
Wah She Go Do?                                                                        Bonnie Raitt
Better Off Without A Wife                                                         Tom Waits
That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be                       Carly Simon
My Wife                                                                                      Ben Sidran
When I Say Wife                                                                         Jonathan Richman
Something Borrowed, Something Blue                                      Tommy Flanagan

An Acceptable Level Of Ecstasy (The Wedding Song)              Lyle Lovett
The Wedding                                                                               Abdullah Ibrahim
The Hawaiian Wedding Song                                                     New Hawaiian Band
Here Comes The Bride                                                               Wedding Music Experts
Wedding Bell Blues                                                                     Laura Nyro
January Wedding                                                                         Avett Brothers
Wedding Bell                                                                               Beach House
Wedding Bells/Let's Turn Back The Years                                  John Prine/Lucinda Williams
Wedding Rain                                                                              Liz Story
A Wedding In Cherokee County                                                 Randy Newman
White Wedding                                                                            Billy Idol
Wedding Waltz                                                                            Brian Melvin/Jaco Pastorius
Wedding Song                                                                             Bob Dylan
Wedding Song                                                                             Arlo Guthrie
Wedding Song                                                                             Anais Mitchell/Justin Vernon
The Wedding Song                                                                      The Ahs

I hope you can join me in honoring my son and soon-to-be daughter-in-law (there's those bargain hyphens again) this Tuesday, July 16, from Noon till two on wool.fm or 100.1 FM.

...finish Groucho's quote here.  Oh, of course you know it!

No Bad Words...;

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