The Wily Filipino

Robert Pollard, The Independent, SF, 2/25/06.

Random notes:

1. This will sound blasphemous, but Uncle Bob was not in the greatest form last night. An hour into the concert, Pollard was already slurring his speech, staggering around on stage (and later, would forget the lyrics to "Don't Stop Now" at the encore) -- a result, perhaps, of the many Bud Lights and swigs of tequila (and a puff on a joint from an audience member). This didn't keep him from the flying kicks though.

2. Though the band certainly was in fantastic form: tighter, louder, more aggressive -- and as Pollard himself kept repeating throughout, "more professional." (After all, Tommy Keene was playing lead guitar and keyboards, and Jon Wurster from Superchunk was behind the drums.)

3. I was also, unbelievably, falling asleep! (This may be a combination of 5 hours' sleep plus various other things I won't name.) This was in contrast, I think, to the 1-2-3 punch of Guided By Voices concerts of old, where the hits kept on coming; the set (which was over 2 hours) more or less meandered through From a Compound Eye. (The album itself is worth checking out, but the sheer quantity of songs has made it difficult to remember most of them; the excellent live versions of the 5-minute epic "Conqueror of the Moon" and "U.S. Mustard Company" made me want to listen to the originals again.)

4. The High Strung was excellent: melodic power-pop nuggets in longer twisty musical suite wrappers. (Sorry, I can't think of another way to say it.) Plus a hilarious story about Arby's-related diarrhea.

5. "We're not playing 'Echos Myron.' No 'Echos Myron.' Fuck 'Echos Myron' fans. That's right, boo me."

6. "Did I say Liz Phair was an attractive woman?"

7. After long solos on (I think) "The Kingdom Within:" "That was our 'jam.' We did it because we're in San Francisco."

8. And so we finally got to the encore ("This is the GBV set," Pollard said) which comprised, in no order: "Sad If I Lost It," "Girls of Wild Strawberries," "Get Under It" (I think), "Game of Pricks," "My Kind of Soldier," "The Brides Have Hit Glass" (a surprise), "Choking Tara," "Little Lines," "My Valuable Hunting Knife" and (best of all) "Gold Star for Robot Boy."

9. The funniest part was one of the new T-shirts on sale, with a really cool Terry Gilliam-style image on the front. And on the back: "Gang of Four - $45 / The Pixies - $60 / Robert Pollard - priceless."

1972.

FORWARD WIDELY NOW!

To all community allies and supporters of the Filipino people:

From Baghdad to the Philippines...State of National Emergency and Daylight Curfews only means that people's international resistance is growing around the world against repressive governments and U.S. military intervention and occupation. Join actions in the U.S today condemning Philippine president Gloria Arroyos' Proclamation 1017--another desperate step to cling onto power through using increased political repression and state terror against the people.

RESIST GMA'S EMERGENCY POWERS WITH PEOPLE POWER! NEVER AGAIN TO MARTIAL LAW! OUST GLORIA NOW!

BAYAN-USA Urgent Actions in the U.S. today!

SAN FRANCISCO
Oust GMA Rally and march to Philippine Consulate
4 pm Assemble Powell and Market in downtown San Francisco
March up Powell to Consulate on Sutter

NEW YORK
Join Filipino New Yorkers in condemning the fascist Arroyo regime!
5 pm - Friday February 24, 2006
Philippine Consulate in NY

LOS ANGELES
Condemn State of Emergency and Oust GMA
12 pm Philippine Consulate in Los Angeles

Bagong Alyansang Makabayan USA Chapter declares overall failure and disgrace of the Arroyo government as the Real State of National Emergency which cannot stop third People Power ouster!

From across the ocean and within the borders of the U.S., BAYAN-USA proudly stands with with thousands of Filpinos in the streets of Ayala and EDSA yesterday on the 20th Anniversary of the first People Power ouster of Dictator Ferdinand Marcos. We condemn in fullest terms Gloria Arroyo's Proclomation 1017 of a National State of Emergency which is short of declaring martial law and the first step towards authorizing warrantless arrests, media takeover, dispersal of people's assemblies and systematic suppression of the Filipino people's right to participate in collective actions that go against Arroyo's wish to stay in power.

The Filipino peoople know that the real State of National Emergency started when GMA took office from the ousted Joseph Estrada in 2001. This latest crisis development reveals more than she can hide about her crisis-ridden and crumbling adminstration. GMA's desperate measures come after a preventable mudslide which killed more than 1500 in Leyte last week. She is responsible for Human Rights Violations worse than the declared years of Martial Law under Marcos. She has orchestrated a full blown economic crisis burying the country in billions of dollars of foreign debt. Worst of all, she continues to cling to power, holding on to a presidency discredited with election fraud while escaping democratic impeachment.

Since she assumed the presidency, BAYAN-USA has participated in international actions called by the growing People Power 3 movement in the Philippines. Yesterday's People Power anniversary and OUST actions are the result of escalating outrage from under poverty level wages, joblessness, homelessness, high gas prices, the burden of value added taxes on basic commodities and the failure to bring justice for the gang rape of a Filipina woman by U.S Marines. There is nothing spontaneous or surprising from the people's louder voices of dissent which represent a courageous anti-fascist stand. We recognize the most powerful way to honor the People Power Anniversary is to continue the struggle against fascism in the brutal form of the Bush loyal GMA regime.

There will be no denying People Power 3! Calibrated Preemptive Response (CPR), state sponsored terrorism and political killings in the Philippines, undeclared martial law and even arms and training by U.S. troops in the Philippines will never quell the people's resistance and will for national liberation and democracy and a just and lasting peace. We call on the U.S and governments around the world to withdraw support to the Arroyo government which proved to be best in stealing, lying and cheating rather than governing the nation towards genuine progress and democracy.

OUST THE BRUTAL, FASCIST ARROYO REGIME
ARROYO IS STATE OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY IN THE PHILIPPINES!
ESTABLISH THE TRANSITIONAL COUNCIL NOW!
NO U.S. TAX DOLLARS TO FUND UNDECLARED MARTIAL LAW AND POLITICAL REPRESSION!
PEOPLE POWER 3 LIVES!

For more information, contact Kawal Ulanday at 510-914-4461.

----

Plus, a comparison of Macapagal-Arroyo's and Marcos's proclamations, 34 years apart.

Meanwhile, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez discusses the government's principle of "declare martial law state of emergency, show the evidence later:"

"We will offer that at the proper time," Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez said when asked what proof Malacanang had to back Ms Arroyo's allegation of an unholy alliance among her political opponents, soldiers and the communist New People's Army.

Calibrated action

"This is no time for proving," Gonzalez added. "Go to the Supreme Court. Question this and we will offer the proof."

"What am I to prove to you? You are not the court," he said in reply to an Inquirer question.

"Warrantless arrests." "Illegal assembly." "Inciting sedition." And from Macapagal-Arroyo's proclamation: "WHEREAS, the claims of these elements have been recklessly magnified by certain segments of the national media..." -- is this assertion what prompted this? Smells like 1972 to me.

Some Random Notes.

1. Nothing more chilling than the words "No survivors had been found."

2. In the mail the other day: So how many teacher-bloggers out there can say they've held a book -- an award-winning book, at that -- written by one of their former students? Oh yes. That'll be me.

3. How much it costs to bring entertainers to your school. Built To Spill (and Lisa Loeb) are relative bargains at $5-7.5K, Rilo Kiley is predictably more expensive at $15K, and then you move up to the big leagues (Kanye West at $150K, Dave Chappelle at a whopping $250K). But Smashmouth charges $65K? Third Eye Blind goes for $50-75K? David Spade is a full $50K more expensive than David Cross?

4. Also in the mail the other day: a Rival Crock Pot slow cooker. I can't wait to use it.

5. And one of my favorite films of all time is finally out on DVD.

6. Speaking of films, tickets for the 24th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival will be going on sale tomorrow. Alas, I'm going to be in Atlanta for most of the filmfest (so will a whole bunch of my department colleagues), and so I'll be missing some great-looking ones, like Samuel Fuller's The Crimson Kimono, which will also feature Arthur Dong interviewing James Shigeta, and Richard Wong's Colma: The Musical (confession: I'm seeing Belle & Sebastian and The New Pornographers that night). But I do have my eyes set on Hou Hsiao-Hsien's Cafe Lumiere (finally!) and Nobuhiro Yamashita's Linda Linda Linda.

7. Plus videos for a bunch of my favorite songs of last year:

- Kitchie Nadal's "Wag Na Wag Mong Sasabihin"
- HALCALI'S "Strawberry Chips" (be sure to check out the videos for "Baby Blue" and "Giri Giri Safuraida" as well -- they're priceless)
- Sleater-Kinney's "Jumpers"
- Teenage Fanclub's "Ain't That Enough"
- The Pillows' "Hybrid Rainbow"
- Rilo Kiley's "Portions for Foxes"
- Kanye West's "Gold Digger"
- Ryan Adams' "Come Pick Me Up"
- The Polyphonic Spree's "Light and Day"

- and one of my favorite bands ever, the Eraserheads, with their video for "Para Sa Masa," directed by my porn-lovin' cousin.

You Want More Pointless Lists?

Favorite Release from Every Year Since 1970:

1970: The Beatles, Let It Be
1971: Pink Floyd, Meddle
1972: Stevie Wonder, Talking Book
1973: Paul Giovanni, The Wicker Man
1974: Tom Waits, The Heart of Saturday Night
1975: Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run
1976: Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life
1977: Elvis Costello, My Aim Is True
1978: The Police, Outlandos d'Amour
1979: The Clash, London Calling
1980: The English Beat, I Just Can't Stop It
1981: The Police, Ghost in the Machine
1982: Roxy Music, Avalon
1983: U2, War
1984: The Smiths, Hatful of Hollow
1985: The Cure, The Head on the Door
1986: Anita Baker, Rapture
1987: 10,000 Maniacs, In My Tribe
1988: Pixies, Surfer Rosa
1989: Pixies, Doolittle
1990: Yo La Tengo, Fakebook
1991: Matthew Sweet, Girlfriend
1992: My Bloody Valentine, Loveless
1993: Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville
1994: Guided by Voices, Bee Thousand
1995: Eraserheads, Cutterpillow
1996: Guided by Voices, Under the Bushes under the Stars
1997: Teenage Fanclub, Songs from Northern Britain
1998: Puffy, JET CD
1999: Tom Waits, Mule Variations
2000: Guided by Voices, Hold on Hope
2001: Gillian Welch, Time (The Revelator)
2002: Puffy, Nice.
2003: Dengue Fever, Dengue Fever
2004: Kanye West, The College Dropout
2005: Robert Pollard, Zoom

Notes:

1987 was hard, what with "The Joshua Tree," "Sign o' the Times," Alex Chilton's "High Priest," "Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me" and "Franks Wild Years" being released that year as well.

1989 also saw "3 Feet High and Rising" and "Cosmic Thing."

1992: an easy choice, but "Slanted and Enchanted," Bettie Serveert's "Palomine," Guided By Voices' "Propeller" and Luna's "Lunapark" came out that year too. What a year.

1993: narrowly beating out "Rid of Me," "Frosting on the Beater" and Yo La Tengo's "Painful." Another amazing year.

1994: same year as "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" and "Fumbling towards Ecstasy."

1995: same year as "Alien Lanes" and "(What's The Story) Morning Glory?"

1997: easy pick again, but it meant "I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One," "Ok Computer" and "Mag Earwhig" had to fall by the wayside.

I usually listen to music way after the critics have picked them on top 10 lists and so on, so 2005 will probably change.

I should also add that these albums aren't necessarily my favorites from their respective artists; "The Unforgettable Fire" (U2) and "Reggatta de Blanc" (The Police) are my favorites, but both were released during years crowded with talent.

Also, interestingly, only 14 of the 35 albums above were listened to by me the same year they came out. Obviously I wasn't listening to Pink Floyd when I was a year old, but the majority of the list are belated discoveries. Exactly three were purchased the day they were released (Waits, West and Pollard).

Letter by Letter.

(I'm giving myself exactly ten minutes to do this, then it's back to work.)

Favorite songs, with titles beginning with each letter of the alphabet:

A - "Alapaap," Eraserheads
B - "Barnaby, Hardly Working," Yo La Tengo
C - "Crazy for You," Madonna
D - "Desperado," The Langley Schools Music Project
E - "Echos Myron," Guided By Voices
F - "Fourth of July," Galaxie 500
G - "Girlfriend," Matthew Sweet
H - "Here Comes The Sun," The Beatles
I - "In My Life," The Beatles
J - "Jockey Full of Bourbon," Tom Waits
K - "Kid Charlemagne," Steely Dan
L - "LONG BEACH NIGHTMARE," PUFFY
M - "More Than This," Roxy Music
N - "Never Let Me Down Again," Depeche Mode
O - "Ooo Baby Baby," Smokey Robinson and The Miracles
P - "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want," The Smiths
Q - "Queen of Cans and Jars," Guided By Voices
R - "Regret," New Order
S - "September Gurls," Big Star
T - "Thunder Road," Bruce Springsteen
U - "Under the Surface," Bettie Serveert
V - "Valentine's Day," Bruce Springsteen
W - "Wonderwall," Oasis
X - "XXX," Helium
Y - "You're The Best Thing," Style Council
Z - "Ziphim," Masada

Whew!

Willie Nelson, The Fillmore, SF, 1/26/06.

The musical world just became a little odder, now that Pansy Division and Willie Nelson are separated by only one degree. Nelson has recorded Ned Sublette's 1981 song "Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly (Fond of Each Other)" -- released on iTunes on Valentine's Day too -- apparently as something of a tribute to his tour manager, who came out to Nelson a couple of years ago. (Pansy Division was supposedly the first to cover the song.) The lyrics are funny, but not in a nudge-nudge-wink-wink sort of way (though queer theory folks out there would probably wince a bit); the music itself is played dead sober. (Yes, it looks like he's jumping on the Brokeback bandwagon, but there's apparently a song of his on the soundtrack already.)

I wish Willie Nelson had played the song in concert sometime last month at the Fillmore, but no matter. To be in the presence of a real-life, honest-to-goodness Musical Legend (or, as this blogger puts it, "Willie Fucking Nelson!") was enough; to be reminded of how good a guitar player Nelson is was icing on the cake. And a fantastic songwriter as well: one tends to forget that he actually wrote Patsy Cline's Greatest Song Ever, perhaps in keeping with the big introductory spiel he received at the beginning of the concert as "the Walt Whitman of our time." (Hmm -- Whitman.) His longtime band, of course, knew the songs inside and out, as road-tested as a band could possibly be, even if they were all blinking through the billowing clouds of weed smoke at the venue.

The highlights of the concert -- well, they were all highlights, really -- were a kickass "Whiskey River" (at the opening of the set, naturally), a triumphant "City of New Orleans," and a rollicking version of "The Harder They Come" ("about the Bush administration," my friend J said). But you can't go wrong with a set that included "Blue Skies," "Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground," "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain," "Pancho and Lefty," "Always on My Mind" and "Crazy."

From Izzy.

Happy Valenstime's Day!

The Sarimanok Travels.

Passing this along...

"THE SARIMANOK TRAVELS"
by Francis Tanglao-Aguas

Take a trip to the Philippines in this beautifully staged one-man show
by performer-playwright Francis Tanglao-Aguas. The "Sarimanok Travels"
is "Fires in the Mirror" meets the "Vagina Monologues" but based on a
traditional Pilipino folk tale about a mystical bird that brings
harmony to a kingdom.

Francis weaves this tale full of stories and odd characters with dance
movement and poetry. This story is ultimately about one's connection
to a 'homeland'. Ayeta, the beautiful queen of Mahallikha spurns royal
suitors from more powerful lands, earning their wrath which they pass
on to their descendants. But the Mahallikhenos are resilient, with the
magical sarimanok bird on their side, thriving in the paradise that is
their land.

But what happens when the sarimanok bird is stolen by foreign powers?

Francis Tanglao-Aguas explores his version of the mythical roots of
the Philippines, hoping to answer why Pilipinos find themselves
leaving their beloved motherland.

LIMITED TOURING ENGAGEMENT
ONLY SIX PERFORMANCES
February 10-25, 2006
Fri/Sat at 8PM
Noh Space
2840 Mariposa Street
San Francisco, CA

Call 800-838-3006 to purchase tickets, or purchase online at:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3160

In Praise of Last.fm.

I am absolutely loving Last.fm. I've added a "weekly chart" graphic to the bottom right of this webpage, which is precisely what Last.fm has done for me (for free!) since April 2004: keep track of the 68,800 songs I've played (as of today) on my computer. My Last.fm page tells me, for instance, that Guided By Voices is my top artist (no surprise, with 2,319 plays), and that PUFFY's "Long Beach Nightmare" is my most-played song (99 times in almost two years). (Though Izzy is actually the one who listens to PUFFY somewhat obsessively, which makes Teenage Fanclub's "Ain't That Enough" the highest non-PUFFY song on the list.)

One of the coolest features is Last.fm radio, which plays songs listened to by your "musical neighbours" -- in this case, music that's already weighted according to your own musical interests. It seems to work a lot better than Pandora's somewhat arcane "musical genome" system, as if I listened to, say, Tom Waits for his "repetitive melodic phrasing" and "major key tonality." Songs kind of function the same way: My Bloody Valentine's "Only Shallow" gave me Elastica's "Car Song," Stereolab's "Brittle," and "Falling Back" by California Oranges, which sounded nothing like the previous songs. Pandora wins the interface battle, however, since it uses Flash and plays in your browser. Last.fm, however, gives you more control: you can download plugins for pretty much every major music software program out there, but the Last.fm player is again a separate download.

And if you're a Last.fm subscriber, one of your bonus features is a personal radio -- one that plays a random selection of any of the 68,000-odd songs I've ever played (provided they're on Last.fm's streaming server). A listen to my own radio was quite satisfying, if a rather schizophrenic one -- Augustus Pablo, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Duran Duran, HYDE, Oingo Boingo, Os Mutantes, Warren Miller, Dillinger, Icehouse and PJ Harvey were the first 10 tracks. But one could play, for instance, Largehearted Boy's radio, and hear Neko Case, Elf Power, the Continental Co-Ets, Portastatic and Windsor for the Derby, in that order, and get something more stylistically coherent. (J-Lu's radio yielded Utada Hikaru, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Eraserheads (!), Glay, and L'Arc~en~Ciel; Smoothie's radio played the Alkaline Trio, HORSE the Band, Interpol, Nine Inch Nails, and the Juliana Theory.)

The "Similar Artists Radio" works pretty successfully too: the "Puffy" radio appropriately plays both sugary-sweet J-pop and J-punk from the Benten label. Typing in "John Zorn" -- someone whose work is all over the map -- queues up Otomo Yoshihide, Marc Ribot, the Fantomas Melvins Big Band, Ground Zero and Praxis. (Something wrong there, I think, as it represents only a certain aspect of Zorn's work, but typing in "Masada" got me closer to what I wanted -- Wadada Leo Smith, more Ribot, etc.) In an attempt to stump the player, I typed in "Eraserheads," and it told me that there was not enough content to play this station -- though the results happily displayed Siakol, Bamboo, Mayonnaise, and Parokya ni Edgar, among others.

The process isn't perfect. There are various server outages, which is probably to be expected, given all the data processing going on; the tags are also mostly dependent on the individual playing the music, so improperly-tagged music usually shows up on the site. But it's a fantastic site nonetheless, and I encourage you folks who use iTunes, or Winamp (or whatever else you use to play music on your computer -- I don't own a stereo, so my computer is it), to download the plugin and get hooked.

Susie Suh, Cafe du Nord, SF, 2/5/05.

It's been a spectacularly shitty week, but at least it began on an extremely high note. Almost on impulse I bought tickets to see Susie Suh perform live at the Cafe du Nord last week, and I was quite impressed. (So was J-Lu, I think, who was kind of dragged to go almost at the last moment.)

I'm only really a casual fan of the women-with-acoustic-guitars genre, but there was something compelling about her 2005 self-titled album that made me take notice. There is nothing necessarily groundbreaking about it -- nothing you won't hear on a Lilith Fair compilation, perhaps, with self-confessional lyrics like "Oh I'm missing you / Or maybe I'm missing who I was when I was with you," and an urban-glossy production -- but there is an autumnal chilll that runs through Suh's songs that gives the album an edge. Most important, Suh is gifted with an incredible voice, all husky and soulful, which breaks at perfect moments (hear the chorus of "Light on My Shoulder").

In concert that amazing voice is, unbelievably, even better, now embellished with a slight rawness that fits the emotional intensity of her lyrics. Indeed, the concert was completely stripped down: with her on guitar and vocals and another guy on drums. (You also get the chance to see how fine a guitar player she is.)

To my initial worry, Suh began the short set with four of my favorite songs on the album ("Won't You Come Again," "Your Battlefield," "Harmony," and "Lucille," if I remember correctly). But this anxiety was dispelled with a couple of terrific new songs ("Canopy," probably about her mother, and "Sweet Love," which began with lines like "Clap your hands if you love someone in this room," or words to that effect), and a few well-placed surprise covers ("Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," "Since I Fell For You," "Is This Love"). All together a most excellent experience; I highly recommend catching her in concert if she comes by your town.

(As always seems to be the case, I ran into a couple of former students at the concert as well; today Amy and I were pondering the lack of enthusiasm in the crowd, particularly the center. Maybe because it was on Superbowl Sunday night, and there was work the next day...)

Forty Years Ago.

For tonight, as so many nights before, young Americans struggle and young Americans die in a distant land.

Tonight, as so many nights before, the American Nation is asked to sacrifice the blood of its children and the fruits of its labor for the love of its freedom.

How many times-in my lifetime and in yours-have the American people gathered, as they do now, to hear their President tell them of conflict and tell them of danger?

Each time they have answered. They have answered with all the effort that the security and the freedom of this Nation required.

And they do again tonight in Vietnam.

...

As the assault mounted, our choice gradually became clear. We could leave, abandoning South Vietnam to its attackers and to certain conquest, or we could stay and fight beside the people of South Vietnam.

We stayed.

And we will stay until aggression has stopped.

- President Lyndon B. Johnson, in his State of the Union Address, January 1966

However, as David Levering Lewis writes (in his New Yorker review of Taylor Branch's At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68):

Still, [Johnson] confided to one of his generals that he felt “a good deal of ice cracking” under his feet.