Ghetto: Not Just a Six Letter Word

Once Were Warriors

Anyone who thinks that New Zealand is all hobbits and sheep farts will be disenchanted by this film about a Maori family living in a slum in Auckland.

Sweet Sixteen

The same could be said about bagpipes and haggis when you get a good look at the housing estates of Glasgow.

By some Netflix sorting algorithm ("because you enjoy hair-raising films about violence and despair among disenfranchised foreign people") both these movies were in my house at the same time. They are highly recommended, although not for the squeamish or faint of heart, depicting as they do intra-family violence, rape, suicide, massive alcohol abuse, incarceration, crime, and really scary tattoos, among other unpleasant realities of the late 20th and early 21st century.

According to Wikipedia, "fuck" appeared in Sweet Sixteen 313 times, and "cunt" twenty times. Although I grew up with grandparents who spoke a more genteel version of broad Scots, I could not understand the dialogue in this movie. Had to turn on the English subtitles. And I have never heard men calling each other "cunt" so much in my entire life.

Lollapalooza Day Three

The initial thing of general interest that occurred was that I left my hat on the el. Nate was very kind to offer me his Van's cap, but my first thought upon arriving at the park was "shade, I need shade." I took off to a stage which guaranteed some land mass out of the sun. This determined my fate for the day.

Little Hurricane

This is a band that consists of a woman on drums and a guy on guitar and vocals. (Sound familiar? Of course it does.) They play "dirty blues." Not to my taste, but they did a nice version of "Ain't No Sunshine When You're Gone."

Lissie

Got really frustrated trying to find Nina before this young lady's set. I ended up retreating to the shade again. Blond woman doing country tinged singer-songwriter stuff. Not to my (see above.)

Cage the Elephant

Is this the imperative, i.e. "Put that elephant in a cage, asshole," or is "Cage" simply the name of the elephant? I never found out because it was too crowded.

Best Coast

I read up on Best Coast after the show was over, and evidently they are some big fucking shit. In my opinion they sound for all the world like Katrina and the Waves, who had a hit with "I'm Walking on Sunshine" back in the 20th century although they focus more on the poigniancy of unrequited love. I probably wouldn't have stuck around, but right after Best Coast took the stage, "Hi, we're Best Coast, fuck you," the heavens opened up and a torrential rain fell upon us. I figured I might as well huddle in my poncho there as anywhere else. Fifteen minutes into the set, the front woman of Best Coast, Beth, had radically changed her belligerent tone, fervently thanking the crowd for hanging around "under these conditions." After another twenty minutes she was going on about how we would all be telling our grandchildren about our shared experience standing in the rain at Lollapalooza Twenty listening to Best Coast. Right up there with Drew Barrymore directing your video, I assume. After Best Coast left the stage, I turned around, and felt like I was trapped on an island in some Agatha Christie movie. Too many water!

Manchester Orchestra

The focus of my day, Manchester Orchestra, took the stage before a water-logged audience. They were awesome and lovely. Someone had sent a beach ball up into the air, and I was really stressed out by the fact that it kept coming around over my head. Manchester Orchestra is not exactly a party band, and I was irritated by the recurrent need to monitor whether the ball was about to hit me. You know you mean everything to nothing after all.

Deadmau$

Because of excess rain, I sat under my poncho and umbrella by Buckingham Fountain and listened to Deadmau$. (No way was I going to wade around in the water anywhere near the stage.) Gee, Deadmau$ sounds like the Chemical Brothers, Deadmaus is like DJ Aoki, but with a much better stage show. Is there nothing new under the sun?

The Culmination

Nina and Nate and I were all very happy. As we descended to the subway, covered with mud, a lady commented, "You all are real fans!" too true!

Lollapalooza - Day Two

I don't know if irony or serendipity is behind this, but there was quite a battle of the blue-eyed boys at the south end of the park today. In the afternoon we had Fitz and the Tantrums followed by Mayer Hawthorne and the County. Then at night, Atmosphere preceded Eminem. I have to say the Wolverine State acquitted itself very well indeed!

Disappears

I heard their last song. They sound like Public Image Limited in case you're interested.

Chico Trujillo

If you read up on this extremely popular Chilean band, you will learn a lot of stuff about how they exemplify the liberated mood of Chile after the fall of the Pinochet dictatorship. That may be true, but the vibe is: dance, laugh, sing, enjoy each other. Although this band came on at 1:30 PM, the crowd was exuberant: dancing, waving Chilean flags, and having big fun. The musicians are great, and the front man is one of the zaniest and most captivating performers I have ever seen. Nate and Nina and I all agreed that Chico Trujillo was a highlight of the day. I sure wish I had a dance partner I could pull out of my pocket. I was dying to dance cumbia and merengue to this band.

Fitz and the Tantrums

This is a soul band fronted by Fitz, and featuring a very good singer, Noelle Scaggs. That said, I've always been irritated  by bands that endlessly exhort and berate the crowd to clap their hands, show the love, or get down, etc., etc. This band was shameless, and Mr. Fitz even employed the French language in his harangues. I think it's kind of patronizing.

Mayer Hawthorne and the County

This is another soul band. From the helpful information on the Lolla website, I learned that the County is basically studio musicians that Mr. Hawthorne puts together whenever he needs to perform in public.   I take my hat off to his good taste because the County was hotter than the grill on the barbecue, and twice as spicy. They led off the set, and Mr. Hawthorne (born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan) sauntered onto the stage, an extremely dorky looking young man dressed like he planned to have cocktails at the yacht club after the show. He was smart, funny, sweet, and wry, and a song or two sharply reminded me of the swoon inducing powers of the male falsetto voice. Caveat: if you read his press, let me inform you that Ann Arbor is not "just outside" of Detroit. Melvindale is "just outside" of Detroit. Ann Arbor is the Athens of the Midwest. With that out of the way, I think I'm in love, LUV.

Patrick Stump

Nate and Nina and I made a valiant effort to see the Deftones, but it was too damn crowded, so we went to our default setting, Patrick Stump who is a member of the band Fall Out Boy. My immediate reaction: if my name was Patrick Stump, I would not put it front and center to promote my career. Whatever, he was definitely making the girls scream!

The Pretty Reckless

Nina informed me that the singer in this band, who is famous for wearing lingerie outside her clothes, is an actor on the TV show Gossip Girls. Nina said she is pretty good on the show. Unusual for Lollapalooza, the tech people for this band diddled around endlessly, noodling on guitars, going, "Check, check," until I was ready to rip someone's throat out. Finally, the band came out, with no discernible improvement in the level of the entertainment, so I took off.

Ween

A while back, there was Ween, Weezer, and Wilco, and all I could make of the situation was that I wasn't real interested in any of them. I was glad that I had a chance to sit down and listen to Ween as I found them quirky, idiosyncratic, and very entertaining. For sure I like them better than Wilco. The jury is still out on Weezer.

Beats Antique

This is a band consisting of a bunch of guys who look like they met up in grad school, playing trancey, middle eastern flavored stuff. They have their own belly dancer, who in my opinion could stand to put on a few pounds as shown below.

Beats Antique belly dancer.

                                                                          Regular belly dancers.



Atmosphere

I've seen Atmosphere before, and really enjoyed them. Slug, their front man, seemed rather weary to me, I assumed because of the burden of carrying the weight of the world around on his shoulders all the time. However, Nate informed me that he had announced earlier in the show that he was just hung over.



Eminem

Met and exceeded expectations. I hope the digression about white trash culture in Warren, Michigan will discourage girls from getting their boyfriends' names tattooed on their butts. And I want you to know that like Em, I have been in "A Dark and Fucked Up"  place. More than once, as a matter of fact.

New Trends

Thrilled to find young people solicitously inquiring about whether or not I am enjoying myself. Hopefully they will soon be helping me up off the ground, carrying my backpack, and buying me lobster corn dogs.

Amen


http://asideworldwide.com/artists/mayer-hawthorne-aka-haircut

Agents of Disease

Someone I know has been teaching music to pre-schoolers. She spent the entire winter sick as a dog, and frantically soliciting suggestions about how to protect herself from the germs of the under five set. Of course we recommended vitamin C and frequent hand-washing, until she told of a time when she turned to sing to a little girl and the child SNEEZED RIGHT INTO HER MOUTH! I think I would probably throw myself right off a cliff if it happened to me.

In February, I spent a week taking care of my mother, who had the flu. And how do you think she got it? From living with a bunch of old people, that's how. As soon as she got better, I went down at the count of three, and was sick as a dog for a of couple days. (Of course, no one took care of me, but that's another story.)

The moral is: who spreads disease? Children and the elderly, that's who!

Lollapalooza - Day One

We had quite a merry party this year, me, my godson Nate, and his sister Nina.  I have to confess that I totally if inadvertently abdicated adult responsibility by having an inadequately charged phone rendering me unreachable for most of the day. However, our meet-up system worked well, and the other two got some quality time together.

Young the Giant

Whoa, whoa, whoa, yip, yip... a lyrical theme in the work of Young the Giant.

Tennis

Alaina Moore and her boyfriend Patrick Riley took it in their heads that they should forsake their normal lives and start tooling around in a sailboat. You can learn more about their life of "intimate engagement with the environment" on their website, and also hear some of their songs which pertain to the same subject. Which of these would be the more tedious I cannot begin to imagine. I also have no idea why they call their band "Tennis."

Electric Touch

You rarely go wrong with a scrawny English guy on vocals.

Le Butcherettes

This band is fronted by Ms. Terri Gender Bender, who has one of the most riveting stage personas I have ever experienced. The sweet baby sitter who turns out to be a psychopath has a voice like an unholy amalgamation of Bjork, P.J. Harvey, and the lead singer from Bikini Kill. She bangs her head against the mike, she dances around in a scary spazzy way, she delivers creepy songs in English and Spanish, she wears a bloody butcher's apron over her dress. She spits on her drummer. I was mesmerized.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have spent over 40 years attending performances by rock and roll bands, and Le Butcherettes stunned even jaded me when the drummer began projectile vomiting first next to his drums and then leaning over the edge of the stage while the other two band members mocked him and kept on playing. There may have been some artifice or stage trickery involved (the timing of this display was particularly suspect). However, I can testify that there was definitely vomitous looking stuff spewing from this guy's mouth. When he finished up he went back to playing the drums, and when the band cleared off the stage, the cleaning people looked pissed.

I thought about getting their autographs, but I was too scared.

The Kills

A quick listen to this band makes it clear that they also have a female singer who Means Business. Otherwise, I didn't pay too much attention, but my impression was generally favorable.


The Mountain Goats

I love the Mountain Goats. I will see them whenever I can. I was really happy that they had a nice crowd at Lolla. I always cry at least once during an MG set, the kind of crying that happens because you feel like someone just stuck a fork in your heart.

Bright Eyes

I've always felt that I should like Bright Eyes. Conor Oberst is so earnest, so completely and totally adorable. Who else would open their set at what has been called "the frat party on the lake" with a little number condemning US immigration policy?  I was very sorry not to feel more enthusiasm for this band.

Crystal Castles

Wake me up when it's over.

The Headliners

I wandered around trying to find something amusing. Ratatat was interesting but the location was undesirable. Coldplay: do I really need to say more? I hung around the dance stage while Girl Talk was DJing and people were bouncing up and down under a tent the size of a football field. Now this is my opinion: Some people are good at waving glow sticks around. Some people are good dancers. However, most people are not. Of course, I feel that everyone should enjoy themselves, and as the maxim tells us "Dance like no one is watching." And in my case, certainly I won't be. Finally settled on Muse. Could be the scrawny English guy principle, but I thought they were pretty good.

Slave to Sweat

I sweat too much. If I vacuum or wash the dishes I will sweat profusely. At the end of a sweaty day, you can actually see salt on my shirts marking some sweat related line of demarcation. It's good and hot at Lollapalooza, so I pull my hair  into a pathetic little pony tail. The sweat wicks down the hairs and collects in the pony tail so that liquid drips down my back or makes me think it started raining.  I feel like I have a small and extremely wet animal (drowned rat maybe?) nestling at the base of my skull. I look around and see people who look dry and comfortable. This is one of many things that make me feel alienated from others.

www.fatpossum.com/tennis