Real Life Rock (217 page)

“ ‘I see this trumpet player (was there even a horn section in that song? / Say there was) / I see this one trumpet player with tie askew / or maybe he's wearing a loose tropical foliage shirt sitting on a metal chair waiting / for the session to reach the big chorus / where Jan and Dean exult / “Two girls for every boy” / and he's thinking / of his hundred nights on his buddy Marvin's hairy stainy sofa / and the way hot dogs and coffee make a mud misery / and the way one girl is far too much . . . / Surfing—what life actually lets guys ride boards / on waves? / Is it all fiction? Is it a joke? / Jan and Dean and their pal Brian act like it's a fine, good joke / Whereas the trumpet player thinks it's actually shit / If anybody asked him, a tidal wave of shit / Nobody's asking'.”

6
Esperanto Cafe, Christmas night (114 MacDougal St., New York)
In this place that never closes, there are many volumes of
The History of Philosophy
, but no evident traces of Esperanto, the language invented in the late 19th century by a man who believed that if all people spoke the same tongue—“manufacturing a Tower of Babel in reverse,” as Lester Bangs put it—there would be no more war. As snow fell heavily outside, the Rolling Stones' 1969 “You Can't Always Get What You Want” was playing. Then came the killingly original blues line that opens their 1964 cover of Irma Thomas' “Time Is on My Side,” and time really did begin to slide. It was only 107 years before, to the night, that in a saloon in St. Louis a man named Billy Lyons snatched the Stetson hat off the head of a man named “Stag” Lee Shelton, and Shelton, who some called Stagolee, shot him, retrieved his hat, and walked out the door.

7
Richard Avedon, “Portraits” (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, closed Jan. 5)
Overfamiliar work, but in the room featuring pictures from Avedon's “In the American West” series there was a stopper. Some of Avedon's shots of highway bums are so lurid they're unforgettable, in the worst, freak-show manner;
Clarence Lippard, drifter, Interstate 80, Sparks, Nevada, August 29, 1983
was different. Instead of the lantern jaw and killer's eyes of the other men on the walls, Lippard held himself in reserve. The countless big, dark freckles—or skin cancers—that covered his face and hands spoke for a life lived out of doors; his dark blazer and clean white shirt made it seem as if he were a gentleman farmer out for a stroll. Very handsome, in a moneyed East Coast way, with a full head of sandy hair, Lippard appeared in two photos. One—as if shot from below, showing Lippard from the waist up—softened his features, weakening his chin and turning his nose bulbous; he looked something like Kevin Kline in one of his good-guy roles. But the other picture, shot head-on and cropped at midchest, presented Lippard gazing straight out, his chin strong, his nose hard: in the way he carried himself, daring you to judge him.

His face now suggested Gregory Peck or Robert Ryan; the disease on his skin deepened his face, until you could see Lincoln along with the movie stars. And then another movie star who is not, really, a star: Bill Pullman, in the desert in
Lost Highway
, and then in
Igby Goes Down
, in the asylum.

8
La Bohème,
directed by Baz Luhrmann (Broadway Theatre, New York, Dec. 22)
The 1896 Puccini opera updated to 1957, complete with cool Marlon Brando references and “Let's go, cats!” dialogue, but with dying heroine Mimi looking like a leftover from a World War II movie, the
men not remotely convincing as either Europeans or artists and the big Rive Gauche set altogether 19th century fin de siècle. Which didn't matter. The change from garret apartment for Act 1 to Left Bank street for Act 2 was made in half light; when the stagehands, costumed as Paris workers, had everything in place, the audience thought the action would proceed in the shadows. Then the lights were flicked on, the tableau lit up like a firecracker, and a collective “Ahhhhh!” filled the theater. There were prostitutes draped over balconies, a patriotic parade, urchins and clochards, little rich kids in fancy coats, an English millionaire in tails with not-dying heroine Musette on his arm. The scene paid off with Musette's (Jessica Comeau, this afternoon) long, increasingly passionate “Quando e'n vò”—which in 1959 was turned into Della Reese's great hit “Don't You Know.” It was a pure pop spectacle, which made the shift to Act 3, from Let's Party to Tragedy, seem a little glib.

9
John Doe, “Employee of the Month,” from
Dim Stars, Bright Sky
(Im/BMG)
There's something of the feel of Randy Newman's “Vine Street” here, and as a loser's song it's convincing. But it's not half as convincing as losers John Doe plays in the movies, from Amber Waves' ex-husband in
Boogie Nights
to Mr. Werther in
The Good Girl
: characters so depressed they can barely summon the energy to look away from the camera.

10
Joe Strummer, Aug. 21, 1952–Dec. 22, 2002
“You know what they said? Well, some of it was true!”

FEBRUARY
3, 2003

1
White Stripes,
Elephant
(V2/Third Man)
Before my turntable broke (the vinyl version was all I could find), this sounded like the Detroit guitar-and-drums combo's
Rubber Soul
at least as much as Pussy Galore's “Pretty Fuck Look.”

2
The Murder of Emmett Till
,
directed by Stanley Nelson, written by Marcia A. Smith and narrated by Andre Braugher (PBS, Jan. 20)
This documentary on the 1955 lynching of a black 14-year-old Chicago boy near Money, Miss., opened with a lovely shot of the meandering Tallahatchie River—where Till's body, weighted down with a cotton gin fan, was dumped after he was killed for supposedly whistling at a white man's wife. Later there were images of a bridge, and I couldn't help thinking of Bobbie Gentry's 1967 “Ode to Billy Joe.” A girl tells the story of how her boyfriend, Billie Joe McAllister, jumped to his death from the Tallahatchie Bridge, into the Tallahatchie River—and how, her family has heard, she and Billie Joe were seen throwing something from the same bridge, into the same river, just days before. What was it? Bobbie Gentry has never said, but isn't there a memory of Emmett Till's murder in whatever it was?

3
Lucinda Williams,
World Without Tears
(Lost Highway)
The first song, the modestly titled “Fruits of My Labors,” begins with a shimmering, subtle progression played on a Leslie guitar. Then comes a slurred, dragging, unbelievably affected voice to tell you how deeply its owner feels: so deeply barely a single word is actually formed. Every little touch—brushes on the snare, say—is mixed up high, to let you know how carefully everything has been done. There is irony in “American Dream”: despite the title, the song is about how bad things (poverty, drug addiction—because of Vietnam—and black lung) take place in America. But the singer will press on. “Bay swee bay 'f's alla same,” Williams promises, “tay th' glore en day ov' the fame.” Not due til April, but why wait? It's not getting any better.