More strangely timed deep concern from the real estate pimps/local government who just happen to be gearing up for the Winter Olympics.
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Blues For Charlie
The thing I prize most in life, the thing that makes it most worth living, is getting to know all manner of creative people; seeing things with their eyes, sharing ideas, feeling a connection to those minds that think differently and uniquely. Charlie May, a good friend and great musician passed away a few days ago. I got to know Charlie later in his career, but my life is richer for it, and it's hard to express really how much knowing him meant to me.
We seemed to hit it off right away, finding common ground in a love for jazz and my particular affinity for crazy-ass honkin' tenor sax. And despite the fact that I don't know diddly about how exactly jazz works, how you play it, or how the music can go right from the brain to the outside world, Charlie made me feel like I was hip to the scene. But of course, not nearly as hip as he was.
He may have come across at first glance like a slick Mr. Rogers ready for the Holiday Inn lounge scene, but it was a trick of the eye, not the ear. The cat could blow. His secret weapon was where he came from, I think, or a big part of it; Charlie was from New Orleans, his father a horn man who'd rubbed musical shoulders with all the New Orleans greats, including Louis Armstrong. Steeped in jazz, Charlie cut his chops all up and down Bourbon Street and leaned strong and hard into the R&B party stomp stuff. He had it, that indefinable Crescent City soul.
I remember seeing Charlie backing a vocalist here in town at a small club, sitting in with a band and a singer he'd never played with before. No rehearsals, just straight to the gig. Charlie holds back a bit, easing into it, supporting the chick up front, doing his duty for the first tune or so. But by the time he hits his first solo, you could see the singer and the other players' eyes widen in genuine surprise. Charlie's swingin' out, and he's off. The chick starts bopping along, she's smiling, she's beaming, she's delighted, incredulous, stupified. She's digging it. And she's digging the surprise party. They finish up the song and she's clapping louder than anyone. Charlie's just wearing this cool-cat grin.
"Where are you from?" she cries with an edge of wink-wink sass.
When Charlie tosses off, "New Orleans," she practically drops to the floor. He got 'em. She knew she'd just been played a little bit by the old smoothy with the stealth gutbucket horn. And I don't think it was the first time Charlie'd pulled the cardigan-clad, trad-dad routine for optimum results. It was a beautiful thing to watch - and hear.
He played it all down as well, reiterating many times that he was an R&B guy, a Sam Butera or Jimmy Forrest. He claimed that bebop was a little outside his bag, but I don't know - and again, I know nothing about the musical architecture here - I think he was just playing it cool. I watched him once duet with a clarinetist on some so-called trad stuff, and I was actually getting concerned that his head was gonna come off during his extended runs of blasting, bopping squonk, as the two went to town in a friendly, yet fiery, cutting contest.
Charlie was kind enough to let me use some of his music for my Dry Shave cartoons and I wish that I would have been able to pay him back by designing the cover for a CD that never quite happened. The great thing is - I can listen to Charlie and be with him any time I want. Maybe it would sound all Corn-dogsville to him, but in this way he lives on. And I'll always be able to picture him hunkering down, digging in, and watching that leg of his start kicking out. Charlie May stomped the terra firma - literally.
My sympathies go out to all of his family and friends and to his amazing wife, Marlene.
Now here's a tiny, tiny taste of Charlie in action - Undecided.
Utilai-Lama
Utility kilts. Utili-kilts.
Okay.
Seattle Magazine
Picture of the Week
Frank's Nightmare - Ink, Manga Tone, & Digital.
It's a Fucking Bar
"When the owners of Union Hall — a moody, dark-paneled bar and brunch
spot in Park Slope, Brooklyn — recently posted a sign that read Please, No Strollers under another one reading No One Under 21 Admitted, they
did not see it as a declaration of war with the neighborhood’s sizable population of young parents."
From the New York Times, the saga of a Brooklyn bar and the sports utility stroller crowd and their spawn who seem determined to turn what is widely considered to be an adult haven - you know, a bar - into some empowering, self-actualizing alterna-parenting lifestyle zone. Or something.
Not only does professional pussy Neal "Alternadad" Pollack chime in with his usual self-fellating attention whore patter, but there's also this charming factoid thrown in by the article's writer, Alex Williams:
"It makes extra sense, parents said — in Brooklyn, hoodies and skateboard sneakers constitute a uniform for parents as well as their 5-year-olds."
Great. Just great. That's something to brag about. And it makes extra sense? Okay, you know what? I'm just going to stop typing now and just say this. It's a fucking bar. That's it. I've got nothing. Except maybe to quickly add that Alternadad and Alternamom and the whole space-sucking Alternafamily can go alterna-fuck themselves. It's a bar. The end. Go away.
