SMOG
Greetings Tragedy. It's exquisite seeing you again. Can I get you a club soda?Everyone has a favorite thrift store find, and mine was Ducky. Ducky, as I affectionately call him, was a small, pink umbrella, with a pink-beaked duck head for a handle. As a utilitarian object, Ducky was practically useless: the pink canopy was so small and flat that even a light drizzle would leave at least one shoulder and every part of the body below the elbows rained-upon. But as a sartorial accoutrement, Ducky became the ultimate piece of flair, always making people smile on dreary days.
I started a new temporary job last Friday—a dreary day indeed. After eight hours of data entry, I left work. A strange, horizontal rain fell from the dimming San Francisco sky. I attempted to unfurl my pink sidekick, but something happened. I'm still unsure what. A sabotage of the simple duck-umbrella mechanics prevented Ducky's pink plastic awning from staying open. I attempted surgery, right there, on the sidewalk, in the rain. Things got worse. Ducky remains in two pieces.
I walked home in the rain, fuming, steaming, mourning my loss. I held what was left of my umbrella over my head. It kept trying to close, so I rested it on my hair. My face stayed dry; my clothes and backpack soaked through. It had been a tense day: I was the only San Franciscan wearing business casual clothes on casual Friday. At some point, I saw a homeless man eating his own vomit. It got dark. Naturally, the rain stopped right as I got to my gate.
The whole experience reminded me of my favorite song about death: "Dress Sexy At My Funeral", by Smog. I put it on repeat soon as I walked indoors. The song is sarcastic and insistent and kind of desperate. "Dress sexy at my funeral/ My good wife/ For the first time/ in your life." Smog is this guy named Bill Callahan. He's a genius in my book. In "Dress Sexy" he dictates his ideal eulogy, which is a list of the risqué places the narrator and his wife consummated their relationship. (Those places include the graveyard in which the narrator is buried. Yes!) If you still care about record stores, I'm sure you can find the Smog album Red Apple Falls (one of my all time favorite albums) for less than $5.
I've never seen Smog, per se, but I saw Mr. Callahan perform at this year's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. That was just a couple weekends ago. Save for Mr. Callahan, I didn't know anyone performing, which was liberating. I meandered about, enjoying a beautiful day in Golden Gate Park with about 20,000 neighbors. I ended up reveling in 84 year-old Doc Watson's guitar technique, and headliner Emmylou Harris' voice was the only thing keeping me warm after 7 pm. And Mr. Callahan, who played early, around 2 pm, sounded powerful and unique. He's more monochromatic than Nick Cave, but also more impressionistic than what I've heard from Leonard Cohen. Mr. Callahan released a great record this year under his own name. (BrilliantMP3 below.)
I guess that's it. A tangential, self-serving eulogy for the 25 cent pink umbrella I bought years ago. Life goes on. Except for my pal Ducky.
BRILLIANT MP3's by SMOG/BILL CALLAHAN
BILL CALLAHAN on MYSPACE.
BILL CALLAHAN on WIKIPEDIA.
SMOG's LABEL.
I started a new temporary job last Friday—a dreary day indeed. After eight hours of data entry, I left work. A strange, horizontal rain fell from the dimming San Francisco sky. I attempted to unfurl my pink sidekick, but something happened. I'm still unsure what. A sabotage of the simple duck-umbrella mechanics prevented Ducky's pink plastic awning from staying open. I attempted surgery, right there, on the sidewalk, in the rain. Things got worse. Ducky remains in two pieces.
I walked home in the rain, fuming, steaming, mourning my loss. I held what was left of my umbrella over my head. It kept trying to close, so I rested it on my hair. My face stayed dry; my clothes and backpack soaked through. It had been a tense day: I was the only San Franciscan wearing business casual clothes on casual Friday. At some point, I saw a homeless man eating his own vomit. It got dark. Naturally, the rain stopped right as I got to my gate.
The whole experience reminded me of my favorite song about death: "Dress Sexy At My Funeral", by Smog. I put it on repeat soon as I walked indoors. The song is sarcastic and insistent and kind of desperate. "Dress sexy at my funeral/ My good wife/ For the first time/ in your life." Smog is this guy named Bill Callahan. He's a genius in my book. In "Dress Sexy" he dictates his ideal eulogy, which is a list of the risqué places the narrator and his wife consummated their relationship. (Those places include the graveyard in which the narrator is buried. Yes!) If you still care about record stores, I'm sure you can find the Smog album Red Apple Falls (one of my all time favorite albums) for less than $5.
I've never seen Smog, per se, but I saw Mr. Callahan perform at this year's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. That was just a couple weekends ago. Save for Mr. Callahan, I didn't know anyone performing, which was liberating. I meandered about, enjoying a beautiful day in Golden Gate Park with about 20,000 neighbors. I ended up reveling in 84 year-old Doc Watson's guitar technique, and headliner Emmylou Harris' voice was the only thing keeping me warm after 7 pm. And Mr. Callahan, who played early, around 2 pm, sounded powerful and unique. He's more monochromatic than Nick Cave, but also more impressionistic than what I've heard from Leonard Cohen. Mr. Callahan released a great record this year under his own name. (BrilliantMP3 below.)
I guess that's it. A tangential, self-serving eulogy for the 25 cent pink umbrella I bought years ago. Life goes on. Except for my pal Ducky.
BRILLIANT MP3's by SMOG/BILL CALLAHAN
(Click to download)
“Dress Sexy At My Funeral” (from Dongs Of Sevotion)
“Diamond Dancer” (from Bill Callahan's solo record, Woke On A Whaleheart)
"Dress Sexy At My Funeral" live.
"Blood Red Bird" live.
"Rock Bottom Riser" video.
BILL CALLAHAN on MYSPACE.
BILL CALLAHAN on WIKIPEDIA.
SMOG's LABEL.
Aaron --
ReplyDeleteFinding this song was almost exactly like finding my old friend, Zev Zuckerman, on Facebook a few days ago. This was a guy whose backyard met my backyard when I was eleven years old, except his backyard had a basketball hoop and he lived next door to the Anza Public Library. In other words, both these happy events remind me of the fact that I live in a world full of once-treasured joys forgotten and sometimes, these things reach out and remember us.
Southern California is burning and ash is falling like first snow outside my window.