STRAIGHT OUTTA MIDTOWN BASEMENT TAPE: "SNOWBIRD"

 snow bird backlit by a brick tower broken window eyes and mouth neither flying north nor south sirens police and fire and EMT it could easily be you or me but it does not move the snowbird courtyard secreted away in the city a gal on a staircase smoking counting up her old lays where you gonna go when you are old and your thoughts don’t link and you do not have control over nothing nothing comes of nothing at least be a questionable ruffian or a saint with a bedpan shuffling where you gonna go when you really go into the breath of a million other souls I suppose it would be fine to be a light left on in the basement gloom so the kids aren’t scared at night and why do we think on this when the snow is glowing bright on a gray bird drunk on a mash of berries fermenting in an alley and maybe that’s how your mind goes flitter flutter flitter and the wind is blowing litter where you gonna go when you really go maybe where the muscle joins the bone or inside an ancient beast that swims down deep alone or the drip drip on the pavement of a melting ice cream cone (c) daniel sherman jones bmi 

Writing songs is STILL fun...go Royals.

BIRTHDAY 45 REVIEW, ALL ON FOOT

We laid it on good for my 45th birthday week and did a variety of things, starting with a walk to The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and brunch at the museum's Cafe Sebastienne.  The Kemper is small, with just a few wings, so you need not delay your meal for long, out of duty to fine art.  We enjoyed the paintings of Hope Gangloff and the photographic portraits and video of Neeta Madahar, in the current exhibition  Dressed Up.

Neeta Madahar: Falling

Wednesday, the day of, we walked to Jazz on 39th and had chicken pontchartraine and deep fried boudin balls with an alfredo seafood sauce.  There were no "healthy choice" or "for light appetites" sections on the menu.  I got a neat pen, a Captain Beefheart record, and some nice books.

 

Thursday we walked to The Tivoli and saw The Day of The Locust, part of their movies about movies series.  It was a really intense film, and as I had not read the book, I did not know that rioting and cataclysm was the ultimate direction of all the weirdness.  Burgess Meredith really put on a show.  Amazing film, a must see, from the greatest era of modern American film.

 
Yesterday we attend the TEDx webcast at the Nelson, in an auditorium full of Benton paintings, with friends. I've seen TED talks here and there and it was fun to absorb a number of them, though my brain shut down after three hours.  For every two hours of TED talks, one half hour of ping pong, bowling, or art museum whiffle ball should be scheduled.

My favorite talk was by city planner from New York who spoke about creating soulful park environments along with development.  It made me think of the weirdly abandoned, unconscious riverfront in Kansas City and whether the city has anyone visioning a meaningful future for it.  There is a cool walkway observatory off the River Market, but along the river proper is a good go-to spot for shooting execution scenes in shows like The Wire or The Sopranos.  Out in Parkville you can walk the river at English Landing Park but that is about it for access, that I am aware of.  

Then good beer and dinner at Haus on 31st with old friends, and over to the grand opening of Vandal's (at The Black And Gold) on Broadway, for punk rock with Drop a Grand and The Big Iron.  I'd never seen The Big Iron.  My friends Dave Peterson and Matt Kessler and Wade Watkins would like--kind of Lazy Cowgirls/Social D vibe with some hardcore.  Drop a Grand was as good as I've seen them.  They should be on Sub Pop.
 

Drop A Grand kicking ass at Vandal's

Got a copy of the new Workbook 25 by Bob Mould.  I bet I'm not the only one who experiences this as a very personal kind of mile marker.  Great present for a significant birthday.

The week hurt too because we said goodbye to a hometown friend who changed our lives, Chris Gile.  RIP Chris, we will try to keep it funny and real for you.

WALKING AND EATING, WINTER 2014

I haven't been blogging as much, as life has intervened, but I have taken some pretty good walks, and we have eaten well.  My favorite walk is up Wyandotte past one of Charlie Parker's childhood homes, from 38th to Linwood, past the grotto at Our Lady Of Perpetual Help Parrish, where candles are often burning at night, and over to Coleman Highlands.  There are some great boulevards in Kansas City but my favorite is Karnes just above Roanoke Park.  From there you can take a funny little uphill street up to the Thomas Hart Benton house, or go all the way through the park to West 39th for a beer at Fric and Frac or a cup of coffee at Starbucks.  A good walk needs to be 3 plus miles with a refreshment stop as an option.

We have lost the support of Pablo on walks because he does not like 1) cold wind on his butt 2) wet pavement 3) ice melt chemicals on the pads of his feet.  I believe he will opt back in above 50 degrees, but this will take a convincing stretch of good weather, not just one nice day.  The boy is smart.

The catfish with green basil sauce at Thai Place is still my favorite KC dish so far.  My favorite dish was the roasted fennel soup at...  It was kind of bullshit on my part but I believed I had found a simple bistro dish that my world could revolve around once a month. Then one night we went in, in the midst of the first big health crisis my folks have been going through, and the service was aloof, and the soup was a bowl of warm milk with undercooked fennel flecks in it.  The carrot curry we asked for as a replacement had raw carrot in it too.  I got so pissed, with all these big emotions transferring back and forth from soup to family to haughty front-of-house guy and indifferent server, that I vowed never to go back.  Restaurants are under this weird pressure to provide for people who may be in extreme psychological states.  I will go back, I'm sure, because it's a good place to eat, even if I am beginning to feel too uncool to go there in my various Costco jackets.

I also love Tarahumara on Merriam Drive, very close to work--consistently homeade food with vivid flavors and something fresh about the way they do everything.  The crispy edges of the carnitas could go up against pork belly confit at any Fancy Carharts Rustic Bistro. My nephews took me to Chelly's in Waldo and between these two places my Mexican food options are solid.  Later we went to BB's Woodside BBQ and saw an R & B band and had a half rack of ribs for dessert.  Thumbs up.

Reuniting with Minsky's Pizza on Main happened New Year's Day, and when we came out, it was snowing.  The sweetness of life.  We have ducked into a few places that we'll not duck into again because there are other places just like them to duck into, just to check out.  This part of the restaurant and pub ecosystem is necessary and in some ways makes for memorable and intimate experiences between two people kicking around.

The cold, we are told, is remarkable this year.  I've never heard my steering column shudder and groan in sub-zero weather, as I arc out of my parking spot at 6:40 in the morning.  There's nothing like leaving your stocking hat on the dashboard vent, once your car has warmed up, and then putting it on, if only to walk inside.  It's like a spa experience in a hat.

I've written a song or two and kicked the tires on starting a band with friends.  I guess I've figured out that I need to have a job to produce as an artist (not that I ever had other ready options), but my job is really energizing and fun, and I don't mind longer hours.  I don't miss the load-ins and load-outs of being a mainly local artist playing shows in a kind of living room atmosphere.  I miss the people but not so much the rest of it.  There are new musical experiences to be had, but not in quite that way.

Last night we pulled out a couple of classic SST records by Universal Congress Of and I made pork chops and roasted vegetables.

This song kills me, "mystical and candid on a wild day."  The tag ending never fails to totally rock.

BLOCKED PLAYRIGHT INSURGENCE IN OLD HYDE PARK

 

I find myself concerned about the future of the Old Hyde Park District in Kansas City.  The evidence pictured above, found in the driveway of our building, suggests an unsavory element on the rise.  Playrights seem to be moving into the neighborhood.  

Further scrutiny, including handwriting analysis, shows that the  playright who lost this note is both young, and out of ideas.  The only thing harder on property values than a playright insurgence is a blocked teenaged playright insurgence.  This has generational implications. When these young people learn to express themselves, ours will be a bona fide mixed neighborhood.  The first casualty? Psychological security.

Another concern: church people who take street parking without greeting neighbors, even though the church's website claims that serving the neighborhood is a core mission. Is there no Biblical mandate for saying "hi" to people you have come to help?  Some of these guys hustling to their cars, good book in hand, look like they have to tear ass back home to poop.  I've seen more neighborhood outreach in the grill-flashing grin of a scowling teenager who can't keep up his front because our dog is so damn cute.  That is why some people in the neighborhood have taken to calling him Killer.

COMMUNITY BUILDER #1 AKA "KILLER"

Friends have said to me, "Jeez, Dan, you don't need drugs."  I guess this is true.  I've never messed around with drugs.  My idea of a drug test is being on drugs. On Fridays I like to come up 31st and take a right on Main, and stop off at Carwash 103, to have my mind psychedelicized.  This photo series shows that real life, as put together by weird human beings and all the spiritual and material and engineering resources at our disposal, is weirder than anything drugs can help you see.

MIDTOWN RAMBLE WITH NON-COMPULSIVE BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING

Yesterday we took the dog down to the Nelson to run on the lawn, and then we walked back up through the Rockhill neighborhood and up Gilham Park.  Enormous vintage homes in the former, and acres of greenway in the latter--both so grand.  Here is a cool photo from the Nelson sculpture garden, via a blog by photographer Eric Bowers:

Then we had coffee at Oddly Correct, where each brew comes in a Pyrex beaker without milch or cream (store policy) and is vividly described on a short hand-printed menu.  The attitude is like that around fine wine or craft brewing.  A Buddy Miles record was on the turntable--I had to ask--the one with "Down By The River" on it.  Bad-ass.

Then our non-Black Friday got a little touch of gray.  We went to Urban Mining, an vintage and antique collective on Main by Harlings and Clint's Comics.  There we found an old wooden toolbox to use as a coffee table, and a retrofit, cleaned up sheet metal cabinet for dishes.  It has been painted or powder-coated white, with a sturdy grooved surround applied to the bottom, and an inlaid formica counter.  This is really cool modified vintage stuff--very affordable.  Urban Mining is open every first weekend of the month. 

It turns out the folks we bought the cabinet from host the Rockabilly Mood Swing show on KKFI.  So, as their son was loading our cabinet into a truck painted to look like a P95 Mustang, mom and dad were off to spin records half a block away.  All of this within a few blocks of our place. 

I also learned from the Midtown Facebook page that Charlie Parker lived three or four blocks from here, as a child.  His dad was a janitor at one of the large apartment buildings just down the street.  Back then, this neighborhood was affluent and middle class.