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Call Me a Duck

My marketing job in the University of Oregon's Office of Admissions allows for a whole lot of creative leg-stretching. An indulgent and supportive boss, ditto.

Videotaping a ghost hunt in a cemetery? Go for it. Facebook-based essay contest? You betcha. Foursquare scavenger hunt? Sure, why not?

But nothing—and I mean nothing—has been so much fun (and so unexpected) as the writing, production, and creation of "Call Me a Duck."

Based on Maino's "All the Above," the video was launched last Friday, and as of this writing we're closing in on 160,000 views on YouTube... and still climbing.

Originally the brainchild of my boss Holly Moline Simons, "Call Me a Duck" was fast-tracked and produced on a shoestring budget once we learned that On the Rocks, the UO's resident male a cappella group, was going to appear on this fall's The Sing-Off on NBC.  (By the way, "fast-tracked" in academic parlance means just under half a year.)  Our boys were eliminated just shy of the final round, but hey, we'll take it!

Besides teaching me how to spell "a cappella," this project afforded me the chance to write and produce a rap song, which is a résumé line item I never would've considered. 

I was privileged to work with an amazing cast and crew.  Special shout-outs are due to Holly, as well as director Michael McDermott, director of photography John Waller, amazingly organized assistant director Christopher Parker, effervescent OTR liaison (and crystal-clear tenor) Jeffrey Rogers, audio engineer (and OTR founder) Peter Hollens, and the rock of UO Admissions, Jett Nilprabhassorn.

Funny side note: In a few weeks the UO plays Auburn in the BCS championship game.  I learned something interesting today.  Guess what l'il ditty Auburn has adopted this season as the football team's "pump up" song?

Maino's "All the Above." Complete coincidence, Tigers, scout's honor!

Photo courtesy of Michael McDermott.

"These Guns are Fully Loaded"

If the fever dream scene from last night's episode of Glee had aired in the 1980s...

 

...a spinoff Glee Babies Saturday morning cartoon would be immediately rushed into production.

 

That is all.

True Confessions of a Slugette

"If I had a nickel," I said, "for every time I've listened to sax music while walking down the street wearing a dress..."

"...You'd have a nickel!" my friend Scott Smith interjected. Like me, Scott was clad in a black cocktail dress and a black hat, striding down Broadway Avenue on a warm August evening in downtown Eugene, Oregon.

When Scott's wife and my good friend Debbie Williamson-Smith told me she was campaigning in Eugene's annual Slug Queen competition (held this year on Friday the 13th, reasonably enough), it sounded like a natural fit. Debbie is a smart, civically engaged, and artistic professional communicator.

Debbie even had an ace up her sleeve: cross-dressing. Liberal Eugene is always up for a little gender transgression, and the Slug Queen competition has a long tradition of drag as evidenced by the 2009-10 queen, Mark Van Bever, er, make that Ana Slugsia. Unfortunately, what Debbie had in mind was me cross-dressing, along with hubby Scott and friend Jonathan as her back-up singers.

What sounded like less of a natural fit was Debbie's vision for her theme: Breakfast at Tiffany's. With the adopted moniker Holly GoSlugly, a sixties-inspired up-do, and a social media-based campaign, would hippie-tastic Eugene appreciate the "tackily tasteful" (or was it "tastefully tacky"?) Williamson-Smith and her rendition of "Slug River" (crooned by all of us to the tune of "Moon River"?)

Evidently so. With her effective judge-bribing program, Ms. GoSlugly and her team made it to the top two, were just baaaarely edged out (half a stinkin' point!) by new "raining" Queen Slugasana. Debbie vows she'll be back, in the GoSlugly persona or with a brand-new character, in 2011. Who knows what her theme will be, or whether she'll need a helping hand (or antenna?) from a friend willing to show a little leg?

In the meantime, I'll be trying to rebuild my professional reputation...

Photo credit: kval.com

That Lucky Old Sun

I recently read two unrelated nonfiction essays by writers I know personally. Both essays are well-written. Both are difficult to read. And both are about the writer in question being raped.

I wasn't sure I should link to this work, honestly. I had to think about it. It felt weird, like I was revealing confidences. But if these two writers are brave enough to post their work publicly (to sites, I might add, that get many more hits each month than does Inkville), good for them.

"Not Like You," Katherine Gries' starkly assertive article, appears on Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction. "Why I'm Funny" is a searingly brutal long-form blog entry from Joel Johnson. Each is recommended, if not, perhaps, in the same sitting.

A good friend of mine I haven't seen in awhile was recently in town for a few days, and over lunch I was catching her up on various writing projects. Later that afternoon, she tagged me in a Facebook post, hailing my "gigs writing about cool and fun topics like ghost hunting and Tiki bars."

And you know, she's right. I'm lucky. In life, and in my writing. Just how lucky was driven home by the work of these two writers. So I can prattle on at length about myself and about whatever popular culture flotsam catches my eye. I have the luxury.

Ya Gotta Get Hot to Play Real Cool

I've always had a thing for the music of mid-20th century America. In high school I was the guy who was cranking up Rosemary Clooney's "Slow Boat to China" on my Buick Skylark's tape deck while the preppy guy stopped next to me at the light was blasting Blues Traveler. 

So it's no stretch that last week I dragged the too-busy James Stegall, who certainly has other things to do, with me to a screening of Welcome to the Club: The Women of Rockabilly, a Grammy-nominated 2001 documentary by Washington State-based filmmaker Beth Harrington at Eugene's Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts.

The film was fantastic, just what the doctor ordered in terms of a pick-me-up in the midst of a soggy northwest winter. And it got me thinking about the roots of my taste in music. Upon reflection, it all really boils down to two major influences:

"Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet," a short that helps comprise Disney's 1946 poorly-titled theatrical release Make Mine Music, first introduced me to the close harmonies of the transcendent, angelic Andrews Sisters (and by extension the Puppinni Sisters, their 21st century successors). I remember that repeat viewings on the Disney Channel of the 1980s had already transpired before I realized there were multiple voices singing. Beautiful.

And hey, as an added bonus, this cartoon includes the mind-blowing surreality of anthropomorphised chapeaus wriggling around like angry puppies attached to human heads.

Turning the culture clock ahead by a decade, the 1957 Looney Tunes short "The Three Little Bops," directed by the underappreciated Friz Freleng and scored by Shorty Rogers, not only engendered in me an appreciation for Louis Jordan-style jump blues, but the streamlined mid-century googie aesthetic, as well. 

This is one weird cartoon, including, as it does, oblique references to jazz drug culture (the wolf's "red-rimmed eyes") and segregation ("a sign on the door: no wolves allowed"), and achieves its denouement (spoiler alert!) with the lovable loser anti-hero reborn as a horrifying, crimson-hued shade sprung from Hades, forever to haunt his porcine tormentors. Heavy, daddio.

Did any childhood cartoons have a strong influence on your adult tastes in music? Let me know in the ol' Inkville comments corral. And no, getting the Muppet Babies theme song stuck in your head last week doesn't count.

Deep-Fried Soul

"I have some bad news," my wife said as she climbed into the passenger seat. It's not what you want to hear when picking your wife up from work, especially in a week in which death has seemed to shadow us and our loved ones at every corner. News of the passing of Ted "Papa Soul" Lee, an institution in the Eugene music and culinary scenes, has left me saddened.

I interviewed Papa for a grad school writing project, hanging around his restaurant a few times over the course of a week in 2007, notebook in hand. Papa was wary of me at first. His star was on the rise, and he'd been interviewed a number of times by various news outlets. My brand of narrative writing, though, calls for some good old-fashioned depth reporting, and Papa couldn't quite seem to put his finger on why I'd want to bum around in his joint multiple nights in a row, and scribble down what his regulars were saying to one another. He was always hospitable, however, even when I'd only buy a single beer and nurse it over an hour. Papa loosened up after I'd questioned him a bit, once he realized I was an ex-pat Southerner who, like Papa himself, was trying to make sense of his own lineage and cultural inheritance.

And when the article appeared in Eugene Magazine, in much-truncated form, Papa framed it and hung it on his restaurant's wall. In a way, having the man memorialize my writing that way was significant for me, perhaps even more so than it was for him: having a respected businessman value my work enough to have it framed was a big mental boost for a young writer, and gave me the confidence to approach other interview subjects fearlessly. I guess I have always thought of the man as a sort of spiritual benefactor, even if he never knew it. In fact, that grinning photo of me you see above and to the right was taken on the sidewalk in front of his place.

And what's more, Papa never forgot me, and hailed me warmly each time he saw me. (A perk of being a reviewer, to be sure.) He was a man with an enormous appetite for life, for both its nurturing and destructive sides... including some rougher elements (drug use, response to racism, a deadbeat father) that were understandably scrubbed by my editor for publication in a lifestyle magazine. And while I understand why the piece had to be gutted, I've always felt something was lost in translation. This seems an appropriate occasion to recognize the life and the works of Ted Lee, to mark what the man stood for.

So I hope my readers will indulge me in this, perhaps the longest blog entry I've posted, the unexpurgated, original version of "Deep-Fried Soul."

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It’s past the dinner hour, and most of the restaurant’s dining customers are on their way out the door, bellies and doggie bags full. In less than an hour the regular Thursday night reggae jam will usher in a new clientele, and in one corner of the tiny Victorian bungalow’s front room, a couple of DJs are already pulling tables into a makeshift desk for their sound equipment. The sound system is cranking out the cream of Motown and soul, all African-American artists. From the kitchen, a cook’s voice wavers as he sings along with “Heat Wave” by Martha and the Vandellas. A young waitress joins in under her breath and she putters about behind the front counter.

Peering down at the waitress from the upper echelons of the liquor rack that crowns the front counter, a rubber ducky with James Brown’s distinctive locks mugs next to a peeved-looking Snoop Dogg action figure. They’re mirrored on the opposite side by a grinning Louis Armstrong figurine. The walls of the cottage are plastered with retro-styled posters and “outsider art” featuring black musicians, Robert Johnson and Lightnin’ Hopkins and Jimmy Hendrix and Stevie Wonder. An oil painting features a large, heavily-tattooed man wailing away on a harmonica.

Et in arcadia ego.

As a theatre major at Northwestern once upon a time, I got hung up for awhile on Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, a fantastic play melding past and present, life and death.  The play features “Et in Arcadia ego,” a Latin phrase  that translates as “And in Arcadia, there am I.” Even in paradise, death is never far.  It’s a recurring sentiment in art and culture of the Baroque period.  The concept stuck with me for over a decade.  In early January I was in a pensive mood for some reason, and even incorporated the phrase into a post on my Twitter stream.

A week and a day later, my friend Paul Carlile took his own life.

I wasn’t able to write for several days thereafter.  And I wondered why.  Other bloggers successfully and eloquently expressed their feelings for Paul in the wake of his death, but I have always been a writer who keeps something of himself reserved from his writing.  I’m the son of two clinical psychologists, and I always think a great deal about processing emotion.  But writing is seldom the way I do it.

Rank Strangers

Last night I had the distinct pleasure of seeing bluegrass legend Dr. Ralph Stanley in live performance, and even enjoyed the honor of shaking the man’s hand before the night was through.  After a long and storied career influencing scads of musicians over the course of well over half a century in show business, Dr. Stanley may still be best-known to modern audiences through a more contemporary project.

The tune from last night’s concert that most hit home for me was the standby “Rank Strangers.”  The lyrics tell of the travels of a narrator who returns to his beloved homeland expecting the comforting sights and faces of his youth, but finds the landscape alien, unworldly, unfriendly.  The sense of isolation and disaffection is enhanced by the urgent high pitch of Dr. Stanley’s wavering, warbling chords, and a rhythm that is melancholic, almost downbeat, compared to most bluegrass.

For many American progressives, the past eight years have felt much the same.  We have looked to a nation and a government in which we have placed our faith, and have been forced to judge it unfamiliar.  Where we once beheld promise, we now find desperation.  Altruism has been replaced by bullying, prosperity by ruin, and sincerity by anything but.

In “Rank Strangers” a glimmer of hope appears for the narrator, as he questions one of the locals on the whereabouts of his friends and family:

“They've all moved away” said the voice of a stranger
“To a beautiful home by the bright crystal sea”
Some beautiful day I'll meet ’em in heaven
Where no one will be a rank stranger to me.

It’s a lovely sentiment: one man reaffirming his faith in the justness, the benign intentions, of the universe.  All it takes is patience. 

As for me, I pray that the voters of the United States make the right choice next month.  Or rather, the “left” choice.  Then maybe we won’t have to wait until heaven, after all, to find our nation, and its leader, no longer rank strangers.

And on that note, I leave you with this.

Hey, kids! Mad Libs!

I don’t know about you guys, but the dog days of summer always put me in the mood for two things: taking one last car trip complete with car games, and watching absolutely frivolous films.  (Because there’s nothing quite like watching Elvis serenade an Irish setter while simultaneously romancing his girlfriend and piloting a helicopter!  Now that’s talent!  They don’t call him The King for nothin’, folks.)

And now you can combine pointless games and bad cinema with one simple device... not, not the Internet, silly!  It's The Elvis Presley Films Mad Lib.  Just fill in an appropriate person, place, or thing in each of the blanks.  Sound confusing?  Don’t worry, Uncle Aaron has suggested a few helpful ideas to get the ball rolling…

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Elvis stars as Danny / John / some other blandly American male name, a womanizing all-American boy of humble means, a drifter fueled only by charm, wits, and a dream to become the greatest high diver / motorcycle stunt man / backwoods singing sensation in the entire midway / French Quarter / Vegas strip.  Our hero lands, naïve and raw, in the carnival / Acapulco night club / World’s Fair, already spoilin’ for a fight.

Before long Elvis encounters a sassy nightclub chanteuse / lady pilot / irascible nurse portrayed by a B-list 60s actress / a real-life competitor for Priscilla / someone you’ve never heard of.  She’s the feisty type of gal, the sort who gives as good as she gets, but finds she must compete for Elvis’ affections with a worldly competitor sporting the unfair advantage of being exotic / bustier / willing to put out.

But this idyllic, Archie-esque scenario is threatened, as trouble looms in the form of the aeronautics review board / Elvis’ overbearing father / Walter Matthau, intent on wiping out Elvis’ racing career / tour guide business / shot at the big time, through the bureaucratic machinery of dirty-dealing, soul-crushing capitalism!  Elvis recruits a motley band of activist nuns / resourceful carnies / racial stereotypes to prove that no fat cat can control the power of song, with just a pinch of mildly socialistic class war pluck thrown in to help retain the everyman credibility of our star (who recently wallpapered the interior of his private jet in faux leopard skin). 

The protagonist proves his secret depths by choosing the more chaste of his two feisty women, and the entire gang gathers round as Elvis is lifted onto a dais by his grateful followers, who listen raptly as he belts out one last ditty that topped the charts that year / lends its name to the film’s title / you’ve never heard of.  A week after release, the critics will label the film Elvis’ worst ever / Elvis’ worst ever / Elvis’ worst ever.

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Hey, great job, kids!  By the time you’re grown-ups, I’ll bet you can all get jobs as uncredited screenplay ghost writers for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, circa 1964!

Le Chanson de la Rue

Back in March I was fortunate enough to travel to New Orleans, partially on the University of Oregon’s dime, to conduct research towards the book proposal I’m working on.  My objective:

Folks like my buddy Phillip, here.

The Crescent City is a sort of spiritual home for our family.  Some early Ragan-Fore courtship rituals transpired there, and we even considered getting married in the Musée Conti Wax Museum.  After all, nothing says “I want to spend the rest of my life with you” like a six-foot sculpture of Cyclops.  So in many ways, traveling to New Orleans meant coming home, or at least, coming to a home.