Past the Ten-Year Mark

Last July I celebrated the ten-year anniversary of my arrival in the United States. I met friends at a comedy variety show, we played guitars, had a few drinks.

Eleven years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago, all the way back to my birth, I was in Europe. Mainly the Balkan part of Central Europe. Since moving to the States, I've visited Europe three times. One summer, one winter, another winter. I'll probably go there again in December. When I think about Europe, I don't think about those past or future visits--those are mere brief parenthetical statements in the long-winded sentence of my post-European life. Europe is now a place that exists in the past no one can access. I can access only the synecdoches of that Europe. I can look up old Olympia typewriters for sale from various online suppliers that respond to this demand for the past. If synecdoches worked outside of language, I could purchase one of those and possess my Europe distilled into an obsolete machine. Of course, more than a West German typewriter exported to America, I am a synecdoche of Europe. I never possessed any of it in the first place. That's in part how I was able to leave.

March in Chicago

March in Chicago, on this warmed globe, will be meteorologically volatile: there's snow today, but there might be an 80-degree day in a couple of weeks, and everything in-between, complete with insane winds and rain, prompting me to wear all the clothes and shoes I own over the course of thirty-one days in an futile attempt to stay comfortable. I got over a bad cold in Feburary, so March should be sniffle-free at least.

But don't get me wrong--I'll greet any sign of spring with proper seasonal euphoria, boasted by the festivities this month packs. March is the month in which I celebrate important dates like the International Day of Women on the 8th, and the International Day of Snezanistan on March 13. The latter is international mainly because it's a big deal for my closest relatives who happen to live in several different nation states. Along those same lines, we will celebrate the International Day of Zorica (sister) on March 14 and the International Day of Stanislav (brother) on March 31.



I'm also a volunteer singer-songwriter, and March is when I get out of my winter hibernation and play a live show. This year, the venue is extra tres chic cool: Transistor. It's a record store that exhibits art, casts pods, and sells not only records, but also books and electronics. As a person who loves the wares a store like that peddles, but has zero expendable income, I typically don't dare go in there. But I've now been hipped to the tip that the store has weekly acoustic shows, free to get in, and you can bring a drink to sip while you take in the sounds. Caren found out they were looking for a duo to book, put me in touch with them, and--voila--I'll play there on March 15, with Frank on bass duties as usual.

Poem & Fave Blog

Nabreklina ispraznosti is one of my favorite blogs. If you can read Serbo-Croatian, you'll find there a unique mix of posts on science, family, philosophy, reminiscence of youthful escapades, art, being a parent, and so on. To me, it's the combination of things I'm well versed in and things utterly unfamiliar that makes the blog so fascinating. It's author, Nikola, has been a friend of a friend for many years (decades?) now. Lately, he hasn't been posting much (nudge, nudge), so I ended up prowling the archives of the blog. And wrote this poem, which is really me translating/paraphrasing certain lines from the archives of Nabreklina (plus an article by Hrvoje Juric, again only for those who can read Serbo-Croatian).

Is It Not?

This is true: not much can be solved through peaceful negotiations.
Kids didn’t like the wall and they simply tore it down.
To remain passive in the face of fascism is worse than violence.
Squirrels are often perceived as docile creatures,
But they’re capable of devouring everything along their way.
No one can predict which one of our actions will influence
Everyone’s future and how. So take responsibility.
Someone said once. Proletarians of the world, I don’t know
Even which imperative to use. I just know that when we lived
In your grandma’s house, we danced naked to Jello Biafra
Later brought girls home, making sure grandma knew nothing of.

Paul Kelly Alone

(Photo credit Ms. Caren Jeskey)

Outside Paul Kelly's native Australia, the mention of this troubadour's name elicits one of two responses among people: 1) "Who?" 2) "I love Paul Kelly." Those of us in the second category know every line of three of his most widely distributed albums: Gossip (1986), Under the Sun (1987) and So Much Water So Close to Home (1989).

On January 17, Paul Kelly appeared on the stage of The Old Town School of Folk Music alone, with an acoustic guitar and a bag of harmonicas. He announced that this was his first live show of the tour in support of Spring and Fall, a cycle of eleven songs released (internationally, unlike his albums between 1989 and now) in November 2012 and that he would try to do the entire album first. The first ten songs chronicle a love affair that lasts less than a year, the eleventh one a coda that shows us the middle-aged narrator-protagonist a few years after the break up, suffering from "little aches and pains." After the three-and-a-half seasons distilled into about forty minutes, Paul sang us a selection of songs from his previous sixteen albums, ignoring, as usual, his first two albums from '81 and '82 that he'd rather everyone forget ever existed. But check out "Alive and Well" from '82. Sure, I'm biased, but that sounds great, and I'm digging the punky look (though I'm glad he discovered food later in life).

As opposed to the charmingly awkward skeletal spaz in the video for "Alive and Well," Paul Kelly is now a veteran comfortable with the fact that he'll forget a chord change and then quickly recover, with a disarming smile, and that an audience member will have to remind him what the opening line of an old song is.

He's never been a guitar hero or "the voice" anyway. And he never forged radical new paths as a songwriter. What he does is pick up select threads from the traditions of pre-recording-technology folk, pre-90s rock, and poetry going back to at least the British Renaissance, and he weaves the tightest yet supplest sonic and poetic bolt of fabric he then uses to fashion new songs and deliver them without pretension or forced eccentricity. That makes his best songs perfect and the rest really really good. They are typically brief, composed of simple open-chord progressions upon which the singer builds stories about characters dealing with relationships, family, hardship and triumphs, enduring and causing pain, sharing joy, the gamut. These stories are mostly set in Australia, and thanks to Paul Kelly I've learned a bit about places, things, and people like Adelaide (fifth largest Aussie city; my geography classes covered maybe only the top four: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth), MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground), Silver Top (taxi company), the Buttery (rehab center), Vincent Lingiari (freedom fighter).

You'll get each song when you first hear it, that's how transparent the words and music are, how much you can relate to the characters and narratives depicted, and how convincing a conduit Paul Kelly is, but then you'll keep listening to those songs for decades, and never get tired of them. How come? Because every syllable is there for a reason, nothing extra to dangle and distract.

Nick's Review Essay Inspired by Django Unchained

I always thought Spurious Bastard would be a platform for writing not just by yours truly, but friends and collaborators. That never really happened. Until today! I present to you the new contributor to Spurious Bastard, Nick Garcia aka Bob Rok aka Nicky Zabic:

How to Fall in Love with Chicago

By Nicky Zabic

Tal Rosenberg, you're fired. I read your review of Quentin Tarantino's newest film “Django Unchained” in The Chicago Reader (1/3/12) and it was as boring and lifeless as the Chipotle you wrote it in on your lunch break. Much like the purpose of getting a journalism degree, you missed the point of the film entirely. Instead you went on a poorly written rant about why you don't like Quentin Tarantino's latest work. Now I shall best you. Why? Because I am the Good Will Hunting of being a smart ass. (And I drank a cappuccino after 6.)

Chicago winter is here and for a lot of us that means a lot more time indoors. Like any Chicagoan, I get whisked away by the home luxuries of internet, television, and bathtub sex, but one must venture outdoors. I decided to ask my wife on a date and we were off.

A couple trains and a nice stroll down Lincoln avenue lead us to the charming Davis theater in Lincoln Square. I call it charming because it's super old and kind of dirty, the seats are bigger than the screen, and the place hasn't changed since I was a child. Other theaters look like deranged manifestations of a crazy person. Why is ice cream in pill form? And why are people so excited about 9 dollar “Hottie Dogger bites”? My point is, this is the theater that Quentin Tarantino wants me to see “Django Unchained” in and while I'm certain he accepts profits from everyone equally, I know what I'm talking about.

The movie begins and I'm a little nervous that film’s violent reputation might be too much for my wife to sit through. After all, before we came here, she suggested we see a French film about a middle-aged man questioning his validity in the world and existence itself.

The film is scored well and the sight of men in chains makes me a little sad. Still, I realize that with every film Tarantino is modernizing genres for a new generation. “Kill Bill”--kung fu, “Inglorious Basterds”--war movies, “Django Unchained”--period piece. Of course a lot of people are gonna go after Tarantino for making a spaghetti western/revenge fantasy full of plot holes. When is the last time you watched a John Wayne western and started asking yourself why the Indians are wearing tan cargo pants? Give me a break. I suppose you'll tell me “Lincoln” (playing in the next theater) was any more accurate. Steven Spielberg hasn't made anything watchable since he stuck his old grey hand up a dinosaur’s ass. He's doing the same thing as Tarantino, which is making the movie he wants to make. The movie is super violent; maybe it's because I haven't been to a movie in a while, but at first it's kind of disturbing. It makes me think about all the shootings that have happened lately and how we shrug off the idea of people just filling one another with bullets all the time. “Django Unchained” is number 2 in the box office, which means a lot of us are going to see it. The thought floats away and I wonder of where I would have been during that time. I'd like to think I would be fighting to abolish slavery in one way or another. I can't imagine America was much more loving towards Mexicans at that time. On the other hand, I might be at a theater with my wife taking in a show and putting it out of my mind altogether. I consider how atrocious of an act slavery was and how people shrug that off too as if it wasn't this nation’s collective history. Slavery exists in many forms today; after all children are not only our future, they are also the makers of our shoes, clothes and toxic electronics. (I'm typing this on one.)

I notice a recurring theme in the film. “Business.” “Flesh for cash”. Two men crossing this nation killing men who profit from enslaving other people. All of them justifying their actions with business and the intention of human will. All the characters are reserved gentlemen or cold-blooded murderers. An important scene it the movie sums it up well. Dr. Schultz and Django are exposed the extremely savage murder of a slave. German Dr. Schultz is visibly disturbed while Django masks his contempt. When asked why he isn't as disturbed as his partner he replies,

“I deal with Americans a lot.”

I think the film is urging America to ask itself: What are we willing to ignore for in the name of business? Who are the polite killers in our society? And when are we gonna gain the nerve to kill our masters? Or at least liberate ourselves?

The movie ends and we stroll down the block to a bookstore where I look for but don't find Stephen Colbert's new book “America Again: Rebecoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t.”

After a little more browsing we find nothing and agree to go eat somewhere in the neighborhood. Trattoria Trullo looks way too nice to walk into with a hoodie I haven't washed since Christmas but we decide to splurge. After rejecting their beer selection and ordering the pasta dish most parents order for their picky children from a curt Italian server, I wondered, Is there an Italian word for “emasculated American who orders meat sauce”? The meal and the conversation were as delicious as the picture of “Christopher Columbus's Shame” I drew on the paper tablecloth. Remember guys, always carry a sharpie. I left a few extra dollars out of guilt and we walked off our hearty meal heading to the Damen bus. On the way we saw a cafe where a friendly hipster whipped up a pretty tasty cappuccino at “Perfect Cup” and while I would never take in music or use drugs with that young man, he made a great drink. I ranted between sips about how corporate companies introduced coffee culture to America, but the small businessman was preserving the quality of the product. I thought about how I might run a business and how doing something I loved by myself in the coming years might be a good way to liberate myself and preserve the quality of something I love.

Mad Not Mad

Here is a tape I wore thin in the 80s: Mad Not Mad by Madness. No, I didn't take this picture. I don't have the tape anymore, so I'm using Grooveshark for my dopamine fix. (Someone was selling the pictured cassette tape on eBay.)

So, it was 1985. My brother and I were hanging out at our grandma's apartment. Around the corner from her building was a store that sold office supplies, books, and tapes. If memory serves me well--haven't thought about it in over 25 years--my brother bought the tape at that store for a minuscule amount of money, perhaps even with some change left over after getting grandma ciggies at the grocery store next door. How come the tape was so cheap? You wonder as you sit at the edge of your seat awaiting the big reveal. Well, guess what? The tape was spun in its plastic case BACKWARDS. Well, how in the world could you listen to it? I can just hear the youngest of my readers scratch their heads. Listen up. All you need is a tiny screwdriver and some patience. We opened the cassette and re-spun the tape as it should have been done by the factory machines, put it back together, making sure each little screw was back in its place, stuck the tape in the cassette player, and voila.

Some side notes:

Repeatedly listening to an album full of beautiful songs with very literary political-personal lyrics will seriously aid you in learning English, especially if you're not a native speaker.

I think the boys from Madness hated the slick production here. But I think it's gorgeous.

Rice and Beans: The Perfect Meal

This is the century of culinary science, molecular cuisine, and other food fads. It may as well be happening in a parallel universe as far as this blogger is concerned. I had four meals today, three out of which were the same one: rice and beans generously sprinkled with crumbled queso fresco and chopped up fresh cilantro. (I put so much chopped cilantro on top, it may as well be a small salad.) I bet there's a scientific reason why I find this meal so satisfying. Anyone knows what it is?

Here is the recipe for my perfect meal. I make long grain white rice with a bit of salt and butter. No rinsing before or after. The beans are usually pinto beans from a can. I don't just empty a can on top of my rice; I always improvise a base out of whatever I have at hand. Today I sauteed some chopped onion, jalapeno peppers, garlic, and tomatoes, using sunflower oil, with a little chicken broth. Then I simmered that and the beans together after throwing in a bit of Goya's all-purpose Adobo seasoning. Also a bit of chili seasoning.

Rice and beans, a recipe I perfected solely for my palate. For my appetite first as a grad student and now a teacher at the very bottom of the pay scale at my university.

Rice and beans, my protein trampoline.