Life-like
Today, on the way home from Fascinoma practice in Little Tokyo, I stopped at Koo Koo Roo, the chicken palace on the corner of Larchmont and Beverly. The car was loaded with gear, the kick drum was indiscreetly hidden under a dirty maroon bedsheet, the high hat stand was collapsed and getting grease on the backseat upholstery. I was totally exhausted.
It had been manic music days all week, Saturday had been what that famous fem artist Barbara Kruger might term "incredibly life-like," and the prospect of going to work (waitressing) in less than an hour in this state made it imperative that I get some good franchise food in my body.
I've been at this Koo Koo Roo exactly twice now, but the affinity is not a new thing. When I lived in Taiwan (2 yrs ago), I hung with a rough gang of expatriot ultimate frisbee players and Sundays after our pick up game, we'd sometimes go to dinner. Once we went to Koo Koo Roo (or what is logged in my memory as such, but as I'm writing this, I'm beginning to wonder...whatever, anyway) the seed was planted there when I had one of their delicious chicken fajitas. Then I crossed the pacific, to sweet L.A.
In early 2004, back when Fascinoma was still Linister and Eagle and Talon had just begun to play out, I somehow got pulled onto a strange side project that involved two guys and me pounding out relentless, repetitive metal riffs and a successful animator in his 40's putting on a flesh-colored bodysuit custom outfitted with a giant (again "incredibly lifelike") prosthetic penis -- complete with painted warts & pubes -- (theoretically) improvising spoken word delights to an enraptured audience that would appreciate the unlikely pairing of such content and visuals. Unfortunately, the whole thing was a bit of a bust (read: DISASTER!!!) and suggested that the contemporary public-- and the guy's Industry peer group -- did not enjoy seeing a grown man flail about in a penis costume, screaming beer-laced obscenities while pretending to crap on stage through creative use of his magic "snake-in-a-can." Worth noting: the prosthetic genital was the size of a large forearm and was outfitted with a plastic tube that enabled the wearer of the penis suit to spray his audience with warm beer. (Homage to urination?!)
In retrospect, there were many reasons not to be involved in this project, but somehow I ignored them all -- (the hazards of an open mind and a mouth that leaks "yes"). So the project lasted exactly one very well-attended gig after which bass player and I politely excused ourselves from any future involvement, the guitarist stuck around out of kindness, and the band leader admitted to the possible presence of accumulated anger interfering with his ability to make enjoyable transgressive art. But the point the point! is that I still fondly recall the days I'd speed up the 101, exit Lankershim, pass the lighted sign of Koo Koo Roo which was just adjacent to our rehearsal space, careen into a parking lot, and dart into the Boston Market of California to get a side of macaroni, garlic mashed potatoes and green beans before heading up to practice -- which consisted of the guitarist, bassist and me working out our parts and playing our three "tunes" for a stamina-building ten minutes each, while the lead singer sat and listened and made sure we were laying down the appropriate bed of sound for him to improvise on come The Big Night. But he never actually sang with us during rehearsal, a fact which now clearly seems to prophesize the project's necessary doom, but we'd all heard him waxing lyrical and poetic and hilarious on old recordings and it was clear from the archival stuff that the guy really had something.
The fact that "old" meant "from the seventies" somehow failed to phase any of us. So Tuesday night band practice, despite resembling an evening of karaoke at a karaoke bar with no patrons and no participants, just a dangling mic and a broken machine spitting out vehement instrumentals at maximum volume, went on like that. We all willingly proceeded on faith and maybe the notion that genius lasts... Then the performance came, shame was felt, and Penis Man rehearsals and my once-a-week romance with Koo Koo Roo in North Hollywood came to an end.
So yesterday, back at Koo Koo Roo, the Penis days far from my mind, but faith sort of hovering in the foreground (I'd dropped Alanna off at morning mass earlier that morning), I pulled out the copy of God, Guilt, And Death I'd grabbed off alanna's shelf. It was a formidable looking paperback with GOD, GUILT, AND DEATH printed in big navy blue letters on a stark white cover. Talking to my food was boring, so I read the preface.
The book (dense, but lucid) basically deals with the phenomenology of religion, that is, not the truth or falsity of religious tenets, but the Experience of religion, the forms, the significance and the existence of religiosity and spirituality in humans. Alanna had raved about the book last year - - it had been one of her favorite reads -- but I'd been cultivating a distance from religion since my junior year abroad (in a surprisingly secular Scotland) after which I stopped being tortured about my non-faith. I'd become what I cagily referred to as an "atheist with agnostic leanings" and came to adopt a general disinterest in any topics concerning religion, even though I'd sometimes marvel at the good works of certain religious institutions and even though Alanna/Pastor Mindy Chiu is a respectable woman of faith.
(Cleveland Metroparks & Mindy Chiu, Nov. 2004)
Anyway, apart from my dad's occasional attempts to argue proofs for the existence of god during a family hike in the Cleveland metroparks last year and my parents predictably volunteering me to lead prayer before holiday dinners, I no longer agonize over God or first causes and universal morality, the problem of evil or whatever. The pressure's off as far as religion's concerned, so the claws have retracted a bit, and dismissiveness has just recently given way to mild curiousity. Admittedly, I've sort of treated religious friends/siblings I regard as intelligent and cool as freak accidents, whose religious proclivities are just a glitch in the wiring (to be acknowledged then passed over.) The thing is: it's not something I actually understand and I kinda want to at this point. Seriously. Like for modern people, what is the whole god thing about?
(Mom and Dad Lin)
I'm only a few pages into the book and have no plans to start counting beads or asking anyone to be my personal savior, but the author's already brought up some really intriguing ideas re: the function and creation of the sacred and I'm very excited about the insights the book might yield. Anyway, I'm in for a very good read. Maybe you are, too. For those interested , it's officially (and scarily) God, Guilt and Death: An Existential Phenomenology of Religion by Merold Westphal.
Something to poo to!
-alice
It had been manic music days all week, Saturday had been what that famous fem artist Barbara Kruger might term "incredibly life-like," and the prospect of going to work (waitressing) in less than an hour in this state made it imperative that I get some good franchise food in my body.
I've been at this Koo Koo Roo exactly twice now, but the affinity is not a new thing. When I lived in Taiwan (2 yrs ago), I hung with a rough gang of expatriot ultimate frisbee players and Sundays after our pick up game, we'd sometimes go to dinner. Once we went to Koo Koo Roo (or what is logged in my memory as such, but as I'm writing this, I'm beginning to wonder...whatever, anyway) the seed was planted there when I had one of their delicious chicken fajitas. Then I crossed the pacific, to sweet L.A.
In early 2004, back when Fascinoma was still Linister and Eagle and Talon had just begun to play out, I somehow got pulled onto a strange side project that involved two guys and me pounding out relentless, repetitive metal riffs and a successful animator in his 40's putting on a flesh-colored bodysuit custom outfitted with a giant (again "incredibly lifelike") prosthetic penis -- complete with painted warts & pubes -- (theoretically) improvising spoken word delights to an enraptured audience that would appreciate the unlikely pairing of such content and visuals. Unfortunately, the whole thing was a bit of a bust (read: DISASTER!!!) and suggested that the contemporary public-- and the guy's Industry peer group -- did not enjoy seeing a grown man flail about in a penis costume, screaming beer-laced obscenities while pretending to crap on stage through creative use of his magic "snake-in-a-can." Worth noting: the prosthetic genital was the size of a large forearm and was outfitted with a plastic tube that enabled the wearer of the penis suit to spray his audience with warm beer. (Homage to urination?!)
In retrospect, there were many reasons not to be involved in this project, but somehow I ignored them all -- (the hazards of an open mind and a mouth that leaks "yes"). So the project lasted exactly one very well-attended gig after which bass player and I politely excused ourselves from any future involvement, the guitarist stuck around out of kindness, and the band leader admitted to the possible presence of accumulated anger interfering with his ability to make enjoyable transgressive art. But the point the point! is that I still fondly recall the days I'd speed up the 101, exit Lankershim, pass the lighted sign of Koo Koo Roo which was just adjacent to our rehearsal space, careen into a parking lot, and dart into the Boston Market of California to get a side of macaroni, garlic mashed potatoes and green beans before heading up to practice -- which consisted of the guitarist, bassist and me working out our parts and playing our three "tunes" for a stamina-building ten minutes each, while the lead singer sat and listened and made sure we were laying down the appropriate bed of sound for him to improvise on come The Big Night. But he never actually sang with us during rehearsal, a fact which now clearly seems to prophesize the project's necessary doom, but we'd all heard him waxing lyrical and poetic and hilarious on old recordings and it was clear from the archival stuff that the guy really had something.
The fact that "old" meant "from the seventies" somehow failed to phase any of us. So Tuesday night band practice, despite resembling an evening of karaoke at a karaoke bar with no patrons and no participants, just a dangling mic and a broken machine spitting out vehement instrumentals at maximum volume, went on like that. We all willingly proceeded on faith and maybe the notion that genius lasts... Then the performance came, shame was felt, and Penis Man rehearsals and my once-a-week romance with Koo Koo Roo in North Hollywood came to an end.
So yesterday, back at Koo Koo Roo, the Penis days far from my mind, but faith sort of hovering in the foreground (I'd dropped Alanna off at morning mass earlier that morning), I pulled out the copy of God, Guilt, And Death I'd grabbed off alanna's shelf. It was a formidable looking paperback with GOD, GUILT, AND DEATH printed in big navy blue letters on a stark white cover. Talking to my food was boring, so I read the preface.
The book (dense, but lucid) basically deals with the phenomenology of religion, that is, not the truth or falsity of religious tenets, but the Experience of religion, the forms, the significance and the existence of religiosity and spirituality in humans. Alanna had raved about the book last year - - it had been one of her favorite reads -- but I'd been cultivating a distance from religion since my junior year abroad (in a surprisingly secular Scotland) after which I stopped being tortured about my non-faith. I'd become what I cagily referred to as an "atheist with agnostic leanings" and came to adopt a general disinterest in any topics concerning religion, even though I'd sometimes marvel at the good works of certain religious institutions and even though Alanna/Pastor Mindy Chiu is a respectable woman of faith.
(Cleveland Metroparks & Mindy Chiu, Nov. 2004)
Anyway, apart from my dad's occasional attempts to argue proofs for the existence of god during a family hike in the Cleveland metroparks last year and my parents predictably volunteering me to lead prayer before holiday dinners, I no longer agonize over God or first causes and universal morality, the problem of evil or whatever. The pressure's off as far as religion's concerned, so the claws have retracted a bit, and dismissiveness has just recently given way to mild curiousity. Admittedly, I've sort of treated religious friends/siblings I regard as intelligent and cool as freak accidents, whose religious proclivities are just a glitch in the wiring (to be acknowledged then passed over.) The thing is: it's not something I actually understand and I kinda want to at this point. Seriously. Like for modern people, what is the whole god thing about?
(Mom and Dad Lin)
I'm only a few pages into the book and have no plans to start counting beads or asking anyone to be my personal savior, but the author's already brought up some really intriguing ideas re: the function and creation of the sacred and I'm very excited about the insights the book might yield. Anyway, I'm in for a very good read. Maybe you are, too. For those interested , it's officially (and scarily) God, Guilt and Death: An Existential Phenomenology of Religion by Merold Westphal.
Something to poo to!
-alice
3 Comments:
I'm scared
I'm scared
when will k. talon blog again?
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