Xenophobia Repeats Itself

This past weekend I was driving from garage sale to garage sale. I only picked up a few records and just listened to them today, and boy-oh-boy one of them is a gem. It's a 45 by a band called A.L. Kammen and the Bachelor Pad. The album is from 1984 and the A-side is a song called "Go Back to Chicago (I'm From Waunakee)" and has a hand-written note "To Drew and Jan Love ya, Alan Kammen."

  This song is incredible and very important...and here, you can hear it...Go on, Listen:

So, as you have heard the entire song  is about Wisconsinites not liking rich Chicago girls who come to school in Madison, spending daddy's money, complaining about lack of culture etc.

SOUND FAMILIAR?

For those of you who don't live in Madison, I submit for your consideration a the 2009 smash hit, youtube sensation "Coastie Song (What's a Coastie)" by the unfortunately named group Zooniversity:

As you have heard, these so two songs are about the same thing. The coastie phenomenon that seemingly emerged in Madisonin the mid 90's has deeper roots than we think. (see the wikipedia article and its referenced articles, as I don't want to go into the details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastie)

It is not surprising that Wisconsinites resent outsiders with $ and "culture" who come here and criticize the Wisconsin way of life (if there is such a thing). What is amazing though, is that two local Madison bands twenty-five years apart both wrote basically the same song focusing on outsider WOMEN who are insensitive and monied . The obvious differences in these two tracks is also telling. What "Go Back To Chicago" achieves with self deprecation and folksy colloquialism ("dagnabbit ya spd'ox...But then what the hell do I know, I come from Waunakee"), "Coastie Song" attempts with machismo swagger and anti-Semitism (or at least Semitic identificationism). Musically these songs are extremely similar, even though they are of different genre, their structure is almost identical and both are simplistic, paired down examples of their respective styles. 

Of high interest is that in both of these songs the singer mimics the voice of the outside female:

"Go Back To Chicago" has that long run starting at 1:38

"Oh Gawd, the food here is just aweful, all they eat is brats and beer..."

"Coastie Song" dose this twice, first affecting the Long Island accent of these JAPs at 2:03 

"with they I-Pawd"         

and then again at 2:07 "I hyave a questiaaan"

Again the difference here is that the 1984 song lends these girls an air of sophistication, albeit annoying, while 2009 portrays these girls as stupid and materialistic (as opposed to cultured and materialistic.) 

There's lots to go on about, but I will end with the fact that both of these songs gained these respective groups some notoriety. "Coastie Song," is famous, that is according to Zooniversity themselves, and "became extremely popular on college campuses all over the nation, in the midwest especially." 

Simmilarly "Go Back to Chicago" made A.L. Kammen and the Bachelor Pad well known in their own right. Alan Kammen (frontman) explains that at the time he "didn't think that the CD thing was going to catch on, so I pressed 500 45s. We sold them all, which kept us in Leiney's for about, oh, 3 months." (Leiney's being a reference to Leinenkugel's beer). Beyond that, the drummer on "Go Back to Chicago" is none other than Butch Vig, who went on to produce Nirvana's "Nevermind" and start the bang Garbage.

Lastly, I have to bring up the question of whether or not the Zooniversity boys knew about "Go Back to Chicago" while writing "Coastie Song." There are some things that seem to point to the fact that they did. Both songs have parenthetical subtexts: "Go Back to Chicago (The Waunakee Son)" and "Coastie Song (What's a Coastie?). As well as the "Why the fuck are they even calling me a caostie? I'm not even from the fucking coast, I'm from Chicago." that comes up at the end of "Coastie Song." Then again, I may be giving Zooniversty too much credit, which is entirely possible. 

clothes from the dead

A few weeks ago I was working at my job as a crew-person for a hot air balloon company. As I stood on the trailer that hauls the balloon and its basket a man whose wife was riding the balloon arrived in the parking lot wearing this shirt:

I leapt off of the trailer and accosted him. "Where did you get that shirt!?" He went on about Hawaii and his friend and blah blah blahing. I interrupted him saying "My father used to design Hawaiian shirts in the '70s, and I'm pretty sure he designed that shirt." He was not very interested but agreed to let me take a picture of his shirt. 

We had samples of my father's fabric floating around our house when I was younger, one of which was a tapa design (as this shirt is) that I had hanging over my bed for about five years. I even brought the fabric with me to summer camp and college to hang over my beds away from home.

"You should send that photo to you dad and ask him if he designed it" one of my coworkers said as I climbed back on the trailer. 

"I can't" I replied. "He's dead. He just died this past winter." 

It is strange telling people that your father died, especially when you are struck so strongly by his presence. I don't remember what they said in response, or if the guy wearing the shirt had heard me--I just kept looking back at him on the blazing pavement, fixed by his shirt and thinking of my father.

The Balloon went up, floating smooth like magic towards the setting sun. It came down the same and I forgot to get a shot of the tag on the fellows shirt. The presence of my father faded into the background and, despite my intentions to tell Amelia and send the photo to my mom, I didn't mention the shirt to anyone,

[Timelapse]

Two days later I was helping Amelia and Chinn install an art show at the Overture Center. Not long after I arrived I was standing on a ladder hanging a piece when a woman walked in wearing this dress:

I jumped off the ladder all babbling about some guys shirt and the fabric and my father and two days ago and I couldn't even believe it! My father came rushing into my heart riding on clothes from the dead. I  explained through my confoundment and mouth-a-gapement and we all there in the gallery felt the breeze of the dead stop and settle right there with us. Chinn took this photo of me with stars in my eyes.

Last weekend my mother was in town and I told her the story and showed her the photos. She told me that my father had not designed that fabric, but it was close to ones that he had designed. 

I don't really think it matters whether he had or hadn't.

My father will never ride an air balloon.

My father will never again install an art show.

It is me. I have to do these things. 

And all the while the universe will wink its secret winks.

At least I pray that it will.

Scrap 3: Cuttle-fish

Our next installment from the Memorial Library scrap pile. 

The quote at the bottom reads:

"I could see nothing but a pair of very bright eyes; but concluding that the eyes had an owner, I determined very rashly to secure him. ...I put my hand down very quietly so as not to ruffle the water, when, suddenly, to my surprise, it was seized with a pressure far too ardent to be agreeable, and I was held fast." From "A Chapter on Cuttle-Fishes" by Lucie L. Hartt (American Naturalist, 1869, 3:257-261).

Far too ardent to be agreeable indeed. 

Rabbi Parking Only

Saw this at cemetery in Hollywood, Florida:

'nuf said.

dogwater

Saw this great dish of 'water for dogs' the other day:

I loved it. Now I realize it is because of this:

Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser. 

Translates as 

Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Dogwater.

Pipers

seenandheard these pipers a few weeks ago. I was on the bus coming back from the library and hopped off when we stopped in front of  an Irish bar with a slew of them outside. I got off the buss while saying to the guy in front of me: "When you see a group of pipers, that's when you get off the bus." He wasn't amused.

Pipers by krooanthony

Bus behind pipers, capitol behind bus. Behind capitol...oblivion. 

Christians

Heard this just now:

Damatis Personae:

Christian 1: A Christian, friend of Christian 2.

Christian 2: A Christian, friend of Christian 1.

Christian 1: ...If people don't understand the gospel how are they supposed to understand anything else?

Christian 2: ...I'm going to clear out my bible in a few days--it is going to feel really good.

[Timelapse]

Christian 2: When I first met April I thought I could never be friends with her cause her goal in life is to be a stay at home mom and my goal is to be...well, NOT that. But, we've both changed.

saw this today

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-berkowitz/heroes-of-wisconsin_b_857292.html

name game

seensandheards

=seens and heards

=scenes and herds

=sea sand hurts

=cease hand hurts

=Seans and Herbs

=seensandheards.

scrap 2: Trivia

This is the worst trivia question in the world.

scrap 1: Berlin Situations

This is the first installment of what will be an ongoing series known as 'scrap'
Every day I will dig through the scrap-paper pile near the library printer and post the most interesting items. If nothing is interesting then I will post the least uninteresting.
Here is what I found today:

My favorite parts are:
1."Why do you like what you do?"
2. "Timelapse" 
3. "You buy a Kebab (Of course!)"

Two Drunkards

Today I heard this conversation between two drunkards.

Dramatis Personae:

Drunkard 1: A Drunkard, friend of Drunkard 2.

Drunkard 2: A Drunkard, friend of Drunkard 1.

Drunkard 1: Suppose this, you take two dogs and put them on a boat and send them from the east coast to the west coast. Then you take some other dogs and put one on a plane, one on a train, one in a car and send them too. 

Drunkard 2: Okay, yeah.

Drunkard 1: Then in four months, you investigate the animals, check them out and see which ones are doing better. Which one do you think would be in better shape?

Drunkard 2: The one that was going home.

Drunkard 1: No. The one that went over water.