BRIAN LIBBY

My first i-Pod (a.k.a. "Bri-Pod")

A week ago Sunday, thanks to the generous Valarie, I got my first i-Pod. As just about anyone would say, it’s so nice to be able to listen to music anywhere, and to filter out unwanted noises at the grocery store, the doctor’s office waiting room, and so on.

More than actually listening to the i-Pod, though, my time has been spent frantically uploading music. In seven days I’ve uploaded 1,146 songs. But I’m old fashioned. I don’t think in terms of individual songs, but in terms of albums. I’ve uploaded 98 albums in that time.

The albums I’ve uploaded represent roughly about 20% of my CD collection. As such, it’s been interesting as I scroll through my i-Tunes software to see what decisions I’ve made, what music and artists make the cut and which ones don’t. Although I’ve tried to upload music based strictly on what I want (or likely will want) to hear—especially since I’m taking a weeklong trip in a couple days—without trying to I’ve essentially passed judgment on the value of my own music collection.

Looking at which artists I’ve uploaded multiple albums by, The Beatles are way out in front with seven albums: Revolver, Magical Mystery Tour, Sgt. Pepper’s, The Beatles (the White Album), Abbey Road, Let It Be, and about 15 songs from Anthology 3. (I'm particularly partial to "Not Guilty" and "Old Brown Shoe".) I’d most certainly have also uploaded Rubber Soul if there weren’t a skip on “Norwegian Wood”, and if there was more time before my trip I’d surely also load Help!, A Hard Day’s Night and a few others.

The most albums I’ve uploaded by any other artist is three—less than half of the amount of Beatles albums on the i-Pod.

There are three by XTC: English Settlement, Drums & Wires, and Black Sea, all of which are early records from the late 1970s while they were still playing short, streamlined punk-pop in the vein of early Police and The Clash. Later XTC quit touring and have recorded several increasingly ambitious studio albums, which are great—but I still like the old tossed-off recordings the best.

Speaking of The Clash, I also have three albums of theirs: Combat Rock, Sandinista! and Give ‘Em Enough Rope. You may notice that I haven’t uploaded London Calling, which is more or less their most acclaimed album. (Rolling Stone named it the best album of the 1980s.) But while I certainly agree it’s a fabulous record, my favorite is unquestionably Sandinista!, a sprawling double album from later in the band’s career that more generously incorporates the variety of sounds that London Calling was just beginning to. Sandinista! is The White Album to London Calling’s Revolver. I also love Combat Rock, which I first heard in grade school courtesy of my friend Paul. Interestingly, the first side of Combat Rock (I still think in terms of sides, a holdover from vinyl album days) has The Clash’s two biggest singles, “Rock the Kasbah” and “Should I Stay or Should I Go?”, but I usually skip both songs because I’ve simply heard them too many times. (Don't get me started on the tyranny of hit singles.) I prefer the second side, especially the song “Ghetto Defendant”, a collaboration with poet Allen Ginsberg.

With classical music, a growing passion of mine, I found myself changing the artist designations that automatically load into i-Tunes with the CD. Instead of listing the orchestra and/or conductor, I’ve changed the artist’s name to that of the composer. It’s mostly just for convenience sake, because I think of the music in terms of the composer much more so than who plays the music.

Which brings me to three recordings of Bach on the i-Pod: The Brandenburg Concertos, The Art of the Fugue, and a collection of other short pieces.

The only other artist I have three recordings by is my friend Chad’s band Beauty Pill: The Unsustainable Lifestyle, You Are Right To Afraid, and The Cigarette Girl From the Future. The latter two are actually EPs. It’s not merely out of loyalty that I’ve uploaded these recordings, though. I really love them.

After that, there are 11 different artists I have two albums by: Air, A Tribe Called Quest, Dmitri Shostakovich, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, Radiohead, The Police, Roland Kirk, Tricky, and The Pharcyde. But I could also include Damon Albarn, whom I have two non-Blur albums by under different artist headings: Mali Music, a collaboration he did with several musicians from that country, and Demon Days, the second Gorillaz album.

Besides what this list says, there’s also what it doesn’t say, or what it says that might be misleading. The Beatles, The Clash and XTC are a pretty accurate representation of the rock/pop I listen to the most. But I’ve long thought of Shostakovich as my favorite composer, even though I have more Bach uploaded.

There are also a few artist whom I own a lot of albums by, yet are not represented on the i-Pod at all. I have ten Miles Davis recordings, for example. Kind of Blue is perhaps the greatest jazz album of all-time, and one I've listened to a lot over the years. But I've heard it so many times it's as if there's an i-Pod in my mind that means I don't need to play the actual record. I could easily have uploaded other Miles albums, such as Birth of the Cool or In a Silent Way, to name to personal favorites. But for some reason I've become less and less attracted to trumpet versus other instruments certain other bandleaders play like piano, saxophone, or even bass. The funny thing is trumpet is the only instrument I've ever learned to play (in junior high band).

I also own many albums by REM and U2, and none of them were included in the first 98 albums I uploaded.

I listened to tons of REM in college and the ensuing years, and while I don't deny many of their albums being terrific, especially Murmur, Reckoning, Document and Automatic for the People, they're just not a band that interests me anymore. I really think they should have broken up when drummer Bill Berry left the band about six or seven years ago. Not enough bands know when to leave the spotlight.

U2's Achtung Baby is definitely one of my favorite records, and I'm kind of surprised it's not on the i-Pod. I also still like Zooropa. But both those albums I listen to with Valarie somewhat often, so I probably hear them enough that way. And of course U2 is another band that's still around after 20+ years. At a certain point I just can't sustain interest with album after album.

I also notice that overall jazz seems under-represented because there aren’t any artists I have more than two albums by. I have two Roland Kirk albums, and could easily have uploaded a couple more. Same goes for the Modern Jazz Quartet—I just love vibraphone. But Charles Mingus is a favorite, as are Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, and I have only one album by each of them. That will surely change in the weeks ahead.

But I guess that’s the fun of the uploading process. It’s not scientific, but it’s an intriguing snapshot into my own listening habits, how they’ve changed and how they haven’t over the years. And of course this is a work in progress. I’ve still got over 23GB of storage left.

The Steeler Hat

I've been a Pittsburgh Steelers fan since about the first grade. At the time I chose them as my team, the Steelers were in the midst of a run that would see them win four Super Bowls. I idolized the stars from that NFL dynasty: quarterback Terry Bradshaw, running back Franco Harris, linemen "Mean" Joe Greene and LC Greenwood, receivers John Stalworth and Lynn Swann, linebackers Jack Ham and Jack Lambert. Hell, I even followed the supporting cast: Mike Webster, Donnie Shell, Mel Blount, Dwight White. I had both the home and away jersey.

For Christmas one year, maybe 1978 or 79, I received a Steelers stocking cap. Unlike much of my childhood detritus, it's become a cherished keepsake that I have with me to this day. In fact, yesterday morning, in honor of the Steelers playing in tomorrow's Super Bowl XL, I fished the tattered stocking cap from a box in the basement, washed it (probably for the first time in a quarter-century), and put it on my head to parade around the grocery store, bank and drug store during Saturday errands.

As it happens, the Steelers hat recalls one particularly distinct memory that has little to do with football.

It was the winter of 1996 (possibly '97) and I had been living in New York City. Valarie and I were eating at one of our favorite restaurants: Tea and Sympathy, an authentically British hole-in-the-wall in the West Village where they make scrumptious shepherd's pie, Welsh rarebit and scones. After paying the check, we were getting up to leave and began putting on our various hats, scarves and gloves in anticipation of braving the bitter cold outside.

I was putting on my trusty Steelers stocking cap when someone at another table said, 'Hey, that guy has a Steelers hat just like yours.' And I suddenly saw a bald middle-aged man with a white beard fish out his identical yellow and black cap, with a little ball of yarn on the top and a Steelers three-diamond logo, all exactly the same as mine.

Turns out my Steelers cap doppelganger was actually Oliver Sacks, the famous neurologist who has written numerous best-selling books about his patients such as An Anthropologist on Mars, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and The Island of the Color Blind. (Robin Williams played Sacks in the 1990 film Awakenings.) What's even crazier was that I was even reading a book of his at the time.

There wasn't much to our brief conversation. ("Aren't you Oliver Sacks? I'm reading your book! Oh, and go Steelers.") But it's one of those little memories that I cherish, and that I thought of not long after fishing out the cap yesterday from its basement tomb. Somewhere tomorrow maybe the good doctor will take time out from treating brain injuries, turn on the TV, and root on the black and gold.

And, you sure as hell better believe, will I.

Nick Time

Over the past few months I’ve been spending time on the set of Yellow, the new film and feature-length debut by Portland’s Nick Peterson, as part of an article I’m writing.

I’ve previously written about Nick a few times for Willamette Week over the years, when a collection of his short films played at the Northwest Film Center, or when certain ones were included in the Northwest and PDX film festivals. Each of Nick’s works was shot on 16mm film, and with such a majority of projects now being shot on video, his films stand out for their warmer, more flattering photographic hues. But it’s not just the equipment: Nick has a very astute eye for composition, not to mention the scripts.

Fellow Portlander Gus Van Sant, by the way, has taken an interest in Nick’s films after seeing Nick’s half-hour 2004 film Contingent while a judge at the BendFilm festival. I interviewed him briefly over email for one WW story on Nick, Van Sant told me:

"I really like his use of camera, actors, story, in what appears to be glimpses into young Northwest lives, lives that I only see from a distance, but he brings them in up close."

Most all of Nick’s films center around some sort of romantic relationship in flux. Often these are same-sex relationships, but regardless of that the tone of the film seems to take precedence. Nick is a real connoisseur of cinema, particularly masterful filmmakers of several decades past like Japan’s Yasujiru Ozu and Ernst Lubitsch; he also loves silent cinema. Characters in Nick’s films often communicate with their looks and gestures than by speaking. And in its own way, it feels almost deafening. As lovers collide with jealousy, confusion and anger, the unreleased tension builds like a pressure cooker.

Yellow marks a very intriguing departure, and not just because it’s feature-length. It’s also a musical.

I remember several months ago Nick telling me over lunch about this, and I was astonished—not just because it’s such a daunting challenge, or because few musicals these days really successfully capture the public’s imagination, but also in light of how quiet his films have traditionally been. But in an odd way, it makes sense. Musicals enable the characters to say in music what they wouldn’t say ordinarily. It’s an alternate means of communication. And that’s something Nick has always done through his characters’ wordless expressions.

One can’t talk about Yellow, however, without mentioning Eric Schopmeyer, who initially signed on as the writer and composer of all the musical numbers in the film, and later was additionally cast as the lead actor in the film. Eric has already done music for some of Nick’s previous efforts, and he also was part of the trio known as archipelago (along with talent local filmmaker Rob Tyler and Eric’s then-girlfriend, now wife, Ady Leverette, both of whom are good friends, BTW), which he did all the music for with Ady. Additionally, Eric teaches music at a local elementary school and has earned widespread acclaim for starting a marimba band with the kids; that ever-changing kids’ ensemble has now played all over the region and recorded two or three CDs. As if all that weren’t enough, until about a year ago Eric also fronted the local band Slackjaw. Yellow marks his first foray into acting.

I was particularly fascinated on my first visit to the Yellow set in October by how all the music was being recorded live. Nick's crew placed wireless microphones on the characters (augmented with a boom) while a small music ensemble played marimbas, stand-up bass, drums and viola in the other room. It was a little concert, and I've never heard of music for a film being recorded like that, at the same time the scenes are shot.

Hanging out on the set over the past few months—maybe five or six occasions—I’ve had a great time watching the creative process of a feature film unfold. For such a young filmmaker, and one making his first feature, Nick has an exceptionally impressive way of handling things onset. He knows exactly what he wants, and his instructions to the actors are very precise. Yet he’s also very good-natured, and the mood of the set has almost always been casual and fun. Which is very important, Nick reminds me, when the entire cast and crew are working for free.

I also have to mention that the Yellow set never would have been a well-functioning machine without the efforts of Nick’s girlfriend Mary, who has acted as a producer, costumer, make up artist, scheduler—pretty much everything. Every artist working in a collaborative medium has people he or she relies on and trusts and quietly places a tremendous amount of responsibility on, even if there isn’t an official credit that can properly honor that person’s contributions. And that is unequivocally Mary.

It’s not yet clear what kind of distribution Yellow will have. Gus’s interest could help, but technically the film and Nick are completely unknown to those at even the smallest studios and distributors. The film could very well play at some festivals, but it would be a real shame if that’s as far as it went. Granted, I haven’t actually seen Yellow yet, but I feel completely comfortable in assuming it will be worth seeing. Even if on some level the film is not completely successful artistically—and I doubt very much that would be the case—it’s bound to be a glorious failure, with great music and cinematography.

As it happens, I think it’s going to be great. Which is what inspired this post, a little viral marketing from the heart.

"Have a good day!"

Earlier today, while entering the grocery store, I was greeted by two young boys, each maybe four or five years old. In unison they were repeating, "Have a good day!" to everyone, myself included, who entered the building. I didn't pay much attention initially, but several times while shopping inside the store, I ran into the kids again - and they were repeating the mantra-like pleasantry with as much enthusiasm as ever.

Overheard while reaching for Valarie's PG Tips tea: "Have a good day!" In the pharmacy looking for extra strength Tylenol: "Have a good day!" And in the produce aisle choosing mushrooms: "Have a good day!"

Before long there was a mantra of my own, although unlike the two youngsters', it was part of an interior monologue only: "Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up!"

If course I admit this with a proper amount of shame and embarrassment. As I walked out of the store, I started thinking to myself, "Oh great, now I'm the child hater." But I don't hate children. Turning 34 this spring, I'm at an age where many of my friends are having children. And I don't greet that with dread: I adore their kids. You should see how much camcorder footage I have of Neil's twins, or still shots of Mac's little girl. And after my parents had their second child when I was 12, I came to cherish the chance to watch my sister Sara grow up.

But all these examples are entirely different from the experience of encountering kids in public.

What's so charming about children is that because they are still learning to live in the world, their behavior is so purely original and guileless. They make the rest of us grownups feel like robots conditioned to behave in a certain way. But at the same time, I tend to cling to the unwritten mores of society quite a lot. Saying "Excuse me" and other customs, like such waving someone ahead when you're both unsure of who was first, are civilized acts. They're demonstrations of respect and kindness that we can all cherish. It's what differs us from the animals.

When children are around, however, you have to be ready, sometimes quite suddenly, to step out of this implicit rulebook for societal behavior. Suddenly, another human being staring at you for a seeming eternity, or talking to you with a familiarity they haven't earned, is not only okay, but it's expected to warm your heart.

I'm not saying I disagree with letting children be a little boisterus in public now and then. And I'm 100% for being as gentle and encouraging with kids as possible. My own childhood memories still loom very large in my mind, and I shudder at the notion of any kid facing traumas or even mild everyday disappointments. And I'm not without sympathy for parents. I know it's impossible to keep your children perfectly behaved in public all the time. And even if you could achieve that with your kids, the discipline you'd have to use on your kids to me wouldn't be worth it. I'm definitely not looking for more spankings or even time-outs to be dealt out because of me.

Yet somehow I seem more taken off guard by children like today's pair. It was cute that they were ceaselessly outpouring goodwill. It seemed to brighten the expressions of most shopppers to whom they squeaked  "Have a good day!" But it also was loud and high-pitched and extraordinarily redundant.

I've always had an acute sensitivity to sudden noise: screaming in a horror movie, car brakes, Mariah Carey when she hits those stratospheric high notes. And regardless of the context of cuteness or innocence that accompanies children, it so happens that the have a much greater tendency for those kinds of disruptions: crying, squealing, whining, and all with very little awareness of the other people in the room. And I know that's something you can't blame kids for. They need time to go through the natural process of growing up without curmudgeons like me complaining. But when I get stressed out by the noise kids make, I'm just thinking about the noise.

In other words, it's nothing personal. It's just a physical reaction to an unpleasant stimuli. As Dr. Mehment Oz, co-author of You: The Smart Patient, says in this month's Esquire magazine, "Environmental noise stresses the parasympathetic system, your subconscious autopilot that continuously surveys the world around you and creates your response. In a noisy environment, this autopilot releases adrenaline, which drives up steroid levels in your blood vessels and higher blood pressure."

There's a line from some ancient episode of Saturday Night Live in which Jan Hooks, playing Diana Ross, kept repeating to her cheering audience, "I love you! Don't touch me! I love you! Don't touch me." I always laughed at the dichotomy, and the seeming accuracy of the satire. All the pop hits aside, Diana kind of had that coming. So I guess now I'm the instigator of a new version that skewers myself: "Have a good day - and shut the fuck up."