Saturday, August 26, 2006

The Modern Kid


Exactly when did the whole world get all new age as hell about raising children? What year was this announced?

It certainly wasn't 1970 when I was three years old.

Today in Target, I saw this father pushing his three-year-old in a cart. The kid wasn't getting his way so the kid was standing up in the cart, yelling at the top of his lungs (seen this a million times) and was beating his fists like a windmill into his father's torso (never seen this.) The father's response is to do absolutely nothing.

Apparently, this is the most favored reaction to juvenile explosions. I've read where the new thinking is to not reward a child's tantrum in a public place by ignoring the kid. You're also not supposed to react "violently" because that teaches kid that the way to respond to violence is with violence.

Here's what would have happened in 1970 if john_Clarke went ape shit in Target --- or actually Gibson's Discount Store, there wasn't a Target yet.

A. If my dad was pushing the cart, he'd stop immediately, pull me out of the cart and apply his hand to my tail end. But with my Dad, the look on his face when he's angry was always enough to stop me cold. Dad is not a dude you want to be around when angered

B. Mom would have taken me out of the cart, left the cart in the isle and taken me out of the store. She'd tell me that if I continued acted that way, I would never, ever accompany her into a store again. And she would stick by her word. My Mom always does exactly what she says she'll do.

I am certainly not advocating people wail on their kids. But spanking is not "violence." It has it's time and it's place, and that place and time is when a kid is pummeling his parent in Target.

I can remember the three times my parents ever laid a hand on me. That's all it took. I knew my parents loved me ---- and wanted me to become a decent human being, not a raging asshole.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

The First Three Letters of the Alphabet


I may have been the straightest man at the Granada Theater on Thursday night.

Sure, I had a good idea that ABC would be a fun show. Meaningless, hummable 80's pop, that went real good with thin lapelled jackets.

But think about it. How many times has "Poison Arrow" or "Be Near Me" been played at gay dance clubs? I'm not sure but it's a probably whole lot of times. So that must have been why confetti came fluttering down from the ceiling at the Granada and just about every other early 40s guy at the show was in better shape than me.

ABC has held up well also. Martin Fry and his guitarist fully embraced the era that made them famous by sporting sort of matching dance club suits --- the guitarist went for the Miami Vice white suit while Martin opted for the shark skin grey number that picked up the gel lights well.

They ran through the hits quickly --- the highlight being 1987's "When Smoky Sings". By the time that song rolled around, I was about danced out and headed for the door.

In the humid August air while walking back to my truck, I wondered --- does being a fan of ABC make me, well, really stunted musically? Probably.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Saving South Dallas

Robert Wilonsky has an interesting cover piece in the Dallas Observer this week about an effort to save South Dallas and particularly a bad stretch of residential property known as the Frazier neighborhood.

Wilonsky knows South Dallas well has written about it perceptively and regularly discloses that his dad owns a beleaguered auto parts store there. I'm sure Wilonsky regularly checks with his Pops for new tales of South Dallas woe.

His story focuses on some well-meaning folks who have a grand vision for infusing money and growth into a section of Dallas that city leaders are constantly accused of ignoring. But there's just one problem about South Dallas that nobody wants to address. And in a way, you can read it in the opening lines of the article in which Wilonsky introduces us to a mother, who has a felony record, doesn't have a job because of it, and complains about her living conditions in a $475 a month apartment complex owned by a out-of-state landlord. "This city really sucks," she says. "I feel like the city has abandoned us."

No, the city has abandoned you. Decent people have abandoned you. Nobody wants to live next door to you because you absolutely do not give a fuck about where you live. You want someone else to save the neighborhood in which live. And it's evident this woman isn't about to lift a finger to improve her surroundings. Could she be bothered to pick up the empty crack baggies and 40 oz. bottles in the front yard where her kids play?

I drive through South Dallas nearly every weekend, exploring neglected neighborhoods as a sort of urban adventure. What I find are tracts of land brimming with old growth trees, beautiful houses and wide boulevards. I see what it could be. But I also see rows of boarded up houses, burned houses, crack whores, and rent houses where people evidently have no incentive to maintain their residences. I'd say one out of ten houses in the worst parts of South Dallas are maintained --- homes that are no doubt owned by the residents. Sadly, the worst parts of South Dallas are where some of the oldest, grandest and character-filled houses are located. Wendelkin Street, which had the misfortune of becoming an island in 1970 when two major highways were built flanking it with high rise overpasses, has a marvel of architecture including Prairie two stories houses, Tudor homes and turn of the century bungalows with wrap around porches that can be had for a song. All Wendelkin street needs is for somebody to care --- somebody buy that brick two-story Tudor in the middle of the block, rip the boards off the windows, refinish the hardwood floors, paint the trim, plant some grass and make it a home again. There has to be one house like that on the block or they'll all eventually burn.

And what's most frustrating about South Dallas is owning a house there is easy. Many of them --- decent ones --- can be obtained for $35,000 or less. A lot less. The average person whose credit isn't shot to hell could have a $200 monthly mortgage payment --- less than most people down there pay a month for rent. And when people own homes, they start caring about where they live.

I ought to know. I've owned two neglected homes in marginal neighborhoods. After I fixed up my house, other people decided to do the same. Now my house has doubled in value and my neighborhood goes from marginal to desirable. The city didn't do a damn thing to make that happen except raise my property taxes after I made my street look better.

Unless someone can infuse South Dallas with a lot of people who give a damn about painting their homes, mowing the grass, fixing broken windows and calling the cops when crimes happens, you can spend all the money you want there and it will still suck. Nobody wants to say that, but I see that every weekend when I drive through South Dallas and see a house that would be great if somebody cared enough to restore it. Instead what I is a lot of "I can't, I can't, I can't, somebody help me" on the faces of people who live there.

Here's how it can turn around for the average South Dallas resident. Start by saving up $1,000 for a down payment on a beat-up house. Pool your resources with your family --- it may take awhile --- but you can do it. Get a government assistance loan, buy a hammer, learn how to use it and then watch your property values rise as ever other Johnny come lately discovers how great South Dallas really is.

Otherwise, decent people will cut a wide berth away from South Dallas. And it will continue to suck and be full of put upon residents.

And we'll still be talking about how South Dallas will never change for the ensuing decades.

721 Harvey Street


My old neighbor Karl, used to restore houses in Junius Heights, the neighborhood in which I live.

When I lived in my batchelor house, I noticed that the house behind me might be vacant. Except one morning I saw I decidedly homeless looking dude sunning himself in the back yard. Then he was gone.

So I jumped the fence and checked it out. Homeless guy had broken through a window to gain entry. I called Karl, who lived a block away, and we both crawled into the house to see how bad the house was inside. Bad it was. It was stacked two feet high with junk, the floor was missing from the kitchen and rats were eating the place from the inside out. But worst of all, the homeless guy had rigged up a space heater to run off a leaky garden hose. The whole house --- a salvagable but battered abandonded 1921 Craftsman bungalow --- was about one space heater lighting away from exploding. Karl and I boarded up the house, locked it up, and kept an eye on it. He promised if I could find the owner and get them to sell, he'd buy the place and restore it, like he'd done with five other houses.

I found the owner, but she had died three years earlier in a nursing home. Then I finally located her son, who got the house after it cleared probate. He sold it to Karl for $14,000. Karl put $80,000 more into it and sold it for $198,000 about four years ago. When Karl got done with the house, it was in better shape than it was in 1921. I almost sold my house to get it.

Then Karl gets the crazy idea to move to Wellington, Kansas, where his wife is from and buy this 1880 Queen Anne Victorian for $40,000. This photo is what happens when Karl gets ahold of a messed up house and goes to work on it.

I want to be Karl.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Spooky


I always stop during roadtrips to take pictures of abandoned farm houses. This one was just north of Guthrie, Oklahoma. It's three stories and one of the finer examples I've ever photographed. It could be the next location shoot for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, except it's in Oklahoma.

Thanks


The smoke detector is ripped out of the ceiling of the motel room, courtesy of Marborough and Crack Cocaine. I could have died. But what do you expect for $30 a night?

Sleeping in an Ashtray


At the Ward Motel, all rooms are smoking. So are the sheets, complete with cigarrette burns.

Gross


So, when I leave this hell hole of a motel yesterday morning, the Indian woman at the front desk asked me "Why are you taking pictures, are you a reporter?"

"No."

Wichita Road Trip

Why would a man, who just got over the flu, get in his car and drive 5 and half hours north from Dallas to Wichita, KS, on Saturday?

If you listened to college radio in the early 1980's you'd know why. The Embarrassment, the most successful band to ever come out of Wichita, played a reunion show on Saturday. They haven't done that in more than 20 years. While I'm not that familiar with their music, I adore Big Dipper, the Boston band that The Embos morphed into around 1986. Big Dipper's lead singer, Bill Gofrier, had turned his so-called blister pop into the kind of phenomenon that caught on on college campuses even before REM hit it big.

I was jacking around on the internet a few weeks ago and saw that the Embos were playing again in Wichita for a documentary that a guy from Brooklyn is making. He called them all up for interviews and they told him that it would be better if the got together and played so he could see the chemistry. So he found a place for them to play, a promoter, and dorks like me didn't think twice about driving from two states away to see this.

The Embos play in this 1920's roadhouse near a railroad tracks called The Road House Blues. This place could not have been cooler. It was made of stone, has excellent acoustics and holds about 250 people, all of whom smoke and eat a lot of beef. The people who showed were all in their 40s and likely went to either KU, Wichita State or Missouri State, where the Embos had a huge following.

I roll into town just after sound check and I sit down with Bill Gofrier for about 30 minutes. He's now an art teacher in Boston. I told him that that Big Dipper's best album, Heavens, is out of print. I ask him who has the rights. "We do" he says. He also says the guitarist, Gary Wallach, who's now a producer for a public radio station in Boston, has a whole Big Dipper album worth of material that has been unreleased. They don't have a label. I tell him I know a guy in Dallas who'd love to release their records. We can only hope.

The show was just like a 1982 Embos show --- except the guys on stage all looked more like they would be better at selling you insurance than rocking you. But the blasted out "I'm a Don Juan", "Sex Drive" and "Elizabeth Montgomery's Face" in rapid succession during a two set two and a half hour show that gave everybody their 20 bucks worth. It was easily worth the 10 hours in the car to hear this. The highlight of the show was the single Big Dipper song they played, "Ron Klaus Wrecked His House" which is about the Embos bass player who held a party with 1,000 people, a band, and a sledgehammer the night before his rent house on Indiana Street in Wichita was going to be condemned. The Ron and the party goers destroyed the place, the cops came, and a legend was born. If it works, I've included a video clip of the song with this article, featuring Gofrier playing a mean ukalale.

Then I slept at the worst motel in Wichita, The Ward Motel, about two blocks away that had sticky carpet and a broken smoke detector, for a few hours before heading back to Dallas.

I'm glad a went. And maybe, just maybe, that trip may make it possible for even more people to hear Big Dipper.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

I hope your cell phone catches fire


I was reading this article in the New York Times today about how scientists are working overtime to make cell phone batteries that last longer. It seems that lots of people are bitching at a loud volume that their cell phones are dying on them. But there's a small problem the cell phone battery scientests are running into according to the article: stronger batteries tend to catch on fire real easy.

In my five years of cell phone ownership, I have had a battery die on me exactly one time and that was just because I took the phone on vacation and forgot the charger. Why, you ask, have I rarely had a phone go out on me? Because I'm neither absent minded nor idiotic and I charge the phone every night. Also, I don't talk on the thing 8 hours straight every day. I have some self control.

So when it comes time to get another phone, I'll have no choice but to get the next generation, stronger battery phone because that is what the market demands --- and will likely be the only kind available. Ultimately it will catch fire in my pants because two years earlier, Jenny in Portland was too fucking stupid recharge the phone she can't ever stay off of and had to have a stronger battery.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Ska Like It Should Be


The late '90s saw plenty of American bands trying to take a stab at ska --- the bouncing, danceable, reggae-rock invented in Jamaica, honed in England and eventually trampled on in the United States.

No Doubt tried their hand at ska, and completely abandoned the spirit of the genre by the time "Don't Speak" came out and Gwen Stephani began fronting more magazine covers than the band that launched her. Reel Big Fish tried to jump start a ska revolution, but fell back into well deserved obscurity long ago.

Finally, a band from Los Angeles has got it right. They're called The Aggrolites. The play a brand of music they call "dirty reggae". Their sound does resemble what you'd image would come out of a smoky island club. But to me, what they play is ska in its most stripped-down, original form.

With short hair cuts, all black clothes and willingness to sweat, these boys have stayed true to the original music form, complete with a guy pounding a vintage Hammond organ to round out their authenticity. These guys blasted away at the Gypsy Tea Room on Monday night like it was a Saturday night in London in 1977. They even did a Specials tune near the end of their set, which sounded very similar to their original tunes, all set in a simple 3/4 beat.

The Aggrolites have plenty of true-to-ska material off their two albums "Dirty Reggae" and their recently released self titled album. Pop the Trunk and Mr. Misery are feature songs on both of those albums that got all 85 people in the tearoom pointing their arms to the ground and kicking their feet towards the stage. It an astonishing site in Dallas, where most audiences can't be bothered to pay attention to the band they just paid $25 to see, or even tone down their conversations. But this was a crowd that came to hear ska, many sporting heads shaved like the working class Brits who championed the music in the 60's and 70's. There were even a couple of beat-to-hell Vespas parked outside the club for effect.

Maybe Monday night is the new cool night to see authentic music with appreciative crowds. If that's right, I can't wait to ruin all upcoming Tuesday work days.

The Outhouse


This is one of the bathrooms in Herb's Cabin. I'm not kidding. The cabin is made of wood, has a front porch, and you could imagine the pre-cement pond Clampetts on that same front porch. But yet this decidedly non-rustic room is where lot's 'o business got done.

Herb's view



Herb saw this through is living room window.

At my house, all you can see from the front window is empty 40 oz bottle, vomit and the endless parade of the unemployed up Gaston Avenue. However, we do have the same fake flowers that are one the round table in the background.

Tip Off


Our friends in Santa Fe house sit for the rich and famous. So everytime we visit, we're treated to a tour of another residence --- or in this case, a whole collection of residences --- that overlook Santa Fe and are out of reach for most people who have a $2,000 limit on their Visa card.

So we visit a house that were once owned by a famous fashion photographer named Herb Ritts. I googled Herb and apparantly he was the shit with a camera, and Hollywood took note. Our friends told us that Richard Gere and Julia Roberts once had a limo take them up to Ritts' place (actually there are three residences including a massive six bedroom house, a two bedroom pool house that has two more bedrooms, and a cabin that, like all of the other houses, has two bathrooms with really expensive Italian custom tile) in the mountains, but it got stuck on the unimproved road that leads to his glorious home. He sold it to an heiress from Philadelphia before he died a few years ago. But it took about two days to get the limo off the mountain with a wrecker it was that stuck and prevented the prima donas from leaving Herb's company. They had to have food sent to them from Santa Fe's most expensive restaurants.

He sold his houses to a wealthy heiress from Philadelphia before he died a few years ago. The heiress is selling the main house and the pool house for $4.9 mil.

This picture is of the statute that Herb placed outside of the main house.

Uh, Herb was gay.

Security Threat

Today, because I had nothing else better to do while waiting to get a chest x-ray at the doctor's office, I decided to read the medical release form I had just signed. Most of it was standard liability stuff --- you know, in case somebody irradiates me into jelly, it's just not their fault.

But one line jumped out at me in particular. It says --- and I absolutely am not making this up --- the following: "We have the right to release your medical information to federal agents, if they feel they are necessary to protect the President."

Kick ass. Maybe if my medical situation is really off kilter enough, it could just be reason to notify the White House.

"Yes, john_clarke. The President must be informed that you've just contracted syphilis. You are now officially on the list pal."

Sunday, August 13, 2006

You can't spell "classy" without "Dallas", or something like that

During the course of 12 hours today, I saw a guy relaxing in his car in the parking lot of Big Lots, enjoying a nice cool 16 oz can of Colt 45 through a purple straw.

Then, while driving near downtown, I saw a crackhead drop her pants on a busy street, bend over and let out a stream of firehose proportions.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, these are just a few of the moments that give Dallas its international reputation.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Huge Shrooms


I read recently that psychedelic mushrooms have proven to have beneficial results in a study conducted in England. Many people reported feeling more compassionate and happy after consuming them. I was already feeling this way when I took a photo of these monster shrooms growing in the mountains --- I was just happy to be somewhere where it wasn't 105 degrees outside.

Abandoned House


While on vacation, Karen and I scouted some real estate to get an idea of how much money it would take to buy a piece of Colorado. We'd both rather live in the mountains some day.

I suggested we claim this abandoned Victorian way the hell up in the San Juan mountains. The fact that it has no water, no electricity and no cable T.V. might be a problem. But no mortgage payment wouldn't be a problem.

Abandoned Mine


Southwest Colorado is littered with abandoned mine sites. It's a wonder that the mountains are still there because dudes with pick axes and dynamite have been been hammering away at them since the 1880's trying to pull gold, silver and other usable metals out of them.

My 86-year-old neighbor George worked in mines like this one near Ouray up until he joined the Army and fought in World War II. George survived WWII --- and living 60 years on Gaston Avenue --- without a scratch. But the mining work will likely do him in. He says he wakes up every morning around 3 a.m. coughing because of the damage that mining dust did to his lungs.

Twin Falls


I was told that the Coors company sometimes films beer commercials at this unusual twin waterfall near the Yankee Boy basin.

Maybe so, but idiots also like to take pictures of themselves near this hunk of natural beauty.

Crash


For 60 bucks, you can take a four-hour guided tour up old-mining roads that go from Ouray, CO to way way way up into the San Juan mountains. For 63 bucks, you can take that same tour, but in a vehicle that was made sometime during the current decade. I cheaped out and took the 60 dollar ride in a 1975 AMC Jeep jalopy. It stalled out a hour into the trip. And it had trouble getting through a dry creek bed, as this photo shows. For me, the questionable mode of transportation just added to the adventure.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Vote LaVern


If you're in Cuba, New Mexico anytime soon, don't forget to vote for LaVern Wagner for Navaho Nation Council Delegate. In a new twist on kissing babies routine, LaVern stuck a real live 6-year-old girl on top of her pickup and drove around town. I bet the election is now a lock up for LaVern.

Ouray


The worst thing about being behind the wheel while driving to Ouray, Colorado, is scenery like this flies by while you try to keep the vehicle from flying off the guardrail-less highway.

U.S. 550


The next time someone asks me why I drove 1,600 miles round trip to get to the same vacation spot as I did last year, I'm going to show them this picture.