San Francisco

I walked though the Tenderloin last night with happy feet, moving quickly.  With my buddy Nicolas at my side.  Crept up a side street to visit an alley at the end of which an ex-girlfriend used to live.  Herb Caen on my brain.  On the Main Street of Geary, passing a bar where I got absolutely shit faced in 2001 drinking beer and Jack Daniels after winning the San Francisco Class III Amateur Soccer League Championship with the Academy of Art Soccer Team.  Oh beer googles and the mistakes we make that end up being mistakes also when we wake up in the outerrichmond.  Oh to the clarity of good decision making.  Asking the question, what is San Francisco?  A geographic area, 49 square miles, north of San Mateo County and South of the Golden Gate Bridge, yes.  But also the idea, what is San Francisco?  Where does it exist in your imagination?  To simplify, what do you think of when you think of San Francisco?  I've been asking this question a lot, not just of San Francisco, other cities too, like Vegas.  Maps, Tenderloin, poverty, the Fairmont, gold.

A friend of mine refers to men who hit on her (and others) as baseball cards.  Although I don't completely understand her usage of this term, I deem it brilliant.  In the last 20 years, the world has been changed by technology.  You look at screens more than you look at the world.  This was not the case in 1215, the year the Magna Carta was signed into law.  Now our identity is understood, in part, by what we post on facebook.  Our identity is, in part, 2 dimensional, it exists on screens.  I like x movie, this communicates something about my identity.  I watch the San Francisco Giants on a tv screen.  I posted a video of me on youtube.  I'm crying because my Italian cousin was killed in a motorcycle accident.  In the youtube video I'm sobbing.  You will consider this, too, in your brain when you think of me, and if someone asked you to describe me, you would consider this video while you explain who I am.  And so, men that hit on my friend are baseball cards, twitter posts, facebook pages, youtube videos, big-screen-legitimate-$300-million-in-the-first-weekend-movies.   The man takes his family to Disneyworld and walks through Disneyworld looking at a the moveable screen of his video camera, watching his son and daughter get into a tiff and then sort if out, laughing, on the screen of his video camera.

But the topic of this posting is San Francisco.  And I want to know what you know.  What do you know about San Francisco?  Where do the black people live?  Is that a different place than the white people?  Do the rich people live in a different place? than the poor people?  What, if anything, is important about San Francisco?  Can you answer these questions by looking at the same computer screen you are looking at now?  Or do you have to walk through the Tenderloin with Nicolas and happy feet, passing an old apartment that once mattered a great deal and a bar where you ended up doing funny things?  Tonight, in the grand tradition of working your shit out through Opera, I leave you with this:

Puccini

I love all of you,
Anthony

Corch

This week I had three separate ideas for a blog entry.  I will use bullet points to help emphasize and clarify the differences:

• A recap of the three concerts I went to in the last week
• Revisiting the water buffalo in the garden (an idea from a previous posting)
• Palestine

So because of the similarity of the three subjects, I've decided to cover all of them.

No, actually, I've decided against that idea.  I would prefer to tell you about my friend Corch.

My friend Corch is a concept design artist.  He works mostly on video games.  He is famous.  Well, I think he is famous.  A few video-game-concept-art-bloggers (yes, they are out there, too) think he's the shit.  So he's famous.  Here's a link to his work:

http://josephacross.com (the a is for Arlen)

and here is the link to his blog:

http://josephacross.blogspot.com/

I actually recommend starting with his blog.  It's fucking cool (bart/muni inspiration!), and you get to see why he's famous.

Corch came up with a great idea.  He is going to send me good musics.  I am going to listen to good musics and review on my blog.  Right now, I'm listening to Co La, which is fantastic/brilliant.  But instead of writing about it, just check it out:

http://friendsrecordsbaltimore.com/releases/frcs014/

I hope everyone is feeling good, loving at least part of your life.  If you have some musics that you want me to listen to or you think I might like, please send it along.  If that makes part of your life more full of love.

I'm writing a short story.  It takes place in Vegas.  I'm going to Vegas soon to write the story better.  That's all I can say now.

love to all/that shit is important,

Anthony

ps - Co La album cover art:

Across the Loch (I found sadness)

This next week I will be going to three shows.  Tonight, Breathe Owl Breathe at the Bottom of the Hill.  Saturday night, Stornoway at the Independent.  And Tuesday night, a little known band out of Ireland, U2 at the Oracle Arena.  It's a solid lineup.  I'm pretty excited about Breathe Owl Breathe.  They are from East Jordan, Michigan, which is apparently near the top of Michigan, close to one of those big lakes.  My guess is that this is a forested area or if not forested then close to a forrest.  Their sound is forresty -- mellow, folksy, melodic but with enough electronic additions to make it contemporary and "cutting edge."  It's actually not at all "cutting edge" because that term is stupid.  But they do that thing where they sound retro and new at the same time.  They have this one song, "Across the Loch."  A loch is a Scottish word for lake, which makes sense given that Breathe Owl Breathe come from "lake country" although they may or may not be Scottish, I don't know, but would be willing to bet something insignificant not.

(Quick aside: as I'm writing this I'm eating a bag of Jolly Time Healthy Pop Popcorn which is getting all over my fingers and all over the keyboard.  The whole bag is only 3 Weight Watchers points.  I know this because "I'm fat."  Of course I'm not fat.  I weigh 213 pounds and I'm a 6'1 dude, but I'm one of those dudes who thinks he's fat.  Jesus, how pathetic -- I think that makes me a metrosexual.  Seriously, I could definitely loose 20 punds (ha!), my sister keeps telling me that men with bellies (me) have heart attacks and die all the time. But I know I'm not fat.  That's crazy!  Abbey won't let me say "I'm fat" because it is detrimental to my self-image, it makes me depressed and then I eat more fat.)

I once listened to "Across the Loch" 35 times in a row.  I'm not totally sure about that 35 number, but it was damn close, and it makes the damn point.  It's this amazing song that makes you feel like you are underwater and you have special perceptive receptors in your brain, and your brain is open and the music from the song goes through the water directly into the synapse between your most sensitive and intelligent neurons.  The song has this repetitive (a difficult word to spell) guitar riff and then some shakers and one chorus that goes, "I was afraid of loosing you, I was afraid of loosing you," which is genuinely sad.  I'm sad right now listening to the song again.  I don't know if listening to a song 35 times in a row is a good thing.  But sometimes I feel like I want to feel sad, which sounds weird but is also true, and weird.

Let me just say that I'm not a big fan of the name "Breathe Owl Breathe."  I mean I like breathing, I love breathing, and I'm also a fan of owls.  But it's so self-aware that it's a bit trite in my opinion.  But I think if you make really great music, your band name isn't that important.  I mean it's important but not that important.  Jesus, there's a topic for further discussion.  Oh, by the way, all 20 of you that I'm forcing to read this should feel free to email me your thoughts, disappointments, angers, suggestions for improvements at my email or for those of you reading who don't know me, you can email existentialporcupine@gmail.com.

So tonight Breathe Owl Breathe at the Bottom of the Hill.  Frankly, I hope it's good.  (That's a horrible use of frankly that is wrong, but I read someone write a good frankly yesterday i think and it sounded so smart, so I'm smart! because frankly, i use frankly.)

love to all, spread it around, seriously, man! (exasperation)
Anthony

ps - oh shit the link!: http://g-rad.org/breatheowlbreathe/ this is a blog in the year 2011, not providing a link is just classless.  (mudge, if you read this far, you are funny, but not for reading this far, just in general. : )

Complicated Genius: Anthony Leonard's Life and Family Adventures (and other Symbolic gestures)

I am a genius.  This hurts to say.  But it is true.  It feels like a piece of bacon sizzling in the pan and I am touching this bacon as it sizzles.  It's going to taste good, this bacon.  It smells so carnal!  the whiffs of tangy, salty meat with just enough buttered fat.  But this is the bacon of my genius.  Let me explain.  My genius sets fire to the bush, it rolls out of mountains and proclaims itself self-evident.  My genius lights up the san francisco skyline, each lighted sky scraper window a flame of self-evident genius.  Do you see all the lighted windows as you scan the san francisco skyline in the dark--you who sit on the street?  My genius is compatible, it strokes felines and festooned farmhouses.  My genius carries with it a caller id, so when I go out to eat at the restaurant, the elephante' man in charge of sitting tells me "I feel it in my belly, your genius.  It is a lamp, in my belly.  I know this lamp as your genius.  Would you like to sit next to the fire."  Ah yes, in fact, I would.

So I go to the fire with this man's lamp.  And the brilliance accorded to 47 carat diamonds refracts intuition and emotional self-knowledge.  For it is the emotional self-knowledge, the ability to connect and shape seahorses out of pretzels, it is this that startles your anxious face.  I light up and open up and let my water buffalo wander into your garden and munch on the leaves of your deciduous trees.  It is August and my water buffalo is munching, saying hello, "Do you like the fog? Do you like the hot dogs (italics mine)?"  We are bonding through my water, we touch, you are touched, saving face, crawling into the belly again, your own belly where now through my genius you feel safe and alive.  My buffalo led you into this open, eight-fold and not stopping there path.

The ninth fold, another term for my genius--used colloquially by my friends of lesser stature, friends failing in a hierarchy of fools, these miserable fiends formally fucked.  but that is okay! that too will come to pass.  Haven't you heard, "the ship that sets sail never stops."  Okay whatever, whatever!!! Shit Okay, so things are hard.  Yeah!  and what the fuck. i get that.  you can't all be the genius, or maybe...just maybe...if you open up your pants by zipping down the zipper, ALONE Asshole!  I'm not talking about anything social-relational-sexual-clairvoyant here, I'm just talking about taking off your pants alone in your room after work, that is all, so fucking innocent.  Leave it there on the floor the unzipped zipper (Symbols) crash!  a loud sound from another room! ahhhhh here it is my brilliance again coming into being in another room in my same house.  setting sail.

But if you were to ask my Mother about my genius, what would she say?  Hmm, now I am crawling to the couch to be opened and cut with sheers breast plate bone to belly button, some good ole abreaction.  what do you see in there mom?  stinking, smoky intestines falling out into liquid symphonies and symbolism, strands of human sausage connected.  she would say no.  no, tony, you are not a genius.  the tower is falling, beginning to crack and yes, crumbling violently. ah but i've been holding it up in the brilliant golden architecture of my mind, holding it up with precision, holding court with the debutantes and the blistered romps.  colliding with the falling particles, my mother, god of all inception, denies this existence.  denies my honest passions and sequesters the truth.  in the name of groundedness.

again, with love,
Anthony

ps - Andrew Bird, American Singer Songwriter, is much like me only not quite as good at music.  I don't recommend going to iTunes and listening to his song "Tenuousness" on his album "Noble Beast" released January 20th, 2009.

or watch this video, which really isn't fair.  this happened.

Tenuousness

Stornoway

If you haven't listened to Stornoway,
I think it might be a good idea to listen to them.
Just thirty seconds.
If it doesn't immediately register as real,
turn it off and never listen to Stornoway again.


I Saw You Blink


with love,
Anthony

Live Show

Inside a small club in the Lower East Side, a man plays a large, white, electric blues guitar, staring out beyond the audience with an insane look on his face.  His eyes are wide open, glazed over, lost.  But that expression is a ruse, a trick. His eyes quickly dart back down to meet the packed audience; the muscles in his face flex and relax to paint a portrait of calm and inviting warmth.  The quick contrast is immediately enjoyable and frightening.  He is dressed in a tight fitting, white, vintage, button down shirt, with black, skinny jeans, and a velvet boa.  Pleading and pained, his eyes dart to the right.  He sings, screams in a soulful falsetto, "Hipster Girl! why you always lookin past meee!  why you always hurt me!!"  To the man's right is another smaller man, handsome, possibly Latino and dressed in a grey pinstripe vest exposing his bare arms and much of his chest.  He plays a white bass guitar.  The two men move simultaneously, in choreographed dance steps while they play their guitars and the man to the right continues to sing.  The singing man's face contorts again, flashing that juicy pain, and then serious, staring right past the audience, drilling a hole in the back wall.  Soul flows out of his out his mouth and their guitars, while the white-boy, big-bird drummer, with high knees squished in the drum set, continues to keep strict time, tist tist tist on the high hat cymbal, then the powerful snap of the snare.  "Hipster Girl! you walked out the pages of a 2006 Cosmo magazine!  always hip never ever played out by the trains on 7th Street! Hipster Girl! you make me wanna smaaack you because you make me feel so blue when you make me want you!"  The club lights bleed reddish, bluish then white on the three man band.  The wooden stage is about four feet off the ground, and the audience numbers around 150.  The place is packed and smells of stale beer.  Pressed up against the wall, two men in the audience sit on high stools with bottles of Bud Light on the tall, small, round, wooden table.  Most of the audience is standing and many are drinking Stella.  The front man continues to screetch and get inside the stomachs and heads of the audience.  He has light, yellow skin, but possibly African-American or Afro-Caribbean features.  This ambiguity mixes with the shifting facial expressions.  He is in one moment insane and the next a model of rationality.  He is gay but obviously straight.  He wails black soul music, while playing white postpunk guitar.  The two front men are women, dancing, dressed effeminately, cocksure.  This is what the audience paid for, a little finger in the asshole, a little bit of spunk, a little bit of "I'm not sure." The music is two large black women in pink fish net stockings and Sex Pistols t-shirts, busty as hell, coming up and around, making it all feel so good.

with love,
Anthony

Diego's Umbrella

I am making a conscious effort to blog every Thursday night.  (This started two Thursdays ago.)  So this blog on a Saturday evening is a transgression, a breaking of the rules.  But I saw a band last night, and I can't stop myself from telling you about them.  The band is called Diego's Umbrella.  They are the worst band I have ever seen.

Abbey and I went to the Independent in San Francisco to see a band called Vagabond Opera, out of Portland.  After Vagabond Opera finished their show and pulled down their cloth banner at the back of the stage, Diego's Umbrella hoisted up their banner with the band's logo.  The logo looked like a Billabong advertisement or an Abercrombie & Fitch poster.  But I didn't think too much of it.  Maybe it was ironic.

I had heard good things about Diego's Umbrella.  A friend, who I ran into at the show, had an ex-boyfriend who is a friend of the lead singer of Diego's Umbrella.  And the band is made up of guys from the East Bay, where I'm from, so that was potentially good.  And they have a great name: Diego's Umbrella.  I love that name. I had never heard any of their songs, but given their being on the same bill as the burlesque, raucous, melodramatic, klezmer inspired and mostly good Vagabond Opera, I had high hopes for Diego's Umbrella.  I was expecting a cool, indie sound, melodic and textured.  Something sweet and smart.  Diego is the name of my brother's little boy.  In the space between sets, I felt positive and warm feelings for Diego's Umbrella.

But the banner with the Abercrombie & Fitch logo was no ironic gesture and foreshadowed what was to come.  When Diego's Umbrella did finally come out on stage, they were dressed in completely all-white tuxedos.  This is not a bad or good thing, in itself.  The right band could do wonderful, happy things with all-white tuxedos.  The right band could make sparkling, glorious music a la Frightened Rabbit in all-white tuxedos.  Needless to say (which is itself needless to say) Diego's Umbrella, was well, hmmm, the all-white tuxedos could not fix what would be a very unfortunate problem.

When the in-between-set-music stopped and the lights went down, five band members dressed in all-white tuxedos came out on stage.  There was an electric fiddle player, stage left, with brown curly hair who stood over some sort of small synthesizer probably capable of creating various electrical, likely bass tones.  In the center of the stage a young man stood with a white bandana wrapped around his forehead, holding an electric guitar.  In front of him two drums and other percussive possibilities, the kind you play standing up.  This would be, I guessed, the salsa influence.  On the far right stood another man with an electric guitar.  This was an orange man, with orange hair and orange beard.  And in the back center of the stage the drummer, who had cut the sleeves off of his all-white tux.  To his left was the bass player with a white headband.  Cute.

And then Don Juan himself came valiantly on stage thrusting forth with an acoustic guitar wired electric.  The lead singer took up the position just to the left of salsa/bandana guy and just to the the right of orange man.  He began with a huge 80s metal strum of his guitar from far above his head to the the floor of the stage...and Diego's Umbrella broke into song.  The guitar playing man with the bandana and the salsa drums immediately took on an expression that conveyed: "are you not amazed?!" with eyes wide, enamored of his own musical gifts.  The lead singer then gesticulated around the stage, brushed back his hair, and acted out the role of the rock star.  It seemed that this man also had a healthy sense of self.

And the music.  Oh the music.  The music was very bad Sublime, it was poor 311, it was left over No Doubt.  And the audience loved it.  The Independent was packed and the audience actually "sang-along" during a call and response portion that went like this:

Lead singer: "I take off your shirt!" (huge grin!)
Audience: "I put the shirt back on!" (frat boy high fives!)
Lead singer: "I take off your pants!" (jump around and point towards the sky!)
Audience: "I put your pants back on!" (this is great, original music!)
Lead singer: "I take off your underwear!" (face pressed close with orange guy, both leaning back and just enjoying the moment!!!)
Audience: "I put your underwear back on!" (Jesus, these guys fucking rock!)

This was the beginning of the third song, and we did not stay long enough to hear the last verse.  Two and 1/3 innings and Diego's Umbrella had already given up 17 runs, the manager comes out and says, "son, you didn't pitch well.  We're sending you down to the minors.  No, actually, we're just gonna let you go.  You can leave your uniform in your locker."

Remember, all of this is happening in all-white tuxedos.  The amount of love these guys showed to each other, all while playing ripped off reggae bass lines that Black Uhuru made beautiful in the early 70's, was astonishing.  You know when a band thinks it's really jamming, I mean really getting into the groove, but you are thinking, "Jesus, I have heard this before done much, much better."  Well it was like that only made infinitely worse by the generated ego nexus propelling their lack of talent and originality to the limits, and making me feel shitty about being in San Francisco on that particular night and from the East Bay generally.

If you want to check out Diego's Umbrella, you can find them on myspace!
http://www.myspace.com/diegosumbrella

I'm sorry.  I don't usually like to be so negative, but I have a low tolerance for huge egos coupled with bad music.

with love,
Anthony