So Many Mothers Sighing

I may in fact be the last D.C. blogger posting about this, but yesterday, Eastern Market burned up.

I don't have a lot of great stories about Eastern Market or anything. I bought fish there sometimes. I ate crab cakes there sometimes. I bought earrings for my girlfriend there sometimes.

I generally liked it because it was a slower paced kind of place, often crowded, but seemingly free of so many of the least desirable elements of D.C. (popped collars, suits, drunks, obnoxious transplants bitching about how much New England or Pittsburgh or Jersey is better than D.C.).

A Saturday afternoon at Eastern Market was usually time well spent, if sometimes peacefully squandered.

I'm sure they'll rebuild in a year or two. But I'm really, really sad right now.

Ten Songs That Make Me Cry

Since it's easier than actually writing about the nonsense in my head, I thought I'd steal an idea from My Pal Pete and list the ten songs that make me cry. Because I'm weak.

To Love Somebody - As Sung By James Carr

Man, this song was the soundtrack to my senior year of college when I had three....count em, THREE, friends date girls I was nuts over.

What gets me about this song is that no matter how mournful the vocal is sung....and James Carr really knew how to lay it on thick....at the end of the day, the lyrics themselves are a little spiteful and bitter. That whole "you don't know what it's like" sentiment can be pretty damned juvenile (and in my case it probably was), but when you're dealing with unrequited love, it works pretty well.

I sure wish the Bee-Gees hadn't written this damned song.

Waltz # 2 - Elliot Smith

Good God, back in 1998 I lived in this farm house outside of Olney, MD with a former drug addict and this other guy who was kind of a broken-hearted-obsessive-record-collector who, for about 10 months, played Elliot Smith on his souped up analog sound system every fucking day. I hated that album X/O. Hated it through and through.

My roomie was a great songwriter and good guitar player, but I could never understand how this dude could roll outta bed on a sunny Saturday morning and fix himself a western omelet - cutting board, ham, sliced peppers and all - to the sound of a man slowly broadcasting to the world his future suicide. I mean, if I ever had to face the day to that kind of despair....well, I just woulda stayed in bed. (God, maybe Greg was endowed with more intestinal fortitude than I gave him credit for....Surely, now that I think of it, at some point in the 70's some poor sap must have made himself blueberry pancakes to the melodious strains of "Which Will," but I digress).

Years later, when I was moved out of the farmhouse, I made a relatively conscious decision to be a pain-in-the-ass alcoholic. I blew all my cash, alienated a few friends, forgot to pay bills and generally was accountable for none of my many, many fuck-ups. Making my peace with the mess I'd created was a pretty unpleasant experience, but I actually found myself listening to Elliot Smith quite a bit during this period, and I kept coming back to Waltz # 2. There is something simply elegant about that lonely, hanging, seemingly-incomplete lyric, "I'm tired.....I'm tired."

I was very tired, as well.

I Loves You Porgy

"Dont let him take me/Dont let him handle me with his hot hands"

Yikes....kinda makes that Elliot Smith story seem pretty silly, now that I think about it.

Let It Loose - The Rolling Stones

Every head-up-his-butt music reviewer has already written too many articles about how "Exile on Main Street" isn't really a celebration of sex, drugs and rock and roll, and that it's more of a requiem for how life on the road can kill one's spirit....or something. And I can buy that. Even Keith Richards has to come down at some point.

I also know that a lot of people kind of hate the Stones for consistently attempting forays into other musical genres like county, gospel and reggae, many of which didn't work. At all.

But "Let it Loose" will do it to me every time. For a guy who has the world's biggest reputation for being a conceited asshole, Jagger has a way of turning quite the vulnerable phrase. That whole half-bridge, "Maybe your friends think/I'm just a stranger" section, where his voice gets a little thin and exasperated, has always struck me as one of the more honest and sincere lines (and vocals) he's ever sung. I mean, who ever would have thought Jagger gave a damn about what his groupies thought....much less what his groupies' friends thought?

Nothing Compares 2U - as sung By Sinead O'Connor

I know a lot of people just plain hate Sinead's atonal vocal style and crappy personality, but for those of use who grew up in Irish households (hold on folks, this is gonna get pretty o'schmaltzy), Sinead knows how to hit that sad, sad note that permeates the best Irish music -- kind of a Celtic blue note, except less sexy and more.....um, miserable.

Fuck that Riverdance shit and the fratboy drinking songs you hear in Ireland's Four Provinc....uh, Four Fields (or whatever it's called)...Irish music isn't about unicorns and wild rovers, it's about being broke and pathetic. And having bad teeth.

All of that said, I kind of do hate including any Irish music at all on this list. I spent way too much of high school and college surrounded by flag waving Paddies, and the longer I'm date a Filipino, the most I want to track each and every one of my Irish brethren down and tell them that no matter how much Guinness and Lucky Charms they ingest, the Irishman will, in fact, never, ever be considered an exotic creature by anyone.

Prince, on the other hand.....well, he *is* a sexy motherfucker.

Do What You Gotta Do - Roberta Flack

I'm not even sure what this song is about....I breakup I reckon. I tripped over this record my senior year of high school when I was downed with a pretty vicious case of chicken pox....so bad I actually quit wanking for a few days because I was just too repulsed by my own appearance.

With all that free time on my, er, hands, I pored over my parents' record collection, looking for some decent jazz amidst a whole lot of bad folk and show tunes (holy crap, how did I not spank it to the album cover of Kiss Me Kate back when I was 16....I'm pretty turned on now just looking at it. Is that Dean Martin looking guy actually giving her a spanking? Does he actually have a sadistic smile on his face? Is she looking over her shoulder at him with resentful scorn? This truly is some bangbus shit. And no, I am NOT linking to that).

Where was I?

So, yeah, I find this Roberta Flack record. I think it was called "Volume II". Apparently, Roberta is from D.C., and for a few brief years before she was a superstar she was kind of a local hit that only the hips kids knew about.

...anyway, I sit there in my parents house just dumbstruck at how sexy and sad and romantic these songs are. I listen to the record over and over -- like four times in a row -- wondering if white people have tragic romances like this or if it's just a black thing, wondering if I'd ever have to tell a girl to do what she's gotta do, and go chase her dream even if it meant we'd never be together again, and, most importantly, wondering when, exactly, it was that my parents had soul, and when it was that they lost it.

Maybe that's what makes me cry....

Maps - The Yeah Yeah Yeahs

I don't want to cop to this one, but I will anyway. The whole "they don't love you like I love you" thing is probably even more self-centered than the James Carr "you don't know what it's like" thing, but I'm pretty sure that's what this new breed of $200 haircut punk rock is all about.

Acetone - Mudhoney

I really don't think there's anything sadder than feelings of shame, and that's pretty much what this song is about -- a really sinister, tragic kind of shame. I well up when I even think of that one lyric, "I never meant to make you run/I never meant to hurt anyone." Coupled with "Oh, Lord what have we become?/We're not fooling anyone" it just the saddest, simplest and most shameful sentiment I think I've ever heard from a punk band.

You See Me Crying - Aerosmith

Lordy, Jesus, do I hate what Aerosmith has become. Even so, this song has such a masterful, hazy, 70's, AM radio vibe (god DAMN, those awesome string arrangements in the 70's!!) that you can overlook the ridiculous-even-by-Areosmith-standards lyric "cuz my love is like a marry-go-round.

* Note, I would have preferred to include "Seasons of Wither", but I felt that Acetone maxed out my drug-induced-shame-based songs. And one Areosmith song is more than enough.

Southern California - George Jones and Tammy Wynette

On paper, this song should be a complete train wreck. Consider:

- Celebrity Duet:
Check!

- Celebrity COUPLE Duet:
Check!

- Corny Spoken Word Outro:
Check!

But the fact is that George Jones somehow manages to make sappy shit work (and really, the only reason I didn't include "He Stopped Loving Her Today" is because it's just too obvious).

George Jones, in fact, is Ray Charles for white people. Except he probably treated his drummers better. And his wives worse.

And he was undoubtedly every bit as dangerous behind the wheel.

Things that rule in DC at this moment

1. Art-O-Matic: Non-juried, no rules, and way too much bad art, low art, and weird art. It is everything that like to say D.C. is not, and I love it almost as much as I love Fort Reno and even more than I love the Run For Cover benefit. (Too bad it's in Virginia this year).

2. The Modernism Exhibit at the Corcoran: I wish they hadn't put a bunch of damned chairs in all of the adverts for this show. There's stuff actually worth paying money to see in this exhibit. And in a city where the museums tend to be free, that's saying something. But I will never pay money to see just chairs.

3. Pizza By the Slice at Vace: For some reason it tastes better when the reflection of the sun off the tin foil wraps blinds zoo-going tourists on the sidewalk....no idea why. For less than $2 is may well be the only pizza by the slice worth eating in this town. Yes, fuck you, jumbo slice.

4. The Wizards in the Playoffs: I don't care if they're getting decimated. You transplants have no idea how precious it is to have them in the playoffs at all.