08/29/2015

Coming to you from a coffee house on Magazine where all the young hipster/slacker/yuppie-types (plus the occasional old fart like myself) hang out and surf the internet on the free wifi. One thing I'll say for the City That Forgot to Care, it still has its share of fabulous babes. I see more attractive women in this place in any given hour than I do in Santa Fe in an entire week. But then I don't get out much. Makes me pine for the olde dump—this dump, that is—a bit.   Yesterday was the day that your intrepid reporter girded his loins, loaded his Polaroid SX-70, grabbed his brand new Casio digital, and set forth upon the Grand Tour. The expedition was led by the Commodore his own self with the invaluable aid and moral support of Brother Danny Dog. I had dinner with Brother D and Nona and the kids on Saturday night—the Commodore was supposed to be in attendance but was suffering from a severe case of alcohol poisoning from the exertions of the two previous evenings and was unable to muster much more than a groan down the beleaguered phone lines from Jefferson Parish. Down for the count.
08/28/2015

Gentle Reader(s), as many (?) of you are certainly aware, this Saturday, August the 29th, marks the 10th anniversary of a very dark episode in the history of this country and of Your Humble Narrator's benighted hometown in particular. The events that led up to and followed the landfall of Hurricane Katrina have been examined and agonized over in excruciating detail ever since. What really did and did not happen; what could have, should have and did not happen to prepare the city for the calamity; who was to blame for the critical lapses that resulted in the loss of the lives of over 1,800 citizens; the nature of the victims and the varied nature of their victimhood—all of it remains in heated debate to this day. The same is also true of the recovery from this unprecedented disaster. How real is the recovery and who has benefitted from the billions of dollars of aid money that have poured into the city since 2005?   Debate aside, one real thing that I can offer to you is a firsthand account of the city and its environs reported during mid-January, 2006, when the situation in New Orleans appeared to have stabilized sufficiently to make visitation reasonably viable. Mayor Ray Nagin had given his (in)famous Chocolate City speech on MLK Day, just a few days prior to YHN's arrival. The Chocolate City Report was written over the course of a week in the form of three extended emails sent out to fellow native New Orleanians, Brother LowRent and Brother JB, living in far-flung locales. The Chocolate City Report is here offered in its three original installments with additional commentary and updates where deemed appropriate and/or necessary.
08/19/2015

La Ciudad Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Assis is not a town that suffers from any lack of fascinating, unusual and talented people. Over the course of the past 180 years or so (give or take a decade) New Mexico at large has earned an enduring reputation as a mecca for creative types and eccentrics of all sorts. The list of painters, sculptors, printmakers, photographers, musicians, artists of the folk, dancers, writers and nut jobs that have called the place home over the years presents an impressive roster indeed. Starting with the likes of John Mix Stanley (circa 1840s) to the Meow Wolf collective (circa present and future), the artists have come to this place, drawn by whatever unique combination of physical, metaphysical and ineffable intangibles are manifest in this place, variations upon which have drawn people to places such as this place for as long as people have been drawn to such places as this. Or words to that effect...
05/21/2015

Gentle Reader(s), up until this point in the game InkyInkInc.com has been exclusively a one-man show. It's been both challenging and fulfilling to keep the ideas and the playlists flowing for the past year and a half, but I am more than thrilled to present to you InkyInkInc's first guest blogger—my friend and fellow Matador DJ (No Pants), Lily Jones.   PUNKER, TABLE OF ONE: One Girl’s Ramblings on an Evening of Dichotomies   ​Before last Thursday, my knowledge of Pussy Riot was limited. Neon dresses, balaclavas, and prison came to mind. Limited may be an overstatement. However, when I heard that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (Nadya) and Maria Alyokhina (Masha) were going to be in my little niche in the desert, and a friend of mine wanted to fund my ticket to see them speak, I got educated. What struck me more than anything was their adoption of true intersectional feminism. Instead of confining their activism to Russian women or just women in general, they wanted to and were continuing to, fight for everyone.   ​These are the women who visited New York in December during the onslaught of police brutality towards the black population and responded with their first music video in English. “I Can’t Breathe” is a song that acts in memoriam of Eric Garner. Nadya and Masha wrote a song about the dual nature of the phrase “I Can’t Breathe” as both the literal statement and the metaphorical ideal of living within this climate of police brutality. The chorus repeats “It’s getting dark in New York City/I need to catch my breath” and concludes with Richard Hell repeating Garner’s plea to be left alone and allowed to breathe. Where others would see wage, color, and nationality gaps, Masha and Nadya see commonality. When these women say that you can be Pussy Riot, they are also extending a fist towards your oppressor. Through their influence in multiple spheres, including their NGO Zona Prava, their news service MediaZona, and their work to free imprisoned activists these women will fight with those who are greatly marginalized with a camaraderie that states your success is our victory as well.
05/13/2015

In the movie, the murder takes place at the corner of Bush and Stockton and Miles Archer falls through a wooden railing and down a steep rocky slope after he is shot. The book specifies that the fatal shot was fired in Burritt Alley, just down the block from the intersection of Bush and Stockton. There is no longer a rocky slope for the body of a murdered private detective to tumble down—the terrain of Burritt Alley has changed in the 85 years since the book was published and an eight-story building housing a mini-mart, Taqueria Mana and the Boba Guys now stands between the alley and Stockton Street below. The southern end of the Stockton Street Tunnel, from where Sam Spade first observed the scene of his partner’s murder, is across the street from the alley. Dashiell Hammett Street is just to the west, between Pine and Bush. The book and the film are both The Maltese Falcon and the city is, of course, San Francisco.
04/10/2015

This past Tuesday, April 7, was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Billie Holiday. In 1939 Lady Day recorded her epochal version of Abel Meeropol's Strange Fruit. Considered too controversial a topic by her producers at Columbia Records, Holiday ended up recording the song for the smaller Commodore label and it turned into a best seller despite a total lack of radio support. It became one of Holiday's signature songs and a staple of her repertoire for the remaining twenty years of her life.   Seventy-six years later there's strange fruit demanding our attention again, but this time it's not hanging from southern trees. It can be found lying on the streets of cities all across this country. Variations of the scenario have been repeated again and again from Oakland (Oscar Grant), to Staten Island (Eric Garner), to Ferguson, MO (Michael Brown), to Cleveland (Tamir Rice), to Sanford, FL (Trayvon Martin). And now, North Charleston, South Carolina.
04/06/2015

Ah Gentle Reader(s), tis Easter time again. The blooms is bloomin and the trees are leafin and the sparrows are nesting once again beneath the eaves of the Inky Aerie. And, in keeping with seasonal tradition, Your Humble Narrator looks forward to sitting down in front of le Boîte Idiot this evening for the annual communion with The Ten Commandments (see my post of May 2, 2014). This is my personal observation of Holy Week—somewhat less strenuous than crawling on hands and knees to El Santuario de Chimayo, but then YHN is not particularly inclined in the direction of any organized religious observance. Or, for that matter, disorganized religious observance either. I watch The Ten Commandments at Easter time and It’s A Wonderful Life at Christmas time (see 1/1/15) and spend the rest of the year pondering the profound spiritual implications of both. Therefore, I feel as though I’ve got my bases covered (especially as Easter Sunday is Opening Day for the 2015 baseball season—how much spirituality can one person handle in a single day??).
03/21/2015

On one hand, Spencer Tweedy likely requires little in the way of introduction. If you know of his father, Jeff, and his work you probably have a pretty good idea of where Spencer is coming from, aesthetically speaking. He lives in Chicago, turned 19 in December of last year, and is currently on tour with his dad and their band, Tweedy, in support of their album Sukierae which was released in September.   On the other hand, considering Spencer merely as adjunct to his father and his father’s career does not, of course, give him the credit he very much deserves. Spencer is much more than Jeff Tweedy’s son, cool though that may be. He is a very thoughtful and articulate young man whose precocity you can sample at his blog where he posts photographs, essays, video clips and music. (Sounds somewhat familiar… but despite his youthful years he’s been at it for quite a while longer than Your Humble Narrator.) In addition to Tweedy, the band, Spencer has a variety of other musical involvements and I can assure you that they are definitely well worth a listen. His album with the Blisters, Finally Bored, resides very happily on YHN’s iPod and the song Own It by the Raccoonists (Jeff + Spencer + younger brother Sammy) enjoys steady rotation on the DJ Inky playlist.
03/05/2015

Every spring I look forward to it, but not quite in the manner of, say, a holiday or a birthday—I’m well past the point of looking forward to those. Neither fully secular, sacred nor profane, it is more the initiation of a process than a specific event. Nonetheless, elements of spirituality, rebirth, renewal, and a quasi-mystical sense of nostalgia are commonly associated with it. Much misty-eyed, overwrought commentary has accrued to it over the years. Why stop now?   Despite the histrionics, this annual ritual could not be more democratic, more quintessentially American, more beautifully ordinary in its extraordinary way. It is the return of baseball season—spring training in early March in Florida and Arizona, and the regular season a month later across the continent. It is a feeling like no other and I love it dearly. In the immortal words of the fictional plucky Dominican, Chico Escuela, ‘Béisbol been berry berry good to me.’
02/23/2015

Your Humble Narrator had the distinct pleasure today of interviewing Spencer Tweedy. The purpose of the interview was to provide an advance romance article for a forthcoming concert (March 26 at the Lensic, to be exact) featuring Spencer and his dad—a chap you might have heard of by the name of Jeff. The Tweedy boys are on tour in support of their excellent album Sukierae, released late last summer, to be followed shortly thereafter by Jeff returning to the road with Wilco for spring dates.