2006-01 Vital Source Mag – January 2006
The Letting Go lesson
Dear Readers, I’ve been living on my own for more than two decades now, and over time I’ve moved slowly, inevitably, towards a more structured existence. Sometimes I get a little misty thinking about the good old days of scoring sofas from the curbs of better neighborhoods and organizing my social life around whose car had gas or what clubs were on the bus line. Other days, I revel in my ability to make a cake without running to the store for eggs and usually having a pen and paper handy when I need to make a list. But one thing about my life has never changed. I don’t send holiday cards or annual family letters. I just don’t like the idea of buying boxes of someone else’s pictures and words, agonizing over personal notes to all the people to whom I wish I’d been a better friend or relative over the past year and clogging the U.S. mail and landfills around the country with another five pounds of paper waste. And family letters are a trap. Too optimistic comes off as false; too pessimistic is a real downer. Needless to say, I no longer receive many holiday missives, and the stack gets shorter every year. At this rate, I estimate I’ll be completely free from them by 2008, except for a few holdouts who never trim their list to exclude non-participants. Wish me luck. That having been said, and never having been one to deny my own hypocrisy, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the past year at Vital. One year ago, things were looking pretty bleak. Within two weeks, I lost my managing editor and ended an often-rocky relationship with my art director. The same month, my much-loved administrator/sales assistant/ad designer decided she needed to leave to focus on her last year of grad school. Already stretched paper-thin, I picked up the slack as best I could, which wasn’t very well. Subsequently, ad revenues fell off as I spent more time doing other things (I also used to be the sales staff) and we fell behind with some bills. By February, the wolves were at the door. At our birthday party that month, I wandered around in a state of self-indulgent melancholy, drinking a little too much and silently thinking “goodbye” to everyone who came out to celebrate with us. Afterwards, I hid in my home office for three days, wrapped in my bathrobe, not even able to get it up to take a shower or answer my phone. Mehrdad and I had a few incredibly depressing conversations about the nature and implications of failure. In the meantime, though, we felt we had to keep putting out Vital until we had a plan. So we did, and I’m here to tell you that the experience was one of the most valuable of my life. It totally sucked to operate through the emotional filter that our beloved publication was in hospice; so much so, in fact, that we […]
Jan 1st, 2006 by Jon Anne Willow
Cat Power
By Erin Wolf Cat Power�s Chan Marshall has become something of a gothic folk legend, like the music she�s created over the past decade. Part indie rocker, part folk storyteller, part mystery, with complements of dark and brooding lyrics and extreme stage fright and self-doubt, Marshall rises above all her clouds with The Greatest. Going back to her Georgian roots, she employs her cultural background as the main emphasis on The Greatest, leaving the foundation of previous albums. Sonically, she re-constructs and tweaks her new songs with the help of capable Memphis musicians, including Al Green�s guitarist Mabon �Teenie� Hodges, Jim Spakes on saxophone and Doug Easley for a little dose of pedal steel. The Greatest begins with the startlingly beautiful title track about a boy who wants to be a boxer; its wistful reflection sets the tone for the album. The second track, �Living Proof,� warmly swells with horns and organs, showcasing Marshall�s lovely, throaty voice, which is better suited to the role of soul singer than dejected chanteuse. The Greatest features personal songs soaked with the languidness of a Southern afternoon, favoring relaxed storytelling and at times breaking the circle with piano-crooning introspection. 2006 finds Cat Power in a more comfortable and truly natural place � it�s as though all the tension and angst from previous albums has finally run its race, and Marshall is finally at ease. The Greatest speaks volumes for her personal journey. VS
Jan 1st, 2006 by Vital Archives
These hands were made to heal
Imagine the first blizzard of the year, a city choked in snow, a night filled with cars spinning lazy 540’s through crowded intersections. Now imagine choosing to spend such a treacherous evening driving to Potawatomi Casino to check out Drew Carey and the Improv All-Stars at the lovely Northern Lights Theater. What follows, dear readers, is the absolutely true account of just such an evening. Accompanying me on this recent laugh-o-licious night out was the editor of this fine monthly, Jon Anne Willow. It’s a story filled with raunchy comedy, unembarrassed laughter, and poor driving conditions. And, unsurprisingly, it’s also a story that involves me touching a strange man’s thighs. After braving the elements and arriving in one piece, Jon Anne and I are ushered to our sweet-as-hell front booth seats complete with panoramic view of the stage and proximity that allows us to count the pores on Drew Carey’s face. The strains of an electric piano and drum machine signal that either we’ve time-warped to a 1987 L.A. comedy club or that the show is about to begin. The cast includes Drew Carey, Kathy Kinney and Greg Proops, whose thighs I will soon be softly caressing. The show is done in the style of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and proves to be unabashedly funny: a 90-minute, completely improvised high-wire act that’s both hilarious and a wee bit nerve-wracking. Among the highlights: a mock Jeopardy episode (a crowd member suggests the answer “Strawberries,” to which comedian Jeff Davis replies, “What’s between a scarecrow’s legs?”), a ridiculous soul ballad improvised around the life of a rather repulsed-looking audience member (in fairness, if I was a 25-year-old mother of four married to a guy with a job at the phone company, I might lose my sense of humor, too), a few completely non-sequitur lines (“These hands were made for healing!”), and plenty of gags involving George W. Bush and Dick Cheney spooning. Jon Anne and I are laughing like idiots and eating up every second. At one point we turn to each other and shake hands. This is good. Then Mr. Proops (the joy I feel every time I type “Proops” is indescribable) asks for the help of an audience member who’s both had a few and not afraid to look like an idiot on stage. I, of course, volunteer. The gods of casino-based entertainment smile upon me and before I know it I’m climbing on stage and shaking Drew Carey’s hand. Here’s where the absurdity level really starts to rise; I mean, what the hell am I doing at Potawatomi on a Saturday night in front of hundreds of people, being told the rules of a game? Shouldn’t I be at home, preparing for my band’s show at the Cactus Club later that night? Or at the very least, drinking alone in a dark corner of my closet? What exactly is going on here, and why am I suddenly feeling strangely attracted to Greg Proops? My ears are ringing, my […]
Jan 1st, 2006 by Matt Wild
Madonna
By Jon M. Gilbertson When music industry observers can refer to an album that �only� went platinum as a serious failure, then it�s clear they�re talking about an artist who�s redefined the concept of success. In the last 25 years, that could only be Madonna, whose 2003 work, American Life, sold over a million copies without one Top Ten single. Hence Confessions on a Dance Floor, which revisits the clubs that first played her. Musically, it�s clearly a throwback; the tracks run together like the set of a particularly adroit DJ who knows her listeners don�t want to hear a single moment of silence to break their absorbed movement. Although �Future Lovers� touches upon the multiple harmonies of psychedelic-era Beatles, and �Hung Up� leads off the album as a genuine single, this is less a pop album to be heard than an extended mix of beats to feel as the lights flash and the drugs and alcohol do their things internally, and the sweat and sexual energy do their things externally. Lyrically, Confessions is mostly as empty as Madonna�s bank account is not, although that doesn�t prevent one or two musings, notably �Let It Will Be,� on the price of fame. Yet the combination of self-importance and everyday cliché�plus the use of the word �dork� as a rhyming lynchpin in the East Coast solipsism of �I Love New York��are in this context as beside the point as Esther, her Kabbalah name. The album is all about rhythm and motion, even if both point to the past rather than to the future, where Madonna supposedly was once leading the rest of us. VS
Jan 1st, 2006 by Vital Archives
This moment
By Lucky Tomaszek When our babies are small, and so incredibly needy, it’s easy to say, “When she’s bigger, it’ll be easier.” And as our children get older, more independent and likely much mouthier, it’s easy to say, “I wish you were still small enough to fit into the crook of my arm. It was easier then.” The truth is that for some things, it’s easier to have a tiny baby who can’t get into any trouble. For other things, it’s easier to have an older child who can help you remember your grocery list and play outside in the afternoon. There are wonderful moments with children of all ages. The key is to find those moments and live in them. Not looking forwardThis past autumn, my son Jeffrey suffered an eye injury. The kids were playing school in the bedroom and using the fold-up music stand as a desk. It fell and poked him right in the eye. I heard him scream from my bedroom and went running. The girls were already surrounding him, trying to get a peek at the damage. “He hurt his eye, Mama.”When I bent down to look, I expected a bump, a bruise, maybe some swelling. What I saw was blood tears running down his sweet five-year-old face. I had a moment of panic as I realized that the injury was worse than I had envisioned. He couldn’t open the injured eye and was in a lot of pain. Immediately, I flashed on the image of him permanently blind and perhaps patched for the rest of his life. I could hear the stories from future Thanksgiving dinners, “Yeah, Uncle Jeff had perfect vision until he was five…” Pushing these thoughts out of my head, I picked him up and headed out to the ER. A thorough exam showed that he had sustained two injuries, one inside his eyelid and the other across his cornea, costing him about 95�f his vision in that eye. The doctors said it would get better. Eyes heal very quickly and they were pretty confident that his vision would restore itself as the wound closed. We dosed him up with ibuprophen and brought him home.As he lay across my lap on the sofa, finally sleeping after his ordeal, I was grateful for the peace around us. His breathing slowed to match mine and his sweet, sweaty little body was pushed in close to me. Relieved by the news from the doctor, I remembered my earlier worry that he would be permanently blind after the accident. If it had happened, we would have all adjusted. Jeffrey is a good-natured kid, and he would have come through it just fine. But our lives would have changed in a very real way. Remembering my promiseIn that moment, I renewed the vow I made to myself years ago. I was going to try harder to recognize the importance of every day I spend with my kids. This is so important to me, as a […]
Jan 1st, 2006 by Lucky Tomaszek
The Reigning Sound
By It�s a cold November night when Greg Cartwright and his group The Reigning Sound take the Mad Planet stage. Cartwright clears his throat and apologizes for his hoarseness. But that�s not a problem, he sounds somewhere between Bobby �Blue� Bland and Paul Westerberg. In that perfect parallel universe, Cartwright�s songs are hits and writers don�t drop obscure references. A white artist hasn�t exhibited this much soul since Charlie Rich exited the planet, and as a young man Cartwright should have plenty of years ahead. With The Oblivions and later The Compulsive Gamblers, Cartwright helped pilot Memphis projects of chaos, blues, punk and Gospel. The Reigning Sound albums took a decided turn toward melody, featuring Alex Greene�s proto-soul keyboards and slowed tempos. While still wholeheartedly a mix of garage and R&B, lyrically Cartwright wears his heart on his sleeve and backs the whole thing up with hooks that refuse to leave your head. Outtakes, different arrangements, an odds & sods compilation: call Home For Orphans what you will, but this band�s crumbs are better than most groups� top-shelf material. �Funny Thing,� as close to a perfect song as you might hear, adds uncredited pedal steel to notch the melancholy factor. Much like Roy Orbison, �What Could I Do� frames what could be a short novel or black and white movie based around the interactions of three people, and leaves the listener intensely curious about the outcome. Chicago�s Green and vintage Brian Wilson come to mind throughout the album as The Reigning Sound work from solid, tried and true song structures, guitar or Hammond organ solos that build off the tune�s melody, and la-la-la vocal choruses. Nothing you haven�t heard before, but rare to hear it done so well in this day and age. And just when you fear it�s getting a bit introspective, the album�s finale is a live blast through �Don�t Send Me No Flowers I Ain�t Dead Yet.� Maxwell�s is a blurred snapshot. Recorded on a weeknight at the legendary New Jersey club, The Reigning Sound blast through a set that includes covers of Sam Cooke and Sam & Dave as well as a blitz through �Stormy Weather.� Not entirely breakneck, but when Cartwright asks the audience to bear with his guitar playing, �I�m down to three strings,� you know these guys will stop at nothing to get the music across. VS
Jan 1st, 2006 by Vital Archives
Casablanca
By Catherine McGarry Miller + photos by Kevin C. Groen Christmas carols aside, Jerusalem is not currently known for its harmony. But for Jesse Musa, chef and owner of Casablanca, it was a place that lived up to its Hebraic name: �yerusha shalem,� or heritage of peace. Musa recalls his hometown as a pleasant, beautiful city where he and his family enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle. �My family was Muslim. We went to public school with Christians and Muslims together. There was no difficulty,� he recalls, �because everyone grew up together in the same neighborhood. We didn�t see any difference between Muslims and Christians. We all believed in God. I didn�t see the differences until I came here [to the United States].� Musa avoids the conflict by viewing the news like a dieter looks at dessert: a monthly indulgence at best. Musa�s father and grandfather owned a restaurant and pastry shop. From the age of 10, Musa helped his father after school. �It [cooking] was something secure that I could make a living on and I love it. I�m happy with my job � it�s lots of hours but I enjoy it.� In 1971, at the age of 20, Musa came to the United States with his father and worked for several years at the Syrian Bakery in Chicago before moving to Milwaukee where several of his older brothers had already settled. Musa ran a couple of neighborhood groceries before opening the Sahara Inn on Mitchell Street in 1987, which he later renamed Casablanca. Musa built his menu on the rich tradition of Middle Eastern recipes perfected by his father and grandfather. Lunchtimes, Musa served a large vegetarian buffet with lentil soup, falafel, a dozen salads, five or six hot entrees and baklava for dessert. I generally don�t recommend buffets, which too often rely on mass quantities of mediocre food, but Musa�s cornucopia of fresh and flavorful delights has always been an exception for me. Throughout his years in business, Musa maintained consistently high quality food at reasonable prices. His lamb and chicken dishes are excellent. Once a friend of mine and I each enjoyed his Lamb Kifta Kabob so much, we ordered a third one to share. �I am very patient with food,� Musa muses. �I give it the time it needs to be cooked, I don�t rush my food. Maybe it takes more time, but it has to be right.� And it is. In 1993, Musa moved to Oakland Avenue in Shorewood, but by 1996, he was back in his original location on Mitchell Street. His customers happily followed his peripatetic business. Three years ago, Musa retired and closed his much-loved restaurant. That might have been the happy ending to a success story if it were not for his children. Musa�s son Alla said, �I tried Middle Eastern [food] everywhere while father was closed but found nothing like my father�s cooking. Maybe I�m prejudiced, but � we grew up in the restaurant business. Dad had a great reputation and […]
Jan 1st, 2006 by Cate Miller
