Author: Doug LeMoine

On the trail of the Meth Capital

Post author By Doug LeMoine
Post date 16 December 2005
1 Comment on On the trail of the Meth Capital

Meth is known by many names — speed, ice, crank, crystal, glass — and, by many accounts, it continues to spread throughout the US. Whenever a conversation turns to the subject of meth, someone inevitably identifies some American city as Our Meth Capital. Others in the conversation usually disagree — "Des Moines? I thought Fresno was the meth capital," "No, it's Gainesville, Florida," "I thought it was somewhere outside Phoenix," and so on. Judging from the cities that are thrown around in these conversations, the meth capital should be (a) poor, (b) white, © somewhat small, but not unheard of, and (d) known for heavy industry, agriculture, or tourism. Of course, the Internet has something to say about the location of our meth capital. Most seem to agree that it's in California, probably somewhere in the Central Valley now that the tweakers have been run out of Riverside and San Diego counties. Nominations for our nation's meth capital include:

The LA Weekly, California's Central Valley: "What Colombia is to cocaine, the Central Valley of California is to meth labs."
Sierra Magazine, California, Arizona, Missouri: "California, Arizona, and Missouri vie for the dubious honor of meth capital of America … in terms of sheer volume, California has always been and remains Numero Uno."
Austin American-Statesman, Not Texas: "Should the bill not pass, Estes warned, 'we can count on Texas becoming the meth capital of the United States.'"
Missouri Senator Kit Bond: Missouri: "Unfortunately, Missouri is the methamphetamine capital of the United States."
The Southern Illinois Daily Egyptian, Missouri: "The concept is coming over from Missouri and is spreading across the area."
Slate, Everyone needs to chill: "Submit the search terms "methamphetamine capital of the world" or "meth capital of the world" into Nexis, and it spits back almost 70 citations between 1983 and 2005, with many writers and sources disputing the capital's precise GPS coordinates."

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Art / Say it isn't so, Gocco.

Post author By Doug LeMoine
Post date 13 December 2005

Nooooo! Print Gocco, the ingenious, addictive Japanese home screen-printing press, is (apparently) being discontinued. Gocco supplies have been scarce lately (at Pearl Paints on Market, anyway), so I called Welsh Products. As I was ordering some bulbs and screens, I commented about the scarcity, and the woman on the other end said, "Well, they have discontinued it, you know."[Sound of phone hitting floor]She said that Riso would continue to manufacture ink, bulbs and screens for three years, but that they're ceasing production of the B6 press (the classic) very soon.Immediately after I hung up, I verified the news on the Internet — because it is so trustworthy in news of this nature — and quickly found a site dedicated to the preservation of Gocco: Save Gocco. I couldn't find any official reference, but MAKE magazine seems to believe the hype as well. Gocco's US site doesn't mention anything about it.

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Dust it off / XTC, Skylarking

Post author By Doug LeMoine
Post date 9 December 2005

Here's my question: How did this become the "Dear God" album, considering at least half the songs on it are as good or better? Damn you, Sarah McLachlan. I hadn't listened to it since maybe 1995, when Ted and I played the shit out of it. We both loved the Beatles, and I had a fondness for the synthy 80's style. This album combines these qualities, and adds a little indie rock sensibility as well.Now that the Cars and Hall & Oates have been on heavy hipster rotation for the past year or so, I'm surprised that XTC haven't seen some props, especially for this album. Compared to other XTC albums, the vocals are more blended with the rest of the sound, rather than held above it, which reduces the saccharine edge of later albums (Oranges & Lemons, for instance). Maybe XTC just doesn't have the kitschy cache of other 80's bands, who knows?Incidentally, you can read more about the most well-known song on the album. Here's a fan of Sarah, explaining why it's okay to love Sarah even if she questions the existence of God: "I do not believe that you should rule out a whole singer or album just because of one song that you do not care for."

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Dust it off / Sleater-Kinney, All Hands on the Bad One

Post author By Doug LeMoine
Post date 8 December 2005

Most of my records, CDs and tapes sit idly in crates and on shelves, so here's what I'm going to do: Every so often, I'm going to dust one off and see what it sounds like. Dredge the archive, and take a good long listen to something I haven't heard in 2+ years.

Tonight, I begin the experiment with a randomly selected record: Sleater-Kinney's All Hands on the Bad One, which I'll admit I haven't listen to in three years. Maybe four.

Here's the thing about Sleater-Kinney and me. I'm probably one of the very few San Franciscans (of a certain age and neighborhood) who *likes* them but doesn't *love* them and sometimes wishes they would cool it with the too-often shrill vocals. But of course everyone knows they're politically-active feminists who play punk rock, so what's my problem?

Let's talk about Bad One. It's got great moments: the title track and "The Professional" are rockin and fun — even after five years, they're a couple of the all-time great songs to listen to while riding a bike. The problem is that, for the most part, this album is huge step away from their early, raw sound, which had a lot less Heart-esque power ballad voice. Songs like "Milkshake n Honey," and "Ballad of a Ladyman" feature this voice, which for me is the element of their sound that rocks the least. (It comes down to this: If Carrie Brownstein harmonizes with Corin Tucker on a song, chances are that I'll like it).

I'll say something nice about them: I saw them move the crowd in a serious way at Dolores Park one summer. Their fans were freaking out, and the band itself was having fun and sounding good — even songs I didn't like were pretty great. I really wish their albums captured this better. But like anything, their sound can't be all things for all people, and they seem to please some group of people everytime they put out an album, so more power to them.

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Art / Robert Adams at SFMOMA

Post author By Doug LeMoine
Post date 7 December 2005

I'd never heard of Robert Adams before I saw his show at SFMOMA. Called "Turning Back," the photos document the destruction of the old-growth forests that Lewis & Clark passed through on their journey westward. The title refers to the implications and complications of westward advancement. When Lewis and Clark reached the West Coast, they turned back and headed east; the vast devastation in Adams's photos conveys the sense that — these days — there's no turning back."Turning Back" is bound to strike a chord with people. It evokes indelible American ideals and icons — the natural beauty of America, the promise inherent in the West, the bravery of Lewis & Clark — and presents it in a format and style eerily reminscent to another photographer named Adams — Ansel. Whereas Ansel's classic photos endeavor to communicate the vastness and beauty of America, the best of Robert's manage to convey an equally vast devastation.While I walked through the show, I thought a lot about my hike on the PCT, which took me through a few of the same forests featured in the show. As I approached the northern part of the west coast, I was pretty curious about the clear cuts. Of course I knew that it would be depressing, but really I had no idea what to expect. I imagined a sort of Lorax‑y landscape of smooth hills dotted with little stumps.As I hiked through the vast clear cuts of Northern California, Oregon and Washington, I was stunned *not* by the absence of trees, but the obvious brutality surrounding their removal. In the newer clear-cut areas, there was upturned earth everywhere, huge mounds of soil, mangled stumps — I've never been on a battlefield, but there's probably more a few similarities between the two. In some places, the dirt mounds and fallen trees completely obliterated the trail, and we had to do some pretty thorough route-finding before we made it through.In the areas that had been clear-cut years before, the trees grew in thick clumps. One didn't so much hike through them as swim, or claw, or climb. The small trees were themselves fighting for space, and their branches were so densely interwoven that the ground was invisible for hundreds of yards around. In the mornings, before the dew evaporated, one could easily get soaked in the space of twenty yards while pushing through the branches.Adams's photos convey the brutality and upheaval well, though I really wished that context had been provided along with each photo — where was it taken? when? what used to be there? I wanted to connect with specifics of geography and fit the pieces together.

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Things to do in Minneapolis when you're cold

Post author By Doug LeMoine
Post date 30 November 2005

The Twin Cities are still full of good times, especially when the mercury plunges. A couple of weekends ago, I enjoyed the chill with my friends Fish, Katie and Becky (pictured, in front of the new wing at the Walker). The highlights:

Vietnamese sandwiches at the Jasmine Deli on Nicollet. Their sandwiches are fabulous, especially the BBQ chicken.
The new and improved Walker. Twin Cities residents seem ambivalent — some love it, others are underwhelmed — but I was really impressed with the way that the new wing blends into the old, and the manner in which they space itself still seems intimate and surprising. Plus, it's open late on Friday nights; how great is that? The Walker's video installations have always been great, and I was really glad to catch a few moments of Jem Cohen's "Lost Book Found" and "Blood Orange Sky" as we walked through — worth reading: A long, detailed interview with Jem Cohen by Rhys Graham. Also, an entire room dedicated to Sherrie Levine, a cabinet full of Fluxus stuff (still cool after all these years of imitators), and a great exhibit of Huang Yong Ping that included some live spiders and scorpions.
Good, solid Midwestern dishes prepared Chez Panisse-style (local, organic, a little French) at Auriga. They also serve Kona coffee.
Weird Norweigan snacks and crazy folk-art murals at Ingebretsons, a store that sells all sorts of Scandanavian crafts and gifts. Even weirder because it's in a somewhat bombed-out part of Lake Street.
A little waterfall in the middle of the city, Minnehaha Falls. Totally worth seeing, especially in winter.
Fish and Katie's totally awesome 60's‑style neighborhood movie theater, The Riverview, that shows fairly new movies for THREE DOLLARS. Are you kidding me? Plus, it has been totally restored, and totally reminds me of the heyday of Kansas City's Glenwood, which I think has recently been gutted of all the 60's schmaltz.

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Kansas / The best state quarter so far

Post author By Doug LeMoine
Post date 7 November 2005

It just happens to be from my home state. Nice work, Kansans.

music reviews san francisco

Music / Konono #1 lights it up

Post author By Doug LeMoine
Post date 7 November 2005

Last night, Konono #1 played the Palace of Fine Arts. Before the show, I was a little worried that their scruffy, off-kilter sound may get washed-out by the fancy sound-system of the PoFA, and that they may end up sounding like lame-ass Ashkenaz-style "world music."But from the first moment, they totally ruled, and their signature sound — with homemade electric pick-ups for their ikembes (thumb pianos), dented metal discs serving as cymbals, and MASH-style megaphones as a PA — was faithfully recreated. The PoFA is a chamber-music-style venue with cushy seats and little room to boogie, but most of the crowd was standing and dancing by the third song, and groups crowded at the sides of the stage to improvise a little dance floor. Their final song was an epic, 45-minutes trance-inducing jam that had everyone clapping and chanting along with the track-suit-clad front man.Most remarkable was the vitality of it all, the sense that there was something essential and healthy and real being created. Each band member's intense, insistent presence was spell-binding, especially the older guy in the blue baseball hat who traded off with Mingiedi (the leader, pictured) on the thumb piano and percussion. He was locked into a serious groove the whole night, banging out precise rhythms, and belting out crisp, deep monotone harmonies that were jarring but somehow perfect. It's not often that San Francisco crowds get up and shake their asses, so it was especially impressive that Konono #1 made dancing in a concert hall on Sunday night seem totally natural.

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Art / LACMA garage RIP

Post author By Doug LeMoine
Post date 4 November 2005

Soon, the garage outside the LA County Museum of Art is getting torn down to make way for some big new building. Unfortunately, it's got some really excellent murals by Barry McGee and Margaret Kilgallen that I checked out when I was there a couple of summers ago.The LA Weekly says:

Now's the time to check out the celebration of street art it has become since October 2000, when husband and wife team Barry McGee and Margaret Kilgallen were commissioned to bomb the second floor of the structure in commemoration of the show "Made in California."Over the last five years, Kilgallen's smoking, trudging, scowling women and McGee's signature sad-sack faces and meticulously drawn messages have inspired uncoerced homages from several locally and internationally known artists: N.Y.-based graffiti trio FAILE's collage stencils; Spanish tagger PEZ's bubbly alien figures, and Obey Giant guru Shepard Fairey's looming wheat-paste policeman.

It wouldn't be as sad if Margaret K. was still around to bomb another garage, but the fact that she's not makes the disappearance of this free and public place even harder to take. Sucks.The whole story: "Oil on Concrete".UPDATE: An excellent critique of LACMA's decision to tear down the garage, written by art critic and blogger Tyler Green.

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Art / Muhammad Ali likes soul food

Post author By Doug LeMoine
Post date 4 November 2005

One of my favorite neighborhood art spots is called Creativity Explored, "a nonprofit visual arts center where artists with developmental disabilities create, exhibit, and sell art." Or so it says on its website.At first, I felt conflicted about Creativity Explored. Much of the art is geniunely impressive, and a few of the artists are quite talented and produce truly beautiful work. But the greatness is complicated by the artists' disabilities. So many works seem truly unique, yet you can't shake the feeling that you're admiring the product of the very thing that prevents the artist from living a "normal" life.The fact is that I really like a lot of it, especially the handwriting/drawings of John Patrick McKenzie. John's handwriting is bold and jaunty in a way that, at first, makes it look like a cross between graffiti and first-grade. But then beyond the initial impression, it becomes clear that the page is often organized very precisely. As he tends to color in the enclosed areas of each letter — the interior of an R, D, P, etc — the page takes on a heavier graphic dimension.Content-wise, each work of John's works is thematic, though "thematic" may be too fancy a term for it. Each contains a set of words or phrases that is shuffled in a variety of ways throughout the work, though some others just contain seemingly random individual words written again and again. Humor (probably unintentional) often arises from his selection of the names of stars of the 60's and 70's in his work, as well as fellow Creativity Explored artists.Generally, he'll pick a subject — for instance, the 1964 Chevy Impala — and he'll write a series of statements about how certain people feel about the subject. "Bruce Lee likes the 1964 Chevy Impala. Doris Tokuda likes the 1964 Chevy Impala," etc. The work above has a slightly different arrangement: "Sylvester Stallone likes Chef Boyardee … Muhammad Ali likes soul food."Sometimes, the subject of the work veers away from the literal. John has developed a sort of code for referring to all sorts of subjects, so you'll see phrases like "redneck pizza sheriff," "spring chicken," "cold turkey," "avocado ice cream," and many others used in strange contexts. Sometimes they're code, sometimes they're just what they are. Someone once told me that "avocado ice cream" is code, but recently a teacher at CE theorized that John had recently eaten at Mitchell's.Like much outsider art, John's work is exotic — the and it's hard to admire and discuss it without fetishizing the condition that contributes to it. But you could also say that John's work makes this less of an issue because it is so visually appealing, and often so poetic.The SF Weekly wrote an article about John in 2002: "Osama bin Laden dislikes kelloggs frosted mini wheats"