I recently took part in a vitamin study, and I got paid quite a bit of money (well for me anyway). Since I lost most of my summer work it was a godsend to get paid for taking vitamins. On the way back I stopped at an interesting memorabilia shop since it was not too far out of the way. But first a bit of background.
Weeks ago I was supposed to meet my friend Kelly, and she graciously got me into Brookfield Zoo for free. The most impressive creatures I saw there were the spiny anteaters who were very cute but clumsy and they were very active walking around their dim, dark cage. Spiny anteaters are one of the only two types of egg laying mammals left. The other is the platypus. I recently saw a very cute platypus clip on YouTube. But If I ever ask for a platypus for Christmas don’t take me seriously.
Anyway I have a book about odd places in Illinois. There was a place it mentioned in Berwyn which was supposed to sell horror themed memorabilia called Horrorbles. Anyway I looked it up on line, and since I was close by I intended to visit it. I was very excited because horror memorabilia shops are rare. There used to be a great place in the flat iron that sold mostly horror videos (they had a great selection) and Bucket of Blood in Avondale on California is also pretty cool (they were probably named after the great Roger Corman cult classic Bucket of Blood. See http://www.bucketoblood.com/index/index.html
I discovered to my dismay that Horrorbles had closed just a few months ago. However I wasn’t gratified to learn that some of the stuff from Horrorbles had been moved to another great nearby memorabilia shop called Reel Art which is also in Berwyn (I knew about it because I read that my Blaxploitation idol Pam Grier appeared there a few years ago.) There is going to be a horror flashback party there on August 5th and there will be a whole horrorbles themed weekend there on August `12. Their website is www.reelartstore.com and the address is 6727 W. Stanley. There will be food, drinks, prizes and more. I saw a great b/w Son of Dracula poster there for 5 bucks and a sizable magazine collection.
Anyway later on I met up with my friend Kelly again, and she made some fine ice tea for me that was made from sone obscure Swedish berry (thanks Kelly.) Her cats always act like they are neglected when I am there. We had a terrific conversation (call me a snob but when I talk to people that don’t read anything I want to just leave immediately), and she is very knowledgeable and cultured which you might expect from an anthropology prof.
She mentioned Biko, and I told her that I first knew about the African activist because of the terrific Peter Gabriel (who is superior to Phil Collins in all ways except drumming). That’s how she found out about him too. We started talking about cultural appropriation, and I said I found it disturbing that so few Peter Gabriel fans actually took the time to explore or actually purchase real African music that did not have a white guy as front man. Americans seem to be enormously unresponsive to outside culture and uncurious about international music.
I had been thinking about African influenced white music because I recently heard some Adam and the Ants and Bow Wow Wow (I want candy too but I am on a diet). Both of them use tribal drumming and rhythms. Today Vampire Weekend does the same thing. I still think you are better off hearing Fela Kuti but there’s room for both.
This goes back to the whole Blues Brothers conundrum. Obviously John Belushi and Aykroyd did not have a fraction of the singing talent of Sam and Dave or God help us Aretha Franklin although they were entertaining enough doing the Blues Brothers routine onstage (sorry but the sequels, Jim Belushi and John Goodman did not measure up. In the days of disco when many r and b innovators were having hard times the Blues Brothers included them in the film and on the album, and they helped them get some well-deserved cash. So were the Blues Brothers saving them or exploiting them? Maybe a little of both.
On FACEBOOK Maxwell Bodenheim posted a very interesting article about cultural appropriation that argues quite persuasively that sometimes the whole issue has gotten BLOWN OUT OF PROPORTION. Here’s a link to the article.
Still It’s kind of a tragedy that every other rock and roll singer makes millions while the blues masters they ripped off often ended up obscure and broke (I mean you Led Zeppelin). Also it was repulsive that Little Richard released the classic version of Tutti Frutti and Pat Boone’s own tepid white washed version started receiving all the airplay and it charted higher. This is what Richard said. “They needed a rock star to block me out of white homes because I was a hero to white kids. The white kids would have Pat Boone upon the dresser and me in the drawer ’cause they liked my version better, but the families didn’t want me because of the image that I was projecting.”
A similar accusation can be leveled at Paul Simon or Peter Gabriel who used African musicians and helped elevate their popularity. It complicates things that Paul Simon broke a boycott to play in Africa when many musicians were protesting apartheid (most of my students don’t even know what that means.)
My friend Kelly was looking for a word which describes people that have a narrow view of the world and have no curiosity about how other people live, At first I offered the world parochial but it turned out the word she was looking for was provincial.
This reminded me of a few teachers that I knew in Mount Greenwood back when I taught at the Merwick Academy department. I was surprised to learn that although they lived in Chicago (on the south side in Mount Greenwood to be exact) they had never been to the loop, and they had no desire to explore the culture in the big city or see museums or anything else there. They were all of Irish descent, and all of the people they associated with were also south side Irish Catholics. Talk about a limited world view. I think that’s part of what you miss by not going away to school.
I live in the Midwest and I AM WELL AWARE that many in New York and CALIFORNIA see us as backward and provincial. I remember that during a famous MTV interview David Bowie asked Mark Goodman why the station plays so few videos by black artists when they play so many black influenced videos by white artists who are playing essentially the same music. Goodman suggested that progress is being made but the station is also playing videos for the people in the Midwest who are horrified by Prince. Of all the parts of the country Goodman’s example of small mindedness was us. I was paraphrasing here.
But then again my friend Kelly said she knew some upper middle class Jewish people who went away to school and only hung out with other upper class Jewish people from the same area when they went away to college so you never know.
On the way home from Kelly’s I ran into some protesters holding signs so I being the civic minded person I am I naturally stopped to see what they wanted (if Trump saw them I bet he would order his chauffeur to run them over.)
The protesters were near a Chevrolet dealer (Jack Phelan) at 41rst and Harlem. When I stopped to talk to them they said that the auto dealer wanted to drastically cut the hours and pay of long time workers there. They told me that there was some newspapers that covered the protest, but I could not find any articles online.
I also saw some protestors’ elsewhere on Harlem but they were just leaving. Finally I saw some people today at a Mazda dealer near 95th in Oak Park holding signs. I spoke to them and they were mechanics and they explained to me how they often work full time (40 or more hours) but since they do piece work they often receive credit for only 30. I explained my own situation and how you can hypothetically teach 8 classes for 30 years but if you teach at more than one school you get no benefits. I saw three protests in less than 24 hours. The economy may be getting better but it’s obvious that the profits are all getting sucked up to the top, and neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are really pro labor.
At one time there were many pro labor journalists but now the labor coverage in the media is appalling.
Whenever I hear conservatives talk about protesters they always seem to characterize them as crazy quasi anarchists who are eager to commit violence. That has never been my experience. Most of the many protesters I have met have been well behaved, intelligent and much more reasonable and sane than most of the people currently occupying the white house.
