Oot and Aboot

The heavily-pregnant Mo and I attended a local venue to watch and listen to Elvis Costello, Allen Toussaint, and their band last night. We left e with Mo's folks- a quick word about the mother-in-law. Yesterday Mo went over there for lunch and there was no food. Anyway, we entrusted the care of our little one to this woman and her husband, who for some reason laughs at everything e does (Look at that, she stuck a fork in my left gonad, heh heh. What a wiseacre!) because we do not fear social services even though we live on the east side of town. We returned to some unusual information regarding our child's welfare in this exceedingly hot (by our rather low standards for hot) weather which, as best I can tell from what this woman had to tell me, caused my daughter's hair to sweat. I don't know if this hair-sweating thing is a condition in the first instance, or a condition I need worry about, and frankly, I think the woman made it up. Maybe I should have listened to her more intently than I did. I kind of stopped after she said "hello" and now I am sorry. What if e starts to perspire from her eyelashes?

But to the show. I am as ignorant of New Orleans music as I am of nearly everything. I knew of Toussaint from Little Feat and I love the Meters who, despite the fact they couldn't really write a bridge and covered "Wichita Lineman", fucking rocked. They oozed groove and they refuse the ointment. I was ready to see this band. (I will point out, for those who may be interested in reading essays on New Orleans music history, or the invention of the piano, which is Mr. Toussaint's favoured instrument, that if you care about stuff, you already know more about it than me, and I am better served by typing my stream of barely consciousness herein than I would be in offering an unreadable and dull precis of someone else's research on alluvial soil, human intervention and the management of water levels, racial politics, syncopation, and Professor Longhair. If you want to read boring blogs about what I read somewhere, fuck off. If you want to read boring blogs about what I did or didn't do, and maybe what I think I remember thinking about it while it was happening, or what I am thinking now about what happened then when I wasn't thinking about it- you have come to the right place.)

Elvis, as he is known, is starting to resemble his namesake in the girth department. You may infer I am not a fan. I lost interest after "Shipbuilding". I was not that interested before then but I didn't want to go to Chelsea either. I still haven't gone. The thing is, why did Elvis need to put so many words in each line, and so many lines in each verse, and so many verses in each song? If you know the answer, please keep it to yourself. That is a rhetorical question. I am using for some reason, not entirely clear to me, but it has to do with this writng, and, and I don't want an answer. In any event, too many words, that was the problem. (Pot. Kettle. Black.) And what's the point in rallying behind some sweaty little white guy with glasses when he becomes reasonably popular? I will never relate to that. Bring me Andy Summers on a plate.

So, Elvis, Allen, a blended band (2/3 of the Attractions and Toussaint's band) earned their wage tonight. They were sweating out the groves. They slew the audience. They slew puppies and festooned the Orpheum with their still-steaming entrails. They read the livers and no, the Canucks will not win the Stanley Cup this year. I highly recommend this act. On the not-musical front, there were some jibes directed the Shrub, which likely endeared Elvis to the generally liberal, generally isolationaist Canadian audience, but in the midst of a speech about the disaster wrought by man and nature in New Orleans the songer silenced the laughing audience, saying: Laughter is the death of satire (or words to that effect. Maybe he said "I have a flat tire", or "I have jello in my briefs" I don't know, but he said it and it sure was funny. If only I could remember it. In any event, that won me over to the chubby little guy, with his weird little black cowboy suit, which was not very slimming at all).

On the musical front, the band was hot. The arrangements were hot. I was hot. Where is the a/c? Why did I wear latex again? The band played this version of "Watching the Detectives" which was equal parts Elvis, Trout Mask Replica, Jackie Wilson, and Lynton Kwesi Johnson. Unreal. I'd try to describe coherently it but for the prohibition I have against people who are not musicians trying to evoke or describe music. For that matter, I don't want some musician coming over here, trying to tell me why the adaggio passages invoke restlessness, or irritable bowel, or what have you. Shut up, you elitist pig, with your book-learning! Why the hell did I start this post?

Oh, yes. I went out for the night with my beautiful and heavily pregnant wife. We sat in a comfortable theatre and listened to wonderful music played with passion and intelligence to an appreciative audience. I felt our soon-to-be-born child dancing in Mo's body. I observed seat dancing manouvres undertaken by middle-aged and older men. The acid-drenched rubber chicken dance of the Deadheaded past replaced by the, I don't know, arthritic chicken dance of the RRSP set. I drove home to find our cats waiting for us on the walk, our in-laws relating some dread medical miracle regarding hair-sweat to our unlistening ears, and observed our little girl, ever increasingly her own little girl, sleeping in her bed, the sweat flooding out of her little girl hairs as she floated away... another beautiful day. Damn.

P-man out.