SOUNDTRACK: fIREHOSE-“fROMOHIO” (1989).
After the punk of The Minutemen, you wouldn’t expect the sound of fROMOHIO to come from Mike Watt and friends. This is fIREHOSE’s second album and the opening song, “Riddle of the Eighties” is quite poppy, but with a countryish flair. In fact, much of the beginning of the disc sounds like Meat Puppets-inspired-southwestern punk. Track two, “In My Mind,” has a wonderful latin/Mexican feel to it (singer Ed Crawford has that whole southwestern vibe down quite well, even if they are from Pedro).
The disc also has what I’ve learned is that peculiar SST Records sound–almost nonexistent bass, despite what Watt is accomplishing. Actually the bass is there, and it’s mixed fine but it’s lower than you might expect for what the kind of punk they’re playing.
Even track three “Whisperin’ While Hollerin'” which is all about the bass (with funk bass and cool blasts of guitar over the top) doesn’t have a lot of low end in it. The bass sounds crisp and clear (which is good), just not very deep. “Mas Cojones” is a weird one. Funk bass with disco guitars over the top and some odd spoken word from Watt.
The highlight is “What Gets Heard,” a great funky fast bassline with angular guitars and vocals by Watt. Near the end of the disc, “Some Things” is another solid song, really typical of this period: great bass, great guitar work and yet still a lot of punk. There’s also some fun, unexpected bits. There’s a pretty acoustic guitar solo called, “Vastopol” and two (!) drum solos: “Let the Drummer Have Some,” and the wonderfully titled, “‘Nuf That Shit, George.” Finally, “Liberty for Our Friend” is a great folk singalong, and I dare you not to singalong by the end.
Its all packaged in really short songs (most around 2 minutes, with later songs running longer). fIREHOSE was a successful SST band that burnt out rather quickly.
[READ: October 22, 2010] “My Father’s Brain”
This is a story about, yes Franzen’s father’s brain. But it’s not in any way what I imagined it would be like. As the piece opens, Franzen receives an autopsy report about his father’s brain from his mother. It comes in a package with other items, and the occasion of the package is, hilariously enough, Valentine’s Day. (And the darkly humorous anecdote of his mother sending this on Valentine’s Day is spoken quite often to friends and really anyone who will listen).
We pull back from the incident to look at Franzen’s family in toto and the story becomes a far more personal/familial story than I imagined it would. We learn about his parents’ unhappy marriage and all of the complaints that his mother had about his father. Franzen’s mother would regularly send Jonathan letters bemoaning her husband’s lack of concern/empathy/sense of humor. And then soon enough, the letters started expressing fear that Franzen’s father simply couldn’t be left by himself–for his own safety and the safety of the house. Frazen’s father was eventually diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
The bulk of the middle of the article is given over to the science of brain study. Although this article is 10 years old I was surprised that I thought they were just learning about the brain were evidently known back then (for instance, how faulty our memories are). He also gives an argument that I have felt–not about Alzheimer’s specifically but about the “diagnosing” of people in general–that science or the medical community wants to quickly label people to make it easier for them. He feels this way several years before his father is diagnosed and is a bit resistance to the initial diagnosis; however, when he finally sees him, he agrees with the assessment.
The story alternates between Franzen’s father and the medical understanding of Alzheimer’s. I was particularly interested in the idea that as Alzheimer’s sets in, the person becomes more and more childlike. That seems obvious, but it was the specifics, that you more or less unlearn what you knew in the inverse order of the way you learned it…the older the memory the longer it stays with you, that I found really interesting.
The final sections, which details his father’s death (and what they believe to be his desire to end it all, but his inability to do so) were both cold and very moving. He even relates the-hard-to-understand-unless-you’ve-been-there desire to see a loved one die.
It’s a really strong article (and was nominated for a 2002 National Magazine Award.)
This piece made me think that a good writer can make any story interesting. If a coworker or even a loved one started telling a story about their dying parent, you might be interested, but unless they really told it well, you wouldn’t be captivated by the story–like the way that a loved one telling you their dreams isn’t very often captivating. Yet here’s a story from a person that I don’t know at all, about his parents who are dead and who I know even less about, and yet the telling of this story was extremely compelling. The mark of a good writer indeed.
[…] My Father’s Brain This is a very moving piece about his father’s descent into Alzheimer’s. […]