Questions 67 and 68
August 5, 2005 | 12:00am
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band has a song called Questions, where the singer had a strange dream: He went to those who "close the open door" (which probably means "keepers of secrets" or "cosmic executive secretaries") and might have asked something about the origin of the universe or something. But he ends up complaining, "They answered my questions with questions." What that really means, just let me know. Here are other deep and dark mysteries worth pondering upon.
Why do TV noontime show hosts greet so and so from Barangay Bangungot, Pasay City or San Pedro, Laguna with the phrase "happy viewing"? What does "happy viewing mean," anyway? Do people jump up and down in their living rooms while watching TV when their names get mentioned by the host with the tragic F4 haircut or the comedian with a nose as big as a Hoover vacuum cleaner? Has civilization come to this? These days, our only goal in life is to be greeted on Chowtime Na.
Why do goons in Filipino movies always wear denim or leather jackets in a country as hot as Satan’s condominium?
Why are there still tacky dance numbers on TV? Last Tuesday, I saw two starlets in milkmaid attires dancing on a variety show. Remember years ago during a "dance showdown" when a starlet tried to do a fire-eating routine? It, uh, backfired, and she had to spit out the mouthful of gas. Her rival dancer followed and slipped onstage. Twice. That’s entertainment?
Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?
Why does it hurt when I pee?
Why does watching Congressional hearings make me think of words such as "eternity" or "entropy" or "state of putrefaction"?
Why can’t this be love?
Why do DJs talk in a fake American accent? If they just look out the window – and into a landscape filled with billboards and garbage, and 3,000 cars crammed into 30 inches of road-space – they’ll know right away where the hell they are. And why do they need to tell us what they had for lunch, what time they got up, or the "meaning of existence" crap? Just play the Minutemen or John Zorn and Naked City or King Crimson, and we’ll forgive you. More music, less bollocks.
Why do VJs need to scream so much? And how come some of them sound as if they’re mouthing stuff straight from the Internet?
Why do fools fall in love?
Why does Gwen Stefani sing so nonsensically? What does Hollaback Girl mean, anyway? In the song, the Madonna wannabe sings, "Let me hear you say, this shit is bananas…" I found an interesting article on the Web that probes the profundity of that baffling cheerleader anthem.
Why, why, why, Delilah?
Why does the sun go on shining?
Why worry now?
Why can’t I be you?
Why does Fred Durst wear a Smiths T-shirt? Which is like Rasputin wearing a "Jesus is Lord" sweater. Smiths songs are melancholy and majestic at the same time, while Limp Bizkit rap-metal ditties are all about doing it all for "the nookie, the nookie, so you could take a cookie and put it in your ass…" And poseurs liked that rubbish?
Why do taxi drivers insist on talking about politics or religion?
Why does one hour seem like eons when you’re inside a cab with a driver who is unequivocally against deodorants?
Why do I always, always, encounter the weirdest cab drivers? One cabbie wanted to set me up with his daughter and called me "manugang." Another one talked to an invisible person, and apparently the invisible person answered back. I also remember a taxi driver whose breath was so bad it could be used by evil scientists in exterminating the human race. The strangest was the guy who kept hocking throughout our damn trip. Must have kept a phlegm factory in his throat, or a scratchy turntable. I got used to the hocking that I started missing out the moment I stepped out of the cab.
Why can’t we be friends?
Why are really good bands such as Shiela & The Insects and Twisted Halo not as famous as overrated saps like Spongecola or Hale?
Why is there a proliferation of cover tunes?
Why can’t the rest of INXS accept the fact that Michael Hutchence was INXS? Why is Dave Navarro, one of the best guitar players of his generation, talking like Paula Abdul in Rock Star: INXS? "In your next performance, I want to see the real you," Dave said to one of the contestants, who is a Joss Stone clone. (Come to think of it, all the women in that show try to ape the annoying belter.) Why do the Rock Star: INXS contestants gyrate like epileptics when performing? A la Ian Curtis? Is that their idea of how rock stars are supposed to sing? That show is enticing as Mark Wahlberg fronting Steel Dragons in that stupid Rockstar flick.
Why are there some "music experts" who have no idea that Franz Ferdinand is a band and not a person?
Why I am asking these bloody questions?
For me, the best Joni Mitchell albums are the ones where the former coffeehouse folksinger started dabbling into a hybrid of folk and jazz (beginning with "Court and Spark" and "The Hissing of Summer Lawns"), which was subsequently followed by her jazzy phase (illustrated brilliantly by "Hejira," "Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter," "Mingus," "Shadows and Light," the scorching live platter).
Joni got the help of a tempestuous bassist in the person of Jaco Pastorius (along with other jazz cats like saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Herbie Hancock, guitarists Robben Ford and Larry Carlton, and other stellar musicians).
Jaco was part of the pioneering jazz fusion outfit called Weather Report (led by Shorter and keyboardist Joe Zawinul) and figured prominently in albums like "Heavy Weather," "Mr. Gone," "8:30," "Black Market," "Night Passage," etc. Pastorius also played in Pat Metheny’s debut album titled "Bright Size Life," as well as a couple of Mike Stern and Al Di Meola classics. He also released solo albums such as "Jaco," "Word of Mouth" and "Invitation," among others. Jaco purveyed incendiary basslines in all those jazz releases, but it was his sideman job for Joni Mitchell that his tasteful bass passages came to the fore: the eloquent fretless lines, the artificial harmonics, the lightning-fast arpeggios, the Jerry Jemmot/James Jamerson grooves, etc. (For those who really want to know how good Jaco was, they should listen first to the Joni sessions.)
I got a copy of Joni Mitchell’s "Hejira" album – a piece of beautiful black vinyl with a coffee-stained white jacket – as a gift from a junkie friend in college. Before that moment, I associated Joni with the kitschy Judy Collins single (Both Sides Now), and Jaco was a musician I only encountered in Flea and Sting interviews. The first track, Coyote, was like the first step in a strange and beautiful journey. "You just picked up a hitcher/A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway."
The other tracks (Amelia, Blue Hotel Room, etc.) also elaborated Joni’s personal hejiras, her wanderlust ways as a musician and as a human being. But my favorite cuts are the ones with Pastorius providing the funky and poetic low-end parts: Coyote, Hejira, Black Crow, and Refuge of the Roads. Especially Refuge of the Roads, which features the bassist’s most lyrical playing since A Remark You Made and one of Joni’s most poignant lines: "In a highway service station/Over the month of June/Was a photograph of the earth/Taken coming back from the moon… And you couldn’t see these coldwater restrooms/Or this baggage overload/Westbound and rolling, taking refuge in the roads." Lyrics detailing how insignificant all our strainings are in the greater scheme of things.
I became a Joni and Jaco fan after that and bought "Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter," "Mingus" and "Shadows and Light." "Mingus" is the collaboration between Joni and the legendary bassist Charles Mingus, which got Joni crucified by the press because it was neither fish (folk) nor fowl (jazz). Joni found herself exiled from the mainstream. Nevertheless, those who hate categories with a passion will love the tracks on "Mingus" featuring Pastorius on bass: God Must Be A Boogie Man, Sweet Sucker Dance, the propulsive The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines and Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. These are great songs, whatever they are.
But the centerpiece of the whole Joni and Jaco enterprise is "Shadows and Light." Joni toured with an incredible backup band composed of Jaco (bass), Pat Metheny (guitar), Michael Brecker (sax), Lyle Mays (keyboards) and Don Alias (percussions), resulting in the best live album of all time – next to The Who’s "Live at Leeds" and Led Zep’s "The Song Remains The Same."
I just love how Joni and the band deconstruct songs like In France They Kiss On Main Street, Edith and the Kingpin, Furry Sings The Blues, even old reliables like Freeman in Paris and Woodstock. It’s stunning how Jaco’s basslines illuminate Joni’s lyrics, like a one wide-eyed wanderer embellishing the stories of another wide-eyed wanderer.
Hey, why am I so nostalgic about a long-gone moment, a time when Joni Mitchell was the queen of pain and Jaco Pastorius was the bassist of doom? Maybe I miss those days (before monolithic marketing machineries or music videos that do our imaginings for us) when you put a record on, let magic seep from the speakers and follow the beautiful and broken drifters like Joni and Jaco.
No questions asked.
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