UPDATED -- Walking on water with the Jesus Lizard, risen once more

In trying to integrate my punk rock past with my culture warrior blogging present, I've chatted here a bit about bygone alt-rock geniuses such as Smashing Pumpkins and the Replacements.

Next on my list is the legendary Jesus Lizard, whom I enjoyed or endured not just in 1993 in Austin, Texas, as I first thought but -- according to ticket-stub evidence in my CD insert for Lash -- late in 1994 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.

Back then, I would have recently broken up with a motorcycle mama whom I met after moving to the Bay from Chicago, where the Lizard hatched, shed its drum-machine scales and rose to fearsome foursome infamy.

Extant from '89 to '99, the Lizard recently reunited and will set siege to the Bay Area in October at the Fillmore. Tour details are on LiveDaily.com. And lo and behold, opening for the band in a super-hip double bill is fellow travelers Killdozer. More on dem guys later.

To be very unhip in retrospect, I would opine that one of Jesus Lizard's best albums was their latter-day major label disc Blue, although it's their early indie records that gave them cool cachet. The song that most sticks in my head is "Puss" from the disc Liar:

The band's success didn't just hinge on the Lizard's sombre, Sabbath-y groove and scalding, metallic guitar work. What gave another dimension to the group's hype was singer Dave Yow's NSFW stage maneuver dubbed the tight and shiny. But that's really a gimmicky aside to the potent brew of sonic angst the band spewed at audiences.

Yow has a pretty out-of-control reputation, although from what I know, it comes mostly from slurring words and performing without a shirt. He seems to be pretty incisive guy after all, as exemplified by his words of wisdom in Magnet magazine on leading a band:

The worst thing a frontman can do is be Dullsville. Sometimes, you get the toe-tappers. On the other hand, there are people who try too hard.

I remember one band from Tennessee called the Diarrhea Of Anne Frank. I was impressed with the name, but they were just trying so hard to be as wacky and offensive as they could—wearing diapers or whatever—that they just came off like dumb clowns.

I think there has to be a fair degree of honesty in it. It’s got to come from inside you instead of coming from an idea you act out.

Before I heard that the Jesus Lizard was going on tour, I had thought about flying to Chicago to catch one of their recent singular reunion shows. I'm reminded of when I almost got on a plane to see the last Pussy Galore show in the late '80s in New York City, but didn't.

Now I'm thinking of a special trip next month to the Windy City to catch my all-time fave indie group, Eleventh Dream Day, although you likely haven't heard of them.

(Pussy Galore, by the way, begat John Spencer's bands Boss Hog and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, which performs Anthony Bourdain's TV show theme and did other notable stuff with blues dudes.)

Maybe Screeching Weasel rings a bell for you; that Chicago-land band opened for Berkeley's Green Day on tour in Europe years ago, and Green Day's bassist has played with them. The Weasel plans to reunite for a show in October in their hometown, although original guitar player John Jughead (whom I went to high school with waaaaay back in the mid-'80s) apparently wasn't invited.

But back to the Lizard. As memory crystallizes from the fog of the '90s, I realize I saw the band again in Mountain View when they were on the Lollapalooza bill, a then-mind-numbing coup of coolness for a supremely alt-rock band. Looking back, we can only wonder, what the f*** happened to the scene after it finally achieved world domination? (I like to think I played a small role in all that as a college radio DJ, by the way.)

In retrospect, Palo Alto's ingenius Ramones-meet-Runaways replica The Donnas were pretty much an also-ran in rock history, instead of the biggest thing to emerge from the Bay Area since the aforementioned Green Day. The San Francisco-based Melvins never reached escape velocity from cult status, either, while local yokels Painless Martha and Mother Hips are likely just memories to aging hipsters rather than household words among today's emo kids.

In a nutshell, it seems that alt-rock morphed into Limp Bizkit, which begat System of a Down which, somehow, begat the Jonas Brothers. So much for all that Pavement that '90s record-buyers laid in order for "math rock" to steal the spotlight from the Motley Crues and Poisons of the world -- who of course are now back on top like grunge never happened.

That budding, hopeful '90s San Francisco scene seems as far away now as the fabled Barbary Coast, a limitless world where rapscallion art was bursting at the edges of everyday culture. Where we saw posters on light poles for hot upcoming gigs, now you would look for blogs and tweets promoting concerts, I guess.

There is a brilliant passage In Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas that I bet resonates with every generation, about the rise of underground culture up to a popular, almost transcendant point, and then the slow, inelegant backslide to zero:

San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world.

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

Start over, next wave. Remake the wheel again.

In the end, I'm sure it's I who changed, not the world. We all grow older, get tired, leave the muck of rock rebellion to younger, faster cats to give it their own inspired spin. I hope too many don't succumb to the horrors of running naked in the streets, howling for a fix, this time around.

For more info: Exactly what "genre" of rock does Jesus Lizard belong to? Post-punk, math rock, noise rock, grunge? Here's a relevant, lively and informative discussion for those with too damn much time on their hands trying to figure out who Killdozer was. Here's a nice review of Liar by Jesus Lizard.

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Visit my other blog on Examiner.com for more dis-and-dat commentaries an' such.

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UPDATE 1 p.m. 6/22:

Make one wisecrack about a randomly referenced band, and this is what happens. A commenter on my identical post on Examiner.com complained that I had no clue the briefly mentioned band Killdozer is still a driving force in music (yuk).

I see Killdozer did perform some reunion shows last year, as evidenced by this blog post. So yeah, they too transcended the faded glory of pre-Nirvana underground scene. (Both Killdozer and Kurt Cobain's band were recorded by Madison, Wisc., producer Butch Vig, of course.)

I'm glad to learn the ur-grungy Killdozer are back. Most of those turn-of-the-decade '80s/'90s bands seem to fit in the "where are they now?" category, so the conversation typically takes a retro direction, hence my ignorance of their comeback.

It also seems that Killdozer will be playing a high-profile, hometown show in September -- and with legendary So-Cal punks The Urinals at that!

Grab your hardhats and plungers. Thanks for the awakening comment, Dan.

Merced College copes with historic budget crunch

Along the very contemporary theme of financial turmoil, my latest article on community college funding is out on the Merced County Times Web site. Here's a snippet:

Things are fairly quiet at Merced College, with classes out until summer session starts June 22.

When students do return en masse, though, they will have almost 50 fewer class options than they did a year ago because of California's dire budget straits. Fall courses stand to be cut as well.

The college is in the double bind of having its funding slashed just as it is registering a jump in enrollees who have nowhere else to turn.

"We're basically trying to keep programs intact, trying to keep staff here," said Robin Shepard, director of the college's public relations office. "Unfortunately it's going to fall on the students. They may have to wait another semester or two to get the classes they need."

With jobs eroding, people are going back to school for a career 2.0 transition, a decision all the more meaningful in Merced County, with its 20 percent unemployment.

In a much-quoted commencement speech in the Midwest, President Barack Obama recently celebrated community colleges as "increasingly important centers of learning where Americans can prepare for the jobs of the future."

First lady Michelle Obama, however, gave her commencement speech at the upstart UC Merced campus, where she noted the region's "record high unemployment and foreclosure rates" even as she cheered some graduates for being the first in their families to earn a degree.

Many Merced College alumni have achieved that same feat in the past four decades, but how doable that will be in coming years is questionable while the country struggles financially.

You can read the rest here; believe it or not, there's a hopeful side to things, too.

Despite downturn, a ray of hope from community colleges

The good folks at the Merced County Times weekly newspaper have asked me to do some scribbling for them. Among other assignments, I recently interviewed departing students and others at Merced College's 2009 graduation ceremony, including this tidbit tucked into Jonathan Whitaker's comprehensive article:

"I'm going to be the first in my family to get a degree," said Maria Ceja before the ceremony began. "It took a long time, but I feel proud of myself. I'm halfway there, I still need a step up."

The 29-year-old from Planada was getting her Associate's degree in child development, although she said she still needs some transfer classes before she can head to San Joaquin Delta College for a B.A. in the same field.

The working mom is a teaching assistant at a daycare center in Merced, and her husband, 11-year-old daughter, 7-year-old son and her own parents were in the stands to celebrate Ceja's achievement.

Her younger sister, Daisy Murillo, also was there to watch Ceja graduate. She said she was impressed with her older sister's dedication to get a degree.

"I didn't think she was ever going to do it," Murillo said. "A few units here and there. She has to take night classes. It takes hard work to juggle between school and work and kids."

The college, by the way, is not to be confused with UC Merced, where Michelle Obama gave the inaugural commencement speech, an event that inspired much media fanfare.

Eight-legged freaks of California and beyond

Here's the bold jumping spider in action, © Peter J. Bryant.

One thing I didn't see much of in the Bay Area that I do now that I've relocated to the Central Valley is lots of interesting-looking spiders.

At the doorway of my house in Merced is a frisky little fellow of genus and species Phidippus audax (family Salticidae), a.k.a. the bold jumper or bold jumping spider.

He's a furry, black and white arachnid that I noticed on closer inspection has two large, matte metallic, jade-colored spots on his face called chelicerae, actually part of his fangs.

The critter, about the size of a dime, is described as common to North America, but this was the first one I've ever seen. 

As I approached him and tried to steer him toward me with my baseball cap for a better look, he reared up on his hind legs to ward off the rude observer with his airborne front paws.

A fine image of this pose and other close-up shots of the bold jumper are on a site hosted by UC Irvine, as sampled here.

For more on this biting subject, visit my relevant San Jose Culture Examiner post.

I know, I know, this isn't really a fit for San Jose journalistic terrain, but that's what happens when you up and move to a place without an Examiner edition -- yet. Stay tuned for a Fresno site, y'all!

So I just moved to the Central Valley, where your delicious plums, apricots and other orchard edibles come from.

This weekend here in ag-ville, Michelle Obama is set to give the commencement speech to the first graduating class of UC Merced. The youngest campus in the University of California system scored a major coup in luring the first lady to the area, slammed by 20 percent unemployment and stalled development thanks to the recession.

Hopes were sky-high not long ago that the university would inspire an economic rebirth for the community, which didn't quite work out the way the powers that be had hoped.

For instance, I'm sitting in a spacious tract house with fruit trees in my backyard next to a field that had been slated for yet more sprawl homes that, thankfully, appear on hold while local construction is at a standstill. Between me and the school is about four miles of spotty housing development and lots of open fields awaiting the roar of bulldozers.

Merced is popularly known in the media as ground zero for the housing boom turned bust. Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble .... 

CLICK HERE for more housing-downturn details in my expanded San Jose Culture Examiner post on this topic.

Culturally speaking, the local kiddies refer to their 'hood as Mer-dead. Still, I like the mood here a lot; must remind me of the rural outskirts of Chicago, near where I grew up. 

It's peaceful in Merced compared with the frantic, freaked-out Bay Area I just left. The wind rustles through the trees, and time don't matter to me. I'm a thousand miles from nowhere, but there's no place I'd rather be:

Brisbane officials get bootylicious for art

We all gloat when politicians make asses of themselves, but officials in the small city of Brisbane took things to another level when they agreed to let an artist imprint their derrieres on seat cushions for an exhibit.

May is the last month to assess "Seats of Power" at Brisbane's City Hall, an installation by Beth Grossman. She persuaded the mayor, the fire chief and a bunch more bun broadcasters to pose their posteriors for images she emblazoned on cushions that were then, ah, mounted on the wall.

For the full story on my San Jose Culture Examiner page, CLICK HERE. 

Go on, get off your seat.

Cinco de Mayo fest is off in Fruitvale district, on in San Jose

Curse the local economy, whose latest cultural victim is Oakland's Fruitvale district bash for Cinco de Mayo. On the other hand, San Jose's Cinco de Mayo fiesta is still on for Sunday.

What this really gets me thinking about, though, is Carnaval. San Francisco's usual blowout is set for May 23 and 24 in my beloved former home base, the Mission District.

To whet your appetite, enjoy these pics I shot of the proceedings from a couple years back. Dare I say, they stand the test of time.

For more on Cinco de Mayo and Carnaval, check out my San Jose Culture Examiner post.

And speaking of hip hop, here comes the Chemo Kid

Giovanni Goodman, a.k.a. the Chemo Kid, is about to get mad props from the media, I bet. The Vacaville rapper popped up in my "hyphy" Google alert as an up-and-comer who's been battling cancer for about a half-decade.

The 20-something rhymer, who grew up in Queens listening to such old-school flavors as Public Enemy and De La Soul, is set to drop his debut disc, "The Chemical Chronicles," next month.

For the full story on my San Jose Culture Examiner page, CLICK HERE.

Silk Road festival set for May 2 in San Jose

Celebrate alluring Asian traditions that predate ascetic Muslim extremism at the upcoming Festival of the Silk Road, set May 2 in San Jose at the Mexican Heritage Plaza Theater, multiculturally enough.

For the full story on my San Jose Culture Examiner page, CLICK HERE.

Three pirates killed, U.S. captain tastes freedom, yo ho!

As you know by now, Navy SEALs cut down three seafaring rogues who kidnapped a U.S. freighter captain, ending a five-day standoff along the Somali coast between pirates and America's armed forces. Reports say the snipers busted just three caps.

I'm a pirate lore fan and found a way to explore the fascinating bygone era of anarchist seafaring societies thanks to a dearly departed East Bay pirate wares seller.

A few times, I wrote about the shop and interviewed owner Don Hatcher for the Oakland Tribune:

Despite their fierce reputation, pirates created one of the first true democracies aboard their ships, where Don said "every man got an equal say and an equal vote," and crew members were guaranteed their freedom after a certain time or a certain amount of loot had been pillaged.

The annual NorCal Pirate Festival is coming up in June at the Vallejo waterfront; get details here.

For more tidbits about pirates, the now shuttered store named SeaWolf Trading Co. and so on, CLICK HERE.

It's Hitler's world, we just live in it. Yes we do.

Google is a lot of fun for many things, but searching for rants about Obama being like Hitler has to be the greatest query of all.

Watching foam-at-the-mouth Fox News man Glenn Beck compare America's president with the scourge of 20th century Europe, obliquely, inspired me to see just how popular the rhetorical scare tactic is, now that we know Obama -- thanks to his early missteps -- is not quite Jesus.

What I learned is that he apparently has more in common with the Antichrist, according to some "critics" on the interwebz.

For all that, CLICK HERE.

If this stuff makes your head spin, try some Daily Show comic relief on the topic:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Unusual Suspect
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Chew on that, Billy Goat: Early homer for Cubs in opener

Whether you love the Giants, the A's or even the Cubs,
share your disdain for the Yankees through this classic
T-shirt or poster by BustedTees. Sorry, Matt Artz.

No sooner had the season begun than leadoff Cubs hitter Alfonso Soriano clobbered the second pitch he saw into the Astros' stands.

Whether you're an expat Chicago fan like me or just a root-root-rooter for the underdog, you gotta have faith that the early homer is a good omen for the all-time also-rans of Major League Baseball.

The Giants and A's have nothing on the lovable losers, stadium controversies notwithstanding. More on that later.

Just in case you haven't the faintest interest in non-Bay Area hardball lore, the Cubbies have failed to make it to World Series since 1945 and haven't won it all since 1908.

That's two years after the great San Francisco earthquake and six years before the start of World War I.

Legend has it that the curse of the Billy Goat is responsible for the Cubs' continuing slide into ignominy. Even the Boston Red Sox have a less pathetic losing streak.

Completely Used up By September, indeed.

Here's one telling of the curse and subsequent setbacks such as a black cat in the dugout and, of course, that unsavory Steve Bartman incident, courtesy of writer James Lincoln Ray.

In my fantasy, poetic justice holds that when the Cubs finally do return to glory and win the World Series, it will be at the disgrace of the Yankees, the most unlovable team in all of baseball.

So what if they have a fancy new stadium? Nothing tops the heart and soul of the time-honored bricks and ivy of Wrigley Field -- even if that blabbermouth pitcher Zambrano recently gave comfort to the enemy:

“You come into a ballpark like this and you see great things,” the Cubs ace told The Associated Press on Saturday before his team’s 10-1 exhibition loss at the sparkling ballpark in the Bronx. “You wish that Chicago’d build a new stadium for the Cubs."

Cub fans are used to getting smacked around, but by their own pitcher? Sigh.

Speaking of building new stadiums, it looks like Fremont is out for a new A's home, while San Jose is picking up steam as the hot spot for the team to relocate to, even if it currently is Giants territory.

Meanwhile, although it's been in the 70s and clear around the Bay, it snowed in the Windy City yesterday. Talk about tough breaks.

Go Northsiders. Next year is here.

For more info: Check out Examiner.com domination of opening day. Make sure if you ever visit Chicago, you pay respects at the Billy Goat Tavern. Cheezborger!

Adios, E.R., thanks for the literary TV in a sea of 'reality' swill

The most sinister and one of the most enjoyable
chracters on E.R. was brought to life by Paul McCrane,
who also directed some episodes. Photo by NBC.

Did you get excited about the finale of E.R., or are you one of those "I stopped watching long ago" naysayers?

Regardless of whether the show jumped the shark with the helicopter-crash killing of brilliant bad guy Dr. Romano, it was always about character development and emotional resonance first, not just slam-bang rating grabs.

It took me a while to get into E.R., but when this Chicago native caught the bug, he fell hard.

It was while I was living alone in a chilly, remote locale to work a so-so job and feeling utterly unsure of the future that I saw some back-to-back reruns late at night.

That let me follow the evolution of the characters and their myriad subplots in a way I likely never would have if I just happened to see occasional weekly episodes.

On the other hand, that first helicopter accident involving Romano -- really a secret weapon for the show, someone the audience could root against in a satisfying way and thereby sympathize with everyone else, his victims -- that fixed my attention on the series for good.

Parminder Nagra helped bring alive the stories on
E.R. with her cerebral portrayal of Dr. Neela Rasgotra,
who wasn't shy about workplace love. Photo by NBC.

After I discovered the minor miracle of the DVR, I managed to catch up on the entire series and really became a devotee.

Nevermind that the reruns appeared on a women's lifestyle-marketed network. Lots of Joy dishwashing liquid commercials and such, for sure.

If I had to pick a character I empathize with the most, I'd say it was Neela (played by Parminder Nagra), whose ambivalence about her life -- and love -- choices and "stuck in her head" struggle felt very familiar.

We even both were exiled to Michigan for a while. And we're drawn to Louisiana, for different reasons.

If I had to pick one episode that encapsulated the believable subtlety of the actors in a wildly entertaining storyline that showed the range of the writers and producers, I'd say it was when Drs. Carter and Kovac worked in Africa:

If I had to pick one weakness of the series, it was the patients. Their portrayal never was up to par with the regular cast's ability, and it was the hospital staffers who carried the emotional weight of the show anyway. How distracting they had to heal all those complaining sickies.

I had the pleasure of interviewing a local actress who landed a minor role on the show several years ago, although I never got around to interviewing Redwood City native Linda Cardellini, who played nurse Samantha Taggart for a surprising run, given how the chicas seemed to come and go in a revolving-door fashion.

Anyway, the one I did get on the phone, Giovannie Espiritu (a.k.a. Pico), was a blip on the radar of E.R. in the long run, but she lent her brief starpower to the cause of domestic-violence prevention, as recorded in this snippet of a San Mateo County Times article about a 2007 relationship seminar at a South City church:

Giovannie Pico, a TV actor who lives in San Bruno with her 6-year-old son and other relatives, will host Saturday's event. The Filipina said the religious setting is important to her because of her own experience dealing with an abusive partner.

"I was told by church members that I needed to pray harder," she said, "or that I was supposed to submit to my husband. It's really like a change in tide in the way that the church is talking about domestic violence."

Pico, 28, has appeared on "ER" and "Bones" and has an upcoming role in "Gilmore Girls," is directing a Tagalog version of "The Vagina Monologues" on March 24 at the Herbst Theatre. The 28-year- old said focusing on the Filipino community is part of a broader effort to educate people about abuse.

"There's a lot of shame that's surrounding it," Pico said. "I was in a relationship that was domestically violent, and I didn't even know. I didn't know what a healthy relationship looked like."

It may not be a healthy relationship to fall in love with a TV show either. E.R. eventually led to crushes on The Shield and Lost and Mad Men, and so it goes. Yet I will always have a soft spot for County General Hospital and its nuanced, lifelike, downright literary cast of characters.

Thanks for that respite from the worries of real life, if only for an hour a week.

For more info: Finally, the official NBC site for E.R. has full episodes you can watch online and avoid the Joy dishwashing liquid interruptions. Chuck Barney at the Contra Costa Times wrote a nice send-off to the series, noting the litany of character hookups that kept us wondering whom Neela would neck with next.

Check out my other blog as the intrepid San Jose Culture Examiner.

Auto news round-up, including mad-as-heck Michigan

Monday was a big day for auto-related news, as you probably noticed.

Nationally, the media buzzed about President Obama's restructuring demands for General Motors and Chrysler, lest he steer them into bankruptcy.

All the crummy economic news is taking its toll, not least on laid-off workers in the car industry. Recently, there was a beat-down at a Michigan GM dealership that unexpectedly closed.

Employees apparently had a liquid lunch and funneled their anger at each other. The fun was captured by a lucky news crew and is out on YouTube: CLICK HERE FOR THE SMACKDOWN FOOTAGE.

I used to work as a newspaper reporter in frigid southwest Michigan. Good place to be from.

Mercury News contracts to core readership; will you notice?

If you're like me and, I bet, most other blog readers, you get your news for free online, so the death of newspapers is a largely abstract concept in your everyday life.

For what it's worth, the San Jose Mercury News, once one of the proudest daily papers in the land, will no longer deliver on weekdays to readers in San Francisco or other "outlying areas." Ultimately that means less funding for reporters and fewer news stories produced in any depth.

I suppose one could ask, if a forest once fell to provide the daily distribution medium for newspaper publishing, and all the unemployed journalists end up living as homeless wildmen in the treeless barrens, will anyone reading blogs on their PDAs notice?

CLICK HERE FOR MORE.

Top three Replacements songs that should be household hits

This is a tricky post to write, because the Replacements had no hits to begin with, and because you more than likely heard of the band before you ever heard their tunes on the radio.

Decades (almost) after their dissolution, fresh evidence of their greatness is on a slew of reissues of their ouevre, a treatment that Billboard magazine says closes the book on the band's also-ran history.

But they were supposed to have several megahits, albeit not necessarily the most raw, passionate, melodic, uncompromising cuts they waxed in their artistic prime.

As an aside, for comparison, the three hits they were supposed to easily have notched are:

1. Achin' to Be
2. I'll Be You
3. The Ledge

The first song I would call a coulda-been, shoulda-been anthem for moody teens across the land back in the day, but because of mismarketing and blah blah blah, it didn't happen.

The next song was a hot track during the band's tour with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, who at the time were superstar rockers while the Replacements were the little underground engine that could, then didn't. Petty famously plagiarized the line "rebel without a clue" from the song, penned by Paul Westerberg.

The third song, for some insane reason, got a video produced that, in classic alternative-rock-snotty fashion, had nothing very kinetic going on in it -- an anti-video that Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam likely still envies. Bizarrely, I can't find a YouTube clip of the memorable nonsense, although this New York Times blog includes it.

But I digress.

The three Replacements songs that should be required teaching in schools of rock from coast to coast are:

1. Nowhere Is My Home
2. Color Me Impressed
3. Bastards of Young

The first song was a bona fide sing-along for teen-and-upward lost souls to shout out madly, "Nowhere -- that's my home!" I can't find video footage to stick in here, tragically. You can sample it on Amazon.

The second song was a lost track on the ridiculously misnamed Hootenanny, which I figured at the time was a sad effort at connecting with some sorry-ass folk-music fans. Really, it just means a good jamming time to be had by all. Oh, well.

The third song every Replacements fan knows and loves, but I needed something to round out the list. "Bastards" is as catchy as anything the group did.

What the heck, here's another dose of the mighty 'Mats doing it up right:

Runners up to both lists, which are shamelessly subjective and unabashedly biased, are Can't Hardly Wait, Here Comes a Regular, I Will Dare, Unsatisfied, Androgynous (that was a ballsy song to write in the obnoxious hardcore-punk scene of yesteryear), Left of the Dial (of course!), Talent Show ("We're feeling good from the pills we took"), etc., etc., and so forth.

Ah, lest we forget all those "lip-synch chicks."

Then there's the matter of Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, the first Replacements album I really connected with -- but that a pal of mine dismissed as "really punk" in a snide way.

And there was heroin use and commercial self-sabotage.

Followed later, of course, by Westerberg's transcendant solo albums that are still coming.

Wow, what a band. You gotta love 'em. Bow down, today's emo weiners, bow down. Here's where you can find most of these tracks in one place.

For more info: Good god, get knowledgeable, will ya? Here's a thorough analysis of the 'Mats career in a 2008 Spin article. This recent write-up by Magnet magazine agrees with at least one of my underrated picks.

Visit my "pro" blog, San Jose Culture Examiner.

San Jose Culture Examiner: Hindu rights report slams Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia

In a previous life, my daily news beat included covering the Hindu American Foundation, which puts out an annual report on rights abuses commited against Hindus worldwide.

The nonprofit group was cofounded by a Bay Area E.R. doctor and now is based near Washington, D.C., to raise political awareness of the struggles of the Hindu diaspora.

The latest report on 2008 troubles focuses on nine countries, including Malaysia.

I enjoyed covering the coalescing of a local expat protest movement against Malaysia's ethnic favoritism, which at the time centered on a Yahoo chat group called Bay Area Malaysian Indians.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE.

San Jose Culture Examiner: Glory be, 'tis once again St. Patty's Day

In glorious ol' Chicago, St. Patrick's Day means the dyein' green
of the Chicago River. And a wee bit o' green beer drinking.
Image by Mathprog777.

St. Patrick's Day snuck right up on me. Must be something about saying farewell to copious ale consumption once you reach middle age. In vino veritas, indeed.

In Chicago, where I'm from, the Irish holiday means guzzling green brewskies and acting a damn fool all over town. Officials also ensure that the Chicago River's color matches the mythic fields of clover dotting the Emerald Isle.

In the old country, denizens of one village are drinking in the media's focus on their generations-past tie to Barack O'Bama, "whose great-great-great-grandfather on his mother's side was a cobbler from Moneygall," says one bankrupt newspaper.

In San Jose, why not read up on a special investigation into public drunkenness to celebrate St. Patrick? After all, the missionary helped take all the fun out of claiming Druidic ancestry.

I mean, now we have Catholics versus Protestants? Beglory! Give me Irish (and Angles, etc.) versus Vikings any day:

In San Francisco, of course, there is no end to the supply of dank, dingy pubs where you can toast the death of pagan gods in Celtic lands. The Chronicle recently gave its take on where to wander for your whiskey.

My tradition as a Mission District dweller was to imbibe corned beef and cabbage at Cha Cha Cha, once a garishly lit Irish pub called Original McCarthy's filled with holdouts from the neighborhood's whiter days.

There's also the lilt of Irish music to put a smile on your mug, as might befall you if you venture into the Tenderloin to hear Culann's Hounds, or perhaps play it safer out in the avenues to hear Andrew MacNamara.

Back in Chicago, one writerly wag was so concerned about the disconnect between the literal point of St. Patrick's Day, honoring a Christianizing influence, and the celebration's execution that she suggests the date might better be called Shamrock Day.

As long as we can pressure McDonald's to sell charitable Shamrock Shakes, it could be a great opportunity for synergy.

Anyway, Erin go braugh. Just try to keep yer teeth in yer head, aye?

For more info: Legend has it that St. Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland, but that's just a metaphor for the routing of Celtic religion, according to this screed.

This post first appeared on my other blog, where my identity is the San Jose Culture Examiner.

San Jose Culture Examiner: Taliban gang arrests continue, no new word on Hoodstarz connection

Where are all the reporters to follow up on this story? Oh, right, they're laid off. Oops. CLICK HERE for more.

Todd en Español -- a first, methinks

It seems that an article I wrote last month for The Californian newspaper in Salinas was edited for their weekly El Sol edition, printed in Spanish. Because I speak barely a smattering of Deutsch outside my native English, I feel flattered to have been officially translated into a second language.

Now if only my fluency with the Latino community extended beyond such urgent pharase "Mas cerveza por favor" and "El baño! Emergencia! Rapido!"

Their site seems to be having issues, so I link here to the Google cached version of the original article en Español.

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"Mural celebra trabajo de braceros:

Proyecto en oficinas del distrito de Alisal enseña ‘lo que hacen muchas manos’"

Por Todd R. Brown Para El Sol, 27 Febrero 2009

El papel que jugaron los braceros en darle forma al centro agrícola de Salinas y a otros centros del oeste es más sutil de lo que puede comunicar un monumento público.

En esencia, los trabajadores mexicanos que trabajaron duro en los campos de la región de la década de 1940 a la de 1960 ayudaron a construir una parte de la estructura social del Condado de Monterey en la era moderna.

El lunes por la mañana, Rafael Silva, de 75 años y vecino de Salinas, habló de su contribución a la historia americana como bracero de Jalisco. Silva habló durante la inauguración del “Nuestros Braceros Mural”, que está siendo pintado con la ayuda de estudiantes en una pared de la oficina del Distrito Escolar Alisal Union.

Silva dijo que sus siete hijos son ahora secretarias, maestros, doctores y abogados que contribuyen a la economía del Tío Sam.

Cerca de 30 alumnos y muchos adultos presenciaron un programa para celebrar el inicio del proyecto de pintura, disfrutaron la música del Mariachi Salinas y una visita del Supervisor del condado Simón Salinas.

Se animó a los estudiantes para que llevaran a sus abuelos braceros, y muchos de ellos asistieron y tomaron asiento en las primeras filas.

El mural es una forma de reconocer a los braceros, quienes vinieron para remediar la escasez de mano de obra de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y continuaron trabajando hasta que el programa finalizó oficialmente en 1964. En total se otorgaron aproximadamente 4.5 millones de contratos.

“Estos hombres, al venir aquí, ¿cuántos líderes y profesionales le dieron a Estados Unidos? Yo no creo que hayan recibido crédito por ello”, dijo Laura Caballero, de Greenfield, coordinadora de los voluntarios del mural.

Después de una plática de historia en español, los estudiantes tomaron sus pinceles y se dirigieron al exterior de la oficina del distrito para pintar de verde la parte inferior del mural, que incluye escenas de la cosecha, y en forma alarmante, una fila de trabajadores que están siendo fumigados antes de dirigirse a los campos.

El artista mexicano Rafael Ramírez dijo que incluyó la imagen para asegurarse de que la gente “pueda ver que eso sucedió”, mientras apuntaba a una fotografía en la que basó la escena. En ella se puede ver a un capataz con una máscara quirúrgica que rocía la cabeza de los trabajadores desnudos con una nube química.

José María Núñez, de 70 años y residente de Salinas dijo que fue bracero a partir de 1958 y siguió trabajando en los campos hasta hace cinco años, asegurando con ello que la lechuga, el brócoli, la coliflor, las uvas, los duraznos y más llegaran a los anaqueles de las tiendas.

“En esos tiempos, a mí me gustaba todo”, dijo por medio de un intérprete. “La alegría estaba en hacer el trabajo”.

Pero había inconvenientes, por supuesto. Además de los capataces que trataban mal a los trabajadores, dijo Núñez, no había baños, y de cualquier forma tampoco había descansos en que pudieran utilizarlos. Núñez declaró que ganaba 90 centavos por hora y trabajaba los siete días de la semana, desde el mes de marzo hasta noviembre o diciembre.

Ashley Collins, de 15 años y estudiante de la Escuerla Preparatoria Alisal, ayudó a los estudiantes más jóvenes a pintar. Collins dijo que su madre está dedicada a lograr justicia para los braceros que aún están luchando por obtener parte de la paga que se les retuvo de sus cheques.

El dinero se mantuvo en bancos mexicanos como un incentivo para atraer de vuelta a los trabajadores, pero los fondos supuestamente “desaparecieron”. Recientemente, un tribunal federal llegó a un acuerdo que permitirá que 6,100 braceros cobren $3,500 cada uno, si pueden documentar su participación.“Es bueno ver cómo hicieron todos los esfuerzos por hacer lo correcto”, dijo Ashley acerca de la fortaleza de los braceros.

Esperanza Zendejas, superintendente del distrito de Alisal, dijo que su padre y dos de sus hermanos fueron braceros provenientes de Michoacán, que llegaron al “Golden State” a trabajar para los agricultores de cítricos y los viñedos.

“Esto abrió muchas puertas”, dijo Zendejas, y añadió acerca de su padre: “Él vio lo que podía llegar a ser. Como resultado de ello, todos acabamos viviendo en Estados Unidos”.
Viendo como los estudiantes habían avanzado en el mural, Zendejas exclamó: “Ve eso. Lo que hacen muchas manos”.

El próximo año, dijo Zendejas, espera hacer que el Instituto Smithsoniano traiga la exposición llamada “Bittersweet Harvest — The Bracero Program, 1942-1964”. La exhibición itinerante comienza el mes de septiembre en Washington, D.C.

Zendejas declaró que todos los estudiantes del distrito y sus padres pueden ayudar a pintar el pintar el mural, de 9:00 a 11:00 A.M., el sábado, en la oficina, localizada en la calle Market #1205, en Salinas.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS contribuyó a este reportaje.