davidkin hollywood

Walking around Hollywood this afternoon I found Weenie Dog Gallery, an installation that's been around for six months or so. The gallery/studio belongs to Lynne Margulies, an artist and teacher. Some of her work is displayed and for sale, from angular/impressionistic black and white photolike street scenes painted on found wood to portraits in ink and chalk to prints of watercolors of various tourist perspectives of the Hollywood sign.

I talked with John Bainbridge, the genial fellow who runs and curates the gallery. He lived in the Lido too, six years ago, when the area was truly scary rather than just shitty. He showed me some of the photos that he collects, pictures of jewelry he does, and his press kit for his band.

He said he thought Hollywood was moving in a positive direction, and that the rising rent may push out some of the crummier establishments. I sometimes wonder just how gentrified Hollywood will become; certainly the influx of people like me (young, white, not addicted to anything, college educated) already indicates a major shift in the character of the neighborhood from just a few years ago. Time will only tell, though rents continue to rise, even in this (recession? dip? prelude to depression?). A one-bedroom in this leaky-piped, undermanaged building with no parking just went for $1100/mo., which is what you'll pay (if you're alert and lucky) for a place in WeHo with a pool and an underground spot.

On the way back, I stopped in at The Green Room café and talked with someone from the Church of Scientology.

See Church of Scientology Personality Test for an account.

Jeff Tweedy Saves Rock and Roll

Tonight I saw I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, a documentary on Wilco, and the trials visited upon the band in its effort to release a fourth album. While I enjoyed it overall, the strokes that they continued to receive throughout the movie from manager Tony Margherita, from a writer at the Chicago Sun-Times, from Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke, and finally the filmaker, Sam Jones, wore me to the point of nearly bursting out laughing. The first fifteen minutes are the worst. Perhaps Jones thought it would be necessary to hammer home early to folks watching this chronicle who don't know the depth of musicianship, invention, and scope of the band just how wonderful they really are. I can't disagree with much of what any of them are saying, but so much of the interview dialogue orbits around the focus of unrecognized genius that a skeptical viewer without adequate exposure to the Wilco catalog may begin to wonder if they doth protest too much.

Yes, they were dropped by their label, Warner Bros./Reprise. Yes, Reprise was stupid and didn't know what they had. And yes, the occurrence was a flashpoint in the rising stream of consciousness of the unfortunate state of the record industry. And yes, Wilco is a fantastic band. But it is their fourth original album. They are much where they should be, at least creatively. They are on the road to greatness. They're on the road.

David Fricke comments towards the end of the film on the phenomenon of shortening attention spans, contrasting his experience with the music -- ambiguous, considerate, appreciative, and iterative -- to that of a hypothetical record executive who listens at a desk in his office surrounded by gold records, allowing himself thirty seconds to get it -- or not. Fricke then extrapolates to society in general. I agree with him very much that "instant" has become the way of life and that art, music, poetry, literature and technology exigent patience and time. What this bodes for all these things in society is hard to say, but I believe that this film may succumb to that very urge to rush things along. Wilco is a good band. It is a very good band, and consistently so. But predictions of their stature twenty years from now feel a bit overdone. It's as if Sam Jones is rushing to fill the void that's been living in the land of good music for too long, creating out of Wilco some savior for rock and roll. I'm not sure rock and roll needs a savior, and I don't think it's fair to Wilco to insist that they take on that role.