On It Omelet

On Movies
Went to Weird Wednesday last week to see Coffy, first time for me. An awesome movie, one of the best blaxploitation films ever (Truck Turner is right up there as well), featuring Pam Grier as a nurse who takes revenge on all those who wronged her sister, mostly via the drug trade. Grier is a remarkable actress with a strong and demanding screen presence, but able to hit a range of emotions (vulnerability, humor, etc.). Director Jack Hill is a genius for a) discovering Grier (she apparently was a secretary at one of Roger Corman's studios, when Hill noticed her and put her in The Big Doll House) and b) producing such clever and poignant celluloid as Coffy. (An early point in the flick which set the mood: Coffy seduces a sleazy pusher, who tells his junky driver to go back to the apartment, and he can have "leftovers." Driver says, "No man, I just wanna get high and watch!") So it's funny, intense, sexy, action-packed, and quite enthralling. But the key is that it's also very subversive. Coffy starts by taking on the drug dealers, but ends up taking on almost everybody, because they're all corrupt. Without spoiling too much, they're all bad tomatoes - the dealers, the cops, the pimps, the politicians, the gangsters - of all races. The message here is that the system itself is at fault, because everyone really only cares about one color: green. I don't know if it's the decade (1970s), the genre, or the studio, but they don't make 'em like this anymore. Now you have Bruce Willis and a bunch of sell-out actors helping NASA stop a meteor, while Will Smith and Martin Lawrence don badges to heroically recover stolen drugs. Dear Michael Bay and the rest of Hollywood, you are the real pushers and pimps. Stop trying to poison my mind by dealing your trash on my streets. Otherwise, Coffy will stab you in the neck with a hairpin, and I will throw a salad on your head.

On Music
To be honest, I forgot what I was going to say here. Should've written it down. Since I know the moment when the thought occurred, I'll have to share that as the next best thing. Chaos in Tejas, an awesome multi-venue punk festival, took place in Austin over the weekend. I bought a ticket way back for the Friday Cock Sparrer show, their first time ever here, and one of only two shows in the U.S. Lots of other folks had the same idea, and it sold out awhile ago. Of course, a large chunk of these folks were skinheads, and knowing this, I was very overly cautious in preparing for the show. No soccer jerseys, no band T-shirts, no trendy jeans... nothing that could potentially provoke anyone. Of course these were ridiculous precautions; I don't even think there was a fight. Sparrer was incredible, playing every song we could've hoped for, and I was pleasantly surprised by the opening band - the Hex Dispensers, a very catchy local group - and the Brutal Knights, an intense, trashy, and rocking band from Toronto. This was where my thought occurred, and the memory of the band is all that remains. Screw. And now I'm done with style, with fashion altogether. Moving on... there was a wild after-party show on the Lamar footbridge. Imagine my surprise to show up (with other Boston visitors) and hear a band (Career Suicide) blasting out from a generator, while hundreds of punks drink beer and run around. At 3:30 in the morning. No cops in sight. I have no idea how this was pulled off, but the night raged on....

On the beat, on the bus, on the street
Saturday was a wonderful day that included a get-together at ours for Tania's birthday, a walk along the East Side section of the river (a quite amazing post-apocalyptic under-highway-bridge scene transforms quickly into the lush serenity of trees and joggers' footpaths), a playground, the Creekside, and a not-so-cool after hours club. Two very late nights in a row made it difficult to get up on Sunday, but the show must go on. Phil came over for leftover quiche and Mexican coffee, and we're off. Caught up with the #5 bus - bus drivers are really damn cool here; they will actually stop the bus after a stop to wait for you to run and catch up (has happened to me a half a dozen times already), whereas in Boston, if you're not jabbing your foot in the door as it opens, you're done for - and went downtown to the Mohawk for a free show/wedding reception. Caught the second half of the Altars, a good, hard-edged, fast punk band. Out back, and up on a veranda, we dove onto comfortable old (leather?) couches. I bought a Tecate with lime, took some sips, took the tequila out of Phil's bag, and made a poor man's Mexican Iced Tea. Saw the Hex Dispensers again, and they were great again. Out on the relatively barren Sunday afternoon streets, we got a tip about a couple of free shows up on North Loop. Into a Red River bar, we asked the bartender, drinking some scary-looking concoction, for directions. He gave 'em to us, but perhaps we wished he hadn't. We caught a bus up north, walked around, asked more directions from a nice dude on the street, and realized the drunken bartender had steered us well off course. No matter, a good walk. Famished, we arrived at The Parlor. Show was over, but the spectacle was not. Tons of punks hanging out on the street, drinking beers, and chatting it up. Into the convenience store to wait in line and get my supper: a packaged bear claw and a Mickey's tallboy, all for the low price of $2.71. Back to the street to catch up with (for the third day in a row) Sela and Dominick and some of the other folks from Boston. Good good. Into Monkeywrench, the recently discovered anarchist bookstore, for a look-see. As the rain came down, the punks washed away. We bid adieu to Sela and company, and went to the #7 bus stop. Phil played the harmonica while I slurped down a High Life and stared at the post-deluge sky: relatively clear, light blue, with violet ovalries splattering a horizon. And back.
On the bus.