I am still in mourning about the American election. Since Friday I've woken up every morning crying. It was Leonard Cohen's death that set me off; its juxtaposition with America electing a fascist somehow being symbolic of the rise of a frightening new world, which Leonard seemed to foresee in his last album.
The election of Donald Trump is the death of the American ideal, nothing more, nothing less. Forget "bring me your frightened huddled masses longing to be free": the frightened huddled masses are now in America, praying not to be harassed, deported, or killed by Trump's newly energized white supremacist supporters. Much has been written about the Hitlerian tactics Trump used to come to power: the appeal to uber-nationalism, the demonization of "the other" (Hispanics, Muslims, illegals), the call to make the country great again because "others are laughing at us". Since Trump's election there has been a surge in the harassment or worse of minorities and women; Trump's appointment of a well-known racist and conspiracy theorist (and wife beater) to the post of chief strategist is not likely to reassure anyone. People are in the streets, and for good reasons. They are not going to go away any time soon either.
An American Trump supporter I know deeply resents my Canadian input on the American election. She sent me a link to an article that says Canada is the annoying friend who keeps lecturing you about the terrible mistake you made. It concludes, "what I'm trying to say is, let us suffer in peace, Canada, and kindly f$#@ off." But she doesn't happen to think that a terrible mistake was made and says that "we gave Obama a chance, and now the left owes it to us to give Trump a chance." As if this were a normal election. As if Hillary did not end up with about two million more votes. As if racism, ultra-white nationalism, blatant vote suppression, and FBI and Russian interference were not important concerns. As if she were not the daughter of a man who as a child barely missed being killed by the kind of people who now support Trump.
To go back to that article about Canada as the annoying friend, let me expand on the metaphor. Canada is the girl whose best friend next door just got engaged to the racist, misogynist lout with tats and guns and a pit bull, and neo-Nazi and Russian mafia buddies just down the street. Canada is not only worried that the guy will knock her friend around, as he surely will, she is also worried about what will happen to the neighbourhood. And Canada deeply wishes that her friend instead went to stay with her boring New York grandma for a few years until she could find herself a better prospect. She could have.
I don't know what's next. I wish the electoral college would look at the vote distribution and what Trump means for America, and say, for once, "not on our watch." But even that's not a solution, because then Trump supporters would take to the streets and say their election had been stolen; and they, unlike the "left", have guns. Even if Trump himself were impeached, as he well might be, that still leaves Pence and this frightening new racist, sexist, reactionary iteration of the Republican party in power. America is in trouble, one way or another, and it will take years, and hopefully not bloodshed, to sort it all out.
Monday, November 14, 2016
Friday, July 22, 2016
My Mom and Donald Trump
My mom died, way too young, in 1985. Since then, whenever something dreadful happens in the world, I think, "I am glad she did not live to see this." I thought that when the space shuttle Challenger exploded, when AIDS hit, during the Rwandan genocide, and right after 9/11. I am thinking it right now as I watch Donald Trump take the reins of what was formerly known as the Republican Party.
My mom was born a few years before the Second World War. She found out she was Jewish when in her class all the Jewish children were asked to stand up, and she didn't, and was told by the teacher, "you too." Her father, my grandfather, worked with Raoul Wallenberg. My mom was one of the lucky ones: she spent the war in hiding.
The war shaped her. Wanting to protect her family, she read the newspaper every day looking for signs of trouble. Every time something went wrong in the world, she would become worried about the unraveling that could follow. She wanted to make sure that she wouldn't miss the signs of impending doom and that she would be ready for the worst if it came.
My mom's response to bad news was to add food to her war supply. This war supply lived in the basement and consisted of beans, rice, pasta and canned goods. After she passed away it took my stepfather about a year to work his way through it. Living in Canada in the 70s and 80s, we, her children, thought the war supply terribly funny. Of course we didn't have her memories of war and starvation, of the times when people cut meat from dead horses lying in the street to take home to feed their children.
I am glad she is not here now and that she did not see Donald Trump's acceptance speech yesterday at the Republican National Convention. I am glad that she is not here to read the anti-Semitic tweets of Trump's white supremacist supporters. I have zero doubt that what she would see in Donald Trump would be the rise of another Hitler. She would be aghast about his glib comments on NATO and his expressed admiration of Vladimir Putin. She would be, in the favourite phrase of a friend of mine, "beside herself" with worry and despair about the future of our world.
I am thinking of you, Mom. Remembering you with love. I am sorry I laughed at your war supply; I'll soon be starting one of my own.
Postscript July 26: But I bet she would have been jazzed watching the nomination of Hillary Clinton! I was!
My mom was born a few years before the Second World War. She found out she was Jewish when in her class all the Jewish children were asked to stand up, and she didn't, and was told by the teacher, "you too." Her father, my grandfather, worked with Raoul Wallenberg. My mom was one of the lucky ones: she spent the war in hiding.
The war shaped her. Wanting to protect her family, she read the newspaper every day looking for signs of trouble. Every time something went wrong in the world, she would become worried about the unraveling that could follow. She wanted to make sure that she wouldn't miss the signs of impending doom and that she would be ready for the worst if it came.
My mom's response to bad news was to add food to her war supply. This war supply lived in the basement and consisted of beans, rice, pasta and canned goods. After she passed away it took my stepfather about a year to work his way through it. Living in Canada in the 70s and 80s, we, her children, thought the war supply terribly funny. Of course we didn't have her memories of war and starvation, of the times when people cut meat from dead horses lying in the street to take home to feed their children.
I am glad she is not here now and that she did not see Donald Trump's acceptance speech yesterday at the Republican National Convention. I am glad that she is not here to read the anti-Semitic tweets of Trump's white supremacist supporters. I have zero doubt that what she would see in Donald Trump would be the rise of another Hitler. She would be aghast about his glib comments on NATO and his expressed admiration of Vladimir Putin. She would be, in the favourite phrase of a friend of mine, "beside herself" with worry and despair about the future of our world.
I am thinking of you, Mom. Remembering you with love. I am sorry I laughed at your war supply; I'll soon be starting one of my own.
Postscript July 26: But I bet she would have been jazzed watching the nomination of Hillary Clinton! I was!
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
The joy of manifesting
My good friend Ellen and I have been reading a book called E-Squared, a series of experiments designed to demonstrate to readers that their thoughts can indeed affect the universe. In one experiment the reader is asked to think of something he really wants and demand that the universe deliver said object within 48 hours. I said "here goes nothing" and asked the universe for a GoSun Sport solar grill, which I've had my eye on for months.
This was on Friday, April 8th. Having put in my order, so to speak, I then went on the website and almost bought one. I entered all my information, including my credit card number, but then I said "hold on, buying it yourself doesn't count" and didn't click on the purchase button.
On Sunday April 10th I got together with a bunch of friends for a Yotam Ottolenghi dinner. For a few years now we've been doing potlucks where everyone brings something they made from an Ottolenghi cookbook. For the last couple of years these events coincided with my birthday. So after dinner there was a cake, and presents. After I opened the handful that were by my plate (wondering whether some of my friends were mad at me for some reason), suddenly there was a large box being handed to me. I immediately recognized the shape. It was ... drum roll please ... a GoSun Sport grill!
Unbelievable. The universe delivered it within 48 hours.
Now here comes the punch line. On Monday I got an e-transfer from my sister in a very odd amount. Usually when someone sends you money for your birthday, it's an even amount, like fifty or a hundred dollars. This was in dollars and cents. So I phoned my sister to thank her and asked why it was such an odd amount. She replied "it's for half of one of those GoSun things you keep going on about, converted into Canadian dollars."
So within 72 hours the universe delivered one and a half GoSun Sport solar grills. It certainly can't be said not to have a sense of humour.
My friend Ellen didn't get the trip to Germany she asked for, but nobody knew that she wanted to go to Germany. So my conclusion is that in order to get what you ask for from the universe within 48 hours, it helps to have nattered on about it to people for months, and it also helps to have a birthday (and good friends and a sister who loves you).
This was on Friday, April 8th. Having put in my order, so to speak, I then went on the website and almost bought one. I entered all my information, including my credit card number, but then I said "hold on, buying it yourself doesn't count" and didn't click on the purchase button.
On Sunday April 10th I got together with a bunch of friends for a Yotam Ottolenghi dinner. For a few years now we've been doing potlucks where everyone brings something they made from an Ottolenghi cookbook. For the last couple of years these events coincided with my birthday. So after dinner there was a cake, and presents. After I opened the handful that were by my plate (wondering whether some of my friends were mad at me for some reason), suddenly there was a large box being handed to me. I immediately recognized the shape. It was ... drum roll please ... a GoSun Sport grill!
Unbelievable. The universe delivered it within 48 hours.
Now here comes the punch line. On Monday I got an e-transfer from my sister in a very odd amount. Usually when someone sends you money for your birthday, it's an even amount, like fifty or a hundred dollars. This was in dollars and cents. So I phoned my sister to thank her and asked why it was such an odd amount. She replied "it's for half of one of those GoSun things you keep going on about, converted into Canadian dollars."
So within 72 hours the universe delivered one and a half GoSun Sport solar grills. It certainly can't be said not to have a sense of humour.
My friend Ellen didn't get the trip to Germany she asked for, but nobody knew that she wanted to go to Germany. So my conclusion is that in order to get what you ask for from the universe within 48 hours, it helps to have nattered on about it to people for months, and it also helps to have a birthday (and good friends and a sister who loves you).
Saturday, January 16, 2016
"We are all wildlife" - or are we?
Riding the subway over the last few weeks I've been noticing some eye-catching posters from the World Wildlife Federation, like this one:
Other posters feature a man morphing into a tiger and an eye whose lashes become a peacock tail. Plantlife is also included, in the form of a flower with a naked young woman emerging from its petals, and the crosscut of a tree set side by side with the deeply wrinkled visage of an old man.
The message superimposed on the images blares "We are all wildlife" and its purpose, according to its creators, is "bringing awareness to the fundamental relationship humans have with nature and demonstrating that when nature thrives, so do people."
Most admirable, but as I looked at the posters and pondered the message, the thought that kept popping into my mind was "are we really?"
Think about it. Wildlife is naked and self-sufficient. Plop a bear into the woods, a bird into a tree, a fish into an ocean, and it's perfectly happy there. It can live in its environment without any need for extra covering in the form of clothing, without supermarkets, or wheels, or entertainment, or shampoo, soap, and deodorant. It is perfectly fine just the way it is. Plop a modern human being, especially an urban one, naked into a forest, and it will die of starvation or exposure. Its naked skin will freeze or burn, it won't know what to eat, it will need to cover itself, and even if it survives, in very short order it will become unfit for the company of other human beings, dirty, stinky and matted in the absence of bathrooms, toiletries and hairdressers.
We have become so far divorced from nature that we no longer remember how to be wildlife. In parts of the world there are still people who fit into their natural environment, but the vast majority of us might as well be from another planet. And maybe we are. I always found it strange that the sun should burn us and that unlike animals we should need covering against the cold. If we evolved on this planet, and with this planet, why are we so alien to its ways? Why do we need to surround ourselves with extraneous stuff to protect ourselves from the elements?
Douglas Adams, in the Hitchhiker's Guide series, has the superfluous population of a planet called "Golgafrincham" crash-land on prehistoric Earth. They had been tricked into leaving their planet by being told that it was about to be destroyed. This "superfluous" population consists of middle managers, hairdressers (I never understood that one), and phone sanitizers. One of their first acts on Earth is to decree that leaves are money, after which they pretty much denude the trees. Recognize anyone?
Sorry, WWF, we are not wildlife. We are Golgrafrinchans.
Other posters feature a man morphing into a tiger and an eye whose lashes become a peacock tail. Plantlife is also included, in the form of a flower with a naked young woman emerging from its petals, and the crosscut of a tree set side by side with the deeply wrinkled visage of an old man.
The message superimposed on the images blares "We are all wildlife" and its purpose, according to its creators, is "bringing awareness to the fundamental relationship humans have with nature and demonstrating that when nature thrives, so do people."
Most admirable, but as I looked at the posters and pondered the message, the thought that kept popping into my mind was "are we really?"
Think about it. Wildlife is naked and self-sufficient. Plop a bear into the woods, a bird into a tree, a fish into an ocean, and it's perfectly happy there. It can live in its environment without any need for extra covering in the form of clothing, without supermarkets, or wheels, or entertainment, or shampoo, soap, and deodorant. It is perfectly fine just the way it is. Plop a modern human being, especially an urban one, naked into a forest, and it will die of starvation or exposure. Its naked skin will freeze or burn, it won't know what to eat, it will need to cover itself, and even if it survives, in very short order it will become unfit for the company of other human beings, dirty, stinky and matted in the absence of bathrooms, toiletries and hairdressers.
We have become so far divorced from nature that we no longer remember how to be wildlife. In parts of the world there are still people who fit into their natural environment, but the vast majority of us might as well be from another planet. And maybe we are. I always found it strange that the sun should burn us and that unlike animals we should need covering against the cold. If we evolved on this planet, and with this planet, why are we so alien to its ways? Why do we need to surround ourselves with extraneous stuff to protect ourselves from the elements?
Douglas Adams, in the Hitchhiker's Guide series, has the superfluous population of a planet called "Golgafrincham" crash-land on prehistoric Earth. They had been tricked into leaving their planet by being told that it was about to be destroyed. This "superfluous" population consists of middle managers, hairdressers (I never understood that one), and phone sanitizers. One of their first acts on Earth is to decree that leaves are money, after which they pretty much denude the trees. Recognize anyone?
Sorry, WWF, we are not wildlife. We are Golgrafrinchans.
Friday, August 28, 2015
What's up with the man bun?
Okay, guys, enough already. This has gone too far. Man buns are the most ridiculous hairstyle on a man I've seen since the mullet and the mohawk, even more ridiculous as a fashion trend than the bushy beards half of everyone (male) under 30 seems to be sporting these days. Let's not even talk about a combination of the two (with perhaps even a manskirt thrown in for good measure). One word I recently saw that pretty much describes the trend is "lumbersexual." Lumbersexual connotes lumberjacks, and lumberjack connotes a big burly man with perhaps less than satisfactory personal hygiene after weeks or months in the bush. The men with man buns that I see don't quite measure up, size-wise and hygiene-wise. They are all just too urban. And thinking of all that hair ending up on the bathroom floor and clogging up shower drains, I must say I am glad not to be in the female demographic that has to cope with this nonsense.
The last group of men to sport a man bun was the Japanese samurai. In those days it was called a topknot, and it was outlawed by a Japanese emperor in an effort to modernize and Westernize Japan. Now there are some differences between the topknot and the man bun. The topknot was worn by men who were trained warriors and carried big swords with which they routinely cleaved other men in half. Under no circumstances would one be tempted to even assay a snicker looking at such a man. The modern man bun on the other hand ... One doesn't snicker because one is polite, but one is certainly tempted.
I don't get the purpose. On the one hand "lumbersexual" seems to suggest that some kind of ultra-masculinity is being sought here, but to me the effect of the man bun is one of feminization. You take a young man with smooth skin, put him in a baggy outfit of jeans and sweatshirt, top him with a man bun, and half the time I honestly can't tell whether I am looking at a man or a woman. Or rather most of the time I can only tell it's a man because I figure a woman wouldn't wear one of those things unless she were a babushka or a ballet dancer. On the other hand I suppose if women can have short hair (as I've done for the past 30 years), then men should be allowed to have their hair however long they want, and to put it up in a bun so it doesn't get into their eyes. But for God's sake, guys ... must you?
The last group of men to sport a man bun was the Japanese samurai. In those days it was called a topknot, and it was outlawed by a Japanese emperor in an effort to modernize and Westernize Japan. Now there are some differences between the topknot and the man bun. The topknot was worn by men who were trained warriors and carried big swords with which they routinely cleaved other men in half. Under no circumstances would one be tempted to even assay a snicker looking at such a man. The modern man bun on the other hand ... One doesn't snicker because one is polite, but one is certainly tempted.
I don't get the purpose. On the one hand "lumbersexual" seems to suggest that some kind of ultra-masculinity is being sought here, but to me the effect of the man bun is one of feminization. You take a young man with smooth skin, put him in a baggy outfit of jeans and sweatshirt, top him with a man bun, and half the time I honestly can't tell whether I am looking at a man or a woman. Or rather most of the time I can only tell it's a man because I figure a woman wouldn't wear one of those things unless she were a babushka or a ballet dancer. On the other hand I suppose if women can have short hair (as I've done for the past 30 years), then men should be allowed to have their hair however long they want, and to put it up in a bun so it doesn't get into their eyes. But for God's sake, guys ... must you?
Monday, August 3, 2015
Go away, richface - a rant on the new trends in plastic surgery
Okay, so maybe not so new. Surely by the time a trend makes it into the staid Globe & Mail, it has to have been around the block a few times. Here is the article: "The rise of richface: why so many young women are getting plastic surgery." Apparently young women in their twenties are willingly getting themselves injected with God knows what to acquire grotesquely bloated lips and "puffer-fish cheeks" or going under the knife to augment their breasts and change their faces, sometimes becoming practically unrecognizable (Heidi Montag, anyone?). This obsession is driven by celebrity culture, one-upmanship, and a shallowness and lack of foresight of truly, truly frightening proportions. According to the article the whole point of getting work done is to be seen as someone who can afford to get work done, so it can't be subtle, it has to be (pun intended) in your face. Big lips are a class marker the way being Rubenesque used to be -- it's just that while in days gone by the poor could not afford food, these days apparently what they can't afford is plastic surgery.
All I can say, and I am deliberately shouting here, is WHAT THE **** IS THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE? You are young, you are beautiful, and your 40- or 50-year-old self will want to bitchslap you silly for your youthful idiocy once the trendy alterations you paid through the nose for are no longer in fashion. Honestly, have you got nothing better to spend your money on? No yen for travel? Or life experience? Or education? And in case you haven't noticed, the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket, there is climate change going on, so by the time you get to middle age there could well be water wars and food line-ups for basics, and parts of the world, including south Florida and some New York boroughs, could easily be underwater, and there you will be with your duck lips and your inflated breasts and the shrunken rest of you wondering what the heck you did with your youth while the living was still good. Why hadn't you gone to Paris or Rome or London or Barcelona or Hong Kong or Australia on the money you wasted having poison injected into your skin? Why haven't you heard great opera in some of the great opera houses of the world, or visited the Gothic churches of Europe, or if you are not that way inclined, surfed in Hawaii or gone diving on the Great Barrier Reef, or hiked up Mount Fuji or Kilimanjaro, or sea-kayaked in Belize? You could have had some truly great food and wine or some transcendent life-altering experiences; you could have, God forbid, even helped some people in need near you or in some other part of the world. But, no, you would rather stick needles in your lips and cheeks to look like some inane celebrity than actually have a good life.
Not to put too fine a point on it, to my mind duck lips are the ultimate frivolity, a decadence to rival anything ancient Rome could offer. A hideous distortion of femininity, they aren't even attractive, but pure and simple grotesquery, pursued by the shallow for the shallowest of reasons. Welcome to celebrity culture, the end of civilization.
All I can say, and I am deliberately shouting here, is WHAT THE **** IS THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE? You are young, you are beautiful, and your 40- or 50-year-old self will want to bitchslap you silly for your youthful idiocy once the trendy alterations you paid through the nose for are no longer in fashion. Honestly, have you got nothing better to spend your money on? No yen for travel? Or life experience? Or education? And in case you haven't noticed, the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket, there is climate change going on, so by the time you get to middle age there could well be water wars and food line-ups for basics, and parts of the world, including south Florida and some New York boroughs, could easily be underwater, and there you will be with your duck lips and your inflated breasts and the shrunken rest of you wondering what the heck you did with your youth while the living was still good. Why hadn't you gone to Paris or Rome or London or Barcelona or Hong Kong or Australia on the money you wasted having poison injected into your skin? Why haven't you heard great opera in some of the great opera houses of the world, or visited the Gothic churches of Europe, or if you are not that way inclined, surfed in Hawaii or gone diving on the Great Barrier Reef, or hiked up Mount Fuji or Kilimanjaro, or sea-kayaked in Belize? You could have had some truly great food and wine or some transcendent life-altering experiences; you could have, God forbid, even helped some people in need near you or in some other part of the world. But, no, you would rather stick needles in your lips and cheeks to look like some inane celebrity than actually have a good life.
Not to put too fine a point on it, to my mind duck lips are the ultimate frivolity, a decadence to rival anything ancient Rome could offer. A hideous distortion of femininity, they aren't even attractive, but pure and simple grotesquery, pursued by the shallow for the shallowest of reasons. Welcome to celebrity culture, the end of civilization.
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Discovering Eric Burdon
For much of my adult life, my ignorance about popular music has been a bit of a running joke among my friends. Having grown up in Eastern Europe and South America, I managed to miss all of the sixties and much of the seventies, music, social turmoil and all. I remember "Ob-la-di Ob-la-da" from my childhood and "Black Magic Woman" from my early teens, but that pretty much covers the lot.
When I arrived in North America, this profound ignorance continued for quite some time. When everyone in my grade 10 class was selling tickets for a raffle for which the prize was attendance at an Elton John concert, I was out there talking up John Elton tickets, because the name "Elton John" made no sense to me. And later, when I was working in a leather store (pipe down, we sold purses, wallets, and luggage, not kinky stuff) and Eric Clapton's manager walked in to buy luggage for -- who else? -- Eric Clapton, I was not the least bit impressed, because I had no clue who Eric Clapton was. The shocked manager asked whether I had been living on the moon, and gave me four tickets to Eric Clapton's show. My date and I sat in the audience and gamely sang along with everyone else at the right times -- except when they sang the refrain "cocaine, cocaine," we enthusiastically sang "okay! okay!" The poor guy was just as clueless as I.
This is a long preamble to the astonishing statement that two weeks ago, a mere 50 years after they burst on the music scene, I managed to discover Eric Burdon and the Animals. I was perusing YouTube and somehow ran across "The House of the Rising Sun." With vague memories of having heard the song before, I watched the video. And here was this very young guy (Eric Burdon), looking dreadfully uncomfortable in a suit and also like someone who has been woken up early after one heck of a rough night. But then he opened his mouth and this incredible voice came out that just went straight for your gut and your heart.
I am a creature of serial obsessions. A few winters ago I watched all of "Boston Legal"; last winter was the winter of "House," as I watched every single episode of all eight seasons on Netflix. Having discovered Eric Burdon, I next went on an internet hunt and listened to pretty much everything I could find on YouTube, and let me tell you there is a lot. My next favourite after "House of the Rising Sun" was this one, sung by a much more mellow Burdon in 1970:
The man just loves to sing. His voice is an instrument with incredible range. Rolling Stone has him as number 57 of their 100 Greatest Singers, calling his voice "big and dark." He apparently inspired Bruce Springsteen, who in 2012 gave Burdon and the Animals a deeply felt (and funny) tribute. He said their music was the first he heard that reflected his own life and that they gave him hope because they were one of the ugliest bands around, that Eric Burdon looked "like your shrunken daddy with a wig on" and "couldn't dance":
Springsteen's comments gave me a different perspective on "We Got To Get Out of Here" and "It's My Life." There is social consciousness in them there hills! It's not "just" rock and roll! So here is another Burdon song with a message, "Letter from the County Farm," which I don't think is very well known, but should be:
And, surprise, surprise, Eric Burdon is still around. He has had a tumultuous life but it sounds like he has now found safe harbour. He has gone through a series of bands, the Animals, the New Animals, War, the Eric Burdon Band, and still more Animals, but he never stopped singing. Since Springteen's tribute his career has kicked into high gear: he does up to a dozen concerts a month and released an album in 2013 that some people say contains his best work. He is now 74 years old. The voice has aged like rich dark wine but still packs a punch.
PS: to get an idea of Burdon's range, listen to this in comparison to either "House of the Rising Sun" or "Spill the Wine", or better yet, "See See Rider":
When I arrived in North America, this profound ignorance continued for quite some time. When everyone in my grade 10 class was selling tickets for a raffle for which the prize was attendance at an Elton John concert, I was out there talking up John Elton tickets, because the name "Elton John" made no sense to me. And later, when I was working in a leather store (pipe down, we sold purses, wallets, and luggage, not kinky stuff) and Eric Clapton's manager walked in to buy luggage for -- who else? -- Eric Clapton, I was not the least bit impressed, because I had no clue who Eric Clapton was. The shocked manager asked whether I had been living on the moon, and gave me four tickets to Eric Clapton's show. My date and I sat in the audience and gamely sang along with everyone else at the right times -- except when they sang the refrain "cocaine, cocaine," we enthusiastically sang "okay! okay!" The poor guy was just as clueless as I.
This is a long preamble to the astonishing statement that two weeks ago, a mere 50 years after they burst on the music scene, I managed to discover Eric Burdon and the Animals. I was perusing YouTube and somehow ran across "The House of the Rising Sun." With vague memories of having heard the song before, I watched the video. And here was this very young guy (Eric Burdon), looking dreadfully uncomfortable in a suit and also like someone who has been woken up early after one heck of a rough night. But then he opened his mouth and this incredible voice came out that just went straight for your gut and your heart.
I am a creature of serial obsessions. A few winters ago I watched all of "Boston Legal"; last winter was the winter of "House," as I watched every single episode of all eight seasons on Netflix. Having discovered Eric Burdon, I next went on an internet hunt and listened to pretty much everything I could find on YouTube, and let me tell you there is a lot. My next favourite after "House of the Rising Sun" was this one, sung by a much more mellow Burdon in 1970:
The man just loves to sing. His voice is an instrument with incredible range. Rolling Stone has him as number 57 of their 100 Greatest Singers, calling his voice "big and dark." He apparently inspired Bruce Springsteen, who in 2012 gave Burdon and the Animals a deeply felt (and funny) tribute. He said their music was the first he heard that reflected his own life and that they gave him hope because they were one of the ugliest bands around, that Eric Burdon looked "like your shrunken daddy with a wig on" and "couldn't dance":
Springsteen's comments gave me a different perspective on "We Got To Get Out of Here" and "It's My Life." There is social consciousness in them there hills! It's not "just" rock and roll! So here is another Burdon song with a message, "Letter from the County Farm," which I don't think is very well known, but should be:
And, surprise, surprise, Eric Burdon is still around. He has had a tumultuous life but it sounds like he has now found safe harbour. He has gone through a series of bands, the Animals, the New Animals, War, the Eric Burdon Band, and still more Animals, but he never stopped singing. Since Springteen's tribute his career has kicked into high gear: he does up to a dozen concerts a month and released an album in 2013 that some people say contains his best work. He is now 74 years old. The voice has aged like rich dark wine but still packs a punch.
PS: to get an idea of Burdon's range, listen to this in comparison to either "House of the Rising Sun" or "Spill the Wine", or better yet, "See See Rider":
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