Kevin Marshall's America
T-shirts, sweaters, and more declare your pride in being an “Upstate American.” All proceeds go to relief and recovery efforts for the flooding in the wake of Irene.
Stretching the definition of "charity": Colonie home's "Extreme Makeover" (left) and recently usurped MDA Telethon host Jerry Lewis.
Today I read two instances of entertainment in the guise of charity gone awry that deserve our notice.
Over on the Places & Spaces blog (the TU’s Real Estate blog – why it’s not just called “Real Estate blog” or something else less vague is high above my pay grade which has plateaued at $0/hour) , reporter Chris Churchill updated a story about a house that was constructed as part of the ABC feel-good reality television series “Extreme Makeover.” The two-floor home, which occupies 3,700 square feet and includes five bedrooms, has been sold for an undisclosed sum (pending contract approval). The listed asking price was slightly above $400,000. The original blog post is here. As with the vast majority of other Times Union blogs, your best bet is to avoid the comments section entirely unless you’re some kind of intellectual masochist hellbent on ruining your own day.
Mere minutes before I came across the blog post, writer and film critic Roger Ebert tweeted a link to a blog post from Jon Wiener of The Nation about how some Muscular Dystrophy advocates (as well as other areas of the disabled) are breathing a sigh of relief for the departure of Jerry Lewis from his famous MDA Labor Day Telethon. It’s quite a read, chock full of affirmation of Lewis’s mythic condescension: references to children with MDA as “God’s goof,” incredibly rude comments about reporters who ask about the ethics of promising funds going towards a cure that doesn’t exist rather than stating and promoting the true purpose of the telethon (to provide services & care), and the fact that many who have MDA take issue with being referred to as “Jerry’s Kids” since they’re competent adults and don’t care for the portrayal of all with the disease as hopeless miscreants who need to be saved by the aging comedian’s generosity.
The two stories share a commonality: good intentions gone awry.
Well, kind of.
Invariably, a funny thing happens whenever ego or profit gets involved with charity. It distorts what could be a wonderful thing and a boon to others and instead exploits the recipients or does only a temporary good for the whole of the cause. In the first instance, regardless of what frustrated Delmartians will spit from their keyboards, we have a program that takes people in dire financial and emotional circumstances and puts them into a house which, no matter what farcical measures are taken, in the long run simply aren’t sustainable given their finances and personal situations. In the case of Jerry Lewis you have a man who, yes, raised a lot of money for an organization, but did it with such brazen ego and condescension as to potentially do actual damage to the cause and people he was (in his own supremely dysfunctional way) trying to help. Now he’s been uprooted from the program and like Pyotr Petrovitch in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, has walked off in a huff noting the same black ingratitude Pyotr did for having his relentless commandments, demands, and poor attitude spurned by those who designed himself as saving, while promising to himself and others that either they’ll take him back or be sorry they parted ways.
It got me to thinking about the endeavor that myself and two friends, along with many others, are partaking in to raise money for the Special Olympics of NY. As a side note, our deadline has been extended – so please if you haven’t already, give a little to the cause! I’m fully aware and conscious of using my name, which isn’t “well known” but has an audience of anywhere from 4,000 to 6,000 unique readers a week if not more via this blog, to endorse or promote a charity. Some have leveled accusations of vanity against me for doing so, and though I counter with the idea that it’s all being done to raise funds, the same attitude and offenses could be applied towards me that I and many others have taken with Lewis over his antics during, before, and after the telethon in recent years.
Yet, still, I am conscious that a bit of it does rear its ugly head. It can’t help but seep through when you participate in a program like Over the Edge, which encourages local personalities to use their own notoriety (however small it may be such as in my case) to raise funds in a unique display of bombasticity. Yet, with this and all other charities I lend my name, voice, and words too, I promise you that I am forever conscious of the very real possibility that as human beings we are constantly tempted and swayed by our own inherent narcissism and self-interests. I want you all reading this to know that self-interest is not my intent in this or any other charities that I lend myself to. Not now, and not ever. Never has or will a demand or request be levied in exchange or as a qualification for my participation or support. Nor will there ever be expectations of such.
It needs to be said because, as in the examples cited above and others I’ve had dealings with first-hand, that is unfortunately not always the case despite our best interests and intentions.
Charity is more than just saying or giving support in some manner. It’s doing so without asking or expecting anything in return, ever. Not from the organizations, recipients, donors, fellow attendees, or anyone that would even be tangentially associated with it. It is always good practice, though, to at least ask yourself first what you’re giving to and what the motivations are for those who say they’re giving it or giving their time towards it. Because sometimes charity isn’t charity, but rather entertainment co-opting a cause to the detriment of the latter. Any good that comes of that is almost always, without fail, accidental. And temporary.
Starting tonight, the Nitty Gritty Slam goes down the first and third Tuesdays of every month. Click the image to visit the official site, NittyGrittySlam.com
Slam Poetry has finally returned to the Capital Region.
Tonight (Tuesday 9/6/11) marks the debut of Nitty Gritty Slam at Valentine’s, hosted by slam poets Dain Brammage and Mojavi. The cover is $5 and only $3 if you’re a student with college/University ID.
Doors open at 7:00pm and the event kicks off a half-hour later with a brief open mic followed by the Slam itself starting at 8:00pm. The event is open to anyone and everyone both on and off the stage.
Being a bit of an ignoramous when it comes to this sort of thing, I’ve asked around and been told that the seminal book on slam poetry is Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz. So that’s on my (ever-growing) reading queue in addition to attending this event.
More info vis a vis the press release-ish thing (cuz this s***’s too REAL for straight up marketing!) is below.
POETRY SLAM RETURNS TO ALBANY
WITH NITTY GRITTY SLAM
Poetry slam is coming back to the Capital Region.
For the first time in more over 10 years, the Albany region will have its own poetry slam venue. Called the NITTY GRITTY SLAM and hosted by poets Dain Brammage and Mojavi, the first slam will take place on Tuesday, September 6, at 8pm at Valentines (17 New Scotland Ave.). Slams will be held the first and third Tuesdays of the month after that.
Admission is $5.00 ($3.00 with student ID).
Who can attend or perform? Anyone and everyone. The doors open at 7pm, and that’s when the sign-up sheet to slam is put out on the bar. There will be a short open mic at 7:30pm, the slammer line-up is announced and the slam begins at 8pm.
What’s a poetry slam, you ask? It’s been awhile around these parts, so here goes.
Each slam, judges are randomly selected from the audience who score poets who perform for up to three minutes and use nothing but words, their body and a microphone. The judges give each poet a score on a scale of 0.0 to 10.0. The scores are added up, and the poets with the higher numbers advance until two poets are left in the final round. At the end of the three rounds, the highest-scoring poet is awarded a prize—bragging rights to start, on up to a chance to join the slam team we’re sending to the National Poetry Slam!
NITTY GRITTY SLAM is presented by Albany Poets, Urban Guerilla Theatre, Frequency North Reading Series, and others in the Albany literary communities. We have begin the process with PSI (Poetry Slam Inc.) .
For more information, contact NITTYGRITTYSLAM@gmail.com.
More information about poetry slam:
Started in Chicago in the 1980s at the Green Mill Jazz Club, the poetry slam was invented by Marc Smith, a construction worker and poet who wanted to liven up poetry readings. Poetry slams spread rapidly around the country: from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in the East Village to MTV and HBO’s Def Poetry Jam to The White House to venues around the world. Each year, the five-day National Poetry Slam is held in a different city, packing 3,000-seat venues and 80 certified teams each year.
A poetry slam is all about the audience. Audience members are encouraged to cheer and jeer both the poets and judges. The audience’s job at the Nitty Gritty Slam, as in every slam, is to try to influence the judges, and express their approval or disapproval for the poets or scores they love or hate.A poetry slam is rock and roll, a Broadway show, hip-hop, dance, stand-up comedy, and poetry wrapped into a tight, three-minute set.
Rest Fest 2011 is where I saw the best concert I can ever recall seeing.
Lost in the coverage of the hurricane and subsequent flooding that eviscerated small towns and big-city cynicism over media hype this past weekend, this year’s Restoration Festival at St. Joseph’s Church on Ten Broeck (behind the Palace) included a first day that saw a bigger and more enthusiastic crowd than I anticipated and a second day that saw cancellations of its two national headliners overshadowed by local acts rising to the occasion and one of them putting on the performance of their career.
Of course, the fact that it became free on the second day because of Irene likely helped. With the storm preventing scheduled second day headliners A Hawk and a Hacksaw and The Music Tapes from making it to Albany, the tough call was made to make the event “pay what you will” for those who hadn’t already purchased tickets. This announcement initially brought in a few more people, and even more once the weather started being a bit more cooperative and before news had hit us that immense flooding was putting local municipalities into states of emergency. Even with the cancellations, though, it felt like nothing was lost on that second day and that the trials and travails only made the show better.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
DAY ONE
Titus Andronicus. Taken with my damn Blackberry.
Starting with the headliners, because why not? First we were treated with a life-affirming, fist-pumping performance by Titus Andronicus that, perhaps owing to my enthusiasm for their work, was my favorite concert that I can ever recall attending. It was audio literature in frenetic motion provided with a perfect balance of serious craftsmanship and unhinged mania. The band went full bore for a full hour with an insane pace and a complete lack of bulls*** wannabe rock star pretension or self-consciousness. They left it all on the stage and were dripping sweat for the duration of their set, but they didn’t seem to notice. Or if they did, they didn’t care. In fact, they probably wanted us to drink it.
They were followed by Deer Tick who, in short, I still can’t quite get into despite their best efforts. They had the unfortunate task of following Titus Andronicus, who simply brought it with an energy level that simply isn’t sustainable for Deer Tick’s alt-country-rock sensibilities. I urge you to check them out for yourselves. You’ll probably love them, because I seemed to be the only person who instead of cheering and hooting was staring at the ceiling of St. Joseph’s and admiring the architecture. Which, in my defense, is quite gorgeous, especially in that lighting.
Scientific Maps friggin' brought it. Taken with my damn Blackberry.
The local stars of day one were undoubtedly The Scientific Maps. They were playing when I walked in and man, they owned the stage. Everything sounded tight and better than I’ve ever heard them. Whereas before I heard promise in a band that I liked, this weekend I heard yet another local musical act that I’m genuinely enthusiastic about and borderline obsessed with. Railbird also put out an absolutely fantastic and enthralling set. It made the company I was with remark that he couldn’t understand why more of these acts aren’t nationally renowned, as they’re truly accomplishing something fascinating and listenable that seems to jive, if not rise above, the sort of indie rock fare that gets so much praise from the likes of Pitchfork and others.
Continue reading »
Good (late) evening, everyone!
The only thing these two covers have in common is that both strip back bombastic tunes and presents them in a way that reminds you that contrary to what some may think, it’s not just put-ons and performance. These are, at their core, great and beautiful compositions.
First, Willie covers Coldplay’s “The Scientist”:
Willie Nelson-The Scientist by MMMusic
and Ryan Adams covers Iron Maiden’s 1986 single, “Wasted Years”:
Ryan Adams – “Wasted Years” (Iron Maiden Cover) by TwentyFourBit.com
If you know me, it’s no secret that I love Iron Maiden as much as I’m frustrated with Coldplay. Part of it is taste, but that said: I think the Adams cover speaks to the understated strength of Maiden’s songwriting, while the Nelson cover sadly reminds us that Chris Martin and gang are still writing great songs, but they’re swallowed up by the self-indulgent overproduction that has plagued all their recordings.
Image courtesy Dan B.
I used an errand after work as an excuse to go for an extended run and check out the flood damage in Troy’s North Central neighborhood.
From what I can gather, there wasn’t much damage, at least not what I could see. The river was running, but not raging. The lasting effects of the storm may be more psychological than physical. Like so many others, we’ve viewed disastrous floods from a distance. This detachment kept us ill-prepared to deal with the possibility of being one of those towns that becomes stock footage during televised coverage of weather-related disasters.
Other areas, particularly those in the Catskills and Vermont, weren’t so lucky.
Still, it reminded us that the Hudson is more than a body of water that we pass over to get to or from work or the mall. Anthropomorphic qualities are given to rivers in literature and historical texts, but mostly only in terms of its economic, social, and cultural relevance. We forget that the river can be a living, breathing thing in and of itself. It can swell and lash out when stretched beyond its limits. Too much stress and agitation, and it has a tantrum that slowly builds and culminates in an all-out rampage. We pass over it effortlessly every day, but at its absolute (and thankfully very rare) worst moments, it can take everything away from us: our homes, our commerce, our sense of security, our means of escape, and in two tragic cases so far, our actual lives. Again, though, the damage was nowhere near as bad as it could have been, and for that we are lucky.
Running along River Street, I encountered the occasional empty lot that allowed a peek at the river. It was still running a bit wild and slightly high, but nowhere near where it was on Sunday and Monday. On my way back I hit the intersection at 101st St., where Second Avenue once again becomes River Street, and entered the empty parking lot of a community center, which gave me an opportunity to get closer to the River than anywhere else on my route. I walked near, then into, the area where the river had reached its peak, nowhere near any property that I could see. The grass was still there, green as it ever was, possibly greener.
After my errands ended, I continued South until I reached the Riverfront. The crowds that gathered during the flood itself to survey the damage had dissipated, but there was still teaming and buzzing. People from all walks of life wandered through the parking lot of Dinosaur Barbecue and Riverfront Park. Some sat on benches, staring outwardly, and clearly had been there for some time. In the street behind them, Cars and buses drove by, kicking up dust behind them from the dried mud left by the Hudson’s surge. It was the most activity I’d seen there in years.
It was a surreal but hopeful scene. Most, including myself, had gone to gauge the destruction and devastation that had been wrought. Though I can only speak for myself, it seems we didn’t get quite as much of it as we had anticipated. Yet this didn’t seem to bring about any disappointment, but rather gave people an opportunity to mill about and gaze at the Hudson without the sense of dread and the heavy thought of “where do we even start” that is likely weighing down folks in surrounding areas.
Though still dark brown with upturned Earth and littered with debris, the Hudson was a sight to behold on tuesday night. As I joined these strangers in staring out, it occurred to me that maybe – just maybe – an event such as this can be used to reinvigorate or even instill a greater appreciation for the Riverfront.
By the time I got downtown, the water had receded. But I didn’t see the river going down. Instead, I saw Troy rising.
———-
Plenty of areas were hit much harder than us in these floods and could use our help. Here’s an incomplete list of where you can go for more information.
Also, if you’re healthy and haven’t had a tattoo done in the last calendar year, the American Red Cross will have a blood drive on RPI’s campus at the Mueller Center, right on 15th Street in Troy until 5:30pm.
Don’t have any fancy words or desire to bloviate. In certain areas, it’s bad. In others, it’s the type of thing that we usually disassociate from because it’s hundreds of miles away. Except it’s not. It’s right in our back yards.
One way to help is to visit the American Red Cross, which is always and consistently a responder to crises such as this.
UPDATE 4:17pm: Some other ways to help…
- In response to a question from reader cmg, Fly 92 and Price Chopper are collecting non-perishables for those hit hardest. Click here for more info.
- Via All Over Albany, the American Red Cross could use some volunteers to provide relief and assistance. Click here for more info.
- The Watershed Post also has a list of drop-off points for cash, clothing, food, volunteers and more.
- A website has been set up to help Windham rebuild. (thanks, Erin Morelli)
The Music Tapes anfd Hawk and a Hacksaw have unfortunately cancelled…but the good news is everyone else is still here and the show is now FREE! Come on down to St Joseph’s Church, 38 Ten Broeck in Albany, right behind the Palace Theater.
(Apologies for brevity, I’m updating from my phone)
Projected path of Hurricane Irene as of Friday afternoon
Hello my fellow Kevin Marshall’s Americans,
As you’re likely aware, Hurricane Irene is currently projected on a path that includes our area and will likely still be a Category 1 storm by the time it hits us. It has been literally decades since this area saw a true hurricane-strength storm, and as a region that is not accustomed to or designed to withstand hurricanes, we could be in for some trouble.
But fret not. Here’s 16 helpful tips to help you prepare for the worst-case scenario.
-
- Have flashlights and candles. This seems like a no-brainer, but many people overlook it.
- Have 1 gallon of water set aside per person.
- Though most refrigerators will seal food and keep them from spoiling too much during a brief (4-6 hour) outage, foods like milk, yogurt, and cheese will likely go bad. Don’t be surprised if you have to discard them.
- Have enough non-perishable food items to get you through a minimum of 3 days.
- Check your first aid kit. If you don’t have one, GET ONE!
- Have cash on hand (can’t process credit cards with no electricity!)
- Have ample food and water for your kitties and puppies.
- Stock up on batteries.
- Have a radio! I know so many people that don’t have one anymore, but it’s still essential for emergency situations.
- Learn another language. We have plenty of multi-culturalism in this area, and depending on how long we go, traditional communications could render things a bit anarchistic. You could end up in a group of mixed ethnicities, cultures, and languages.
- Develop your skills. Nothing ensures survival in a group quite like being useful.
- Take stock of your jiu-jitsu skills. You may have to fend off scavengers, and there’s no defense quite like a good offense and a strong guard.
- Human flesh tastes like pork.
- Not everyone with a gun is going to use it. Mostly it’s just for show and they don’t have the heart to pull the trigger. This is not to say you can take chances, but you can lull them into a false sense of security pretty easily.
- Donate $15 to the Special Olympics of NY, which will commission me to draw a picture of you. This way, if you don’t make it through the storm, you’ll be forever memorialized.
- Get all of your crazy, manic hostilities out now. Don’t wait until tomorrow or Sunday to post a passive-aggressive dig at a blogger through comments because it will be too late by then (, Gary).
Best of luck to all of you and remember, hurricanes are unpredictable. We could be in for the storm of the century or it could veer off and miss us entirely. The important thing to remember is that if we can survive the devastation of earthquakes and cupcakes, we can survive anything.
What if Michael Vick was white? Then his dog-fighting stuff would be okay, wouldn’t it? Because there’s no white NFL player (MUST IGNORE BEN ROETHLISBERGER) who draws such ire from fans. But this is pointless, because race isn’t a factor.
If that previous paragraph reads like some of the dumbest s*** in history, that’s because it is, and it comes courtesy of – SURPRISE – ESPN, who allowed a feature on its site called “What if Michael Vick Was White.”
Between Times Union blogs and the rest of the internet, I’ve read some desperately reaching piles of offensively dense crap in my day. But this tops it all.
Kudos to you, ESPN. You just outdumbed the Internet.
STALK ME
