Richard E. Bates - to a great man

December 4, 2010

Richard Bates passed away yesterday.  I learned this through a post his son Matt placed on Facebook.  I find it difficult to express my condolences when the beloved family member of a friend dies.  How can mere words express the feelings that wrack you when such an event occurs.  The sympathy I feel is very real, but I can only offer impressions as an outsider as a tribute to a man I knew only superficially.

I saw Matt's father only on a few occasions, but I always held him in high regard.  As a thirteen year-old visiting Matt's house - which had MTV! - I couldn't help but be struck by the ease of the back-and-forth between Matt and his dad and the comfort with which Matt moved around the place.  Matt's father was kind and genuinely affectionate to his children.  He was actually friendly to me.  He let his kids watch MTV (hence, my presence at Matt's house, that and the fact I really like Matt as a friend) without criticism.  Matt could pull ice cream out of the fridge and make himself a milkshake without there being significant repercussions.  I was gobsmacked.  Matt lived in an honest-to-god home where he was an integral, valued member of the family.  My own father had a new benchmark to be compared against, and frankly, he was found seriously deficient.  Now that I am the father of two teenagers, I feel this even more strongly and my respect for Matt's father is even greater.  This is part of the reason that the news of Mr. Bates' death is so saddening to me.

Here is what I know about him, which I am sorry to say is very little.  He was a dentist on Boston St., with his office right next to Standard Bakery.  He joked that they gave him plenty of business but that he gave it right back at lunchtime.  Matt and his dad once invited me to go to the House of Pizza on Aurora.  I wasn't used to this kind of generosity.  The pizza was fantastic.  And while I was trying hard to be on my best behavior (like an orphan trying to attract potential parents, I suppose) I had a great time nevertheless.  Another time, Mr. Bates took me along with Matt to see The Chosen, based on Chaim Potok's book, at Harvard Exit (I think that's where it was showing) and I was utterly engrossed in the movie and grateful to have been given the opportunity to see it with them.  I count this as one of the highlights of my teen years.

Eventually my dad moved us away from Magnolia to a house just off 145th North in Seattle and I stopped going over to Matt's place.  The only other time I saw Richard Bates again was at Matt and Shelly's wedding reception.  Not much, I know, but he left a lasting impression on me.

I wasn't particularly close to my father, but even then his death hit me hard at first.  I know how painful it is, what an unwanted milestone in a person's life it can represent.  I can only offer my deepest, most sincere condolences to Matt's mom, his brother Paul, and to Matt, Shelly and their beautiful children.  He was a good person, something we should all aspire to be.

Too Old to Rock-n-Roll

December 3, 2010

My Bloody Valentine - Strawberry Wine

This might be my all-time favorite song.  Saw MBV when they were in Seattle earlier this year.  The show was AWFUL.  Shame.  Wish they'd played this song.  They did play Cigarette in Your Bed, which is a sublime slice of gothic horror bliss (and another all-time favorite).  The opening acts were the very definition of dreadful and when MBV finally showed up, they immediately launched into what Branford Cox has aptly described as "sonic holocaust."  I've heard of playing loud, but this was ridiculous.  That blood on the floor was from my ears.  Some sweet girl, who must have been barely older than my daughter Katy - and certainly was not alive when MBV released their final album - offered me her earplugs.  I couldn't actually hear her, of course, but I appreciated her look of concern for my well-being as she pantomimed the offer by holding up the plugs and pointing at her ears and then at me.

The first half of the set was great, actually; but then the sheer intensity of the volume finally wore this middle-aged man down.  Yes, it made me feel OLD.  How fun is that?  The songs became sloppier and less recognizable as the set chugged along.  Then they finished up by subjecting the audience to one of their notorious 20-minute drones by dragging out the middle of You Made Me Realise to excruciating lengths - playing the same note over and over and over.  It was more of a fascinating physical sensation than anything approaching an aural pleasure.  I raised my hands to feel the sound waves surge past me.  I'm a pretty patient guy when it comes to music, but they were on my last nerve when they finally stopped.  I took it as a sign that they did not want to play for us, disliked us on a visceral level and wanted us to suffer.  They then walked off the stage to the sound of nobody begging them to come back for an encore.  I believe that it was the final show of their US tour, and they were probably tired and maybe more than a little pissed.  It seems likely that the touring amply reminded them of why they stopped playing together in the first place.  Me, I was out $50 and desperate to get back to my family.

I was surprised by how sparsely attended the show was at first, but I shouldn't have been.  MBV could have been huge, but they will always be remembered as a cult act I suppose.  This is too bad, as they released some of the best music available at the end of the 80's.  Anyway, this show took place before I lost hearing in my left ear (a related incident?), so it was probably the last concert I will be able to attend.  Anyway, Strawberry Wine is fairly early MBV (not long after Belinda Butcher joined the band) and is pretty much a perfect pop song.  By pop, I mean late-60's-style jangle, sped up to punk rock speed, not modern, demographically adjusted, cynically programmed bland top-40 radio-style pop.  I hope there are others who enjoy it as much as I do.  If not, it’s ok.  I’ve gotten used to being different.

I spend between six and eight hours a day listening to music.  It is the only thing that keeps me sane at my job.  Thus, a lot of my reference points are the music I listen to.  It is pretty pathetic, I know, but I have nothing else to occupy my mind while grinding away on the computer at work day after day.  I envy the creative achievement of a good song.  The melody insinuates itself into my consciousness.  And frankly, I have nothing else to talk about with people, no real common points of interest.  This, as well, tends to isolate me because my music taste diverges dramatically from most people I know and most people my age.  I have nothing much else to share, so I share this:  songs written by total strangers whom I would prefer not to meet.