Drawn In Quarter I: Krystal Love

Love the Way You Walk Away - Blitzen Trapper (mp3)

This is the first in a series of observations about the kind of odd and random relationship glimpses one can get over just a single weekend hanging out in The French Quarter. Like snowflakes, these particular encounters are unique, yet the snowflakes manage to fall just the same with every trip...

I stood in the line for a 2 a.m. Krystal at the end of Bourbon Street. Because I’m a little bit heavier than I would like, I was determined to be responsible in my drunken cravings and only order two. Because I’m principled like that, yo.

In line to my aft were two women and a man spanning several decades, and a group of fratters behind them. Lines at the Bourbon Street Krystal are like a box of chocolates: you never know what disposition you’re going to get... you only know it will be pickled.

The bottle blonde woman in a flower dress too short for her age or shape was approaching 50, maybe even slightly over, but she seemed cheerful enough. The brunette was younger, maybe even in her early 30s, and behind them stood a man who hovered around 60 with slicked back mostly salted hair.

The brunette was pretty cute, and the fratters immediately radar locked on her. After a few brief exchanges, the lead fratter with Timberlakey curls said, “So is it fun coming to Bourbon Street with your parents?”

“Fu** you motherfu***r,” was her swift reply.

Now, I’m not one to defend a fratter. In general, guys who earn the immediate moniker of “fratter” are guys whose aggressive assholishness begs spite. Their syrupy smugness, the way they siphon joy by demeaning and belittling everyone who didn’t pledge with them, is the reason God made me mousy and lanky, because if I were a bigger guy more inclined to vigilantism, I’d be in jail or dead.

But in this brief moment, this Fratter's comment was sans spite. In fact, I had assumed the same thing. Who wouldn't? He was easily 20+ years older!

Between foul words, the brunette explains that this old man is her husband. The blonde is his ex-wife. And no motherfu***r she’s not kidding, and yes you sumbish he’s 20 times the man of all you motherfu***rs.

The blonde was just starting to realize they thought she was this potty-mouthed gal’s mother instead of her former or current competition, so her dander was getting up, too. The old guy, on Bourbon with his child bride and his significantly-younger ex-wife, just stood there shaking his head, because surely he’d heard all this before, and if he hadn’t, he knew it was coming eventually.

Then the fratter remembered he was a fratter, so he spoke Asshole: “That sh*t’s fu**ed up, sister. You got daddy issues ‘n’ sh*t.”

It got louder. Opposing noses got closer together. Language got even saltier.

The poor Krystal employees long ago stopped paying attention to it. The security guard at the door never even batted an eye.

I confess, however, that all this conflict made those two Krystals taste better.

Pilgrimage (pronounced the R.E.M. way, "pil-grim-ahje")

Enda Gallery--"Once I Go" (mp3)

Yep, it's that time of year again, when boys will be boys and men will not exist, except in their physical forms, their bodies inhabited by boys. Because the boys will be going back to New Orleans one more time.

How many years has it been? I really have no idea. Maybe 9 or 10. Maybe fewer. This could also be the last time. Our friend from out-of-town has taken a new job with new duties and new vacations, and he won't be able to make this Spring Break pilgrimage any more. He'll want to go at a different time of year, but I fear that it won't be the same at a different time of year. Our bodies are tuned for a brief, muggy respite in the middle of March. The one time we messed with this schedule, said friend paid for it by puking in a hotel room the whole time. I guess you just don't mess with the Gods of Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler. You stick with what works.

But, no matter. At some point, this has to end anyway, for one reason or another. Whatever that reason is, it will not be good. Count on it. Just don't speculate about it. And don't dwell on it.

In a way, though, that's the whole point, isn't it? Three days where caution goes to the wind, and along with it goes time and age and responsibility and obligation and conflict and disappointment. Three days where memories are all good and friendships resolidify the second that two hands shake, two men hug.

What's on the agenda? Well, pretty much the usual--Commander's Palace, NCAA basketball, The Chart Room, Bourbon Street, Acme Oyster House, a killer po-boy or muffuletta somewhere, a late-night gut bomb somewhere else, a St. Patrick's Day parade or two, a meandering trip in the car so we can claim we were outside the Quarter. A lot of walking down the same streets we always walk. A lot of the same kinds of jokes, the same hacking, the same banter that we always engage in. In a way, though, that's the whole point, isn't it? When we only have 3 days, we aren't likely to do a whole lot of branching out; we know what we like, what works for us, what makes us happy, what is rife with memories, and we're going to go back to those places.

And the money adds up. New Orleans is one of those cities where you start out a night with so much money in your pocket, and when you take stock the next day, you really don't have a clear idea of where most of it might have gone. Oh, you have a pretty good idea, but you have no way to nail down the particulars. Chances are it went to something you never intended to do in the first place when you set out for the evening, and it was spent in an establishment you never thought you would enter. New Orleans is that kind of "Oh, what the heck, let's try absinthe" city. It's a "Mexican food? Here in the Quarter? That's so weird. Let's get some" city. Or a "Who cares if it's a gay bar? We're only going in for a beer" city.

Yeah. So.

Adam Gopnick, in his book, The Table Comes First, says that the first thing a man does when he comes into a new city is to figure out where he's going to eat. New Orleans is that in spades. There/here (as you're reading this, I fully expect to be walking these beloved streets) the biggest challenge is not where to eat, it's how to eat at all of the places that you want to eat at. You love the places that you've been, and so you want to go back, but in between this trip and your last trip, everybody and his brother has told you about a whole new list of places where you should eat, and so you spend your brief New Orleans days in a kind of panic between want and should.

Funny thing about New Orleans: before Hurrican Katrina, it had 800+ restaurants. Then it lost a good percentage of its native population. But it kept adding restaurants anyway. Now, with a significantly smaller population, New Orleans has 1200+ restaurants. Go figure. Or come down and it won't be hard to figure at all.

One of the phrases I hate most in the English language is "to die for." Except for the Nicole Kidman movie of that name which is pretty damn good. People will change the intonation of their voice when they use that phrase, using all of these weird emphases, as in, "That dessert is to die for." Yeah, well, no, it isn't. It's just a piece of gooey chocolate.

And, friend, all I will say is this: that ain't New Orleans. Above all else, New Orleans is to live for. It is that one place within reach that justifies a yearly longing that starts about October and just gets worse and worse, the closer we get to March and Spring Break. Usually, I go after Christmas. This year, I didn't. I have been miserable.

We talk from time to time of going other places, but why would we? Charleston and Savannah are wonderful cities in their own rights, but if you know New Orleans and then you go to them, you will quickly see that they draw heavily from their Louisiana counterpart and not vice-versa. Plus, they're too damn tidy. New Orleans is sloppy and casual and just plain slack. It can piss you off when you're trying to take care of hotel business; it can seem like a miracle when you just grab a drink and start walking. These are lifestyle decisions, not tourism ones. Las Vegas may well be more decadent than New Orleans, but it's manufactured and all of its great eating is imported from places like New Orleans or L.A.

I heard a person today say that New Orleans was the "most un-American American city," and I knew what he meant and he meant it positively, but, really, it's just the opposite. It's the city that saves America. From itself. It's the city that won't let you bring your hang-ups and your preconceptions to it, because it really doesn't care about those. It's the city that transcends America. And when you're here, you only care about one thing--that you're in New Orleans.

Battle of the Network Inner Termoil

Cars - Gary Numan (mp3)
One Small Year - Shawn Colvin (mp3)

We sat on the couch in the darkness of our living room, the glow of the TV flickering over us, and we were happy.

On the TV, in glorious low-def technicolor, was an episode of Battle of the Network Stars from May of 1982. The unforgettable Howard Cosell called the shots, women wore few undergarments, and men made unflinchingly sexist comments. And we were happy.

We watched all 90 minutes, not daring to change the channel during commercials lest that soothing Nyquil rush of nostalgia be ruined by a 24-hour news network or, even worse, one of the channels that have become better at making nighttime programs than the networks.

Catherine Bach (aka Daisy Duke) taught Joan Collins (aka Dynasty's queen bitch) how to throw a ball for the dunking contest. Douglas Barr and Mark Harmon are considered high-quality hunks and have almost no muscle definition in their pecs or abs. Heather Thomas of "The Fall Guy," donning a headband, looked exactly like Bret Michaels from Poison... but was still hot as ever-lovin’ hell. Nancy McKeon -- “Jo” from “Facts of Life” -- was 16 and catching passes in a 3-on-3 game of touch football.

Simpler times.

I’m not a doomsayer or a Debbie Downer, so I don’t believe times get harder, or meaner, or tougher, necessarily, but they sure as hell get more complicated. Not only does technology continue to send explosions of change like an Independence Day fireworks spectacular across our timelines, but it happens at the same time that we, with each aging year, become less adaptable, less swift of mind. Slower.

If we’re truly on the Information superhighway, then the speed limit is always increasing. If it was in the 30s at the start of my lifetime, we're in the 90mph range now. Meanwhile, I’m getting closer to that age where I have to start putting a pillow on the driver’s seat just to be comfortable because of my achy back and hemorrhoids, and I hunch over the steering wheel and struggle to even approach the speed limit as all those careless damn whipper-snappers roar past me.

Things move ever faster; we get slower; the problem compounds.

But the loss goes deeper. We’ve lost so much of our common language about pop culture, and it dwindles bit by bit every year.

In 1981, DALLAS averaged a 28.4 rating. That was down from “I Love Lucy’s 67.3 average in 1952, down from “All in the Family” in the low 30s during the early ‘70s. But it’s miles ahead of the highest ratings of the 21st Century, where “American Idol” is the best we can do, and it barely breaks a 17. (Have fun playing this game: http://www.sporcle.com/games/g/topratedtv)

In other words, with each generation, the common language of pop culture gets cut in half.

Even if you didn’t watch “The Dukes of Hazzard,” you by God knew who Daisy Duke was, or else you were Amish. But now? You could line up 10 actresses, and most of us couldn’t even name which network they were on, much less which specific show, and the men are hardly any different.

It's not that 1981 was better, but we have lost something precious. We probably traded it for something superior, ultimately. But knowing that my Chevy Traverse is by far the best car we’ve ever owned doesn’t prevent me from missing my first car, that ratty ‘82 Corolla hatchback. Likewise, knowing 2012 is mostly better than 1981 doesn’t keep me from missing that simpler time.

More choices, fewer commonalities. One more reminder of The Paradox of Choice. We have more channels, more really great TV shows, and more ability to record and preserve and watch what we wish, yet something about the simplicity of three channels, three choices, and knowing that if you missed it, you missed it.

In a strange and confusing twist, its awkward to find yourself too heavily immersed in past television, yet it’s completely normal and acceptable -- often cool -- to sink obsessively, even exclusively, into old music.

Gotta go. The Tug of War finale is coming up after the break! And then I've gotta catch up on Laff-A-Lympics...

The Meal

Given the dearth of recent comments, I feel liberated to indulge the frustrated food blogger inside of me once again:

Book Club--"Meal Of Dreams" (mp3)

Sunday lunch. Something strange happened. Maybe something revelatory. My daughter was the one who noticed it.

There wasn't that much on the table--soup, three open-faced sandwichs, a bowl of cut-up strawberries, three glasses of water. My daughter said, "This is the way people are supposed to eat."

I didn't know immediately what she meant. I expected a plea for a complete transition to vegetarianism, maybe a push for a weight-loss diet. "How do you mean?" I asked, tentatively.

"Look at all this. We know what every single thing that we're putting in our mouths is, where it came from."

I realized that she was right. The meal was unusual in that regard. Short of milling the flour for the bread and refining the sugar on the strawberries, I had pretty much made everything. It kind of gave me chills, like centuries had suddenly dropped away and I was stuck out on a farm or prairie somewhere making everything from scratch. But it kind of felt good, too. But that really isn't the point. The point, as always, is that anyone can do the same thing.

The soup was a carrot soup, literally nothing but carrots and water with a good bit of onion and some ginger, curry, salt and pepper. It was supposed to have cilantro oil or something like that to drizzle over it, but I didn't get to it and it didn't need it.

The sandwich was, admittedly, several steps, but none of them difficult:

The bread was wheat flour, white flour, buttermilk, a little butter, a little sugar, salt, and yeast mixed in a bread machine and allowed to rise and baked.

Atop the bread was homemade ricotta cheese, nothing more than whole milk brought to a temperature of 190 degrees, then removed from heat and 3 Tablespoons of lemon juice added per quart of milk. It's allowed to rest for 5 minutes, then strained for an hour or so.

Atop the ricotta was pesto, pesto from last summer that I had put into an ice cube tray and frozen into handy pieces. This pesto was nothing more than basil I had grown, garlic, olive oil, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Not even nuts.

Layered on the pesto were strips of roasted red pepper. Nothing easier/tastier in the world. You simply cut the peppers in half, put them on a baking sheet under a broiler until they're black, then get some tongs and toss them in a plastic bag for 20-30 minutes, after which the skins pull off pretty easily. Then slice them up, toss them with a little olive oil, salt, pepper, maybe lemon and that's it.

Yes, there is something very satisfying about making everything that there is to be made. And, yes, then you do know everything that you're putting into your body. The other good news is that when you make any of the things I've mentioned above, you can't help but make more than you're going to use, so you've likely made enough to do it all again or, maybe better, to have some ingredients for some other dishes: ricotta for lasgne. Me, I cut up the rest of those roasted red peppers, sauteed them in olive oil with some garlic and green onion (which grew again from last year's garden) and pureed them in a blender with some of the leftover ricotta cheese for a delicious, different tasting pasta sauce.

If only I could distill my urine into drinking water, I'd be totally set, eh?

Click v. Act

A Change Is Gonna Come - Ben Sollee (mp3)
With My Own Two Hands - Jack Johnson feat. Ben Harper (mp3)

“Your mouth runs faster than your mind.”

The relatives of mine who said this often aimed it at me in my adolescence. It was their way of trying, often in vain, to get me to think and process before allowing words to emerge from betwixt my impulsive lips.

We now live in a culture that has all but given up trying to slow things down or mull things over. The immediacy of our world does not allow us to value contemplation. To mull things is to fall behind.

This new reality played out once again last week when, in the course of just three days, a video called “Kony 2012” surpassed 40 million views. The speed of its virality, thanks to Facebook, was unprecedented, certainly for something that aimed to send an activist-type message.

Invisible Children is a demigod of modern activism. Begun in the fires of the Internet 2.0, they knew that internet video combined with Facebook and a small troupe of young travelers could quickly enlarge their support group, mostly with young WASPs destined to fight one another for a spot in The One Percent.

They sell DVDs and bracelets and superkewl varieties of schwag, all aimed at getting your money while giving you the simultaneous feeling of having bought something cool yet also being an Aware Global Citizen.

Nothing is more promising to a group like Invisible Children than a white college sophomore sitting at his computer playing WoW and thinking, ever so briefly, “Geez, I sure wish there was something I could do to fix all the problems in the world.” In steps Invisible Children to say “Well, there is! And you don’t even have to stop playing WoW for too long! Just watch this video, buy a bracelet, and you’ve done your part!”


IC has visited the school where I work on at least three separate occasions in the past few years. The first time they came, I was blown away by them. Their video was a perfect combination of homemade and masterfully produced and edited, a sort of Blair Witch Charity Project where overhead shots pan down on piles of children sleeping on top of one another in crowded rooms.

By the third time, things were getting a little fishy, or careless, or something. The main presenter looked like he had just finished a 10-year stint as a doped-out Deadhead, and what used to feel like clever attempts at fundraising felt like bad Super Bowl commercials filtered through a megachurch. And it wasn’t just me who felt it. The students did, too. It seemed clear to many of us that they had somehow overgrown their original hopes and become so big as to prioritize the success of their own brand over their causes for Africa.

To be fair, my cynicism is a tad bit unfairly harsh, although the magnifying glass is about to get a lot warmer for them. Both The Atlantic Wire and FastCoExist -- and untold dozens of other media outlets -- have offered fascinating and fairly even-handed explorations of the heat and light surrounding Invisible Children and KONY 2012, and reasonable minds seem only able to conclude that there’s room for skepticism but also room to believe IC is genuinely trying to and succeeding at running one amazingly successful awareness campaign after another.

We are a culture born to be cynical of quick success. Winning lotteries, marrying celebrities and going viral on YouTube all tend to evoke cultural backlash as the jackals sniff for blood and injury, for weaknesses to scavenge. So it was with the blowback on Invisible Children.

Not to brag, but I work for a school where we do activism and community service far more right than we do wrong. We do not require student participation, but we do require those who participate to take ownership and responsibility. Inevitably at times, teachers and adults have to help more than we claim, with planning, phone calls, scheduling. But plenty of times the teens are invested and passionate enough to do much of it themselves.

And then they show up and give their time and get their proverbial hands dirty. Building. Tutoring. Playing. Praying. Walking or running. Washing or clothing. Often in town, but also numerous times each year in other states and other countries.

I can’t prove it, but in my heart I know that the teens who take part in our programs gain a much richer sense of the challenges and struggles of the less fortunate than they could ever get by clicking trivia questions to send grains of rice.

If we’re not careful, clicktivism risks crippling activism, with the key base words being “Click” overtaking “Act.” I’m no technophobe or luddite, but I’ll never be convinced that the humans in WALL-E could make as much of a positive difference in the world of the needy and suffering as people who get out of their houses, roll up their sleeves, and work with, for, alongside those in need.

Taking the human touch out of activism does more harm than good.

Food Ain't Racist

Henry + The Invisibles--"Soul Shaker" (mp3)

Interesting situation at our school a couple of weeks ago: a lunch menu at the end of Black History Month chosen by our African-American organization included the following: barbecued chicken, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, black-eyed peas, sweet cornbread, sweet potato pie and peach cobbler. And Kool-Aid. Left off the menu due to expense and the need to limit the menu: ribs, yams, extra-greasy fried chicken.

The dining hall asked me to send the menu around. They have had bad experiences in the past when they mess with the normal expectations. So I did. I had the menu sent out. I gave the boys credit for it.

And then the questions started coming. "Have you seen that menu?" "Who picked that menu?" "Why did they send that menu out? It's so racist."

Well, I may be in the minority now and I may still be at the end of this post, but I am here to tell you that food isn't racist. Food is neutral. Food is sustenance. I imagine that those statements make me naive. Which is not to say that food cannot be stereotypical or that food doesn't come with history. Or that food doesn't cause shame. I get that. If you had to eat hog intestines or Hamburger Helper without the hamburger or rice sandwiches, then, yes, I understand that you might be embarassed.

But our boys were requesting foods that they were really excited about eating. Were until their menu put them under the scrutiny of their classmates and teachers. Then they backed away from the menu quickly, pretended like they had nothing to do with it. Sending around the menu was a bad idea, I suppose. A naive idea certainly.

But that naivete, if true, comes from my honoring food. I pride myself on my ability to cook from all cultures, to respect those cultures by respecting their food, by wanting to gain some understanding of their food. I have friends who are the same way. I "barbecue" chicken all the time. Don't you? I have friends who seek the perfect mac 'n cheese. I served collard greens at my Christmas meal. I have a no-fail recipe for black-eyed peas, zipper peas, pink lady peas, crowder peas. Every summer when they come in fresh at Linda's Produce, I buy many different varieties and freeze them. My cornbread sucks and I know it. I'm always trying to make it lowfat. Peach cobbler, well, in my book, that depends completely on the peaches.

Last Saturday night, after picking up a random food magazine from last year while in the bathroom, I became entranced with Russian cooking. I knew nothing about it, was surprised to find cilantro (the universal herb) and walnuts in almost every dish. By 8:30PM I had 6 different Russian dishes on my table to accomodate both my vegetarian wife and my daughter and I. The recipes were excellent; I will make them again for a summer party. Welcome, Russia.

I also know that if some of those students and teachers who were "shocked" by the menu mentioned above had accompanied me to Tunica over Winter Break and had eaten with me at Paula Dean's buffet in the Harrah's casino, they would have embraced every one of those dishes mentioned above and not given them a second thought. The exact same plate of food sitting in front of a diner in two different locations--one plate is "stereotypical" and "racist," the other represents the range of the "grand dame" of Southern cooking.

Part of the problem is that people confuse stereotypes and racism. There is some legitimacy to that confusion. Although as one of my enlightened students said last week, "Not all stereotypes are harmful, like the one that says that black people are good at sports." Um. Anyway. The problem for the confused is that the problem lies with them. When Fuzzy Zoeller asked if Tiger Woods was going to serve "fried chicken and collard greens" at the Masters luncheon, there was nothing wrong with the crunchy chicken or the nutritious greens. The problem was with Fuzzy. He tried to turn geographical comfort foods into a demeaning meal without realizing that Tiger Wood's skin color had nothing to do his affinity or lack thereof for Southern food. I think the reactions to our school menu suffer from the same problem. It's like we, none of us, are allowed to admit what we really like for fear that it will get made fun of.

One of my colleagues almost got it right. "The menu you sent around," he told me, "is not black cooking. It's Southern cooking." Maybe. Probably, at this point. But he told me that to let me know that the foods listed meant nothing to him as a black man who had grown up in California. Be that as it may, the fact is that our students wanted the food that they knew, being from the South. They wanted everyone else to get to eat those dishes, too. They didn't expect to have to be embarassed for things that they liked and that they figured most others would like, too. I fear that they were taught that their menu was somehow wrong, and so they fled from it.

But that's what happened. And I share the blame for that as much everyone else. But there is going to come a time when we all figure all of this out. Our students think that we're already there. Those of us who are older teachers are still trying to come to terms with ghosts. Neither perspective is entire accurate or productive. Not now. Not when there is neither as much enlightenment nor as much baggage as we collectively believe.

But let's leave the food out of it. Food, if it is not just food, usually carries with it the best of connotations, not the worst. Food says, as it always has, whether in Odysseus' home or at Jesus' table or in my basement, says come join in and share and eat. Maybe nothing more. Certainly nothing less.

Is It Your Songs Or My Ears?

Two Cow Garage--"Brothers In Arms" (mp3)

Among the many things that one is likely to learn when one spends time in the men's room at Champy's Fried Chicken is the history of a band called Steppenwolf. You know them, no doubt. You've heard "Born To Be Wild" plenty of times in plenty of contexts, and, most likely, "Magic Carpet Ride" a good bit as well. But what else do you know of their catalog? Ever heard "The Pusher" or "Hey, Lawdy Mama?" A very slim maybe, unless you're as old as I am. And, the most ironic aspect of your album-cover-wall-staring-as-you-urinate experience is that the album you're staring at is Steppenwolf's Their Great Hits.

So, chances are, 7 of the 11 songs on the album are songs you've never heard and, if I may speculate negatively, never want to hear because they're just not that good.

That's what I've been wondering about lately. Is it the songs or is it my ears that has me wondering if most CDs I'm listening to just don't have that many good songs on them. Steppenwolf is an extreme example; theirs is a greatest hits CD.

But what about that new CD I've just bought? I texted a recommendation to a friend the other night--Kevin Gordon's new CD, Gloryland. I raved about it, pointing out particularly good songs even after just a couple of listenings. But I was listening to it as I was recommending it and though I had heard several of the songs several times, I hadn't heard it all the way through. By the time I got to the end, I realized that the last 3 or 4 songs did absolutely nothing for me, didn't hook me in any way.

Was that the songs or my ears? Had I just gotten tired of Kevin Gordon's approach and voice or had he run out of steam?

I'd like to be able to blame it the frenetic pace and short attention span of our current lifestyles. But I don't think that would be fair. While it's probably true that it is harder than ever to get a song heard, for a song to break through, I don't think the ability to identify and take notice of a good song has been undermined at all. In fact, as a fan of putting my Ipod with its rididculous number of songs on "shuffle" and allowing random technological choices to choose my "vibe" for me, I know that almost everytime I do that, there comes a moment where I dash towards the Ipod with one thought in my head: What song was that? It is the glorious moment that all of us music lovers live for.

The great song, the good song, the catchy song can still bust out of the pack in any situation, I think, and that's whether it's an unknown song that has made its way onto my Ipod, a song that's playing at a party at your house, the soundtrack in a restaurant, or even the last song on a long CD of songs by the same person.

And, by the way, I am offering not the slightest criticism of Mr. Gordon. I happen to know him, have followed his career for some time, seen him perform live several time. I privately celebrate any of his successes when I come across them. I have written him and told him that I thought the CD was superb. And it is stellar. "Don't Stop Me This Time" is one of the top two or three songs I've heard this year--catchy and evocative and, I am certain, autobiographical. "Colfax," the 10-minute centerpiece of the CD that tells the story of a high school marching band's encounter with the Klan. There are 7-8 really strong songs.

But that does not negate the fact that the songs near the end don't engage me. And it has me wondering, as does Springsteen's Wrecking Ball and Tom Petty's Mojo and Fleet Foxes' Helplessness Blues and Lana Del Ray and M. Ward and the Drive-By Truckers and so many others if the concept of an album, especially a CD album, in most cases simply calls for too many songs and makes it an almost unattainable goal that all of them be good.

Certainly, there are exceptions. Elvis Costello's 20-song explosion, Get Happy!, is one. As are Revolver and Rubber Soul (though I'm not sure any other Beatle albums qualify), some early Joni Mitchell albums, a couple of DB's albums, the Grateful Dead's American Beauty, Guided By Voices' Isolation Drills, and a host of others that you are wedded to. All I ask is that we agree that these are the exceptions rather than the rule.

And though I'm not sure I can support this, it does seem that the creation of the CD concept all those twenty-something years ago pushed artists and music labels farther in the direction of filling out their products with less-interesting offerings at the end, almost as if they knew that few people were going to go that far into the CD before changing it.

Here's that catch: put out an EP of your absolute best stuff and you will not be taken quite seriously, until you prove yourself with a full CD's worth (which is often the EP plus lesser material. Put out a short, 8-song CD of your best songs at the moment and listeners and critics will start adding up the minutes to determine whether or not your CD is "worth it" or unacceptably brief. Or, toss in everything--your best songs, outtakes, live versions, acoustic versions, leftovers of one sort or another, and just see what sticks.

I don't know the answer. But I do know one thing about my ears. They can tell a good song from a song that is mediocre or poor, admittedly to my standards. So I have to think that an artist is the same way--he or she can tell the good ones. Maybe not the ones that might be hits, but certainly the ones that he or she is satisfied with. And I'm not sure why anybody would want to put out anything else. Or pretend to have greatest hits that weren't. Because who is going to listen to them willingly?