Agogô a-go-go

Not one to sit on my laurels or even a very hard seat at a concert hall for too long, I've branched out further since the Patti Smith music hall review, becoming not only a passive audience member but an active participant in the performance. Let's chalk it up to being scared/scarred for life by a certain bookcart drill team routine.

By chance, last week my friend Fouchat sent me an email advertising some Latin dance classes to be held in my neighborhood over the past weekend. Latin dance? ¡Ay! Too much sass in the salsa. Too much rhumba in the rumpus. Really, just too many steps to memorize, rinse, repeat. Thanks, I'll stick with the bump. I have ample resources to implement it.

But in the same email was reference to an organization called Samba Pittsburgh (two words you would never really expect to see conjoined, hunh?) and their upcoming percussion and dance workshop. Hmmm, now we're talking.

I have had a fantasy ever since childhood of being a percussionist--except that, in the traditional bass-cymbals-snare universe, I don't orbit so good. Thus, I tend to favor intricate, world-music-oriented drumming, the stuff you find way out in the tabla-conga-bongo solar system. When I lived in D.C. centuries ago, I used to love to hear the African drummers perform at Dupont Circle on a Sunday afternoon. There was little more sublime than enjoying some splendour in the grass with friends, a book, and a blanket, accompanied by the expect drumming and organic, go-with-the-flow rhythms.

Come Saturday, I walked into the Attack Theater in Garfield (or thereabouts), anticipating that the drummers would be off to one side, setting up, and getting ready for their performance, while I would head to the seats on the opposite side and listen attentively.

"Oh, hi, look everyone, he's here for the drumming workshop!" someone said to me, and before I had a chance to say, no, no, I'm just Susie Sorority of the Silent and Extremely Uptight Majority, and I'll stand in the corner, cheers thanks lots, this very friendly woman began introducing me to members of the bateria (the band in Brazilian samba). And then someone handed me an agogô to play.

Agogô? But I just got here . . .

An agogô is this double-bell instrument that you play with a drumstick. You tap out a rhythm that works to "decorate" the sound of the bateria, playing over it to add lightness and color to the bass and the popping, crackling drums. (Editor's note: There are a couple of sound files of an agogô being played here.)

OK, so it's probably the Brazilian equivalent of the triangle, but before long, I was getting the beat, not perfectly but steadily, and following along with the conductor quite well, knowing when to start, increase or decrease speed, and stop, all by listening to him play a whistle and nod his head. There were about six or seven of us in this little bateria, led by an expert and encouraging conductor from São Paulo. And dare I say it? Dare I even think it? After about an hour of practice, we sounded pretty good!

I don't think anyone in Brazil has to worry about samba jobs being outsourced to North America, mind you, but we did alright. In fact, I kept thinking, I want more. I don't want this to end.

But it did, and we moved on to the samba dance workshop, which was really the only thing I intended to participate in all along. Somewhat less successfully, though, I should admit. Oh, I enjoyed it, but I'm not necessarily good at patterned dances. Still, the samba that we practiced wasn't all that patterned--it wasn't the formal, ballroom dancing samba that you might see Apollo Ohno glide (or, worse, Billy Ray Cyrus churn) through on Dancing with the Stars, but, instead, the type of samba you might do at a party in Brazil or as part of a samba school during carnaval.

Eh, despite the lowkey, people's samba approach, I still needed some work. I felt rusty and stiff in my step and awkward in my body. There were probably too many people for the room, and I think by now we know how I feel about crowds. The instructor was a sweetheart, though, and even the professional dancers who were there from the theater's resident company were incredibly charming and mellow, learning and laughing right along with us.

Of course, it wouldn't be a day in my life without a total stranger on a public conveyance confessing their sins to me or, in this case, some bitter crone in a leotard, piled-high hair, and a permanent sneer, glaring at me, seeming to resent my very existence. She spent most of the workshop giving me the hairy eyeball for sweating too much, taking up too much space, or graduating from a state school and not a private one. Or something.

Sigh. Perhaps she didn't like crowds either.

Nonetheless, I made it through the workshop without having Miss Flashdance (what, no cut-off sweatshirt? no welder's hat?) have a Showgirls moment and throw marbles on the floor to ruin my chances for stardom in a gen-u-wine Las Vegas-style review. No, that I did all on my own with my very shaky abilities at being my funky self in a different cultural context.

Nonetheless, I managed to end the day on a high note--an invitation from the music conductor to come practice with the bateria whenever I wanted to. So have agogô will travel!

Since then, I've been surfing the web for agogô and drumsticks--they are surprisingly inexpensive (see note above about Brazil's answer to the triangle)--and think I might just have to make the purchase, then join the band at Flagstaff Hill in Schenley Park on one of these nights when it doesn't rain two inches per hour for a rousing lesson in assault and bateria.

One of the neat things about samba music and samba dancing, at least that I gleaned from these workshops, is that kids, it's OK if you try this at home. Everybody rhumba and anyone can samba. It's not designed to be formal, rigid, oppressively detailed, or exquisitely refined in such a way that one needs to be able to read notes, have an advanced degree in musicology, or be able to turn one's legs backwards from the rest of one's body before stepping out onto the stage. Não, with samba, we're just supposed to get steppin'.

I'll happily comply, whether I find the right agogô or no.

Because too often I've been scared off by doing and trying anything in the realm of art, figuring I don't have what it takes--enough talent, enough coordination, enough skill, enough bravado. As a child, I used to like to draw, but I gave that up, figuring I'd never be Da Vinci or even the artist behind the Magic Drawing-Board on Captain Kangaroo. I used to want to be an architect until I learned there was science and math involved, and Barbie that I am, I quickly realized that math is hard! I've struggled with writing over the years, sometimes doing it, sometimes not, and for years trying to force myself to be a short-story writer, when that is so clearly what I'm not. (All the fiction I make up for this blog really happens.) I didn't try out for grade school band or drama club or perfect my Spanish or finish my African animals origami project because, well, I got busy or felt ashamed or figured I'd never be great, so why try?

Sad, really. Worse, it's just plain pathetic. Forty-five and rarely ever been blissed out in art of his own making.

But what if it's simply a matter of enjoying and doing and not being necessarily great (or even good) at it? What if it's simply a matter of having fun? Birds do it, bees do it, even educated Brazilians apparently do it. Have fun, that is.

So away we agogô. This school for samba looks like it might just teach me more than how to follow steps and feel the beat. The lesson to be learned may turn out to be that, well, there's really no lesson at all. Just have fun.

For all my vague yearnings over the years for more meaning in my life, something deeper, something "real," really all I have ever wanted out of this move to Pittsburgh--or any move for that matter--was a better, more supportive, more freeing environment in which to explore my interests and follow my heart's desires, both the personal and professional ones.

Right now Pittsburgh is playing my song. And not only can I dance to it, I can also accompany it on percussion.

Dancing barefoot

Lest ye think all I've done since I made it to Pittsburgh is eat, think about eating, or write about eating, I'll have you know I have also managed to consume a fair slab of 'Burgher kultur and société.

For example, just a couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to attend the Patti Smith concert at the Carnegie Library Music Hall in Homestead. Fantastic! One of the better concerts I've ever been to and amazing that a woman even older than me (imagine!) can still keep her art, life, and sensibilities fresh and fun.

Yes, Patti Smith and fun. Even harder to imagine than someone older than me with dewy-fresh sensibilities. When I used to read about Patti Smith in the pages of Creem and Rolling Stone way back in the '70s (that's 1970s, not 1870s, smart-alecks) or see her parodied by Gilda Radner in the golden age of Saturday Night Live (remember Candy Slice--that twisted Whitman's Sampler of Mick Jagger and Patti), I just found her scary. Drawn features, rake-thin body shrouded in mannish dress, and that hair, which had obviously never been introduced to Mr. Conditioner. A Breck Girl she wasn't.

This was the age of Charlie's Angels, after all. Having grown up on a steady diet of ABBA, '70s soul and disco (much to the utter shame of my more street-cred siblings), and Aaron Spelling TV, I wasn't quite ready for prime-time Patti. By the time college rolled around, however, punk was in full force as a social and musical statement/style concept and not simply as a pastime for junkies who needed something to do with their hands when they weren't shooting up. Punk's dark-hued and sin-tinged ethos of rebellion was a welcome challenge from what disco had evolved into, which as best as I can deduce was some sort of mutation into drug-addled celebrity pond scum and suburban spouse-swapping trilobites gone wild.

During my high school years, on the radio you could hear Patti Smith's "Because the Night," a song she cowrote with then still dark and brooding Bruce Springsteen. This song was probably mainstream America's first bitter taste of punk and the rawest, darkest, most powerful pop song that Kasey Casem ever had to present on the Top 40. Later in college there were trance-inducing tunes like "Frederick" and "Dancing Barefoot," the latter being one of my all-time favorites, even if I can never quite get the lyrics right.

An adult Patti resurfaced in the late '80s and thanks to my friend the Upstate New Yorker, I've kept up with her career ever since. I don't know that I'm her number one fan like my friend is, but as sort of a tribute to him and because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, my fellow nouveau Pittsburgher Fouchat and I made it a date to go see her in concert.

I couldn't let the event go by without a little silliness. Knowing that Patti is revered by a certain element, that her rather dense (and, to me, somewhat precious) poetry causes some to writhe in a Teresa of Avila-esque ecstasy, I kept telling my friends that I sure hoped she'd start off with "The Warrior." Or maybe she'd invite Don Henley on stage for an encore, and they could duet on their hit "Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough." Or perhaps during a lull in the set, I'd flick a Bic and screech out, "Sing 'Goodbye to You'!" (For the record, those are songs by Patty Smyth and Scandal, not Patti Smith, about as far from punk as Britney Spears is from Mother Teresa. Now it's no fun if I have to explain these things . . . .)

Nevertheless, once the concert began, I was all attentivenss and good behavior.

And, wow, what a concert it was. The setting--a restored concert hall from the late 1800s--the music, the band, the crowd, and the Patti herself, all made for a perfect and marvelous moment.

Yes, I did say even the crowd. Have I mentioned that I don't particularly like crowds? Honestly, I don't particularly like a good portion of humanity, for that matter. (Just call me by my maiden name, Miss Anne Thrope.) Generally, in public spaces, especially in ones where people tend to forget that they came to see a performer rather than be a performer, I expect the worst, that the crowd will be filled with persons in the known universe least capable of conducting themselves in a sane, sensible, and sagacious manner.

After all, I did once view an entire Gypsy Kings concert through the bellydancing gyrations of an over-peroxided trophy wife and her lumbering, wasting-away-in-Margaritaville husband, whose dance-style indicated that perhaps he was suffering from the DTs, thought there were rats scampering around his feet, and had decided it best to stomp them to death, not necessarily in any time to any music, real or perceived. This suburban Sid and Nancy managed, on a completely empty row, to position themselves right in front of me and my friends and proceeded to do their own take on the Moroccan mashed potato through most of the concert.

Admit it--you, too, would be contemplating the benefits of a taser-dispenser in the restroom, now wouldn't you?

In Patti's case, I figured the audience would be filled with aging rockers who got lost on the way to the Aerosmith concert. Or, worse, guys and gals who, like, work at the counter at Starbucks/Whole Foods/FedEx Kinko's (or in a mailroom anywhere on Pitt's campus, for that matter) but who are really in, like, a band, ya know.

Surprisingly, though, about 98 percent of the crowd was great--a real mix of ages, ethnicities, genders, and lifestyles. Other than the leftover Grateful Dead campfollowers who arrived during the middle of the fourth (!) song, the only blips on the screen were this aging queen (perma-tan, muscle shirt sans muscles, and too much time spent looking at the crowd looking at him and not the stage) and his hag (frosted [!?!?!] hair in a style reminiscent of the season on Dallas when SueEllen once again got off the bottle and into trouble with that 12-year-old (looking) kid from The Blue Lagoon, also cursed with the same is-everyone-looking-at-me-yet?-'cause-I-am-so-cool/hot! affliction), who crowded the stage at the very start of the concert and no matter what Patti sang, kept up this bizarre, jazzy, finger-clickin' badass-ness during her performance.

Maybe they were thinking they were at an Ella Fitzgerald tribute concert and somehow all those finger pops would bring Ella back to us. I just don't know.

But once the cop gently encouraged them to return to their seats (without a billy club, darn it all) and Patti calmed the audience ("Now I know some of you want to sit, and some of you want to stand, but I'm pretty sure before the evening is over, everyone will have their moment . . . hey, my next career should be in crowd control!"), it was a pitch-perfect evening.

Patti went through some of her better known tracks ("Because the Night," which had me rockin' in the aisles, "Summer Cannibals," and "Gloria," but sadly no "Dancing Barefoot" or "People Have the Power"), as well as a number of songs of her new album. That album, Twelve, features covers of some of her favorite songs. There's quite a range of predilections on display, from Jimi Hendrix to, goodness me, Tears for Fears.

As Ms. Smith predicted, everyone had a chance to do his/her/its own thang--sit, stand, dance, or, like me, all three.

See, we really all can get along. Bliss.

Motion sickness

For those of you following the continuing saga of my little life--you'll laugh! you'll cry! you'll demand refills on popcorn and a full refund of your ticket price!--I am pleased to report that I made it to Pittsburgh without any trouble at all, really, and have started my new job. So far, so good. This may even stick longer, like, say, three years and a month or so, unlike my last job, which I finished in just under three years (two years, eleven months, and three days to be exact), and my last address, where I did time for a little more than two years.

"Did time" is really an unfair analysis of my life on Main Street, Anyburg, PA, USA. I had the world's greatest apartment, middle-class division. The Taj Mahal/Versailles/Sydney Opera House/Chateau Frontenac/Machu Picchu of apartments, at least among those that cost under $800 a month and don't overlook Central Park, Lake Michigan, or San Francisco Bay. I had even just about decorated it the way I wanted it (settling on a color scheme for the dining room/kitchen was my last Linda Barker-esque conundrum), my summer garden was approaching full bloom and full flavor, I had finally begun to explore the shops and restaurants that Anyburg had to offer (other than Jo Jo's Pizza and Rakestraw's Ice Cream Shop, the first and last places I dined in the Midstate) . . . .

And then I up and move again.

So what's with all the motion and commotion? The simple analysis is that I bore rather easily. I need a lot of intelligent and aesthetic stimuli--or at least some groovy/weird middle-to-low-brow pop culture and a few French hotels to make me feel like a sentient being--and have been craving said stimuli for years. Long before I moved to Pennsylvania. Maybe even ever since I left grad school. Or even before that, since I left Washington in the early 1990s.

The more detailed analysis (and I promise to keep it reasonably brief, if by brief I mean in a Genesis creation story kind of way) is that I had very little life outside of work. To make matters worse, I had a great deal of work to do. And to segue quickly from worse to worst, I didn't particularly enjoy the work I was doing. One might even say somewhere after a year of doing it, I began to loathe it, to cringe at the thought of going into work every morning, to shudder at what was coming next, whatever it may be. Whether it was the nature of the work itself or the reality of the work environment, I cannot quite say, although betting that it was a bit of both is a safe wager.

I figured out about a year or more ago that I needed to move on, that no amount of tweaking great or small, was going to fix the problem of work or life. But I needed to move on in a reasonable way, on to something better, and not just professionally but personally--god, please, personally!--as well. I'm magnificent at thinking of what will make me happy professionally first and personally second. In fact, I major in it and am thinking of a post-graduate degree in it, I'm just that good.

With this relocation, I now think that I've done so, made a move that has the potential to be successful and satisfying both personally and professionally. Fingers crossed.

Still, it does follow soon on the heels of my Dad's passing. Yes, yes, it has to be asked and it has been asked, believe me: Is it too soon? Am I just running away from my problems? Will this make things better? And my answer is that I didn't just come up with the idea to move and change jobs on March 15, the day after my Dad died, that, actually, I have proof--a cover letter to a certain unnamed university in Canada--that shows I have had this move on my mind since at least June 2006. I can also tell you that, according to my Mom, my Dad was one to change jobs every three years or so, and if he had been single, he, too, would have been one to move every three years. So this commotion and constant motion--it comes honestly to me.

It comes honest, yes, but it comes at a price. I feel lucky to have known a lot of wonderful people at my work, and I'd like to think that I have made some friends along the way. In many ways, my life--at least my life outside of work--was calmer and quieter than ever before, and I needed that, especially after my last couple of years in Texas and especially with everything that went on with my Dad and my family over the last few years. So it is daunting and ever so slightly frightening to give up that peace of mind. I'm hoping, though, in the process, that I don't give up the friendships I made, that they indeed are more durable and elastic than peace of mind.

* * *

Is Pittsburgh the answer, though?

To be totally footloose and fancy-frost-free about it, all I can say at this point is, who knows? Which does not comfort those who might question my ability to make decisions for myself. But, really, who does know? About anything, I mean. You can think things through, plan for every contingency, be aware of every potential calamity and adjust for it, and still, after all the planning and worry, fall flat on your face on a birthday cake in a rain puddle. And then get run over by a semi immediately afterwards. And then get your wallet stolen by a bum and have a dog wee on you. So it's good to think things through, but in my worldview, it can only get you so far.

I guess then what I'm hoping is that Pittsburgh is the answer right now, at least for a while. Or if not the answer, then a good, albeit possibly temporary, cure. It solves--or at least, salves--a number of life and work problems for me in the shorter term, and I'm hopeful that it will do so in the longer term as well.

I like Pittsburgh. A great deal, actually. I make jokes about it--that it's the Baltimore of Appalachia (Editor's note: I've been known to describe everywhere and anywhere as the Baltimore of this or that; e.g., San Antonio, the Baltimore of the Southwest, although that could apply to El Paso just as easily), that it's West Virginia with skyscrapers. There is a funky John Waters-but-really-Andy Warhol charm and grit about the place, part Appalachia, part Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe, and ultimately quintessentially Pennsylvania. Coal miners and steelworkers--in spirit if no longer in deed--coupled with robber baron cultural institutions, a revitalized high tech and biomedical economy, a native dialect, a somewhat puzzling but engaging geography, a funky "downtown" vibe in some of the neighborhoods, and a significant sprinkling of the sparkly confetti of gay life.

It's an appealing mix. A little bit country, a little bit rock-and-roll. Just like yours truly, minus the Colgate smile and singing family of perfectly coiffed brothers in leisure suits. So if the question is, "Will Pittsburgh help make you a little happier and keep you in place for a while?" then the answer is a resounding, "You betcha!"

* * *

All told, if I could have complete control over my choice of anywhere in North America to live, at least among the places I've been to, I'd select Toronto or Chicago first. Also-rans might include Montreal (although I would need to acquire some language skills très rapidement and really have to think about those long, cold winters, unless a young Gino Vannelli, or a reasonable facsimile, were on tap), as well as Denver, Minneapolis, and, yes, believe it or not, Baltimore, hon.

Philly's not bad, a little sprawling and a lot decaying, but it has its charms; I like Boston as well, although I've spent very little time there; New York is great but overwhelming and who can afford it anyway?; and San Francisco, while seductive, gorgeous, and a lot of fun--a veritable urban one-night-stand--ultimately leaves me feeling empty and sullen, vowing only to look for love and career opportunities in all the right places. (Editor's note: I've never been to Seattle, Portland, or Vancouver, so I just do not know, OK?)

And if Mexico is considered part of North America--and I would find it challenging to argue otherwise--there's also Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey to consider, each with their charms (the Zócalo in Mexico City; "the city of roses" that is Guadalajara; that weird and massive sculpture of Neptune in the center of Monterrey, a land-locked, water-starved city) and menaces (the crush of humanity and relentless begging in Mexico City; the curious light rail system in Guadalajara, which seems to connect to no place you want to visit; the freeway-system-as-bullfighting-ring in Monterrey).

But except for Denver, Baltimore, and Minneapolis, the others are great honkin' huge cities. And what was that I said about peace of mind? Well, I just don't think I could face that again, the noise, the traffic, the aggro, the fear. Been there, done that, for seven years in D.C. as a matter of fact. And while Washington was fun, thrilling, educational, and enriching, so was my first semester of college, my first rock concert, and my first sexual experience. Please, don't make me go back.

So Pittsburgh fits quite easily into my personal top ten of North American cities in which to reside. I'd even log it at number 6, maybe even number 5, with a (figuratively speaking, let's pray) bullet.

That may well be the best I can expect at this point in my life. A little choice. A little control or say in that choice. Nothing's ever perfect, or at least is ever going to be, as long as me and my one thousand and one worries are involved. But this is good, very good. And things can only get better. At least I'm hoping so. In fact, I'm maybe even starting to believe so.

Gotta move on

Well, I talked about it, talked about it, talked about it, talked about it . . .
Talked about moving . . .
Gotta move on . . . gotta move on . . .
Won't you take me to Funkytown?

Lipps Inc., "Funkytown," 1980

Why the long silence from Blogtucky? Well, I'm on the move again, this time to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Steel City, Iron Town, the gateway to . . . Ohio and . . . West Virginia.

The official move doesn't take place until 6 July 2007 (less than a week away!), but as you can imagine, I'm now busy trying to organize the move, finish up at work, and pack, pack, pack.

OK, OK, so truth be told, my mother, Vivien Leigh, is visiting and doing the bulk of the packing while I finish up at my old job. But I still have lots of fretting and kvetching to do, regardless. And that's hard work, especially as we know how fully and tirelessly I apply myself to both.

I'm very excited about this move and the change in employment that lays underneath. The opportunity to be back in a larger city--one with a vibrant arts scene, friendly people, creative cuisine, mass transit, and loft apartments that are actually constructed from old warehouses and factories and are not newly designed and built lofts on the site of former rowhouses (I'm talking to you, Washington, D.C.)--seems like a better choice for me, personally, something that everyone who knows me, well or otherwise, has realized from the start, but a fact that seems to evaded my consciousness until the last year or so.

I'm excited, too, about the new job, which represents something of a departure from the day-to-day professional work I've done over the last decade. Thus, it's both exhilarating and frightening at the same time, like, I dunno, performing a book cart drill team routine before a live audience or something. I've been in need of a change for a while, long before the sad turn of events from this past spring, so I'm hopeful that this is indeed a good, positive move.

I have about five or six different postings in the works right now, but I think they are going to have to wait until July, post-move. I also need to think about whether I need to rename Blogtucky to something more yinzer-friendly (On top of ol' Blogegheny? By the banks of the Blognongahela? Tall tales from the Pennsylvania Blogpike?) or just leave it as is, 'cause Blogtucky is still a pretty yinzer-friendly concept.

After all, Blogtucky is more a state of mind (or sumthin') and not so much a place. Despite the ridiculousness and celebutardedness I've often written about, what I hope I've conveyed a little so far is that there is indeed life in the "Flyover Zone," that indeterminate area between the Eastern Seaboard cities and the Left Coast. Or I think I've at least conveyed that that *I* am located in the Flyover Zone, and I do happen to be a living, breathing (if not always thinking and conscious) entity. Take your pick.

So go west, middle-aged man, to Pittsburgh, to a new job, a new home, and a new life, if you're lucky. See y'all on the flipside of July.