The Summer of 69ing

By David Cookson

On a recent trip to Ireland I realized something - they love Brian Adams there. I can’t figure out why, but they do. His songs, especially ‘Summer of 69,’ are played constantly up against classic, indy and even the pop-excessive euro pop that tends to dominate the airwaves.

There’s no accounting for taste, that’s for sure, and my musical taste is incredibly un-evolved when compared with many of my more purist or even fetishistic friends’. I can also relate to liking bad music. I have several favorites I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to divulge.

Still, I find this unabashed ‘Summer of 69’ thing extremely disturbing and here’s why: beyond the utterly mundane and pathetic nostalgia of the song, I was pretty sure Brian Adams couldn’t have been more than an adolescent in 1969. And I’d imagine, most who revel in it, revel in their own fading, time-bloated coolness in that year.

Now I know that a lot of songs are about something more fundamental and frequently not autobiographical, still this song seems incredibly disingenuous and pandering. After hearing it several times in a day on different stations while dodging oncoming cars on country roads in Connemara, Tess suggested the completely plausible explanation that it was probably written by someone else. Prince was her best guess. I liked that. I think it satisfied me until a rambling conversation with Pat on my return that started with T’ai Chi, ran headlong back into Brian Adams all over again.

This prompted us to do some investigating. First, Brian Adams was nine in the summer of 1969 and most certainly a sexual novice. The song was co-written with Jim Vallance in 1984 (he also wrote the Aerosmith hit ‘Ragdoll’). The co writers have a divergent opinion as to the lyrical meaning of the song. In a 2008 interview with thecelebritycafe.com, Adams said:

"I think 'Summer of '69' — I think it's timeless because it's about making love in the summertime. There is a slight misconception it's about a year, but it's not. '69' has nothing to do about a year, it has to do with a sexual position... At the end of the song the lyric says that it's me and my baby in a 69. You'd have to be pretty thick in the ears if you couldn't get that lyric".

If there was even an ounce of irony in this it wouldn’t have been enough to make me like the drively ditty or Adams, but it may have been enough to make me appreciate his flip or self-deprecating humor. No such luck.

Vallance, in a more conventional interpretation of the song, says the title is a reference to a formative year and that he remembers Adams relating to it that way too citing the film ‘Summer of ‘42’ as an example.

"I wish this little "controversy" would just go away. First of all, when Bryan and I were writing the song, it was originally called "Best Days Of My Life". The words "summer of '69" only appeared once, right after "played it 'til my fingers bled". That was it! The song really was about the summer of 1969! It took us a week or two to fine-tune the lyric. At some point we realized that "Summer Of '69" was a better title, so we literally "shoe-horned" that phrase into a few more places in the song. At no time do I recall discussing sexual innuendo with Bryan ' except for one little thing. When we recorded the demo in my basement, towards the end of the song Bryan sang a little naughty bit: "me and my baby in a '69". We had a laugh about it at the time, and Bryan decided to keep it when he did the final recording a month or two later. Nobody seemed to notice, and that was the end of it until a few years ago when Bryan started introducing the song in concert by saying, "This song has nothing to do with the year 1969". The audience reaction was predictable. Let me qualify this by saying I don't pretend to speak for Bryan. Two of us wrote the song. Maybe he was thinking about something completely different ... but I was thinking about that amazing summer when I turned 17. There were brand new vinyl albums released by The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Kinks, Janis Joplin, The Band. It was awesome and I'll never forget it. Bryan Adams is a great writer, a great singer, and a great friend. He's entitled to his recollections as to what inspired the song "Summer Of '69". My recollections just happen to be different than his."

So it’s either a nostalgic, self-congratulatory song of coolness pandering to a scion of the Big Chill set, or it’s just a juvenile sex song about 69ing the summer away with a girlfriend in a year that doesn’t really matter. Neither is appealing.

It’s not difficult to figure out that Adams was probably trying to make a safe song/shit-hit a little more dangerous live and now either prefers to continue the charade or has just come to believe it’s really true.

It doesn’t matter which it is. It still sucks.

Gene Slacks -hosting my garage sale

Gene Slacks the legendary garage sale comic will be hosting my garage sale this Saturday. I'm going to be selling a lot of stuff. I'll have books, records, kitchen gear, unknowns, furniture etc. There will be a lot of worthwhile objects. My address is 209 Hibiscus Ct. Orlando, FL 32801. Parking is scarce on my great little street. Also at noon clothing designer Kelledy Francis will be hosting a fashion show that will take a closer look the unsold clothing. I'll need some models. Anyone can model in my driveway. The sale will last from 8AM-2PM. My number is (407) 913-1426 if you get lost.

The Cryling Light Review... kinda‏

This is an Antony and the Johnson's review by Bangkok transplant Andrew Jones.

Antony and the Johnson’s albums have swung all over the map. Their first foray came out on David Tibet’s Durttro label, a recording company that has been chronicling queer performers like KAOS’ digital Angel, Annie Bandez, and of course Baby Dee. Of all the performers though, Antony Hegarty’s stuff fits in the best with the glut of emo that has been a staple of indie-rock since the early nineties. His/her music makes depression sound harrowing, and the atmosphere manages to link post-hardcore maudlinness with the troubadours of folk. Its songs linked tranny circle ideas like sisters with the alienated landscapes of rock. The two, surprisingly, went together rather well. The Crying Light dispenses with rock for the simple joys of a piano. It is a simple album, that’s major emotional chord is just the despair in Antony’s voice. The major tragedy of Antony’s music is his own performance. He isn’t the woman he wants to be, but is becoming one. He is negotiating this self in a culture where transsexuals have been shot at school, thrown over bridges for their walk, and denied entry to Manhattan restaurants. The Crying Light doesn’t touch on such ideas directly; it is instead just a series of stories often marked by their own desire for annihilation. In one track he intones, “cut me intro quadrants, leave me in the corner,” in Another World he desires to escape culture. Like Robert Smith he is fond of lyrics filled with pity, asking for mercy and like Boy George he sings with genuine heart.

Antony’s use of his identity on stage resembles his idol Marc Almond. Both are queer performers, displaying that unique ability the subjugated have for developing alternative selves, work place identities, and gay selves that derive from base desires long covered over by fear or impracticality. In Marc Almond, queer is inimical to the familiarity of everyday hetero-selves. Gender and sexuality are constructions and transgression is an act of rebellion. But Hagerty is not a rebel; he makes trans-gender even homely. The mechanics of identity and sexuality construction become tools of realizing a normalized psychology, his stance doesn't differ much from the plain unassuming self-absorption of Yo La Tengo. In an era in which sincerity and simplicity are guiding values, Mr./Ms. Hegarty has shown the values of her identity as cordial to her peers. Such pronouncements stand at odds with other transsexuals like RuPaul, who promote a wild feminine approach in accord with gay liberation's attempts to form a homo-counterculture, but Ms. Hegarty's blending in is more in line with the reality of most of America’s trans-gender. The posters on Laura's playground for instance, a web board for America's transgendered, are more interested in acceptance and less in making radical statements out of their selves. When Antony sings, his conviction doesn't seem to be at odds with his audience; rather it's an appeal to their pathos.



Pathos is what has marked Antony’s career so far. His quivering voice has given simple little refrains a Tim Buckley like sense of the epic. His early worked focused on drag performance and S&M. Antony's history is rather telling. He arrived in New York just in time to watch the heydays of gay liberation wind down into the polo shirted gay couple and their simulacrum of hetero-family life. Drag with its associated glam was at most a footnote and post-stonewall Brooklyn was an exception in American culture with its acceptance of its trans-gendered residents. Gay has become essentialist in the popular imagination that it might be as constructed as heterosexuality, that it might have to do with who people prefer to be, has been lost in the noise of its mainstream acceptance. Simply put, so many of the identities people inhabit in our society are so easy to assume and maintain, that some people’s desire for a new self to get out of the psychological suburbia sincerity requires becomes unbelievable. Hagerty has made queer into sincerity. Her frankness in photographs reminds of Leigh Bowery’s performances, and her message, that I am constructing a self, that I am becoming who I want to be is lasting. It is a story of sexuality and self that is only a tragedy in America.

The Passing Of The Florida Rail Pass

I had just finished reading the Donkey Show by Michael Patrick Welch. I think I was somewhere near Biloxi. The sun was rising. I could see water on both sides of the train. I don't know how long we were nearly inert, and I didn't care. The announcer said we should be moving soon, and we'll be in New Orleans shortly. Yes train travel can be slow. I'm not even sure why we weren't moving. I don't mind slow, most of the time. I'm a baseball fan too. My least favorite assessment of a film , is , it was slow.What does that mean? That phrase -it was slow- usually makes me curious, maybe there is actually a story. If you pay attention, more might be going on during those slow times than during a car chase or an explosion.

I was glad to have finished the Donkey Show. Michael is a friend of mine from New Orleans. I really love his novel about teaching creative writing in one of the worst high schools in New Orleans. It is also about falling in love, struggling to get by and mostly about living in New Orleans. It had been my favorite city in the United States. Henry Miller had noted it as a bright spot in this country in his book Air Conditioned Nightmare. It was a book that meant a lot to me years ago.

My trip was almost exactly a year before Katrina. I was evacuating Hurricane Frances, before I was even sure it was going to hit Orlando. I bought a one-way ticket to New Orleans. The cost of the ticket was thirty one dollars. I only paid for the journey outside of Florida. I had a Florida Rail Pass. It cost two hundred and forty nine bucks. It was good for a year. During that year I was free to ride anywhere in Florida. I took several trips to south Florida, and some short rides, like to Kissimmee (ten or so minute ride) for lunch.

I haven't been to New Orleans since that trip. I'm almost afraid to see it. Katrina, makes me sad in so many ways. When I got to New Orleans I wanted to stay. I always felt that way. I'm not sure if I would still feel that way. It seemed like another country to me, that was what Miller found appealing about it.

I had hotel reservations for the weekend that Katrina hit. I was going with several others to see the reclusive musician Jandek. The show was canceled, a minor subplot of the devastation.

Jonathan told me to meet him for a drink a little after five at a bar in the Marigny district. He was getting off work. He would take me over to his apartment after that. I could stay there for a few days, while he shacked up with his girlfriend. Jonathan performs with Michael in his band and in skits for reenactments of episodes of the Donkey Show.

Jonathan departed, and said something like I'll see you in a couple of days. I went to get a beer after he left. I ran into a few Orlando acquaintances at a pub on the edge of the Quarter. There was a crew of five of them. We drank a beer. I went to a payphone. It was a year before I bought my cellphone. Payphones were getting scarce, but there were some around then. I checked my messages from the payphone. I had several messages. One from Contos, Alex, Tess and Kay. They said they were headed for New Orleans.

A couple of nights later we were all together. Apparently they left the Hideaway in the middle of the night and drove towards New Orleans. Alex said that it was raining so hard until around Gainesville, and he doesn't remember seeing any other cars on that stretch.

I told them about the great artist warehouse that Michael took me to. Bands played all night. It was in a very rough area. The owner of the warehouse was a German artist in his sixties. He showed me bullet holes on the outside of the building.

We ran into Trish too. She was staying in some posh place in the Quarter. Alex, Trish and I walked out of a bar and the sun was up. It had been up for at least an hour or so. I had fallen into the New Orleans myth. I was drunk, and going to bed late morning. I would be ready for that night.

I was in New Orleans for about a week. I barely saw Jonathan. The trains were all canceled. Last minute plane flights were exorbitant. The Greyhound was also canceled.

We roamed the Quarter watching the spectacle of Southern Decadence weekend. It was a large gathering of the Bear's, not the animals, but the large hairy, gay subculture, huge hairy guys wearing thongs, John Deere hats, looking like they could hit a softball out of any park. Michael and his girlfriend Morgana gave us a tour. They said that the crew had toned it down a little, since the police cracked down on public indecency. Michael told me of seeing a bear sodomize a very willing bear in broad daylight, just off the main drag. I didn't see anything like that.

I finally reluctantly (because I love New Orleans) got a ride home with Trish. Alex and I rode with her. We were the last of our crew to leave town. I hadn't seen much of Contos. He was reuniting with some old cronies of his. He used to live in the city. Kay and Tess were hanging out together.

I didn't want to leave, but I had some things to tend to. The next year the train route from Jacksonville to New Orleans was discontinued. Katrina put an end to that. I don't know that it's coming back.

I just found out that the Florida Rail Pass no longer exists. I asked someone at Amtrak about it. They said it ended in September, and there are no plans of bringing it back. Alex and I bought our pass at the same time. We were both working out of our house, so we would just hop on the train when we had some free time. We had a lot of it then.

Tampa's Taco Bus

Forest mentioned Tampa's El Taconazo,the Taco Bus in his post about the Airstream Ranch. He wasn't aware that I've been a longtime fan of this place. Just about every time I go to Tampa, I stop and eat there.

It seems that the El Taconaza has officially changed it's name to the Taco Bus. Just about everyone referred to it as the Taco Bus. Thanks Forest for the photo.

I don't know when I first heard of the Taco Bus, maybe 2004. Carrie Mackin told me about it. Carrie could easily have her own post and plenty more. She's living in New York now. She ran the late great Covivant gallery. I was in a show at the gallery. Carrie clued me into several great places in Tampa, especially in the Seminole Heights area, where the gallery was located and the home of the Taco Bus.

She also told me about Mauricio Faedo's Bakery on Florida Avenue. It's a twenty four hour Cuban bakery, near the gallery. I remember stopping by the bakery with her, stocking up on guava pastries following a night of drinking at the legendary Hub bar in downtown Orlando. My friend Alex and our friend Tampa Steve introduced me to that place awhile back. Cheap, plenty of character, looks a little like 40's LA.

Carrie told me that I can't leave Tampa without going to the bus. She was right. Now I hear about the place all the time, even though we are an hour and a half from it.

I have another foggy memory of going with Summer Redwine (that's her real name), Lisa Parani and John Contos. It seems like our dinner was around fifteen bucks, maybe twenty. Whatever it was, everyone was very satisfied with the food and the price.

The Taco Bus is an old school bus, that is painted colorfully and looks like it should be in Mexico, but I'm glad it isn't. The food is authentic. Now I'm remembering the two hour discussion I had with some friends regarding what authenticity really means, especially at this point. If there is anything authentic, this is it. The food is excellent.

The bus is located behind a small Mediterranean revival house on busy Hillsborough Blvd. near I-285, and not far from the USF(University of South Florida) campus. The bus is where the kitchen is located. The house is the restaurant, although we've always sat outside next to the bus on the picnic tables, with the thatched covering.

I remember setting up my installation at Covivant the night before the show in 2005. I was up most of the night. I slept on the couch in the gallery. I heard some pounding on the window. I saw Alex, we headed over to the bus, for my one of my favorite things, a Mexican breakfast. It brings me back to the scary bus ride through the Copper Canyon in Mexico. We stopped at the home of a very old but very alert woman. She made us homemade tortillas. I used her outhouse after the meal.

Sitting at the picnic tables, listening to ranchero music playing through the not so perfect sound system, while watching the women cook inside the bus, spicy aroma's surrounding us, is as close to leaving the country as I can get without hopping on a plane. Oh yeah, the Taco Bus has plumbing, and indoor bathrooms.

Book Review- Jonathan Lethem - You Don't Love Me Yet

This review of Lethem's not so recent book is by Bangkok freelance writer Andrew Jones, he's a former Orlando resident. It appeared recently in Associated Content.

Wherever the Road Takes You

Article By Forest Young

Often obscured by the spectacle of large destination parks are a constellation of improbable and well-hidden gems sprinkled throughout the Central Florida corridor. While most cultured Floridians know this fact, it is still jarring and exhilarating to witness a seemingly "backwoods" neighborhood being uncannily hospitable to modernist architectural tomes such as the Winter Haven Leedy residences. It has now been some time since Pat and I made our pilgrimage to the Weaving/Thomasson Residence (aka Nikole's) and to Winter Haven — an unlikely beacon for the Sarasota School of Architecture.

The next significant discovery for me would come unexpectedly on the roadside of I-4 near Exit 14 in Seffner, Florida. A month ago I was sitting sleepily in the shotgun seat of a speeding Hyundai. Kristen and I were driving to a meeting in Tampa when I turned my head and saw a luminous installation erupting from the grassy shoulder of the interstate. Eight Airstream trailers were buried at measured distances from one another and angled in such a manner as to provide an overall windswept gesture. The installation immediately recalled Ant Farm's iconic "Cadillac Ranch" in Amarillo, Texas from 1973. Later that day when I asked people in Tampa about the Airstream installation on I-4, they simply shrugged their shoulders.

Fearing that it was a mirage or worse — a sleep-deprived hallucination, I went to Google Maps and typed in the coordinates for the area of Seffner closest to my sighting in order to view a satellite image of the site. When I saw the aerial picture of the land where I briefly glimpsed the row of Airstreams, there were no indications of any kind of metallic submerged vehicles. I was, however, able to find a semblance of evidence from the Google Maps street view camera. I am constantly making sure to obtain evidence of these discoveries — to substantiate my unlikely claims made about these impromptu Florida trips — and mostly as proof for myself. Armed with the evidence that an Airstream installation on the roadside of I-4 did in fact exist, I vowed to return to the site and see the installation up close and personal.

Last Friday, I drove towards Seffner with great anticipation. Prior to driving, Kristen and I treated ourselves to lunch at El Taconazo — or the "Taco Bus" as it is affectionately known in Seminole Heights. As Kristen and I made our way back to Seffner, we kept our eyes peeled for the reflective glint of the skyward-pointing vehicles. A quirky GPS navigator voiced by an Austin Powers "sound-a-like" actor informed us that we were close. There were rumors that the installation was a mere publicity stunt for a local Airstream distributor. After turning off of I-4, we took a series of consecutive right-turns and pulled into the lot of Bates RV. A man with a stern expression met us at the gate and bluntly asked us if he could be of any help. We asked to see the Airstream installation and he shot back: "Why?" I responded that I was a fan of Ant Farm — the iconoclastic art collective whose videos, performances, installations and built spaces echoed the revolutionary zeitgeist of the late sixties and seventies; I wished to know the intentions of the piece. He smiled suddenly, which caught us both off-guard, introduced himself as Byron and beckoned for us to follow him. We walked hastily to the rear of the complex and all hopped in a well-worn golf cart and headed out to the shoulder of the interstate. While driving, Byron attempted to explain the conceptual rigor behind the installation.

I will now do my best to re-tell the telling. The Airstream has long been considered the "Cadillac of RVs" and to commemorate the 35th anniversary of Ant Farm's "Cadillac Ranch" in 1973 Frank Bates — the co-owner of Bates RV along with his wife Dorothy decided to create a sister installation called "Airstream Ranch" that was in conversation with the aspirational spirit of the first. Bates chose eight vehicles by adding the numbers 3 and 5 (e.g. 35th ≈ 3 + 5 ≈ 8). As we pulled up to the row of eight, Byron reflected on the numerous events that had taken place on the land near the installation. There had been a series of "redneck" weddings, eclectic outdoor concerts, art and architecture lectures and golf cart tours. Like eight falling dominoes frozen in time, we were immediately taken aback by the sheer scale of the vehicles which had eluded us from the interstate. Kristen candidly hopped off the rear seat of the cart and begin snapping pictures of the installation. Meanwhile, Byron asked me how I had first discovered Ant Farm. I responded that while in graduate school at Yale I had been privy to an extensive multi-media Ant Farm exhibition held in Paul Rudolph’s Art & Architecture building. Byron then disclosed that he and his wife were adjunct professors at the Yale School of Management and that his daughter had graduated from Yale College the past year and was currently living in Nicaragua.

After thoroughly documenting "Airstream Ranch" Byron encouraged us to get back to the main complex in order to catch Frank before he flew off in his cherry-red helicopter parked on the rooftop heliport. We managed to intercept Frank as we pulled up in the golf cart moments before he embarked on his afternoon flight. Frank greeted us with boundless enthusiasm and a sincerity that seemed anachronistic — mannerisms more befit for a bygone era. Frank recounted his ongoing struggle and courtroom drama with Hillsborough County whose elected officials questioned the artistic merit of his installation. Frank was clear to articulate that this was not a publicity stunt, but rather an informed art installation that sought to bring back a sense of hope to the I-4 passersby. In both installations — in Amarillo, TX and Seffner, FL the tailfins and silver streamlined bodies embodied the hopes and dreams of America. Set against a contemporary climate of American automotive pessimism, the two sibling installations could not seem more relevant. Untold citizens from the community had come out in defense of "Airstream Ranch" including professors from the USF School of Art and the Arts Council of Hillsborough County. The conclusion that the defendants argued: "This is art."

I told Frank that I would be back to support his efforts in any way I could and thanked Byron for a generous tour of the installation and surrounding facility. When I went to the website for Bates RV I was enamored with the company's slogan: "Wherever the Road Takes You ... You Can Count on Us." Indeed.