October 2023 - Page 3 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Movie review: Carlos

keep a demon under control

Before I review the new documentary, Carlos, here is a little personal history. I had asked one of my parents, probably my father, if I could go to the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, NY, in August 1969. He said no, and that was that. How was I to know that it would become WOODSTOCK?

So when the movie came out in the spring of 1970, a large group of friends and I saw it. Because, back in the day, we could, we then watched it again.

Some artists I knew, but not Santana, though Evil Ways had just hit the Top 10 nationally in March 1970. I was mesmerized by Soul Sacrifice. But I never knew why the lead guitarist seemed to be grimacing so much until I saw the new film.

The Dead

As the Variety review notes: “Carlos arrived at Woodstock by helicopter, and the first thing he encountered there was Jerry Garcia (who he knew from the Fillmore), extending an open hand with some pills in it. Carlos wasn’t scheduled to go on for many hours, so he figured he’d take the pills, and they would wear off.

“The next thing he knew, the Woodstock announcer, with that deep voice, was introducing Santana. Carlos stepped onstage out of his mind on acid… The film shows those clips, and Carlos, looking back, explains to us what was happening: He thought the neck of his guitar had turned into a writhing snake, one he was literally wrestling so that he could subdue it enough to play. What the whole world saw was a guitarist on pure electric fire. What Carlos was doing was trying to keep a demon under control.”

That’s just one interesting segment in the film, which I saw with my wife, at her suggestion, at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany recently. The doc starts with a tease of Oye Como Va, familiar yet rendered new.

Violin

Carlos was a poor kid born in Mexico. His father, a mariachi musician, taught his son how to play the violin. Eventually, Carlos had to tell his father, whom he adored, that the guitar was a better fit for him.

The family moved to San Francisco. A tape recording of Carlos from 1966, when he was 19, showed how remarkably good he was. There is also some great footage of the Fillmore with Bill Graham, Garcia, Joe Cocker, and others. Graham made sure that Carlos and his band played at the Fillmore steadily, either as the warm-up group or the headliner, when the scheduled artist failed to show. I liken it to when The Beatles played nearly daily in Hamburg, Germany, in the early 1960s and became solid musically.

BTW, Abraxas, the second album, remains my favorite, especially the segue of Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen. It was also his best-selling album until 1999.

The movie delves into the masking of the album Supernatural, and Clive Davis’ part in that process, which was responsible for eight Grammys, including for Smooth, the single featuring Rob Thomas.

Bio

Two things jumped out throughout the film. Carlos’ spiritual journey is quite evident. After successful albums, he abandoned the rock motif for a time and became a disciple of the Indian spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy. I have an album with Carlos and John McLaughlin.

His disdain for musical collaborators who aren’t committed to the music is legendary, which is why there have been some three dozen members of the band Santana over the years.

He had two children with his first wife, Deborah King (m. 1973-2007), and both are inclined toward music.

In some ways, the storytelling was Carlos and his sisters sharing his story to Carlos’ second wife, Cindy Blackman, who, not incidentally, is Santana’s touring drummer. He proposed to her on stage during a concert in Illinois in July 2010, and they married in Hawaii five months later.

The documentary received 100% positive reviews from 17 Rotten Tomatoes reviews and was 94% positive with audiences. Carlos, directed by Rudy Valdez, is recommended.

Roger’s Flight List

no reservation?

Roger’s flight list is Roger directly stealing from Chuck Miller because, you know, I can. I am interested that he has flow to places I’ve been to, but I got there by other means: Cleveland and Detroit by train on the same 1998 trip; Toronto by car in 2011; and Baltimore by car in the late 1990s.

PREVIOUS FLIGHT DESTINATIONS: Albany, NY (from Binghamton); Atlanta, GA; Buffalo, NY; Charlotte, NC; Chicago, IL; Denver, CO; Houston, TX (with a side trip to Durant, OK); Las Vegas, NV; Louisville, KY; Madison, WI; Miami, FL; Nashville, TN; New Orleans, LA; Orlando, FL; Salt Lake City, UT; San Francisco, CA (from San Diego); Savannah, GA; Barbados; and Paris, France. Oh, and, most often, San Diego, CA.

Every flight on the list, save for Buffalo, was routed through another airport: JFK, Newark, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Detroit, or Chicago’s O’Hare. The first moving walkway I saw was in the airport in Pittsburgh. I recall that I hated the Detroit airport in the 1990s, but when I went through there traveling from Las Vegas to Albany in 2023, it was fine.

FIRST FLIGHT. Also, WORST FLIGHT: I was one of six high school students from the Binghamton, NY, area to attend The Governor’s Conference on Children and Youth in Albany in late August or early September 1970. We were on a 12-seater plane. There was rain and lightning and turbulence. I thought I was going to die.

FIRST FLIGHT ON A LARGE PLANE: It was 1987. It might have been to Madison, WI, with Mario Bruni to the Capital City Comics Distributor event – FantaCo was plugging its Mars Attacks! cards. Or it was to the San Diego Comic-Con; I also went there in 1988.

OMG

MOST NERVOUS FLIGHT: The New York Small Business Development Center held its 1994 annual conference near Jamestown. The folks from the Central office, where I worked, the Albany field office, and others flew from Albany to Buffalo, then took a charted bus from Buffalo to Jamestown, getting lost en route.

While we were at the conference: “On Thursday, September 8, 1994, USAir Flight 427 crashed in Hopewell Township, Pennsylvania, killing all 132 passengers and crew. To this day, it remains the deadliest crash in the history of Pennsylvania aviation. USAir Flight 427 was a regularly scheduled flight between Chicago-O’Hare International Airport (ORD) and Palm Beach International Airport (PBI), with a stop at Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT).”

People at the conference were FREAKING OUT. Most of them had taken US Air to get there and would return the same way. Some unhelpful folks said that after a plane crash, it would be doubtful there would be another.

After the conference ended, we took a charter bus back to Buffalo, discovering that our flight reservations back to Albany were canceled inexplicably. We had to rebook before going home.

MOST UGH EVENT: In 2009, the flight attendant from JFK to Charlotte panicked when I told her my daughter had a peanut allergy. The return flight was worse.

First Class!

NICEST UPGRADE: On our return honeymoon flight from Barbados in 1999 – thank you, JEOPARDY! – my bride and I were upgraded to first class. I don’t know if it was JEOPARDY’s doing or whose, but it was a tremendous five-hour flight. Then I landed in JFK to experience the Worst Queue Ever at Customs. (Coming back from Paris in 2023 was MUCH better.)

THE FAMOUS PEOPLE I MET: Mark Lane is not particularly famous, but I knew who he was, and we talked at length.

FLIGHTS I FORGOT I TOOK: When I was pondering the list of destinations, I told my wife that we had only flown together to other countries, Barbados and France. No, she insisted, we flew to Atlanta in 1995.

I remember being in Atlanta with her a year before the Olympics (just like Paris in 2023), staying at a Doubletree Hotel and visiting her childhood friend. We MUST have flown, but I don’t specifically remember it.

Also, I was in San Francisco with my sister Leslie in 1987 or 1988. I didn’t fly from Albany, so we must have flown from San Diego.

To be revisited soon.

Weird

in the dark

Sometimes, I start writing a blog post that doesn’t come together satisfactorily. Here are some recent examples.

I started a post called Weird. One aspect was how some political emails I received mentioned people by their full proper names. “Tell James Daniel Jordan your opinions.” Or “Are you supporting Elizabeth Lynne Cheney?” Or “Thank Charles Ellis Schumer.” These are, of course, Gym Jordan – I mean Jim Jordan, Liz Cheney, and Chuck Schumerr, respectively.

This led to an internal discussion about why some younger performers receive the “whose real name is” treatment while I’ve not seen “Ice-T, whose real name is Tracy Lauren Marrow.” Most casual fans didn’t even know the original names of Martin Sheen (Ramón Estévez), Vin Diesel (Mark Sinclair), etc. But do I get into old-time actors like Archibald Leach (Cary Grant) and Marion Morrison (John Wayne)? Mission creep.

Traffic

The initial impetus for Weird was a trip from our house in Albany to a restaurant in Troy, a distance of seven miles, the day after the August blue moon. We passed a broken-down CDTA bus, then the aftermath of at least five accidents. A cop car was blocking the entrance to the gas station across from our dining establishment.

A few weeks later, I sat at the bus stop on Western Avenue at N. Allen, waiting to go downtown. Two cars were in the two westbound lanes. The vehicle in the right lane made a right turn. Then, the car in the left lane also made a right turn. Instead of falling behind the first car, it attempted to pass and got hit on the right passenger side. Weird. And stupid.

Let there be light.

One thing we need to fix in our house is providing more illumination. It’s weird how bad my night vision is. The light at the top of the stairs is too faint for one, especially THIS one, to see well. But the fixture is sealed, so we can’t open it to replace the bulbs. There’s a nightlight on constantly because it’s too far from the outdoor light.

The living room has long been a problem. We need to replace the ceiling fan with one that isn’t as wonky and has a light future. As a guy who goes to the file cabinet that contains 70% of my CDs, I can’t read the titles on the spine at night or when it’s overcast.

But the most problematic, and the most weird, is the main kitchen light. It works great. Then it stops. Based on my experience working at FantaCo in the 1980s, the problem isn’t the light bulbs – which we could replace – but the ballast. When I walked into the kitchen one evening, I could see. Then, I could not. I bumped into a Chewy box next to an open bag of cat litter. The litter was dumped onto the floor. Other examples of weird I either incorporated into another post or forgot.

The Beatles LOVE by Cirque Du Soleil

leaving Las Vegas

W, Sept 27: at the recommendation of someone we went shopping with on Monday, we went to breakfast at the Polaris Street Cafe, a place so unassuming from the outside we weren’t sure it was open. The food was delicious, and the breakfast burrito was so large that I had half of it for dinner.

After lunch, MAK and I played billiards, just as we did back in college, which is to say, badly. We did make some decent shots.

Mirage

We headed to The Mirage to see The Beatles LOVE by Cirque Du Soleil. It was a magnificent show. It had everything from an Eleanor Rigby-laden war scene to a tribute to Beatlemania to astonishingly daredevil skateboarding to ballet in the air. A review on Vegas.com called it “a psychedelic journey through the trends and politics of the ’60s and most importantly, The Beatles.”

The music blends several tracks, as the LOVE album does, and is very effective. (By the way, if you are a Beatles fan, you should get that album.) The only song I recall that was not from the album was Twist and Shout.

One problem with the audience is that, while taking photos was allowed, using a flash was not, and for good reason. Ushers went down to the front rows of our section twice to chastise idiots.

There was a five-minute delay about 2/3s of the way through, but it didn’t ruin the show’s flow. My difficulty was that there was often SO much going on, it was a challenge to decide where to look.

A recommendation: buy your tickets early. They use “dynamic pricing,” meaning that the closer to showtime, the more likely they will be more expensive. Yet the nosebleed seats I bought were upgraded to a better location.

Going home?

Th, Sept 28: We checked out of the resort and took a cab to the airport, driving past the Statue of Liberty, which mistakenly appeared on US postage for a time.

We waited at gate 40, but the plane leaving adjacent gate 41 for Atlanta departed late. Still, I was surprised when no one was at the gate 30 minutes before our scheduled takeoff.

Suddenly, we heard a muddled announcement. All I could make out was final, Detroit (our first destination), and 34. Curse me for a novice! I should have known they had moved the flight. I took off for Gate 34 while MAK checked the departure board. He had gotten no info from Delta on their app about the change.

We carried our luggage to the 46th row, with me trying desperately not to hit someone while traversing down the narrow aisle. This was the one time MAK got to sit together on the trip.

Home!

The sandwichwich fixings I packed became dinner. Because of trouble with the plane, our flight to ALB was over an hour late and at a different gate. I checked a bag to Albany.

As I took my middle seat, there was a guy who looked “off.” He offered to help a young woman with her bag, but, as everyone within hearing distance could tell, he was coming onto her, big time. He gave his name, asked for hers, and wanted to know where she was sitting. Fortunately, two flight attendants escorted him off the plane; as far as I could see, he did not resist.

We finally got to Albany, and we went to the baggage area. My suitcase was already on the belt and about to go back around when I put down my other bag, dropped some newspapers, and ran to get my bag, my cap flying off. It was funny to watch, I gather.

MAK’s ex picked us up and dropped me at home. I did my Wordle, then crashed.

Observations

Las Vegas was an interesting, and somewhat exhausting, experience. LV is not what I’d call a walkable city. We wanted to go to a location that wasn’t more than two miles away, but it was impossible to get to without crossing a busy highway. We took more taxis in five days than I’ve taken in the past 25 years.

I’d say Las Vegas is Disneyland, except I’ve never been to the Mouse properties. If your wallet is deep enough, there are a near-infinite number of activities.

Electronic signs for performers we’re supposed to know by first name. DONNY! It was Donny Osmond, of course. WAYNE! There’s a wax museum in LV, and I’m afraid the photo they used of Wayne Newton could have been lifted from there.

I’ve known MAK for over a half-century, but we never traveled nearly so far together. We got along well. I even prodded him to restart his blog, which has been dormant since 2019. He wrote our trip here in 800 words, which took me four posts and over 3000 words to convey; he’s much more economical.

Ironweed’s 40th, Lux aeterna, RISSE fundraiser, FFAPL gala

Requiem and other texts

Here are four events coming in the next month that I want to plug. I avoid noting these here because most people reading my blog don’t live in New York State’s Capital District. Still, they’re all events I have a special attachment to. I’ve mentioned the last one before.

The NYS Writers Institute is celebrating Ironweed’s 40th anniversary with the first-ever marathon public reading of the novel written by Albany’s native son, William Kennedy, which won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and put the author’s hometown on the literary map.

The special event will begin at noon and continue through 8 p.m. on WEDNESDAY, November 1 (NOT Thursday, Nov.1, as the flier suggests.)

“It will be hosted at the Albany Distilling Co. Bar and Bottle Shop, maker of Ironweed whiskey, at 75 Livingston Ave. in the North Albany neighborhood where the author grew up and where some of the fictional scenes in the Depression-era narrative set in 1938 take place.”

To sign up for a time slot as a volunteer reader, visit: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C084AAFA72FA3FAC52-45194995-albany#/

The final chapters of Ironweed will be read on stage by the novel’s author and invited VIP guest readers, beginning at 7 p.m. at Capital Repertory Theatre, 251 N. Pearl St., adjacent to Albany Distilling Co. Reservations are required. Go to: https://capitalrep.org/event/ironweed/

The ticket prices are a donation of $10, $25 or $50. All proceeds will go to benefit the food pantry and free meal outreach at Sacred Heart Church, 33 Walter St. in Albany, which was Kennedy’s parish when he was growing up.

“The novel takes place across three days — All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls Day — in the jagged, heartbreaking journey of Francis Phelan, an alcoholic vagrant and former Albany professional baseball player.”

Neighborly

Refugee and Immigrant Support Services of Emmaus (RISSE) Annual Fall Fundraiser: Homecoming Open House

Sunday, November 12th, 2023, 2:00 – 4:00 pmRISSE, 715 Morris Street, AlbanyJoin RISSE as “we celebrate our newest neighbors and the newcomers who have made the Capital Region their home. The event will showcase performances and food from a variety of cultures from around the world.

“Learn more about RISSE, our partner agencies, and our collective work welcoming refugees, immigrants, and asylum seekers to the Capital Region.”

Click Here to Register Now!

This event is free and open to the public. However, donations are appreciated and encouraged.

Lux Aeterna is a 1997 five-movement piece by Morten Lauridsen (b. 1943) perform. As First Pres’ music director, Michael Lister, noted: “It is a sensitive and moving setting of the Requiem and other texts and will be a time for us as a community to remember and honor those of who we have lost from our community over the several past years.”

First Presbyterian Church is located at 362 State Street, Albany, at the corner of Willett Street, across from Washington Park. There is parking on the street and in the park. The music will be in the sanctuary on Friday, November 3, at 6 p.m., while the art display in the adjacent room will start at 5:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Century

The Friends and Foundation of the Albany Public Library (FFAPL) look forward to seeing you on Saturday, October 21^st, as we celebrate 100 years of the Albany Public Library! The Centennial Celebration will be held at the newly-expanded Café Madison at 1108 Madison Ave. Albany, NY, from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. Cocktail attire is suggested. Tickets are available via the link above.

The evening will feature music, a silent auction, a mystery wine pull, stationed hors d’oeuvres, and an open bar. FFAPL has partnered with Harding Mazotti’s Rideshare Home Program to provide free rides home from the event! Scan a QR code at the event to get a free Uber voucher for pick up at Café Madison (Up to $200).

If you plan on driving to the event, street parking and nearby parking lots are available after-hours, including the Pine Hills Library.

If you are not able to attend the event but would like to support Albany Public Library, please check out the online auction showcasing unique products and experiences from local businesses.