Mall Baldwin

Fuck the mall. Like, really, that joint makes me feel so uncomfortable. I admit: it's cool in the summertime, and ours actually has an ice skating rink, but in general, fuck the mall. When it's hot, though, all I want to eat are sandwiches, sushi and smoothies. The closest place to us to get smoothies is, needless to say, the mall. So we go sometimes in the summer. I am often cavalier when we consider the trip, thinking it won't be so bad this time, and the reward (Jamba!) is totally worth it. Each time I underestimate the sheer retail greasiness of the mall, and actually walking into the place usually makes Dana and I gasp and hold onto each other.

One day we were on our way to get smoothies, and a guy stepped to us from near the bike rack. We were both mildly taken aback, as this guy was quite forward, and looked like a Baldwin brother. Making friends is my superpower, and it's not really something I can turn off, so strangers stepping to me on the street and beginning conversations is actually quite a regular occurrence. I engaged this guy, Dana next to me, and listened to what he had to say. At first he was like, "hey, how are you, nice day, huh?" but within a minute he had moved onto, "I'm looking for a place to stay." I feel Dana's spidey sense go off by my side, and I know to trust that signal, so I start verbally disengaging while we turned to walk away. I point him to the local Y, and he asks for our home address so he can come talk to us more about it later. The mall quickly becomes our refuge as we walk inside, never to see Mall Baldwin again (we hope).

Dana, a fearless and confident navigator, makes a beeline for the smoothie place. We watch the people go about their mall business as we wait for our drinks and feel happy that we have somewhere else to go. I loved the mall when I was 16 (sup, South Hills Village?) , but that's what was going on in the suburbs at the time. Here in the city we're lucky to have local businesses to serve most of our needs, so the mall seems excessive and impersonal to me (even if I can get samples of 3 different versions of "orange chicken" for free within 100 feet). When our smoothies were ready we retraced our path back to the entrance. Wouldn't you know it? There's Mall Baldwin in about the same spot we left him, only this time surrounded by cops, and about to be led off.

I've seen Mall Baldwin around town a few times, once weaving the wrong way down the street on a bicycle, but thankfully I've not had another conversation with him. We've got some colorful characters in this town, and I'm sure he's a nice enough person all in all. Nevertheless, I think I might work extra hard to avoid the mall this summer. If you see Mall Baldwin, (can't miss him: piercing eyes, strong jaw, goofy grin) tell him I said hi, but please don't tell him where I live.

Michael Jackson

The bassline of "Bad" comes on, and the first thing I think of is Weird Al. To me, this says that he is as deeply ingrained into American culture as the Beatles. As strongly as I associate him with the 80s, I always thought we'd watch him grow into a quirky old man. His life story reminds me that despite monotheistic traditions dominating the plant, all of us are still happy to sacrifice live humans to the gods of art.

And Ah! The Art! The Music! The Dance! He is the fulfillment of the promise of soul, the destroyer of rock's unshakable cool. Who among us has not seen (or been) a denim-and-mullet-wearing, cheap-beer-sipping, white-as-mayonnaise rocker grabbing his crotch, pointing and screaming, "Yee-hee?" I love him in spite of myself. He makes me dance every time, and I can't help it.

When I play a Fatboy Slim song at a party, my wife comes to dance with me. When I play one of his songs at a party, all the women come to dance with me. Then the hetero men follow, striking a pose and proclaiming to anyone who will listen, "I'm not gay!" (I know you're thinking, "Where are all the actual gay men, then?" They, of course, had been dancing with me ever since I played "Grace Kelly.")

When he dances, though, I can't watch anything else. Nobody dances like he does: even imitators look like imitators. He looks like he had moves in utero. His body manifests music like tornadoes manifest wind. He baffled me to watch: angular but loose, often too fast for me to count the spins. In non-posed photos he always looked so shy, hidden behind hair and glasses and masks, but on stage he opened, expressed, connected. I never saw him live, but on video he seems to enlighten the crowd: not just capturing the attention but radiating the love of his fans in the way that only a masterful live performer can.

Like a lot of us, I am revisiting his music tonight. He sounds insecure, flawed and embarrassingly hopeful to me. I confess I am not that sad right now. I think he was quite an unhappy man, and probably quite a lonely one. I also think he'd made the art he was supposed to make. The music alone is a lifetime's worth of art. Really, though, I'm not that sad, because he lives on: we dance, and we will keep dancing. Therefore, in the end, I say what I say whenever I get the chance to meet a musician whose music has touched me: Thank you. That was an awesome performance.

On Marriage and Partnership

This solstice, Dana and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. In my heart I've been married to Dana since February of 2001, but the party we threw on June 21, 2003 was powerful event, and worthy of commemorating. I can honestly still feel the energy of those three days echoing in our daily lives.

Marriage is hard. I think a lot of other folks who are or have been married would agree. It takes daily service, sacrifice and compromise. There are countless benefits to marriage, and I've read some science that says marrying the right person can be a giant factor in lifelong happiness. I'm no expert, but I do take my marriage seriously, and I've learned a lot of good lessons from other non-expert friends.

The legal marriage in which I currently participate is an unjust and discriminatory institution. It is absolutely immoral and a violation of basic human rights that American laws deny legal marriage to same-sex couples. Therefore, for the sake of this discussion and in honor of all same-sex couples, I reject the American legal definition of marriage, and I substitute this one: Marriage is the ongoing act of staying in love. This is hard work, and is very, very different from falling in love. Falling in love is mostly chemical, instinctual and situational, while staying in love is practical, challenging and dynamic. For Dana and I, staying in love takes an artistic balance between independence and communication. It takes independence for us to each be out in our communities, serving and being served, and thereby growing as individuals. It takes communication for us to be able to come back together to share what we've learned. This is where intimacy and trust come in, because they allow us to process our days (yes, communication is a daily practice) sincerely. When done well, this gives both Dana and I a stereoscopic view of our lives, and validates our individual growth. This part's hard: intimacy and trust take courage, and the willingness to try again when we mess up (and messing up with my wife HURTS).

Partnership, though. That part's easy, and for this I count Dana and I very, very lucky. We like the same kind of movies and the same kind of vacations (psychological horror and outdoor adventures). We both believe in leftist politics and are very religiously tolerant. All that's just icing on the cake, though. Partnership is easy because Dana and I can stand to be around each other for a very long time. That's the magic, and it's the part I completely can't explain. I like her more today than I did the day I met her, and I find her more and more interesting every day. Although she and I both have alone time built into our schedules, we still haven't found a limit for how long we want to hang out. This magic is worth the world to me, and around it we build a very happy marriage. The marriage itself is far from perfect (we fight about money and sex, just like all of you), but the love at the center of it all IS perfect, and that is more than enough for me.

We went this weekend and backpacked into southern Washington, near the Cowlitz river. It was muddy and about 20 degrees cooler than expected; there were mosquitoes and teenagers (seriously, like 30 of them on the trail). We loved every minute of it. Why? The forest was virgin, and had trees in every state from sprouting to great and tall to rotting piles indistinguishable from the dirt. This is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. The air is rich and fragrant, and the mushrooms and witches' butter are bright oranges and yellows against the million shades of green and brown. And Dana and I were together, with everything we needed on our backs.

This is, of course, how we met: backpacking the summer I was 15, she 14. On that trip, I fell in love with her strength and sense of adventure, her self-reliance and obvious love for her friends. We ate a fish we caught ourselves for dinner (the rest of our crew was pretty squeamish about this), and we walked and talked a lot, never getting sick of one another. Our best days are still like that: adventure, play, companionship.

So marriage is hard, but partnership is easy. I stay in a constant state of gratitude for this. With just partnership, and never the challenge of marriage, we might never be inspired to grow personally. Without partnership, the sacrifices of marriage might not worth it. As a very rich man, I serve and am served by both marriage and partnership daily. I intend to die peacefully in my sleep, old and in bed with my wife, and that is the strongest, most sincere way I know to say, "I Love You!"

Isis and Helms Alee show commentary

I've been looking forward to this show for a while. Isis is a really mighty band, very smart and consciously expressive. I've always loved that they're heavy and intense without ever sounding aggressive or hateful. To me, this really puts them at the forefront of non-mainstream metal.

The Hawthorne Theater here in Portland has a lot of cool metal shows, a great staff, and pretty good sound. What they don't have is any sensibility about lighting. Legend has it that Sunn O))) played there last year, and the venue left the house lights on the entire time, pretty much destroying the whole vibe of the show. I feel like last night's performance suffered in the same way: the house lights were too bright, which took away from my ability to trance out to this music.

Regardless, the music was fantastic. I missed the first band, Mammifer, and I'm sorry for that. The second band, Helms Alee, is a personal favorite of mine. Helms Alee is signed to Hydra Head, and has one full-length out. I was lucky enough to see them a few weeks ago, headlining a tiny show at the East End. That night they were properly magical, and their really powerful and melodic sound was in full effect. Last night, in a much larger but less densely packed environment, the band seemed to have to work for it for the first few songs. However, after an opening salvo of songs from their album, "Night Terrors," the band played some material with which I was not familiar. I honestly hope this is new stuff that they're working on, because the songs I hadn't heard before were my favorites of the whole performance.

A quick note about this band. They are BEAUTIFUL, which makes them a joy to watch. Ben the guitarist is a classic northwest post-punk rocker with a face-hiding head of hair and a sing/scream dichotomy that would make Cobain proud. Dana the bassist is an exotic beauty with deep-set eyes and long black curls. Hoz the drummer is an all american woman with all the blissful facial expressions that make live rock drumming such a great spectator sport. The best part is: they all sing. They each sing parts, and then they trade two-part harmonies. The male-female dynamic in the vocals is probably my favorite feature of this band, and I really look forward to hearing where they take it in the future.

Isis came on stage like ten minutes early. Isis fans know that's really only like one extra song, but it's a nice gift from the band, I think. They played for a full hour and a half, including one encore, and focused heavily on songs from the new album, "Wavering Radiant". It was clear that the crowd was unfamiliar with most of this most recent stuff, but it was definitely in the style we've come to expect from this band, and it sounded great. They played a bunch of songs from "In the Absence of Truth" as well, and the audience loved these jams. The oldest song they played was fan favorite "The Beginning and the End," which was properly anthemic. What I really loved about this performance was the way the way the band really took their time to let the music build. I mean, clearly the music is written to be slow, ambient, and colorfully punctuated, but when performed live the effect is very meditative.

Which reminds me, I definitely love metal crowds. I generally wear the uniform to these shows: jeans and a t-shirt of a band that is not playing that evening. I'm not going to front: it makes me feel cool to be down with these relatively underground bands, and the t-shirts are how we let others know we're down. Most other folks there were in some variation of the uniform. I saw people aged 15 or so to at least 50, including one middle aged couple sporting Tool and Layne Staley Tribute t-shirts. The show was also full of many couples engaged in enough PDA to make the senior class of 2009 blush. I guess Isis is one of those metal bands that attracts relatively more women, which I think is pretty cool. It was great to see both head-banging and slow-dancing (seriously, like prom style with both people facing the band) going on simultaneously.

The diversity of the crowd is a testament to the Isis's well-deserved elder statesmen status. Truth be told, I could have watched them play for more like three hours. They're a really fantastic band, and I'm glad I got to see them last night.