November 7, 2023 - Heads, Hora, Madness, Bronzers

Why did the Lithuanian with no arms and legs dance around his grave? Madness!

Nuggets of Information: The OG Butthole Surfers? 

I have a slightly larger than average head but needs its to hold all my brainses. But as a percentage of my overall body weight, I am pretty normal. I mean – I'm no starfish.  

While you may think the proportion of head to body (or legs) would skew way towards legs with the lovely sea star, a recent article in the journal Nature actually flips that idea. Turns out, starfishes are almost ALL head.  

Genetic research into echinoderms reveal that these pentaradial animals have a common ancestor with us bilateral creatures – a common ancestor with a head, torso and tail. Through micro computed tomography scanning the researchers were able to create a 3D map of how the genes associated with the head - that control the development of the starfish’s ectoderm (skin and nervous system), were detected all over the sea stars, but especially concentrated in the center of the star and the center of each limb. Surprisingly, gene expression for the torso and tail sections were largely absent, which can be attributed to evolutionary decoupling of the head and torso areas.  

To summarize, I will just post the title of an article that expresses it clearly and at a maturity level I truly appreciate: “Starfish are walking heads with their buttholes pointed to the sky, study reveals”  

Enrichment:  Frasco Redux 

In the August 15, 2023 Boo’s N.E.W.S. I wrote about Andy Frasco and the U.N.’s new album, L'Optimist. I also encouraged everyone to join me at their concert in November. Well that concert was this past Saturday night, and 7 Boo’s N.E.W.S. subscribers joined me at the show. Good times were had, for sure. 

Our band of merry musicophiles included Julie & Tom, Seth, Juliet & Jeffrey and Paula & Chris. Frasco’s previous shows were at the Earl (capacity: 300) then Terminal West (capacity 650) and now Variety Playhouse (capacity: 1000). We were all very excited for this show, because the opening act, Doom Flamingo, and their lead singer Kanika Moore, have a long strong history with Frasco. Our high-school level speculation is that Kanika and Andy have dated, or are dating or – well it is complicated. Who are we to label? Throughout the show, Andy mentioned how Kanika is his best friend in the world, and that he loves her.  She performed on the studio version of the hit “Dancin’ Around My Grave” so we were excited about the possibility she would perform it at our show.

On Doom Flamingo’s website, they are described as: “a six-headed synthwave beast with a Jekyll and Hyde element to the songwriting. Top Gun guitar riffs and Miami Beach poolside lounge-vibes, are all at once contrasted with eerie darksynth soundscapes reminiscent of old John Carpenter films. Doom Flamingo came together organically through friendships and past collaborations in their hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. The sextet features dynamic vocalist, Kanika Moore, alongside a powerhouse of musicians including bassist Ryan Stasik, of the prolific rock band Umphrey’s McGee.” 

They were really, really good. They would start a song with tight, powerful runs, then suddenly shift into soulful, flowy spacey jams –then back into the tight coordinated playing. Kanika’s voice is other-worldly. She’s so good. The highlight was a cover of Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” which was by far the best version I’ve ever heard. I was too captivated by the performance to record it on my phone, but here is a clip from a few months ago that will give you a sense of what it was like.

Andy Frasco and the U.N. came out next, and as always, they were great, but this night, they were extra special. Towards the beginning of their set, Andy brought a 10-year-old girl up to the stage, explaining that she was a big fan, had been to over 20 shows, and she wanted to sing a song with Andy. This cute young girl wearing glasses and a boot-cast on her broken foot, joined him in a wonderful rendition of his song “Puff Break (Believe That)”. It may seem odd to have a child on stage singing with a band known for songs about drugs and sex, but it just worked?! Andy was beaming – so excited.

As the show went on, Andy called on Doom Flamingo to join them onstage and play a few songs. The two bands fit well together. Each has a saxophone player (yes – there was a sax battle). The drummers jammed together on the same set. The guitar players complimented each other perfectly. And Kanika’s vocals elevate any group – especially when, as she put it, she is “playing with Andy and the boys.”  

The interaction between Frasco and the audience is a holdover from their origins as a bar band. Similar to the Grateful Dead and George Clinton’s various bands, the audience and the band feed off each other to build an experience. The highlight of this show was when Frasco came down into the audience (three of us got high fives!) and had us all part into two groups. As we were in the South, Frasco explained, he wanted us to all do a good old-fashioned Do Si Do. And we did, swinging arm to arm, partner to partner. Not your typical mosh pit! Then he had us make a big circle, and we danced the Hora, the traditional Jewish dance where participants link arms or hold hands, and circle back and forth. The Hora is often danced at weddings, bar & bat mitzvahs and other special events. It is a chance for the community to all come together to celebrate. He said there was nothing political about why we were doing this – we all just need to celebrate together. But the significance of us doing this, with everything going on in Gaza, was not lost on us. Jeffrey, Juliet and Seth shared how meaningful this was to them, as Jews. It was pretty dang meaningful to everyone there.

For the encore, Andy called Doom Flamingo back out, and he and Kanika teamed up on “Dancin’ Around My Grave” - my favorite Frasco song. Here is my phone recording of it:  

Overall an inspiring, emotional, incredibly positive night of top-class music. Please go see Andy Frasco and the U.N. and Doom Flamingo any time you have the opportunity.  

Workshop: Madness 

The latest episode of my fave podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend featured guest Werner Herzog, who discussed stories from his new memoir Every Man for Himself and God Against All. He is a fascinating character. From his early childhood memories of Allied strikes near his home in Germany during World War II to his intense film-making experiences that frequently put him and his crew in danger, Herzog has gone beyond the boundaries of safety and stability many times.  

From Wikipedia: “His 1982 film Fitzcarraldo, which was shot in the Amazon jungle, tells the story of an European opera lover in Peru who tries to bring a steamship over a mountain. His 2005 documentary, Grizzly Man, followed a man who lived in Alaska among grizzly bears — until he was eaten by one.” 

During the interview, Herzog and O’Brien talk about madness, relating the experiences Herzog had with notoriously unhinged actor Klaus Kinski. According to IndieWire.com: “At one point on the set of Aguirre: the Wrath of God, the Indians living in the Peruvian area where they were filming approached Herzog and offered to murder Kinski for him. Herzog claims he definitely considered the offer, but ultimately decided against it. The director did, however, pull a gun on the actor during this shoot, threatening to shoot him and then kill himself after Kinski tried to walk away from the project. This kind of ultimatum seems to have worked well for Kinski.” 

As they discuss these experiences, Conan tells his own story of a remote piece they were filming in Italy, where they were looking for truffles. O’Brien explains that it was late, they were exhausted, and hungry, and he started to lose his mind. He understood that he was losing control and was attracted to that feeling. There is something in that sense of attraction to the state of madness that I’ve been tossing around in my head lately. 

What happens when we surrender ourselves to the chaos? Embrace the madness? Accept that we have no idea how things may turn out? The link between creativity and madness is well observed. The ideas and art and inventions that changed the world were often created by people who didn’t think like everyone else. 

I’ve written plenty about habits and routines. I like control, order and predictability. But I also see the appeal of NO control or order. Heck – I was an Improv actor for 8 years – an environment where the more you tried to plan, the greater your chance of failure.  

While I am very interested in the benefits this could provide, am I just approaching irrationality in my typical rational way? What do the YouTube experts say is the right amount of madness each day, and what time of day is best for madness, and what are the top 5 mad activities that are trending on Reddit? I should write a detailed outline of precise steps to take to embrace madness, create routines around them that will turn into habits. Wait – uh – shoot. Default brain took over for a sec. This whole exercise is just … madness! 

Selected Content: Who’s Got My Miracle? 

Lithuania has a rich history of success at basketball, from the 1930s on. But as World War II wound down, the USSR absorbed Lithuania, and for the next 45 years, some of Eastern Europe’s best basketball players begrudgingly wore the Soviet jersey. As the USSR started to fall apart, Lithuania was the first republic to break away, in March 1990. Left with little money, this fledgling new-yet-old nation focused on providing basic resources. The idea of fronting a men’s Olympic basketball team two years later at the Barcelona games seemed unlikely. 

As this article from sportshistoryweekly.com explains, the NBA’s Golden State Warriors had drafted Lithuanian shooting guard Sarunas Marciulionis who, with Warriors assistant coach Donny Nelson, started a grass-roots fundraising campaign in the San Francisco Bay area to help fund the Lithuanian team. This caught the attention of the Grateful Dead, who quickly wrote a big check and sent a box of tie-dyed T-shirts in red, yellow and green- Lithuania’s national colors, with an image of a skeleton dunking a basketball.  

After losing in the semi-finals against the U.S., they played in the third-place game against … (can you guess?) … the Russian team. As magical sports stories often go – Lithuania won and when they accepted their bronze medals, they all wore their Grateful Dead tie-dyes. These shirts became collector’s items, and my parents scored one for me that year for Christmas.

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