Anchorage Press

It takes a city to build a hut

I held onto the cold, muddy cable and hoisted myself up the near vertical mud slick that is the trail to the Snowbird Glacier. I was cold, and my legs were tired, and I already knew that I wasn’t going to be able to do what I came to do, which was shoot some pictures of the freshly walled in Snowbird Hut. And to top it all off, I forgot to bring rain pants, so my soaked running tights were delivering a constant stream of water into the bottom of my squelchy XtraTuffs.

McCarthy, briefly

At work, your coworker is complaining about not being able to get enough time off to go to McCarthy with his roommate. You hop on the wah-mbulance with him and complain about how you’ve been trying to get out to McCarthy all summer, and then you sit there. You lust after a trip to McCarthy, a real trip that lasts at least a week, and realize that, realistically, you’re too pragmatic to take that much time off of work, at least right now.

City trap

Mostly, vanity is a city trap. When you’re out in the middle of nowhere and you’re limbing a spruce for firewood, you don’t think about what you look like, don’t worry if your hair is frizzing or if your shirt fits right. You don’t worry about the dirt that builds and builds under your fingernails or the fact that you are, in fact, wearing men’s oversized coveralls and huge leather work gloves. You just don’t. You also don’t think about why you are doing what you are doing, because you are laboring towards a result that is easy to grab and hold in your hands, that is basic and simple and good. After you cut the wood, it will give you warmth, and you need the warmth and therefore it is good to cut the wood.

Warm and dry in a rainstorm

My friend and I are in the Zodiac, motoring over to China Poot Bay from Glacier Spit. The boat’s engine is small and slow and there is enough wind to kick up a bit of a swell. It is raining, and water is dripping down the back of my neck and soaking my shirt. On the other side of the bay, the Homer side, there is a hole in the clouds down through which a slice of sunlight pours, golden, god-like.

Breaking down on the road to Pilgrim

The next time you find yourself in a fix—in a really, really bad fix—you better hope that I’m around. I owe somebody a good deed, and it doesn’t much matter who. After being on the receiving end of a random act of goodness, you damn well better pay it forward, and last Monday I was definitely on the receiving end of a random act of goodness.

Cue the green puke

From the school of “Hey kids, let’s pool our milk money together, turn a camera on and make a movie!” comes another low-budget horror picture that is all gimmick and no guts. While I gave mildly passing reviews to the likes of Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity, I’m drawing the line at The Last Exorcism.

The living end

There was an ultra-fascinating article in Entertainment Weekly a month or so ago that explained how Bill Murray goes about the business of being Bill Murray: No agents or managers, simply an 800 number where one is welcome to leave a message that he will return. Or not, actually, according to his whims. And by taking utter control of his career, Murray ensures that he’s living and working—in that order—for himself, which is probably the reason his 21st-century output, such as his bittersweet performances in films by the likes of Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola, and Jim Jarmusch, has seemed so rich and satisfying. Of course, we would probably all do excellent things if we only worked when the mood struck us, but that’s a rant for another time.

The ex factor

We’re all steeping in the same pop-culture tea, so if I were to say I’m over comic-book flicks, you’d probably understand. And if I vowed to picket all movies where Michael Cera plays a lovelorn emo kid, maybe you’d bring me coffee and sandwiches (and candy, please). A mashup of two of the last things anyone really needed from a film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is based on graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley and features Mr. Cera as... well, just take a wild guess. That British filmmaker Edgar Wright is able to take those dueling clichés and make them feel like something you’ve never, ever seen before is a minor miracle.

Pimps don’t cry

If you’re one of those ill-mannered bozos who believes that buying a single ticket entitles you to hop from movie to movie, then you might blindly barge in to a random theater one of these days and think that you’re in for a thorough Bruckheimering. That’s because you’ve met Danson and Highsmith (Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson), a cocky pair of New York City cops who embody every Hollywood action-flick cliché: the breakneck pursuits, the wisecracks, the staggering property damage, and the apparently endless supply of muscle cars. (Highsmith on the destruction of his Chevelle SS: “Aw, that’s the second one this week!”) But it isn’t long before Danson and Highsmith exit stage left in a scene that should introduce your jaw to the floor. Because this goofy, freewheeling buddy-cop comedy isn’t about them; it’s about The Other Guys.

Modern love

It continues to amaze me that grownups are able to tend to their romances while going about the everyday business of raising a family. Despite the obvious joys, long-term commitment can be a minefield of miscommunication and resentment, with that mutual love the only armor against the ego-piercing shrapnel. Throw children into the mix, and the possible damage is hardly collateral. So of course more films are drawn to the breathless thrill of getting together than the art and diplomacy of staying together; eye-candy escapism sounds way more appealing than watching someone just like you fret over the checkbook or pout about sex. But there is clearly much drama and humor to be found in something so seemingly mundane; the trick is making the fiction compelling while staying truthful to our common realities.

Beauty and humor and inspiration

Songwriter Cheryl Wheeler is known for her expert guitar playing and her beautiful voice as well as her pleasant and well-crafted melodies. What sets Wheeler apart from other performers of beautiful songs is humor, and the way she unabashedly inserts her wit into the context of those unarguably beautiful melodies. When Wheeler sings “Is it peace/or is it Prozac?/I don’t care/No need to know that” her voice floats like a soloist in church, but the lyrics reveal a sly subversive comedienne. Is it a novelty song about psychiatric chemistry, or a soulful description of Wheeler’s own midlife ennui?

Confessions of a Boyz II Men junkie

Until recently, I wasn’t too keen on admitting that I heart Boyz II Men.

Blastbeat from the past

Anyone who bought a copy 36 Crazyfists’ The Boss Buckle EP cassette back in the mid-90s likely remembers just wanting to support a local band, then popping the tape in and hearing something quite remarkable. The studio piece wasn’t a masterpiece of fidelity, but the tape sounded better than much of the low-budget hardcore recordings heard at the time. The songs weren’t very sophisticated. The record opens with a roared F-bomb over some demonstrative blastbeats—proving that the band that could both count and swear, which in hardcore are key elements of music. But in a car with a cassette player, you could crank it to eleven and bob your head to a decent approximation of a Crazyfists live show. It was all there: ambitious guitar riffs; rhythms inspired by hip-hop rather than blues; and of course, Brock Lindow’s crazy-assed, melismatic vocals. Last week the Press found a digital version of The Boss Buckle EP at the website of Family Tree Presents, the promoters bringing Whitechapel to Anchorage in September. Now you can listen to “Bullygutt” any time you want without wearing out that old tape. Just surf to familytreepresents.com, and poke around for the 36 Crazyfists street team’s page.

Hear them—no excuses

Even if rhythm-heavy hard rock is not your bag, you’ve gotta give Static Cycle props for promotion. The band takes full advantage of the level playing field of the new century’s zeitgeist, in which downloads, wallpapers and ringtones seemed to have supplanted party flyers, posters and gushing fan letters to Xeroxed ‘zines.

What will you observe?

Okay, so laser lights, house beats, bell bottoms and a keyboardist/programmer wearing a cape might all seem overtly contrived, but the hype surrounding Ghostland Observatory’s nearly nonstop touring feels a lot like the real deal—people love this band. They groove on it. And so what if the band attracts a few meatheads who only came for the lasers and who never rocked a house beat on their stereo? They might at seem once out of place, but why not welcome them to the party and see what happens?

Doctor Bluegrass

It’s likely no accident that back in 1984, when Ricky Skaggs was turning 30 and on the cusp of becoming a country music radio star, his stage clothes included solid-color suits, neckties around loose collars and shined-up black-and-white dress shoes. He’s wore such a get-up on the cover of the album Country Boy standing in front of a pond with what appears to be corral fencing running through it. Remove the pond and fence, and replace it with an urban alley with a brick wall, and Skaggs could passed for an R&B or new wave artist of the same year.

It’s meant to feel like that

There isn’t much short of a bear encounter that gets the adrenaline and norepinephrine flowing like death metal. The genre’s main characteristics—thundering drums and power chords, blistering repetitive guitar motifs and throaty, see-you-in-Hell vocals—are played in a combination best heard live and LOUD and which will scare the crap out of parents, priests and music teachers. Thing is, that heavy blend is meant to scare the crap out of the music’s intended audience, too.

Out of Africa

A look at Africa may leave one feeling as if hope for the country and for its people is lost. Problems such as poverty, AIDS, disease, and orphaned children have plagued the country for decades—the outcome, according to many, completely dire.

Fast fingered inspiration

Of the dozen concert artists the Alaska State Fair has lined up, Ricky Skaggs is likely the most acclaimed. The bluegrass and country picker has earned 10 consecutive Grammy nominations since founding his family-owned label, Skaggs Family Records, in the late 1990s and releasing the label’s debut Bluegrass Rules! in 1998. His band, Kentucky Thunder, has been honored eight times by the International Bluegrass Music Association as instrumental band of the year.

Enter the Doggfather

Snoop Doggy Dogg is a dichotomy. The self-proclaimed “Doggfather of Rap” is part original gangster, part suburban family man. Either way, the rap mogul has mastered the art of infiltrating popular culture while glossing over a history littered with drug trafficking, murder charges, pornography, gangbanging and prostitution. He’s become an accepted household name and made millions along the way.

Seward-bound train a’ comingâ€-

In recent decades traffic has gotten busier along the Seward Highway and travelers have been robbed of much of the experience that traveling this spectacular Alaska route can provide. The white-turns-blue glaciers, craggy faced mountains, sheep and occasional whales are still present, but the highway itself demands more eyes-on-the-road attention than it once did. The impression many present-day travelers will remember is of a trip clogged by cars, trucks, RVs and eighteen-wheelers, all seemingly competing to earn the pole-position at Seward’s first stoplight. Society’s affection—some people might call it “addiction”—for the automobile seems to have caused the problem.

Girls and boys

Outlandish features and deformed bodies inhabit the latest bodies of work by Lisa and Stephen Gray, who use the flotsam of the digital visual world to warp the line between fantasy and real life, mythology and fact.

Coffee-friendly art

People go to coffee houses to wake up, hang out, gossip. Network and hook up. Work and get online. Download and vent. People don’t always want to see anything lewd or gruesome on the walls, but they don’t always want to see only pretty, cheery things either.

Girls Girls Girls ...and other nefarious delights

MTS Gallery will be the host to a solo exhibition opening August 20th by award winning Anchorage based artist Stephen Gray entitled, Girls Girls Girls ...and other nefarious delights. Gray’s newest photographic digital collages continue to weave the thoughts and motivations behind the semi-biographical character Gray created as his muse in 2005, Billy.

Palmer takes a stab at becoming an art destination

Forty miles northeast on the Glenn Highway, in a valley of jutted mountains and rich volcanic soil rests a spattering of towns full of residents who make up what is lovingly called “The Valley” by locals.

Is it art, or a party?

You can define a vortex as a circular flow or swirling fluid with pressure in accordance with Bernoulli’s Principle. You can further elaborate through concrete examples: tornados, wind off the tip of an airplane wing, or bathwater spiraling down the drain.

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