The other night I went to see Gogol Bordello at Higher Ground thanks to the kind generosity of my nice friend S.R. Wild. The show was sold out weeks ago. I really like Klezmer music, Eastern European music. Golem was my most favoritest show I saw in all of 2007. I'd never seen Gogol Bordello before, and probably never will again. I don't have anything against them, I guess it's mainly the fans that annoy me.
They go on about loving Gypsies - but don't appear to know what "Gypsy" means - historically, musically, ethnically.
Do they know who Nicolai Gogol is?
Do they know who Bela Bartok is?
Could they point to Ukraine on a map? Or Romania?
Does it matter?
I guess it does to me. They're pretending to be something they're not. Fake people piss me off.
There was a skinhead there. Big blonde dude standing right in front of me with "ODIN'S SON" tattooed on the back of his neck - part of a barbed wire neckband. He had the black Doc Martens and everything. It was freaking me out. Then his squat little girlfriend stole my chair but I was afraid that if I said anything Mr. White Power would beat up Scott.
The show was great! It was awesome - everything I'd heard it would be. I wanted to hate Eugene because I'm so sick of hearing people go on and on about SEXY he is. And sick of people poorly imitating him. But, um... he really is irresistibly sexy. I can't deny it. I can't explain it. I think it may be because he's so present - his energy is so crazy frenetic and PRESENT. Like if you touched him you'd get blasted across the room in a flash of light and smoke.
He seems real. Like he's the same person when he wakes up in morning and when he goes to bed at night, in private and in public. I like that.
I hate people who have no core observing ego and they're all squidgy and chameleony. You never get a sense of who they are because they're constantly putting on masks and pretending to be something else.
He's sweaty and raw and vibrant and perfectly imperfect and beautiful and intense and powerful and fun.Just like sex!
6 comments:
It's the mustache. No lady can resist a well cultivated tickler!
i totally get what you're on about with the fakers. i went to a gogol bordello gig a while back and i saw all the "gypsies". it doesn't just limit itself to people being "gypsies" though, they come in all shapes of imitation. i've started to wonder if i hate myself since i hate so much about other people, but i think i just hate other people hahaha. gogol bordello gig was well ace though, i really enjoyed it.
Well, I don't HATE them, really. It just annoys and confounds me. Playing dress-up and pretending to be something you're not is to miss out on the real thing and live a lie. It just seems like people going to Mass and pretending to be Catholic just because they like the pews and wafers. It's weird and silly to me. Does it happen more in the U.S. where we're new and have no roots?
Although, the real story of the Roma is mostly very sad and horrible. I guess these kids probably wouldn't want to know about it anyway.
Oops, I was accidentally logged in on my other account.
Here's my comment again; please delete the previous one:
As a fat old fuck who has a surfeit of masks to hide my true intentions (of which I'm often not fully aware of myself), I must confess to being jealous of Eugene's charisma, audacity and metabolism. But not the moustache.
And as someone who was actually sort-of friends with him (as much as you can be friends with an id-driven narcissist), I can attest to his being *himself* 24/7. Eugene is Eugene -- driven, self-contradictory, but always entertaining.
I'd like to think that he recognized in me something of a kinship, as we both have oversized personalities and a healthy disdain for any and all institutions. But he lives out in front, and I've chosen the background -- largely because I LIKE being more or less stable and my addictive personality can't handle the distractions.
Whenever Eugene came back to town, he'd always ask me, in that ridiculous accent of his, why I was still there. The last time I saw him (2005?), he confessed to giving a tape of my old metal band to some Russian journalists who wanted to hear his former Ukraine group. He wanted them to think he was in a good band back then, which apparently wasn't the case. That's Eugene for 'ya.
Some people have the drive, commitment and ego to take it to this level, which I salute. But it does make me sigh, especially on those rare occasions when I look in the rearview and think of whether I compromised too much. Fuck that. I have an awesome life, and I never need to ride in a bus with smelly Gypsies.
Casey, you may have masks, but there is always a fundamental Caseyness underlying them. I've seen you drunk, sober, behaving well, behaving badly, freaking out, irate, silly, with friends, with family, with work cohort, in public, in private, etc., and while things about your demeanor change, you're still always Casey.
Some people aren't. They don't put on masks - they ARE masks. There is no core identity. It's spooooky.
How's the Federation of Male Concubines treating you? Your wife's birthday is next Tuesday! In case you forgot.
We're lobbying for longer leashes and shorter hours.
Actually I did kind of forget that it's Brooke's B-day, which is doubly bad, 'cause it's my Dad's birthday, too.
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