Better Days

Welcome to the blog of Doug "Duke" Lang, songwriter and host of Better Days, a radio show spinning journeys from music and language, heard Thursdays ten-to-midnight Pacific time at www.coopradio.org Listen to songs at www.myspace.com/dukelang

Name:
Location: Vancouver, Canada

Tuesday, April 12, 2005


Malcolm Holcombe's new solo set http://www.malcolmholcombe.com Posted by Hello

Better Days 163 & Special

better days ________ www.coopradio.org
.
BETTER DAYS 163 : Thursday, April 14th
10-Midnight PDT at http://www.coopradio.org

Thursday, April 14th, 10-Midnight Pacific Time, it's
episode 163 of Better Days. I have been blessed to
receive so much music of late, that I've fallen way
behind in putting it on the air. Tonight, I'll catch up
a little. The new or new-to-me cds I am looking at
airing cuts from include those by Malcolm Holcombe,
Citizen Cope, Beth Neilsen-Chapman, Beck,
Iron & Wine, and Martin Carthy, to name a few.
And then...the next night...it's

SONGWRITING 101 : A Better Days Special
Friday, April 15th, 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
http://www.coopradio.org

Friday, April 15th, CFRO's 30th Anniversary Member Drive
kicks into gear, running through May 1st. On Friday night,
6:00 to 9:00 p.m., I'll be doing a little special number called
SONGWRITING 101, three hours of lasting songs by writers
I admire. There'll be a little chat on the artistry and craft behind
the songs, and a little pitching toward you making a pledge of
financial support for the station. You'll hear Dylan, Leonard
Cohen, Mickey Newbury, Kris Kristofferson, Townes Van
Zandt, Lucinda Williams, and more. Should be a good one.
Join me, whether you're around the corner or around the world!
http://www.coopradio.org


a young Bjork in 1990 with the Gudmundur Ingolfsson Trio Posted by Hello

Ice #8

better days ________ www.coopradio.org

Iceland #8 : Lost In Translation

Disa lives downtown in Reykjavik, owns an apartment
on the third floor of a building on Grettisgata. From her
back balcony, I can see the city´s main street, a stream
of cars moving slowly, window-shopping. This street of
shops, galleries and bistros is called Laugavegur, which
translates as "water road." Before residents had water
piped into their homes, Laugavegur was where women
did the laundry, scrubbing clothes against stones, then
rinsing them in the geothermal streams along the water
road. Laugavegur has come a long way since then,
and so have the women of Iceland. Believe me.

It is Saturday morning and I am having a second cup
of this rich coffee, strong and black, listening to a cool
record by Bjork Gudmundsdottir, made in 1990, years
before we knew her internationally as, simply, Bjork.
She is singing jazz on here with a trio led by one of her
native land's more beloved jazz pianists. The recording
is called Gling-Glo, and I'm bringing it home to Canada to
play on the radio show. This is Bjork as I´ve never heard
her before, singing in Icelandic, so playful, unique, fabulous!
http://albums.bjorkish.net/gling-glo/audio.html for clips.

Last night we went to see Lost In Translation with the
Icelandic subtitles, so I was one step ahead of the crowd with
my guffaws at times. I have always found Bill Murray good for
a laugh, and while this wasn't really a comedy, he was worth
the price of admission in this Tokyo-based flick. What fun to
be in a movie house in Reykjavik! The one thing they do here
that´s odd and rather tacky is they cut into the movie at the
halfway point to allow smokers a smoke-break...well, and to
prompt more business for the concessions, too.

On the walk home after, we saw something in a window that
made us laugh until we cried. With both of our birthdays just
days away - mine April 23rd and Disa´s the 24th - what we
saw in a shop window was a pair of women´s underwear big
enough for about three butts, stretched wide and pinned to
a slab of cork. On the back in bold print was the message,
"Happy Birthday!" If the store was open, we may have had
to buy them and try them on later, a leghole apiece.

Because prideful and rebellious Iceland has kept its original
language and symbols, which travel across centuries so
that even Disa has to look up some of the older words,
it can be frustrating for a newcomer to follow the native
tongue when it is spoken. It is a little difficult to speak it
well because of the sounds I never have made in English.
They do unusual, gymnastic things with their tongues here
in making sounds alien to my own language. All words have
the accent on the first syllable.

Here, then, is a quick lesson in some of the words I am
learning during my stay in Iceland, minus the unique
symbols and accents that they use...

Takk is thank you.
Bless is good-bye, but really means blessings to you.
Often on parting, people will say this many times together,
in rapid fashion, i.e. "Bless, bless, bless."
Velkominn is welcome.
Pabbi is father.
Modir is mother.
Ristill is colon. :-)
Godan daginn is good day.
Kornbrennivin is a local moonshine, very good day.
Altekinn means to be so drunk with joy that everybody
looks like they are your kin.
Slast nakin i snjonum is wrestling naked in the snow.
Ryrnun is shrinkage, though there is also horfa undan,
which means "the dog shrinks from the whip." Ouch.
Sæti is sweet.
Unglingur med hor is as close as I can get to "snot-nosed
teenager"...it means "teen dripping with green."
Logfrædingur is lawyer, because they ding you so much.
Blatt klukkublom loosely means a flower child with severe
bladder problems who clucks like a chicken.
Prins is prince.
Hampur is Icelandic for marijuana.
If you smoke it, I suppose that makes you hampured.
If you are a Canadian trying to speak Icelandic, and
you smoke marijuana, you are severely hampured.
Kaffi is coffee.
Utvarpsstjarna is radio star, which video killed.
Goda nott is good night.

Allow me a moment to remove my tongue from my
cheek. There. That ought to be enough for now.
Disa´s been massaging my axlarstykki as I write this,
and we have to fit in some slast nakin i snjonum
before we head out to Disa´s parents for a big family
dinner this evening, stopping by en route to see her
brother-in-law´s beautiful ponies.

Bless, bless, and goda nott, sæti prins, goda nott!

Love from Iceland,

DL


pencil drawing by grade 7 student Posted by Hello

Archipelago

better days ________ www.coopradio.org

Archipelago

My father is in his eighties and his mind has broken
away from the mainland to become an archipelago.
There are no longer bridges between his thoughts.
When I listen to him now, I am out in a boat, caught
in the waters between the many islands of his memory.

One moment, he is a boy talking about the milkman's
horse outside in the snow, describing to me the shoots
of breath escaping the horse's nostrils as it waits in
the December cold, harnessed to the wagon. Another
moment, he has just turned 20 and is a young sailor
at the time of the second war, certain that the man
in the blue shirt is a Soviet spy, that the nurses are
all irresistably in love with him, and that DiMaggio is,
despite playing for the hated Yankees, the greatest
ever to play the game.

Though there's a sadness in his Alzheimer's advance,
there is also a fascination, for I am witnessing pieces
of my father's life that connect me to times he lived
before I was born. Am I to take these archipelago
confessions to heart? I can't imagine why he would
lie to me now.

The man in the blue shirt suddenly takes on our joint
projections of evil, his eyebrows growing longer as
we look at him, his English sounding more fake with each
word he utters. One of the nurses comes by and takes
dad's temperature and blood pressure. The two of them
flirt back and forth, and as she leaves he lets her know
that he's available Saturday night. She doesn't say no.

Odd to hear him praise the Yankee Clipper. I remember
the years after DiMaggio, how fiercely my father and my
brother cheered for the National League champions to
dethrone the Bronx Bombers each October. Did dad
really appreciate DiMaggio? He's talking about him as
if his streak is still alive. He looks at me, seriously as
a teenager, asks, "Did he get a hit today?"

I've drawn the boat into the bay now, close enough
that I can look into his eyes, eyes which, though caught
in a body that has suffered an earthquake and is near to
its end, are younger than I've ever seen them. The
child is the father to the man.

"Yes," I tell him. "He doubled down the left field line
in the very first inning."

My dad smiles, shakes his head and lets out a sigh.
"That sonuvabitch is good," he says, just as the man
in the blue shirt passes, drooling, in the hallway.

I kiss him on the forehead and say good-bye. Outside,
I nod to the milkman as he returns to the wagon, sets
down the clinking tray of empty bottles, shakes the reins
and clucks "giyyup now" to the old horse.

I don't know anymore what time it is,
unless it's always.

DL