I’ve been trying to make sense of how so many people, some of whom I once considered to be moral, ethical, and generally “good eggs,” as Bertie Wooster would say, can’t seem to take a hard line on the genocide our country is currently abetting in Palestine and now Lebanon. Some things don’t have the nuance you might think is needed to accurately describe them. Genocide is one of those things. So I did what I always do when I’m at a loss. I started reading, specifically, the work of W.E.B. DuBois on the abolitionist John Brown. To call DuBois a writer does him a disservice, as he is one of the greatest minds this nation and planet have ever produced. Likewise with Brown and the term “abolitionist.” He was so much more than that, certainly one of our greatest American heroes. Anyway, if you’ll permit me, I found an excerpt that goes some distance explaining the complacent moral waffling of many of our fellow citizens and leaders:
“Their life morality becomes always a wavering path of expediency, not necessarily the best or the worst path, as they freely even smilingly admit, but a good path, a safe path, a path of little resistance and one that leads to the good if not to the theoretical (but usually impracticable) best …. And yet we all feel its temporary, tentative character; we instinctively distrust its comfortable tone, and listen almost fearfully for the greater voice … after the world has complacently dodged and compromised with … a great evil, there shines, suddenly, a great white light — an unwavering, unflickering rightness, blinding by its all-seeing brilliance, making the whole world simply a light and a darkness — a right and a wrong.
Then men tremble and writhe and waver …. Thus they hide from the light, they burrow and grovel, and yet ever in, and through, and on them blazes that mighty light with its horror of darkness and behind it peals the voice—the Riddle of the Sphinx, that must be answered.
Such a light was the soul of John Brown. He was simple, exasperatingly simple; unlettered, plain, and homely. No casuistry of culture or of learning, of well-being or tradition moved him in the slightest degree: “Slavery is wrong,” he said, — “kill it.” Destroy it — uproot it, stem, blossom, and branch; give it no quarter, exterminate it and do it now. Was he wrong? No. The forcible staying of human uplift by barriers of law, and might, and tradition is the most wicked thing on earth. It is wrong, eternally wrong. It is wrong, by whatever name it is called, or in whatever guise it lurks, and whenever it appears. But it is especially heinous, black, and cruel when it masquerades in the robes of law and justice and patriotism.”
Right on. Have an illuminated week.
Thursday
It’s a great night to pre-game and tailgate the upcoming weekend, as we have an early evening metal show at the Siren’s Song Tavern at 7 p.m. The line-up consists of Oakland’s Merked, an insanely fast and unrelenting grind-type of act, along with local heroes Kolonizer — the punk band with the delightful pink Barbie font — Gourmandizer and my favorite heavy rippers, Psyop Victim ($5-$20 sliding scale).
Friday
I love a good show at the Arcata Veterans Hall, and tonight’s line-up can’t be beat, especially the headliners. I’m talking about the return of the Bow-Legged Buzzards, my favorite rot-gut country thrashers led by the devil’s own fiddler himself, Phill Irvine. Rounding out the bill are mega-riffsters Ultramafic and Marble Jar, for whom I have lost my notes and, one can say, my marbles. I probably deserve to be beaten like a shit-dipped cur for that last line, but I have no regrets. The gig starts at 7 p.m. because some of the neighbors are land-rich squares and have been since I was a kid getting the cops called on me for reading in the nearby park. Fuck ’em, go have fun and make some noise. Nothing’s free these days, but $10 is well worth it for tonight’s gig.
Saturday
The Miniplex is the place to be tonight if you are looking for the sort of dreamy pop music that makes one gaze down in reflection at one’s navel or shoes. Seattle’s MØAA plays a series of nocturnal submissions designed to make the mind fill in unreal spaces between the buildings of bedsore reality. And local act Petiole is simply superb. Starts at 9 p.m. ($10).
I would be remiss in my duties if I neglected to drop a mention about Porch Fest, a novel and lovely idea brought to you by the minds behind Humboldt Hot Air and the Arcata Playhouse. Too many bands to name but I’ll give you the gist: Come to Sunnybrae around noon and wander along the lanes eastward starting around Crescent Way, where you will be treated to front yards full of live music of all stripes. It’s a pure afternoon idyll, so expect things to taper off by 6 p.m. or so, but who knows?
Sunday
DuffyxUhlmann is an acoustic guitar duo featuring two players from the modern alternative scene, most notably having been associated with Perfume Genius and Hand Habits. They will be joined by local music master John Wood, of Black Keys fame, for a night of some genuinely intense musical frisson. The spot is the Sanctuary, a perfect place for this kind of gig, and in what appears to be a recurring theme this week, the start time is 7 p.m. The sliding scale door price runs $10-$30. Viva.
Monday
Here’s an interesting one happening at Humbrews at 8 p.m. Czech group Uz Jsme Doma (“We are home,” according to Google translate) is a mash-up band of punky prog, jazz and Eastern European tones, who have been around long enough to have toured the world and once been considered youthful subversives in their native, well, home. The group will be joined by Free Salamander Exhibit, a group associated with Nyls Frykdahl of Faun Fables and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and therefore sufficiently inscrutable and maddeningly catchy in its madcap approach to music of the children of chaos and creation. In plain terms, don’t sleep on this show, it looks fantastic ($20).
Tuesday
Hey daddios, daddiettes and all hep-cats in between, it’s Tuesday night, so that means another freebie at the Speakeasy by one of our most talented groups of jazz-bos, the Opera Alley Cats. Music starts at 7 p.m. (what is it with that hour and this week?) and a responsible cocktail or two will only enhance the pleasure of hearing these tunes done right.
Wednesday
It’s the last night for Jenny Scheinman Presents All Species Parade at the Arcata Playhouse at 7 p.m. This is a love-letter suite of songs for her native Humboldt County, so it behooves us to give this gal a listen, because she is one of the treasures of our home who has broken containment and found an audience the world around. Get your $15-$20 tickets soon, because night one has already sold out.
Collin Yeo (he/him) is a human at odds with the cruelty of humanity.
This article appears in Combating the Barred Owl Invasion.