A little preface is needed before this week’s column gets rolling. It’s Memorial Day weekend in our stretch of the entertainment beat, coming a week after graduation at Cal Poly Humboldt. Which means that the front end of this piece will be heavy with a variety of live offerings, while the caboose is scant to the point of nonexistence, outside of what you might find in the event calendar in the back of the paper. That’s just how it works out sometimes. This weekend marks the gateway from the student-filled gigs to those which court the summer audiences of locals and visitors. Incidentally, it’s also Kinetic Grand Championship weekend, and the front-loaded contraption I just described might be just the design to carry its riders past the drafts and into the lead, during a downhill section of the race at least. In the absurdist spirit of this unique local event, I’ve been thinking about the use of a vehicular race as the plotline for two pieces of avant-garde 20th century literature, one from the height of the symbolist movement and the next an example of pulp fiction morphed into an early postmodern stunner. The former is Alfred Jarry’s 1903 piece “The Crucifixion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race,” and the latter is an homage to that work by the brilliant cross-genre sci fi writer J.G. Ballard called “The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race,” written in 1965, the year after the Warren Report, and miles ahead of its era.
Jarry, most famous for creating the character of Père Ubu, takes the Stations of the Cross to the bleeding edge of French symbolism to build a narrative that is at once flippant and dead serious, teetering on the edge of the kind of cultural blasphemy required of any piece staged within earshot of an abattoir for the dissection of sacred cows. And it’s precise in its insistence on the symbolic connections between the parts of a bicycle — a fairly new invention at the time it was written — and the ancient formations of the cross and crown of thorns. It ends with the verse “The deplorable accident familiar to us all took place at the 12th turn. Jesus was in a dead heat at the time with the thieves. We know that he continued the race airborne — but that is another story.” Indeed, it is.
Ballard, meanwhile, imagines Lee Harvey Oswald manning the starting pistol for another race, a world-shaking slaughter in a much different time. He ends on an expression of the public’s collective dissatisfaction with the Warren Report’s findings with the line, “Without a doubt Oswald badly misfired. But one question still remains unanswered: Who loaded the starting gun?” Are there more connections between these pieces than a simple homage updated for the age of autos, nukes and TV? Decide for yourself; both works are little over a page long, and worth a piece of your time.
Why am I writing about this? Well, there are 52 weeks in a year and I have to come up with something for an intro to each one. That’s a lot of races to kick off. Sometimes tangential free association is the right powder to put in the starting pistol and an air of mystery the correct gas to pump into the tires. Particularly when overseeing a weird long weekend like the one before us, which I hope you all enjoy.
Thursday
The Creative Sanctuary is putting on another jazz gig at the Arcata Playhouse, the first in a series basking in the glow of the formidable works of Art Blakely and the Jazz Messengers. Tonight’s program is an homage to Horace Silver, the post-bop pianist and co-bandleader who brought the group to his highest peaks of creative glory. Tonight’s line-up will feature a host of excellent players, including James Zeller, Tree, Ramsey Isaacs, Lee Phillips and Matthew Seno. Expect a swinging good time, starting at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10-$30, sliding scale.
Friday
As I mentioned before, I will be loading up the weekend with goodies because the pantry is bare afterward and, for the sake of that project, tonight is the beginning of that process. First up, at the Outer Space at 7 p.m., Brain-Dead Rejects and Kolonizer are playing a horror punk drag show for a sliding scale cover of $5-$20.
After that, here are two shows, both starting after 8:30 p.m., that each look like a piece of fun.
At the Logger Bar, you can shake it out to the sounds of Big 8, a local collective of musicians playing New Orleans funk and soul and general upbeat Americana. No cover for this one, so tip your bartenders and the band.
Meanwhile, back in Arcata, the Miniplex is hosting the driving beats of Austin, Texas’ art punk oddballs Being Dead. Portland tourmates Nug are a trio that dabbles in post-punk noise dynamics with the best of them. This should be a fine and loud time for all in the glorious sonic cave attached to Richards’ Goat ($15, $18 at the door).
Saturday
It’s the official beginning to the Kinetic weekend, which of course means that there’s a Rutabaga Ball happening somewhere around these parts. This year’s somewhere is the Eureka Theater, where for $20 at 7 p.m. you can join the happy hordes of racers and partiers.
If you’re in the mood for another style of weirdness, here are a couple of options. Downstairs at the Arcata Veterans Hall at 7 p.m., you will find the final night of the dark rockabilly play The Starlight Inn, an R-rated affair directed by Tisha Sloan and set in the titular desert — and nearly deserted — motel, stocked with a few damned and horny souls.
Speaking of desert dramas, an hour later at the Arcata Theatre Lounge, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s evil psychedelic western El Topo will be filling up the big screen with even bigger imagery, possibly spilling out of the margins and embedding itself into the wastelands of the gray matter of the audience. Doors at 6 p.m., show around 7 p.m., $8 to get in, $12 to leave with a poster.
And finally, if you want to break from the triple sevens of the entertainment clockface, wait until 8:30 p.m. and head over to Humbrews, where the doors will be opening for Yak Attack, an electronic trio from Portland specializing in drum and bass, house, funk beats and chipped up breaks ($15).
Sunday
Say goodbye to the old ways of the spring season and scratch another academic cycle off the charts with a psychedelic dance party with heavy tropical tones. Brothers David and Rene Pacheco took the backyard sounds from their East L.A. childhood and created a beautiful monster of cumbia music wedded to punk and grunge called Tropa Magica. That lovely critter will be shaking the walls of the Miniplex tonight at 8:30 p.m., with local support from Pichea. I have seen these fellas live and can attest that the experience is worth far more than the price of admission, which is $15 for advance tickets, $20 at the door.
Memorial Day
That’s all for now, folks. Celebrate Memorial Day as you see fit and I’ll see you later this week.
Collin Yeo (he/him) welcomes the shift change.
This article appears in ‘God Looking Back at You’.