Chris Smith’s blog

The news of a terrorist bombing outside Hussein Mosque in Cairo hit close to home. Back when I worked there, I spent a lot of time wandering the alleys of Islamic Cairo (as it’s sometimes called), a portion of the city so ancient that buildings from the 16th century are generally considered “new.” At the end of 2000, I was working on a photo project for grad school, and spending more or less all of my time down there. It was the month of Ramadan, and you’re not supposed to eat or drink from sunrise to sunset, so most people lie low during the day (it’s not uncommon to see office workers sleeping under their desks) and stay up for most of the night, eating a big meal at three or four in the morning. Midan Hussein, which is near both the famous Khan Al Khalili bazaar and a bunch of local markets, is always pretty busy. But on those Ramadan nights it just pulsed with life: every cafe was full, and huge banquet tables were set up in the square, overflowing with families celebrating the holidays. As a foreigner whose command of Arabic was limited to pleasantries and directions, I was humbled by the friendliness of virtually everybody I met (this was, of course, before George W. Bush took office–lots of people were actually excited about him, believing that he would follow his father, who was tougher on Israel than most recent presidents). People invited me to eat with them, plied me with tea, held their children out for my admiration; I remember a long, midnight conversation with a bunch of Islamist students from Tanta, the Egyptian Fresno. We talked about faith and TV shows.

All told, it was a peaceful time in Cairo. The government had pretty much crushed the Islamist insurgency of the 1990s, going so far as to burn the fields in the Nile Valley to deny its enemies cover. But these things don’t so much die as simply burrow underground, only to reemerge later. Egypt is a dictatorship (witness the saidi soldiers on every street corner), and so long as that doesn’t change, nothing else will: its citizens will get poorer and angrier, and the insurgencies will reappear, just as brutal as ever. And yesterday the tourists in Midan Hussein paid the price.

When you first hear about the Bohemian Grove, you might think it’s a joke, or at the very least some conspiracy nut’s wet dream. “So, wait,” you might say with a snort, “a group of right-wingers meets once a year up in the North Bay woods to decide the fate of the world?” And your eyes really start rolling when you hear the details of what they do up there: boozing, walking around naked, performing strange and terrible rituals (the cremation of a giant owl statue, for instance). Well, it’s all true, and has been for more than a hundred years. While the gathering is ultra-secret–it birthed the Manhattan Project, after all–it’s tough to keep all the weirdness from seeping out.

So that’s the jumping-off point for my new piece in San Francisco magazine, which surveys the Grove’s modern-day successors, which are far lighter on the debauchery and at least marginally more transparent than their predecessors. For some reason it’s not available online, but here’s a pdf (watch out–big file!).

All together now: “Who holds back the electric car? / Who keeps Steve Gutenberg a star? / We do!”

The other night, I went to a punk show in the city, one of those shows with a re-formed, old-school headlining band (Verbal Abuse, in this case–remember them?) and a bunch of less heralded, newer bands in the opening slots. One of these newer bands dressed like it was SoCal 1982, right down to the bandannas tied around the ankles of their motorcycle boots. They were young-looking, sloppy and sort of fun in a retro way, but it got tiring after a few songs–there wasn’t anything even remotely new going on up there. As I watched, it struck me that punk is far more limited as a form than metal. I grew up during a time of transition, when punk bands were abandoning their short-and-fast bursts for slower, heavier, and longer songs. The crossover results were mixed. Some of these bands managed to combine the very worst traits of both genres (witless thrash bands like S.O.D.; the sad-sack late-period Discharge, when audiences booed them off the stage; pretty much any speed metal band). Some were accused of selling out (oh, the rage against Black Flag), but it seemed a natural enough progression. And when it worked, it really worked. C.O.C.’s “Animosity” and Bad Brains’ “I Against I” still get regular play on my turntable.

Simply put, with metal there’s more room to move. Think about what punk stands for: in essence, it’s a big, aural “fuck you,” a broad-brush-strokes sentiment that doesn’t leave much room for nuance or growth. The Ramones, for instance, played the same song for the entirety of their career. Metal, though, for all of its lyrical absurdity, can make virtually any musical statement, from the intricate, neo-classical song structures of Bathory to Motorhead’s fist-pounding 4-4 orthodoxy to the sludgy hammerfall of bands like Sleep and the Melvins.

At its best, punk has incredible power, the equivalent of a smack in the teeth, the force of John Brannon screaming his lungs out on a tiny Detroit stage. But once you’re done screaming, where do you go? In most cases, you cease being a punk band.

I’m aware that this isn’t much of an original thought, but it really hit home for me on this night, watching what felt–and sounded–like a time capsule up on the stage. There was a lot of shouting, a lot of motion, but no heft. As somebody on Yahoo! Answers put it (there’s actually a “punk vs. metal” thread):

punk is fun, metal is deep.

While flipping through some photos from Mali tonight, I came upon this one. The background’s blown out and my Photoshop skills aren’t good enough to fix it, so I never did anything with it, but, wow, I love the faces on these guys.