Variations On A Velvet Morning

“Some velvet morning when I’m straight … I’m gonna open up your gate … And maybe tell you about Phaedra … And how she gave me life … And how she made it end … Some velvet morning when I’m straight …”

Lee Hazlewood wrote those lyrics in the 1960s and collaborated with Nancy Sinatra on “Some Velvet Morning.” It stands as one of my favorite songs of all time with its haunting tune and strange lyrics.

I remember first taking notice of the song as a cover by the British shoegaze band Slowdive. It was on the American version of their 1993 album “Souvlaki,” which is a masterpiece.  (I’m not exaggerating. It is an amazing piece of music that has withstood the test of time. You need to engage with it immediately and get back to me.) Their swirling version complements the original well, I think.

It was while driving late at night later in the ’90s and listening to “Coast to Coast with Art Bell” that I really got a taste of the original, though I’m sure I had heard it previously. Bell often used the song as bumper music, and it added to the sometimes creepy and mysterious nature of his show.

“Some Velvet Morning” is best suited for the night in my opinion.

In 2002, another band I really love — Primal Scream — did their own cover of the song on the album “Evil Heat.” It features Kate Moss. Yes, that Kate Moss.

It’s definitely its own beast and doesn’t live up to the original or Slowdive’s version, but it has its charms. (By the way, Primal Scream just released their new album “More Light,” and it is well worth a listen)

Chicago-based critic Jim Derogatis wrote of the back-and-forth between Hazlewood and Sinatra: “If there has ever been a more sensual psychedelic exchange in the Top 40 (the single peaked at No. 26 on the Billboard chart in January 1968), I haven’t heard it.”

I can definitely agree with that.

The London Telegraph even named it the best duet ever in a feature of their picks for the 50 best duets of all time. They wrote: “Most pop music is quickly forgotten. All too rare are the songs that endure, whose sheer otherness takes your breath away, even 30-odd years after they were conceived. Some Velvet Morning belongs in that company.”

Again, you’ll get no arguments from me.

Interestingly, Hazlewood’s granddaughter is named Phaedra. They did a duet together before he died in 2007.

Anyway, yesterday’s rain had me thinking about “Some Velvet Morning,” so I thought I’d open up your gate and maybe tell you about Phaedra …

First Clip Of ‘Nebraska’ Released — And It’s Good

I’m just going to say it: I hope you all are fans of Alexander Payne, because chances are I’m going to be posting a lot more about his new movie “Nebraska” this year.

1) It’s directed by Payne, one of the best American directors working. (Don’t argue with me on that.)

2) It’s called “Nebraska,” a state that is clearly among the most awesome states, in part because I grew up there. (Don’t argue with me on that, either.)

3) It’s written by Bob Nelson, who has roots in the Yankton/Hartington area and is a really nice guy. I’m hoping his screenplay goes on to win some serious accolades. (Seriously!? You want to argue with me on that? What is wrong with you?)

So what’s the news here?

The Cannes Film Festival has released the first clip of “Nebraska,” and it is a juicy one. Check it out:

The movie premieres at Cannes Thursday, May 23.

Hitfix is breaking down the Cannes entries this year and had the following to say about “Nebraska”:

The buzz: Strong. For those who found “The Descendants” a little too slickly Academy-packaged for their liking, the new film’s monochrome look, absence of star casting and, of course, its return to Payne’s home state exude a back-to-basics appeal. The premise, however, still promises the emotional accessibility of his more mainstream work. Its announcement in the Competition lineup was greeted with more surprise and excitement than most, as several Cannes pundits had determined it wouldn’t be ready in time, and was likelier to premiere in Toronto.

The odds: Even if early reviews prime the film as the Oscar player Paramount is hoping for, that doesn’t make it any likelier that the festival will begin furnishing its award cabinet: from “No Country for Old Men” to Payne’s own “About Schmidt,” Cannes juries are often reluctant to reward films that seem likely to garner U.S. awards success further down the road. Then again, Spielberg is the festival’s most mainstream jury president in several years: if he resists any counterintuitive urges, and indeed zigs where many are expecting him to zig, Payne seems a likely beneficiary. Jigsaw Lounge grants him reasonable Palme odds of 10-1, though a likelier-on-paper award — and one that would take the film out of the Palme running, under current festival rules — would be the Best Actor prize, either for Dern alone, or jointly with Forte.

Read the entire Hitfix breakdown of “Nebraska” here.

I also happened across some comments Payne made about the film in January 2012 in an interview with ComingSoon.net:

“I’m always just so damn desperate to find anything that can make a movie. I’m serious. I also get questioned about what statement are you making and what themes are personal to you and I’m always thinking I’m so grateful to have barely found a story that you can make a movie. I’m not eating humble pie. I just want to keep doing it and making movies. This one is not a grand statement and it’s not particularly important to me. “The Descendants” wasn’t entirely personal to me. I just thought it would make a decent movie and it would be fun to make. I also think about what would be fun to make.”

Read more of that here.

Study Leads To Mitchell Housing Boom — Will The Result Be Replicated In Yankton?

Do you think there is a shortage of housing in Yankton?

If so, you are not alone.

Local officials have commissioned a housing study that they believe will confirm their suspicions that a shortage does indeed exist.

Yankton Area Progressive Growth (YAPG) will fund the housing study, with the City of Yankton taking the lead in hiring and working with a consultant to produce a report.

“Anecdotally, we believe there is a shortage of housing availability in the Yankton community,” YAPG President Mike Dellinger told the Yankton City Commission recently. “Major employers have indicated to us that their employees are having a hard time finding places to live. We hoped we could partner with the city and the Economic Development Council to provide the scientific data and have the study indicate where we are benchmarking our current housing stock.

“Hopefully … the results of this study will stimulate the private market into doing something about this housing shortage,” he added. “Banks will recognize there is an opportunity to lend. Developers will recognize there is an opportunity to develop. And home builders will have more places to build homes. That’s our intention.”

Read more about the plans for a Yankton housing study in a story I wrote here.

Coincidentally, a housing study was completed in neighboring Mitchell last September. (It’s not so coincidental, really. Yankton officials were partly inspired to do a study because Mitchell officials believed theirs had been worthwhile.)

The Mitchell Daily Republic published a story Saturday about what has happened in the intervening months. It’s quite promising. A total of 223 rental units are currently under construction in the city.

A study released in September identified an overwhelming need for additional rental housing in Mitchell.

The study was funded by the Mitchell Area Development Corp. and several area partners in response to an apparently sudden shortage of rental housing in Mitchell that developed in the last few years, according to Bryan Hisel, executive director of MADC and the Mitchell Area Chamber of Commerce.

“It kind of surprised us,” Hisel said of the housing shortage. “That’s why we did the study.”

The study found the vacancy rate for all apartments in the city was just 1.3 percent.

At the time of the study, Mitchell needed another 225 to 300 apartments over the next five years, of which 110 to 150 should be conventional, non-subsidized apartments, just to keep up with demand, according to the study.

The results of the study led directly to the Pheasant Ridge project, Boote said.

“Someone passed the housing study across my desk,” Boote said. “I read it and it looked good, and it started from there.”

Other developers said the study confirmed what they already suspected — that Mitchell had a significant shortage of quality, affordable housing.

…

Providing adequate and affordable housing is the key component to increasing the city’s workforce, Hisel said.

“When we’re talking with companies that are trying to expand and grow,” he said, “they can’t do that without workforce and workforce can’t come here without a place to live.”

Finding workers is the No. 1 issue for businesses in Mitchell and will remain so for a long time, Hisel said.

In the last decade, the population of the six-county area surrounding Mitchell has declined by 436 households, according to the housing study.

“We depended on that area for our work force,” Hisel said. “Now we need to reach out to as many as we can.”

According to Hisel, up to 40 percent of the area’s workforce commutes from smaller communities into Mitchell for employment.

“From a community standpoint,” Hisel said, “if we add the housing, that will accommodate the workforce.”

According to Hisel, the success of Mitchell and the companies doing business in the city will depend largely on the ability of the housing market to keep up with the needs of a workforce with the potential to grow.

“If you don’t have apartments or housing for people,” he said, “how do you build a community?”

With the possibility of Yankton’s housing study being completed by the end of the year, it will be interesting to see whether the results in Mitchell are replicated here in 2014 — assuming, of course, a shortage is found.

Buried In Laughter: Aziz Ansari Offers Thoughts On Marriage, Kids During Omaha Show

Aziz Ansari stopped at the Omaha Music Hall Thursday as part of his “Buried Alive” tour.

Aziz Ansari is 30 and single.
He shared those vital statistics early on with the audience at the Omaha Music Hall Thursday night during a stop on his “Buried Alive!” tour.
“Buried Alive” could very well refer to what Ansari thinks happens after people get married or have kids. More precisely, it’s what he is afraid could happen if one chooses to erect either one of those two pillars. They can just as easily fall down on top of you, after all.
If you don’t know Ansari, it’s time to change that. He was part of the hilarious “Human Giant” team that sadly only had a sketch show on MTV2 for two seasons. He is also a regular character on NBC’s “Parks and Rec,” and has had roles in many films.
The one common denominator in Ansari’s work is that he almost always makes me laugh. He’s confident yet self-deprecating, and he can do things with his voice alone that crack me up.
So, as I was saying, Ansari is 30, single and has some serious(-ly funny) questions about why people would get married and have kids.
“How long did you know each other before you got married?” he asked the audience. “Five years?” Applause followed from those who had five years under their belt before getting married. He continued down to two years, stopped and looked at the crowd incredulously before laughing: “We’re all laughing at you (people who knew each other less than two years) cuz you’re going to get a divorce!” he said. “Why would you do that?”
He noted he had maintained longer relationships with sweaters and thrown them out after realizing they were no good.
Still, despite all the brazen talk, it felt to me that Ansari is a bit of a romantic underneath it all. That’s probably due to his views on people sending nude photos to one another. I’ll leave it at that. Tantalizing, I know.
Of course, a man of Indian descent (but who grew up in South Carolina) in the heart of Huskerland couldn’t help but notice the overwhelming whiteness of the crowd. Ansari joked that it may be slightly offensive that a bunch of white people were laughing at a man of color on stage.
However, he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
Ansari put on a great show. My friends and I gave up a lot of laughs, and that’s good medicine under any circumstances. Thanks, Aziz!

Kevin Coffey of the Omaha World-Herald actually took notes during last night’s performance, so his review is a little more thorough. Read it here.

Coffey’s description of Ansari’s style is accurate:

Ansari’s style is to take regular topics and turn them completely absurd. A story about visiting his family in India segued into a bit about sex and robots. Another about online dating turned into a joke about gay sex and then later into being a superhero.

Whenever he started taking it to a silly place, Ansari would often smirk as if he knew how absurd it all was.

For a taste of Ansari’s “Buried Alive!” material, check out this interview on “Conan”:

Learn more about Ansari here.

Moshe Kasher, who opened for Ansari, was also quite funny. This has some NSFW language.

Delving Into A ‘Big Deal’ Of A Mystery

You’ve probably never heard of Big Deal.

And you’re probably thinking, “Big deal!”

On their first album, “Lights Out,” Alice Costelloe and Kacey Underwood played two guitars and shared vocal duties. Many of the songs focused on matters of love. It was very earnest and endearing, and I immediately got interested in the band.

My favorite song was “Talk.” (It has some NSFW lyrics.)

Big Deal is releasing a new album called “June Gloom” in, well, June. Judging from the two songs released so far, they’ve left the two-guitar formula behind and gone for a 90s alternative rock, sometimes shoegaze sound that is like music crack to a teen of the 90s like myself. It hits a lot of sweet spots.

One of the songs released is called “In Your Car.”

Among the lyrics are, “I’ve got a friend who never lets me down.”

This gets bells going off in my head, and reminds me of this:

I’m taking a ride
With my best friend
I hope he never lets me down again
He knows where he’s taking me
Taking me where I want to be
I’m taking a ride
With my best friend

That’s Depeche Mode’s “Never Let Me Down Again”:

So in my mind, “In Your Car” is some sort of nod to Depeche Mode! Makes total sense, right!?

Well, it may seem like a stretch.

But, it is worth pointing out that Big Deal is on Mute Records, a label that Depeche Mode was on for three decades. It’s quite possible Big Deal are Depeche Mode fans sending faint signals to fellow fans astute enough to pick up the wavelength.

I’m not crazy, right? I’m just very astute. Right!?

 

Mead Campus: A Glimpse Of The SD Human Services Center’s Future?

People tend to care about history.

So as a member of the Yankton County Historical Society, I speak with many people who are excited about what the organization is attempting to do with the Mead Building on the historic South Dakota Human Services Center campus. By the end of this decade, it is hoped that grand structure will be home to a museum and cultural center.

But when it comes to the rest of the campus, people are more ambivalent. Some think uses could be found for the cluster of other buildings, while some believe the state would be best-served by tearing them down.

Well, if you haven’t thought much about the campus, I suggest you visit www.meadcampus.com. It will give you an idea of what could be done, in part by pointing out what has been done with similar facilities elsewhere.

I’ve spoken at length with Rich Jensen, a historic preservation consultant, and Paul Lowrie, who serves on the Mead Building Committee and will be leaving the Yankton City Commission later this month, about why they put together the website and why they are promoting the campus. They both stress they are not “pie-in-the-sky” historical preservationists. They believe the campus has economic value that would justify rehabilitation of many of the buildings. That’s why they have devoted a lot of time and energy to finding someone with the money and ideas to do something on the campus before the buildings are demolished, possibly later this year.

One of my favorite sections of their site is called “Myths.” It’s worth a look:

The buildings are in really bad shape!

One building with a wood-framed interior is in bad shape (the Lee Cottage). There are issues with the roof of the Calf Barn and with the roof of Edmunds. The buildings in our proposal are otherwise in sound condition, almost all of them built of concrete and steel. Many need attention to surfaces within the building. Some need to be tuckpointed, but these issues do not compromise the structural integrity of the building. Damage from animals is, in most cases, trivial. Portions of the Medical Institute were reroofed less than a decade ago.

The state’s been trying to unload these buildings for 20 years!

The Mickelson Center did not open until 1996, and a significant number of these buildings were still partially used by the state for over a decade after the Mickelson Center opened. The state has not made these buildings available by RFP (request for proposals) and the April 15th press release from the Governor’s Office represents the first official outline of how these buildings may be acquired by private investors and entrepreneurs. For several years, potential investors were told that state could not sell the buildings or surplus them.

This can’t be done!

The Pioneer Group in Topeka Kansas has successfully renovated over 30 buildings on the VA Campus in Leavenworth, Kansas. Many of them have been converted into modern residences. These buildings, many of them wood-framed, had been abandoned for decades. As compared to the Mead Campus, the Leavenworth project—which received no support from the VA—represented a far greater challenge.

The Lowry Air Force Base in Denver contained over 1,000 vacant buildings, 28 miles of obsolete streets and environmental issues. Despite these significant challenges, in its first decade of redevelopment, the Lowry project returned over $4 billion to the Denver and Aurora economies.

This can’t be done HERE!

Willmar, Minnesota was once home to a treatment hospital not unlike the Human Services Center in Yankton. In 2002, the state of Minnesota didn’t just move out of the old buildings on the Willmar Regional Treatment Center and into a new facility next door. They moved out, period. The city of Willmar faced the loss of 800 jobs.

Willmar’s population is about 18,000, and it is the county seat of Kandiyohi County, which has a population of about 42,000. It’s a little over an hour from St. Cloud and about two hours from Minneapolis. Yankton is about two hours from Omaha, and a little over an hour from Sioux Falls. Yankton’s population is about 14,000, and Yankton, Cedar and Knox counties have a total population of about 39,000.

Willmar’s economic development authority was provided funds by the state of Minnesota to market these buildings, and they were able to bring in two sizable local businesses, as well as the Minnwest Vo-tech campus. There are still some vacant buildings on the WRTC campus, but LSI and Nova-tech, the biotech firms that have relocated to the WRTC, have spent over $10 million renovating the campus.

That and much more can be found on the Mead Campus site. Again, I encourage you to take a look.

If you’re interested in South Dakota’s most recent plans for the campus, check out this recent story in the Press & Dakotan.

If I Wrote Country Songs …

If I wrote country songs, this would be the source material for my next big hit:

• An intoxicated female visited the Yankton Police Department at 12:53 a.m. Tuesday and requested to speak to an officer. She was upset about how she had bailed out her boyfriend from a jail in Nebraska and then got dumped by him. The woman wanted to know if an officer could go to the community and get her bail money back. She was advised to call the Nebraska police office in the morning and was given a ride home by a sober friend.

Unfortunately, I don’t write country songs.

I can tell you how the story would end, though. This little cowgirl would get her money back, and the boyfriend would be arrested wearing nothing but his boots and a cowboy hat.

I’ll let you use your imagination as to how all that transpires in this hypothetical song …