His Songs Were Carved In Stone: Patterson Hood Remembers Merle Haggard

Merle Haggard on stage in California in 2010.

Merle Haggard on stage in California in 2010. Haggard died at 79 on April 6. Frazer Harrison/Getty Images hide caption

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Merle Haggard on stage in California in 2010. Haggard died at 79 on April 6.

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

If there was a Mount Rushmore of the benchmark greats of American music, Merle Haggardwould have to be on it. He was among the greatest of his or any generation of country performers. A true triple-threat, his prowess as a guitarist and fiddler could only be eclipsed by his greatness as a vocalist and songwriter. He was also a true entertainer with charisma and seemingly effortless stage presence. A master bandleader, he always had incredible backing musicians and his show managed a rare consistency for the countless thousands of performances he played during a career that spanned well over fifty years.

He was already one of the last survivors of his era when I finally got to see him perform in 1998. At that time he was reunited on stage with his ex-wife and former singing partner, Bonnie Owens. She herself passed not long afterward, but that afternoon in Greensboro N.C., they had a wonderful chemistry and rapport as they bantered back and forth about how they became friends after they quit trying to be married to each other.

It was a hot summer afternoon at a city-wide street festival and Merle and company could have easily phoned it in, but the show was excellent. I marveled at how a band so tight could play it so loose, and the show, while brief, managed to fit in an enormous songbook of absolutely classic country songs, hitting many of the hits as well as some deeper cuts.

I was already a huge fan. I loved his voice and tenacity, his sense of humor and humanity. His songs didn't sound written as much as carved in stone. They contained a sense of place that conjured the dust and dirt from which they came. As an artist, he could be stubborn and confounding. Just as you think you had him pegged, he was somewhere else, never being afraid to surprise and challenge whether he was staring down the counter culture on "Fighting Side of Me" or singing of a death row inmate he'd known at San Quentin in "Sing Me Back Home" or taking a stand, most likely in opposition to most of his following at the time, embracing interracial romance in "Irma Jackson." He was as American as the Oklahoma ground his people came from and as universal as the hunger and longing that his family's dust-bowl roots and his own California depression-era raising instilled in him.

In 2000, already in his mid-sixties, he further cemented his legend by signing with the revered punk label Anti Records and making one of the greatest late-period records of any artist. If I Could Only Fly was sparse and autobiographical and introduced him to yet another generation of fans. In one song, "I'm Still Your Daddy," he worries over having to tell his children about the time he spent in prison during his darker younger years. In another, "Wishing All These Old Things Were New" he laments not being able to do cocaine anymore like he did in the '80s. The album drew critical raves and still holds up as one of his best of his many great albums.

Although he's best known in the realm of country music, he was never tied down by the roots of his genre, drawing freely from influences as wide as jazz and western swing. His music could speak to audiences raised on punk rock or southern boogie. He always followed his own path and never chose to follow the trends of the day.

This rebelliousness was nearly his undoing from his earliest days serving time in (and escaping from) detention centers and later a stint in San Quentin. It was while doing time in prison that his life was changed and probably saved by watching Johnny Cash perform. Upon release, Merle set off on a career trajectory that brought him 37 number one hits, Academy of Country Music 1970 Entertainer of the Year, a 1994 induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame and a 2010 Kennedy Center Honor.

In 1969, during the height of the Vietnam war and counter-culture protests, he recorded "Okie From Muskogee," in which he seemingly drew a line in the sand against the hippies of the day:

"We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee / We don't take our trips on LSD." Later, he claimed that he wrote the song from what he assumed would have been his late father's point of view about the events of the day. Haggard, himself openly smoked pot and recorded "America First," a song protesting the Iraq War in 2005.

As I was growing up in the South during Merle Haggard's heyday, his music was ubiquitous, often playing from radios where you pumped your gas and bought your groceries. As a teenager I worked at a record store while he was having an early '80s resurgence and I knew that this guy, who was as country as could be, was revered by folks like Elvis Costello and Bob Dylan. That he was timeless and special. As so many of his peers attempted to defy getting older, he wore the lines on his face like well-earned trophies of the years he'd survived. When we were starting our band Drive-By Truckers, we drove thousands of miles soundtracked by those wonderful records he made and I always felt like his writing was a graduate course in everything that is best in the creation of songs that are timeless and true.

Merle's son Ben said that his father had been saying that he would die on his birthday. He did exactly that, on his 79th. He has left us a legacy and catalog of great songs that will live on for generations to come.

Patterson Hood plays and sings in the rock and roll band Drive-By Truckers. They are currently on tour and will be releasing a new album in the fall. Hood lives with his family in Portland, Ore.

Country Legend Merle Haggard Dies At 79

Merle Haggard, shown performing in 1985, was a country music fixture for 50 years.

Merle Haggard, shown performing in 1985, was a country music fixture for 50 years. He died Wednesday, on his 79th birthday. Ebet Roberts/Redferns/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Ebet Roberts/Redferns/Getty Images

Merle Haggard, shown performing in 1985, was a country music fixture for 50 years. He died Wednesday, on his 79th birthday.

Ebet Roberts/Redferns/Getty Images

Merle Haggard was known by his fans as "Hag." With songs that reflected the working-class values and experiences of his own early life, Haggard found an audience in folks that saw the same. The country musician died Wednesday morning in California. It was his 79th birthday.

Haggard's music was drawn from a life that started in 1937 in a converted train boxcar, the family home in Bakersfield, Calif. Haggard's mother and father were part of the mass migration of people from Oklahoma who went to California looking for a better life during the Great Depression. But his father died when Haggard was just 9 years old. In a 1995 interview with Fresh Air, he described how that led to an early life of troublemaking.

"I was, to say the least, probably the most incorrigible child you can think of," Haggard said. "I was on my way to prison before I realized it. But I really don't know why — I think it was out of boredom and the lack of a father's attention, I think."

A robbery landed him in San Quentin prison shortly after he turned 20, and he spent his 21st birthday in solitary confinement.

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"I wound up with nothing to lay on except a Bible and concrete slab," Haggard said. "I don't know — it was something about the whole situation that I knew that if I was lucky enough to get out I would be all finished."

Once he was paroled, Haggard turned to songwriting. His mother had shown him a few basic guitar chords and he taught himself the rest, falling under the spell of songwriters like Jimmie Reed, Bob Wills and Hank Williams.

His hardscrabble beginnings, a fierce independence and his time behind bars all came pouring out in "Sing Me Back Home," a 1967 song based on his time in solitary confinement where he could hear the voice of a man condemned to die.

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"When Haggard sings, it's not as if he's performing. When he sings, it's as if he's confiding," author Tom Carter, who spent two years with the singer while they worked on the 2002 biography Merle Haggard's My House of Memories : For The Record, said in an interview recorded before the singer died. Carter says the singer was driven by telling stories set to music.

"He never stops polishing his craft because he loves his craft," Carter said.

That craft became part of what was called "The Bakersfield Sound." During a time when Nashville was all about polished vocals over lush orchestrated arrangements, Bakersfield musician Buck Owens led a subgenre of country music fueled by a raw honky-tonk energy with a little bit of Western swing and performed on electric rock 'n' roll instruments. Haggard's string of chart successes became part of the sound named after his home town.

Starting in 1966, Haggard scored 37 top 10 country hits in a row, 23 of them reaching No. 1. But his success didn't guarantee an easy life: His marriages failed and he was largely an absentee father mostly because of the countless miles crisscrossing the country on a bus playing honky-tonks and county fairs. The lifestyle and the drinking would haunt him in his later years.

He was labeled an intolerant reactionary for his 1969 song "Okie From Muskogee," in which he dresses down the counterculture, something he said was actually satire.

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At the end of his life, Haggard continually found warm receptions from his fans on the road; his later albums expanded his audience beyond hard-core country music fans and fellow musicians, often taking on a philosophical tone.

Haggard wrote the foreword to his biography, an early summation of the ingredients of his life and his music. He read it himself for the audio book version:

"I've lived through 17 stays in penal institutions. Incarceration in a penitentiary. Five marriages, bankruptcy, a broken back, brawls, shooting incidents, swindlings, sickness, the death of loved ones and more. I've heard tens of thousands chant my name when I couldn't hear the voice of my own soul. I wondered if God was listening and I was sure no one else was."

With Haggard's death, perhaps he will finally learn that God was indeed listening and was actually a fan.

What should Austria do with the house where Hitler was born?

In Braunau am Inn, Austria—a town of 17,000 just across the Inn River from Bavaria—a three-story, butter-yellow house has caused decades of consternation.

In Braunau am Inn, Austria—a town of 17,000 just across the Inn River from Bavaria—a three-story, butter-yellow house has caused decades of consternation. It looks benign, but it was the birthplace of Adolf Hitler, and has plagued the residents of Braunau with indecision, shame, and stress ever since American troops preventedGerman soldiers from destroying the structure after the US army took Braunauin May 1945.

US soldiers write their names on the wall of Hitler’s birthplace in 1945. (AP Photo/Pool/INP)

For more than forty years, the Austrian government has leased the property—which is now owned by Gerlinde Pommer, a relative of the family who built it—and made efforts to prevent the site from becoming a destination for Nazi pilgrimages. In the decades since World War II, German and Austrian veterans visited the site, especially on Hitler’s birthday, though the the local police say neo-Nazi pilgrimages have died downof late. Instead, the house has served as a school, a library, and, most recently, a center for people with disabilities.

But since 2011, the building has stood empty as Pommer has reportedly blockedrenovations necessary to attract new tenants and refused the interior ministry’s purchase offer. Now the government is taking steps to seize the house.

“We have come to the conclusion over the past few years that expropriation is the only way to avoid the building being used for the purposes of Nazi [sympathizers],” interior ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck told AFP. “We are currently examining the creation of a law, which would force a change of ownership and pass the property to the Republic of Austria.”

Grunboeck did not elaborateon plans for the house. Suggestions have included that it be used as a shelter for refugeesor a memorial site, or be destroyed altogether. (In 2012, Russian parliamentarian Frantz Klintsevich made noises about attempting to buy and “demonstratively” destroy the property.)

The house makes up part of Braunau am Inn, and is therefore under heritage protection, according to the AFP.

In 2015, Andreas Maislinger, a local historian and the founder of the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service, told Newsweek he didn’t believe the house should be destroyed—but it shouldn’t stand empty either.

“It doesn’t look good, it doesn’t make a good impression,” he said. “If the house is empty, it is dangerous.”

Middle America At The Dawn Of Outlaw Country

Leon Russell in a scene from Les Blank's film, A Poem is a Naked Person.

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Leon Russell in a scene from Les Blank's film, A Poem is a Naked Person.

courtesy of the producers

Early in, his deep exploration of American psychedelic culture, Jesse Jarnow details how the Berkeley-based visual artist Rick Shubb drew up a peculiar new world map. Called " Humbead's Revised Map of the World" and appearing in underground magazines starting in 1968, it was a psychedelic Pangaea comprised primarily of hippie hubs like San Francisco, Cambridge and New York City. Yet right off the coast of this funny landmass was the "island" of Nashville, suggesting that, though it may have been geographically nestled in the deep, clean-cut, hard-drinking conservative South, Nashville always existed as both beacon and haven for musicians and left-leaning, dope-smoking longhairs. While known as the churning heart of the country music hit-making machine, Bob Dylan had already cut Blonde on Blonde there in 1966 and many rock and folk musicians soon followed in his footsteps: Leonard Cohen, the Byrds and Neil Young, to name just a few.

40 years later, as Humbead's coastal metropolises become increasingly cost-prohibitive and more the province of artisanal yuppies rather than hippies, Nashville has come back to the fore as a city supportive of its artists and musicians. As seen in the recent photography book, it's the home for Americana royalty like Emmylou Harris and Kris Kristofferson, new country stars like Kacey Musgraves and Little Big Town, not to mention rockers like Kings of Leon, the Black Keys and Jack White (though he doesn't appear in the book). On the other side of the Cumberland River lies the buzzing East Nashville scene, with the likes of JEFF the Brotherhood, the Ettes, Andrew Combs, The Apache Relay and numerous others. This month, that city is a silent star in two legendary, yet little-seen music documentaries that explore the darker, stranger sound that emanated from "Music City, USA." James Szalapski's Heartworn Highways captured the start of the outlaw country music scene of the mid-1970s, while Les Blank'sfollowed around rock star Leon Russellat the height of his popularity.

The cover art for Criterion's edition of A Poem is a Naked Person (Criterion Collection 2016) courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Both Heartworn Highways and A Poem is a Naked Person were star-crossed motion pictures that barely screened in their day. Each explores the freaky, weird, at times wistful underside of Middle America, one now often considered "flyover country" or colored "red." Highways , Szapalski's only film, was shot at the start of the "outlaw country" movement in 1975, but didn't appear on the film festival circuit until 1981 and was shelved soon after. Blank, on the other hand, was responsible for many offbeat, charming documentaries — touching upon subjects as diverse as from garlic, gap-toothed women and the blues-man, Lightnin' Hopkins — but considered this one to be his finest. Except, A Poem is a Naked Person was never released during Blank's lifetime, as his subject disapproved of the final cut. "I thought I'd come out looking like James Dean, but I came out looking like Jimmy Dean," Leon Russell says of the film in the accompanying documentary, A Film's Forty-Year Journey: The Making of "A Poem Is a Naked Person." Meaning that much like, the similarly disavowed Rolling Stones doc by famed photographer Robert Frank, Poem existed primarily in cinephilic purgatory, beyond the view of a wide audience.

Now, as both films approach and pass their 40th anniversaries, they are getting the deluxe treatment they deserve. The reissue label Light in the Attic is putting out a heavyweight Heartworn Highways boxset, with a double-LP reissue of the film's soundtrack, an 80-page book of interviews, a film poster and a restored edition of the 1976 film with 45 minutes of bonus performances from that era. And Criterion Collection, which in 2014 released a box set of Blank's documentaries, is finally giving Poem an official DVD and Blu-Ray releasewith Russell's blessing.

The film Heartworn Highways documented singer-songwriters like Townes Van Zandt (right), pictured here with Uncle Seymour Washington. Courtesy of Light In The Attic hide caption

toggle caption Courtesy of Light In The Attic

The film Heartworn Highways documented singer-songwriters like Townes Van Zandt (right), pictured here with Uncle Seymour Washington.

Courtesy of Light In The Attic

Heartworn Highways is that rare music documentary that captures a scene and its practitioners at the height of their youthful vim and artistic powers. The intimate footage of its subjects here is priceless. There's a gangly and goofy Townes Van Zandt with a twinkle in his eye and an uncapped bottle of rye in his hand, displaying a knack for physical comedy, well before music industry bitterness and the bottle pickled him. There's a rhinestone-bedecked David Allen Coe performing a concert at a correctional facility he knows all too well. The under-appreciated outlaw country singer Steve Young, whose most famous songs wound up on albums by The Eagles ( "Seven Bridges Road"), Waylon Jennings ( "Lonesome, On'ry and Mean") and Hank Williams, Jr. ( "Montgomery in the Rain"), appears often. With news of Young's mid-March passing, his stark ballad "Alabama Highway" — accompanied by footage of an overturned tractor-trailer on the highway — feels all the more haunting, especially at the chorus: "Turn supernatural, take me to the stars and let me play/ I wanna be free, Alabama Highway." The film ends with an informal jam session just after dinner, the plates turned into ashtrays as the whiskey and guitars replace dessert. Young, Guy Clark and a gaunt Steve Earle (a good decade before he was signed) harmonize on a version of "Silent Night" that transforms it from a Christmas standard into a slow, redemptive ballad.

It's fun to compare Highways ' opening studio session with the studio sequence from another 40-year-old film, Robert Altman's Nashville . In Altman's kooky, anarchic love letter to Music City U.S.A., his Nudie-suited Napoleon Haven Hamilton (played by Henry Gibson) fills the studio with dozens of session players and back-up singers for the overstuffed countrypolitan pomp of "200 Years," before dressing down a long-haired piano player named "Frog" with the line: "You get your haircut, you don't belong in Nashville." In Highways , Szalapski films a session featuring the oaky baritone of Larry Jon Wilson and a band that looks to be comprised solely of Frogs. In three takes, they move from guitar sketch to the full-on boogie of "Ohoopee River Bottomland," the crackling electricity of the band caught on tape and on film. It's a depiction of musicians looking to make music outside the box and in the moment, not just crafted to perfection with ProTools, the vibe that's earned Highways a following from the likes of Mark Lanegan and Radiohead's Colin Greenwood.

Informal glimpses at the creative process also abound in A Poem is A Naked Person . Taking its title from a line on the back cover of Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home , the film posits that the Greil Marcus notion of "old, weird America" is alive and well in Tulsa, Austin, Nashville and many points in-between. Tangentially, the film captures Russell and his entourage as he recorded his country tribute,, at Bradley's Barn in Nashville and toured the States. Unlike Haven Hamilton, Russell was intent on capturing country music in its unvarnished, high-spirited glory, and Blank was the perfect director for such a project. There are numerous intimate portraits both on- and off-stage. In one, Russell and his band nail a rollicking take of "Rollin' My Sweet Baby's Arms," while in another, he and Neil Young's producer David Briggs share a piano bench for a run-through of "Lady Madonna." A clean-shaven and relatively short-haired Willie Nelson cavorts in a puffy pirate shirt, and George Jones hangs out in the studio.

Poem 's quaint and vital charm comes to the fore when Blank pans away from his main subject and catches the weirdos in his orbit. There's artist Jim Franklin painting a psychedelic interior for Russell's pool, a little girl belting out "Joy to the World" at a hippie wedding, a sports parachuting enthusiast (who may or may not be D.B. Cooper) chewing down a pint glass, and in the film's most harrowing sequence, a baby chick being swallowed whole by a boa constrictor, while Blank adds a Franklin voice-over expounding on consumerism. It's a shocking scene for most viewers and one that even in the 21st century still disturbed Russell.

A young Guy Clark in the documentary Heartworn Highways . Courtesy of Light In The Attic hide caption

toggle caption Courtesy of Light In The Attic

A young Guy Clark in the documentary Heartworn Highways .

Courtesy of Light In The Attic

In the accompanying doc, Russell says of Poem : "It's a time capsule, but apparently its life begins around now." Just why both films languished for decades only to return now, and bear influence on the next generation of songwriters, might be best explained in Leon's version of "Farther Along." The famous Southern gospel hymn — covered by everyone from Hank Williams to Brad Paisley — sings of man's finite cognizance in the light of the Lord's infinite wisdom, and finally comes to the conclusion: "We'll understand it all by and by."

Though Leon Russell did have six gold records to his name, he doesn't enjoy the same icon status as his one-time tour-mates Willie Nelson and Elton John. In that way, Russell aligns with some of Heartworn Highways ' subjects: Townes, Coe, Young, Earle, Guy Clark, Willis Alan Ramsay. None of them became household names; yet they are now revered songwriters, inspirations for a new generation of musicians, ranging from Sturgill Simpson and Chris Stapleton to Father John Misty and Margo Price and the many youngsters moving to East Nashville. April even sees the release of, a sequel of sorts to the seminal film, featuring the likes of Clark, Coe and Young alongside a new generation of players: John McCauley of Deer Tick, Justin Townes Earle, Shelly Colvin, Langhorne Slim and others. It's even been an influence on Hollywood; watch Jeff Bridges's Oscar-winning turn in Crazy Heart and one could easily imagine his character, Otis "Bad" Blake, as one of Highways ' subjects just a few decades down the road, bitter but belatedly getting his due.

Heartworn Highways ' original tagline read: "The best music and the best whiskey come from the same part of the country." And while the liquor does flow easily on film, it shares qualities with the music itself. The songs that these outlaws wrote — Russell's "Song For You,"Young's "Seven Bridges Road," Van Zandt's "Pancho and Lefty"and "Waiting Around to Die,"Clark's "Desperados Waiting for a Train"and Ramsay's "Ballad of Spider John,"among others — continue to resonate for a simple reason. Much like that whiskey, these tunes take a handful of elements and distill them to their essence. 40 years on, the end results remain pure and strong, something that still sets the heart to burn.

What should Austria do with the house where Hitler was born?

In Braunau am Inn, Austria—a town of 17,000 just across the Inn River from Bavaria—a three-story, butter-yellow house has caused decades of consternation.

In Braunau am Inn, Austria—a town of 17,000 just across the Inn River from Bavaria—a three-story, butter-yellow house has caused decades of consternation. It looks benign, but it was the birthplace of Adolf Hitler, and has plagued the residents of Braunau with indecision, shame, and stress ever since American troops preventedGerman soldiers from destroying the structure after the US army took Braunauin May 1945.

US soldiers write their names on the wall of Hitler’s birthplace in 1945. (AP Photo/Pool/INP)

For more than forty years, the Austrian government has leased the property—which is now owned by Gerlinde Pommer, a relative of the family who built it—and made efforts to prevent the site from becoming a destination for Nazi pilgrimages. In the decades since World War II, German and Austrian veterans visited the site, especially on Hitler’s birthday, though the the local police say neo-Nazi pilgrimages have died downof late. Instead, the house has served as a school, a library, and, most recently, a center for people with disabilities.

But since 2011, the building has stood empty as Pommer has reportedly blockedrenovations necessary to attract new tenants and refused the interior ministry’s purchase offer. Now the government is taking steps to seize the house.

“We have come to the conclusion over the past few years that expropriation is the only way to avoid the building being used for the purposes of Nazi [sympathizers],” interior ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck told AFP. “We are currently examining the creation of a law, which would force a change of ownership and pass the property to the Republic of Austria.”

Grunboeck did not elaborateon plans for the house. Suggestions have included that it be used as a shelter for refugeesor a memorial site, or be destroyed altogether. (In 2012, Russian parliamentarian Frantz Klintsevich made noises about attempting to buy and “demonstratively” destroy the property.)

The house makes up part of Braunau am Inn, and is therefore under heritage protection, according to the AFP.

In 2015, Andreas Maislinger, a local historian and the founder of the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service, told Newsweek he didn’t believe the house should be destroyed—but it shouldn’t stand empty either.

“It doesn’t look good, it doesn’t make a good impression,” he said. “If the house is empty, it is dangerous.”

TSA is our No. 1 problem right now”: Long security lines are frustrating US airlines, too

“TSA is our No.

“TSA is our No. 1 problem right now”: Long security lines are frustrating US airlines, too

The peak summer travel season in the US is months away, but the lines at airport security already are getting unbearable.

The Chicago Tribune reports that 1,000 American Airlines passengers missed flights at O’Hare International Airport in March because of long security lines:

Since it started monitoring TSA wait times in late February, American Airlines has seen typical waits of 30 minutes to 60 minutes — with a high of 90 minutes. Mornings tend to be worst, but long waits are seen throughout the day.

“TSA is our No. 1 problem right now, and it’s only going to get worse,” an American Airlines spokeswoman told the Tribune.

United Airlines has concerns, too. Spokesman Charles Hobart tells Quartz that the carrier has been working with the TSA to address “longer than normal wait times at some security checkpoints.”

The TSA has reduced its screening staff in recent years, from 47,630 workers in 2011 to an estimated 41,928 in 2016, according to US Department of Homeland Security budget documents. Meanwhile, an alternative screening option offered to passengers, known as TSA Precheck, has not been as popular as planned. The program costs $85 to enroll and gives approved passengers an expedited screening process.

The TSA, for its part, says “the number one problem” right now for any airline is the threat of global terrorism. The agency says it has a “robust plan” to deal with the increasing level of travel “including more canine use, encouraging pre-check enrollment, overtime, accelerated hiring and more.”

If it’s only April and the airlines already are worried about the lines at security, it’s a bad omen for what’s to come. As I pointed out in November, US airports are at their busiest during the summer months, which means the busiest travel days of 2016 are still ahead of us.

Of course The Masters is a private jet kind of event

Perhaps it’s only appropriate that a game so closely associated with elitism, wealth, and corporate glad-handing can be measured through private aviation.

Perhaps it’s only appropriate that a game so closely associated with elitism, wealth, and corporate glad-handing can be measured through private aviation. When the Masters golf tournament is held, private air travel to the area quadruples or more, according to my analysis of airport operations data from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Held annually at the private Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, the Masters tournament is the first “major” of the professional golf season. Tickets are hard for the public to come by through official channels (the waiting list was last open in 2000). Patrons are either well-connected or willing to pay the thousands of dollars being asked for tickets by resellers. Perhaps the same type of person who flies private.

Private flight operations to Augusta Regional Airport tend to peak on the Wednesday or Friday of the week of the event, depending on the year. From 2012 to 2015, the week leading up to the event averaged 992 flight operations—the total number of take-offs and landings. During those same years the week prior averaged 238 operations. The week after the tournament has averaged 196 operations over the years.

The Masters, however is a bit of an anomaly (“a tradition like no other,” perhaps) when it comes to US golf’s majors and private aviation. Although some of the airports near other tournaments don’t report their data to the FAA, the ones that do report show those tournaments don’t have any discernible effect on private travel.

One of Japan’s top architects is working on an “invisible” train

Japanese architect Kazuyo Sejima has long been known for making buildings that blend into the environment.

Japanese architect Kazuyo Sejima has long been known for making buildings that blend into the environment. Her style has been described as“fluid, transparent and intertwined with nature”—and it’s earned her (along with colleague Ryue Nishizawa) a Pritzker Prize.

An example of her style can be found in northern France at Le Louvre Lens Museum:

Workmen prepare the site of the Le Louvre Lens Museum in 2012. (Architects Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa SANAA/Reuters/Pascal Rossignol) Preparing Le Louvre Lens Museum in 2012. (Architects Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa SANAA/Reuters/Pascal Rossignol) Visitors walk past Le Louvre Lens Museum. (EPA/Yoan Valat)

Looking at the above, it isn’t hard to imagine Sejima also designing a train that blends into the landscape. That would seem like a fanciful notion, except that Seibu Group, known in Japan for its trains and hotels, commissioned her, and her firm SANAA(pdf), to do just that. Limited-edition trains with her touch will roll out in 2018, as part of the company’s 100-year anniversary celebrations. (She’ll modify existing trains, rather than work on new ones.)

Like many of her buildings, the trains will feature a reflective surface, allowing them to “disappear” into rural and urban vistas as they connect Tokyo to other parts of Japan, including the mountains of Chichibu. “I thought it would be good,” said Sejima, “if the train could gently coexist with this variety of scenery.”

Reclaiming The Queer Dance Floor

Flyers for Honey Soundsystem, Wrecked and Men's Room.

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Flyers for Honey Soundsystem, Wrecked and Men's Room.

Courtesy of the artists

Mike Servito has been playing records in public since the mid-'90s, and while the Brooklyn-based DJ is fully capable of plying his trade just about anywhere, he also knows that there's nothing quite like a queer dance floor. "You definitely turn it up a little bit at a gay party," he says. "You can be more brash, more vocal, and put a little more feeling and sexuality into it."

Growing up outside of Detroit, the birthplace of techno, Servitohad plenty of peripheral exposure to underground dance music, but it was at Club Heaven, an after-hours spot at Woodward and Seven Mile, where he first witnessed the full power of a gay club environment. "It was queer, it was inner-city, it was black, it was trans. You walk into a place like that, being a kid from the suburbs, and it's predominantly black and gay and Ken Collier is pumping incredible records," he remembers. "Just being able to witness that energy was special to me."

Heaven closed in the early '90s, and Ken Collier passed away in 1996 (due to complications from diabetes), but he was part of a pioneering generation of queer DJs that ushered dance music through its earliest days. Alongside legendary figures like Larry Levan, Frankie Knuckles and Ron Hardy, he operated during a time when these beats were largely being created, played and, most importantly, danced to by queer people of color. Storied clubs like the Paradise Garage in New York and The Warehouse and The Music Box in Chicago featured undeniably brilliant tunes, but they were more than just sites for dancing and ushering in influential musical movements — they were places of respite for the queer community. Long before any notions of "safe space" had entered the mainstream, these dance floors also played host to conversations, both verbal and non-, about exactly what it meant to be queer.

In contrast, today's celebrated dance culture seems almost overwhelmingly straight. Although queer artists continue to lead electronic music's push into bold new directions, the sounds being created by young contemporary acts like Arca, Lotic, Total Freedom and others tend to eschew traditional dance floor formulas in favor of something more abrasive, experimental, future-facing and conceptualin nature. Compared to what this new generation is coming up with, the sounds of house, techno, and disco have been labeled as downright conservative— and, given their relatively static formulas, the charge certainly carries some weight.

Carlos Souffront Seze Devres Photography NYC/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

toggle caption Seze Devres Photography NYC/Courtesy of the artist

Carlos Souffront

Seze Devres Photography NYC/Courtesy of the artist

"Those genres are in an era of refinement, not so much innovation," says Carlos Souffront, a San Francisco-based, Detroit-reared DJ who, like Servito, was also lucky enough to see Ken Collier work his magic at Heaven. From a compositional standpoint, these classic dance floor sounds may no longer seem revolutionary, but they do represent a marked improvement over the ostentatious, Euro-flavored circuit music and Top 40 fodder that has dominated queer nightlife for much of the past two decades. "It was dreadful," says Souffront, thinking back to his younger days in Detroit. "If I wanted to hang out with gay people, I had to tolerate the worst music that everyone else seemed to love. I always felt like an outsider in queer spaces, but I was desperately drawn to them."

Honey Dijon, a transgender artist raised on house music in Chicago, shares a similar sentiment while reflecting on her experiences DJing in New York during the late '90s and much of the '00s: "I had to make a living as a DJ ... so I had to do a lot of compromising and incorporate a lot of [pop] music into my sets. It was really painful for me because I consider pop music to be corporate music .... I respected Madonna and the work she did, and I liked her earlier work, but I felt that if she put out a record, it was something that I had to play in order to appeal to people, especially to gay audiences, [regardless of] whether the record was good or bad."

Simply put, from the mid-1990s forward, much of queer nightlife suffered from a deficit of taste, something that can be traced back to the devastating impact of AIDS. "A lot of people might have bridged the gap with an oral history of where I came from, but there are not a lot of people left from that generation to hand that down," says Chris Cruse, who organizes an underground, queer-oriented party called Spotlight in Los Angeles. "There are some, but maybe they weren't as hedonistic as the people who ended up disappearing in the '80s and '90s." Ron Like Hell, who DJs as one half of Wreckedand works as a buyer at New York's Academy Records store, remembers the impact that one mentor, a DJ from St. Louis who died in 1992, had on him back in his hometown of Albuquerque. Ironically, he can't recall the man's name, but the knowledge passed down remains fresh in his mind. "We had many great long conversations about clubbing and his personal life," says Ron Like Hell. "He really loved records and clubbing and told me about [Chicago house legend] Larry Heard — no one else did. If he had kept on living, he could definitely be carrying some of that fire into today's conversation about queer history."

During the height of the HIV/AIDS era, circuit parties played a central role in queer nightlife, initially as benefits during the worst throes of the crisis. Over time, however, they grew in size and scope, many of them becoming massive "fly in" events dominated by commercial music and what some found to be an alienating aesthetic. "For a lot of us, the imagery on the flyer — the shaved, smooth guy and shirtless, beautiful boys — isn't really our identity," says New York's Ryan Smith, who works as a booking agent and serves as the other half of Wrecked. "We didn't really feel comfortable on those dance floors. They didn't feel like home to us, so a lot us were going to see parties in traditionally straight venues." His DJ partner Ron Like Hell concurs: "60-80% of my club life has been all about preferring to go to more straight parties because of the musical talent [they brought]. These guys were preserving more of our gay disco dance music history than gay DJs were at that time."

That history is important, and a new crop of queer DJs and promotersare taking steps to reclaim it. Most prominent among them is Honey Soundsystem, a San Francisco collective that simultaneously pushes new sounds while celebrating the legacy of queer dance music. Often explicitly. Through a series of parties and well-received reissues, the crew has been instrumental in spurring the resurgence of interest in synthesizer wizard Patrick Cowley, a brilliant Bay Area songwriter who collaborated with the disco star Sylvester and tragically passed away in 1982, an early victim of AIDS. In 2015, Honey Soundsystem teamed up with Red Bull Music Academyfor an event celebrating four decades of queer nightlife at the long-running San Francisco gay club The Endup, and used its DJ residency at Chicago's Smart Bar as a platform to create a multi-faceted exploration of gay culture called Generators.

And Honey Soundsystem is by no means alone in its efforts. In recent years, a network of like-minded queer and queer-positive parties has developed across the nation, including A Club Called Rhonda and Spotlight in Los Angeles, Wrecked in New York, Dickslap in Seattle, Macho City in Detroit, Honcho in Pittsburgh and Men's Room, Queen! and Hugo Ball in Chicago, with additional club-nights continuing to pop up all the time. These events are by no means uniform, yet they do seem to share an affinity for tastefully curated programming, transitory environments, uninhibited sexual freedom and a soundtrack of classic (or at least classics-inspired) dance music.

While the music at these parties is in many ways looking backwards — some of the records being played are literally decades old, and even the newer songs on offer are often designed to emulate, or at least reference, the salad days of dance music — they can't just be written off as exercises in nostalgia. Honey Soundystem co-founder Jacob Sperber cites the intrinsic value of playing a song that's "written by a gay man, about a gay man," while Cruse points to the artists that produced these records and the voices that populate them, even in sample form: "A lot of them are black women or black gay men. Those voices are important."

Of course, queer history and culture goes well beyond music and nightlife, and for much of the past decade the dominant narrative has centered on the drive towards mainstream acceptance. The 2015 legalization of gay marriage stands as this movement's crowning achievement and queer people are seemingly more visible and accepted than ever before within the context of American culture. Still, not everyone in queer circles is happy with what they see as the increasing normalization of their community. "I have no desire to be accepted or validated by someone who is heteronormative," says Dijon. "If you look, [straight] relationship models haven't worked out so well. Their gender issues haven't worked out so well. They're still arguing about the differences between men and women."

"I'm interested in holding on to our culture," says Cruse. "I don't aspire to a heteronormative life, so I think it's important to keep creating these queer spaces, because if you don't, you'll see everyone get whitewashed, assimilated — it's so boring. The desire isn't for us all to be the same." His Spotlight parties reflect this sentiment, and not just in terms of the clientele or the impeccably curated music — the environments themselves run counter to the mainstream. Exclusively staging his events in loft and warehouse spaces, off the usual club grid, Cruse puts just as much effort into piecing together the sound system as he does the construction of the darkroom, a key element of every Spotlight party. "They're there if you want to use them," he says. "It's not mandatory. It's just acknowledging that we have a sexual side to us. If you need to slip off into the darkroom, you can, and come back with a new friend — it's not frowned upon or embarrassing."

Mike Servito Seze Devres Photography NYC/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

toggle caption Seze Devres Photography NYC/Courtesy of the artist

Mike Servito

Seze Devres Photography NYC/Courtesy of the artist

Chicago's Men's Roomparties, which require all entrants to remove either their top or their bottoms before they walk through the door, are even more intensely sexual. "We only do our parties in spaces that allow sexuality to take place out in the open," says resident DJ Harry Cross. Currently held at a venue called The Hole, the party previously took place at the Bijou Theater, the country's oldest gay adult cinema and sex club before it closed in 2015. Over in Pittsburgh, the monthly Honcho events happen at Hot Mass, a party space inside of a gay bath house. "As gay culture has become more mainstream," says Honcho founder Aaron Clark, "we needed to have the option for not everything to be family-friendly. It's probably the only place that people can party in this city, find someone to hook up with, and get a little bit dirty in the club."

It wasn't long ago that this kind of overtly sexual attitude was frowned upon in the queer community, at least publicly. Even as new treatments have lessened the level of devastation, the psychological scars of AIDS continue to be felt. "Since the AIDS crisis, the message has been clear: There is only one way to have sex without getting HIV," says Sperber. "For gay men specifically, as intrinsic as it is to put a wig on, is the fear that sex might kill you. Imagine taking a pill that changes all of that — it is some sci-fi movie s***." He's referring to the recent appearance of drugs like PrEP and Truvada, which drastically reduce the risk of transmission and have been credited with helping to reinvigorate the sexual element of queer nightlife. "In many ways, Truvada has created a 'glory days' feeling in the clubs," says Sperber.

Honey Dijon Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Honey Dijon

Courtesy of the artist

"There's a level of freedom that's not necessarily present in other parties, a freedom towards hedonism," says Steve Mizek, a Chicago DJ who heads up the dance-music record labels Argot and Tasteful Nudes, and previously helmed the influential electronic music website Little White Earbuds. "There are a lot fewer inhibitions about body image and really letting go and dancing and doing whatever you want with whomever you want."

At Los Angeles' A Club Called Rhonda, a more mixed event which often bills itself as a "pansexual party palace," being comfortable isn't necessarily about hooking up — it's more about being fabulous, with a crowd known for its over-the-top attire and outlandish behavior. "You see the queer people up on stage," says co-founder Gregory Alexander, "in various forms of dress, with fans, dancing, voguing all over the floor, then you're going to want to be part of that, because you realize that's welcomed and put on a pedestal at our club."

Rhonda's elaborate decorations are another essential ingredient, as Alexander explains: "We like to go the extra mile and not only make an environment that feels free and interesting, but looks free and interesting." Sperber takes a similar approach at Honey Soundsystem, stating, "It's the last thing that certain promoters think about, but for a gay man, it's just kind of instinctual to want to create a more pleasurable space."

"It goes back to the stage, the theater," says Ron Like Hell. "Lights, makeup, wigs, costumes — people love a show. Artists have always been uninhibited, whether they're homosexual or not, and queer culture goes back to the days of classic, true, amazing entertainment — the spectacle of people being more than themselves, and unashamedly so." There's a political element too, as Sperber points out. "The culture of drag and the culture of parades," he says, "and the idea that liberation came through these things that made people uncomfortable but were actually really theatrical and have been around forever ... it intrinsically follows into the party spaces."

"There's something in the struggle that creates great art, music and community," says Nathan Drew Larsen, co-founder of Chicago's Hugo Ball. A self-described "polysexual, oppositional, surrealist" party with a political bent — its manifestorails against "carpetbaggers, sanitizers and cultural dilettantes" — Hugo Ball was also conceived to combat the fractured nature of the city's nightlife. "We just wanted to create something where people could get away from that and mix," says Larsen. "We're not a men's party — I'm transgender .... Our whole point is to be open to just everybody across the spectrum."

When it comes to inclusion, there's certainly more work to be done. "Even in the alternative part of the underground, white men still dominate," adds Larsen. Still, there are reasons to be optimistic. Souffront, Dijon and Servito — all three queer people of color — have seen their profiles rise significantly as of late, both in the U.S. and abroad, where they regularly play at top-line festivals and vaunted nightspots like Berlin's Panorama Bar. (Last year, Servito was even voted onto Resident Advisor's annual — and highly influential — DJ poll.) Honey Soundsystem has also seen its gig calendar dramatically spike in recent months. These artists are flying the flag for the queer history of American dance music. "Disco and house music, it's all derived from the gay community," says Servito. "A lot of us feel strong about that and more connected to it than ever. The way things are in dance music today, in club culture, it's predominantly straight. It's just a matter of time before [queer] people start to latch on and take what's theirs."

Uber’s fiercest competitor in China is now worth $25 billion

Earlier this year, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick offered up a simple explanation for why the ride-hailing company is burning through $1 billion a year in China: “We have a fierce competitor that’s unprofitable in every city they exist in, but they’re buying up market share.”
That competitor is Didi Kuaidi, a Chinese taxi and ride-hailing company backed by the likes of Alibaba and Tencent Holdings.

That competitor is Didi Kuaidi, a Chinese taxi and ride-hailing company backed by the likes of Alibaba and Tencent Holdings. Didi is believed to dominate the market in China—it operates in 400-plus cities and claims to break evenin 100 of them. Compare that to Uber, which was in roughly 40 Chinese cities as of late March (though Kalanick has said it will hit 100by the end of 2016).

And Didi is about to get more formidable. The company is reportedly closeto locking down more than $1.5 billion in new funding, lifting its valuation above $25 billion. Per the Wall Street Journal, Alibaba and Tencent are back for the latest round, which is expected to close by the end of April. Uber’s China unit completed a series B round of “ well over $1 billion” (Kalanick’s words) in January that brought its valuation to about $8 billion.

Uber and Didi are both spending heavily in China to carve out space in the market, and both say the strategy is working. In a recent interviewwith CNBC, Kalanick claimed Uber had grown its market share from 1 or 2% in January 2015 to 30% in a little more than a year—“phenomenal, possibly unprecedented growth.” Didi, for its part, said a few months ago that it has over 80%of China’s private car-hailing market. (Kalanick did not specify the market he was talking about.)

For Uber, the question continues to be whether it can ever catch up to Didi, or will have to settle for being runner-up. In the US, where Uber is the runaway ride-hailing winner, No. 2 status would probably be unacceptable to Kalanick and his team. But China is entirely different—in terms of politics and regulations, but also the cultural nichesthat companies like Uber can fill. Plus, the market is huge. Even if Uber isn’t keeping up with Didi in China, it ultimately might not need to.

You Couldn't Help But Be The Student': Remembering Tony Conrad

'You Couldn't Help But Be The Student': Remembering Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad had been a SUNY-Buffalo professor since 1976, but beyond his academic duties, he was open and free giving of his knowledge and wisdom.

Bettina Herzner/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

toggle caption Bettina Herzner/Courtesy of the artist

Tony Conrad had been a SUNY-Buffalo professor since 1976, but beyond his academic duties, he was open and free giving of his knowledge and wisdom.

Bettina Herzner/Courtesy of the artist

Tony Conrad's violin was a suture on the soul. Using those droning strings, he conjured bracing and beautiful hues between colors, between notes, between worlds. The experimental musician, composer and filmmaker who was a key component of the '60s Lower Manhattan art scene — and who never really stopped innovating — died Saturday of pneumonia at the age of 76.

Conrad's influence and discography goes wide. Playing alongside La Monte Young, John Cale, Angus MacLise and Marian Zazeela in the Theatre of Eternal Music (a.k.a. The Dream Syndicate), he introduced drone music to Western audiences. In the mid-'60s, Conrad and Cale were recruited to back a short-lived band called The Primitives featuring a young Lou Reed— Conrad left, but the remaining members would start The Velvet Underground. His 1973 album Outside The Dream Syndicate , recorded with the German band Faust, became a benchmark of minimalism, thudding with motorik rhythm and lost in Conrad's kaleidoscopic violin. From the '90s onward, his recorded works grew exponentially, including collaborations with the likes of Charlemagne Palestine, Jim O'Rourke, MV Carbon, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and David Grubbs, among others.

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Over the weekend, while many praised Conrad's musical innovation and inspiration, those who knew him intimately, spoke of his natural gift to teach. Since 1976, he had been a faculty member at SUNY-Buffalo, where he taught media studies — writer Brandon Stosuy has a touching essayon his time as a student there that's worth reading. But Conrad was also open beyond his academic duties, freely sharing his knowledge and wisdom. Even in the briefest of moments, Conrad could turn an offhand comment into a meditation. Before a gig at the now-shuttered Brooklyn space New York Paris London West Nile, clarinetist and composer Jeremiah Cymermantold Conrad he could barely play a note on the bass clarinet. Tony's response was, "You only need one note, as long it's the right note."

"For somebody of his stature, he had no airs," guitarist Chris Forsythsays of his time taking a workshop with Tony Conrad.

Forsyth is one of six musicians and composers with whom I talked about Conrad's role as a teacher — not only a professor, but also a guide onstage and in practice rooms, often with people generations removed. "I think that he genuinely wanted to be around people who were not jaded," says David Grubbs, "and that generally meant younger people." Conrad built a community on which he not only imparted history and insight but that he also supported by constantly attending shows and improvising with its new breed of experimentalists. Grubbs, C. Spencer Yeh, Jennifer Walshe, Chris Forsyth, Mercury Rev's Sean "Grasshopper" Mackowiak and Ben Vida (Bird Show, Town and Country) all share their stories, which showcase Conrad's gently challenging methods. And in his own undefinable way, it also turns out that Tony Conrad was a helluva cut-up.

David Grubbs

Grubbs met Conrad in 1994, as a member of the band Gastr Del Sol with Jim O'Rourke, and not long after found himself in Chicago, recording Slapping Pythagoras . Afterwards, the two remained colleagues and friends.

My first encounter with him was in the studio at Steve Albini's house, there were six guitar players and it was already a little bit like a classroom situation. You know, we were all in a row with our guitars horizontally in front of us — and Tony. The first thing that he said was, "Okay, who has the loudest ground hum from your guitar?" And somebody had a guitar with a single-coil pickup and Tony said, "Okay, turn the amp up to 10, and okay that's a 60-cycle hum, and we're going to use that as the root tone and we're all going to tune on whole-number fraction intervals related to that." So it was already like being in a class, or taking a workshop from Tony the second that you started playing music with him.

He was really one of the most Socratic and radically egalitarian people I've ever met, but he was just so f****** brilliant that he couldn't help but be the teacher, or you couldn't help but be the student. And it was always delivered with this incredible humor. Without fail, one of the consistently most hilarious people that you could ever hope to meet. You know, you'd just bust a gut laughing around him. If that's one of his qualities as a teacher, then that's an incredible quality to bring to that kind of pedagogical situation.

And also, let's go ahead and say it, he was the most brilliant, the smartest. I have a kid in grade school and people are very concerned like, "Who's the smartest?" As an adult, I never ever think things like, "Who's smarter than whom?" except maybe with reference to Tony, where I'm like, obviously, he was head and shoulders so much smarter than everybody around him. But he never seemed to hold it against people. [Laughs.] Everybody was dumber than he was.

C. Spencer Yeh

The Brooklyn-based musician would cross paths Conrad while touring through Buffalo, and would release an excellent albumwith him in 2010.

I knew Tony first as a distant legend, then as an astounding presence and curious personality, and finally as a friend, a fellow artist in the present. When I say "fellow artist," I mean less about how I perceive my work next to his, but rather as a compliment to how he was – that he didn't go the route of hiding himself away, rarefying himself, halting his achievement and living in the past. I don't know how else to put it other than he was always "present." He was one of the few idols of mine that I wanted to work and hang out with, and to talk to.

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I first got to know Tony's work while in school in Chicago in the '90s, both in film/video through class with my professor Tom Gunning, and in music/sound (the college radio station WNUR, being a spectator in the scene at the time through working with the record label, Skin Graft, and being around people like David Grubbs and Jim O'Rourke). From there, touring and crossing paths with Tony, getting to know him and starting to work with him (both collaboratively as well as being in performances of his works), then by moving to New York, living in the same neighborhood, checking out the same shows or art events. He'd been there all along in my own development of whatever it is I'm trying to do, and my developing relationship with Tony was an evolving life lesson on how to be an artist – how to "be" an artist, as in to "be" in the world, and whatever thing you had done doesn't put you above (or below) others, and that you don't have to isolate yourself from the present to be taken seriously and deeply. Learning that being an artist extends beyond the objects or sounds or light you make – that it's how you think, how you carry yourself, how you "be" in the world.

There were two ways he could explain things. One was the "Tony" way, just a dazzle of theories and knowledge, provocation. Then, there was the way we are when we are all just trying to get by – warm and grounded. I thought I would be able to see Tony around NYC forever, to rely on the next time I get to see that smile and hear that chuckle, or the storm of frustrated curses when his mishmash of electronics would start feeding back.

Jennifer Walshe

The Irish vocalist, composer and improviser Jennifer Walshe met Conrad at the Electric Eclectics festival in 2008. Though she is now based in London, the two would meet weekly in each other's New York apartments to jam on whatever instruments were available. They were set to mix their duo album in May.

The one thing that I felt with Tony was that anything was up for grabs. You could just do whatever the hell you wanted and as long as you were focused, and as long as you were in it, that was good. He said to me, "I think you should use text. I don't understand why there's this disconnect." When I say text, I mean the text is completely linked with what the voice is doing. It's not slam poetry or something like that. It's just weird stories or weird snippets of text. He wrote this text that about a tiny puppy s****** on the street. He was like, "This is where we should begin!" I was like, "This is insane." But it made me push, and it made me think about why I never used text in improvisation before.

Listen to an improvisation by Tony Conrad and Jennifer Walshe as Ma La Pert, originally released on the 2011 Migro Sound compilation.

Ma La Pert, 'Atlantic Conservancy Liability Enterprise'

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When we started playing together, he was 69. I would say, "I can't believe I'm playing with this 69-year-old guy and I feel more liberated than I do when I play with a 23-year-old noise kid." David [Grubbs] knew him in the '90s when he would have been in his 50s, but I only got to know Tony in his very late 60s and his 70s. What I saw was somebody who could tell me, "Here are the most important artistic moments in my life where I realized this is absolute s***. I want to develop the next 5-10 years." He could have easily said, "I'm the drone guy," and lived out the rest of his life. That's somebody who's always learning and that's going to be with me forever.

He wrote me a reference and I'm now a reader (which is the U.K. equivalent of a professor) at Brunel University in London. He would give me teaching advise, which he claimed he got from an in-flight magazine. [Laughs.] He said, "What you do is you ask them a question and you pretend to write something down. And nobody will answer. And you just keep pretending that you're writing something down until it becomes agonizing. Then one of them will eventually talk." he said, "That's what I read in an in-flight magazine." [Laughs.]

Chris Forsyth

The Philadelphia-based guitarist has been releasing records with the Solar Motel Band since 2013, but around 2007, at the tail end of his time with the Brooklyn experimental rockers Peeesseye, Forsyth took a month-long workshop with Conrad who bashed the Pythagorean influenceon Western music and opened Forsyth's ears and eyes.

He held a workshop every Sunday afternoon with maybe 30 people at each one — it was mostly experimental-music and noise people. In other words, not people who were virtuosos or trained — a lot of aesthetically ambitious but technically primitive players. He was teaching music theory to them. I felt like, looking around the room, I maybe had a little bit more grounding in that stuff than others, but my grounding in it was ultra conventional — it was the stuff that Tony was taking apart. Like, [Television guitarist] Richard Lloyd held Pythagoras in very high esteem. Tony Conrad did not. It was about undermining the authority of this figure that dominated Western music theory.

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I wouldn't want to be responsible for giving an explanation the way he broke down the flaws in Pythagorean musical theory, but he talked about it as the original sin of Western civilization. He said that when we stepped away from the natural ratios — because it was more convenient to have all the notes equally tempered — that's when things started to really go wrong. This really appealed to me as someone who has issues with authority.

But he also tied it into this whole outlook on one's place in the world and in our culture. He made it really present because it was about taking down the hierarchies exist that run our world and run our lives. He talked about music as the foundation of civilization. Because of the way that music is set up, it instills all these kinds of values, which dominate our culture today. It was empowering. It was a lens through which you could understand these complex systems both in music, which can be really arcane and mathematical, but he also put it into this real world context. He was an enthusiastic, authentic teacher — he was so invested in what we was telling everybody.

Sean "Grasshopper" Mackowiak

In autumn 1984, Mackowiak, a founding member of the band Mercury Rev, went to SUNY-Buffalo, but quickly became disillusioned with his mathematics and engineering major. Not long after he started auditing Tony Conrad's class, he switched to media studies and spent the next four years with him.

His brilliance and curiosity were infectious. He was a natural raconteur, telling stories, seamlessly connecting the history of classical music, avant-garde music, film, pop culture, video, performance art, cultural studies, mathematics, psychology, philosophy, alchemy, etc. in ways I had never imagined. The class was called "Electronic Image Analysis," but we would talk about Fluxus, The Situationists, the music of Harry Partch, the films of Harry Smith, anything and everything. All very enlightening stuff! There was no Internet then, you couldn't Google this stuff — he had it all in his head and shared it with us. He had encyclopedic knowledge of arts, culture, history, science, and alchemy from pre-Greek civilization to the present.

One of the first assignments he had the class do was to pick a film or piece of music that we personally strongly disliked, and write about it in a very positive way. Then the next week, we were to do the opposite, pick something we liked and totally trash it. That was an amazing exercise in opening the mind up to questioning: "What is high-brow? What is low-brow? What is good art and what is bad art?" One starts to realize that those questions are all somewhat subjective to the time and cultural circumstantial moment. The distinctions between Folk Art/Folk Music and the "Classics" were erased. Tony took Robert Creeley's statement that "Form is never more than an extension of content" and flipped it to "Content is never more than an extension of form."

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He told me to be wary of being labeled. Be wary of being in a "movement." He said that whenever he was labeled something — a "minimalist" or "structural filmmaker" — he usually abandoned what he was doing and wiped the slate clean.

I sat next to him at a lecture that John Cagewas giving in Buffalo at Hallwalls and he fell asleep during it. I don't know if he was faking it or really asleep, but it was perfect! His day to day life was like a giant performance art piece.

Ben Vida

Tony Conrad and Vida's old band Town and Country toured together in 2004. Conrad showed Vida that art transcended medium.

My first memory has to do with going to see Tony present some of his films. This was perhaps 1997. It was at a venue in Chicago called the Lunar Cabaret. In the audience, if memory serves, was Jim O'Rourke, David Grubbs, John Corbett and only a few others. Tony presented the films almost as a performance. His presence and storytelling was as illuminating as the work itself. So much humor, intelligence and generous energy — and always mischievous. For me it was a formative moment where I started to understand the porousness between artistic processes. That, in the right hands, mediums were mutable and that performance could be a more more expansive practice.

When I was back in school getting my MFA, Tony came in as a guest instructor. He stirred s*** up so effortlessly and with such intelligence. He brought a point of view that was, at once, in touch with the old avant-garde but also completely present and contemporary. I remember him saying to a group of students something like, "It's okay if I don't like your work. I shouldn't like it. We are from different generations." I took this to mean that the work of a young artist today shouldn't sit easily with an older artist — you're supposed to be pushing beyond what has come before, and in that, there should be distortions and disconnects. It shouldn't be easy.

As my own practice has continued to evolve, and I find myself oscillating between the music and art worlds, Tony's writing and lectures and music and art continue to inform how I see and listen and think about things. I don't think he ever stopped experimenting. And I don't think he ever stopped pushing.

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Tesla’s new Model 3 seats five adults, has two trunks, costs $35,000—and could change everything

After eight years of promotional buildup, Elon Musk spent just 13 minutes introducing the Model 3, the new mainstream electric car produced by his company, Tesla.

That’s not much for a car that Musk, a significant part of Wall Street, and much of the technology community, believe could tip the world away from gasoline-driven vehicles, curb climate change, and profoundly shake up urban lifestyles everywhere. If the make-or-break vehicle is a blockbuster, it will justify investors’ big bet—they have valued Tesla not like a car company, but a Silicon Valley technology startup. But if it sells only at middling scale like current electrics, cash-burning Tesla could go bust.

Though it was short, the drama was palpable in a glitzy nighttime ceremony in Hawthorne, California, as Musk summoned three of the Model 3s onto the stage, accompanied by sweeping music and roving lights. The car will cost $35,000, and go 215 miles on a single charge, he said, 15 miles further than generally expected.

As proof of the car’s credibility, he said in the end, more than 115,000 buyers around the world had plopped down $1,000 each to reserve a Model 3, sight unseen. The crowd whooped.

Entry-level luxury

The Model 3 is a compact, four-door sedan that will seat five adults, and comes with a number of standard features that are normally found on luxury cars, including autonomous functionality. It also has two trunks, one in front and one in back.

The Model 3. (Tesla Motors)

Cosmin Laslau, an analyst with Lux Research, a market research firm, called the car a triumph. He said that its design bests the first-mover in the nascent $35,000, 200-mile electric category—the Chevy Bolt, which General Motors unveiled in January and, by delivering its first cars by the end of 2016, will beat Musk to the market by at least a year.

“Tesla has been able to keep its premium design look in the Model 3: Whereas the Bolt looks very much like the economy hatchback it is, the Model 3’s design actually looks the part of entry-level luxury,” Laslau told Quartz. “This is the right design to compete in the $35,000 bracket against BMW, Audi, and others. They nailed it. Kudos to their design team, bringing downmarket details like the flush door handles and huge interior touchscreens that are becoming Tesla signature touches.”

A video posted by cosgamer (@cosgamers) on Mar 31, 2016 at 9:09pm PDT

Whether the number of pre-orders holds remains to be seen since the money is refundable, said Sam Jaffe, an analyst with Cairn, a research firm. “Far more important will be how many reservations they have next summer,” Jaffe told Quartz. “If that number is over 250,000 at that point, they will most definitely have a successful product launch.”

Musk was a bit equivocal on when the cars would be ready for delivery to its customers. “I feel fairly confident they will be delivered next year,” he said, leaving apparent wiggle room in case—as has been his habit so far—he is late.

Musk has explicitly built up to this moment

The unveiling was the culmination of a decade of strategizing by Musk, who has said since 2006 that his objective was to bring electric cars to the masses. His first three electrics—the Roadster, the S sedan and the X crossover SUV—all cost north of $100,000 once normal extras were factored in. All along, he promised that the approximate price of his mainstream vehicle would be in the $30,000 range.

Musk has not vowed to build the largest electric car company in the world, but to trigger the creation of a mainstream electric car industry. In 2014 he declared Tesla’s patents more or less open source(more or less, because Musk retains the prerogative to decide whether a specific company or lab can use them for free).

All along, he has wished Tesla rivals the best of luck in electric cars, too—by most appearances, a sincere wish. For Tesla to succeed, Musk believes, there has to be a whole ecosystem of electrics; consumers need a large variety to choose from.

Most of the rest of the industry has responded aggressively, perhaps out of fear that Musk may be on to something. GM, Volkswagen, BMW, Ford, Nissan, and others have announced accelerated plans to put electrics on the road by the end of the decade. VW, facing heavy financial and legal challenges over its use of a defeat device on its diesel cars, has been especially passionate about making the shift to electrics—all its brands, including Audi and Porsche, have recently announced imminent plans in the space.

But Tesla has been the star of the show, based in part on Musk’s stagy personality, but also his stylish design touches, exquisite taste that analysts compare with that of Steve Jobs, the late Apple CEO.

In the short March 31 ceremony, Musk emphasized that the Model 3 would meet painstaking safety standards, and include a glass roof that he said provides “a feeling of openness.” Although it is not clear that this feature will be widely demanded, he said that a 7-foot surfboard could fit inside the car.

Musk also set out to answer to widespread criticism that, even if electrics turn out to be affordable and desirable, cities are not equipped for electric cars. He said that Tesla is doubling the number of so-called Supercharging stations around the world to 7,200, and the number of ordinary charging stations to 15,000, by the end of 2017. He also said that Tesla is also doubling the number of its servicing facilities to 441.

A Tesla owner will be able to charge up and obtain servicing near any medium-size urban area in the US, Europe and Asia. “You can conveniently go where you want to go when you want,” he said.

As usual, the setting was important

The announcement was made amid a party at the Tesla Design Studio in Hawthorne, a community near the best southern California beaches and just southeast of Los Angeles International Airport. The same lot contains a facility for SpaceX, Musk’s commercial space cargo company. A full house of some 800 guests were offered a full bar including champagne and liquor, plus at one point a Talking Heads soundtrack, and snacks including tuna tacos. Here is what it looked like inside (courtesy @lancethedriver on Instagram).

A video posted by LanceTheDriver (@lancethedriver) on Mar 31, 2016 at 7:49pm PDT

In the hours before the unveiling, lines formed at Tesla stores around the world to reserve a Model 3: In a series of posts on Reddit, someone in Palo Alto reported 500 people in line; someone else counted 200 in Montreal; another 500 in Austin an hour before the store opened; 130 people in Stockholm; and a few dozen in Amsterdam. Model 3 reservees debatedone another as to how early they are in the queue to get their cars once they are available.

In the end, Musk made the day about personal showmanship, showing up outside the Tesla store at the Century City Mall in Los Angeles, 14 miles north of his Hawthorne office, and thanking those standing in line for the Model 3. One of those with whom he shook hands, Dan Mitchell, tweeted this selfie.

@danjmitchelloh yes it was a GREAT time and very well organized __ pic.twitter.com/90V3UcNl0A

— bob (@zornet) March 31, 2016

Big Hush Turns Nirvana's 'Sifting' Into A Droney Dream

Big Hush.

Travis Bozeman/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

toggle caption Travis Bozeman/Courtesy of the artist

Big Hush.

Travis Bozeman/Courtesy of the artist

For the past three years, the Robotic Empire label has released album-length tributes to Nirvanafor Record Store Day:and. Unless there's an Insecticide B-sides tribute in the works for 2017, Doused In Mud, Soaked In Bleach completes the trilogy. Beach Slang, This Will Destroy You, Daughters and others contribute covers of songs from Nirvana's debut album. Like repeat-offender Thou, Pygmy Lushwanted to return for round three, so when the band couldn't, member Chris Taylor enlisted his newer Washington, D.C., group Big Hush to tackle "Sifting."

In its original form, "Sifting" was essentially Kurt Cobain's sludgy, feedback-squealing tribute to the Melvins, but the melodically searing chorus could never be anything but Cobain. Big Hush radically transforms the angsty crunch and clipped-and-cryptic phrases into a softly strummed, organ-droning dream. The repeated scream "Don't have nothing for you" becomes a quiet apology woven through several voices.

Taylor writes NPR that Cobain still influences how he writes music today:

Growing up in Sterling, Va., was a lot like what I've read growing up in Aberdeen was like for Kurt: rednecks everywhere, no scene, no culture, nothing to do but make noise and do drugs. So I've always felt a parallel with Nirvana, along with the fact that Kurt Cobain's songs at the core are also parallel (and to a certain degree my main influence) to how I write: dark and simple melodies, sarcastically abstract poems with a bone to pick. I've always used Nirvana as a back-pocket way of confirming that what I wrote — being simple, being self-taught — was okay, and that coming from the heart and being yourself was okay.

I always approach Nirvana covers as a rewrite. I'm not that talented as a player, so I always try to dumb them down a bit so I can play and sing them at the same time; what happens after that is a byproduct of the amazingly talented musicians I keep company with. Every member of Big Hush is a songbird. They can all sing incredibly well, and immediately have a catalog of harmonies to choose from: Genevieve [Ludwig] and Emma [Baker] make the scale and dynamic grand; Owen [Wuerker] can play every instrument very well, and in fact he rewrote the basic riff I gave him to give it texture. On this recording, he plays every instrument: organ, acoustic, bass, shaker, tambourine. We recorded this version in one day.

Doused In Mud, Soaked In Bleach comes out on Record Store Day (April 16) via Robotic Empire.

Tesla’s new Model 3 seats five adults, has two trunks, costs $35,000—and could change everything

After eight years of promotional buildup, Elon Musk spent just 13 minutes introducing the Model 3, the new mainstream electric car produced by his company, Tesla.

That’s not much for a car that Musk, a significant part of Wall Street, and much of the technology community, believe could tip the world away from gasoline-driven vehicles, curb climate change, and profoundly shake up urban lifestyles everywhere. If the make-or-break vehicle is a blockbuster, it will justify investors’ big bet—they have valued Tesla not like a car company, but a Silicon Valley technology startup. But if it sells only at middling scale like current electrics, cash-burning Tesla could go bust.

Though it was short, the drama was palpable in a glitzy nighttime ceremony in Hawthorne, California, as Musk summoned three of the Model 3s onto the stage, accompanied by sweeping music and roving lights. The car will cost $35,000, and go 215 miles on a single charge, he said, 15 miles further than generally expected.

As proof of the car’s credibility, he said in the end, more than 115,000 buyers around the world had plopped down $1,000 each to reserve a Model 3, sight unseen. The crowd whooped.

Entry-level luxury

The Model 3 is a compact, four-door sedan that will seat five adults, and comes with a number of standard features that are normally found on luxury cars, including autonomous functionality. It also has two trunks, one in front and one in back.

The Model 3. (Tesla Motors)

Cosmin Laslau, an analyst with Lux Research, a market research firm, called the car a triumph. He said that its design bests the first-mover in the nascent $35,000, 200-mile electric category—the Chevy Bolt, which General Motors unveiled in January and, by delivering its first cars by the end of 2016, will beat Musk to the market by at least a year.

“Tesla has been able to keep its premium design look in the Model 3: Whereas the Bolt looks very much like the economy hatchback it is, the Model 3’s design actually looks the part of entry-level luxury,” Laslau told Quartz. “This is the right design to compete in the $35,000 bracket against BMW, Audi, and others. They nailed it. Kudos to their design team, bringing downmarket details like the flush door handles and huge interior touchscreens that are becoming Tesla signature touches.”

A video posted by cosgamer (@cosgamers) on Mar 31, 2016 at 9:09pm PDT

Whether the number of pre-orders holds remains to be seen since the money is refundable, said Sam Jaffe, an analyst with Cairn, a research firm. “Far more important will be how many reservations they have next summer,” Jaffe told Quartz. “If that number is over 250,000 at that point, they will most definitely have a successful product launch.”

Musk was a bit equivocal on when the cars would be ready for delivery to its customers. “I feel fairly confident they will be delivered next year,” he said, leaving apparent wiggle room in case—as has been his habit so far—he is late.

Musk has explicitly built up to this moment

The unveiling was the culmination of a decade of strategizing by Musk, who has said since 2006 that his objective was to bring electric cars to the masses. His first three electrics—the Roadster, the S sedan and the X crossover SUV—all cost north of $100,000 once normal extras were factored in. All along, he promised that the approximate price of his mainstream vehicle would be in the $30,000 range.

Musk has not vowed to build the largest electric car company in the world, but to trigger the creation of a mainstream electric car industry. In 2014 he declared Tesla’s patents more or less open source(more or less, because Musk retains the prerogative to decide whether a specific company or lab can use them for free).

All along, he has wished Tesla rivals the best of luck in electric cars, too—by most appearances, a sincere wish. For Tesla to succeed, Musk believes, there has to be a whole ecosystem of electrics; consumers need a large variety to choose from.

Most of the rest of the industry has responded aggressively, perhaps out of fear that Musk may be on to something. GM, Volkswagen, BMW, Ford, Nissan, and others have announced accelerated plans to put electrics on the road by the end of the decade. VW, facing heavy financial and legal challenges over its use of a defeat device on its diesel cars, has been especially passionate about making the shift to electrics—all its brands, including Audi and Porsche, have recently announced imminent plans in the space.

But Tesla has been the star of the show, based in part on Musk’s stagy personality, but also his stylish design touches, exquisite taste that analysts compare with that of Steve Jobs, the late Apple CEO.

In the short March 31 ceremony, Musk emphasized that the Model 3 would meet painstaking safety standards, and include a glass roof that he said provides “a feeling of openness.” Although it is not clear that this feature will be widely demanded, he said that a 7-foot surfboard could fit inside the car.

Musk also set out to answer to widespread criticism that, even if electrics turn out to be affordable and desirable, cities are not equipped for electric cars. He said that Tesla is doubling the number of so-called Supercharging stations around the world to 7,200, and the number of ordinary charging stations to 15,000, by the end of 2017. He also said that Tesla is also doubling the number of its servicing facilities to 441.

A Tesla owner will be able to charge up and obtain servicing near any medium-size urban area in the US, Europe and Asia. “You can conveniently go where you want to go when you want,” he said.

As usual, the setting was important

The announcement was made amid a party at the Tesla Design Studio in Hawthorne, a community near the best southern California beaches and just southeast of Los Angeles International Airport. The same lot contains a facility for SpaceX, Musk’s commercial space cargo company. A full house of some 800 guests were offered a full bar including champagne and liquor, plus at one point a Talking Heads soundtrack, and snacks including tuna tacos. Here is what it looked like inside (courtesy @lancethedriver on Instagram).

A video posted by LanceTheDriver (@lancethedriver) on Mar 31, 2016 at 7:49pm PDT

In the hours before the unveiling, lines formed at Tesla stores around the world to reserve a Model 3: In a series of posts on Reddit, someone in Palo Alto reported 500 people in line; someone else counted 200 in Montreal; another 500 in Austin an hour before the store opened; 130 people in Stockholm; and a few dozen in Amsterdam. Model 3 reservees debatedone another as to how early they are in the queue to get their cars once they are available.

In the end, Musk made the day about personal showmanship, showing up outside the Tesla store at the Century City Mall in Los Angeles, 14 miles north of his Hawthorne office, and thanking those standing in line for the Model 3. One of those with whom he shook hands, Dan Mitchell, tweeted this selfie.

@danjmitchelloh yes it was a GREAT time and very well organized __ pic.twitter.com/90V3UcNl0A

— bob (@zornet) March 31, 2016

Not a single person has died using a bike-share in the US

Clearly, if we’re surprised by this fact— revealed in research (pdf) from the Mineta Transport Institute, a US-government-funded body—it’s because we expect cyclists to die.

No one has died in America since over 30 bike-sharing schemesbegan to proliferate in 2010. The stat is both macabre and hopeful.

(pdf) from the Mineta Transport Institute, a US-government-funded body—it’s because we expect cyclists to die. Maybe we expect tourists and occasional cyclists, riding the clunky, unwieldy cycles available from bike-share schemes —and riding them mostly without helmets—to be the most vulnerable of all.

It turns out they’re not. Researchers conducted four focus groups in the Bay Area, talked to experts, and analyzed data on bike journeys from three share schemes. They found that collision and injury rates for bike-sharing were lower than those for personal cycling discovered through previous studies.

No one at all was killed using a bike-share scheme in the US (though there have been two deaths in Canada and one in Mexico, the research noted).

The US national average of cyclist deaths is 21 per 100 million cycle trips, or one in about every 4.7 million trips. At present, with no deaths from bikesharing, the difference seems very large. But the researchers did note that even one death in one of the schemes they studied would have pushed up the comparative bike-share figure up significantly, to somewhere not far behind the national average. (Because far fewer trips are taken by bike-share than personal cycles, numbers have to be extrapolated upwards to make comparisons.) They also pointed out that there have been very serious bikeshare injuries, including head and spinal injuries.

Non-fatal injury rates were similar between the largest bike-share schemes studied and the national average for personal cycles: around 1,400 injuries per 100 million trips on both. But the researchers noted the difficulty of collecting accurate data on collisions and non-fatal injuries—for example, if they’re never reported.

Overall, however: “These metrics suggest that, at present, bike-sharing appears to be operating at reduced injury/fatality rates as compared with personal cycling,” the authors wrote.

Why should that be the case?

According to the researchers and the experts they talked to, design of the bikes turned out to be a big factor. Bike-share bikes are often brightly-colored and equipped with flashing lights, making them easier to see. They’re also heavy and difficult to ride fast. Several other factors also emerged, including that bike-share journeys tend to take place in more pedestrianised and central areas, where traffic tends to move more slowly. They’re ridden less aggressively, and journeys take place predominantly in good weather.

New Mix: The National Covers The Grateful Dead, Free Cake For Every Creature, More

Clockwise from upper left: Minor Victories, members of Free Cake For Every Creature, Yak, William Tyler Courtesy of the artists hide caption toggle caption Courtesy of the artists
It's a big week for Bob Boilen!

It's a big week for Bob Boilen! He celebrated his birthday earlier in the week and his first book, Your Song Changed My Life , comes out today. He celebrated on the show today with some wonderful pop music by the band Free Cake For Every Creatureand a beautiful Grateful Dead cover courtesy of the National. While Bob leaves the studio to celebrate, Robin plays a joyous cut from the Nobilityand an atmospheric track from the supergroup Minor Victories.

Also on the show: NPR Music's Lars Gotrich drops by to play some rich guitar music from William Tyler, Bob plays guitar-meets-sitar duo Dawg Yawpand Robin closes out the show with some jolting rock from Yak.

Comic W. Kamau Bell On Standing Tall And Finding Humor In America's Racism

W. Kamau Bell describes his new CNN series, United Shades of America, as a travel show that will take him places he is afraid to go.

Courtesy of CNN hide caption

toggle caption Courtesy of CNN

W. Kamau Bell describes his new CNN series, United Shades of America, as a travel show that will take him places he is afraid to go.

Courtesy of CNN

Comic W. Kamau Bell finds humor in the parts of America that make him uncomfortable. Speaking to Fresh Air 's Terry Gross, Bell likens his new CNN series, United Shades of America, to a travel show that takes him "to all sorts of different places that I [am] either afraid to go, or you wouldn't expect me to go."

"I've always been a fan of [ Parts Unknown host Anthony] Bourdain," Bell says. "I always thought if I had a show like that, you would replace food with racism. Instead of sampling the food, I would sample the racism or the culture."

On the first few episodes of United Shades of America, Bell, who is black, attends a Ku Klux Klan gathering, spends time at Daytona Beach during spring break and visits a gated retirement community.

Bell says that it is a blend of curiosity and fear that drives him forward in his work. For the episode in which he met up with Klan members in the middle of the night, he says, "I was more curious than I was afraid — until I got there and then ... the fear sort of crept in."

Interview Highlights

On finding humor in his meeting with the Ku Klux Klan

For United Shades Of America, W. Kamau Bell visited a Ku Klux Klan gathering. Courtesy of CNN hide caption

toggle caption Courtesy of CNN

For United Shades Of America, W. Kamau Bell visited a Ku Klux Klan gathering.

Courtesy of CNN

The Klan is wrapped up in their mythology and I think they know they're the boogeyman, and I think that they like that side of it. ... There's also a side of it where they're also aware if they're on a bright road wearing those outfits, they're going to attract a lot of unwanted attention. They know those robes are as unpopular as I know those robes are unpopular. ... All the Klan members I met who were dressed like that were on their own property or at night by the side of the road. Nobody was like, "Meet me at a coffee shop in downtown Arkansas and let's get together at the Denny's and talk about this." Nobody wanted that.

On the demise of his former show, Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell

I was stranded in New York in an apartment that was way too expensive for a guy who didn't have a job. I had one daughter; she was 3 years old. ... We [had] moved into an apartment that was the budget of a guy with a TV show and then I didn't have a TV show ... and [it] really felt like that was a referendum on me, because I put all of myself into that show.

But at the same time, [I] was happy that it was canceled. We all worked really hard on that show, and when we went to four days a week, we weren't ready for that. Also, I had a lot of friends on that show, and by the end, relationships had changed. People who had been my friends were now not my friends because now I was their boss. ... By the end, I compared it to every Vietnam War movie, where everyone goes in their separate directions. ... There was a real sense of I'm sad this is over, and thank God it's over.

On how he dealt with depression after the end of Totally Biased

I can't slip off the planet. I can't just give into it, so I have to slowly put one foot in front of the other. But there was a real sense if I had been not married with a kid, I would have booked that Dave Chappelle ticket to South Africa. ... I would have disappeared for a while. I don't mean in any sort of dangerous way, but I would have been like, "I think I'm done with whatever this is."

But I couldn't do it. And I slowly realized that the canceling of the show was probably better for my career anyway, because the show was sort of going by in drips and drabs at that point. We weren't getting good ratings, we weren't getting a lot of attention, the wear and tear was seen on my face. My friends who watched the show could see that it was hard for me, and when the show got canceled, it became like Woodstock — more people claimed they were there than who were clearly there.

On having biracial daughters

More With W. Kamau Bell

It's important to me that my daughter learn what I learned, that no matter how you feel you're being treated by black people at any given time, those are your people. My wife knows that those are my daughter's people. ... We had a lot of conversations; she understood that she was having a black daughter. ... It was her parents that had to realize this. ...

My wife told me that at one point her mom came to her — I think while my wife was still pregnant — and said, "So wait, Sammy is going to be black." And my wife was like, "Yes that's true," and her mom was like, "OK."

In that tiny thing, was years of race discussions with my wife and her getting her family into the idea of, "My boyfriend is this black guy; my husband is this black guy." There was a whole "Circle Of Life" that happened in that moment that I wasn't there for, but I was like, "Yaaay."

On the advantages of being tall

As much as they hate a black guy, the 6-foot-4-inch, 250-pound black guy is a different thing than maybe the black guy they imagined. So that's a time to stand up taller.

There is nothing bad about being tall. ... When you're tall you sort of get more points, like people think you're better looking. Tall people get paid more money generally; presidents are taller than the average man.

I feel like it's been great for me to be tall because it gives me something in the world that sometimes being black takes away from me ... and when need be, I can use my height and my size to my advantage to get out of difficult situations. For example, with the Klan, those guys are all pretty short. So as much as they hate a black guy, the 6-foot-4-inch, 250-pound black guy is a different thing than maybe the black guy they imagined. So that's a time to stand up taller, and to stand over people and go, "Yes, can you tell me about this cross?" ... That's a benefit.