Meat Puppets
Bottom of the Hill
January 17, 2008
Review and Photos by Mike Rowell
Better Than: Spending the night in an Arizona jail. Way better.
Living in Arizona during the '80s, I had a front-row seat for the Meat Puppets' early career, as the Kirkwood brothers (Curt on guitar, Cris on bass) and drummer Derrick Bostrom evolved from screeching hardcore blast unit to the godfathers of "cowpunk" they're considered today.
I once watched Curt break most of his strings and continue playing while opening for Black Flag, and another time witnessed him endlessly rocking back and forth on a pair of wah-wah pedals. It was that sort of untethered insanity that enthralled me back then, and when the Meat Puppets started to lose that, they started to lose me. They carried on despite my lukewarm interest, eventually jumping to a major label, scoring a minor hit with "Backwater," and having three songs covered by Nirvana on the MTV Unplugged album. (Then Cris did a rather spectacular drugs 'n' subsequent prison flameout, which he didn't truly come back from until 2006.) But my fondest Meat Puppet memories date back a quarter-century or more, so it was with some apprehension that I attended this reunion of the Kirkwoods, along with new drummer Ted Marcus.
Sixth Annual Yoga Journal San Francisco Conference
January 16-19, 2009
Hyatt Regency
Review and Photos by Sam Prestianni
Better Than: Reading Yoga Journal while scarfing down Krispy Kreme doughnuts in front of a dancing Krishna.
Yoga Journal's sixth annual conference -- an outsized gathering of rockstar teachers, scenesters, and "conscious" vendors -- was a real-world embodiment of the magazine's mission to promote health and well-being through rigorous bodywork and alternative lifestyle choices. At the Saturday event I attended, scores of the faithful flocked to dozens of classes, from advanced technical routines to contemporary philosophy. I opted for "Unraveling the Mysteries of the Neck, Shoulders & Hips" (led by the Bay Area's own Ana Forrest, whose yogic method was universally described as "intense") and "Imprinting Self-Love: Reverse Adi Shakti Meditation" (a kundalini yoga celebration, complete with self-empowerment stories, music, chants, meditation and movement, run by L.A. guru Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa). I tried to see this pair of classes and the entire conference through the lens of the yamas (or ethical restraints), the first series of steps in the Yoga Sutra's eightfold "path to happiness," featured in this month's Yoga Journal.
