Right On, Bob!

A classic Christgau incoherent column in the Voice this week. Somehow he tries to tie in seeing hardcore matinees at CBGBs with seeing his brother-in-law play trumpet with free clinics with Hurricane Katrina with, well, just throw anything in there, it'll work.

In other words, he's back to his incoherent, pre-Alzheimer's, post-colostomy bag form. Here he talks about N.O., um and CBGBs.

But that doesn't mean I'm about to hold my tongue while profiteers transform it into what one canny survivor calls "Six Flags Bourbon Street." As of 1995, the place was an advertisement for nostalgia like none I've encountered on this continent. Even the French Quarter was a mixed-use neighborhood with decaying housing stock and a low-income component, and—though I never glimpsed the projects that generated N.O. Bounce, at once the most brutal and sprightly of gangsta variants—the entire city felt mutually supportive in a way that jibed with oft-told tales of generation-spanning Mardi Gras krewes. Even if David Remnick hadn't reported that many evacuees are so embittered and disempowered they expect never to return, I wouldn't believe that kind of social infrastructure could be re-created, especially with its physical correlative rotted away. Nevertheless, I reserve the right to shed a tear when it isn't. New Orleans offers clear proof of how enlivening the presence of history can be. Soon, CBGB would too.

After a few paragraphs like this he decides to end it:

Making your own history is important work. It's a trip to hear your brother-in-law pour his heart into a solo. And when the clinic doctor talked about providing services to any musician great or small, I said right on sister.