Paris, Lost in Texas - Episode 2

31 October 2007
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70.2 - Paris, Lost in Texas - Episode 2
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Way out in East Austin – so far east that it's probably another city altogether – I wound in my rental car, knowing that the Wrecking Force van carrying the two-man La Blogotheque crew of Mattieu and Chryde, Red Hunter of Peter & the Wolf and Jared Van Fleet of Sparrow House and Voxtrot wasn't too far back, running behind schedule to meet up with Half Japanese legend Jad Fair at his quaint horse farm. The driving finally took a final turn onto a two-lane county highway that semi-circled between a few homes, grazing land and a wide-spanning outlook over some far-away hills. Fair's house, a circular affair that looks like it could be the head of a space shuttle or missile, rests tucked behind another residence – a manor with huge white pillars that face the hillside, not the road – that he later told us was purchased on eBay. A gravel driveway, with a massive pothole right in the middle of it, leads down to Fair's house, out front of which he stood in Crocs and waved us on. This adventure began only 20 minutes earlier as I was relaxing in my hotel room during the Austin City Limits festival in September. Chryde sent a message to ask what I was doing and wondered whether I would want to tag along to a Take-Away Shows shooting. The work that needed to be done could wait. Fair is roughly 50 these days and lives with his wife, two dogs and horses. The animals all have names that reflect a child-like infatuation with happiness that Fair seems to possess – in his weird and warped way – in all of his art. Horses and dogs named Daisy and Sunshine, etc. are just outshoots from what the man who made a career with the reputation of not knowing how to play one single guitar chord, but just going up there anyway and pretending he knew them all. His lyrics are completely superhero-ish and full of the same beliefs about love that good friend Daniel Johnston holds true. Fair's lyrics gravitate toward slappy, yet clever, wordplay and rhyme-play that should get taxing, but mostly just gets its muzzle in you and lays you out. There are sleights of hand and quick laterals that always soup the songs with twists that traverse shakily and almost disastrously. It's amazing to hear and to see him perform – as he did this afternoon with limestone floor beneath him, horses chewing straw, the dogs getting huffy at the chewing horses and a battalion of youngsters not knowing what exactly to expect from the guy – because you think to yourself the entire time that it must be a real trip to be up in that head in charge of the thinking, the memories and the dreams. Somehow, despite doing an A-OK job of holding a microphone for the film shoot, I was edited out of the final video. Luckily, Fair's awesome collection of old robots was not. – Sean Moeller

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