Screwlooseum!

How Soon Is Cow?: Top Ten Unlikeliest Morrissey Covers

2011-07-31T16:27:00.004-03:00

1. Gimme A Pigfoot and A Bottle Of Beer

2. Struttin’ With Some Barbeque

3. Purple People Eater

4. Neon Meate Dream Of A Octafish

5. Caught With The Meat In Your Mouth

6. White Castle Blues

7. Do The Funky Chicken

8. Cheeseburger In Paradise

9. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat

10. The Deli Song (Corned Beef On Rye)

One For Don

2011-02-28T16:16:00.003-03:00

don has broken
the fleet van go like sloe gin fizz
and is you is
or ain't

the paint has ran
like this fleet van and
turned to can from
cain't

i liked the way your
doo dads flew
doo moms and kids
fly free

the flea all fly like
doo dad sky and
shimmied next
to me

the moon came down from
out of town it's
fur a feathered
rain

the fleet van flew we're
too much blue or
not enough
champagne

to day to dark the
trees all bark a
broken chamoisee

don's broken now
the moo said cow
this pig's no ham
today

(premiered at 2/20 show in Oakland)

Strictly Personal

2010-12-19T00:43:00.004-03:00

Did I ever meet him?

Yes. Once.

I was tucked away in Rhode Island when the news came around that Captain Beefheart would be playing with a new Magic Band and in a style far more resembling that heard on his classic recordings of the late 60’s and early 70’s, as opposed to the last time he had been heard from, fronting a somewhat disappointing collection of musicians who might have been seen playing behind anyone and whom wags had unkindly taken to calling the “Tragic Band.”

It was the late 70’s and word had traveled through the grapevine that Beefheart had recorded a far worthier album called Bat Chain Puller that was looking for a record label. The British trades had gotten hold of a tape of it and printed detailed descriptions of each track and fans were chomping at the bit. Unfortunately, legal problems held the thing up and it seemed unlikely that anyone would ever get to hear it.

Against that backdrop came this announcement of a show in Boston and although I knew few people in Rhode Island, I had made the vague acquaintance of a group of progressive rock and avant jazz fans who, luckily for me, were eager to make the trip.

That I wouldn’t have missed it goes without saying.

It’s rather difficult to describe the impact someone like that has on your life. Was there ever such a thing as a casual Captain Beefheart fan? I suppose there were some, folks who had a copy of Clear Spot in amongst the mainstream LP’s it nearly resembled. But usually the price of such originality is the creation of a coterie of the hardcore and the rabid. Some are there to try and outhip the hip. Some hear a challenge that needs to be addressed. Many of us, the great majority I think, were just simply thrilled by the aggressive musical textures and poetic language. Sure, there was nothing else like Trout Mask Replica, but there is nothing like spinach either. This was something that, like Ornette Coleman’s music, seemed to have tremendous roots in the past while flinging itself headlong into the future. So many native American inventions seemed to be referenced in it like jazz, blues, and rock ‘n’ roll that it was like listening to a compressed version of the uncontrollable spirit that lay at the heart of American music and American art.

And you seemed to get it or you didn’t. It may have taken an awfully long time, perhaps, but from what I’ve been reading online from fans and admirers, an awful lot of people really got it.

My own personal reaction was that I simply wanted to listen to this music over and over.

After the two albums considered his most difficult came two that seemed to want to cozy up to the commercial mainstream. The Spotlight Kid sounded shockingly simple after Lick My Decals Off, Baby, whose tin-can-and-wet-paper production made Trout Mask seem warm and inviting. There was something a little turgid about this new album, but by the time Clear Spot arrived, critics and fans agreed that he had found something of a happy medium here. It’s hard for me to imagine a more excited audience than the ones I witnessed driven into a frenzy by Big Eyed Beans From Venus. Any rock ‘n’ roll band would have been happy with the reaction the Magic Band inspired night after night.

But it still didn’t have the desired effect in the marketplace and the following albums were desultory affairs that fans bought out of loyalty more than anything else. The mid-70’s were rough all around, my friend, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

Which brings us to Boston.

As we found our seats (I think we’d arrived somewhat early), I noticed a man up front who seemed to be fielding questions and shaking hands. Surely not…

Ah, but it was.

Now I will be the first to tell you I am a terrible fanboy, or rather I am actually a very good one, hence the word “terrible.” I will babble mindlessly in the presence of an idol until the expression on their face tells me that getting to the point would probably be greatly appreciated. It’s happened time and time again and there seems to be little I can do about it.

This night, thankfully, the gentleman in question seemed to take it well and then said to me, “Yeah, I think I remember you!”

Now I’d read many an account of people being told this by Beefheart. It’s hard to say how much he believed it or whether he just wanted to make you feel welcome. After all, where would he have remembered me from? The nosebleed seats at the Tower Theater? The upper echelons of the Spectrum?

Still. Nice to be “remembered.”

There was another onslaught of compliments that I was vaguely aware was coming from me, and then a handshake as he said, “Thank you, and I think you’ll like what these guys are gonna do.”

Was there ever such an understatement?

It was an evening of jaw-on-the-floor entertainment. Not only could these “guys” play the most difficult songs in his catalog (and the song list came, remarkably, from every period in his career without sounding disjointed in the least), they played it with a fervor and excitement that made even the oldest songs sound incredibly new.

I was absolutely astonished.

Soon, Beefheart would have a new record contract and Shiny Beast would provide a good idea of what the lost Bat Chain Puller had been about. He would receive the greatest acclaim of his career and two albums would follow that built on this, although there were hints that something was wrong. Either the well had started to run dry or something had gone terribly wrong. Now it’s all very plain, of course, but I’m so glad he hung in as long as he did.

Words frequently fail art. Perhaps they have failed me here. They probably have.

I wanted to write something, though.

Yeah. I think I remember him.

Wrecka Stow

2010-04-19T11:26:00.001-03:00

When I came to, my wife was fanning me with a limited edition 12-inch single.

“What the…what happened?” I asked, already assuming the worst from the expression on her face.

It was Record Store Day, that day originally created to celebrate the rapidly disappearing independent record store, but which has latterly become a bonanza for speculators who buy up as many of the collectable releases made available that day as possible and then resell them on eBay.

“Well, let’s see…” she began, “do you remember the cashier with the dyed hair and severe bangs?”

“Sure. The one who accused me of ripping them off.”

“She asked if you had been in line before.”

“Same thing,” I said, brushing the free keychains out of my eyes.

“Well, you pointed out to her that she had misspelled Bettie Page’s name on her tattoo. She ran crying out of the store.”

“No doubt to seek solace in her collection of antique corsets and heroin. Then what happened?”

“You remember the other cashier?”

“The white kid with the dreadlocks?”

“Yeah, well, he accused you of crimes against Jah.”

“That seems a trifle harsh.”

“So you told him ‘I and I think you’re a moron’”.

“That was telling him.”

“Then, as he ran out to comfort the other cashier, you yelled ‘Keep fighting Babylon with your parents’ credit card!’”

“Jesus. That doesn’t sound like me. But that was it, right?”

“Oh, no.”

“No? Really?”

“Oh, no. With all the employees gone, you then got behind the counter and started just…giving crap away.”

“See? That’s the way to fight Babylon.”

“Then you hopped up on the DVD display and started playing air guitar to the limited edition Electric Eels single on colored vinyl. After that things got kind of Day Of The Locust.”

“Hmm. So how did we make out?”

She held up a tattered piece of paper and a plastic bag.

“We got half a single sleeve from a Ducks From Neptune 7-inch and a bag of Sonic Youth chocolate-covered pretzels.”

“Not exactly what I was hoping for,” I said, resignedly. “Still, better than last year.”

Unintentional Jasper Johns At The Museum Of Modern Drunkass

2010-04-19T08:56:00.002-03:00

I Warned You About The Shakespeare

2010-03-01T12:21:00.004-03:00

“I was thinking more in terms of an action-adventure film with a female protagonist.”
- Screenwriter Linda Woolverton explaining how she came to change one or two things in Lewis Carroll's Alice books for Tim Burton's upcoming screen version.

(The office of a famous Hollywood producer. Two fresh-faced young men enter and sit.)

“Well, what have you got for me, boys? Let’s hear it.”

“You…are going to love us…so much, JR!”

“…so much!”

“Because we have found a property no one’s touched yet! And it’s perfect!”

“…perfect!”

“So, what is it?”

“Two words, boss: Edward Lear.”

“Lear? That’s not like King Lear, is it? ‘Cause Shakespeare stinks up the joint unless we can get Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox.”

“No, nothing like that, boss! He’s like that…you know, the Alice In Wonderland guy, whatzisname…”

“Carroll?”

“Yeah, Carol somebody. So he’s a Victorian, too, just like her, which really captures the zeitgeist right now…”

“It’s the whole, you know, ‘Hey, let’s break out the doilies’ thing…”

“Right, right, only Lear, right, has this whole contemporary feel…”

“Right, finger on the pulse!”

“So what’s the story?”

“Well, you know how it is, JR, there’s no real story, per se…”

“…not really a story, no…”

“So we have to kind of, you know, thumbnail it, find the themes…”

“The themes are the whole picture!”

“So, dig this: we’ve got this Pobble that’s got no toes, awright?”

“No toes! Can’t balance!”

“It’s like our world today! Out of balance? Global chaos? Al Gore? Get it?”

“What’s a Pobble?”

“This year’s Hobbit, that’s what he is, JR!”

“It’s Lord Of The Rings meets Narnia!”

“But…how will they know what a Pobble is?”

“No sweat, JR, that’s all taken care of in a Star Wars style intro crawl! You know, ‘In the time before the Rebellion’ blah blah blah…”

“They’re up to speed!”

“So why hasn’t he got any toes?”

“You’re gonna love this! He lost them…in the whole Iran/Afghanistan conflict!”

“…you’ve got your whole…contemporary war angle…”

“…post-Obama generation Z…”

“This is all in the book?”

“More or less! But of course there’s got to be a conflict!”

“Nothing without a conflict!”

“So we’ve got our Doctor Doom, our Darth Vader, our big bad!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! Get this, see it, feel it…(closes eyes, strokes air as if to indicate a title) ‘The Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo!’”

“Is that fantastic? You couldn’t write this stuff!”

“Now The Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo is our Phantom Of The Opera here: unrequited love, passion that can never be…”

“It’s Narnia meets Star Wars meets Romeo and Juliet!”

“I warned you about the Shakespeare.”

“But The Bo, which is what his buddies call him…”

“He travels easily among the common man…”

“The Bo’s a twisted genius, right, ‘cause he’s all backed up on account of the Pobble screwing up his wedding!”

“We move into Judd Apatow territory…”

“But to have his revenge he needs one more thing to complete his ultimate weapon: a Runcible Spoon!”

“…so you’ve got the whole…quest angle…”

“It’s Star Wars meets Transformers meets Indiana Jones!”

“So it’s a race against time?”

“You bet, JR! Whoever gets the Runcible Spoon gets to call the cosmic shots, if you see what I mean…”

“But The Bo, see, has a bit of a weight problem…”

“…all the repressed rage…”

“And just as it looks like he’s going to beat the Pobble to the Spoon, he gets thrown off this plane for being too fat!”

“It’s the whole…Kevin Smith…”

“…American over-consumption…”

“We even make him up to look like Smith, you know, kind of a shout-out to those in the know…”

“…easter egg…”

“Kind of a fanboy thing.”

“It’s Narnia meets Watchmen meets Clerks!”

“Meantime, there’s all of these secondary characters…”

“…you know, the comic relief…”

“We’ve got Scroobious Pip…”

“That’s pure Star Wars, JR! But this Lear guy made it up first!”

“We’ve got the Quangle Wangle Quee…don’t tell me he didn’t hang out with Yoda at the Cantina after quittin’ time!”

“Tim Burton would give his eyeteeth for a Quangle Wangle Quee!”

“But that’s not all, JR!”

“It isn’t?”

“Nope, not by a long shot! ‘Cause here’s where we get all muhfuh meta on your ass!”

“Hang on, JR, ‘cause it’s Lost meets Fringe time!”

“Because we’re not just telling this story, awright? We’re telling…Lear’s story, too!”

“You get it?”

“We’re weaving them together, awright? Showing the roots of the story as we show you the story itself! Weaving in, weaving out, weaving in, weaving out…”

“…loom of the gods…”

“Now it turns out this Lear had a cat…”

“…loved the cat…”

“Couldn’t do without it…had a big funeral for it…”

“Pushes him over the edge…”

“So that at the end, when The Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo is finally unmasked…”

“…stick a fork in him, he’s done…”

“We find that it’s really… are you ready?”

“…no good, no evil, shades of gray…”

“…Lear himself! Is that fantastic?”

“It’s Narnia meets Harry Potter meets The Dark Knight!”

"And Benicio Del Toro is on his knees to play the cat! He's begging!"

“So what do you think?”

(There is a pause.)

“Boys…I see a viral campaign that we break out at Comicon: ‘WHO IS THE BO?’”

“Great!”

“All you see is a silhouette from the back, right? But there in the corner, bright red, is this small unremarkable spoon…”

(Fade out)

My Bohemian Life

2010-01-19T04:29:00.002-03:00

NEWS ITEM: HarperCollins has published “Just Kids,” a memoir by Patti Smith which recalls her early days in New York with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe.

He was The Photographer and I was The Poet, titles we had arrived at by the flip of a coin.

I was just a strung-out, wet-behind-the-ears, Dylan-lovin’, poetry-livin’ Jersey kinda gal. For me, New York City was the holy godhead, the poetic apotheosis of humanity, the centered third eye of civilization, and the home of Nathan’s Hot Dogs. He was the first thing I saw when I got off the bus: a fallen angel, a manic visionary, and a master of the bad check.

“You, sir, are a true renaissance man,” I said, having plucked up the courage to walk over and speak to him.

“What’s wrong with these?” he replied.

“What?” I asked.

“Didn’t you just call me a ‘rent-a-pants man’? Why should I rent pants?”

I never corrected him, but I noticed that he started to wear many different kinds of pants after that. It was the first of many unspoken bonds that we would never speak of.

We found an apartment in the artists’ neighborhood Lower Junkie Squalor. There, amidst the filth and the scum, we would dream of the endless stream of documentaries and coffee table books we might one day generate. We lit candles, read Tarot cards, and sent astral projections of ourselves to the heart of the universe, after which we’d watch The Joe Franklin Show. I called him La Bohèèm and he called me La Bohhèr, a joke he begged me to explain to him but I never did, preferring that it remain another unspoken bond between us.

It was not an easy existence. Our landlord was a rat. I mean he was, literally, an actual rat, who could stand on his hind legs and talk. He had the soul of a poet, though, and never asked us for the rent unless he himself was badly in need of cash for a new pair of rat-pants, often prohibitively expensive due to the work involved in creating a little hole in the back for a tail. We’d ask him over and over again why he didn’t just rent them, but he’d smile that little ratty smile of his and reply, whiskers twitching, “Rent, bah! That’s like throwing your money away!”

As a young girl I was enthralled by the apocalyptic verses of Rimbaud, Verlaine, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. I held their words in my heart like a pit bull, dreaming of the day when I, too, would get the opportunity to horribly maul the World of Art and take my place among the immortals.

As readers of any of my previous volumes will know (I Was A Teenage Misfit, Outsiders Are A Girl’s Best Friend), the artists are the misfits, the outsiders. I soon found out that one of the most difficult things about being a misfit is all of the famous people one has to fight their way through. You have to beat them off with a stick. An endless parade of famous people would pass through our humble garret. Picasso once stopped by looking to borrow some salsa. When we obliged, he paid us with a sketch of a melting horse or squirrel or some damn thing. And Bono once kept us up late into the night as he shared his dream of one day owning a preposterously large pair of sunglasses.

And as an outsider, I found myself at the center of more cultural turning points than Forrest Gump. When Dylan recorded The Basement Tapes, I was there. When The Beatles fired Pete Best, I was there. And when Alvin and the Chipmunks went electric, I was the one who stopped Pete Seeger from chopping their heads off with an ax. It was busy work being an outsider misfit, and I would occasionally despair of ever finding the time to articulate my own dark vision, which was growing worse by the day as neither of us could afford a proper eye exam.

And so the seasons changed, like a junkie trying to score some smack. Each evening would be spent in the service of art as we slowly honed our skills and searched for our authentic voices. Sometimes our authentic voices would get too loud and from time to time a cranky voice would admonish us through the ceiling: “Hey, you goddamn kids! Shut the hell up!” We found out later that man was Lou Reed, which didn’t surprise us in the least.

It soon became apparent, unfortunately, that one of us would have to find a job, a task that fell to me as I was the only one who owned their own pants. Finding no openings for “Shaman,” however, I fell back on the talents I had acquired during Home Economics class and hung out in the girls’ lavatory smoking. After three years of this, we were still no closer to our dream of buying a camera and so we determined to buy one in installments beginning with the lenscap. This purchase we eventually made with the money I’d earned by donating blood to a nearby Polish restaurant.

And so the world turned, like a 1950's hophead nodding out on dope. Years later we met on the street for a moment but, terrified, ran back to the safety of our limousines.

The Impossible Chicago Pilgrimage Of 2009, Or: The Return Of The Black Mariah

2010-01-05T06:15:00.007-03:00

My home town in industrial northern Indiana stood craggy and sharp against the grayish mud-colored skies of the Region...a vast, endless lakeside junkyard that had been created by that mysterious obscene wrecking ball known as Time.
- Jean Shepherd

It was during the planning stages for a recent trip to Chicago (this consisted largely of determining where the closest record stores and Italian beef emporiums would be located) that I realized that I would be merely a half-hour’s train ride from Hammond, Indiana, the ancestral home of American humorist Jean Shepherd and location of the boyhood home immortalized in the now-classic film A Christmas Story.

The midsection (or breadbasket, if you will) of the country that I’ve lived in for most of my life has always been, by and large, a mystery to me, and has remained mostly unvisited by me, having long ago filed it away in my mental gazetteer under “flyover country,” that spectral flatland so beloved of pundits and politicians that it has become shorthand for the true heart of a great nation, where the simple joy of a game of catch has never lost its lustre, where apple pies sit eternally cooling on immortal window sills, and where common sense is the truest and greatest of national currencies.

I imagined hunting down Shep’s legendary Warren G. Harding School, home of so many humiliations and triumphs. Surely its halls were still haunted by the likes of Flick and Schwartz and, yes, even Scut Farkus! Then I’d be off to Cleveland Street where a young Shepherd had watched the Old Man battle the Bumpus hounds, obscenities flying willy-nilly into the Indiana atmosphere as his kid brother whined about something, indeed, anything! All the while I’d be accosting strangers and asking them to take my picture with my iPhone so that I’d have photographic proof of this spiritual pilgrimage.

Such were the thoughts that simmered in my fevered brain as I boarded the South Shore Passenger Line, an unknown traveler cleverly hidden amongst Chicago commuters to whom this daily trip to Northern Indiana was an ordinary event. It was nothing of the kind to me; my stranger’s eyes were busy feasting upon an endless tableau of trains, train tracks, and power lines, a horizontal line that stretched itself out into the Infinite. What secrets were waiting to be unlocked? What encounters with my Midwestern brethren lay ahead of me, life lessons barely concealed beneath their neutral accents?

With each passing moment the landscape appeared to grow emptier and emptier until, having at last reached our destination, I seemed to disembark in the middle of nowhere. Indeed, the very walk from the train to the train station seemed to take forever. Having no idea exactly which direction to go in, I walked into the seemingly deserted station and made my way to the snack bar that provided a small dab of color at the other end of the drafty and barren structure.

I was puzzled. Where were the other tourists like myself that surely rode this train to glory in search of Shepherd’s ghosts? Had I beaten the usual rush? And exactly how far was I from Shep Central? Surely any town worth its salt would be smart enough to place its train station next to its most popular attractions?

The snack bar man put down his Chicago paper and looked at me. It was a look I had seen before, largely reserved for those occasions when the real world managed to slow down for a moment and get a really good look at me.

Even with the aid of the cane I was using this day (my faithful friend Dr. Harris Allred), the man told me I was miles away from the part of town I wanted to find. He suggested that I take the bus that stopped outside part of the way but, even then, he didn’t see how anyone could make the journey on foot. Laughing to myself, I thanked him and started walking, quietly confident that my Paul Bunyan-like strides, cane or no cane, would have me at the threshold of the Warren G. Harding School within the hour.

The quiet residential neighborhood I found myself strolling in seemed deserted. Well, of course, they were all working, beating out mighty sheets of metal destined for those mighty skyscrapers and stadiums yet to come. A truck drove by bearing what looked like giant iron washers for some gigantic sink. After what felt like an hour, I came wearily to an intersection that had route numbers. Surely this was progress.

I was cheered by the appearance of a White Castle hamburger restaurant on the one corner. In the middle of the street there was some sort of roadwork going on. With these exceptions, however, every other part of the visible landscape was completely unblemished by people, places, or things. And Cleveland Street remained miles away.

Somewhere in the pit of my stomach, the horrible realization that I had radically miscalculated the distance involved in this errand was becoming more and more difficult to ignore. And yet, ignore it I did, for if there was one thing I’d learned throughout my years of stubbornly pursuing the impossible, it is that it is always possible to make a bad situation worse providing you refuse to admit your mistake.

Completely and thoroughly exhausted by the distance already walked and the brutal winds assaulting me, an enormous overpass now lay ahead of me and I bargained with myself that if the remainder still appeared to be too far to go by the time I had set it behind me, I would turn around and go back to the train station, my mission unfulfilled. Because surely – surely – having come this far, the fates would smile kindly upon me and gather me up into their loving arms, depositing me neatly on Cleveland Street and even taking the pictures for me that I had come for.

At the crest of the overpass I surveyed the horizon. Behind me lay the black hole I had come from. On either side were the ubiquitous train tracks that spread out like this empty landscape’s forlorn signature. Ahead of me, though, I saw signs of life, storefronts and traffic lights. Thus encouraged, I made my way down the other side of the overpass, eager to make the acquaintance of the businesses huddled together on the block ahead.

The storefronts all bore signs that informed the reader that they were long gone, vestigial reminders of some other moment in history. Even the promising State Bank Of Hammond had, judging from its appearance, pulled up stakes sometime before Miami Vice had been popular. At the end of the block was a bar named Just Toni’s which, by the looks of the rules it had posted outside, had probably seen its share of spirited debates.

Had Shep ever riffed on gang colors?

Still, though, I could see those traffic lights in the distance. Like Gatsby’s green light, they urged me onward with their empty promises of a street just one more block away. Maybe the next one…but no. I had been bested. There would be no communion this day with Scut Farkas and his black Mariah or Wanda Hickey and the Cherrywood Country Club. I gathered up the shattered pieces of my American dream and slowly began to make my way back from whence I’d come, leaving the flatlands of Indiana to the giant washers and train tracks and Just Toni’s, a speakeasy that Fitzgerald’s doomed hero would have surely understood, as I allowed the current to bear myself back ceaselessly into the past.

I did, however, stop at the White Castle on the way back. I may be stupid but I’m not nuts.

When The Organ Played

2009-12-02T03:31:00.003-03:00

Recently purchased at a nearby thrift store. The color and design alone made it impossible to leave there.

Jesse Crawford was one of the great silent picture accompanists. During the late 1920’s and early 1930’s he could be found at New York’s Paramount Theater improvising with his wife Helen, also an organist. With the advent of talking pictures, Crawford provided “organ interludes” and eventually took to booking himself all across the country, sticking to movie houses for his performances. Some of these interludes were incredibly ambitious: “In (two) cases, he and his wife played on two four-manual consoles on the stage with the assistance of the entire resources of the theatre, complete ballet, large chorus, solo dancers, principal singers and the huge permanent orchestra…(For) Rubinstein's Kamenai Ostrov, he was provided with a specially painted drop-scene… depicting the mysterious island in the river with the monastery in the distance, and was assisted by a male-voice choir of twenty dressed as monks.” That, my friends, was entertainment.

The Man Whose Head Expanded

2009-11-28T00:14:00.006-03:00

And the nightmare imagery continues!

There is, of course, an explanation...

Count Screwloose's 115th Dream

2009-11-24T10:07:00.006-03:00

And, yes, people have tried to eat it.

Vacation

2009-11-14T20:17:00.006-03:00

Off to Chicago for a week. Deep dish, here I come!

RG

Today

2009-11-08T19:15:00.001-03:00

Taking The Mickey

2009-11-05T22:40:00.003-03:00

Because nothing says family fun like "a disemboweled, robotic Donald Duck."

Destroying America

2009-11-04T05:40:00.004-03:00

It had been our great good fortune during this recent period when the country was debating the issue of Health Care not to have run into one of these creatures, usually seen at Town Hall meetings, who believed Barack Obama to be Hitler, Satan, Charles Manson, or the Unabomber and who rejoiced in carrying signs that portrayed him with either a bone through his nose or a swastika on his forehead.

But, as any politician will tell you, luck runs out.

Usually when the wife and I would turn up to work at the polls, our biggest disagreements with our conservative brethren were conflicts involving table placement and other mini-strategic goals. Yesterday, however, we were met with a giant blue sign that crowed the following:

LIBERALISM,
(Obama’s Radicals & Democrats)
IS DESTROYING AMERICA.
STOP THE MADNESS!

This was the ugly face of the Teabaggers, the conservative lunatic fringe who take their marching orders from the crackpot brigade of Hannity, Beck, and Limbaugh and who believe the only thing wrong with the Republicans is that they’re just not embarrassing themselves in public enough.

Still, it was a shock to see it here, as if someone had laid out some Klan literature. The delicate dance of our opposing parties on occasions such as this usually stopped short of such invective, a gentleman’s agreement being in place that forbade such jackassery for fear of losing the respect of everyone in the room.

This was not, in short, the sort of thing we usually saw from the loyal opposition: a giant sign about 6 feet away from us that pronounced us responsible for the destruction of America.

As it happened, the sign belonged to this fellow from a self-declared “Conservative Party” whose goal, he announced to everyone including the Republicans, was to tear down the Republican Party and rebuild it in a stronger, more conservative image. The poor woman manning the Republican table seemed to want to disappear into the floor. And yet they humored and tolerated him because he was, more or less, on the same side, even if that side seemed to now be expressing itself through a funhouse mirror of frustration and bad punctuation.

His intentionally provocative sign provoked stares and occasional questions. When one voter asked the woman babysitting it if the sign expressed the official viewpoint of the Republican Party, there was a long, embarrassing pause before she managed to say “Ummm…noooooooo,” to the confusion of the chubby gent who’d brought it.

Part of the fascination of listening to him was having the unsettling experience of witnessing a human being parrot back everything he’d been told on the radio. Liberals? “They drank the kool-aid!” School System? “Leftist ideology!” Global Warming? “Junk science!”

Any objections were met with a buzzword or soundbite that didn’t necessarily make sense, but allowed him to make a very annoyed expression that seemed to say, “I wouldn’t look this annoyed unless I was really, really right, would I? Well, would I?” Any suggestions that his sign was inappropriate were met with histrionic cries of “Free speech! Free speech!”

What the Republicans are learning to their sorrow is that when you are through using the useful idiots for your own advantage and convenience and you want them to go away, they just might not want to go away. They just might want to stay there.

They might even want the seat you’re sitting in.

In the end, cooler heads prevailed and the Republicans put the sign out of sight not long after Rush Jr. made his exit. Even they could see how ridiculous it was.

I’ve got some tips if they’re really interested in winning some elections, though. For instance:

The more boxes of these you have, the better you’ll do! (P.S.: Use names that you find in local cemeteries!)

Hello Daddy, Hello Mom!

2009-11-02T04:51:00.004-03:00

Coming this December: it's Barbie's Ladies of the 80's line of dolls. If you like Joan here, you might want to check out her friends Cyndi Lauper and Debbie Harry. What, no Lene Lovich?

Whatever you do, though, just don't miss this.

Shove Thy Neighbor

2009-10-26T16:51:00.003-03:00

One doesn’t automatically want to play the misanthrope.

And yet the moment you step out the door, chances are that someone or something will locate that small remaining soft spot of goodwill you have and quickly lance it like a boil.

I refuse to believe the problem is with me anymore.

So the other day we go out to one of our usual weekend diner spots. Now, you may say, you could save yourself a great deal of sorrow and upset if you simply didn’t listen in on other people’s conversations. Well, we don’t mean to, really. But once a word or two travels across the room, it’s hard not to wonder where the conversation is going to go, especially seeing as how it’s begun in such a promising fashion.

The woman in the booth diagonal from us was trying to explain to the waitress just how she wanted her chicken soup to arrive. Apparently she wasn’t willing to leave anything to chance.

“Now,” she said, “I want a lot of noodles, you understand, and very little broth.”

The waitress nodded.

“There should be,” she continued, “a great many more noodles than the amount of broth would seem to indicate. What I mean is – ”

She paused.

“What I mean is – I want the noodles to overwhelm me.”

Her tablemates nodded in agreement.

“There should be only a hint – a whisper, if you will – a dying gasp - of broth, barely detectable amongst the mad, cartwheeling circus of the noodles. Do you understand?”

The poor waitress put on the most professional smile she could manage under the circumstances and replied “Of course!” before quickly disappearing into the kitchen.

Now normally, this would be enough. The day’s quotient of idiotic behavior would have been filled and we all would have been left to go about our business. Nature has rules about things like this.

But no sooner had this first poor, harried waitress left than another was faced with the couple directly behind us. They seemed normal enough. The fellow even had on a Phillies cap, surely a sign of pleasant amiability.

“And what would you like to drink?” she asked them.

“Water,” said the woman.

“And for you, sir?”

“Moi aussi.”

“All right, so that’s a water and an iced tea?”

The man’s head turned slowly, as if on some satanic turret.

“Iced tea? I didn’t say anything about iced tea!”

Indeed he hadn’t. What the jackass had done was to tell the waitress that he’d like the same thing as his companion, only he’d told her this – in French.

“Hadn’t you, sir?” the waitress asked with a puzzled expression.

“No, I – ” and here there was a pause, as if the sunlight was suddenly breaking across the horizon of his Phillies cap and reminding him what country he was in – “Oh, I see what happened!”

A bemused grin spread across his pretentious and condescending features.

“Oh, oh – yes – I understand now!” he chuckled. “You see, when I gave you my answer, I was speaking in French!”

You know, the way you do.

“Oh, of course!” the waitress said.

“Yes, yes,” said the man, “I don’t know how that happened! Every once in a while I just lapse into it without realizing it! So what I had said, actually, was ‘Moi aussi,’ not ‘iced tea,’ though I can understand how you’d make that mistake!”

“Yes, sir. So what sort of drink would you like?”

“I would like,” and here he began to speak to her as if she were deaf, “I would like to have A GLASS OF WATER!”

“Right away, sir,” the waitress replied.

“THANK YOU!”

Had it finally happened? Had there been some awful Mayan-calendared apocalypse we hadn’t heard about that had left the two of us the only remaining normal people in the world? We spent the rest of the meal lost in visions of idiots drowning in broth, or imbeciles choking on food but only able to express their distress in French.

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” I’d say, choking back tears of mirth, “No parlee voo français! What’s that? I can’t hear you!”

Until I’d lean in and say –

“COULD YOU SPEAK UP A LITTLE LOUDER? I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE DYING GASPS OF THE IDIOT DROWNING IN BROTH!”

Really, is it me?

Presents

2009-10-17T01:10:00.002-03:00

I think I’ve made mention before of how The Powers That Be always seem to conspire to present me with gifts timed to appear for my birthday.

Yes, it’s my birthday. Today. 54. I feel like hell.

I have before. I will again. We have people working on it.

Now there is, naturally enough, a deluge of products every fall that seem to have been saved up over the summer, the idea being that the haze of the vacation months has finally burnt off and it will now be easier to lay claim to a consumer’s attention.

I prefer the more romantic idea that the world revolves around me.

What proof do I have this year? Well, it was an impressive display:

Yet another posthumous collection of poems from Charles Bukowski, although judging from the slightness of this latest volume the bottom of the barrel is in sight.

Henry Threadgill contributed his first CD in 8 years.

Clive Barker wasn’t able to oblige me with a book, although he did release his first original comic book work for many years this week, which we’ll certainly accept.

There was the pile of punk rock oral histories I had delayed reading until John Robb’s Death To Trad Rock volume appeared. And appear it did, recounting the heyday of the last group of bands to truly excite me.

A new coffee table book about The Stooges which nearly had me making a trip to New York to attend a book signing by Iggy Pop. I almost went through with it, too, even though I felt like hell (see above) and even though it meant showing up at 9 am for a wristband that would allow me to attend the 7 pm signing. I had images of getting my Complete Fun House Sessions boxset signed (bookstore said no, but, you know…) or getting a picture with him (bookstore said no, but, c’mon…).

In the end it was Sheva who said, “Why don’t you just call them and see if they’ll do a mail order?” So I did. I was apparently the first to ask. And it got here today. Signed.

Much, much better than being in New York all day with nothing to do and feeling like hell.

Then the other night we had the pleasure of seeing a brand new Coen Brothers picture, A Serious Man. I’d tried to stay away from the reviews so that I could be surprised by it and I was very glad I did. We were both knocked out by it and I think it immediately shot up into my personal Coens Top Five. The glow it left behind has yet to evaporate.

It felt like the highlight of the week.

This is one day a year, of course.

Most of the others I sit in my living room and think how remarkable it is that I have just about everything I could possibly want. And I can turn my head ever so slightly and know that I’ll see Sheva there.

It all makes the idea of presents seem nonsensical and superfluous.

I’d rather not feel like hell, of course, but they’re working on it.

That’s all you can ask for, really.

If I Were President

2009-09-20T04:54:00.002-03:00

(I, The President of the United States, am addressing a joint session of Congress.)

“And I make this solemn vow that not one dime will be spent on healthcare for illegal immigrants.”

(A lone voice is heard from somewhere in the crowd, loud and insistent like a drunk at a ball game.)

“YOU LIE!”

(There is a sudden hush as the crowd recovers from this. Several gasps are audible. I, The President, stare silently into the crowd as if searching for the offending party. My eyes seem to lock, laser-like, onto another’s as I stand perfectly still. The Vice President says to me, “Mr. President?” I speak.)

“You son of a bitch!”

(In seconds I am clambering over chairs and other Congressmen as my hands seek out, almost as if they were acting of their volition, the throat of the noisy legislator.)

“Someone stop the President!”

“I can’t! He’s too fast!”

(I, The President, am now tightly squeezing the neck of the unfortunate Congressman, banging his head rhythmically against the floor with the cadence of my words.)

“You…stupid…little…idiot!…I…am…the…goddamn…President…you…miserable…little…cretin!”

“Mr. President, stop!”

“Next…time…I…shove…my…birth…certificate…up…your…confederate…cornpone…ass…got…it?”

(The Congressman makes a series of strangled sounds that seem to resemble “Yes…sir!”)

“Take this trash outside,” I say to a couple of security guards as I return to the podium.

“Now,” I continue, brushing the dust from the sleeves of my jacket, “anybody else want to say something?”

(A busily mumbled chorus of “No”s fill the chamber.)

“Yeah, didn’t think so. You might want to stop Twittering, too, if you know what’s good for you.”

Luther Thomas, 1950 - 2009

2009-09-14T03:45:00.003-03:00

All About Jazz:

Citing a broadcast by the NYC public radio station WKCR, NPR's A Blog Supreme has posted an item saying that saxophonist Luther Thomas has died.

The St. Louis native and former Black Artists Group member has lived in Copenhagen, Denmark for a number of years, and at this point there don't seem to be any obituaries or other fresh news stories about him anywhere online, in either English or Danish.

There are two other sources that confirm the news of his death, though. First is Thomas' Wikipedia page, which now says “Luther Thomas was born on the 23rd of June 1950 and passed away on Tuesday 8th of September 2009." Also, Thomas' MySpace page shows a number of messages posted over the last three days with condolences and/or remembrances, including notes from musical colleagues and family members.

Thomas' discography includes the cult favorite Funky Donkey, a archetypal example of the way St. Louis musicians of the late 1960s and 1970s mixed funk and free jazz.

Fronting the slightly more commercial funk band Dizzazz, Thomas had a semi-hit single in 1981 with the songs “Nervous Breakdown/Six Months In Reform School." He also recorded with Defunkt and James Chance (aka James White) and the Contortions, and was a co-leader of the Human Arts Ensemble, whose out-of-print album Junk Trap was recently posted for free downloading on the music sharing blog Music Hertz.

You can see some video of Thomas playing and talking on his YouTube channel here. Thomas is also pictured and discussed in this article about the early 1980s scene at NYC's Squat Theatre, which served as a performing venue for Defunkt, Chance and similar punk-funk artists.

Our condolences and sympathies go out to Thomas' family, friends and colleagues.

(More at LutherThomas.com - RG)

Rashied Ali, 1935 - 2009

2009-08-14T03:34:00.003-03:00

NY Times:

Rashied Ali, whose expressionistic, free-jazz drumming helped define the experimental style of John Coltrane’s final years, died Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 74.

The cause of his death was a heart attack, his wife, Patricia Ali, said.

Mr. Ali, who first encountered Coltrane in their Philadelphia neighborhood in the late 1950s, made the leap from admiration to participation in the mid-1960s, when he joined Elvin Jones as a second drummer with Coltrane’s ensemble at the Village Gate in November 1965 He recorded with Coltrane and Jones on the 1965 album Meditations and, after replacing Jones as Coltrane’s drummer, on the duet album Interstellar Space (1967), one of the purest expressions of the free-jazz movement. On Mr. Ali’s Web site, his playing is described as “a multi-rhythmic, polytonal propellant, helping fuel Coltrane’s flights of free-jazz fancy.”

Mr. Ali was born Robert Patterson into a musical family in Philadelphia. He started out on piano and dabbled with trombone and trumpet before finding his way to the drums, which he began to play seriously while serving in the Army.

On returning to Philadelphia, Mr. Ali played in local rhythm and blues and rock and roll groups before moving on to jazz and moving to New York in 1963, where he played with progressive jazz musicians like Don Cherry, Pharaoh Sanders, Archie Shepp and Albert Ayler.

After Coltrane’s death in 1967, Mr. Ali toured Europe and, returning to New York, opened Ali’s Alley, a club intended as a showcase for free-jazz musicians. It operated until 1979.

From the 1980s until his death, Mr. Ali performed and recorded with several avant-garde groups, including Phalanx and Prima Materia, an ensemble devoted to interpreting the music of Coltrane and Ayler. Most recently he performed with the Rashied Ali Quintet, which he formed in 2003.

George Russell, 1923 - 2009

2009-07-28T17:05:00.002-03:00

Jazzwise:

The composer George Russell, best known for his 1953 music theory The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization died yesterday aged 86. He had been unwell for some time and had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. His ideas were at the time seen as some of the first major contributions by a jazz musician in the field of music theory. But Russell was not only a theorist and as firstly a drummer in the 1940s with Benny Carter and later after formulating his theory – which explored the nature of chord/scale unity – as a composer wrote ‘Cubano Be/Cubana Bop’ for Dizzy Gillespie combining jazz and latin influences and one of his best known compositions ‘Bird in Igor’s Yard’ recorded by Buddy DeFranco.

He contributed arrangements to the bands of Artie Shaw and Charlie Ventura among others and in the mid-1950s started to make his own recordings as a leader of the Jazz Workshop. He became part of the circle of Gil Evans and along with Evans was one of the leading jazz composers of the 1950s and 60s, premièring ‘All About Rosie’ in 1957 and teaching at the Lenox School of Jazz and taking up piano.

In the 1960s he moved to Scandinavia and taught in Sweden and in Denmark and thanks to Swedish radio was able to record his compositions and undertake new commissions. He worked with Don Cherry and a young Jan Garbarek and then on his return to the States joined the faculty of the New England Conservatory. Later in the 1980s and 90s he formed and toured his Anglo-American group the Living Time Orchestra which featured Andy Sheppard among the soloists. His albums include the classic 1961 Riverside album Ezz-Thetics.

The Loser Winners: A Word With Sarah Palin

2009-07-07T09:55:00.003-03:00

(In light of recent events, we consider ourselves fortunate to have had the opportunity to conduct the following interview):

So let me get this straight. You just quit.

No, no I didn’t. You weren’t listening.

I was standing right there.

No, you see, I may lose in the short term, but Alaska will win in the long term.

Losing’s like quitting, right?

No.

So you’re not quitting?

No.

You’re going to stay in office and fight this thing out?

No.

I’m still confused.

Look, it’s like I’m the quarterback and I’ve just been flagged for using illegal steroids.

Right.

Now if I stay and defend myself against these ridiculous lie-filled lies that the big city folk have come up with, Alaska loses.

Right.

So the only way for me to help Alaska win is for me to lose.

Which means you quit.

No! Look, I’m a maverick and we do things in unconventional ways.

I see.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years of quitting public service, it’s that I don’t need a ‘title’ to accomplish any sort of positive change.

Then why run for anything in the first place?

I’m sorry?

If you’ve always believed that you don’t need those kinds of titles to serve the public, why not just avoid the process entirely? Sort of like quitting before you quit.

Yes, but that would be quitting. I’m not quitting.

That’s right. You mentioned that.

And right now, staying on would be the most quittingest thing I could do. Why is that so difficult to understand?

So you’re not quitting?

No. Quitting is the only way I can not quit.

That’s pretty mavericky, all right.

If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

Interesting.

We need more Trigs. Lots and lots more Trigs! Full court press!

(offstage) It’s time to go, Ms. Palin.

(passes hand in front of face) I am not the droid you’re looking for.

4th Of July

2009-07-05T20:35:00.000-03:00

Can You Tell I’m Off The Meds? or: Tune Out, Turn Off, Drop In

2009-06-23T03:16:00.003-03:00

Speaking from the vantage point of someone who enjoys prescribed pharmaceuticals on a regular basis, I have discovered that (as with any drug) the effects gradually become less and less noticeable. This being the case, I discovered that if I wanted to somehow reproduce that initial “rush” or “buzz,” the only way to do it was to stop taking drugs for a while.

Something of a paradox, of course, but true nevertheless. It had seemed like ages since I had last experienced any sense of connection with the rest of the universe, or any insight into the nature of Life or Being and so, recently, I decided it was once again time to simply stop using drugs as a crutch and sit back to await what the forces of Intelligent Design had to tell me.

This time, however, I decided to take notes so as not to lose any of these revelations once I had concluded my “trip.” After two and a half weeks, I found I had accumulated the following:

The more one deals with aging and the aged, the more Life seems to narrow itself down into a series of modest kindnesses, concluding with our attempts to help each other into our appointed graves as painlessly as possible, an antlike procession of oldest through youngest being passed gingerly over our heads towards their final home.

I have infinite longing for infinite lives.

I look at most of my fellow humans as if they belong to a different part of the caste system entirely. I do not understand how we are related and, apparently, neither do they.

With each day, I despair more and more at the extent to which humanity makes its decisions and builds its landmarks for reasons that have less and less to do with freedom and everything to do with greed and self-importance.

Why is it that the same names and artwork that were used for herbal cigarettes 30 years ago seem to have been recycled now for those temporary phone cards?

What would have happened in that movie about the crazy old man baby if he’d just stayed a baby while everyone else grew old? Wouldn’t people get tired of changing him?

It does disturb me slightly that there will be so little trace of me left after the fact.

Why is it always the guy who orders the most expensive meal that insists that the check be split evenly?

I cannot blame other people for those moments when I become someone that I do not like, but I can blame them for giving me bad directions.

As you can see, the initial rush of the anti-drug trip lasts about as long as the regular drug trip, and both of them tend to dribble away into profundities that would probably look better on black light posters than in the cold, clear light of day. Still, I find it a great way to “clean out the system” from time to time and I find myself better prepared now as I once again dash to the medicine cabinet to resume my sorry cycle of preventive health measures by going what we call “hot turkey.”

I don’t like to appear normal, but it’s the drugs talking, you understand…not me.

One For The Corporal

2009-06-23T01:13:00.001-03:00

Walking Into Eternity

2009-06-16T02:59:00.006-03:00

"See now. There all the time without you: and ever shall be, world without end."

Happy Bloomsday 2009.

30 Years Of Zing!

2009-06-14T19:58:00.003-03:00

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of Beat Time! magazine, we thought it would be interesting to see if we could try and track down the notoriously reclusive Zing Crowbar, jazz composer and father of the modern avant-garde. Crowbar does not normally grant interviews, accept dinner invitations, or speak in complete sentences, so we were overjoyed when he agreed to talk with us about his 30 years of experience in the music business:

Do you have a time you set aside for your creative work?

Man, you’re like that guy who called me from the census bureau the other day! So he’s all like “So, like, when do you work?” and I’m all like “Well, like, everything is work, man,” you know what I mean? When I’m running around the block with a giant bee’s head on reciting the Gettysburg Address, I’m working, you know? When I’m making some tuna fish salad, it’s like I’m composing, all right? When I put my pants on, it’s like I’m stuffing a huge rear end into a piano sonata. What’s not to get?

I thought it was interesting when we were speaking previously about television and I made a reference to that popular comedy show…

I don’t watch that program!

No?

No TV, no magazines, no newspapers. They’re distractions, man! They’re ways that the Bush administration tries to distract you from –

You know that Bush isn’t the President any more, right?

What do you mean? Since when?

Last year.

Really?

Really.

Well, how would I be expected to know that? Seriously! I mean, I spend every waking moment on my compositions or, as I like to think of them, my children. I don’t have time to absorb every little bit of gossip like some kind of media sponge!

Could you expand on this idea of your compositions as ‘your children’?

Well, some of them misbehave, some of them borrow the car without asking and others never call. I mean, ever.

You always have so many different projects going on at the same time, some critics have accused you of having a short attention span.

Well, that’s just a line that the critics and record companies liked to haul out about me because it was easier than…easier than…what was the question again?

What are you working on now?

It’s an opera entitled Mzzz(owww!)xxxx! We have nurse’s stations available at every performance, just in case the sheer intensity of my music causes them to stand up and applaud me until they’re dead.

Has that happened?

More times than I really would have expected.

Well, thank you, Mr. Crowbar, for this intimate glimpse into your creative process. We wish you every success.

No, no, you should be thanking me! I am the greatest gift I could ever have given to you.

Gee, What Were The Chances?

2009-05-01T16:40:00.002-03:00

Later, at the University at Albany, Mr. Markoff was a member of the College Republicans, and traveled to Washington in 2004 to hear speeches by Ann Coulter and Karl Rove.

“We were surrounded by such a left-wing student body, and he was more like me: he didn’t really share those sentiments,” said one classmate, Jonathan Zierler, who said he had accompanied Mr. Markoff on the trip. “He was a traditionalist as far as things like men and women’s roles in society. He was a throwback from a more conservative era.”
- NY Times piece on Philip Markoff, the so-called "Craigslist Killer."

JG Ballard, 1930 - 2009

2009-04-20T08:22:00.003-03:00

Guardian:

The novelist JG Ballard, who conjured up a bleak vision of modern life in a series of powerful novels and short stories published over more than 50 years, died today after a long battle with cancer.

Inspired by the popular science fiction magazines he came across while stationed in Canada with the RAF, Ballard began publishing short stories evoking fractured landscapes full of wrecked machinery, deserted beaches and desolate buildings.

Novels of disaster and experimentation, including 1962's The Drowned World and 1973's Crash, later made into a film by David Cronenberg, garnered him a growing reputation as an anti-establishment avant garde writer. Crash, in which a couple become sexually aroused through car crashes, was written as a motorway extension was being built past the end of his street in Shepperton, west London.

In 1984, Ballard reached a new level of public recognition with Empire of the Sun, a straightforwardly realist novelisation of his detention as a teenager in a Japanese camp for civilians in Shanghai.

His later work continued to subject modern life to its own extremes, with a sinister corporate dystopia in 2000's Super Cannes, a middle-class revolution in 2003's Millennium People and a descent into consumerist fascism in 2006's Kingdom Come. But the label of science fiction writer still stuck, much to Ballard's irritation, partly as a way of "defusing the threat". "By calling a novel like Crash science fiction, you isolate the book and you don't think about what it is," he explained.

The Dossier On Virna Lindt

2009-04-16T14:13:00.003-03:00

Hey, it's Virna Lindt performing "Wild Strawberries"! I haven't heard this in ages and keep meaning to dig it out. Your tolerance for icy Swedish synth pop may vary.

RG

Gargoyle

2009-04-01T03:47:00.003-03:00

I have driven miles out of my way and become hopelessly lost.

I’m trying to find this doctor’s office and I call them up and try to get them to help me, but they seem just as confused as I am.

If I could ascend suddenly into the sky to get the lay of the land, I figure I’d have a better shot. I go to that place a lot when my eyes are closed. Endless expanses of sky in front of me, nameless acres below me and the delicate ambient buzzing of an airplane off in the distance.

It reminds me of when I’d close my eyes at the public pool while laying on a towel. I couldn’t identify any individual sound, but I found the random murmuring to be very relaxing, the way that white noise is. I can hear it and feel it still: the bright, sticky-wet thunder of summer as it lay in the distance, meditative and timeless, and the damp in the crooks of my arms.

When I finally find the specialist’s office, I pull into a handicapped spot and hang up my permit. I grab my cane and lock up the car with the electronic key. I take one of those sad looking lonely elevators that is about large enough for three and get out at the next floor.

The cane is named “Harris,” by the by. It is so named because of the autograph of artist Tony Harris in silver on the side. I like to look at it sometimes and marvel at how someone’s signature can seem to contain everything about them, in this case all of Mr. Harris’s style. Something in its lines and curves seems to sum up what’s individual about him. It’s autograph as art.

I enter the waiting room with Harris and find myself shoulder to shoulder with many other patients, most of whom I assume are older than I am. It’s the old joke about aging – how did I end up here with all these old people? Yet there I am and unfortunately for me, I am unprepared. My paperwork needs some straightening out, so I take a seat and settle in for the long wait.

I put my head down and let Harris support it. I just freeze that way, not wanting to move or argue about paperwork or check the time. I am not interested anymore. Let it happen as it happens.

After some time has passed, I find I’ve become increasingly grumpy sitting there in my unmoving and petulant pose. The receptionist had irritated me, but I realize that she’s the one that’s been cracking all the jokes and generally making the atmosphere less oppressive for everyone. That used to be me, I think, before I gave up. I’d be trying to cut up the concrete, trying to force some humanity into the injectable plastic molds, trying to be the girl in the bathing suit in John Updike’s A&P.

Now I’m just there, sitting and waiting and getting angry at nothing.

I’m finally ushered in and the retinal specialist has a look at my right eye and decides that there’s no tear to be seen. I had all at once been bombarded by streaks of light in my peripheral vision and an abundance of new floaters, all in the same eye. It usually means that the gel in the eye is pulling away from the retina and there can be danger of tearing as it goes. Having given me the all clear on that, I ask if there’s anything I can do about all the new visual annoyances.

They tell me it should clear up in a couple of months and I should come back then. It’s good news but as the days go by it seems to me that it’s getting worse. The effect is something like peering through a glass of dirty water, along with some wire mesh that keeps dangling down from the top of my sightline. I swat at insects that aren’t there until I remember it’s just these shadows in my eyeball.

Give it time, I think. Give it time.

The sunshine hits my dilated eyes as I leave and I quickly put on my sunglasses, over which I put the plastic protective visor they’ve given me. Using both seems to work better than either one does separately.

I throw Harris in the back seat, take down the permit and get out of there. At least now I know where I’m going and I head there with all deliberate speed. It feels good to move, good to breathe and good to be going home, where I will hang Harris on the towel rack and dream my windy flying dream, buildings solitary and solid below me as I wheel past them all with grace and ease, the sky full of treasure and the sun beating down on me like on that half-remembered day at the pool, eternally malleable and eternally living, unencumbered and unknown.

Draw Your Own Conclusions

2009-03-16T09:42:00.008-03:00

A homeless pig has been found near the airport in Philadelphia. Rescuers dubbed him "Runway" after finding the 150-lb porker hanging out with stray cats.

Other washed-up 80's groups the pig likes to hang with include Men At Work and Haysi Fantayzee.

Therefore, the Society Against Legal Injustice asks you, as a fan, friend or admirer of OJ Simpson to make a modest contribution to the Society's Trust Fund...No contribution is too small.

Any contribution, however, is too large.

A couple in Malibu is complaining that their neighbor, rock poet Bob Dylan, has permanently parked a stinky portable potty next to the property line they share with him.

Visitors to the Dylan home in search of relief have taken to referring to it as 'Knocking On Heaven's Door.'

The Parents Television Council cautioned parents and radio stations across the country about a new Britney Spears song, "If U Seek Amy" that spells out the “f-word.” The song makes repeated use of the following line: “All of the boys and all of the girls are begging to If U Seek Amy.”

Thank goodness no one's played the b-side for them, "Have U Seen Mike Hunt?"

Bigger Than Jebus!

2009-03-10T04:16:00.004-02:00

I don’t know how I allow myself to become involved in these online shouting matches.

For some reason the subject of John Lennon’s Beatles Bigger Than Jesus remarks came up (Ed.- someone’s done a documentary) on some news site the other day and you would have thought from the vociferousness of the response that it might have happened yesterday. Apparently there are still some who not only misunderstand the context of the remark, but they behave as if it’s a fresh wound.

The opening volleys were predictable, angry missives that basically boiled down to “Hey! You thought you were bigger than Jesus, huh, John? Well, now you’re dead and in hell! Not feelin' so smart now, are ya?”

You know, the usual charitable Christian sentiments.

Then came the notes defending the late Beatle, attempting to explain what he meant and how his behavior as a peace activist made him more of a Christian through his deeds than any of the previous posters. This only made the other side even angrier and they began to describe in even more juicy detail the various sufferings that Lennon’s various body parts were no doubt suffering at this very moment. They sounded as if they were disappointed at having missed the Inquisition and intended to make up for lost time.

Now, as my friends will happily tell you, there is no situation so incendiary that I don’t enjoy pouring more gasoline on it:

If anything, John Lennon was low-balling the influence of the Fab Four. Ringo's nose alone was bigger than Jesus. The four of them together, then, were bigger than all matter everywhere that is, was, or will ever be, including all possible alternate universes, forever and ever, touch black, no erasees.

This didn’t seem to get much reaction, so I added:

i am the lorb thy gob! job lemon was right! now someone lend me a tenner!

Then came a series of posts that argued against evolution, of which this next is a typical example:

The song "imagine" tells of a time with no Heaven or Hell. This is merely a song. A question for you who dont believe is, If you believe in the big bang theory please tell me who light the match?

Well, I had to back him up, of course:

if earth is millions years old, why fred and barney with dinosaurs? in gafoozum 3:12 we read the following: "he that mocketh his flocks by night shall be as wormwood is to the bitter gall of the pretzel that goes by day"...repent all beeble fans! jon lebbon fries in fires of hell! don't expect gob to wear beeble wig or beeble boots in heaven! satan is love!

I began to notice now that each time I posted, this one fellow would show up with a huge slab of Bible text that he had copied and pasted, each one larger than the previous one. And so I would contribute notes along these lines:

o wise jebus! o well-spoken jebus! thou art the tray, the booth, and the pipe! you judge the world by way of new U2 album! lemmon is false profit! save us jebus from the hippies that cleave unto satan's hot rod! all you beeble fans must bow to jebus! wonderful jebus! pretty jebus! you will not laffing so hard the laff when the hellbird gnaws at your punk rock innards! save us from satanic pop stars and their brethren, to be turned into toads, newts and various repugnant foodstuffs! Jebus is shouting in your earhole the worm of love! oh jebus! when will you demonstrate your pure all-encompassing love and kill everyone???

One fellow showed up who wanted to make sure that he was heard, so he gave his cap keys a workout:

THE BEATLES STARTED THE DRUG RELIGION
AND WHEN PEOPLE ARE ON DRUGS,
WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM THEM ???

It was impossible not to be inspired by his enthusiasm:

BEEBLES ARE NON-FAT DOUBLE LATTES OF DOOM!!!
START RELIGIUM OF LONG HAIR AND BEADS,
AND BABY BLOOMERS IN BEEBLE BOOTS!

I AM TAKING DRUGS OF GOD ALL DAY!
SHOOTING UP BLOOD OF THE LAMB!
BIG STUPID IDIOTS ARE DUMB!!!

REJECT BEEBLES CULT OF DRUGS AND NEHRU JACKETS!
EMBRACE THE ONE TRUE COD, JEBUS!
PREPARE TO MEET HIM SOON SO BRING A GIFT!

By now everyone was starting to get a little tired, but just before it all died, “El Numero Cinco” blew in with a stunner:

In a revelation of HELL of God to 7 youngsters in Colombia, John Lennon was seen there in the flames begging for mercy, but no surprise Jesus ignored John...

There was little left for me to say:

Well, sure, but you notice how he ran right over to get George's autograph.

The Republican Song

2009-03-03T07:06:00.002-02:00

Some say that these are dark times
for the G.O.P. today
and their elected leaders
aren't sure of what to say
but there's one thing that never fails
to cheer their weary base
It's kissing that Rush Limbaugh
but we don't mean on his face!

Kissing Limbaugh's ass, boys,
Kissing Limbaugh's ass!
We've got no guts,
instead we're nuts for
Kissing Limbaugh's ass!

Now every once in a great while
a senator may try
to make some criticism
of this human pizza pie
He soon finds out his re-election
chances will be dead
unless he finds religion
and becomes a Dittohead!

Kissing Limbaugh's ass, boys,
Kissing Limbaugh's ass!
We've no ideas,
instead we've seized on
Kissing Limbaugh's ass!

So here's to the Republican
who tries to speak his mind
but finds he's on the business end
of Rush's big behind
Just close your eyes and pucker up
just like the big boys do
You'll soon be master of the art
of frenching his wazoo!

Kissing Limbaugh's ass, boys,
Kissing Limbaugh's ass!
Things could be worse,
we're well-rehearsed in
Kissing Limbaugh's ass!

Baby Doll

2009-02-28T05:50:00.014-02:00

Photos by Sheva Golkow.

Antoinette K-Doe, widow of the self-proclaimed “Emperor Of The Universe” Ernie K-Doe who is best known for his 1961 hit Mother-In-Law, as well as the proprietor of the New Orleans landmark Ernie K-Doe Mother-In-Law Lounge, died this week on Mardi Gras morning.

Ernie died before Katrina hit, which was strangely comforting to Miss Antoinette. She told a reporter that she would talk to Death and ask him to take Ernie and her mother before her (and he did) because she knew that she could manage alone, but didn’t think the other two could make it without her.

She met and married K-Doe in the 90’s and opened up the Mother-In-Law Lounge mainly so he could have a place to perform. After his death it became a memorial to him, with photos and memorabilia cluttering every wall as well as a life-size mannequin of Ernie dressed to the nines in a style that might best be described as Michael Jackson On Acid.

When the waters rose on N. Claiborne Street, Antoinette fed and sheltered anyone who happened by searching for safety and food. Her club was a total loss but she saved what she could and with the help of 250 friends and volunteers, the Mother-In-Law Lounge reopened in August 2006.

Unhappy with the way Ray Nagin was handling things as Mayor, Miss Antoinette decided to run the Ernie K-Doe mannequin for the office that same year. Certainly he couldn’t have done any worse.

She had a pink limousine that came in handy when she took part in reviving The Mardi Gras Baby Dolls (the creation of the original Baby Dolls is estimated at sometime around the turn of the last century), a group of women who would parade in infant’s clothes complete with bonnets and baby bottles (scotch and milk being the libation of choice). On Mardi Gras 2008, Antoinette felt a pain in her chest and was taken to the hospital with her Baby Doll clothes on.

She managed to recover, but when this year’s celebration came around she wasn’t as lucky. Just a few days prior to her death, it had been Ernie’s birthday. He would have been 73.

Her funeral is happening this weekend, and I bring up the subject partly because it was last year when the wife was in New Orleans on business. She was with a companion who was handling some of Miss Antoinette’s legal affairs and she went along for the ride.

The Mother-In-Law Lounge was everything she imagined and Antoinette extremely gracious. When the wife managed to pry herself away from the life-size mannequin of Ernie K-Doe, his widow shared some stories about the imposing figure.

Antoinette was insistent that the model of K-Doe be kept in immaculate shape and to that end, she decided one day that one of his hands needed some manicuring.

She brought the hand with her to a local salon and when the owner saw what she’d brought in for work, she screamed. She thought it was a real hand.

How strange could that be in New Orleans, though?

Peanut Gallery

2009-02-18T15:38:00.002-02:00

The founder of an upstate New York TV station aimed at countering Muslim stereotypes has been arrested on suspicion of killing his wife, who was beheaded, authorities said.

It may seem like a waste of time, but every once in a while it doesn’t hurt to go back and reread the mission statement.

Why Annie Lennox Is Ready To Move On

She wants to try and catch up to wherever her audience went?

Kate Moss: I’ve Just Started Wearing Bras!

You’ve still got a good ways to go before you can even hope to approach my kind of cleavage, girlfriend.

Homecoming For An Only Twin

2009-02-17T06:07:00.003-02:00

Independent:

A heritage plaque unveiled in honour of Peter Cook yesterday would not be complete without a joke. "Peter Cook 1937-1995, comedian and 'only twin', co-founded and ran the Establishment Club here 1961-1964", reads the green disk mounted on the wall of the building in Soho where he opened London's first satirical nightclub. This was the venue where a young Australian comic, Barry Humphries, first took to the stage as his alter-ego, Dame Edna Everage. Dudley Moore danced The Twist in the basement. It also revived the career of Frankie Howerd.

Cook was the first and possibly the greatest of a long line of Oxford or Cambridge-educated comics that has included John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson and Stephen Fry. He formed a duo with an Oxbridge contemporary, Dudley Moore, who was his polar opposite. Cook was descended from colonial civil servants, was brought up by nannies, educated at public school and was over 6ft tall. Moore was 5ft with a club foot, brought up in Dagenham and educated at state school but secured a music scholarship to Oxford. He and Moore starred with Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett in the revue Beyond The Fringe, which Cook wrote in the year he graduated from Cambridge, and which kicked off the satire boom of the early 1960s. Its longest surviving feature is Private Eye magazine, which Cook part owned.

Shock And Awful

2009-02-09T05:30:00.004-02:00

I am, of course, an old curmudgeon who is reluctant to leave the 20th century behind and when the subject is books, this condition is aggravated all the more. The more I am confronted with a paperless universe, a world of Kindles and e-books and a sort of literacy defined as sounding out a word phonetically and carving it online as best you can with a pixellated awl, the less enchanted I become.

In the past, these complaints of mine could merely be filed neatly under “crabby,” whereas these days I can feel the world I knew inching away slowly and for good.

For instance, I was watching the Jonas Brothers tonight on the Grammys singing Superstition with Stevie Wonder. Here was a living horror that somehow spoke to my worst fears about where we are headed as a civilization.

Now you should know that the Jonas Brothers can neither sing nor play, for a start. They also appear to have just left the school cafeteria on their way to band practice, which I can only imagine consists of posing in front of a mirror and pretending to perform.

Someone is apparently encouraging them in this delusion as they seemed to be welcome guests at the affair. Now I understand that as the years go by we tend to lower the bar we use to judge creativity, as anything original tends to get xeroxed to the Nth degree until it becomes nearly invisible. But this was an example of taking that bar, breaking it in half, burning it, and pouring sulfuric acid on the remaining ashes.

This is to say that the quantum difference between the artist that is Stevie Wonder and the fingerpainting that is the Jonas Brothers became impossible to ignore and it seemed for a moment that you were watching two channels at once. Each brother posed and pouted his way through a verse while Wonder gamely backed them up. They might as well have thrown a box of ducks onstage. Talk about cognitive dissonance. We were clearly being asked to accept that these folks all belonged in the same club and every time you tried to do it, your brain began to squeal.

Imagine someone walking up to Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon with a can of green spray paint, spraying a big fat “X” on it, and then stepping back to admire it as he said, “Well, that’s better!”

This is where we’re going, like it or not. Get ready to nod your heads and applaud as you witness the latest pack of geniuses produce a bowel movement on the floor. Prepare for a world of global village idiots that will be handed the keys to the kingdom only to lose them during a hot dog eating contest. Welcome a brave new world that has such cretins in it, dragging their knuckles along the linoleum as they attempt a grunt or a groan that will be taken down by the press as a precious pearl of wisdom.

Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes. An imbecile parade of the dead.

But I digress.

Next: Foxed, But Also Goosed!

Lux Interior, 1948 - 2009

2009-02-05T04:08:00.002-02:00

What a goddamned crappy year this is turning out to be.

He sang on the first punk record I ever bought. So incredibly influential that it would be foolhardy to even attempt a list.

L.A. Times:

Lux Interior, the singer, songwriter and founding member of the pioneering New York City horror-punk band the Cramps, died Tuesday. He was 60.

Interior, whose real name was Erick Lee Purkhiser, died at Glendale Memorial Hospital of a previously-existing heart condition, according to a statement from his publicist.

With his wife, guitarist "Poison" Ivy Rorschach, Interior formed the Cramps in 1976, pairing lyrics that expressed their love of B-movie camp with ferocious rockabilly and surf-inspired instrumentation.

The band became a staple of the late '70s Manhattan punk scene emerging from clubs like Max's Kansas City and CBGB and was one of the first acts to realize the potential of punk rock as theater and spectacle.

Often dressed in macabre, gender-bending costumes onstage, Interior evoked a lanky, proto-goth Elvis Presley, and his band quickly became notorious for volatile and decadent live performances.

Last Son Of Krypton!

2009-02-03T04:56:00.002-02:00

A further explanation of this shot can be found towards the end of the latest My Uncle Bob podcast. Listen and decide for yourself if the unfortunate pictured here is animal, vegetable, or mineral.

RG

Feb. 2

2009-02-02T06:57:00.004-02:00

When a young man came up to him in Zurich and said, "May I kiss the hand that wrote Ulysses?" Joyce replied, somewhat like King Lear, "No, it did lots of other things too."
- Joyce biographer Richard Ellmann

This Week The Was That Were

2009-01-30T13:29:00.002-02:00

Faulkner actually had, considering how hard he is to read and how drastic the experiments are, quite a middle-class readership. But certainly someone like Steinbeck was a bestseller as well as a Nobel Prize-winning author of high intent. You don't feel that now. I don't feel that we have the merger of serious and pop -- it's gone, dissolving. Tastes have coarsened. People read less, they're less comfortable with the written word. They're less comfortable with novels. They don't have a backward frame of reference that would enable them to appreciate things like irony and allusions. It's sad.
- John Updike, who died this week at age 76

This is not authorized by us. "The Simpsons" does not, and never has, endorsed any religion, philosophy or system of beliefs any more profound than Butterfinger bars.
- Simpsons executive producer Al Jean, commenting on Nancy Cartwright using her Bart Simpson voice for a robocall promoting Scientology

In an emergency situation, which part of you would you eat first?
-Stephen Colbert interviewing Sir Paul McCartney this week

A Really Big Shoe

2009-01-30T07:17:00.002-02:00

CNN:

For the war-beaten orphans of the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit, this big old shoe fits.

A huge sculpture of the footwear hurled at President Bush in December during a trip to Iraq has been unveiled in a ceremony at the Tikrit Orphanage complex.

Assisted by children at the home, sculptor Laith al-Amiri erected a brown replica of one of the shoes hurled at Bush and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki by journalist Muntadhir al-Zaidi during a press conference in Baghdad.

Al-Zaidi was jailed for his actions, and a trial is pending. But his angry gesture touched a defiant nerve throughout the Arab and Muslim world. He is regarded by many people as a hero. Demonstrators in December took to the streets in the Arab world and called for his release.

The shoe monument, made of fiberglass and coated with copper, consists of the shoe and a concrete base. The entire monument is 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) high. The shoe is 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) long and 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) wide.

The orphans helped al-Amiri build the $5,000 structure -- unveiled Tuesday -- in 15 days, said Faten Abdulqader al-Naseri, the orphanage director.

"Those orphans who helped the sculptor in building this monument were the victims of Bush's war," al-Naseri said. "The shoe monument is a gift to the next generation to remember the heroic action by the journalist."

"When the next generation sees the shoe monument, they will ask their parents about it," al-Naseri said.

"Then their parents will start talking about the hero Muntadhir al-Zaidi, who threw his shoe at George W. Bush during his unannounced farewell visit."

By tradition, throwing a shoe is the most insulting act in the Arab world.

Dun't Esk!

2009-01-30T06:03:00.004-02:00

Bet you didn't know I was so talented.

Milt Gross, of course (or one of his ghost artists), from Milt Gross Funnies #2.

So Long, Schmuck!

2009-01-20T03:16:00.000-02:00

Patrick McGoohan, 1928 - 2009

2009-01-14T17:31:00.009-02:00

I know this roll call of the dead is getting a little ridiculous, and I hope to offer something different soon. In the meantime, one of our most unique and challenging actors, as well as a huge part of my adolescence, is gone:

Associated Press:

Patrick McGoohan, the Emmy-winning actor who created and starred in the cult classic television show "The Prisoner," has died. He was 80.

McGoohan died Tuesday in Los Angeles after a short illness, his son-in-law, film producer Cleve Landsberg, said.

McGoohan won two Emmys for his work on the Peter Falk detective drama "Columbo," and more recently appeared as King Edward Longshanks in the 1995 Mel Gibson film "Braveheart."

But he was most famous as the character known only as Number Six in "The Prisoner," a sci-fi tinged 1960s British series in which a former spy is held captive in a small enclave known only as The Village, where a mysterious authority named Number One constantly prevents his escape.

McGoohan came up with the concept and wrote and directed several episodes of the show, which has kept a devoted following in the United States and Europe for four decades.

Born in New York on March 19, 1928, McGoohan was raised in England and Ireland, where his family moved shortly after his birth. He had a busy stage career before moving to television, and won a London Drama Critics Award for playing the title role in the Henrik Ibsen play "Brand."

He married stage actress Joan Drummond in 1951. The oldest of their three daughters, Catherine, is also an actress.

His first foray into TV was in 1964 in the series "Danger Man," a more straightforward spy show that initially lasted just one season but was later brought back for three more when its popularity -- and McGoohan's -- exploded in reruns.

Weary of playing the show's lead John Drake, McGoohan pitched to producers the surreal and cerebral "The Prisoner" to give himself a challenge.

The series ran just one season and 17 episodes in 1967, but its cultural impact remains.

He voiced his Number Six character in an episode of "The Simpsons" in 2000. The show is being remade as a series for AMC that premieres this year.

"His creation of 'The Prisoner' made an indelible mark on the sci-fi, fantasy and political thriller genres, creating one of the most iconic characters of all time," AMC said in a statement Wednesday. "AMC hopes to honor his legacy in our re-imagining of 'The Prisoner."'

Later came smaller roles in film and television. McGoohan won Emmys for guest spots on "Columbo" 16 years apart, in 1974 and 1990.

He also appeared as a warden in the 1979 Clint Eastwood film "Escape from Alcatraz" and as a judge in the 1996 John Grisham courtroom drama "A Time To Kill."

His last major role was in "Braveheart," in what The Associated Press called a "standout" performance as the brutal king who battles Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace, played by Gibson.

In his review of the film for the Los Angeles Times critic Peter Rainer said "McGoohan is in possession of perhaps the most villainous enunciation in the history of acting."

McGoohan is survived by his wife and three daughters.

Last Performance of the Oswald Band

2009-01-09T06:51:00.004-02:00

I take it this is a long-standing Internet jape, but it was new to me.

Ron Asheton, 1948 - 2009

2009-01-08T06:23:00.003-02:00

Reuters:

DETROIT - Ron Asheton, a guitarist and founding member of the influential rock band The Stooges, was found dead at his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Tuesday, police said.

Asheton, 60, was found on his couch and appeared to have been dead for several days, Ann Arbor Police Sgt. Brad Hill said.

"We do not expect foul play," Hill said.

Police were called to Asheton's home shortly after midnight after an acquaintance reported that he had been unable to contact him for several days.

Stooges frontman Iggy Pop, who went on to enjoy a successful solo career, said in a statement that he was in shock about the death of "my best friend."

The Stooges formed in 1967, with the lineup rounded out by Asheton's brother Scott on drums and the late Dave Alexander on bass. Known for a violent and primitive style that featured stage-diving and outrageous antics by Pop, The Stooges were part of a late 1960s Detroit-area rock scene that also included the MC5.

They broke up in 1974 after three now-classic albums, limited commercial success and mounting drug problems for Pop.

But backed by Asheton's guitar riffs on songs such as "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "TV Eye," the band's music has been credited as a powerful influence on a wide range of punk and alternative bands including The Sex Pistols, The Ramones and The White Stripes.

"As a musician Ron was The Guitar God, idol to follow and inspire others," Pop and the Stooges said in a statement. "That is how he will be remembered by people who had a great pleasure to work with him, learn from him and share good and bad times with him."

After The Stooges broke up, Asheton acted in a series of low-budget horror films in the 1980s and 1990s.

Asheton, ranked as the 29th greatest rock guitarist by Rolling Stone, rejoined The Stooges when the band reunited in 2003 and for the 2007 comeback album, "The Weirdness."

The band has been nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Mike Watt talks about Ron Asheton.

Tristan King 1966 - 2008

2009-01-04T07:22:00.003-02:00

From the livejournal Do You Come Here Often? by sometime Scritti Politti keyboardist and Independent columnist Rhodri:

Sad news for fans of niche late-1980s music. Tris King, the drummer of Bogshed, Jackdaw With Crowbar, A Witness and many others, died this week.

Guess my teenage self can now rule out any possibility of highly-unlikely reformations. Sniff.

Vince Hunt of A Witness wrote in response:

I’m very saddened to hear this news and Keith and I would like to pass on our sympathies to Tris's family and friends.

I played many times with Tris when A Witness and Bogshed appeared on the same bill and so I knew how good he was for a long time. When Bogshed finished and we needed a drummer, his name was first on our list, and I was delighted when he agreed to join. I wondered if he might be a bit TOO good, and I can still see him now setting his drums out in the rehearsal space in Liverpool and settling in behind his kit.

Of course, he got all the difficult bits first time and his great flair, sense of timing and feel for arrangement helped lift those final A Witness songs to a higher level.

‘Break On Through’, ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ – with its beautifully sparse acoustic mid-section, arranged on the spot in Strawberry – and of course ‘I Love You Mr Disposable Razors’ were all the better for Tris’s contribution.

I was shocked when I heard Tris was ill as he always looked so young. I remember him as a good guy and a great drummer and I'm glad to have known him and had him in our band. I’ll raise a glass to you Tris, and spin that final 12” single one more time.

Vince Hunt, A Witness.

http://rhodri.livejournal.com/684906.html

Freddie Hubbard 1938 - 2008

2008-12-30T06:05:00.002-02:00

Reuters:

LOS ANGELES, Dec 29 - Influential jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, who played on hundreds of recordings during a career spanning 50 years, died in a Los Angeles hospital on Monday, his manager said. He was 70.

The Grammy Award-winning musician had been a patient at Sherman Oaks Hospital since suffering a heart attack a month ago, manager David Weiss said.

Famed for his fiery style, Hubbard played with such jazz icons as Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane.

Two years after moving to New York from his native Indianapolis in 1958, Hubbard recorded his first album, "Open Sesame," and enjoyed a meteoric rise in jazz circles.

By August 1961, he was onto his fourth album, "Ready for Freddie," a collaboration with Wayne Shorter considered by many to be his masterpiece.

Throughout the decade, he played both at the helm of his own small group and with bands led by others. He was also featured on such iconic albums as Coltrane's "Ascension" and Ornette Coleman's "Free Jazz."

Hubbard won his sole Grammy in 1972 with "First Light," one of a series of crossover albums that brought him mainstream recognition. He later returned to his hard-bop roots, thrilling audiences with his dazzling speed and impassioned blues lines.

12 More Things To Throw At Bush

2008-12-17T05:48:00.003-02:00

Thanks to Mark Morford, SF Gate columnist:

1. Rainbow flag
2. Book about science
3. Birth control pills
4. Crayons
5. Dick Cheney
6. Hunk of glacial ice
7. Prosthetic limb
8. Hanging chads
9. WMD
10.National sense of pride/hope/dignity
11.Entire remainder of gutted, ruined Republican party
12.Reality

See link above for more.

RG

America, Part Two

2008-11-05T19:49:00.002-02:00

Photo by Sheva Golkow.

You Won't Fool The Children Of The Revolution

2008-10-28T06:22:00.002-02:00

With only a week to go until the election, John McCain finds he's still having difficulty attracting the youth vote.

Country Worst

2008-10-23T02:04:00.002-02:00

Al-Qaeda's Presidential Pick: John McCain!

2008-10-22T05:19:00.002-02:00

Washington Post:

Al-Qaeda is watching the U.S. stock market's downward slide with something akin to jubilation, with its leaders hailing the financial crisis as a vindication of its strategy of crippling America's economy through endless, costly foreign wars against Islamist insurgents.

And at least some of its supporters think Sen. John McCain is the presidential candidate best suited to continue that trend.

"Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election," said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the "failing march of his predecessor," President Bush.

The Web commentary was one of several posted by Taliban or al-Qaeda-allied groups in recent days that trumpeted the global financial crisis and predicted further decline for the United States and other Western powers. In language that was by turns mocking and ominous, the newest posting credited al-Qaeda with having lured Washington into a trap that had "exhausted its resources and bankrupted its economy." It further suggested that a terrorist strike might swing the election to McCain and guarantee an expansion of U.S. military commitments in the Islamic world.

"It will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaeda," said the posting, attributed to Muhammad Haafid, a longtime contributor to the password-protected site. "Al-Qaeda then will succeed in exhausting America."

It was unclear how closely the commentary reflected the views of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who has not issued a public statement since the spring. Some terrorism experts said the support for McCain could be mere bluster by a group that may have more to fear from a McCain presidency. In any event, the comments summarized what has emerged as a consensus view on extremist sites, said Adam Raisman, a senior analyst for the Site Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamist Web pages. Site provided translations of the comments to The Washington Post.

"The idea in the jihadist forums is that McCain would be a faithful 'son of Bush' -- someone they see as a jingoist and a war hawk," Raisman said. "They think that, to succeed in a war of attrition, they need a leader in Washington like McCain."

My Employment Problem

2008-10-11T07:57:00.001-03:00

Ever since I was old enough
to understand,
I think I knew almost
immediately
that the one thing I really wanted
was to have my
soul slaughtered against
the sky
bleeding out twilight

I tried putting this on the first couple
of resumes
but didn’t get much response
it was only when I
started to write that I wanted
to slaughter other
people’s souls that things
began to turn
around

Iran = Nam

2008-10-11T07:39:00.002-03:00

NY subway poster collage artist Poster Boy reshapes the Iron Man poster.

Although I liked what he did with it here, too.

Limbaugh Family Reunion

2008-10-09T02:57:00.002-03:00

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan.

Sure, We've Got Your Parachute Right Here...

2008-10-08T03:15:00.004-03:00

Louisville, Kentucky, 1937.
Photo by Margaret Bourke-White.

See Terry Gilliam's parody from Brazil here.

The American Way

2008-10-02T04:12:00.001-03:00

Things are looking up.

McCan't!

2008-09-25T16:51:00.001-03:00

Name The Opera!

2008-09-19T04:21:00.002-03:00

Seriously. It's playing in L.A. until the 27th.

And it received a passing mention here before...

RG

The First Swift Boating

2008-09-11T03:39:00.000-03:00

Babies, Guns, Jesus!

2008-08-30T05:01:00.005-03:00

Her personal story is impressive: former fisherman, mother of five.
- Paul Begala

That's a healthy thing. That means my perspective is fresher.
- Sarah Palin, second-place winner in the Miss Alaska competition, on her lack of experience

By any standard, Governor Palin is less prepared as commander in chief than Obama.
- Michael Medved proves that even conservative nutjobs can experience a rare moment of lucidity

Sarah Palin: babies, guns, Jesus. Hot damn!
- Rush Limbaugh, on the other hand…

A Few Minutes With John McCain

2008-08-29T04:29:00.003-03:00

Time.com:

What do you want voters to know coming out of the Republican Convention — about you, about your candidacy?
I'm prepared to be President of the United States, and I'll put my country first.

There's a theme that recurs in your books and your speeches, both about putting country first but also about honor. I wonder if you could define honor for us?
Read it in my books.

I've read your books.
No, I'm not going to define it.

But honor in politics?
I defined it in five books. Read my books.

[Your] campaign today is more disciplined, more traditional, more aggressive. From your point of view, why the change?
I will do as much as we possibly can do to provide as much access to the press as possible.

But beyond the press, sir, just in terms of ...
I think we're running a fine campaign, and this is where we are.

Do you miss the old way of doing it?
I don't know what you're talking about.

Really? Come on, Senator.
I'll provide as much access as possible ...

In 2000, after the primaries, you went back to South Carolina to talk about what you felt was a mistake you had made on the Confederate flag. Is there anything so far about this campaign that you wish you could take back or you might revisit when it's over?
[Does not answer.]

[Long pause.]

I'm very happy with the way our campaign has been conducted, and I am very pleased and humbled to have the nomination of the Republican Party.

You do acknowledge there was a change in the campaign, in the way you had run the campaign?
[Shakes his head.]

You don't acknowledge that? O.K., when your aides came to you and you decided, having been attacked by Barack Obama, to run some of those ads, was there a debate?
The campaign responded as planned.

A lot of people know about your service from your books, but most people don't know that you have two sons currently in the military. Can you describe what it means to have Jack and Jimmy in uniform?
We don't discuss our sons.

Convention Time!

2008-08-28T03:47:00.004-03:00

Well, we're halfway through the Democratic Convention and so far it seems to be moving along nicely. Of course, I say that every four years and still can't fathom the mental processes that would result in anyone voting for any kind of Republican anything at any time, any place, anywhere. Why do these people hate America?

Last night was Family Night, devoted to convincing undecided voters that Obama wasn't some sort of Islamic terrorist (do that many of them come from Hawaii?), with Ted Kennedy providing the dramatic high point, while tonight the Democrats delivered a few light love taps along the lines of "McCain's not a maverick; he's a sidekick!" (good one) and "Four more months!"

Hillary did her best to sway her former troops this evening. We'll see how well it worked, although there was this incredibly obnoxious girl on Larry King tonight trying to rationalize why she, a former Hillary booster, still believes Barack Obama needs to "earn her vote." I suppose some children actually would benefit from a spanking.

Still have Bill, Biden and, of course, the next President in the speechifyin' queue this week. Let's hope they hit 'em into the stands, as next week will bring Lake of Fire '08, featuring the Devil and his angels. Beware of that tapping foot in the next stall!

Next week, they'll try to convince you that Mr. Obama lacks many of the qualifications that John McCain possesses. And this is somewhat true.

True, Mr. Obama isn't rubbing elbows with drunken rednecks at topless beauty contests while the media turns its head;

True, Mr. Obama isn't running campaign ads comparing his opponent to The Brothers Grimm, Ish Kabibble and Spongebob Squarepants;

True, Mr. Obama has a terrible habit of inspiring audiences to believe that America can once again be the place we remember, a country that holds itself to the highest standards of ethical behavior in keeping with the belief that we are expected to set an example;

True, Mr. Obama isn't a transparent shill for oil companies, nor is he (along with his campaign manager) responsible for the impending loss of some 8,300 jobs in Ohio;

True, Mr. Obama isn't adept at handing out joke shop tire gauges;

And neither is he willing to drag his reputation through the mud and the muck just in order to win an election.

But even with all of these admitted faults:

I'll probably give him a try anyway.

RG

(above: Palmer Cox's Brownies stage their own convention)

When Pies Were Men And Men Were Pies!

2008-08-24T06:07:00.004-03:00

"Cheery Jerry, the cherry pie-faced boy, has been the mascot of this roadside stand for decades. For a short while years ago, the ventilation for the top crust of each pie was a quartet of cuts that were made to look like Jerry's eyes, nose and mouth. The artistry was abandoned because when the pies baked, the cherry juice leaked and it sometimes looked like Jerry was suffering a facial hemorrhage."
- Michael Stern, Roadfood.com

I.O.U.S.A.

2008-08-21T11:17:00.002-03:00

Catch this tomorrow night at a theater near you with the added plus of a live broadcast panel discussion afterwards.

Listings here.

Better Homes And Myrons

2008-08-15T05:38:00.007-03:00

You may recall, Dear Reader, that our summers here at Screwloose Manor are usually celebrated by the township in the same way: namely, by festooning our home with cheery and brightly colored notices that indicate the displeasure of our neighbors with our, shall we say, laissez-faire approach to gardening and related matters.

It’s a season-long battle involving both parties trying to stare the other down and attempting to be the last to blink, like some tense and bureaucratic game of chicken.

Myron is the point man for the township and we have quite a collection of his official complaint forms, so large a collection, in fact, that we can compare handwriting samples and try to determine what mood he was in on any given day.

It’s always interesting to see how long it takes Myron to pay us a visit. Sometimes he seems to be jumping the gun, as if he figures we’re going to be trouble eventually so there’s no point in waiting to deliver the summons.

He’s probably correct on that point.

Other times, our Endless Summer Hydrangea bushes have to scribble a crazed and mazelike signature that wildly endeavors to hide the sidewalk beneath a chlorophyllic canopy, giving everyone in the neighborhood a rare and ageless glimpse of the Original Eden before Myron breaks out the notary seal.

Our predilection for attempting to revive the American Wilderness is a real and deep-seated one. Like Huckleberry Finn, we feel the need to “light out for the Territory,” so to speak, on occasion and one can’t very well do that with a well-manicured lawn that’s been emasculated by the short-sighted and prejudiced popinjays who feel as if you’re infringing on their space should a blade of grass be a hair out of place.

Blades of grass, indeed. Our lawn is large; it contains multitudes.

Their crusade to conquer and neuter an already impotent and compliant country by trying to prevent the full flowering of its naturally wild and exultant beauty will find no sympathy here. We will wait you out. Pave as many gardens as you please, but you’ll not get one inch further onto these lands. Ours is the sacred code of Life; ours is the everlasting battle between the Uncivilized and those that would Civilize them; ours the ancient and eternal struggle between the spontaneous and lively pipe organ of Nature and the sad and frustrated organ-grinder of Eternity.

And so the struggle continues, skirmish by skirmish, sortie by sortie.

Autumn is not far off now and soon the unending cascading of vines that characterizes the front of our home will subside and we can prepare to ignore the expected shoveling of the inevitable snow. We’ll have gotten through another year of engagement with the enemy and feel ready for our hard-earned hibernation.

But there was one more sneak attack today.

I was up early today when I suddenly realized I was overhearing a fairly loud conversation right outside my window between two men and it seemed to concern our garden.

I ran to the door and was outside in a flash, catching the conspirators as they were about to reach for the instruments of tidiness stashed in the back of their truck.

“Hey!” I said as I hobbled after the workmen, my cane leading the way. “What’s this about?”

Surprised, the two turned to face me. They seemed neither angry nor upset.

“Oh, hey man,” said one. “They just said to come out and do some cleaning up. Didn’t you order it?”

In point of fact, we’d been given the deadline of today to accomplish all the necessary work, but there was still some time left to do it by my calculation.

Explaining the situation, I continued “Well, look...you can see most of this is done, really..." I motioned towards the fence.

“That’s what we were saying, looks all right to us but they asked us to…”

“And I’m going to do this bit today, I mean, they can send someone to take a look if they want, but I’m not sure what more could be done.” By this time we were walking together around the premises, generally agreeing that we seemed to be up to code.

“Seems all right to us. I mean, it’s your yard, right? If you like it, why should they care?”

"Well," I said, "that's sort of what I thought..."

I was warming to this fellow right away.

Having completed our business, the man pointed to my walking stick and asked, “So, how are you feeling?”

I was a little startled, but answered “Oh, you know, I’ve been better!” and laughed.

“What is it, arthritis?”

“How did you know that?” I asked, impressed.

“Where is it, your leg?”

“Legs and back.”

“You wouldn’t know this but my people, Native American people, have always known how to fix this. You get a copper bracelet…”

“Bracelet…?”

“Yes, and you wear it on your leg, there around the ankle and it will help the arthritis.”

Now I remembered hearing these theories about copper bracelets before, but usually filed them away along with healing crystals and other new age babble.

But who knows? Like those cancer patients who are finally willing to try anything, perhaps I was ready to hold some of my usual skepticism at bay.

“Hope you’re feeling better,” the man said, shaking my hand and getting back into his truck.

“Thank you, thanks so much,” I said.

I went back into the house to do some research on copper healing, but wondered about what had just transpired.

I mean, I had sculpted this American Wilderness in our garden and suddenly an Original American, a Native American, appears and offers me counsel on how to use the earth to relieve my pain before disappearing once more into the mist?

Had I conjured him? Had I just experienced a Field Of Dreams effect? You know, had I instinctively built this Old World, this New Frontier for him and maintained it until he felt secure enough to appear?

Probably not. After all, he was driving an official township truck.

But it was something to think about.

I sat down and fell asleep in my chair, dreaming about the frontier and the territory and the tumbleweeds and the earth and its metals and its magnets.

I can't wait till Myron sees what I've got planned for next year.

Isaac Hayes: 1942 - 2008

2008-08-11T05:58:00.001-03:00

Can You Top This?

2008-08-10T15:00:00.002-03:00

And how had (Barack Obama’s parents) come together at a time when it was neither natural nor easy for such relationships to flourish? Always through politics…Usually the Communist Youth League…for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics…I don't know how (they) met. But the…article referenced above makes a very convincing case that Obama's family...had close relations with a known black Communist intellectual.
- Lisa Schiffren, National Review

Today, many are dead and Georgia is in crisis, yet the Obama campaign has offered nothing more than cheap and petty political attacks that are echoed only by the Kremlin. The reaction of the Obama campaign to this crisis, so at odds with our democratic allies and yet so bizarrely in sync with Moscow, doesn't merely raise questions about Senator Obama's judgment--it answers them.
- Tucker Bounds, McCain campaign spokesperson

Seventy-five-thousand people at an outdoor sports palace, well, that's something the Fuehrer would have done.
- Ben Stein, television personality

Pump You

2008-08-06T22:15:00.005-03:00

McCain's even letting Exxon have the top half of the ticket.

Coming To A Theater Of War Near You

2008-08-05T05:01:00.010-03:00

(from Mad Magazine, Sept.'08 issue)

I usually try not to rip off the Huffington Post as transparently as this, but this is where John McCain spoke today.

As you can see, they've managed to sandwich him in between the Wet and Wild Women of Wrestling and the Extreme Motorcycle Stunts.

Oh, and stuff like this (from the ’07 event).

The entire event seems designed as a kind of nightmare version of America, a scientific experiment dedicated to discovering our lowest national common denominator. Most of today's news stories simply referred to it as "a motorcycle rally."

If Obama is an elitist, I'd like a dozen, please.

John McCain: Classy!

UPDATE:

CNN:

Indeed, McCain felt so comfortable at the event that he even volunteered his wife for the rally’s traditional beauty pageant, an infamously debauched event that’s been known to feature topless women.

“I encouraged Cindy to compete,” McCain said to cheers. “I told her with a little luck she could be the only woman ever to serve as first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip.”

I guess he's already written off the women's vote.

Some People Call Him Mr. Ra...

2008-08-04T14:30:00.004-03:00

Mr. "Sonny Ray" (Sun Ra) takes the floor show in a decidedly different direction.

Of course, I've never reached this level of combustion yet, but I'm trying.

RG

Citizen Cane, Or: Behind The Velvet Dope

2008-08-02T21:04:00.005-03:00

Good evening to you, ladies and gentlemen. We are coming to you live from the newly reopened Acid Ballroom here in the heart of the spectacularly appointed Reflux Hotel, broadcasting to you from the usual cubbyhole at the corner of Disdain and Misanthropy.

The overcast sky is teasing me with the promise of a rainstorm which, at the moment, would have the sad and unfortunate effect of washing out this evening’s soirée at the estate of M. and Mme. Drunkass, the revelry from which is bouncing off the side of my house like a pimple ball of malice.

But that is not for you to suffer.

I idly wonder what Proust would have made of these garish marionettes and their haunted hierarchy of imbicilism. Would he have immortalized them better than I in some sort of A La Recherche Du Temps Baboon, reliving their bloated bellies and empty laughter as he munched his madeleine?

Of course from the sanctuary of his cork-lined room, Marcel wouldn’t have been bothered by the least of sounds, let alone the symphonic hymn of inebriation that is a Drunkass affair.

I am not so lucky.

But you know, they are the rule and I am the exception these days. Between television programs that present the sorry spectacle of competitive vomiting and an uneducated electorate that seems to think that the Antichrist is running for President, you and I, dear friends, are now living in a veritable monde du Drunkass, a global condition that threatens those of us who are still capable of raising an ice cream cone to our lips without accidentally mashing it against our forehead.

And the rain has not yet come.

And as I wait on my next line, I find myself twirling this new cane of mine.

I haven’t mentioned it, but with the recent trouble with back, legs, etc., I have begun to use a cane to get around.

Now I can’t tell how much this helps, to be honest. Some days it seems effective, others not so much.

But I must tell you, it has opened up a world of perks.

People are eager to help you, exceptions are made, and in general the world becomes a more hospitable place.

Just to give you one example, we went to a concert recently and asked whether or not I might be able to have a seat somewhere as this was a standing venue. In truth, I cannot stand for very long these days.

The surly looking gentleman at the door immediately seemed to become less grumpy. He happily led us inside the theatre an hour or so before it would be opened to the public and offered us any seat in the upstairs balcony, usually reserved for VIPs or guests of the band.

Having made our choice, another fellow came up behind us and cordoned off our area with a velvet rope so that no one would bother us.

Finally, we thought. Finally, someone is treating us the way we ought to be treated.

Throughout the show, we’d glance backwards at the crowd now straining against our rope, discussing whether or not to let this one in…or perhaps that one.

It was intoxicating.

I was a little frightened by the swiftness with which I’d decided that I deserved to be there and these others did not. After all, I’d never been that guy, the guy who had an “in” or “knew a guy that knew a guy.” I’d always had to scramble for what I got, like everybody else. Part of me started to feel guilty and uncomfortable.

I wondered how quickly I would condemn the next congressman or senator who was found with his hand in the cookie jar. Could I blame them, after having had a little taste of it?

As wonderful as it was, it felt a little like an admonition: Be careful what you wish for.

Beware of what you could become.

Things are back to normal now, though, and tonight there are important people being ushered in through secret entrances; tickets are changing clandestine hands and making money out of love; and whispers are building confidences and empires.

But tonight, I am here with you.

Waiting, waiting, waiting for the rain.

Wait with me.

Surging For Mr. Right

2008-07-28T05:01:00.001-03:00

One For The Viceroy

2008-07-24T04:44:00.005-03:00

Inspired by a recent e-mail from The Lord Chancellor Tigerbomb, I recently went trolling on MySpace for some fresh Scottish/UK pop.

To my surprise, I found a lot of stuff I liked. Echoes of old Postcard singles, a little Futureheads, some Young Marble Giants, and The Left Banke, of all things.

Anyway, some recommendations for you to click on:

Stuck in Rewind by The Dunderheids

Roll Up Your Sleeves (Live) by We Were Promised Jetpacks

Silversword by Ross Clark & the Scarfs Go Missing

Fresh Faced Boys by The Glass Hats

You Must Have Looked Into The Sun (When I Smiled) by We Are Trapped In Kansas

Everything MMA by The Child Echo

Pictures of Ourselves by The Birdman Rallies

Not On My Mountain by Tigerbomb

RG

More Elton John Ice Cream Flavors We'd Like To See

2008-07-17T20:09:00.002-03:00

NEWS ITEM - Elton John is the latest star to get the Ben and Jerry's treatment, with a new limited edition ice cream flavor "Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road" coming out in the U.S. later this month....

Coming soon, no doubt:

Philadelphia Fudgecake
I'm Still Strawberry
Rocket Macadamia
Caramel In The Mint
B-B-Banana And The Nuts
Chocodile Rock
Someone Saved My Lime Delight
Take Me To The Praline
Dulce de Leche That We Swear’s Fat Free

In Case You Forgot

2008-07-15T13:53:00.002-03:00

and he never disappoints. Today:

"When will the economy turn around? I'm not an economist...I'm an optimist..."

My god. How have we survived this? Or have we?

Fruitcakes In June

2008-06-26T09:25:00.005-03:00

Even if you never met (Obama), you know this guy. He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.
- Karl "You'll Believe A Pig Can Talk!" Rove

He's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology…(and has) a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution.
- Dr. James "Be Afraid...Be Very Afraid" Dobson

He's half African-American, (yet) I haven't heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos…Is it because he wants to talk white? He wants to appeal to white guilt…he's coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it's corporate or whether it's simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up.
- Ralph "I Eat Your Fruitcake" Nader

Spread Out!

2008-06-10T18:01:00.004-03:00

As I was reading a review of a new Three Stooges DVD set, I was reminded of one of those moments I'd loved that I hadn't thought about in years.

I always thought of it as "the Brighto one," but in reality it was actually called Dizzy Doctors (No, it's not the Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard one. That's Men In Black). In this one, the boys set off to sell "Brighto," which they take to be some sort of cleaning agent. When this guess proves to be disasterously wrong (it is, in fact, meant for medicinal purposes), they end up at a hospital where they attempt to sell it from room to room.

Well, the high point for me happens when they manage to gain control of the hospital's PA system and battle for the use of the microphone:

Moe: Hello, everybody! (imitates typical radio announcer) We just brought the moon over the mountain!
Curly: Hello, Ma! Hello, Pa! It wasn't much of a fight. I stood like that! But not for long! [Moe bonks Curly on the head]
Moe: Quiet! [Fruitily] This broadcast comes to you through the courtesy of Brighto! And its six delicious flavors: Chocolate, Vanilla, Cranberry, Strawberry.
Curly: And Raspberry. [Moe whacks him] Ow! It's still Raspberry! [Moe whacks him again] Ow!
Moe: Now keep quiet or I'll sock you again!
Larry [seeing his opening, he begins to croon]: Are you listenin'? Buh-buh-buh-boo! Buh-buh-buh-boo! Buh-buh... [Now Moe hits him!]

If you believe, as I do, that there's a profound giddiness at the heart of the world, a runaway train of nonsense kickstarting all life into being and endlessly expanding the universe, then a small, concentrated bit of it is inarguably reflected here.

But don't take my word for it...

And don't forget this obvious precursor to R. Kelly's Trapped In The Closet! videos.

(Thanks to Stuart Galbraith and DVD Talk.)

McCain Unable

2008-06-08T03:56:00.003-03:00

Now it appears as if Grampa Munster is having a difficult time coming up with his own slogans and prefers to merely copy his opponent's and pass it off as his own.

We say: It didn't work in third grade, and it won't work now.

So in the spirit of Fair Play, we thought we'd throw out a suggestion from time to time, as seen above.

We welcome any and all suggestions and encourage you to create your own!

RG

Morning In America

2008-06-04T12:05:00.000-03:00

Obama Nation

2008-06-04T04:35:00.004-03:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, the next President of the United States.

That’s sure what it felt like, anyway.

The difference between Obama and his opponent couldn’t have been more striking if you’d dressed them in red and blue.

First up was McCain’s speech, a haphazard screed completely built around Obama’s “Change We Can Believe In” slogan.

McCain would speak haltingly from the teleprompter about how Obama didn’t respect the American people’s ability to make their own decisions, and then pause to say, “That’s not change you can believe in,” which would be followed by this guttural snicker in his throat as if to say, “Oh, I got him that time!”

He looked a bit like a wax dummy, only moving left and right and unable to bend, his mouth a frozen and lopsided rictus. Sweat seemed to trickle down his face as he intoned for what seemed like the millionth time, “That’s not change you can believe in,” a statement, by the way, that openly acknowledges that Obama’s already framed the debate. Then the hehhehheh out of the throat again as the group of 70-somethings assembled would applaud at what they hoped were the proper times.

I have to admit, I’ve seen him do better. This was a train wreck.

Then Hillary was next and she spoke as if no sort of history at all was being made this night. Not only was there not any reference to the fact that Obama had won the nomination, there was no apparent understanding that she had, without a shadow of a doubt now, finally lost.

It felt self-absorbed and self-deluded, not to mention ungracious. Surely she could allow herself, now that it was over, to bend enough to…but, no. The consensus seemed to be that she was preparing to negotiate a place for herself on the ticket, which becomes an extremely sticky problem for the nominee. If he picks her for the VP slot but appears to have caved in to pressure, he’ll be seen as weak. If he doesn’t offer it to her, he risks offending her loyal constituency.

Then it was time for the main attraction. As the cheering started in the hall (the same hall that this year’s Republican convention will be held in), you once again felt that tingle go up your spine that said, “This is the crest of a wave – no one understands how big it is yet – but they will.” It reminded me of that line from Raiders Of The Lost Ark, that thing about how we’re passing through History, but this – this is History. It’s something you’ll get to tell the kids about years from now.

It doesn’t seem like so long ago that the wife and I walked down the street to a local Democratic rally to get out the vote. One of the speakers was Nancy Pelosi, while the other one was this Barack Obama everyone was talking about. Was he really the wunderkind everyone made him out to be? He was a wonderful and impassioned speaker, I thought, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him go far.

But this far, this fast? I wouldn’t have taken that bet.

His speech last night made the others pale beside it: It was generous where McCain’s was miserly. And it was gracious where Clinton’s was mean-spirited. And, once again, it built and built until the crowd seemed overwhelmed by inspiration and the possibility that we could make our country into the country it used to be, was meant to be. You could tell he meant what he said. He walked right up to the line where he could express emotion, but not so far that his opponents could label him unstable. But he got it across anyway.

You believed him.

What a strange sensation that must be for a new generation of voters.

Not to mention the fact that he looks Presidential as all hell, his chin perpetually tilted upward as if he were always looking towards the future.

You can’t count McCain out on the basis of this one performance, but the idea of watching these two side-by-side when the debates start…well, he’s got a lot of work to do if he wants to stay in the game, let’s put it that way.

I don’t see him winning. The new guessing game is how wide a margin he’ll lose by.

Once the wave breaks, it might be bigger than anybody imagined.

No Bo

2008-06-02T14:39:00.003-03:00

Really nice piece here.

Also worth checking out, especially The Animals bit at the bottom.

Porgie And Bass

2008-05-26T02:40:00.004-03:00

Snapped the other day at our local Whole Foods.

The guys behind the counter didn't seem to get it.

RG

Stairway To Unleavened

2008-05-20T05:54:00.003-03:00

Now there is a certain hurdle that men have to surmount if they’re interested in converting to Judaism.

There’s really no two ways about this one, either. Either you do it or you don’t. It’s kind of a deal-breaker.

Chances are that if you were born in the United States when I was, this hurdle was negotiated early on. Without asking your permission, in fact.

There’s even a movement now of men who look back in anger at what was done to them and actively try to reverse it via a complex system of weights and pulleys and…

Well, we needn’t continue.

The way I look at it, you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs. And there’s no point in closing the barn door after the horse has gone. And if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

However, even though I had already fulfilled this requirement, it was still necessary for ritual purposes for the skin to be broken and blood to be drawn from the, er, sacrificial site.

I was of two minds about this, not that this was going to be a Santería style bloodbath or anything. On the one hand, I was a little anxious about anything sharp getting close to this particular neighborhood. I had, I will confess, grown accustomed to it.

On the other hand, I felt a little flattered that so much attention was being paid to something that I had struggled in vain to interest people in for so many years.

At any rate, I kept my appointment and met with a fellow who apparently had experience in these delicate matters. With some trepidation, I watched as he applied a numbing agent to this most unnumb of areas. Then with a small scalpel, he pressed forth as gently as possible and made the tiniest of pricks.

(That’s just an expression, you understand. I’m definitely all man and the faint aroma of Old Spice wreathes my head like mosquitoes at a summer picnic.)

Having been witness to this action, the man looked up at me and said with a faint smile that seemed born of experience:

“Welcome to the tribe.”

The Lubavitcher had wrapped my arm in the tefillin before I knew what was happening.

Rush hour commuters barely gave us a glance as he fitted more leather straps on my head and led me in reciting a prayer. I tried to keep up with him as he went about the ritual, checking to see if any other parts of me were getting wrapped up in anything else.

Like a magician pulling off a tablecloth and leaving the plates intact, the Hassid finished the prayer and removed everything with a practiced flourish, almost as if he’d finished giving me a haircut.

He told me that what I had just done would bring me closer to G-d, which may have been true, but as I glanced at my watch and noted our rapidly depleting timeframe, I realized that it was bringing us no closer to Lou, or Elvis for that matter.

As I stood there dizzy, another fellow nods over at me and says, “You know, if you really want to do it, take it all the way, you have to go Orthodox.” I nod back groggily.

The wife then casually mentions that this was the first time I had ever worn tefillin and so everyone gets excited again, joining hands as we dance in a circle and sing Mazel Tov:

Simen Tov u Mazel Tov u Mazel Tov u Simen Tov!
Simen Tov u Mazel Tov u Mazel Tov u Simen Tov!

Here’s the interesting thing, though:

One of the commandments that a Jewish boy is expected to keep once he becomes Bar Mitzvah is to put on tefillin.

So, in essence I was having my Bar Mitzvah on a New York streetcorner, across the street from Radio City Music Hall.

Not to mention the fact that it was more or less 39 years late which, for me, was positively prompt.

It wouldn’t be a Bar Mitzvah without music, of course, so it was off to the TV studio where we witnessed the rare spectacle of Elvis Costello doing two old Velvet Underground songs, Beginning To See The Light and Femme Fatale.

Here comes two of you,
Which one will you choose?

One rarely knows who they really are, let alone who they may become. Anything can happen, depending on the time and the place. Sometimes you just have to ride it out and keep quiet and let the gifts come to you.

Well I’m beginning to see the light.

For instance, if we’d walked the same route through Times Square one week to the day after this, we’d have run into two nearly naked women from PETA showering in the street to protest the fact that it takes 5,000 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat.

The Naked Cowboy even showed up at one point to join them in naked solidarity.

How does it feel to be loved?

I daresay the day might have gone very differently.

Sh'ma, He's Making Eyes At Me!

2008-05-09T04:25:00.006-03:00

In recent months, the synagogue that we belong to has been vandalized.

There was spray-painted graffiti and a fire that later proved to be arson.

It’s difficult for me to believe that these kinds of things still happen, let alone where I live. I was suddenly reminded of a moment in the ceremony that ended in my official conversion. The rabbi asked me if I was willing to commit myself to the lot of the Jewish people, whatever that might mean at any given time.

In other words, if I accepted whatever came along with identifying myself as a Jew.

And I remember feeling a little shiver at that moment, because I knew what it meant. This was no longer playtime. There could be unwanted consequences that came along with this, depending on the place and the moment.

And, although these attacks were not personally directed at me, they were, in a way. Someone had made a judgment about me without ever having met me, decided that they hated me for reasons that had nothing to do with who I was.

And I thought: this conversion thing has always been bashert.

Because how inevitable was it that, when the time came to declare my allegiance to a particular faith, I would pick the one that would result in more people hating me?

I could see the two Lubavitchers waiting to pounce on me at the end of the block, the remaining gateway between us and the television studio. If we could navigate these waters briskly and quickly, we would soon be joining the select audience who’d managed to flatter their way into Studio 8-H, the home of Saturday Night Live and occasional renegade productions such as this.

As we arrived at the busy corner, carried along with the human undertow that only New York provides, I could hear a voice ask me, “Are you Jewish?”

Now I understood that for all intents and purposes, this confrontation was going to be no different than a hundred other hectorings by fundamentalists. They believed that the only genuine way to be Jewish was the Orthodox way, just as the fundamentalist Christian believed I would go to Hell, or the committed Catholic condemn me for not genuflecting.

And normally I would not listen to any of them for very long.

But I had made this commitment, you see, to identify myself as a Jew, regardless of the consequences.

And so I said, “Yes.”

I was immediately asked if I would be interested in putting on tefillin, the small boxes containing scripture that you bound to your arm and head with leather straps. It was a Jewish ritual I had never performed before, meant to focus the mind on holy things.

And I was here, at this time, in this place.

I looked to the wife for guidance. She shot me a pleasant look that nevertheless read, “You’re on your own, kid.”

I honestly didn’t know what would happen next, what I would say next.

I looked at the wife again. This time we tried to read each other’s faces, looking for evidence of what the other one thought. We had places to go, people to see.

I glanced again at the Passover! pamphlet:

Would the world be any different if any one of us had not been born?

There had been so many times I’d wished I hadn’t been.

And then suddenly, wordlessly, we’d decided.

“OK,” I said.

But we were born.

And there I was, smack in the middle of the New York Metro Area, suddenly face to face with these leather straps.

Well, it was New York.

Next: Stairway To Unleavened

It's Going To Be A Long Summer

2008-04-23T16:13:00.003-03:00

Perception:

Reality:

Mitzvah In Manhattan! Or: It! The Torah From Beyond Space!

2008-04-21T03:58:00.004-03:00

Tefillin are two small black boxes with black straps attached to them; Jewish men are required to place one box on their head and tie the other one on their arm each weekday morning.
- Jewish Literacy, Joseph Telushkin

I’m dancing in a circle singing Mazel Tov while holding hands with two strange Hasidic men (strange as in I’ve only just met them) on a Manhattan street corner, just a block or so away from Radio City Music Hall.

I don’t seek these non sequiturs in my life out, you understand. Somehow they seem to come looking for me, as if to say “Please stop complaining about how boring your life is. When it gets boring, you’ll know it.”

The wife and I had braved the streets of New York so that we might attend a taping of Elvis Costello’s new talk show, Spectacle (he wears glasses, geddit?). Coming to a Sundance cable channel near you this fall, we’d been promised that the interviewee would be none other than the King of New York, Lou Reed, a combination that threatened to send the wife’s head spinning off her shoulders like a Frisbee.

The text that is inserted inside the two boxes of Tefillin (are)… the words of the Torah on a scroll, hand-written by a scribe (and) placed directly between one's eyes and on one's arm. Tefillin are wrapped around the arm seven times, and the straps on the head are adjusted so they fit snugly.

We went from the Port Authority to Times Square, hobbling our way up the street as we’re both suffering from leg problems at the moment. I was keeping one eye peeled for this parody of The Wall Street Journal that poked fun at how it would look now that Rupert Murdoch had gotten hold of it. So far, no luck.

As we crossed the most famous intersection in the world, I noticed this RV or bus type thing that was driving past, emblazoned with the words Mitzvah Tank.

“What is that, do you suppose?” I asked the wife.

“Oh, I read about them,” she replied. “Something to do with the Lubavitchers celebrating the 106th birthday of the Rebbe. They’ve got 58 of these Mitzvah Tanks out there to mark each year of his leadership.”

“Really?” I said. “But what do they actually do?”

One Jewish group, the Lubavitcher Hasidim, have made a particular effort to promote the mitzvah of Tefillin among Jewish males. They often set up vans, known as Mitzvah Mobiles, in neighborhoods frequented by Jews, and ask men who pass by: "Are you Jewish?"

We’d gone just about another block when a small boy in Hasidic garb came up to me and asked me “Are you Jewish?”

I replied, “Yes, yes I am.”

He then handed me a pamphlet that loudly proclaimed Passover! on its cover and explained at the bottom, Courtesy of Mitzvah Tank Int.

Flipping to the back, I read that they were indeed celebrating the birthday of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by bringing “a Mitzvah on the spot for people on the go.” That certainly sounded convenient, and time-saving, too.

Underneath the headline Do we truly matter? I read

The Rebbe would often point out: The very fact that you are here, in this place, at this time…means there is something to be done

A comforting thought, especially for someone who frequently questioned his cosmic usefulness.

something that only you can do

Even better.

something of utmost importance to G-d.

Now I’m starting to feel a little stressed, especially as I’ve now noticed the two Orthodox gentlemen on the next corner who seem to have taken an interest in us.

...bring G-d’s presence into your corner of the universe.

I had the feeling that I was about to receive a lot of help in this department.

Next: Sh'ma, He's Making Eyes At Me!

Le Peep, C'est Sheep! or: Who's The Boss?

2008-04-09T23:25:00.001-03:00

On the subject of M. Le Peep, I can only imagine what the reactions of those ears in the immediate vicinity were to some of our overdone felicitations.

For example, a typical morning would usually start in this fashion:

Le Peep: “Good morning, Chief! How is the Chief?”

Me: “No, no, I’m not the Chief. I think we know who the Chief is here.”

“No, you are the boss! Everyone knows it! I am merely here to be instructed by you, to learn what I can from the Chief!”

“No, sir, no. It is not I who am the Chief. You, sir, you – are the Chief. The other day when you were out – I had people coming over all day hoping to speak with you and you should have seen their faces when they realized I was not the Chief. The pitiful expressions on their faces as this realization began to sink in were heartbreaking to behold.”

“That is only because they were far too much in awe of the real Chief to let you know that they were only using me as an excuse to get to you! Too afraid to address you by name, they created this subterfuge of wishing to speak to me – thereby allowing them to bask in the presence of the real, true Chief without appearing to be the sad and subservient creatures that they are!”

“That is what they are hoping you believe! They are hoping you believe that their show of obeisance to you is actually camouflaged and hidden devotion to me, thereby throwing you off the scent and disguising the truth of the matter – namely, that it is you, the one and only true Chief by both bloodline and public acclamation, that is the actual target of their worship and adoration.”

“Only the true Chief would allow himself to be misled by his own innate and infinite modesty in such a way. By refusing the mantle of the Chief, you only prove yourself to be the Chief all the more, in an even more fierce and committed fashion. Again, this is evidence that a man is gracious, if he can look upon the life of another and claim it is better than his own. Many men see grace in other men, but with a maligning eye. They see it to disgrace it. They are so vainglorious and ambitious, that when they see the lives of other men outshew theirs, instead of imitation, they go to base courses. They obscure and darken that light with slanders, that they will not imitate in their courses. What grace they will not imitate they will defame. Does it not say in 1 Peter 5:4, ‘And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away’? You, sir, and I can not stress this strongly enough, are that Chief.”

“I confess, you flatter me, sir, with such a description. I am not, however, this Chief that you believe me to be. The sort of men you describe swagger in the world, as if they were upon their own dunghill there, and as if they were the only men in the world, as indeed for the most part they are. What we love, that we are knit unto. Now because carnal men are in love with the things of the world, being united in their affections to it, they have their name from that they love. And indeed, anatomise a carnal man that is not in the state of grace, rip him up in his soul, what shall you find in him but the world? You shall find in his brain worldly plots, worldly policy and vanity. You shall find the best thing in him is the world; therefore he is the world.”

We could go on like this for hours. After a while it would start to sound like a Chip and Dale cartoon written by Richard Sheridan.

The Strange Case Of Monsieur Le Peep

2008-04-04T03:05:00.004-03:00

One of the things that can make the workday bearable is having a co-worker around that you know is just as fed up with the place as you are.

With my most recent job, I got lucky in this by being assigned to assist Monsieur Le Peep, a strange, talkative gentleman who hailed from Peeperia and whose country was only now beginning to heal from the ravages of a painful civil war.

A naturally enthusiastic person who engaged anyone who passed by in conversation, Monsieur Le Peep liked nothing better than to debate. He would always do this with extreme delicacy, though, prefacing any statement that he thought capable of giving even unintentional offence with an apology, which I really wasn’t used to.

Having lived through a savage era in his country’s history during which unspeakable atrocities were commonplace, he tended to be more conservative than I when it came to subjects like the death penalty or criminals who’d plead insanity, and he enjoyed nothing more than teasing me about my liberal opinions.

“Your excellency,” he would say by way of greeting in the morning. This mock humility was a running gag of Le Peep’s, sort of his version of “No, you the man!” If anyone asked him how he was doing, the answer would invariably come back, “Just tryin’ to be like you, man!” in his distinctive Peeperian accent, “Just tryin’ to be like you!”

But there was no one quite like Le Peep. In some ways, it was a little like sitting next to 9/11.

By which I mean he was able (and eager) to give me an idea of how America was seen from outside its borders. He’d talk about the disappointment other countries felt over America’s lack of moral leadership, something they always felt they could depend on. He’d discuss how he thought American parents were far too lenient and that this lack of discipline was the cause of much of our current trouble. He’d insist that mental illness was purely cowardice practiced by those individuals who were too lazy to come to grips with their lives.

Needless to say, we had some lively chats.

“In my country, we didn’t have time for depression or suicide because we were too busy trying to survive,” he’d say. “These were luxuries we couldn’t afford.” Indeed, you could imagine Le Peep triumphing over any obstacle with good humor as a result of having been forged in that crucible. That was the thing about him. If you lifted your head high enough above the cubicle horizon to survey the landscape, it would mostly seem to consist of a mix of the lost and the soul-dead, gazing silently at their well-named “terminals.”

But there in the middle of it, like a shoot of grass making its way through concrete, was Le Peep, moving, talking and always smiling. If I had lived his life I doubt I’d ever talk to anyone, but here he was smiling almost constantly and being consistently positive about practically everything.

Maybe, I figured, it was because he had a truer sense of the value of life than most of us did, having seen what he’d seen.

The other peculiar thing was that he spoke the best and most proper English in the place, albeit in a sometimes difficult-to-decipher accent. I was so used to hearing language being debased and simplified that I was a little shocked at first, not to mention that it appeared that the most well-spoken person in the room was someone who’d spent most of his life in another country.

I remember once saying something to him about “a light in the darkness” and without looking up he said “Lux in tenebras.” Let me assure you that he was the only person in this establishment that I ever heard breathe even a hint of Latin.

It turned out that Lux in tenebras was actually the official motto of Peeperia University, which seemed appropriate considering the ludicrousness of attempting to educate yourself under these kinds of circumstances.

It also described Le Peep himself, a seemingly inexhaustible warehouse of decorum, knowledge, and humor.

When we weren’t at loggerheads over the penal system, Le Peep would sometimes share stories from his native land with me. These were allegories that usually featured various wild animals arguing with each other over some fine philosophical point. Similarly, he would sometimes respond to my opinions by bringing up a popular expression he’d grown up with that I’d never heard before.

I remember him once saying to me, “Well, Screwloose, it’s like we say back in my country.”

“Yes?”

“You can’t fight an old lady with a big penis.”

Doubtless this was true (or, certainly, should have been), but I never managed to figure that one out.

Better off, I expect.

Next: Le Peep, C'est Sheep! or: Who's The Boss?

Don't You Ever Leave Off?

2008-03-25T01:15:00.000-03:00

Before the Sex Pistols, before Joy Division, before Gary Numan, there was Drimble Wedge and the Vegetations...

Would-be rock star Dudley Moore has wowed the crowd and the girl of his dreams (Eleanor Bron) with the histrionic "Love Me!", but along comes Peter Cook to prove that the opposite tack would be even more devastating.

And yes, someone did cover it (Bongwater).

From Bedazzled (1967).

Deadly Is The Gun Crazy Night! or: Out Of The Pabst

2008-03-24T03:15:00.003-03:00

The question hung in the air accusingly.

“What made you think you could get away with smoking that in there?”

The that in question obviously being the sher bidi herbal cigarette I had been smoking in the snug of the Ye Olde Ale House mere moments before.

Our accusers were two young men, apparently undercover cops, who’d had their eyes on us and followed us out to our car to make the pinch. From the looks on their faces, you would have thought they’d just found the weapons of mass destruction in Al Capone’s vault.

Everything about their speech and demeanor suggested that they’d spent hours preening in the mirror while practicing lines like “Freeze, scumbag!” or “You talkin’ to me?” They certainly seemed to fancy themselves some latter-day Starsky and Hutch or perhaps, judging from their bad 70’s coifs, a couple of Charlie’s Angels.

On the other hand, they’d probably never run into three more unlikely criminal masterminds than the odd squad before them: Fred, who would have been happy to argue some point of Catholic orthodoxy with them; M., who could make a pair of panties drop at 50 paces by merely gazing in their direction; and, of course, caught between the sacred and the profane once again, yours truly, trapped in a world he never made.

The same terrible trio would once again get themselves in dutch with the authorities during a cross-country trip in a U-Haul, during which Fred would attempt to turn onto the ramp of a rest stop at too high a speed on a snowy day. The truck came to an abrupt stop when a tree confronted it, the strong upper branches of which had peeled the top of the U-Haul back as if it were a sardine can.

What was it about us that seemed to bring out law enforcement?

Back at the Ale House, we were made to stand with our palms against the car and our legs apart as we were searched for more of the deadly herbs.

“Where’d you get the stuff, man?” asked the one with a moustache.

“Yeah, where’d you get the stuff?” said the other, clearly the sidekick.

“It’s an herbal cigarette,” I protested. “I bought them at a tobacco shop.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Moustache as he started to search me, “What tobacco shop? What tobacco shop sells that?”

“Any,” I said helpfully.

“What’s your name, smart guy?”

“Robert.”

“Well, Bob,” said Moustache, “looks like you could use some new pockets here, huh?” He’d discovered my coat’s hole-filled pockets and from the tone of his voice, I could guess that he thought that I kept them that way intentionally so as to quickly dispose of any evidence, should a situation like the one before us arise.

Meanwhile, Hutch was actually going though the car, searching for incriminating evidence but coming up with nothing. Slowly, it was beginning to dawn on Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade here that it was possible they had made an error.

The funny thing was, it didn’t make them any less belligerent. They kept up the same blustery patter as they turned to leave, attempting to save face with such sentence fragments as “Well, you just better not…” and “If we catch you with that again…” It was all nonsense, but the last thing in the world they could do was admit they’d been wrong. There would be no apology or further discussion.

It was as if it hadn’t happened.

We all got in the car feeling a little shell-shocked. M. reached into the glove compartment for something and gasped.

“What is it?” Fred and I asked in unison.

“Oh my god,” he said, sounding a little shaky. “I had dope in the glove compartment!”

And the stars shone down on the pitiless Boulevard D’Morte, cuisinart of the carless, as they lent some of their brilliance to the electric magnificence of the drive-in signs, and demonstrated that mercy was not obsolete as we pulled out of the parking lot and savored the vagaries of fate and life and what was to come.

Maybe it was the last break we’d ever get. Maybe it was a going-away present.

But this, all of this, was years and years and years ago.

I sit here, now, in a future that doesn’t exist yet and figure they’re all going to catch up to me eventually. And in another one I’m looking at me writing this and wondering if he ever suspected what was to come.

All of it has been lived, all of it, everyone’s breaths suspended in the air, the air that ends at the edge of space.

Beyond that, all is forgiven.

Don't Fear The Reefer

2008-03-23T02:03:00.004-03:00

The Ye Olde Ale House had one of those old and marvelous neon signs with colored letters on a marquee, the end result resembling candies sitting atop a luscious ice cream bar. I would get hungry just looking at it.

In fact in those days, there were wonderful examples of this art up and down the Boulevard D’Morte, so nicknamed because of its lethal effect on any pedestrian who attempted to cross it. Trying to walk across the 16 lanes of this monstrous human bowling alley was like taking your life in your hands. The motorists who traveled it looked at it as the final frontier, a grand and unconquered prairie where a man could ride the range unencumbered by rules and regulations.

To cross in front of any one of these dreaming masses, slumped and bewitched behind the steering wheel, was foolishness.

Just a little further up the road sat a couple of drive-ins with massive, gaudy signs that were masterpieces of overkill. In my unreliable memory, there seems to be a river of lights like white corpuscles swimming through a narrow piping all along its brightly lit body, while a pool of glitter seems to explode from a fountain serving as a mast to a ship with a multicolored hull.

I tend to romanticize these things.

But they were beauts and there was always a shiver and thrill when as kids we’d be going past it in the car and manage to catch a furtive glance of what was happening on the screen. Eventually they went all-porno and then disappeared, which is basically how most of show business works.

The Boulevard D’Morte (or Carnival of Souls as some called it) was the mighty rope that bound the lush, green Philadelphia suburbs to its more nervous and neurotic cousin, the Center City. On a whim, I once traversed its length on a bicycle in the middle of the night with a box of cereal in its wire basket. During some stretches there was hardly any room for a bike at all, and it felt like a battle trying to not become roadkill.

Up and down, up and down. How many times had I wandered it, looking for a cure for the dream?

But on the night in question, this night, we find Fred, M., and myself exiting the doors of the Ye Olde Ale House, perhaps a little worse for the wear but nothing you’d notice.

M. was driving and he had this great, sporty car that was red and white like a candy cane. I was always the passenger as I wasn’t to get a driver’s license until about the age of 30, so I was eternally being chauffeured about by this one and that one. The irony was that driving would turn out to be one of my great pleasures and, in fact, I proved to be quite good at it.

But all that was years away.

This was the last gasp of that time when everyone you know still lived within a 3-block radius, before adulthood beguiled you with silver and gold and slowly and inexorably pried your world apart with unstoppable force.

So, a moment for our heroes, then.

Let them enjoy their youth, their time, their freedom. Let them explore this new world, with its chilled mugs of ale and its herbal cigarettes.

Let them come up to the edge of the Boulevard D’Morte, but go no further.

Now I was the first one into the car, clambering into the back seat of M.’s 2-door. Then came Fred who was riding in the passenger side.

We were talking as we waited for M. to take his place when, suddenly and without warning, Fred was no longer talking or, indeed, even in his seat.

As this was sinking in, a voice was asking me to step out of the car.

So close, I thought. We had been so close to escaping.

Conclusion: Deadly Is The Gun Crazy Night! or: Out Of The Pabst

VIP

2008-03-19T03:02:00.004-03:00

Eliot Spitzer by Barbara Kruger for New York Magazine.

What's The New Mary Jane?

2008-03-16T04:40:00.005-03:00

I should say a few words about the House of Fred.

The House of Fred lay 5 or 6 houses down from mine on the other side of the street. Fred’s family were an advanced and overachieving group gifted with above-average intelligence who sometimes seemed bred from a different strain of DNA than most of us. Reading, studying, difficult math problems and foreign languages were commonplace and effortless here. Arts high and low mingled freely and the latest albums and comics were always in copious supply.

They also had this thing called an FM radio.

This thing just amazed me. It played music in stereo, for cryin’ out loud, and the music that the FM stations played was like nothing I’d ever heard before. And the DJ’s just talked normally, like you would talk to a friend or something. It certainly wasn’t the rapid fire patter I was used to from the AM dial.

There was Fred, his two older brothers (who brought much of this interesting stuff to our attention), and his sister George. They had moved to Philadelphia from Detroit where they had been neighbors with the Nugent family. The story went that Fred’s dad actually brought the infant Ted Nugent home from the hospital. If the child killed, skinned, and ate anything during the trip, Fred’s dad never mentioned it.

Everything I knew about what was going on musically came from the House of Fred. I routinely borrowed huge stacks of LP’s to take home. It was Fred’s brother who (a curse on his head) introduced me to Finnegans Wake and it was George who gave me the boxed set of Stravinsky ballets.

So it would not be an exaggeration to say that I received a sort of secondary education at the House of Fred. I’m not sure exactly how Fred and I first got together, but I can recall an early conversation about what the girl members of the Legion of Super-Heroes would look like naked. From that moment on it was a fast friendship that lasted all the way through high school.

Now as we approached the college years we saw less and less of each other as everyone’s lives began to change. I think it was George who first introduced me to M. (they had a mutual interest in recreational…stuff) and we slowly but surely became partners-in-crime, eventually ending up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, along with the OG and the less said about that frozen wasteland the better.

Which is not to say that M. replaced Fred, but there was the sense of a torch being passed.

It was a relationship that lasted until M. turned to me one day and said, “I’m sick of this poverty shit!” and became interested in a popular human potential movement, at which point any friend who was not also interested in it was cut loose. You couldn’t really talk to him anymore as he now spoke a different language that consisted of new age bromides and fortune cookie messages.

But this was years away still.

At this moment, however, you find the three of us, myself and two of the closest friends I was ever likely to have and representing between them two halves of my life, hunkered over our frosty mugs at the Ye Olde Ale House as I decide to light up a herbal cigarette.

I actually still have the box. I’m holding it now.

From India, the top of the box reads. A True Herbal Treasure For Your Smoking Pleasure.

It felt much cooler smoking this than a cigarette. It looked cooler, it smelled cooler, and it gave me the exotic and worldly air of someone who could think outside the crush-proof box.

In fact, in the dark, I suppose someone unfamiliar with what an actual joint looked and smelled like could be forgiven for thinking that I might have just lit one up. Certainly I could tell the difference. Its leafy exterior looked nothing like a joint and the strangely sweetish odor you identify with them was completely absent.

So, like, maybe a 10-year old kid might jump to that conclusion, or your dear sainted grandmother who’d read about them in the paper. Sure.

But not a cop. That would never happen because they have too much experience with that sort of thing. They deal with it all the time.

I mean, they train them, right?

Next: Don't Fear The Reefer

To Sher Bidi With Love

2008-03-13T04:08:00.009-02:00

Somewhere in my young adulthood lives a slice of time in which, having recently discovered the charms of alcoholic beverages, I could be found lifting a beer or ale to my lips with the consummate ease and polish of a professional.

This was often done in tandem with M., the friend I have mentioned previously who was catnip to the ladies. I suppose he was good looking in a John Cusack/Richard Gere sort of way, if you like that kind of thing. It seems to me there were a few years where all we did was drive around and go to parties, imagining ourselves living some lost chapter of On The Road. I think we did everything but yell “Go! Go! Go!” out the window as we cruised the endless asphalt ribbons that lay glittering under the street lamps of the American Night.

We went to Lowell with the OG in tow and visited Kerouac’s grave, in fact, and spent some time at the nearby bar that his brother-in-law still ran. I can remember him taking a photo album out from under the bar to show us some family pictures and it all felt a little eerie and lonely.

But that’s not the bar story I want to tell.

Right where our local road emptied out onto the main boulevard, there stood a world of wonder that called itself Ye Olde Ale House and its specialty was providing customers with freshly chilled glass mugs from which to sip their favorite tipple.

My friend and I would go once in a while and purchase Ballantine Pale Ale in these frosted mugs and, by god, they really did taste better that way.

Some sad news from Wikipedia, however:

“It is fairly obvious that the formula and brewing process have both changed quite considerably over the years (multiple times) and that the present day Ballantine bears only a very slight resemblance to the original brew. This is most notably evident in the lack of hop character that was present in the original (which was a direct result of the generous addition of house-distilled aromatic hop oils).”

I don’t suppose I can complain too much about this as I, too, have lost much of my original flavor over the years.

At any rate, I remember this one evening when we were both sitting around with one of my oldest friends in the neighborhood, a tall kid named Fred, when we got it into our heads to pay the old (or, rather, olde) Ale House a visit.

Now sometime shortly before this, I had made the acquaintance of those herbal Indian cigarettes known as sher bidis.

Colored dark green, the one end was almost flat as if it were a whistle, but it concluded in a small flare shape at the other. They looked as though someone had taken a leaf and wound it up very tightly until it resembled those long trumpets you saw in movies that always seemed to announce the arrival of someone important.

It must have been cold as I remember wearing my winter coat with the pockets that had developed so many holes that you could not reasonably expect to find anything you actually put in them ever again. I was always hard pressed to abandon any favorite piece of clothing, however, and that coat had a long and lusty run, even if it was completely impractical.

We drove over and wandered into the dimly lit confines of the Ale House, finding a vacant table and ordering some frosty mugs.

As the drinking commenced, it seemed to me that the perfect complement to this chilly beverage would be one of these sher bidis, a box of which was sitting precariously in one of my coat pockets.

I got one out and lit up the flared end, enjoying the somewhat forestal aroma of burning leaves that, basically, is what it was.

It certainly smelled more pleasant than a cigarette.

Perhaps, as it turned out, too much so.

Next: What's The New Mary Jane?

Popcorn! Popcorn! Music! Music!

2008-03-11T03:36:00.005-02:00

You never know when the drummer might have to leave to make a house call...

The documentary Girls Rock! opened in a handful of cities last Friday. Check out the trailer here, visit with 7-year old Palace here, read some reviews, or check out the official site.

RG