Who Am Us Anyway?

Turn In Your Badge

2012-01-21T21:41:00.000-06:00

Not being a rich Republican, or a rich Democrat for that matter, I don't know much about the GOP primaries but I DO know who all these guys remind me of.

Newt: He's a loose cannon: You're a LOOSE CANNON, Newt, and there's no place for you on the force! I don't care if it goes all the way to the MAYOR'S office! You got your partner killed, and you're gonna get yourself killed! Turn in your badge and your gun, officer! You're supposed to be a COP, not a one man WRECKING MACHINE!

And YOU'RE off the case too, McCarnagle!

Now Mitt, on the other hand ...

... why, if he's not the spittin' image of Sherman McCoy, i'm blind as a bat and lacking the sonar!

Rick Santorum? Way too easy -- he's Nathan Thurm, of course. Or is it Nathan Thurm is Rick Santorum, or is it ...

In conclusion, give me a C, a bouncy C.

Ron Paul?

Well see there you go AGAIN, Larry. WHY do you say that's Ron Paul who is running for president? That's not Ron Paul -- that's Ross Perot.

Nick Danger: I'll tell you guys what I'm gonna do! I'll tell you what! I'm gonna get even with every rotten cop in this city!

Paolo: Yeah, me too!

Guido: How you gonna do it, Nick? How you gonna do it?

Nick: I'm gonna ... turn in my badge!

Guido: Yeah! I'm gonna burn my uniform!...

—The Firesign Theatre, How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All?

Poptastrophe 2007

2012-01-20T22:13:00.000-06:00

The old Italian ice stand on Pancake Avenue

"Older guy with super dyed black Beatles haircut and those really kind of tight pants and vintage Knack shirt in a sidecar going downhill?

Addicted to Beatlesque rock 'n roll?

"His whole life is basically built around going downhill." -- A caller on Power Pop Pop-Pop's sidecar-based lifestyle.

Once again I have taken the following notes, which should get you past the test tomorrow in second period if you don't have time to listen to the entire Best Show with Tom Scharpling, and here they are:

Captain's Donuts = my favorite watering hole: I hope all this publicity doesn't ruin it ...

quad p = Power Pop Pop-Pop

double p = Power Pop

Poptastrophe 2007

Detective Reginald Fleer and that Italian ice stand on Pancake Avenue

Power Pop Pop-Pop's Power Pop Palace

Pol Pop, the Powerpop Dictator

Q. How does Power Pop Pop-Pop pop you?
A. Well he's got this little, like, weapon, and he calls it ... The Popper?

White Power Pop = great band, but lyrics ... not good

The Saturday Evening Post, 1932

2012-01-17T22:18:00.004-06:00

So for my mom's 80th, my cousin Linda tracked down and gave her a primo copy of the 1932 Saturday Evening Post. This flat-out freaked me out, it's so great. I just wanted to find a quiet corner and read the thing. I couldn't do that, it being a birthday party and all, but I stole some photos of it.

It was just ... I mean in this magazine you could read an article by this guy

that was illustrated by this guy

OK? I mean that's nuts right there. But then I turn a few more pages and hey here's another guy i know. OK, "know of." But no, I kinda know him, too.

Now I have it on good authority that nowadays you can be an "English major" without ever having read this dead white man. It was better in the 60s & 70s, but even then you could get through school thinking this guy never had to sweat a deadline but just sat around on the veranda, stroking his chin & drinking mint juleps and writing novels for English professors.

OK, so maybe Faulkner DID spend a lot of time sitting around on the veranda drinking mint juleps, but that's not my point.

My point is, in 1932 you could plop down a dime & buy a copy of a freaking mass market magazine and read Will Rogers & William Faulkner just like there was nothing to it.

Just another day. No big deal.

And not to mention the car ads - i'll get to those later.

But this is not the first time I have had a keen sense that I was somehow just born in the wrong decade. I am quite sincere when I say I often think I'd have been a better man, albeit much poorer, if I had been a man of the 1920s & 1930s, and not just because I wouldn't be the only one who was into wearing cool hats.

Although that's part of it.

Sound like a hillbilly

2012-01-15T00:27:00.003-06:00

The photo's looking out the Chicago living room window of my dear friends Charlie & Ellen, but it reminded me of Dylan at the age of 20, who having left the U the year before to hitchhike to NYC with neither money nor friends, said wintertime in New York town -- the wind blowin’ snow around, walk around with nowhere to go -- he said to rooms even smaller than the small room at Gerdes Folk City, he said: somebody could freeze right to the bone. He said, "I froze right to the bone."

Dinosaurs

2012-01-12T22:40:00.001-06:00

I dunno what it is, but here's what it sounds like

and as Ms. Who mentions, here's what it looks like when it's flying like a dinosaur

A dinosaur, Ms. Who? You KNOW i'm just a jeepster for your love.

Lucky LaRue Trois

2012-01-07T21:51:00.000-06:00

So lessee, since i last visited the question of how did John Prine come upon the amazingly perfect name Lucky Larue for his great song I aint hurtin' nobody, in the post now known by me as Lucky Larue Too to distinguish it from my first post on Lucky Larue, an anonymous commenter whose possibly real or possibly pseudonymous name is Scott Nolan (and who might also possibly be a Canadian songwriter to boot) but is in any event the real author of a fine book that I've downloaded & am now about half through reading and enjoying ... on my iPhone, mind you! ... with the arresting title of Argyle Gargoyles: A Darkly Humorous Novel that You Too Should Download from Amazon or B&N ... well, he left a comment suggesting I check out the music of Mr. Frank Trainor, since Trainor had written & recorded a song by the name of Lucky LeRoux ... back in The Comfort Sound Sessions of ... 1981/82.

Being a steel trap, my mind instantly recalled -- at the speed of light! -- that I Aint Hurtin' Nobody wasn't released by Oh Boy Records on Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings until ... 1995. OK, I had to look it up. But still.

So having done that, ladies and gentlemen, I was already on the Nolan Train for Trainor when ... up steps a commentator by the name of ... Frank Trainor! Yes! And HE says well, he says he might not be the source for the name in Prine's song, but then again, he might, to wit, he says:

Hello and Happy New Year.

Just stumbled upon your comments conversation re: Lucky LaRue and thought I’d offer my take on the matter for what it might be worth.

Thanks Anonymous for referencing my song Lucky LeRoux from my 1981 album The Comfort Sound Sessions and indeed, Lucky LeRoux and all songs from that record and many other older recordings, have just been uploaded to YouTube, so lots to hear there now. My Lucky LeRoux story is stranger than fiction. First of all, I actually have an old friend,Lucien "Lucky" LeRoux, a musician now known as Lucien Parkin. He's fine musician/artist, a bit older than me, and he inspired me early on towards my own life as a songwriter/artist. I wrote the song Lucky Leroux in tribute to him in the mid 70’s and around ’79 had an opportunity to pitch a rough worktape demo of it to a Canadian sub-publisher in Canada named Mark Altman. He liked the song and said he thought John Prine might like it and could he send it to him. I was thrilled of course to have such interest from a publisher firstly and honored to know a pitch would be made to John Prine. As far as I was able to determine after that meeting, the song was pitched, but follow up’s were few, so I moved on. This was years before Ain’t Hurtin’ Nobody of course but I got a real kick out of the Lucky reference when I heard Prine’s Ain’t Hurtin’ Nobody years later and would frequently tell people that John Prine must have indeed been subliminally channeling my Lucky LeRoux song.

Good for a laugh, but as fate would have it, I succeeded in my efforts as a songwriter/artist scoring several country radio hits in Canada in the mid 80’s winning recognition and interest from major publishers in Nashville. I eventually signed to a publisher’s staff as a writer on Music Row in 1987. Around the time of Bug’s start-up office on the row if my memory serves. Indeed, I first met and talked with JP at The Station Inn one night after a gig there and a few times around the Row at BMI and The Bluebird but I have no idea if he ever even heard my Lucky LeRoux song or if the title name factored into his creative processes in any way as there are lots of legendary Lucky LaRue stories out there I’m sure. Tony Hazelton’s old band from his very early days cut a song called Lucky LeRoux as well somewhere along the line in their career, so I harbor no illusions that my Lucky was THE Lucky LaRue in JP’s song despite Canadian publisher Mark Altman’s possible pitch to him years ago.

As Bob Dylan says in Things Have Changed…”lot of water under the bridge…lot of other stuff too”…so I’m just happy to be able to ring in on this theme today ahead of the new year bell and say hello.

The Lucky LeRoux I knew was a real deal and there's a great photo of him that appears at the end of my YouTube clip of Lucky LeRoux so you might enjoy experiencing that.

So my sincere thanks to Anonymous once again for referencing me and my Lucky LeRoux song and my old 1981 album, The Comfort Sound Sessions. I am rather obscure but indeed grateful for the mention.

40 songs from 4 previous production albums all just uploaded to YouTube this week with many more new acoustic flavored songs and audio/visual streaming stuff coming in 2012.

Thank you and all the best to you and yours in the new year.

Frank Trainor
http://www.franktrainor.com/gallery.htm

So ... when we look at this picture ...

are we now looking at the very Lucky LeRoux who inspired Trainor, who inspired Prine, who intrigued me & the many dozens of other Prine fans who drove this very blog to the heights of No. 1 (with a bullet!) when it comes to Google searches for Who Was Lucky Larue?

I think we are!

You're welcome!

Oh -- AND!

I mentioned earlier that I'd let you know if Josh Talley, JP's bookings and publicity guy, got back to me regarding my email about this very Lucky Larue question. Welp, he did, and right quick & kindly too:

Hey Chuck,

Thanks for your support of John Prine throughout the years and for all the hard work on your website. Unfortunately John Prine will not be able to comment on your site at this point in time. He has just done a string of interviews for our new album The Singing Mailman Delivers and is taking some time off from them.

Happy holidays and take care. Sorry we weren't better able to accommodate you as well. Thank you.

Best

Jon Nowak
Oh Boy Records / Al Bunetta Mgmt
33 Music Square West, Suite 102B
Nashville, Tennessee 37203

Lucky LeRoux, Frank Trainor, 1981

Aint Hurtin' Nobody, John Prine, 1995

Micky Rests His Case

2012-01-04T22:15:00.001-06:00

Robert & Micky are always my favorite bloggingheads ... is that so wrong?

Man what I need is another cup of coffee

2011-12-26T11:03:00.000-06:00

The view late Dec. 23

and early Dec. 26

In the Year of Our Lord 2011

Can I push the button?

2011-12-25T00:53:00.004-06:00

Merry Christmas, and here is an excellent big red button for you to push and i'm not being punny. I mean a digital not metaphorical button.

Even as a 5-year-old i used to love pushing buttons. Elevator buttons especially, but any big red button would do. And I was not the only one. I have, for example, had occasion to ride in elevators with young children -- in the department store, at the airport, in the hotel -- and i have observed that without fail it is the youngest toddlers amongst these creatures who want to be the one who pushes the button, and they want this so badly they can't STAND it. What is the evolutionary advantage to the untaught human instinct to want to be the one who gets to push the button, not just once, but two or three times?

Most kids outgrow this phase. On the other hand, it's a good thing I'm not president as i don't suppose "oops" would be a good explanation for pressing the big red button that starts World War III. "Sor-ree-ee."

But don't worry, I couldn't be elected dog catcher and I love dogs.

So Merry Christmas & happy New Year. I hope it's a good one with without any fear. Ms. Who and I just drove 500 miles and I'm glad we did. Tomorrow we get to see all our kids and I wouldn't ask for more than that.

Vaclav Havel ... as a doornail

2011-12-18T15:12:00.000-06:00

First Hitch, now Vaclav. That's two great ones gone belly up in half a fortnight. Let's hope these flies don't drop in 3s, hmmm?

You see what I did there, working out a way to say fortnight?

Well I've been a fan of the Havel Man for a good long while & if you haven't been, all I can say is, I win.

From Matt Welch's 2003 piece Velvet President:

In 1968 a rare copy of the Velvet Underground's first record somehow found its way to Prague. It became a sensation in music circles and beyond, eventually inspiring the Czech name for their bloodless 1989 overthrow of Communist rule, "the Velvet Revolution." The Plastic People, then a newly formed troupe that borrowed heavily from Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, quickly added a half-dozen songs from The Velvet Underground & Nico to their repertoire. The group was banned not long after the Prague Spring concluded but continued to play at weddings and secret shows.

Then, in 1976, four members were arrested on charges of "disturbing the peace." The Czech dissident movement, newly roused by Havel's open letter, made the trial an international cause. Havel, who intuitively grasped the symbolism of the case, was in the courtroom every day to witness and document the judicial farce. Just as George Orwell saw picking up a gun to shoot fascists in the Spanish Civil War as "the only conceivable thing to do," Havel understood this assault on freedom as one outrage too far. It was a turning point in his life. "Everyone understood," he wrote later, "that an attack on the Czech musical underground was an attack on a most elementary and important thing, something that in fact bound everyone together: it was an attack on the very notion of living within the truth, on the real aims of life."

Well that's got just a good old roadhouse backbeat does it not and reminds that the future's uncertain and the end is always ... near, so we've got that going for us, which is nice.

I need to stop saying that Bill Murray thing, I know.

Now the only problem with that live version is, it misses the nice a-gotta beepa concha two chomp co-co con-ka don-cha aycha poona may-cha bop a lu-la ee-cho bop a mee-cho he some funk, hey right that you get on the Morrison Hotel version. Or is it gotta beepa gonda CHOO chaw on-con con-ka donda eecha booma MEECHA bop-a-lula ee-chaw bop a bee-cho ee saw CONG, yeah right?

Well we decide which is right & which is an illusion, yeah right.

A-well, a-love that's love

2011-12-16T22:54:00.000-06:00

One of my favorite memories-of-readin' books is a-bout to become a-major a-motion a-picture! So don't worry about THIS

Worry about THIS -- it's comin' to GIT you!

Say was Buddy ever spun at 78 rpm? Yes he was!

I actually got to thinking about Buddy, because we were thinking about Lennon, and because Hitch went belly up today. The only person I know who ever met him said he was quite the jerk to her. Huh. Disappointing, because he's one of the finest essayists I've ever read.

Speaking of sunshine, look around AGAIN!

2011-12-13T21:57:00.001-06:00

Ah the OTHER beat band that Decca was looking at in 1962.

Thought experiment: If, knowing what you know now about the history of rock and roll and being (as you are) an idiot savant re rock song chords & lyrics, a skill/curse made even more useless than ever by the internets & zee google, a time machine were to place you as a strapping and I've never typed that word before in my life 18-year-old in, say, 1958 Liverpool, England or ... Nashville or Memphis, Tennessee; or Lubbock, Texas, New York, New York ... could you stand not to "compose" (not all, but a few of the choicest) great rock songs from the future and claim them as your own? Would this destroy the future or make it better?

Lucky LaRue Too

2011-12-10T22:40:00.002-06:00

Now the Mythical Monkey has won a prize or two, and I am happy that he has. He's a writer's writer and he also actually, whaddaycallit, writes. I'm more of a 'worrying about maybe writing something someday' kind of guy. It's a gift I have and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

And meanwhile, like the Myth, Mr. Muleboy has been named Blogger of the Universe by the Gunslinger, but also just last week asked to join the band. I'm glad he accepted, because the Gunslinger, always great, just got amazing on account of now they've got a rocker and a photographer playing bass over there.

But all that said, the simple truth is, no brag just fact, there is only one No. 1 when you Google "Lucky Larue." That's not a threat, that's not a boast, that's just the way it's going to be. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

I found this out precisely … lessee ... 35 minutes ago while reading a really fine J.P. interview over at the J.P. Shrine, & I realized I was still bugged by the mystery of which I made note in my original post of I Ain't Hurtin' Nobody, to wit, who the hell is Lucky LaRue? Where'd that amazingly perfect name come from? It's a name that's too good to make up, right? I mean, yes, somebody had to make it up originally, I take your point, but I mean it's such a great and memorable & evocative name for a character that surely John wasn't the first to utter it?

Here's what John had to say about it in the Official JPShrine Q&A Reprint:

I returned to L.A. from my first Australian tour. It was March of '93. I had no new songs. Just a bunch of ideas and the studio booked at two the next afternoon. At about four a.m. the previous evening I wrote "I Ain't Hurtin' Nobody" -- a song about a fellow, Lucky LaRue, who was walking down the street thinking about his sweetheart. Not making the world a better place, but certainly not screwin' it up. "He ain't hurtin' nobody, He ain't hurtin' no one." When I reached the bridge of the song, I looked out my window at Los Angeles at about 5:30 a.m. and figured about six million seven hundred thousand and thirty three lights were on. That's when I knew we were on our way to a new album."

So I Googled the name once again and instead of zilch I got ... ME ... Radiant.

Freshly emboldened with this first-ever claim to fame, I wrote Josh Talley, Al Bunetta Management's bookings & publicity guy, the following, not too creepy i hope, note:

Dear Mr. Talley,

I write a small, OK microscopic, mostly music anonymous blog at http://www.whoamusanyway.blogspot.com/

And the thing is, it turns out that even though I have but 4's of readers, I am the No. 1 (worldwide!) destination for John Prine fans who Google the name "Lucky Larue," the character invoked in John's scary-good "Ain't Hurtin' Nobody."

Basically, what happened is i posted a Youtube copy of Aint Hurtin' Nobody (please don't do a copyright block on it) & mentioned that I've always wondered who Lucky LaRue was. Among other things I got the coolest comment ever left in the history of my blog:

"Anonymous said...
just posting this so that you know another person was out there listening to 'ain't hurtin nobody' and then was compelled to search google for information regarding one 'lucky larue' character."

So the next thing I know, I'm the King of the World -- that is, if you don't include "john prine" in your Google search but just plain "Lucky LaRue," you'll get my blog.

Anyway on account of my notoriety I was hoping Mr. Prine might be willing to say a word to me and my legions about when or how or even just why or where or who the name Lucky LaRue occurred to him. Failing that, that maybe you might be willing to run the question past him the next time you see him and let us know his reply, or if no reply, his facial expression or body language (impressed, amused, annoyed, baffled, frightened, etc.)

Thanks for your consideration, Mr. Talley -- and I actually do not mean the last to sound ironic or snotty although it probably does.

Sincerely,

Welp, if I hear anything back I'll let you all know because don't worry I won't forget the little people now that I've hit the big time.

This Hammond's for you, Mr. Mac

2011-12-05T21:37:00.001-06:00

As you may have heard

2011-12-04T18:12:00.000-06:00

(in the newsroom; at Caribou Coffee; on somebody’s blog), John P. Zenger will be leaving his role as (chief investigative reporter; TV critic; ombudsman) at this newspaper.

John came to us (four years ago; in 1981; last month) from (the Bugle; the London School of Economics; a think tank in Phoenix). He arrived here with a reputation as (a sociopath; a member of the team of twenty-seven reporters that won a 1991 Polk award for the Bugle series on alternate street parking; a friend of the former executive editor).

Ha! i am IMPERVIOUS to your sweeping exits & offstage lines -- impervious!

2011-12-03T15:50:00.000-06:00

Item! PETA reluctantly OKs resuming horse slaughtering on account of the ban just prompted worse deaths by neglect, starvation, and hellacious trips to Mexico. So Barack has that going for him, which is nice!

Item! Tear-jerkin’ Beagle dogs see grass & sunshine for the first time!

Question! If I'm not a vegan, how come eating a horse or a dog would make me violently ill? After all they eat horses, don't they, and they eat dogs by the truckload in the Mighty People’s Republic of China.

Answer! Because, you wascally wabbit, over thousands of years we’ve taken the wolf & bred it into a new species that is hardwired to like us. Likewise every horse is a potential partner and where I come from in the wild, wild, Midwest, you don’t eat your partner unless you’re Jeffrey Dahmer, jeez.

Speaking of violently ill, Mr. Mule do not under any circumstances view this video below; even I find Mick hard to watch in this one. Love the song though, a Who Am Us Anyway Field Guide to Pop Music Top 10 Stones Song.

When I'm feeling tense she walks on my back

2011-12-01T20:59:00.001-06:00

Man! They weren't messing around when they were all about bombing Nazis (and civilians and stray animals) unfortunate enough to live in Nazi Land. I mean, one point eight TONS -- that's a BIG old bomb. You know you're alive when you're trying to defuse THAT baby.

And woah. Eighteen freaking FEET?? That's a holy moley BIG shark circling your little boat wondering if you're worth the trouble of eating. There's some adrenalin for you.

But a human cannon ball? I gotta tell ya, Jack -- that really gets me off.

Give it 16 seconds now!

A Closely Guarded Secret

2011-11-29T22:12:00.000-06:00

Because I'm a huge Phil Lee fan -- "funny, you don't look huge" "shut up, Pat, I'm trying to write a note here" -- I was and am very psyched for the song demo'd below, recorded at the hank williams memorial circle in full orchestration in the friendly confines of the most recent mobile Phil Lee Mobile.

I mean it's a great American song.

So after listening to it a couple-three times I said something to that effect on his YouTube page there and the man wrote me back, saying "that's a closely guarded secret...but if you tell a few thousand people i wouldn't be that bugged..."

Well that killed me. I wish I could help him there.

Bail Out Studebaker

2011-11-27T20:00:00.002-06:00

Well don’t just stand there. Get me six prancing court jesters, stat. Yes, six! OK, you can lose one after the opening sequence and save some SAG fees but the point is, we’ve got cars to sell and only pre-cocktail hours in which to sell them! Ready? Action!

Yes, dear friends, it’s Ralph Spoilsport of Ralph Spoilsport Motors here with not one but three MAGNIFICENT new presidents! Three BIG new commanders with sculptured steel exteriors, deep cushions, and washable vinyl fabrics in matching two-tones. What will your friends say when they see you behind a brand new Flight-Style Instrument Panel with the amazing Cyclops-Eye Spedometer?

Don't answer that but remember, the bold new front end adds important strength!

Cut, print, that's a wrap, whatever that means.

Exceptin Alice

2011-11-24T18:20:00.000-06:00

Now one of the several, OK many, things i've always since I first heard it flat-out loved about Alice's Restaurant, the song that is, is how it teaches the recognizable discoverable truth that family is a concept, and a good and true one, that doesn't actually require what you call "blood relations." Hang on to the kinfolk you like for sure, but don't forget your good friends because with just a couple of good friends you too can have a Thanksgiving dinner that can't be beat and then go to sleep and not get up until the next morning.

For 120 annotated links to Alice's Restaurant, please visit the Alice's Restaurant Metafilter

Don't forget to enjoy Jackie Guthrie's Youtube Channel.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, everywhere.

As through this world I've rambled

2011-11-20T20:51:00.002-06:00

If you click to enlarge you can see why two rows down, the young couple on the left and the old couple in the middle made me smile.

Which of course leads us to two more Top 10 Who Am Us Anyway Field Guide to Pop Music Outlaw Songs.

Coming in at No. 2 (behind Pancho and Lefty, of course) is the fact that some will rob you with a 6-gun, some with a fountain pen (and some will just bust into your car and steal your 4-year old Sony camera like some knucklehead did tonight, but that's another story):

And at No. 3, it's -- well, I'm just gonna sing you the record of things that he did:

Lesson one, just begun: growing up ain't much fun

2011-11-18T20:43:00.004-06:00

Shook hands and said howdy to Gov. Chris Christy today, then watched him talk about education policy for 60 minutes & then easily handle 30 minutes of smart, tough, questioning – all without notes & all very impressive with generous dollops of confident, dry wit. Compared to the Repubs seeking the presidency now, he’s a giant of a man in more ways than one.

I liked the guy, so shoot me.

But are there cooler guys than Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds? Anywhere?

I dunno. Prof. Mark McKenna is definitely in the running; he's up there. I really respect people who show a lot of guts.

Mmmm ... Batter Balls

2011-11-17T19:36:00.003-06:00

There's no getting away from 'em

Note: A Who Am Us Anyway Field Guide to Pop Music Top 10 Background Singers Song

The saddest chimp, the saddest elephants & the saddest song the world has ever seen

2011-11-16T20:39:00.002-06:00

Dang it, chimp! Now you're making ME feel bad.

Oh come on, 'phants! Quit fooling around. You know you can't really have emotions.

And Mister Van Zandt! You know you're going to have to do more than crack The Who Am Us Anyway Field Guide to Pop Music's Top 10 Sad Songs of All Times if you want to live in this wicked world

And not even a lifetime of heroism can make up for leaving a single child alone, abandoned to evil, weeping in the dark

2011-11-13T21:46:00.001-06:00

I think that's right.

But you know how there's a rock 'n roll song for everything that's ever happened in my life and everything I see in the world and in the unlikely event there ever isn't one, I could write it? Well sometimes fiction works that way too.

John Scalzi, for example offers this, in a post he calls Omelas State University:

Here’s what I think about that, right now. I’m a science fiction writer, and one of the great stories of science fiction is “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” which was written by Ursula K. Le Guin. The story posits a fantastic utopian city, where everything is beautiful, with one catch: In order for all this comfort and beauty to exist, one child must be kept in filth and misery. Every citizen of Omelas, when they come of age, is told about that one blameless child being put through hell. And they have a choice: Accept that is the price for their perfect lives in Omelas, or walk away from that paradise, into uncertainty and possibly chaos.

Tell me again, I forget

2011-11-10T20:14:00.004-06:00

I haven't watched any of the Repub debates yet, but I have watched that clip of Gov. Perry's brain freeze, which of course has prompted everyone who has ever had to do high-pressure public speaking to recall their own worst brain freeze. Mine, for example, was a doozy -- but that's not important right now! -- what's important is that you let this be a lesson to you. To wit, never, ever, precede your list of things with a number. This road, my friends, leads to disaster.

Take a tip from a cop who does and do what I do.

Don't say you have a 5-point plan. Say "I have a plan" and then give as many points as you can remember.

Don't say you have "three kids." (Believe, me, you'll save yourself a lot of trouble.)

Yeah sure you also might want to know your song well before you start singing -- or as Leon says, cutting to the chase, "and I sho' won't forget it" -- but jeez who has time.

To the future, Conan? All the way to the year 2010?

2011-11-05T23:50:00.004-05:00

Listening (because I still have no TV service, & online streaming was not available) to Wake Forest elevate their game against Notre Dame tonight, I was reminded of this McCartney interview and i'll tell you why in a sec, but first:
Quick aside: note how at the end of this '64 clip Frost references the year 2010 as the unimaginably futuristic date? My mom similarly once mused that our street address in Des Plaines, IL -- 1980 Fargo Ave -- was an irony to her, since 1980 was the unimaginably futuristic date she & her friends used to throw out in the 40s -- "Yeah, when you gonna get THAT done -- in 1980?" etc.

So the recollection was that, just as a great many college football fans have two favorite teams -- their team and whoever is playing Notre Dame -- many a mid-60s combo was taking aim at the Beatles -- the Stones especially, but everyone had them in mind. The Beatles on the other hand, as Sir Paul notes, were, at the ripe old age of 24 or whatever, already competing against only themselves. A small handful of other English bands of the time could say the same. The Kinks. The Who.

You've got 10 minutes, sonny!

2011-11-02T22:53:00.009-05:00

Uh oh!

Suddenly, you're Charlie Mac, the elite drummer and reborn bass player! You THINK you're cruising into a comfy retirement the likes of which most of us can only dream ... when SUDDENLY! ... you're transported back to the year 1965 and the whole world's future depends on YOU picking the one and only, the RIGHT drummer for your new Power Pop band, your Mod band, or as we said in the inner ring suburbs of Chicago when we were 10 years old, your "Combo!" AND! You have all of 10 minutes! That's it!

So who is it going to be, Mr. Mac??

Mr. K. Moon?

Mr. B. Elliott?

or Mr. R. Starr?

No time to dither! In your heart of hearts, Mr. Mac, who would you rather play with? And since you have more drumming talent than anyone else looking at this blog, your word is GOD. But what is it? Say the Word! It's so fine, it's sunshine!

Slingerland!

2011-11-01T22:22:00.004-05:00

Speaking of Slingerland, here's the man who Charlie says was such a prince of a guy :-) OK, Not, OK: but can we agree he was never boring ...

I personally like THIS RACKET a whole lot

but I would be remiss were I not to leave you with the greatest drum solo of all time

Hornets, hornets, whatcha gonna do about the hornets

2011-10-30T17:58:00.002-05:00

I'm a proud founding member of the Tenacious D School of Mideast Policy.

But given the last 10 years one might say that, like me & F. A. Hayek (with an H), me and Tenacious D seldom make it onto any of the best Mideast policy party guest lists.

Take the Gaddafi killing for example. For the excitable gentleman screaming in the background of this video, it’s just again with the Allahu Akbar. Fine, whatever.

But what’s our Secy of State have to say? She’s always struck me as a reasonable person. Quite level headed, not the "Mission Accomplished" sort.

Wait -- she said WHAT? Dang, I hate it when she says that.

On the bright side, there’s finally something the Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan and National Review’s Andrew McCarthy can agree about.

Regardless, it is flat out weird that no matter which party is in the White House we keep plunging our arm into the hornet’s nest and shaking it around to see what happens: Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Libya, then Iran & Syria. And all this in flagrant violation of the Tenacious D Doctrine.

Something Stupid

2011-10-28T18:50:00.001-05:00

Another thing. We all (cops, judges, convicts, reporters) need to stop talking about violent criminals making “poor choices.” You see this patronizing pseudo sophisticated social-worker euphemism talk everywhere. The convicts themselves are the worst offenders, heh. If I had a dollar for every instance some inmate says, “I learned that I made some poor choices, and my message to all you youth out there is: don’t make poor choices like I did, and please give me parole right now.” A good answer would be, “No, you didn’t make a poor choice. What you did was, you & your buds beat the crap out of an 85-year-old man just for the fun of it, you non-contributing zero.”

But that's not the answer we give.

What I most hated about the Cain smoking commercial? I knew right away all the papers and news sites would fill up again with the same tired, lazy, & trite headlines riffing on either “Up in Smoke” or “Where There’s Smoke …” – always with the ellipses, mind you. This happens every time tobacco gets in the news and it’s a terrible habit.

But I shouldn't be throwing rocks when I live in the glassiest of houses when it comes to saying something stupid, even I know that.

I was unprepared 'cos I was only a kid

2011-10-24T22:16:00.000-05:00

Alex was mentioning how fake endings are a cool Power Pop thing -- he was reviewing over at his place the last 30 seconds of Radio Bar from FOW's genuinely great new album Sky Full of Holes -- you really should check it out -- and it brought to mind another thing I really love: cool time & melody changes. If you have a chance check out two such great moments in The First Time We Fall in Love, here at 1:50 when the Kinks segue into rock, and again at 2:10, into doo-wop, as smooth as shifting into third gear in a really fine muscle car ... just ... wow.

Note to self: This is one of the Who Am Us Anyway Top Ten Kinks Songs, said list compiled not on the basis of what reality says is their best or what makes me look cool, smart, & hip, but on what hits me the hardest when no one is looking: hat tip to Mr. Mule for egging me on.

Is there a place on earth that hasn’t used rap music to assert its long-suppressed cultural identity?

2011-10-19T19:13:00.001-05:00

NPR has not found that place. Just in the last two days we’ve had the Crow Nation and the Taiwanese. Previously: “A New Beat Gives Young Mongolia a Voice, Identity” and “Rapping About Land and Identity” (Palestinians). Don’t forget the Somalis. And “The Rap Songs of Arab Spring.” If “All Things Considered” can’t kill hip hop, I guess nothing can.

well it's stuff like this that's been keeping me digging Mickey Kaus's Kausfiles even back when Michael Kinsley was publishing it in the original Micrsosoftly Slate.

But NPR is great and I like rap songs just fine. In fact here's one of my favorites with Ricki Lee taking us all the way to the future; all the way to Bob's 1965 New Yawk City, imagine that. Café Wha? you say now, Mister Danger?

Here's another: 1964 i get the impression. Go ahead: GARGLE in that rat race choir

Hey Man! That's a Seven-Dollar Pumpkin!

2011-10-17T00:04:00.000-05:00

I said, Hey Man! Them seeds were for baking!

Well, I don't know what it is but there's DEFINITELY something going on upstairs

2011-10-15T19:12:00.000-05:00

From the Department of Ongoing Disappointments I note that, as a rule, American politicians and political activists of all stripes have no interest in neutral principles.

Guantanamo Bay? Expanded CIA drone warfare & targeted assassinations? All-white grass-roots protests? Economic disaster? Deficit spending? Anti-war protests? Global Warming? Energy independence? The never-ending, always-stoopid “drug war”? Homelessness? Terrorism? Domestic hunger? Pshaw. Doesn’t matter what the issue is.

Once the party on the outs gets on the ins and can no longer use the issue as a cudgel with which to beat up the other side, fierce moral urgency becomes … poof! … a vague & hazy memory. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss wasn’t writ in a day but we used to have political parties and even some politicians that actually stood for something besides election. And one more thing and I'm not going to say it again: Nick Cave is underrated. Seriously underrated.

Hey Uncle Walt, tell us that one about the lions

2011-10-14T20:03:00.000-05:00

and the ants ... One ... More ... Tiiiime.

Oh, OK, he says. He says:

Once a hunter met a lion near the hungry critter's lair, and the way that lion mauled him was decidedly unfair; but the hunter never whimpered when the surgeons, with their thread, sewed up forty-seven gashes in his mutilated head; and he showed the scars in triumph, and they gave him pleasant fame, and he always blessed the lion that had camped upon his frame. Once that hunter, absent minded, sat upon a hill of ants, and about a million bit him, and you should have seen him dance! And he used up lots of language of a deep magenta tint, and apostrophized the insects in a style unfit to print. And it's thus with worldly troubles; when the big ones come along, we serenely go to meet them, feeling valiant, bold and strong, but the weary little worries with their poisoned stings and smarts, put the lid upon our courage, make us gray, and break our hearts.

That’s the one! Thank you, Walt Mason. I especially liked it when the dude apostrophized those insects!

And what say you, Tom?

“Well now that you mention it, yeah,” Tom says, “I too just catch myself wondering, waiting, worrying about some silly little things that don’t add up to NUTHIN.”

Another dangerous young man at the microphone

2011-10-09T20:13:00.001-05:00

This guy's expression

reminds me of this guy

To see more mug shots of more dangerous guys 'n dolls, please learn how to be a Retronaut.

They wouldn't print it if it wasn't true!

2011-09-30T20:19:00.001-05:00

Sunday papers? Don't make me laugh, kid! Here, I want to say just 2 words to you. Just ... two words. Are you listening?

Weekly papers.

The backbone of ANY civil society.

Right now if it doesn't rhyme observe her

2011-09-28T22:37:00.000-05:00

with surfer, then I'm not interested, but that's just me

Quarter Life Crisis

2011-09-28T21:29:00.000-05:00

A young whippersnapper friend o Pat's wrote this & now it's up ... it's good!

best of all, cheap is cheap

2011-09-27T21:53:00.000-05:00

THIS can't be right, can it?

Dang. We should be on a lowwww budget -- WHAT did you say?

A low budget! I THOUGHT you said that!

Songs for Goodbyes

2011-09-26T22:33:00.000-05:00

I just spent an hour listening to these guys and I'm glad I did -- NOW i can sleep.

The May Bees are all hat tip to Mr. Mule, who introduced me to them today and has clues to their new record over at The Mouth O' The Mule.

To be honest I'm usually a sucker for the power trio set-up no matter the rock style. Maybe because with just 3 people, everyone has to work so dang hard.

Can't forget the loud psychedelic power trio bands singing about death, a genre that is less popular than you might think! But which comprised one of Ms. Who & my favorite shows at the Cedar in wintery Minneapolis and featured this song by the Entrance Band.

To the top, Johnny!

2011-09-25T14:55:00.000-05:00

"Where are we going, fellas?"

"To the top, Johnny!"

"And where's that, fellas?"

"To the toppermost of the poppermost!"

But we're wasting time standing here: I gotta go.

That explains it

2011-09-23T21:18:00.000-05:00

Ah yes, the old McGurk Effect trick. No WONDER I can't believe what I'm hearing.

What has become of the green pleasant fields of Jerusalem?

2011-09-22T21:13:00.000-05:00

I mean nothing he's got he really needs

Please! No tears, no fears, no ruined years -- no clocks

I'm a 21st Century Man But I Don't Want To Be Here

2011-09-20T21:06:00.001-05:00

Ex-Afghanistan president Burhanuddin Rabbani killed by 'turban bomb'

TSA Searches Dallas Woman's Hair for Explosives

Do it again

2011-09-18T20:39:00.000-05:00

You make alterations and affect a new pose, a new house, a new car, a new job, a new nose ... and now we're back where we started!

Get Back! from Geoff Edgers on Vimeo.

Less than Zero! Wow!

2011-09-03T20:15:00.001-05:00

Look. Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written thirteen books, including The Work of Nations, Locked in the Cabinet, Supercapitalism, and his most recent book, Aftershock. His "Marketplace" commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes. He's short. He wears a beard.

In other words, he's an economics stud and I trust him. And here's what he says about yesterday's employment stats:

In reality, worse than zero. We need 125,000 a month merely to keep up with population growth. So the hole continues to deepen.

To which I say: Less than zero? I haven't heard that song live since 1990

P.S. Maybe if I wasn't trying to watch the game on iPad, the Irish wouldn't be self-destructing. Maybe if I had a big screen TV everything would be different.

a more "humorous," tough-love "take" on environmentalism!

2011-08-31T23:14:00.002-05:00

Indeed!

But still, I have to say the EcoKat Mascot reminds me a little bit of Sexual Harassment Panda!

(But don't worry, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one!)

The Ever Eeerily Prescient Bob

2011-08-30T20:45:00.001-05:00

They don’t make nothin’ here no more? -- check!

So now of course it's fed policy to try to wreck one of the few places that's even trying to make something American.

I can see the day coming when even your home garden is gonna be against the law? -- check! And double check!!

Democracy don’t rule the world
You’d better get that in your head
This world is ruled by violence
But I guess that’s better left unsaid

There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be

2011-08-28T11:57:00.002-05:00

Love, Take 1: It's easy. The people who sold us our house had a bunch of sweet little kids who left the following popcorn message on our lawn to greet us on move-in day. The squirrels all loved the message too, and ate it up.

And that's all they needed, right?

Love, Take 2: It's easy.

Love, Take 3. Except when it's just 4 letters

Love, Take 4. And except when it's the love you miss loving

You know, given how much I dig watching other peeps' concert vids, it's a shame I don't have the patience to film a whole song myself, but I never do. I have good intentions but when the rubber hits the road, when push comes to shove, when the yin meets the yang, when the day divides the night & the night divides the day ... well people, I just can't stand to keep watching through my camera. If there's a good band in full flight right in front of me and i know i can put the camera down & be there in all-natural live right-now here-today 360-degree widescreen panoroma surround sound ...

But here at least is a snippet i grabbed of Mayall & guitarist Rocky Athas doing one of my all-time faves, All Your Love.

And here's the whole deal from 1966.

2 men say they're Jesus 1 of them must be wrong

2011-08-28T01:01:00.000-05:00

My neighbor is speaking on this panel Sept. 9 about how come Studebaker went belly up. Seems that some blame management, some the employees.

I plan to go even though -- if all goes well -- it will be Day No. 1 of Who with Dog Again. I've been poochless too long my friends, much too long.

I can't help about the shape I'm in

2011-08-21T22:44:00.001-05:00

For our 33rd -- hey Ms. Who & I have now been married as long as JC was walking the earth: speaking of which (and never say I never taught you none of that useless and pointless knowledge), the Byrds did Jesus is Just All Right well before the Doobies ever did, jeez -- I say, for our 33rd, we caught the John Mayall show. Great seats, great show.

Now of course he OPENED for George Thorogood and the Destroyers, which of course is just wrong. A soulmate on this matter (Hi Dan!) emailed me to say "George Thorogood isn't fit to clean the spit out of John Mayall's harmonica. Let's get that out of the way right off."

True, and it reminded of my first date with the future Ms. Who (not the cleaning the spit out of the harmonica part) but: a terrific late 70s Kinks concert at which the Davies brothers opened for Hall and Oates. Misters H & O played a worthy brand of rock 'n soul to be sure, but they should never be placed anywhere above the Kinks on any Marquee. No oh ohhh ... I can't go for that.

No can do.

Likewise, the Destroyers were a lot of fun, featuring fine drinking songs and the sloppiest slide guitar in the West. (At one point George even said: "I know I'm full of shit, but I'm having a good time.") I enjoyed.

The Mayall band, on the other hand, was raising-the-hackles-on-the-back-of-the-neck good. So I should find a great Mayall video, but instead, there's that post-Mayall Peter Green clip from the original Fleetwood Mac that I've had in the queue for a long while now. Not as scary as Green Manalashi but it's ... gettin' there.

High on the top of Hickory Hill

2011-08-17T20:48:00.001-05:00

She stands in the lightning and thunder

Southern Gothic Melodrama it IS, and Southern Gothic Melodrama it shall BE:

I'm a Northern boy through and through, but come on, that was amazing.

Meanwhile, and I've had this argument before: I know Sheryl Crowe likes to get all girly & make-uppy & high-heels and all, and she likes to write chart-bustin' pop songs and all, but if all that means she can't ever be real roots, how come both Levon Helms & Emmy Lou Harris commit to repelling flank attacks?? Huh? What do YOU know that THEY don't, oh Sheryl haters? Not much, I say :-)

Meanwhile I DID not KNOW

that EXPLODING HEAD SYNDROME is real;

that experts believe young people are more susceptible to Naegleria fowleri because they are more likely to jump into the water, dive to the bottom and otherwise play underwater in ways that force water, and potentially amoebas, up their noses.

Jeez.

It slices, it dices, it mows your lawn! It's the waste backwater valve that really, really works

2011-08-13T20:22:00.004-05:00

I hope.

Since I last visited blogland I’ve sold a house, bought a house, moved to a fine little vintage 1939 cape cod in sunny south bend and experienced firsthand the abject failure of the flapper valve, the floating ball valve, AND the gate valve!

Yessir! From now on, it’s the Peterson Valve Company's PV-4300 for me. I think.

At least Sewage Backup now has its very own Firefox bookmark on my browser, so I’ve got that going for me.

And hey, hey, hey, I’ve also been BACK to sunny Brunswick, Missouri … and BACK yet again. Look! I brought you some Brunswick Theater paint! Please click to enlarge!

Didn't have time to drive by Naggy Aggy's farm this time though, but what the hell. I aint gonna work there no more anyhow.

Police and thieves

2011-07-24T21:38:00.004-05:00

So i just this afternoon chased off a small mob of youths as we say in the biz who were trying to break into my steadfast, unassuming, loyal and beloved Subaru Forrester who had done them no harm. A strip-downed baby of cheapest silver paint & many hard miles of rental company vintage with no extras whatsoever & even the AC doesn't work, but it starts every time, all the time, and handles Midwest snow like nobody's business.

It was mid-afternoon, in broad daylight. Brazen, comes to mind.

I have not felt such righteous anger since I experienced it vicariously 30 years ago when a young and ravishing (as she remains to this day, don't get me wrong) Ms. Who swirled from the bar stool and took off in pursuit of two youths, as we say in the biz, who were in the process of walking out the bar door with her new winter coat. (By the time i had gathered my wits and gotten over to see what she was up to she had already used her 105 pounds to grab the very large lout by the collar and throw -- and i do mean literally throw -- him against the wall.)

So today I had noticed my youths earlier when they had come walking into the parking lot in front of my apartment a-whooping and hollering, which is what caused me to turn my head to look out my balcony door. The lads proceeded to pass on either side of my car on their way to my apartment complex's swimming pool, where they technically weren't supposed to be swimming, but who can blame them when it's so freaking hot. And I watched as my car parted the wave as it were, with half of them passing on one side and half on the other.

In hindsight they did appear to be taking unusual interest in my car.

Ninety minutes later, I was still at the computer when I heard the same voices, this time one distinctly yelling "the motherfucker is ALL the way LOCKED!" I looked out my belly button window one more time and realized that the cause of their frustration, the REASON the motherfucker was all the way locked, was because I HAD LOCKED IT.

It was in fact MY CAR whose handles all these youths were yanking on.

I moved faster than I've moved in years, opened the door, demanding: "Is THAT your car?!"

Youths: Unintelligible.

"Then stay the fuck AWAY from it!"

I'd just gone from zero to 60 in 15 seconds and was fully ready to do battle. There was no mistaking it and they absolutely knew it as well ... all over a mere car, yes, and against really bad odds, yes, but there it was, for real. One word, one bad look, one move toward rather than away from me and we would be into it and the four of them would have had to kick my ass or be kicked. I was SO pissed.

Luckily for me there was no response from any of the lads, no outright disrespect, but no running away either, just a boatload of that annoying slooow walking biz as they headed back downtown under the hardest I aint fooling stare I ever gave in my life.

At first I was proud of myself for protecting my car until i realized i hadn't thought to pull my iPhone out of my pocket to get their photos for the cops and the Web. (Although I later thought on third thought, that very forgetfulness might also have been a blessing in disguise -- people have been killed over less than an iPhone.)

So then I went back to look through my car's window to try to figure out what the hey they thought they were going to steal. I'm always careful not to leave anything of value in plain sight. I stared and stared, puzzled, until finally i saw it: my bright white keycard, which gets me into the garage and hence the apartment building, sticking out of the cup holder where I'd left it. That's what they wanted.

I called the non-emergency cop number, knowing that my youths had already slow-walked away into the city, but the cops still sent two patrol cars, and they circled my parking lot slowly, cruising like dangerous black and white sharks around my little Forrester, and I have to say I was grateful for the show of force.

I've had occasion to deal with some bad cops in my time, but let me flat out say it: it is only when you are trying to live a fairly law-abiding life in a high-crime area that you fully realize that police and thieves are not truly, not really, not at all on the same street level.

Yes, yes, they both get a rush from the act of theft, but the difference is, the cops (many of them) get off on protecting you & protecting the stuff you've worked for.

Elementary i know but easy to lose sight of if you're living inside the bubble of a college campus or a middle-income suburb, and a good thing to keep in mind if you like me love The Clash beyond words.

'Leaping to conclusions' in Oslo?

2011-07-23T17:41:00.001-05:00

Oh please.

If you're told your neighbor was just torn apart by unknown means while taking an after-dinner stroll through Mozambique's Kruger Park, you can be forgiven for suspecting lions.

Foistly, extremists of a certain religious persuasion have been threatening to bring terror to Norway for a long time now.

Secondly, it's Evolutionary Survival Skills 101 to make use of your experiences and 5 senses when making a preliminary assessment of threats.

That it turns out it wasn't lions at all but instead a psychotic chainsaw-wielding Nazi in a hockey mask who took apart your neighbor in Kruger Park doesn't make your preliminary assessment any kind of "leap."

Not that a thousand terrorists are worth even one lion, mind you. I never root for terrorists, but it's almost impossible not to root for the magnificent animal in the video below as he makes his one-lion version of the Charge of the Light Brigade.

I prefer not to

2011-07-20T22:06:00.002-05:00

... spend the night in THIS house. Two spooky unexplained deaths, one 103-year-old mansion, I prefer not to.

... live in sunny Iran or any country with a similar anti-dog bent, I just prefer not to. (The same anti-dog issue arose in Minnesota, where three-quarters of the 900 airport cabbies are adherents of a religion that deems man's best friend "haram" or "ritually unclean," as the Minneapolis Star-Tribune used to routinely state without further explanation.

So the cabbies refused service to anyone with a seeing eye dog, and this being Minnesota ("Ritually unclean, eh? Well that's alright then"), it was anyone's guess whether the cabbies could continue to refuse service to the blind who travel with seeing-eye dogs or vacationers back from Napa Valley. In the end, the airport authority laboriously concluded, after much, much due process and hand-wringing, that no, actually, it appears when you applied for a license to drive a cab at the airport, it appears that right here on page 4,635 paragraph 7(c)(a)(iii) you whaddaya callit, promised, you wouldn't discriminate against our passengers unless they pose a physical (not spiritual) threat to you. Therefore, if you believe you are religiously obligated to discriminate against travelers with dogs or sealed alcohol ... fine, don't drive an airport cab.

... go to Chelsea. Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when without moving from his privacy, Bartleby in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied, “I would prefer not to ... go to Chelsea.”

Oh no it does not move me even though I've seen the movie

Shocked, appalled, and truly dismayed

2011-07-16T23:24:00.000-05:00

Noting the disproportionate nature of a crotchety reader's shock and appall is an old and healthy tradition among editors of all stripes. Having grown up watching Steve Allen put on his press hat and read aloud random angry letters to the editor was a mental life saver when I got my first editing job some 30 years ago. To this day I'm usually pretty good at being able to look for the kernel of constructive truth buried in an angry letter writer's smog of 'tude. Not always, but usually.

If at first I find a letter or email to the editor too spittle filled to decipher, I will try to picture Steve Allen putting on his fedora and reading it aloud in the spirit of great high dudgeon in which it was written. I truly find this trick very helpful, and have even suggested it to younger colleagues who have come to me worried about having ticked off an angry emailing subscriber. On one occasion, realizing that my colleague was too young to have any idea who Steve Allen was, I had to recreate the skit to demonstrate what I was talking about. Fortunately I had a hat nearby.

In these "fast-paced modern times in which we live right now here today" (as one of my grad student colleague's Expository English students once memorably wrote), when every publication urges its readers to email their every grievance directly and immediately to the editor, being able to do jujitsu with the unexpected angry missive has never been more important.

All of which is to say I was delighted by the following YouTube video in which a game designer teamed up with the game's voice guy to dramatize Axman13's complaints about a game called Super PSTW Action RPG.

To get the full effect, please click the square in the lower right-hand corner for full-screen mode.

The one thing you most definitely have to do

2011-07-15T21:17:00.006-05:00

And a good thing about moving is, in my new job I won't hardly ever have to travel, which means Ms. Who is OK with me getting a dog or three when we're together again. The little backyard to the little cape cod we're buying is mostly fenced, so it won't be too much nutso $$ to finish up a pooch-ready backyard.

I don't know what my first new dog will be. I like really big dogs because that's what i grew up with, but I guess I probably won't be getting an Anatolian Shepherd after all. A cool animal though. Most memorable paragraph in the above aforesaid article? No contest; it's this one:

So we started off knowing that Anatolian shepherds are formidably large and powerful, with adult males weighing 140 pounds or so, virtually none of it fat. And since they were bred to defend their flocks against significant external threats, without explicit direction from human beings they are genetically predisposed to be headstrong and independent. (As one dog trainer told us, "When these guys detect trouble, they're not gonna get on their cellphone and report, 'Intruder in sector 5, whaddayathink I oughta do?'") They also sleep lightly, and can go from apparent lazy somnolence to 60 miles an hour in the blink of an eye.

But then of course the stupid mutt will freaking die on you which gets me all sen-ti-men-TAL, which like James Taylor and Roger McGuinn, I find a bit noteworthy for its unlikeliness if nothing else.

But what're you gonna do?

Crows might be smarter, but dogs are the most amazing and puzzling life forms I've ever met next to women & children.

On the other hand, Raymond Crooke of Melbourne, Australia? I understand him perfectly.

Bell Flight 14, you now can land

2011-07-13T21:42:00.001-05:00

Anyone wondering how to get burnt, how to get REAL burnt? You've come to the right place! Just take a Friday, work all morning and then drive 10 hours including the Kennedy Expressway ladies 'n gennelmen. Then take a Saturday and get ready for the biggest leaving Minnesota party I've ever thrown. Throw that party. Get up early on Sunday to do a bunch of other things (i'm starting to bore even myself here) before driving back another 9.5 hours, unload stuff up 3 flights of stairs for an hour, get up early to go to work, get behind work so stay late, get too tired to work efficiently so get up early to make up for it ... but my point is, it turns out that my odometer and Google maps both agree: my car trips were almost precisely 500 miles each way.

So I've got this going for me

which my older cousin, the devious old folkie, used to like and play for my little tyke self but which now just makes me want to hear this other song instead, which (don't look at me like that!) was from a yes-and-to-this-day-vastly ... wait for it ... UNDERRATED! ... Stones LP.

You heard me! I liked Satanic Majesties in junior high, which is precedent! Persuasive precedent!

And I like it today, but what's more I now at last have real AUTHORITY, statutory authority; to wit, Mr. Steve Simels, ladies 'n gennelmen, Mister Steve Simels! OK, he didn't exactly say it was a "great" album but he did say it was underrated. Close enough! Read it and weep you doubters because I REST my case -- oh, sorry, is that your foot? I'll rest my case over here instead then.

OK thanks Blogger, you're free & I appreciate that but

2011-07-07T23:42:00.002-05:00

I just spent more time trying to post a comment to Mr. Muleboy's fine blog than I did writing it.

Did Blogger think it was too long or what? I have no idea, but here it is & i don't think it's a great comment or anything but I'm just annoyed that my Friend the Google and the Blogger.com won't let me post it even though it sends me an email saying that it DID post it.

So my point is, here it is! Maybe! And hey -- it's after midnight! I HATE it when that happens! :-)

>>

I hope this doesn't mean that we can't be friends.

Holy moley, no. I’m just saying I thought Roger could’ve waited 10 minutes, that’s all.

And I do know I’m a bit of an outlier on this one :-)

But I do think webby writers, myself most definitely included, sometimes forget there’s actual humans who might be reading our barbs. I remember over at Charlie Parker, when people were a-waiting the Phil Spector case, there was lots of 'and let this be a lesson to you' type rage in the comments against Phil & all psycho killers & rock ‘n roll excess in general … and then Phil’s actual kid (at least it seemed it really was his kid – he had his own, "hey I’m Phil’s kid" website & blog & whatnot) writes in with this plaintive … “would you mind terribly just waiting for the trial at least.”

I don’t think it ever even occurred to anyone of us that Phil’s kid would be reading anything we wrote. Not that knowing that would in itself necessarily have changed anything, but we’d probably have gone about our business with a different perspective.

Here on the other hand Roger had a very good clue the dead guy’s wife if he had a wife & kids if had kids and friends if he had any friends were going to hear about the Ebert Jackass tweet right quick (if I even know what a tweet is, having never tweetered myself).

Roger meant for his remark to be widely noticed, he knew he had a big audience and he knew everyone’s online nowadays.

it seems to me that the "million pens and TV lesson" argues for immediacy if you want your observation to pierce the moral indifference and information saturation.

But it seems to me that if your point is worth making it will stand the test of (10 minutes) time. Granted it might be that you’ll draw more attention for yourself if you’re first out of the gate with the wagging finger.

On the other hand, I think what the world needs now is more instant real-time proclamations about the Moral of the Story like I need a hole in my head.

And again, I understand different folks feel differently, but I just vote for waiting until the body has cooled before publishing your bon mots about the dead guy and his friends being idiots and lessons to us all. And besides, I always wanted to end a comment with bon mots.

I love your blog Mr. Mule, I really do. And thanks again for reaching out to me back in the day & introducing me to you & Myth.

P.S. Bon Mots!

I think it was the Fourth of July

2011-07-04T13:46:00.006-05:00

Now let me get this straight: you put the lime in the coconu -- no, no, no! Focus, Who, FOCUS!

Right. Now let me get this straight: thingy is due to win the Charlie Parker blog-o-the-month award in ... August 2012.

How do I know? How do I KNOW?? You know my methods! To know the future -- the FUTURE, Conan? All the way to The YEAR 2000, where we must watch out for The Silent E as much as for The Tenacious D? -- Why yes, but my point is, to know the future, we must first go forward into ... the paaasssst!

June 2010!

Europe lifts its shrouded head in agony while across the Gray Atlantic comes shining down from atop the Mighty Mount Parker National Monument ... a new light! And where was this shining light a-shining son? Why I'll TELL you where. It was shining on none other than our very own Trademarked Mister Muleboy, Copyright 2010, Patents a-Pending & All Rights Reserved!

Quite rightly! And well deserved, too.

Next we go all the way to July zippity doo dah Eleven! How do we get there? Easy! When I get into this grandfather clock, you hit me over the head with this bottle of Champagne, set the dial for a thousand, and put in three dimes. I'll be gone for a thousand years. That's longer than anyone's ever been gone before, but to you it will seem only like a minute!

Hey! It worked! But what's this? Europe is once again lifting its shrouded head in agony to see ... yes! ANOTHER shining new light, a light like, like ... the Eye of Sauron only .... pleasanter!! And what shadowy black & white figure is caught in this mighty photon beam, i mean light waves, i mean photons, i mean waves, i mean ...

Well son, if we were paying attention we'd know know that figure anywhere, because stepping out of the fog is none other than our very own Mythical Monkey. Clocking in at 5,000 words an hour and too busy to be a Homecoming King, he's home to The Missed it By THAT Much Awards and now the New Charlie Parker blog o the month award! Quite rightly! And well deserved, too.

So now, we can see as plain as the aged, pockmarked & red-veined nose on my face that ... well, OK, wait, how do we -- ah, that's right, you take the Mule, add a month, add a year, carry the Myth, add a month, add a year, find that thingy, add a -- no, divide & multiply, then add ... and you SEE? It's August 2012! And it's a lock box (hey! that's not a 'single word' like strategery!

And inside that lock box, friends, is thingy's August 2012 Blog of the Month Award, just waiting to be opened!

At least, it had better be :-)

OK, my work here is done; I'm off to the park. C'mon you Chicago geezers -- get up on stage, put on that wide belt & work shirt & tell it like it WAS ...

Sorry, Campaign for Decaf Free Kids (b-but it's for 'the children'!)

2011-06-30T21:18:00.001-05:00

and "b-b-but coffee is ad-DICTING ... so that means you need to finally GIVE IT UP as a quasi religious sacrifice to the same GAIA that let ME finally QUIT SMOKING and I've never FELT SUPERIOR i mean BETTER ..."

Uh, actually, no i don't :-)

It looks like I can just keep on keep on being a coffee achiever!

Life is short! Stay awake for it, sonny! Science says, STUDIES say! And what could be more authoritative than a "study"? that there is in FACT time for just one more cup of coffee ... for the ROAD! One more cup of coffee ... ’fore I GO!

I know Prohibitionist America hates this news, but news is news :-)

34 pt. helvetica medium over 32 picas, sonny!

2011-06-29T20:13:00.003-05:00

Marks I've booked and books I've marked over the past week & which i actually may get a chance to read this weekend on account of, my 070411 Mpls. family plans fell thru & i'll be hanging here in S.B. by my lonesome (let's cry aboudit!) after all.

So I'm going to check out but I'm not saying YOU have to:

A new Buddy Holly tribute album featuring Macca

New music from the Jayhawks

Wingers for decriminalization? Exactly so! I think Bill Buckley said something like this many moons ago; I dunno but i been told.

I'd like to make a scouting trip to this Indiana restaurant but first I have to find out where Roanoke is -- I thought that was a West Virgina mountain mama town.

Hmmm. Come to think of it, I might actually read this here Chronicle story yet tonight. Hey! Don't you get all chimpocentric on me NOW, brother!

No, I'm not OCD about this song. I don't have OCD. I have CDO.

Well i try my BEST to be just like i am!

2011-06-28T21:11:00.002-05:00

This courtesy of Dan Heilman; check it out, check it out ladies 'n gennelmen!

Oh i should note that at 3:00 is when *I* note that *BOB* notes that he has our measure and knows more than we do -- I've seen him do THAT live beFORE, sonny :-)

Dan howsomever counters that Mick Ronson @3:20 = groovy. And ... he's right!

Now then, this here is courtesy of moi; check this out.

Well drat, you can't! I really thought you would benefit from hearing Bob live, singing If you want me to ... E-YASSS!! but his live '75 Isis has been taken down for copyright raison d'être, sonny. So get it while you can, Janis says! Also: there's some good Jack White covers there at that link anyway; next best thing.

And then there is, courtesy of Dan Heilman again; check this out again; this. Dan says about this very this: "Excuse the weird subtitles. I swear there are times in this clip when he bares his teeth like a cornered animal. Don't tangle with Angry Bob."

Dang, bobdylan.com is down at this very moment; every time that happens I worry that the man has gone belly up. Not yet, senor, not yet! Do it later! :-)

Our dear friends, at home and abroad!

2011-06-23T22:36:00.001-05:00

So many friends in so many places! There's our friends
the Westboro Baptist Church!

Our friends the Saudis!

And finally our friend Judge Doc Daneeka from the Land Down Under! Hey Yossarian! It's like this: Remember how Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he were sane he had to fly them? If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to?

Well, so it is here in Australia! Mark Steyn said it first i think: The police can never establish the identity of the woman who falsely accused the police of demanding she remove her burka because to establish her identity the police would have to demand she remove her burka thereby rendering her false accusation true! I rest my case!

I don't know about you, but I'm sticking with mono!

hey! free music here! ice cold tunes here! hey! hot tunes here!

2011-06-19T23:24:00.006-05:00

I heard the Small Ponds for the first time early this very Saturday a.m. while driving around looking for the famous farmers market in beautiful downtown South Bend, but then I missed the college dj’s mention of the band & the song. (In my defense the college is Goshen, a Mennonite school that won't play the Star Spangled Banner & is located a bit southeast of here, so plenty of static & eerily reminiscent of FST's Temporary Humbolt County, heard about here at 2:15 & in at least two additional spots -- hey kids, collect 'em all!)

Q. Boy I'm tired of pushing West. How long ago we left Goshen?
A. About two HOURS ago. Aint we ever gonna stop?

When I realized this problem of missing the band, the song, and the whole point, i pulled off the road, found a pen & paper & wrote down the one lyric i knew i had right from what I'd just heard — "loneliness will be your one true love." Later, after many a misadventure, I got home to my very own apartment & googled this self-same lyric & came up with nothing relevant until, on page 1,060 of the Google returns, a single fine blog appeared by the name-o-Carolina Gypsy that ... named that tune. So … thanks to her I wasn't the only one stopped in his or her but in my case HIS, tracks, by that line.

And here's the song, the MP3 of which is available for free download from their site at reverbnation. Is this great or what? (Hint: it's great):

Had best learn the guitar part -- 'twere best done quickly ...

But that is not all!
oh, no. that is not all.. look at me!
look at me!
look at me NOW!
it is fun to have fun (but you have to know HOW):

Because the Fountains of Wayne's great new single, Richie & Ruben, or ... New PowerPop for Grownups, is ALSO available for free download from their Facebook page, thusly:

Sure hard to handle now gets around

2011-06-13T23:21:00.002-05:00

I'm no johnny come lately to crowfandomland. No sir! Some of my earliest memories are of watching these majorly cool beasts when they would deign to visit the yard of our lil' one-bath tract house in sunny Des Plaines, Ill., right at the end of O'Hare Runway # 2.

Was reminded of this because I saw a great king crow today, sunning himself at the very highest pinnacle of the apartment roof next to mine. He'd survey his terrain, take off to explore something intriguing, and then return to his perch. Looked like fun to me!

Ms. Who once mentioned reading or perhaps it was NPR hearing about how in some town crows were taking to deliberately chasing squirrels & rabbits into auto traffic in order to make a meal of the resulting mess. I couldn't find any YouTube confirmation of this story although I'm confident it is true.

Here's a BBC account of crows using traffic for less bloody purposes.

And of course we all know crows use their native intelligence to design and teach other crows how to make tools, a characteristic once thought to be a distinguishing characteristic of human intelligence. Here's a nice video showing the crow's famous ability to decide, without any training whatosever, what tool he needs for a specific purpose and then making one -- here, by shaping the end of an aluminum rod into a hook.

Meanwhile, not so famously -- because I didn't know about it! -- Betty the Crow has figured out on her own how to use 3 tools in the proper sequence to obtain her reward. I daresay, and i've always WANTED to say daresay, many humans and voters would take longer to solve this problem than Betty did.

And hey did you know crows

can recognize people's individual features and hold grudges against perceived threats?

I as my good friend Johnny Carson used to say, did not know that.

But that seems to be part of the explanation for the ongoing Crow War against the Everett, Wash., Police Dept.

Serve and Protect? More like Serve and Duck, am I right folks?

Speaking of Black Crows, I love this Black Crowes cover quite a lot and you should too, particularly on account of the fine guitar(s)

but sometimes like tonight no matter how great someone else's take, it's just got to be Otis, doesn't it

What's the Big Deal about Crackerjack?

2011-06-12T01:15:00.002-05:00

Hey!

Hey!

Power Pop Pop-Pop in the Mystery of ...

2011-06-01T21:30:00.002-05:00

The Italian Ice Stand on Pancake Avenue

THIS HERE IS A MUST LISTEN for all us Powerpop fans (HT ETW)

But for those of you who are too busy being a homecoming queen, engineering new green technologies, steering out of double dip recessions, killing Bin Ladin and loitering around the drugstore drinking chocolate malted Vulcan’s and giving away free high schools, I have taken the following notes which should get you past the test tomorrow in second period:

Captain's Donuts?? -- Hey that's my favorite watering hole! I hope all this publicity doesn't ruin it!! ...

quad p = Power Pop Pop Pop

double p = Power Pop

Poptastrophe 2007

Newbridge

Older guy with super dyed black Beatles haircut and those really kind of tight pants and vintage Knack shirt in a sidecar going downhill? Addicted to Beatlesque rock 'n roll? ... hey!

Detective Reginald Fleer and that Italian ice stand on Pancake Avenue

Power Pop Pop-Pop's Power Pop Palace

Pol Pop, the Powerpop Dictator

Q. How does Power Pop Pop-Pop pop you?
A. Well he's got this little, like, weapon, and he calls it ... The Popper?

White Power Pop = great band, but lyrics ... not good

And hey, speaking of doing the double p, the new FOW song Richie and Reuben is available fer free FROM HERE

Come on rattle them bones

2011-05-27T22:28:00.004-05:00

Flying back to sunny Minneapolis on a 7 a.m. flight tomorrow morn to see Ms. Who and the whole Who Brood (I hope; the kids have their own lives now, the brats) and I (this is a Note to Self!! -- WILL!! NOT!!!) Oversleep; and when I'm on that plane?

Here's what I think I'll be thinking: If, I'll be thinking, if (not likely, but IF!!) for the in-flight snack they offer Tony Packo's Pickles & Peppers Sweet Hots, I will NOT eat more than two (2) -- maybe three (3) -- but absolutely NO MORE, no matter how good they taste.

Because I have now triple confirmed these wonderful witty & insightful guys are not my friends after two or (maybe) three.

What a rip!

Another example! I love smoking -- I love everything ABOUT smoking. But can I smoke? No!

Likewise: I love pickles. I love peppers. I love everything ABOUT the idea of pickles & peppers. But can I eat more than two (maybe, possibly, three) Tony Packo's Pickles & Peppers Sweet Hots? I cannot!

Maybe, just as I once toughened up my lungs to accept 2 & oft-3 packs of Marlboros a day for 30 blessed years, I can now get my immune system to accept Tony Packo's. They are SO freaking good.

And don't forget, all you Health Nazis, all you ... Healthy Happy People ... remember that avoiding all the good things in life ENTIRELY can ALSO lead to trouble! Yes! Remember Fat Flabbie Annie?

She was incredibly big!

She weighed just about sixteen stone (and you know I know what a "stone" converts to, metrically and poundly, precisely and accurately -- yeah, as a matter of fact, I'm a human calculator! I can convert anything, yeah, that's the ticket) and then what happened?

Exactly! A fake dietician went and put her on a diet & now she looks like skin & bone!

Remember what Ray said? "She's given up the alcohol & pizzas & the pies & now she looks as if she's ready to die -- you can't see her walk by."

I ... rest ... my ... CASE.

Oh. Sorry about that. Didn't see your foot there. I'll rest my case over here then, much obliged.

Good Norwegian Wood

2011-05-25T22:11:00.002-05:00

Yah, that's most of what I am made of. Irish, Welsh, English, German too ... but mostly Norway. Coal miners most recently, and dour to be sure, but in the day, sonny, in the day ...

Rock 'n Roll Women I Have Loved

2011-05-22T00:01:00.004-05:00

Mr. Pleasant's great find reminded me, at right about 1:16, of Grace Slick's haunting, eerily erotic, Great Society days. It reminded me of this song, for example, which I first heard courtesy of the Cuyahoga Falls Public Library, circa 1972, very shortly after I'd been forcibly removed by my parents from the friendly confines of NY to A, Oh, Way to Go ... Ohio. I remember being 16 years old and studying the LP cover when I listened to Sally Go Round the Roses for the first time and thinking, man, I wish I could spend some time with this lady.

Of course, by the end of the 70s the lovely Grace had given way to my main rock 'n roll woman, right here, Ms. Chrissy Hynde, ladies 'n gennelmen, Ms. Chrissie Hynde of Akron, Ohio.

Me & Ray Davies, we had the same idea.

Coming from NY, I too couldn't believe how badly Ohio radio sucked and how freaking ugly all the Ohio malls were pumping out that Muzak from Seneca to Cuyahoga ... Falls.

Lucky for me, a quarter of a century later, Chrissie is still a complete live wire. Now, THIS is the way to age gracefully, ladies. :-) And no, as a matter of fack, I DON'T get tired of this

Soul to soul, our shadows roll

2011-05-20T21:54:00.001-05:00

I used to just like this song. Now after 50-plus listenings, I'm in awe of it. I tremble before it. From Modern Times, ladies & gennelmen. Yes, you can so listen to a Bob song 50 times and hear a new song every time.

I would like to learn how to play this one. A good song for these modern times.

Well, you have to understand that I'm not a melodist... My songs are either based on old Protestant hymns or Carter Family songs or variations of the blues form. What happens is, I'll take a song I know and simply start playing it in my head. That's the way I meditate. A lot of people will look at a crack on the wall and meditate, or count sheep or angels or money or something, and it's a proven fact that it'll help them relax. I don't meditate on any of that stuff. I meditate on a song. I'll be playing Bob Nolan's "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," for instance, in my head constantly – while I'm driving a car or talking to a person or sitting around or whatever. People will think they are talking to me and I'm talking back, but I'm not. I'm listening to a song in my head. At a certain point, some words will change and I'll start writing a song.

—Bob Dylan, April 4, 2004, as per Wikipedia, so you know it has to be true. Am I the only one who contributed to Wikipedia's recent fund raising drive?? To be honest? Among my friends, I think I am ... sigh. I still love you, friends, but ... here comes a, you know, power sigh: sigh.

Meanwhile, back at the Modern Times ranch, don't think Dylan doesn't know this movie inside out (passed by the Board of Review!):

Your heart is like the ocean, mysterious & dark

2011-05-19T22:28:00.001-05:00

Hey! That aint garble! It's Dylan!

:-)

Aint no grave

2011-05-17T22:36:00.002-05:00

Click and them photos will en-large prodigiously. And that's just one example of the power of eeeeelectricity, sonny! Say, did I ever tell you about the days before they changed the water?

Old enough to know better

2011-05-15T13:31:00.001-05:00

And now, all the way from the Spiritual Center of the International Movement for TMI, I can report that last night for the first time in my long, long, incredibly long ... life, I broke out in the most amazing and miserable set of itchy hives alllll ohhhh-ver my bah-day ... shortly after eating dinner in my apt., which i ate by my lonesome on account of I didn't have the energy to fight my way to a spot at the bar for a bite to eat on a Sat. night.

So what happened then, Mr. Who, what happened then???

Well, I'll tell you what happened.

The hives went away, after about 90 minutes. But those 90 minutes were THE WORST NINETY MINUTES OF MY -- ok, actually they weren't that bad, but still, wtf?

And you can see my problem. It being a Who temporary-i-hope bachelor meal, tracking down the culprit allergen is not going to be easy.

Here's what I ate in one sitting:

LeanCusine fajita-style chicken spring rolls (white meat chipotle chicken, corn, black beans, bell peppers and onions)

New York Style brand red hot chili pepper Pita Chips

Tony Packo's Pickles & Peppers Sweet Hots

I'm leaning toward the Packo's, which were delicious, but new to me.

I've also never had that particular Lean Cuisine on account of the sign on the shelf, said, NEW ITEM! but chicken & beans & peppers & onions have always been my friend before.

Well but so have Pickles and Peppers, but perhaps it's the PICKLED pepper that makes it different? Peter Piper picked 'em but did Tony P. add sulfates or something chemically annoying to my immune system or something? Still, as Jimmy Buffet & I both know, it's my own damn fault. I shouldn've listened to my mother & just stuck to that cool cherry cream and nice apple tart.

Coconut fudge really blows down those blues.

How Long Since We Left Goshen?

2011-05-11T21:36:00.000-05:00

Goshen, Indiana! GOSHen INdiana, indiANA ...

Birthplace -- or maybe it was boyhood home! -- possibly just a passing fancy! -- of ... Mr. Phillip Proctor, ladies 'n gennelmen.

Spotlight on phil proctor, dang it!

Anyway, I've never been.

But apparently they have have a college there, because they have a great -- and by that I mean, really, really good -- radio station that says they're ... ON THE CAMPUS of this alleged Goshen college thing.

I only know about all this because the station's Michiana place on the Michiana dial -- 91.1, "the Globe" -- is the exact same as the main/news/classical/jazz station in Mpls. (which is not to be confused with 89.3 the Current, the Twin Cities pub radio rock station) (which is also great, especially when Bill DeVille is spinnin' the platters -- playing the old tunes, the new tunes, the sad tunes, the blue tunes, the greatest tunes in the world -- I mean just flat-out giving us the ol' bird's eye low down on this caper whatever that means -- I mean, Bill DeVille, ladies 'n gennelmen!

-- Bill Deville! God's gift to people who wish for a really great DJ who really gives a damn --

which is the VERY station i have preset on my stereotypical Subaru Forrester!!

Yes!

But.

They keep pushing Bill off into weirder and weirder time slots, early Saturday, after midnight on Wednesday so ... i'm getting worried: i can't tell a lie.

So anyway, having to (temporarily I hope) (hi Mary!) live like a bachelor who's working obscene hours to (try to) keep up with all my colleagues who are objectively (on an IQ scale i mean) much smarter than me, having a great radio station to listen to is a big deal.

And the Internet (and my new hearing aids) enable music to keep on keeping me alive. I mean, being able to stream this really good stuff while I write is like being able to pop a ton of ... whatever ... only it's ... whaddaya callit ... legal! ... and it has helped me make many a deadline.

And to put it plainly -- as I always mean to do, believe it or not: I hear stuff I never ever would've on my own.

So my point is, I believe I just gave you not one but two good radio stations for free, accessible by yon intertubes to which you have access or you wouldn't be reading this. Which most of "you" aren't, but that's not my point. PLUS, and here I would refer you to my links under "How Long Since We Left Goshen" in the righthand nav bar to your where is it ... right ... for two additional great Internet-only stations to which I have contributed actual dollars via my, paypal, pal: and you could too! (But you won't, & this is the way of the world, I understand that & am cool with it).

And but so for ALL this great info I just provided, if someone were to provide me with their favorite Internet radio station that they could vouch for, I'd appreciate it. Because you see, it all began 20 years ago -- I was a freshman in college then, although you wouldn't hardly believe it to look at me now ...

Oh shit he made flash cards

2011-05-07T22:21:00.000-05:00

I sometimes have some issues with Above the Law, but never with their Law Revue Video Contest, which is always insanely great.

I'm picking up every stitch NOW, baby

2011-05-06T20:17:00.000-05:00

Through the power of EEEElectrical Circuitry!

I mean, holy crap! My new hearing aids really work! They make my own voice sound like a robot, but man, music listening's never been better. Well I mean, at least not since that rock 'n roll volume I like ravaged those portions of my inner ear that are supposed to hear mid & upper ranges ...

There R but 4 Small Faces Sonny!

2011-05-04T22:56:00.002-05:00

Well I'll give it to you straight, I can't write no more! I been writin' all the liblong day and liblong NIGHT. Ask my boss! She'll tell ya!

So instead I'll paint you a picture about how I'm feeling with not one but two photographic reproductions of things I saw in actuality in real space time. Unless we're living inside a simulated universe, created by future historians obsessed with the 21st century! Always a possibility! But look at the world through my eyes for just a micro momento sonny -- it will do you no harm.

Thanks so much! Honest to God, I feel SOOO much shoop shoop doo waddy waddy, & I aint lying ... weird how that works.

That's fine, I know them all pretty well

2011-04-28T22:40:00.000-05:00

Speaking of kidz being alright, here's one of Charlie Mac's many fine geezer bands doing a very credible off-the-cuff remembrance of that self-same number.

This here is Charlie's old college band, which for the past 25 years has gotten together, precisely once a year, to play for their own enjoyment. Band members are scattered across the country, so each year they meet in a different state, in a different basement, and for one weekend they play till they drop.

And as Max Yasgur once said, I think that's a wunnerful.

Say, remember how, on the Woodstock album, Mr. Max Yasgur was this incredibly old, incredibly square yet endearing character? How old do you think he was? 60? 70?

He was forty-nine years old, sonny. Died less than 4 years later, in February '73 ...

But, oh mama, aint you gonna miss your best friend now?

2011-04-26T22:16:00.001-05:00

Bob's is better, but this is good; this is real good.

Is that worthy or what? I know Dylan would be glad if he heard this, and I hope he has.

But as Mister Muleboy knows, there's been a crash on the levee in Missouri just today, which is the sad news that has put me in mind of these songs.

And this next one kills me too. There's no hiding the fact that Page has always been my fave guitar hero even when all those wiser than me would laugh -- nay, mock -- and say all true guitarists must give it up for Beck, or Hendrix, or Clapton. Still I would lift my foot, stamp the ground and say, ""Eppur si muove!" Also, "I am not a true guitarist."

But I love this next vid all the more for the way Jimmy, who can play rings around anybody on stage around him, happily steps back to let industrial Neil -- and even Plant! -- crank it up front and center, because in the end Page knows it's the rock 'n roll joy that counts, and aint that the truth.

Well them kids are STILL okeydoke in MY book

2011-04-25T21:56:00.003-05:00

I tell you this much! Bunch of really great Who footage right here on THIS dvd and I'm not lying.

Rent it now, sonny, while the renting's still GOOD (camera quick cuts to old sad sack bald guy alone in spartan apartment, headphones on, bathing in PC monitor light & typing the word "GOOD" in all caps).

But my point is, you really should see this movie if you like PowerPop.

Headline of the day

2011-04-23T00:24:00.002-05:00

Earth Day Co-founder Killed, Composted Girlfriend

Thank you, MSNBC, which in its account also claims that Ira Einhorn had a "dark side." I think they may be right!

Man, anymore they're here, they're there, they're everywhere.

You got to stand and face it: Some people just aren't polite.

Qu'est-ce que c'est!

But I'm not worried in my snug little turtle house, where "the most distinguishable element of the design is the moveable exterior wall components that allow the house to be completely closed to its environment or open and connected to the rural landscape."

Ahhh ...

This aint no time for ticker tape parades, baby

2011-04-21T20:45:00.000-05:00

Get me out of these ropes and into a good belt of scotch

But sometimes a pickle is just a pickle

Every time you turn around

2011-04-20T20:54:00.003-05:00

Looks like the kinda spot where a 17-year-old girl would be killed, doesn't it?

And of course, that's 'cause it is.

The road was icy all that liblong day and at least two cars slid into that pothole you can see up there on the shoulder if you click to enlarge.

Earlier that same day, my son had a head-on collision at this exact same spot after hitting that pothole and losing control, but he walked away, dazed and confused.

I gave a copy of that photo to the mom of the dead girl, as she was considering suing the county but I don't think she ever did. Seems there was an earthquake there -- left nothing but a Panama hat & a pair of old Greek shoes.

Cut Him Off at the Past

2011-04-17T23:27:00.002-05:00

You know how -- especially before the Internet -- FST would pop up like the Spanish Inquisition with some new revelation when you least expected it? You're dying in 10th Grade biology when: "The far-flung Isles of Langerhan!!? Holy crap!"

Or you're doing your independent research paper for 11th Grade European History and suddenly, "Schicklgruber!? Yes!! I get it NOW, baby!" Or you're in college Philosophy 101 for Dummies learning about Zeno's Paradoxes and out the blue all the old Antelope Freeway signs start talking to you right there in class? Antelope Freeway, One-128th Mile.

So yeah, that's one thing about Firesign Theater: the sheer breadth & depth of their interests across all fields of learning: history, science, politics -- the arts of all kinds.

But the other thing is the density of jokes & puns per square FST second (JPPSFSTS) such that it is impossible to catch them all on the first, oh, 1,000 listens. And sometimes the whole big slapstick theater of the absurd backdrop "plot" they've got going there in the background starts to really MOVE, and moving so fast you can't catch even the obvious offhand joke anywhere except in your subconscious.

Where it lies, dormant like a forgotten steel trap in the deep dank woods only to finally SPRING shut on you decades later when you're at your neighborhood grocery late Sunday night looking to buy a frozen pizza for 1 to take back to your apartment?

Am I right?

You're standing there in the frozen foods aisle thinking, let's see, what the hell, let's get a whole BUNCH of toppings -- the kind of wild 'n crazy guy i am.

So OK, maybe you aren't, standing there I mean, but let me tell you sonny, *I* was, and I had the freezer door open when it all came back to hit me like a hot kiss at the end of a wet fist.

"No anchovies? You got the wrong man. I spell my name ... Danger."

Ha!! "I spell my name DANGER!" Ha! FST mocks the concept of a man so tied up in his manly self regard he even boasts of his dangerous pizza toppings! Kind of like that time in the alternate universe where J. Alfred Prufock dares to whip out a messy peach and eat it right then 'n THERE!

By Jove, I've GOT it!

Knock, knock, knock.

Uh, you get it.

Oh, and -- while you're at it -- what say you let the makers of Fantastic cigarettes, "long in the leaf and short in the can," bring us another true story from the tattered casebook of Nick Danger, Third Eye.

Bang bang shoot 'em up, destiny; bang bang shoot 'em up to the moon

2011-04-12T21:44:00.000-05:00

Was a hunnerd'n'fifty years ago today, sonny

And that's all I have to say about that on account of, when I was a lad of 9 or 10 I became the world's nerdiest Civil War geek, which trust me, was not all that popular a pastime in grade or middle school. It was not a chick magnet thing or a sports thing, I knew that much. So I kept it to myself. Luckily, although I never could hit fast pitching worth a damn I was a decent shortstop if I do say so myself & my Dad had taught me the rudiments of boxing, so I could maintain my cover. No one knew my secret love for the canon of Bruce Catton and it went by the wayside in any event in high school as so many good things do. But my point is I knew then and I know now that hearing some self-proclaimed "expert" bloviate about the Civil War is the next worst thing to being grapeshot yourself, so I will refrain.

Except i guess I will point out this NYT series is great.

Also the before 'n after of the sunken road, shown here if you click through, from Antietam I should say, which Battlefield I visited a whole mess of times when I lived in Maryland on account of, it's beautiful & amazing 'n full of ghosts.

'course this is also Yuri Gagarin Day.

Take it, Barney.

P.S. I want this:

Do you like KETCHUP?

2011-04-10T21:38:00.001-05:00

Do you like BREAD? Do you like JALA-PEEEEENOS? Do you like CHEEEEZ? Do you like Sausages from the Farmers MARRRRKET?

Well THAT'S all you need for a Jalapeno Sausage Cheese 'n Ketchup Breakfast Sandwich.

Now, now, don't harsh my mellow -- you know what the man said about sandwiches and enjoying them ...

Just a hat & feet

2011-04-06T21:50:00.000-05:00

Hmmm ... I actually could wear a different hat each day, but instead I just wear the same dang one every day for weeks, until for reasons unknown I suddenly move onto a different hat. Rinse! Repeat!

"Like a falling piano, from out of a window" -- Chris Collingwood just knew all those hours he spent in front of Wile E. Coyote & Bugs & Friends would come in handy some day.

Histories of Ages Past, Sonny!

2011-04-04T23:01:00.000-05:00

I think I'm up to 4 now? One of these nights (and this is not that night) I will tote up the current total of the Top 25 (2011 Personal Faves Edition) for Who Am Us Anyway (you can call me Who) and mister muleboy to see what's what and (this is a dream) also take a lazy Sunday afternoon to compare, contrast, and whatnot, our respective Top 25 Songs of All Times lists "as they stand now."

Yessss, I'll be in my "study" smoking a pipe, occasionally reaching down to pat my faithful dog on the head as I write. My wife will be in the next room, contemplating which play we will attend tonight ... (slap!! Oh! Hello, sorry! Was I nodding off?)

Mister Muleboy has amazing yet eclectic taste, hence my (quite serious) vow to buy any song he lists that I don't already have.

My Top 25 (2011 Personal Faves Edition)? Not so smart, I'll be honest. So much of what i love is situational. This Top 25 pick, for example -- and there is one person on the planet who can verify this for me (hello N----, of Somers, New Yor-ork?? Are you still alive??) -- was the very first 45 I ever listened to after altering yon consciousness of mine etc., & also on the very same occasion doing the etcetera AND for the very first time listening (for the very first time) to a song on headphones, and really, really loud at that. And this was the song, and it's in my top 25, so there. But for this song, whenever it starts to drag, you have to turn it up just a bit more, and then it gets good again. Features Jimmy Page on lead guitar (true story)(unless it's not)(I've heard it both ways).

Of course, after loving this song for 43 years to nearly the day, i'm now being fitted for hearing aids, but don't let that be a lesson for you ...

Ruh-roh: Sunday night already?

2011-03-27T22:01:00.003-05:00

Steve Frost ...

My floor ...

My, my, hey hey ...

& hey hey, my my
there's more to the picture than meets the eye

Will a matchbox hold my clothes

2011-03-26T01:01:00.000-05:00

Musha ring dum-a do dum-a da (whack for my daddy-oh, whack for my daddy-oh) there's whiskey in the jar-oh

2011-03-17T23:14:00.003-05:00

Couldn't say it better myself, and one of my favorite watering holes of all time (and that's a high honor, sonny) is my current neighborhood's Irish public house, which is all of 2 blocks away from Casa Whoamusanyway, but it turns out this was probably not the night to bring some work there to finish up over a pint.

Oops.

So: Is Netflix the next-greatest invention behind only Youtube? I think it is!

Streaming into said casa as we speak, "I am trying to break your heart" (Wilco); and simultaneously in the mail to me on disc? That'd be "The kids are alright." What a world.

Aaand here's my favorite Irish ditty for the Year of Our Lord of this year, a tune I must have heard performed live by more than a dozen different Irish bands over my lifetime & i aint kidding about twelve bands, but this version though, and it's a good one, is by those grizzled old Irish folkies, Thin Lizzy. I mean give them some credit (or even lots of credit like i do) -- they saw the rock 'n roll in it when no one else did. It's an objectively fine cover and don't argue with me -- "I am right and I will be proven right" (name that latter fab reference).

But happy St. Patty's day, and peace 'n love to you all. See you in 6 hours back in the workadaddy world ...

Dude's a one-man opera;

2011-03-12T01:01:00.004-06:00

a one-man novel; one-man bands got nothing on him

Don't shoot the flute player

2011-03-01T21:57:00.016-06:00

That'd be the flutist or the flautist, right?

But either way the video below is priceless and yet another reason, as Senor Simels has pointed out on more than one occasion over at PowerPop, that Youtube is the greatest invention in the history of the universe.

To be able to watch Van Zandt talk about Pancho & Lefty fer free, well, it just slays my jaded soul. I mean: You young people? ... You just don't understand :-(

But, speaking for myself, I don't know what happens after 06:30 or so, whenever that dang flutist kicks in, because by then? I'm out of there. That flute just ruins the most brilliant song -- no, no, not the flautist's fault, of course not, just the way it goes, I understand, no, I couldn't have done any better -- but I couldn't listen to it, i'll put it that way.

But my point is, in light of Mister Muleboy's Epic and if I might say BRAVE Adventure in Personal Sonic Meaning, I am naming this very tune (although not this very VERSION) to enter the 2011 Edition of the Whoamusanyway Top 25 (Personal Faves Edition) Songs O' All Times.

Of COURSE, Pancho & Lefty is not a flutist song (no offense to flutists); it is as a simple matter of fact, a fiddler's song, such as you may hear ... here:

The explanation for WHY this song is worthy of the Whomausanyway etcetera must await a less overloaded evening, sonny -- but you will get it, ready or no, reading or no.

Hmmm ... Mister Muleboy is already on his No. 6. Thus my own explanation "'Twere best done quickly" (Hi Pat!)

Blurry College Indoor Track & Field!

2011-02-27T23:14:00.002-06:00

I saw a sub-4 minute mile! Saw a world record in the 800!

But that's not important right now!

What's important is that we all be berry, berry careful not to SEND THE WRONG MESSAGE.

Is there any more pompous, self-satisfied, self-rightous and immoral phrase in the English language than "Mr. or Ms. [Self-Satisfied Expert] worries that [reporting X about Y] will 'send the wrong message?' "

I don't think there is!

I'll be the judge of whether "the message" I'm sent is the wrong one or not, Mr. & Ms. Busybody of Anytown, USA! Jeez!

That said, here's A SONG WITH A MESSAGE!

I want you to heeeeed my warning!

Minor Scrape

2011-02-26T15:48:00.000-06:00

Leaving balmy Indiana for a lightning trip to Minn., honeymooning for an afternoon down by the fireplace in our tract house that won't sell on the tundra & then heading down to the newly renovated Loring Theater tonight on Nicollet to introduce Ms. Who to a great band by the name Galactic Cowboy Orchestra, that's what!

P.S., met 'em at the Fiddler's, sonny!