Papa just laughed

Greetings from Vandoeuvres, a stone's throw from the golf course in Cologny. Had the great pleasure yesterday of re-listening to some old Fast Fun tapes that Mary and John have kept. Remember the "Christmas tape" of 1984? Listened to it after lunch at the Auberge de la Ferme. The smell and feel of our mouldy, damp recording facility on the Rue des Alpes (?) by the gare in Lausanne was recalled in full force. Of course, it sounds better than we thought. Mira compared it favourably to demo tapes of some her current favourite bands. And of course, "it sounds like the Velvet Underground", especially Jim's singing and Jesus in general. Also played a pre-demo demo with 3 versions of Reagan on it. Jai was able to discern a preference for the first, "better but less musical" version. Myself, I still get a warm chuckle from that tune. And am still a sucker for "Big House" with full synth flourishes by J Blood, and the ecstatic fury of Waving and Maybe I Will. Ah well, les neiges d'antan or something like that. Gran'pa? Yes, Jimmy ....

Merry Christmas.  War is over.

Tina: Remember?
Ike: Remember what?

Tina: You used to call me Daffodil
Ike: Yes, those were the good old days.
Tina: A thriller...
Ike: That's me!
Tina: Every woman's loving man.

If the death of JB and the trial of Phil Spector have not sufficiently raised the question of the man vs. the artist, we now have yet another case to consider of a drug-adled, control-freak, wife-beating egomaniac who changed the face of popular music. If the man can be separated from the music, or indeed even if he can't, there remains the genius in the body of work and, especially, the funky down-home guitar playing of Ike Turner.

I've been coughing so much my diaphragm is sore and it hurts to roll over in bed.  The frog in my throat feels like a Scarlet Crapaud.  Yesterday I had the cold sweats which nonetheless did not make me feel any closer to James Brown.  I'm a little worried because the Maggies will be recording our new pirate-themed LP on Sunday.  But I'm trying to keep a cheery spirit in keeping with the season.  Better to be sick in Berkeley, I suppose.

Wow, both Brave Combo and Bubba Hernendez were nominated for Polka Grammys.  Too bad Jimmy Sturr will win it, same as always; the Academy has its head stuck in 1954.

I dreamed we were all together again, playing golf.  I wasn't very good at it. Happy birthday, Jim.

Today's Verse: 27 November 2007

I can't keep death away
From your little door
All I can do
Is stay by you
Face the silent roar
While you sleep

I found a bottle of Pikesville rye at a local liquor store. Slogan: "The Aristocrat of Straight Whiskeys". I was initially baffled to learn that it is not made in Pikesville MD but in Kentucky, but of course you can find anything on the web, so here's the story that not only tells what happened to Pikesville rye, but includes Old Setter whiskey and Natty Boh.

Antique British Dessert of the Day: Syllabub

Try that with your treacle, Dick.

The Two Roberts W

Quite a while ago, so long I don’t remember it, Jimmy sent me a book of short pieces by the early twentieth century Swiss writer, Robert Walser. I found a recent translation of Walser’s novel “The Assistant”, about a clerk who goes to work for an inventor who is going broke. For a while I didn’t think I liked it, since the only plot is the inventor’s slow inevitable descent into ruin, and I thought it was one of those books in which the reader is supposed to laugh at the character’s increasing misfortune, you know, things are so bad now at least they can’t get worse, but are really about the author feeling superior to his own characters, so why bother. But then I started really loving the straight-ahead, affectless assistant, who regardless of circumstances, pretty much likes everything: his coffee, the sunshine, the Swiss woods, his boss’s wife’s neck. It’s actually a strange and really wonderful book and now I’ve started Walser’s weirder and wonderfuller “Jakob von Gutten”. Bircher muesli, Vita-merfen and Robert Walser: these are why the Swiss will never be defeated.


I dreamed that I met the other Robert W., who had invited me to a little gathering of some sort. I asked him who did the original of “Yesterday Man” (“a bit of a music nerd question, I know”) and he teased me gently when I refused some food he offered because it had meat in it. “Everything eats something else,” he said in his adorable working-class accent. Do we think that Robert Wyatt might himself be a vegetarian? Men: he is a British hippie. De: he did once write a song from the point of view of bacon. (“I’m delicious when I’m crunchy, even when I’m almost black”.)

Expression of the day: treacle dick. A British dessert, custard in molasses sauce.

Election Day

My close friends may recall that Election Day is Johny's Birthday (celebrated). A few years ago I wrote The Elcetion Day Polka, since it's a holiday with no song; "Hip hip hooray/for the USA/Everybody jump for joy 'cause it's election day/ Yippee yahoo/ For me and for you/ Oh boy it's election day, we'll have a big to-do." And yet here it is election day and for the first time I can remember since I came back to the States, there's no election today, at least not in Berkeley. No ballot issues, no city council election, no recall, nothing. I'm familiar with the "don't vote, it only encourages them" arguement, but man, I really love going to the fire station or church or somebody's garage, going behind the curtain and punching little holes in the cards. (Nowadays, post-hanging shads in California, we draw a nice dark line on the card, which isn't as much fun.) It might be a pointless exercise to opiate the masses with the illusion of choice, or it might not I suppose, but I miss it all the same today. Happy Election to all.

Happy Birthday Dear Johny

Happy Birthday Mr Blood

Dear Johny,
I know it's a day early but am on my way to an island in the Arabian Sea to celebrate Diwali far away from the smoke and noise of Bombay and so will be out of reach of telephone, GSM, GPRS, etc. Indi, Mira, Jai and I wish you a very happy birthday. The kitties are all well, though Juhu's become a bit of a refugee since Patch gave birth. We see him every once in a while but he's terrified of the little mama, which confuses her more than she is already. Her teenage pregnancy has messed her mind up, in the immortal words of Jeff Simmons.
Jai, in addition to baritone for the school band, has now taken up the bass. First riff: White Stripes. Thought you should know.
Love

I read a book recently called "A Tour of the Calculus" by David Berlinski, written to describe the calculus and what it does, rather than teach it. There's a couple of pages of analysis in most of the chapters, which is to say, just slightly more than I can take in. He thinks through the ideas of integration and derivatives, and includes things like the relationship between mathematical objects, physics and "la vie vecue". I like best that he calls it the calculus, the way Sir Isaac did.

But Euler's e, I still don't think I get it. It's a transcendental number, yup, it a logorhythmic function, it can be used as a base same as we commonly use base 10 or computers use base 2, right, and...it's the number whose...log is itself...no, but it loops back on it self somehow...Nope. Dunno. It has something to do with ants on a Moebius strip somehow.

In the jailhouse now?

I wonder if Firestone is one of those arrested yesterday on the steps of the Capitol. If so, you should get cracking on your prison memoirs.

This just in: the Tomatis Method comes to CIIS. Matt Egg and Augusta Dora rejoice.

Actress Margaret Whitton?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aY9iM2A4uDt4&refer=home

I'm happy today because I wrote "Moron rules" in wet concrete.

Thanks for the happy birthdays

Sorry I haven't contributed in so long. My summer was consumed with traveling to golf tournaments and having migraines. The highlight was interviewing Arnold Palmer - he's a very charming fellow. I am now in the first throes of editing the film we shot, trying to give it that sports channel zazz. Actually, I'm aiming for a something a little more sophisticated than zazz, sort of more like a fizz. We'll see.

The new kitty, Arrow, is well. But poor Monkey has asthma, of all things. She even has a little inhaler. I think it kind of makes her a nerd.

Today is Tracy's birthday
She's a batteur et une femme
Which is another way of saying
She's a lady who plays the drum-
s

Happy birthday Tracette

Swiss TV

We had a party last night to welcome activists who were in town early for a Peace March on Saturday. There were two nice fellows from Swiss TV who came to the party and filmed it as part of a profile of a young Iraq Vets Against the War (IVAW) guy. It was cool.

I was going bald.
My hair was frizzy and unmabnangable.
Now I look and feel great with Mr. Ray's Hair Weave!
You can dance in it, swin in it even shower in it!
My whole life has changed!

Today's Verse: 6 September 2007

There was a young feller from Bremen
Townsfolk said nothing would shame him
He pitched a tent
Wherever he went
To exhibit himself to the layman

Word of the Day

lachrymomimetic = pretending to cry

4 good reasons

1. Jimmy Carl Black
2. Opened with Buggy Boogie Woogie (I gotta keep sweepin n sweepin)
3. Eugene Chadbourne plays Marauder!
4. His second instrument is a banjo

It's Cotati time, which is like Muratti time except with accordions instead of cigarettes. The Mad Maggies have a sweet afternoon spot and Brave Combo is headlining.

Old Spice

Jody, the international student advisor, brought a bottle of Old Spice into the financial aid office. A friend in Japan had asked her to send it to him, but she wasn't allowed to mail it since it contains alcohol which is, after all, inflammable. I asked if I could have a smell, and voila, the Proustian scent of Eau de Jymn. Do you still wear that stuff, JCB?

I feel a bit out of step.

Last night, my neighbor invited me to go up to Baltimore to a pre-season football game to celebrate both of our birthdays. I haven't been to an NFL game in a long time, although I have watched a little bit on television. I have spent a lot of time around a lot of spectator sports in my life, and have certainly enjoyed a few, but last night's event was as pointless and extravagant a demonstration of militaristic consumerism as I have ever witnessed. After having experienced the gentle souls of J. Blood and my even older friend Arty Kopecky in the last few weeks, I felt like I was on a different planet. Painfully, it was a planet where I was not welcome, and where the ideas and goals that I cherish are not valued. I have to assume that everyone feels this way sometimes. I don't like the feeling much myself. I won't be going back, and I am sure that my friend will not invite me again. I hate to separate myself off from the world, for many reasons, but I need to be more careful about exposing myself to this kind of thing. As Dylan put it, "maybe I'm too sensitive, or perhaps I'm getting soft".
I have many exciting and positive projects coming up. I'll write more another time.
peace,
jim

A story about James' colleagues in Code Pink, whom I got to meet last week.

And now the photo

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahOOA5zLaqqg&refer=home

I look forward to the self-serving memoirs, especially the early chapters on freshman seminar, Paca Carroll, and Pam Sklar.

Somebody's gotta take the blame

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aakWze4YilpA&refer=home

Not forgetting your favorite well-mannered boy: the singer!

Let's hear it for the singer, ladies and gentlemen

And Johny Blood loves to scan and post pictures!

I'm worried about Neil Sedaka. How is that young people love Barry Manilow, Elton John and Neil Diamond, while the equally untalented author of "Bad Blood", "Laughter In the Rain" and "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" is overlooked?

Today's Verse: 26 July 2007

Evolution's reduced me
To peeking through keyholes
Sifting trash
'N' idolatry

Nobody will hold
Headlines against you
Ignore reporters
Vermin

Thank god for spare time
Kick back, relax
Get lost
In enigmatic processes
Scenarios
Relationship models

Thought roams independent
Of observation
Facts
Feelings
Each, a dog, tracks its own trail
For no better reason
Than just 'cause

Toast! beer camera mug
Capture! dull golden hue
Bent lazy smile
Float invitingly to view

Everyone likes ice cream

We got a scanner with our new computer.

This just in: This is the end for the Weekly World News . As I used to say when I subscribed, the WWN prints the stories other newspapers don't dare to. Please, let us never forget the brilliant sub-head on the "Couple Flees Talking Bear" story: "I know it sounds crazy, but it's true!"

And worse than being held at gunpoint by Richard Cannistrari is extraordinary rendition by our Vice-President. Dick Cheney was giving some sort of lecture and I stood up and pointed at him silently, you know, “J'accuse”. Other people started pointing at him as well, but I was the only one standing, and he turned to me and said with that Cheney snarl, “You! You want a piece of me? I'll have you killed!” I just said, “Do what you want” and kept pointing at him, so he called up his Secret Service goons and they hustled me off to a back room. Believe it or not Karl Rove was actually counseling restraint, he said don’t leave any marks because all those people saw him get taken away, and I was pretty scared in fact, but a moment later I found myself an inch above the bed with the word “Shit” in my mouth because we’d just had a 4.2 earthquake. Juliana said something about the window, and I thought she meant go to the window because there was something to see outside, but she was saying get out of bed so you’re not under the window, you don’t want it break from aftershocks and cover you with shards of broken glass. Which it didn't, in fact I don’t think it was a very big quake since it didn't set off any car alarms or wake the bird up (that’s not a sexual euphemism; Chaitzel, usually so sensitive to slight movements, slept through it) but I still had trouble getting back to sleep. I miss the good old days of dreaming about going on vacation with the Quayle family.

Yesterday I played on a television commercial, well a demo for a commercial. Stephin Merritt wrote a 30 second song and sent the file to Wally Sound, the engineer who did "The Great Repblic". Of course if it actually airs you won't be able to hear the tuba part.

Strari was holding a gun to my face, sticking me up for money for drugs. (Junk I think it was, unfortunately.) "I mean it" he said. "I'll kill you if I have to." "Oh now Richard", I said. "We both know you don't want to kill anybody." I gave him twenty bucks anyway, though I probably shouldn't have.

Today's Verse: 6 July 2007

Don't wag your freedom in my face
Don't choke me with your liberties
I don't want you to be free
I don't want you to be free
With me

Today's Verse: 5 July 2007

Cranky gate
Clap and squeal for me
Rattle, shake
How you do sing
You beat every exception
That tune's a victory
Even here, even now
I dwell in darkness and in awe
Of your ever-livin' open shut
Open shut
Wheeze

Hard-boiled

For those of our friends who don't get The College magazine, or don't bother to read it: James M Cain, author of "The Postman Always Rings Twice", "Double Indemnity" and "Mildred Pierce" spent in his boyhood in Paca-Caroll. His father was a teacher at St John's around the turn of the last century, and Paca Caroll was faculty housing then. Cain fils later taught journalism at St John's in the 1920s.

The new Nick Lowe “At My Age” is out and highly recommended. I liked “The Impossible Bird” from the late 90s more than I’ve liked anything of his since Rockpile days, and I liked the two after (“Dig My Mood” and “The Convincer”) even more. The new one doesn’t perhaps get me off quite as much as those two, but is still excellent in very much the same vein. It’s funny that Mister “Bash it out in the studio and we’ll tart it up in the mix” now makes such beautiful-sounding, cleverly-produced albums, or maybe it isn’t.

While idling through my new home on My Space I found an Ivor Cutler page which, sadly is not managed by Mr Cutler himself as he died in March of last year. Delightful to see his face and hear his voice and disappointing to know he’s gone: this is the site.

My 10-year-old nephew is going into fifth grade, when they start band. He already plays piano and viola a little, though guitar is really his main instrument. He picked French horn for band because, he told me, you play it lefty, which he is.

James, didn’t your Mexicali trumpet style come from a few years playing French horn? And if so, is it really played left-handed, or was the guy at the music store just shining him?

Warning sign

Apparently the administrators at Blogspot are having some trouble, since posts don't seem to be going up. How was Dan Hicks?

We finally got a new computer so I can post from home now. I'm also planning to use it for recording, an update from the 1993 model 4-track I've been using. At the suggestion of Mr Leach (how pleassant!) I opened a Myspace page, which, currently quite primitive is:

http://www.myspace.com/johnyblood

(Hmm, now I can make it a hot link. Go figure.)

I put some old stuff up there, but eventually I want to post new songs as I record them.

Last night I dreamed we were all playing together again. I lent Peter my accordion, and Jimmy was playing the Marauder and I was playing my baritone ukulele with some kind of little pick-up on it, and Bill Ney was there with an acoustic guitar—he’s a Springsteen fan, but a nice guy for all that and I didn’t mind having him sit in. Then Tracy showed up, so I thought why not I’ll play the bass, let’s rock, and Jimmy had some new songs to work on and for once I wasn’t dreaming about waiting to go on, or finding everyone or equipment not working we were just playing so that was very nice.

Today a woman I work with was singing "Wombles of Wimbledon" as she was wombling up her trash from lunch. Her name is Ursula and she's from New Zealand.

Today's Verse: 9 June 2007

Why do legions flee
Priceless liberty
Turning back, tail, tide
Up down out inside
Off or on or twilight dim
In between
Im between
I said as a child
And still say to myself
What's the difference
In these states
These tender, fearsome
Loves and hates
Can't have all
Or none
But go and come
In and out
Off and on
Intermittent
Permancence
I doubt that's how Napoleon thought
Ever
Or Phillip the Second, but maybe Caesar
Or Alcibiades
The sensuous, the traitrous
Expedient kind of monster
Who really scares being so desirous
So enchanting
Virile and bewitching
Who watches these movies anyway
The way they go on
Through tortuous variations
On the five standard plots
Stumbling through a tedious sequence
Of binary choices
That lead through tears and gasps
To the end
Expulsion
Exhaustion
Befuddlement
Cessation
Is that what Jesus Christ died for
God no
God knows
I give up
Gave up
Never give up
Never surrendered
What difference does it make
What I did yesterday
It's today that counts
Seize the day
Make a choice
Live your life
Be yourself
Be somebody else
Be somebody bad
Love somebody bad
Love your bad self
On TV
Share I mean
Spread it around
Give it up
But don't give it away
All these instructions
Are getting me down
Why can't life be as simple
As a good crap
Or pissing in a field
That's probably what Napoleon thought
When he spoke with Josephine
Or rather suffered her relentless
Prattle
And she was thinking of his shoulder
Or his arm or the cleft beneath
His adam's apple
Or a recipe for mayhem
Or murder
Or his best friend and where are you now
Jesus Christ I never bargained for this

Pie

I was eating pie with my nephew this weekend, and he said, jokingly, "What a hard life", to which I could only respond, in a Sri Lankan accent, "Yes, it is a hard life, Jim."

Hey Jim,

Just visited the Flickr site of your tree house. You live such an exciting life! Were you at home napping when "Timber!"? Somehow brings to mind the time Johny's roommate's (what was his name? scraggly bearded bibliophile, Kevin?) massive iron statue crashed into the table inches away from Stephen's head, I believe, or was it mine? "Look a bird as big as a dog." Somehow forget who was who in these stories.
Nice to see Annie on the street. Is she going to college soon?

Do you still do Alaska?

Hey Johny,

Email sent to you from my home email addrress (james@becswitz.int.ch) gets rejected by your aol account. That's what the mail daemons tell me anyway. Is there some way you can identify me as an "OK" sender?

Monsoon's arrived - hurling re-animation in wild abandon between heavy bouts of brooding and expectancy.

Mira likes the new Brian Ferry.

Love

Last night I dreamed I received a package containing a hat that had been owned by John-Paul’s mother. The Papal Police ransacked my room and confiscated it.

The Mad Maggies is the poorly-named band I’m playing with, and this is the website:
http://www.themadmaggies.com/

They say you can find anything on the web, but I searched in vain for a site with Sputnik the Space Potato (“We like salads, salads, salads/ Veg-ty-bles and fruits”) nor could I find one for “Always count your change”, but did find the following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiUQKuZF85w

No pictures of the Pink-mobile, James? And bummer, oh man, about the tree. I guess at least you’ll be in firewood for a while.

Greetings from Space Potato

Notice on the Maggie's site that you will be playing at Spud's Pizza next month. Hope you will include "You earthlings should eat vegetables" in the set.

The Times They Are A'Changing

How do you like the new Bryan Ferry "Dylanesque"? I was a little surprised after the last one, "Frantic"(I think), at the 70s, pre-Roxy (as if Roxy never existed) rock lite approach. But, as with all Ferry albums I have, it becomes more endearing with every listen. I especially like the castanets on "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" (a nod to Juarez perhaps). It would be nice and ironic if this CD becomes popular and Ferry's career dims to twilight bathed in a soft warm glow of adoration for his easy listening interpretations of his Bob-ness' "visions". Of course, Bryan's always been a sucker for Bob, but never so straight-forward pop in his takes as on this outing. I suspect that this one too will miss the boat with the mass market, but will nevertheless end up signalling mood in countless romantic comedy and relationship movies to come.

Today's Verse: 23 May 2007

How pretty and fine
The coil, I mind,
That drives your buoyant
Carress

How noble your nape
I wonder and gape
At your alluring
Curvature

Today's Verse: 22 May 2007

Don't ignore
Hair fall
Growing stout
Old man dick
Shadow doubt

Don't ignore
Creeping fear
Temptation's throb
Lingering
Problems

Don't ignore
Mixed signals
Unusual changes
In pulse and respiration
Rates, and mates

Don't ignore
The guy in your dreams
Who thinks he's you

Don't ignore
Don't let go
Worry, fret
Regret
Before it's too late

PIN

The other day I went to use my debit card and just whiffed through my PIN; I entered the wrong number three times in a row. Though I’ve had the same number since I got my first ATM card in Boston in 1985, it’s of course hardly out of character that I’d forget it: once or twice a semester I would freeze up and be utterly unable to remember my high school locker combination, and those two-letter combinations for the St. John’s mailboxes refused to stay fixed in my memory for more than twenty minutes at a time. Since I’d entered my PIN incorrectly one time too many, I had to call B of A to clear the block on my account.

I told all this to Juliana, which brought up the somewhat intimate question of PINs. Fifteen years, and the subject’s never come up before. I told her the number, which I’ve used because it was part of a friend’s phone number in Cincinnati, and seems like a very strong number. Oh she said. That’s the same number I use. Because she knows it’s mine, I had told her at some point and had forgotten? No, she just likes the number. It’s a nice number. She’s been using it not quite so long as me, perhaps for ten years, each of us using the same secret number without knowing it.

Today's Verse: 21 May 2007

Destiny's busted
Broke down, abandoned
Sidelined on the highway
To and fro nowhere

Son (and daughter) of Fast Fun

Today's Verse: 19 May 2007

Hey raisin eyes
Old balloon skin
Don't laugh
That could be your face

Petite poeme-en-prose, 5/17/07

Wow, I’m really impressed with your poem-a-day diligence, Jim. Here’s my offering, a little lunchtime poeme-en-prose:

A pigeon grabs a French fry and shakes it so hard it flies out of his mouth. The pigeon stares at it lying on the ground. He takes a step forward, shakes his head quickly and stares at it some more.

Today's Verse: 17 May 2007

Dreamed we robbed the mob
Jim was our leader
He got caught by the cops
As we made our escape
In a black SUV
They came to the house
Oh shit that's the end of my career

and Jerry, well, fell

Today's Verse: 16 May 2007

Ev'rybody knows
April is a killer
And in May
Town is dead

For selfish reason

Today's Verse: 15 May 2007

All the quiet little babies
Afloat in mama's womb
Just think they'll soon be driving
And making traffic soon

Maggie got a fan letter from someone named Erik in Geneva who said that he had known me in the 80s. It turns out he was one of the international school kids who used to caddy at the Geneva Golf Club. I do in fact remember him and he says he recognized me from the band photo. Apparently he studied ethnomusicology at the University of Stockholm, with an emphasis on Balkan and gypsy music. He plays in a band himself and even played at Fast Fun’s old haunt, the Sud des Alpes. My, my.

Little Willy has been awfully quiet; perhaps he prefers to let his guitar do the talking. But I believe he is the first of us to complete the fourth cycle of twelve years and begin the fifth, and I would like to wish him many happy returns of the day. Stephen won't you please come home? Your room's clean and no one's in it.

Rock n roll granny

Saw Patti Smith on the Jay Leno show yesterday, doing "Gimme Shelter". Did she really sing "love is just a fuck away"?

His Master's Voice

We took publicity photos last weekend. Note the un-lacquered horn.

Limbo

The new pope has unwritten the first circle of Hell. Dante’s Limbo seemed like an alright to spend the afterlife, though on re-reading Canto 4 of the Inferno, I noticed that, like Mel Gibson, Dante favors ancient Romans over ancient Hebrews. That’s OK, it’s his book. I do however prefer the teaching we are all born in grace, rather than in sin, making Limbo theologically unnecessary.

The Mad Maggies will be playing a short live set on KRSH, a Santa Rosa radio station with a broadcast radius of 500 yards, this Thursday the 19th at 8:00 PDT. Fans who like to listen to music played through a computer should be able to tune in through this link:

http://www.krsh.com/listen.html

I’ve been reading, somewhat at Firestone’s suggestion last summer, Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. So far I’m up to the Flour Riot of 1837. What surprises me most is that in 1980, when the book was published, the idea of a counter-history of the invisible and the unrepresented was so novel that Zinn has to continually justify it; nowadays that’s the stuff of freshman history class. It’s a little tiring to read about so much injustice, rapaciousness and oppression on my morning commute though. I guess I could read the morning newspaper instead.

We love those Easter eggs--Mary Sue Easter eggs; people are making the switch. 'Cause using real butter makes Mary Sue better and you've never had it so rich.

You said a mouthful.

My old tuba teacher, Sam Green, died last week. He played in the Cincinnati Symphony for something like 35 years, and taught at the University for over 50. His style was from another time: both his corny, nervous personal manner and his big, vibrato-heavy tuba playing. Yet he was the begetter of Blood & Stone, and anyone who knew him who would smile in recognition when I said I was one of Sam’s students. The cliché for an original like Sam is that when they made him they broke the mold, but in fact he was the mold.

Things I learned about the Ronettes on the occasion of their being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

I had always thought, based on those incredibly nasal voices, the Ronettes were from Philadelphia, but apparently they are from Spanish Harlem, NYC. (I may also have been misled by the fact that they recorded for the Philles label.)

I had wondered what their ethnicity was under all that make-up: black? Puerto Rican? Sicilian? The Bennett sisters, Ronnie and Estelle, are mixed-race, black and Native American mother and white father, while cousin Nedra (the cute one) is African-American. (I know, I know, race is a social construct not a biological one.)

Phil Spector is on the Rock-&-Roll Hall of Fame nominating committee, and till now had black-balled the Ronettes. They made it in this year because he was otherwise engaged with his current legal difficulties.

Oh, did anyone else see the Switzerland Invades Lichtenstein story?

Last night there was a 4.2 earthquake, which is considered moderate. I’ve experienced really small earthquakes that just feel like a truck driving by or the cat jumping on the bed and in December there was a minor one that made me think that the neighbors had crashed their car into our house. The one last night felt like a meteor had landed in the yard. Norman ran to the door to see who was shaking up the house. By the time I thought of standing in the doorframe the quake was already over, but I went and stood in it anyway just to see what it was like.

The movie The Science of Sleep has a scene in which a piano gets stuck in a staircase. Unlike Tanta Dori's, it falls down the stairs, though miraculously it's still playable.

Where are they now?

Entertainment Weekly reports that the Stooges have a new album due out next month. Rock Action and his brother Scott will be joining Ig; MIA are Dave (OD'd on alcohol) and James (he's gone straight.)

Tuna or Turkey?

Had lunch in the St. John's Annapolis coffee shop yesterday in between press conferences and hearings on the repeal of the Death Penalty in Maryland. Saw Peter Kalkavage helping a student with his essay on the Sophist. Had nothing of value to offer on the subject, and was paid accordingly. Saw the campus dog (Kady?) and discussed W. Spector, the dog, and the dorm with her handler. I had the turkey club sandwich, while my friend opted for the tuna sub, in deference to his health-related dental deficiencies. He was, however, able to obtain not one, but two, extra pickles, which he seemed to enjoy immensely. We did not make much of a scene at the Senate hearings. We were just there as citizen support. The Death Row exonerees who were there thanked us for coming, as if I was suffering in some way by enjoying an early Spring afternoon carrying a message of peace and love around Annapolis, and having a sandwich to boot! More people should try being as lucky as I am, it is quite fun. As for the rest of you, will that be tuna, or turkey? Tufurkey?

Howie Zowie

Last Friday I went to an Alumni Seminar on a couple of Borges stories led by Mr. Zeiderman. He sort of looks like Jerry Springer now.

More Jodorowsky

I rented Jodorowsky’s first movie, “Fando y Lis”, a black-&-white from 1968. It shows its Bunel, Artaud and Fluxus group roots a little more plainly than “El Topo”, but still has the rambling non-structure, the archetypal images and plenty of good old-fashioned weirdness (old ladies maliciously squeezing canned apricots, a man taking blood from a woman’s arm with a syringe then drinking it from a shot glass, e.g.) There is also a documentary on the disk from which I learned that Jodorowsky made a Hollywood movie with Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif and Christopher Lee; that he started but never completed a film version of “Dune” in the 70s; and that he invented the mime-trapped-in-a-box cliché for Marcel Marceau. The film also has one of the best commentary tracks I’ve ever bothered to listen to, in which he shares in his heavily-accented English such observations as, “Always I have a big...a good feeling about castration. No?”

By the way, the Blogger people made me open a Google account to access this site. I'm not sure why but I suspect everyone else will have to as well to be able to post.

Fresh Ideas?

My friends and I did our waterboarding simulation at the big Peace March in Washington last weekend. It went pretty well, and we plan on enhancing it some and doing it again in March. One of our goals is to provide images that help illuminate the anti-war and anti-torture effort. This is important, as demonstrated by our success in getting a nice, big picture in the Washington Post, etc. Of course, once an image is created and disseminated, you have to come up with a new image to move forward. Nobody is going to pay any attention to something they have seen a hundred times before. I'm posting to ask for help from my creative old friends in generating fresh ideas for actions and images. My vision is to bring forward the idea of "Blood On Our Hands", and to humanize the effects of war. One idea I have is to make a video of a simulation of someone blowing up their own hand by placing it over a small explosive device. Another idea is to use buckets of blood and gore, and allow viewers to accept that we all have blood on our hands, and that we can move forward as humans with the humility and restraint that such a condition must imply. Another idea is to apply bloody handprints in appropriate places, such as Joe Lieberman's and John McCain's senate offices. If any of you have any good ideas in these directions, please pass them on to me. As you know, we aren't just playing around here. Ain't no Fal-De-Ral, if you know what I mean.
Don't you know that it's the children we're killin' ?
jim

I dreamed I was lying in bed, as I was, and that the shadow of the Angel of Death passed over me. That was scary.

Campus dog

http://alumni.stjohnscollege.edu/?newsletterW07b


Reminds me of the time Mike Coss said a dog "followed him home" and it turned out to tbe the governor's.

Well I'm back and I didn't get to the book on pigeons, though I did read I married a dead man by Cornell Woolrich and she really did marry a dead man, two in fact, though she says she didn't kill either of them. My hernia, as I believe is the rule, was caused by intestines poking through a hole in my stomach lining and didn't reach down as far as my scrotum. Fixing it up did require cutting down low in the same general area, though I wasn't in the hospital for even half a day, as one never is these days. Mostly I was at home, trying to avoid lifting things, sneezing, laughing or having the cat jump on me.

That rock-&-roll nurse, she just kept making it worse, a-shooting it to my head. Have you heard the new Dolls album? Well it's not a Dolls album at all, how could it be, it's David Jo's first rock album in 25 years. But hey, guess what, Sylvain Sylvain plays on it, and he co-wrote most of the songs.

When you get out of the hospital, let me back into your life

I'm going to be having hernia surgery tomorrow, so I'll be away from the Bar for a few days. I have some Raymond Chandlers, a book on pigeons, a couple of crossword puzzles, some Marx Brothers movies, a "Sgt. Bilko" DVD and, I hope, a big handful of codeine to entertain me while I'm recovering.

Jodorowsky

The Castro Theater in San Francisco will be showing “The Holy Mountain” and “El Topo” this weekend not, as could be wished, as a double bill but on separate days. When “El Topo” played in Geneva there was a Fast Fun outing with Jim Henry that I could not attend because of Landwehr practice, and I have never been able to locate either film on video or DVD. However if I don’t have band practice on Sunday I should probably go visit Grandma, and then there’s also a Lubitch retrospective at the Pacific Film archive in my new hometown. Decisions, decisions.

Laying Right Here in My Favorite Place

Just a little shot from yesterday's "Shut Down Guantanamo" demonstration in DC. This photo was on page 3 of the Washington Post today, and the accompanying article can be found at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/11/AR2007011100964.html
Don't worry, I'm in there somewhere.

Happy New Year

Been traveling with Mira and Jai without much access to the web for the past three weeks. So greetings from Switzerland (not much snow, but we ski-ed anyway). Saw Mary and John too, who are pretty well in Geneva. Saw Matti in the Bernese Oberland. Also got fogged in in London for 3 days - which was fun: losing control (of my schedule). Guess it would have been a bummer if the children hadn't been with me. Regarding 2006 reading, I'm sorry to say that I never made it past Volume 2 of Gibbon, but did very much enjoy Dawkins' "The Ancestors Tale" and a book called "The Red Queen" by Matt Ridley about sex, genes, and evolution. Finally, "Cutty, One Rock" was very nice and very reminiscent of some of my growing up in Joi-zee.
Love on ya, as Dame Bowie used to say. (Speaking of which, Mira got turned on by Lou Reed's Transformer at a New Year's Party so I got her the CD -- makes a papa proud.)

Actually Mr Blood hasn't been out of town he’s been at home; since I work at a school I get the week between Christmas and New Year's off. However my computer is far too weak to post to the Bar, so I have to write my postings at home and then actually upload them from work. So now today on New Year's Day I'm writing at home and I'll post it from work tomorrow, Tuesday, which would be today to the reader or perhaps even yesterday or last week. I've spent my week reading, walking the dog, binging first on Atlantic r-&-b and then on James Brown and eating cheese, since my sister-in-law sent me a big box of cheese for, we'll say, the holidays. I went into San Francisco a couple of times, including once with my sixteen-year-old niece, with whom I saw Casablanca at the Castro Theater, the Brattle Theater of the West. The only other time I've seen the movie on the big screen was at school, when Arthur Kungle stood up and sang along with “Le Marseillaise”. I also did some stuff to sell my house in Woodland which, huh-uh (Tracy-like sigh), we still haven't sold after six months, though we're in contract and should close soon. That will be quite a relief, as I'll then be able to buy a working computer which will not only be able to upload posts to the Spartan Bar but will also perhaps replace the four-track as the primary Brothers Twain recording device.

I don't specially have any New Year's resolutions, though I have already started the sort of project one resolves to at New Year's, viz. studying Hebrew. My goal is to be able to read the Bible, which I suppose needs no further justification to any Johnnie. I've already hobbled through the first two sentences of Genesis, which takes me up to the big breath brooding over the waters.

I’d like to mention a few books I've read recently (in addition to Berlin Alexanderplatz—thanks again to Lee Preston). The Obscene Bird of Night, by Jose Donoso, is the sort of nightmarish and compelling vision I thought modernist novels were supposed to be before I'd actually read many. Not only does the narrative voice switch throughout, the main narrator appears to be different characters, or who knows maybe they're all the same, and at the end of the book he gets written out of the book like the last Hanukkah candle going out.

I've also been trying to find translations of all the books of Juan Carlos Onetti; The Shipyard and Body Snatcher are probably the easiest to find. The book jacket calls him the Uruguayan Camus, a comparison that for once seems ever so slightly apt, that is if you subtract the programmatic existentialism. The books mix European modernism with James M. Cain hard boiled-ism for a kind of feverish tough-guy nightmare, kind of reminiscent of later Orson Wells.

Finally I just re-read Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo, and that would be my strongest recommendation, since it combines greatness with brevity. It's about a man who goes to a small town in search of his father, whom he learns is dead. The man then finds out that everyone in the town who's telling him stories is dead too, and somewhere in the middle of the book he disappears as well and there are only these stories being told by ghosts blowing around on the page. That hardly does it justice; go read it yourself.

Let me join Papa in his commitment to the Spartan ideals of peace, love and magic, not forgetting of course to offer libations to the gods and Ace Shadow. Here's to better things ahead in '07.