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."