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