Death Wears Jockey Shorts

Now they are forecasting snow.
A long time ago, when I was toiling at Mamaroneck High School, and fooling around with folk music, the "house band" for our school dances was mostly made up of boys from the junior class, a year behind me. The guitarist was a kid named Danny Kortchmar. He went on to write, produce for, and play guitar with Jackson Browne, Carole King, James Taylor, Don Henley and many others. I never knew him beyond a nod in the halls, and some passing meetings during our respective musical careers. Somehow, I came across the following link, which I am sure you will agree, describes a most unusual life, that of his mother, recently dead. Quite a tale...

http://www.pen.org/Current/kortchmar.html

Back from a long drive to inevitable family sadness and onto the hamster wheel of life once more. Summer abides dangerously long hereabouts, with record high temps for the last week and no snow in sight. Delightful for the moment, but fears of drought lurk. Sounds like a meteorological fortune cookie.
Here's a rant:
Simon and Garfunkel are coming to the local cavernous shitbox bread/circus venue, and if you listen carefully, you can hear the twittering of the middle-aged squares to whom these two old, dried-up, middle-of-the-road hacks speak.Their songs remind the NPR crowd of timid (now remembered as reckless) youths. The faithful are the people who lived through the most vital musical explosion of the 20th century and came away with a fondness for Simon and Garfunkel. These people used music as dorm background for getting their MBA's. They now vote democrat but think of themslves as liberal as they tool into their gated communities. Jane wisely points out the S&G were "chick music": non-threatening, flaccid, dreamy, parsley, sage and what-the-fuck-ever! I mean, really. One saving grace is that they have taken on the Everly Bros as an opening act, which will force the Boojies to listen to SOMETHING of quality, even if they won't hear it. By that time they'll be in such a lather anticpating the arrival of the Big Lames that the arena will be abuzz with their cell phones, talking from section to section within the arena about their 401K's.
Why do the wrong musical talents die young, I ask you! As for Simon and Garfunkel's music, the phrase "lacks testicularity" works for me. So there!

Will be out of range until next week. Must drive to Iowa for family emergency. Talk among yourselves and check out yet another rich and amusing, if frivolous (oh no!) site. May your weekend be free of family emergencies.

http://boingboing.net/?lu=0514:19

Now really, October 13? Things are moving much too quickly. I got my cheapo ukulele in the mail and am already wailing hip versions of "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" and "Lovely Hula Hands". This is the instrument that got me through my troubled youth, so a flood of unpleasant memories come flooding throught its stingy little fretboard each time I take it's delicate body in my bear-like embrace. More disturbing man vs. uke tales to come I am sure, but meanwhile, cast your baby blues on this dense-as-a-fruitcake site:

http://solipsistic.org/gears/curio/archives/week_2003_02_23.php

Golden leaves are falling to the ground here, and I felt a few snowflakes this morning at about 7000 ft. Get ready!

Full moon. I am happy not to be a California resident these days, so there's something to rejoice in.I have some news about Lothar and the Hand People's upcoming 2CD release on a British label. It is already for sale on Amazon.com, and can be found by searching the group's name there. I am really excited about this, as some of our best material is being packaged with some wonderful photos and posters. More on that at another time very soon. For now, check out this link, which you can amuse yourself for a while surfing around, but on the page I'm sending you to, enter to start shopping and find the Boer War and Zulu stuff, then, please scroll down and imagine how you might feel relaxing in the red velvet smoking jacket. I think you know that you deserve it...ahhhh..

http://www.sutlers.co.uk/index.html

Pip, pip!

Well, well. Playing catch-up. Saw "Lost in Translation" and "School of Rock", both of which we enjoyed a lot. If you're looking for something from Netflix and haven't yet seen it, "The Kid Stays in the Picture" is a cool insider's view of Hollywood. Also were very fortunate to see the Makaha Sons, probably the finest modern Hawaiian musical group working today. We had seen them twice in Honolulu and they were brought in by a hula troupe in Colorado Springs to play at a high school auditorium. We've attended these sorts of "displaced Hawaiians" events in Denver, and it is always really interesting to see how powerful a culture is that of Hawaii. There are always booths selling Hawaiian crafts and t-shirts, signs that say "Local Kine Grinds" (Hawaiian food), which usually involves a lot of Macaroni salad, pork stew, the name of which escapes me, and Spam sushi. Mostly, it is wonderful to be among people who are getting a taste of a community that they miss very much, and there are lots of good feelings and cultural secret handshakes in evidence, but also no sense of exclusion towards dyed-in-the-wool haolis like us. We feel fortunate to have made the necessary contacts to find out about this stuff which doesn't make the newspaper, but is only advertised through what an old Hawaii-hand friend and teacher of mine calls "the bamboo telegraph". Hawaiian music is best and perhaps only appreciated when first heard in the islands, but check out

www.makahasons.com

I'm going to order a cheap ukelele today, dammit! Why when I was a lad I could play a mean version on "5 Ft 2, Eyes of Blue" to say nothing of "Princess Pupuli Have Plenty Papaya"
ALoha

On John Hiatt's "Beneath This Gruff Exterior" album, he has a song called "Almost Fed Up With The Blues", which describes how I feel this week if you take off the "almost". PBS is, as I am sure you know, running a seemingly endless series on the subject. I was fortunate as a young person to learn all about the Blues in school, from Leonard Bernstein on television, and from the records that came out of John Lomax's landmark work for the Smithsonian. Then I was in a band that played Howlin'Wolf, Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, and some of our own white boy blues as well. So watching all the middle-aged, middle-class PBS-watching, white-guilt-ridden music fans who have never taken the slightest effort to educate themselves about this influential but tediously restrictive musical form, creaming in their jeans over Son House and Blind Lemon fill-in-the-blank is really fucking boring. Where were you when Paul Butterfield and John Hammond were teaching the same subject through the MUSIC?. Listening to The Monkees? Discovering the richness of the Blues in 2003 is like suddenly coming across the fact that the sun gives off light, and then going to the office and telling everyone about it. No link for you!
End of Friday rant.

So vandals broke the window in my vehicle last night. Its the 3rd time in so many years, and I'm beginning to develop a negative attitude toward vandals. It isn't the sort of activity in which I would engage, but one can certainly understand the thought process of the guy who sleeps in his truck, shotgun at his side, just waiting for the next time.
I say "oh, well" and keep going. Will find a revenge link and pass it on at a later date....