Rock and Roll Almanac Post for May 10, 2008

Hey, it's Donovan's birthday today. Happy birthday, you knucklehead.



Donovan - Season of the Witch (Live, French Pop Festival 1966)

Also birthdaying is Dave Mason from Traffic. OK, nobody likes Dave Mason or Traffic except me, but it's my blog, so, pffft.



Dave Mason Band - Only You Know and I Know

And it's the anniversary of the release of the first #1 rock single, Bill Haley & His Comets' "Rock Around the Clock," in 1954.



Bill Haley - Rock Around the Clock (Live in Austria, 1976)

It's Bono's birthday, too, but who gives a feck?

Baseball Fever, My Eye!(or, Ozzie's Not Here, Man)

After work this afternoon, I took a nap, cuz that's how I roll. And I woke up while dreaming about listening to Cheech Marin sing a song called "White Sox Winner," which I think my brain wrote itself. Although with Cheech singing it, it could have also been called "White Sox Wiener." Your choice. It went something like

Winner (or wiener), winner, White Sox winner!
Winner, winner, White Sox winner!
Winner, winner
Gotta White Sox winner now!

(Cheech talking: "Hey, mama, even Juan Uribe's stealing bases now, heh heh heh! Look out! Heh heh heh!")

OK, so it won't win any Dream Grammies.

If that's not weird enough, here's this clip from the best kids' show a stoner ever enjoyed (barring, perhaps, Gumby, although that's more of an acid show, but I digress) -- Xuxa Celebration:



My Name Is Cheech, The School Bus Driver

May 4, 1970

Happy Link Wray's Birthday

Fred Lincoln "Link" Wray, born May 2, 1929. Died November 5, 2005.



Right Turn

There's no video to it, but check out this smokin' Dylan cover.



It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

I've embedded this one before, but I don't care. I love this frickn song.



Trying to Find Your Love

What's the buzz? Tell me what's-a happening

Why should you want to know?
Why are you obsessed with fighting
Times and fates you can't defy?
If you knew the path we're riding,
You'd understand it less than I.

- Jesus

So I've been feeling a little bit dejected, neglected, and ... I dunno, disinfected this week, because CBRAT has been one of the very few sports-related blogs not to be personally savaged and excoriated by (Luddite sportswriter) Buzz Bissinger.

Well, this is kind of a sports-related blog. I talk about baseball sometimes. And then when I'm done talking, I remember that I have to type the words, or else they don't show up on the screen. And then I give up and go do something else, usually involving a nap.

Anyway ... I've been trying to figure out how to get on the "Buzz hates me" bandwagon. In case you have noooo fucking idea what I'm talking about, here's what that bastion of all things approximately 60% accurate, give or take (Wikipedia®) has to say, by way of short synopsis:

Bissinger has self-professed "abiding hatred" for blogs and the "blog-o-sphere", and recently launched an angry tirade against sports blogger Will Leitch on Bob Costas' HBO sports show.

Yeah, calling that an "angry tirade" is sort of like calling "well, it's okay, it's kinda tasty" an "understatement," with regard to, say, "chocolate gelato." Which is to say, not nearly hyperbolic enough. Or, at least that's the, heh, "buzz" around the "fuck-you-o-sphere." I haven't seen said aforementioned show in question at issue yet, as of this writing.

But I know one thing that Buzz and I have in common -- and I hope to earn his loogee-hocking enmity via this route -- we share a birthday. I mean, we share my birthday. Our birthday, I guess. He can have, let's say, 33.333% of the rights to it. Although I don't think I really owe him any, since I'm the one who just called dibs on it. Uh, I mean -- Dibs! Dibs on November 1! Yep, we were both born on November 1 -- Buzz is just 13 smarty-pants-despising years older than myself. And if I know Buzz as well as I think I know him (which is not well at all -- barely, really; you might even say, none), I figure he's going to be really, really cheezed in the whiz that some knuckleheaded blogger (who refuses to even take anything seriously, even) has usurped his birthday -- the sacred day on which his hallowed, flesh-&-blood Mater extruded him from her loinage, like a watermelon seed popped from betwitxt her meaty thumb and forefinger -- and has probably converted it into 1s and 0s or some other anti-humanistical purgatorial cyborgical born-on-date, with the modem and the codec and the codem and the modec or whatever them kids got these days, with the texting and the faxes and the movable type. Damn you, Gutenberg! Damn you to hell!!!

Yeah. So that's what I'm counting on.

Dream of the Late-Nite Pesto Pizza Fiend

I had a dream last night that the angel of death was chasing me down a long, wood-paneled hallway. He didn't look like the standard Death character, with the skull head, robes, etc. He was very tall and skinny and was wearing blue denim pants and jacket. His skin was kind of yellowish. He had long, braided light-brown hair that was tied together in the back in a sort of pony tail, and his face was blurry, like one of the bystanders in a "Cops" show. I reached a door at the end of the hallway that I knew was the exit to the place I was in, but I didn't open it, because I knew the death guy would be waiting outside if I did. But I also knew he was still behind me, chasing. So I panicked for a few seconds and then woke up. Actually, it wasn't that terrifying ... I think I realized it wasn't real. It wasn't real, was it?

Saturday Afternoon Bad Joke Post

This is my favorite bad joke. I never get tired of it. I have no idea who wrote it. Here's how it goes.

Fella sez to his friend, "Hey, pally, yer never gonna believe this dog I picked up at the pound! He can talk! He's a talking dog!"

His friend sez, "Aw, that's bullshit. Prove it to me."

So the fella sez to the dog, "OK, Spot, what's the texture of sandpaper?"

Dog sez, "Rough!"

Fella sez, "Still not convinced, eh? Well, watch this," and he sez to the dog, "What do they call the thing on top of the house?"

Dog sez, "Roof!"

But the friend still ain't buying it. So the fella with the dog asks one more question.

"Hey, Spot, who was the greatest ballplayer of all time?"

Dog sez, "Lou Gehrig!"

This is one of those posts where I got nuthin but I pretend there's a lot more to come real soon

Man alive, there are a lot of cheap jokes that I'm missing out on here because I don't use my real name for this thing. I ... uh ... I mean I don't use my fake name. The fake name I gave the gubbermint as an infant and as a 16-year-old rookie driver. Anyway, I can't say any more than that about that.

In other news, provided you have very little going on in your life, you can look forward to some Colicky Baby posts soon, on topics such as (1) Lou Piniella's physique vs. Jim Bouton's physique and (2) how much jury duty sucks ass -- and (2)(a) how much being a captive audience in a jury assembly room while the Whoopi Goldberg Show is on the damn TV sucks assssssssssss.

Can't wait? Too bad. You have to. I'm neither energetic nor drunk enough at this time to service you. (That's what she said.)

Oh just one more thing. Here's a Friday Night UkuleleTube cover tune video set.



Keonepax - Little Red Riding Hood (Sam the Sham)



Keonepax & Kanagawa G - Everyday (Buddy Holly)



Keonepax - Here, There, and Everywhere (Duh)



Keonepax & Yoshi Takenaka - Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (Duh, also, too)



Keonepax - You've Got Your Troubles (The Fortunes)



Keonepax - Edelweiss (Rodgers & Hammerstein, duh)

Sweet Merciful YouTube Chaser Post

OK, I really need to get that horrible thing off the top spot. Ucch. Get thee below the bottom of the screen, Satan!

Perhaps indicating just how awful the preceding video was is the fact that I'm considering John Cale to be a nice, palate cleansing chaser. Well, this song is, anyway, in my opinion. I seem to be hearing it a lot on college radio lately, and the video -- although it does have a lot of John Cale in it, who many consider quite scary and distasteful -- features absolutely no mass murderers or hideous fake boobies, and it definitely has zero talking-head appearances by Bill Kurtis, thank the monkey jesus.



John Cale - Paris 1919 (live in Amsterdam)

Severely Sick Saturday YouTube Post

You think I was kidding the other day about that Richard Speck prison video? OK, even if you didn't, I still can't resist posting this excerpt, via the suppository of all that is right, wrong, and really really wrong, OoyayUbetay. I think the whole Bill Kurtis documentary might be on there, but this is all you need to see, if you are a sick fuck. Seriously, though, don't. Run! Save yourselves!

Do over! Do over!

Damn it, I slept through the earthquake. I don't really wanna have a building fall on me or get swallowed up by a crack in the earth or anything (OK, sometimes I do), but I've always been curious about what an earthquake feels like. And I blew it. Stupid zzzs.

We seem to be having a lot of scary "California" things happen around here lately -- wild mountain lions, earthquakes -- and I wonder what's coming next. Mudslides? Santa Ana winds? Bruce Vilanch?

For the wishywashy ambivalence of the game

The more people insist (usually in a very yelly outdoor voice) that I have to pick one team to love or, more crucially, hate, the more I refuse to unequivocally pick one. The White Sox get the edge, I guess, because I'm willing to publicly display an affinity for them. Cubs appreciation, on the other hand, is a shameful indulgence, for several reasons. But, still, I'm unapologetically wishywashy.

Evidence thereof: Quick inventory of MLB merch in the house:

White Sox - 1 t-shirt, 1 baseball cap, 1 toque
Cubs - 1 baseball cap, 1 toque, 1 big framed foto of Wrigley Field on dining room wall

Hm, looks like a tie. Although I didn't pay for the foto, or even ask for it (it was a gift). I paid for the frame, though. Cheap frame. Target. And I won't wear the Cubs hats in public, except to a Cubs game, which means I've worn them about five times, in total.

Do I hate the Cubs or not? Yes, to both questions. Do I hate the White Sox? Never, even when they suck.

Do I need a less ambivalent hobby? That would be a yes. I think. Maybe.

Can't Has Cheezburger

A 150-lb cougar (aka puma, mountain lion, panther) was shot and killed in an alley in Roscoe Village tonight. I can understand that a city like this one doesn't have the resources or experience with wild animals to deal with a big cat like that one running loose, but the pictures are sad. I don't know if that was some kook's pet that was set loose or escaped, or if wild cougars are really ranging this far into urban areas due to diminishing habitats or what, but it was just trying to get by, man. Just trying to eke out a damn puma existence in this cold world.

In recent days, there were sightings of a big cat up in North Chicago (which, incidentally, I know has a pretty wide variety of wildlife, from working up there years ago, when I myself sighted several coyotes, a fox, and what looked to me like a badger, along with the frequent skunk, woodchuck, deer, and snapping turtle appearances), and then more sightings down the Metra line a bit in Wilmette. Those types of reports are almost always debunked -- eyes play a lot of tricks, and a bobcat, or even a feral tomcat, can look bigger than reality in twilight conditions -- but perhaps this time they were accurate.

Yesterday I saw an Animal Control vehicle prowling around outside my place here in the brackish zone betwixt Andersonville and Uptown, which probably was something completely unrelated, but ... maybe not. At any rate, if it's not the last one, I don't want anyone's kids or pets to get hurt or anything, but I wish we could come up with another way to solve the problem.

On a lighter note, here's a classic Smothers Brothers bit with a little something to say about pumas. "Take it, Tom!"



Boil That Cabbage Down

"He hates these cans!"

This just in:

Malcolm X College was evacuated Monday morning after a threat was found written on a bathroom wall, a City Colleges of Chicago spokeswoman said.

It's starting to look like all schools with an "X" in their names should think about closing for a while, preemptively.

Or else ... maybe the solution is to eliminate bathroom walls. If you can't get rid of the underlying problem, get rid of the medium for expressing that problem.

It worked for the Illinois penitentiary system after the infamous Richard Speck "boob job, blowjob, and coke party" tapes were exposed by Bill Kurtis about 12 years ago. The answer to that public relations debacle: Ban and seize all the inmates' camcorders (which had the unfortunate side effect of setting back American indie cinema for untold years, not to mention all the potential YouTube prison insanity we're missing out on). So, for all we know, Stateville is still fulla big tits and blow, but if nobody sees it, it might as well not exist.

Therefore -- get rid of the bathroom walls, Academe! Isn't the expression "Groves of Academe," anyway? So the kids can shit in the woods, with the bears and the Pope. Although that would just lead to a lot of threats carved into trees with jackknives. OK, everybody can just shit in a trench in the middle of the quad then. Problem solved!

Do college kids shit in the quad? In the near future, they do.

Anything Chicagoist can do, I can do more stupiderly (and with no pretty fotos) -- Local Interest Grab-Bag Post

By now everyone knows Chicagoist.com has been on a lameward trajectory for a long time, consisting almost entirely of links to Tribune and Sun-Times stories and snipey arguments in the comments section by a handful of shrill and tiresome characters.

So what’s an under-the-radar Chicago blogger to do while spending the rump end of this ceaseless winter holed up in his subterranean lair (aka, “The Dirt Cave”)? The answer, of course, is to post up a Chicagoist-style set of short local-interest items consisting mostly of smartass remarks about journalism done by somebody else.

1. Reports of his death were greatly erroneous, unless you’re talking about his career. Although he’s surely suffering from lacking access to cute J-school students on which to use his favorite pickup line (“Hey, baby, wanna come back to the office and watch me write my column?”), Bob Greene did not die this week. Well, one of them did. But not the one I was thinking of when I heard the report. And I wasn’t alone, judging from this snip from Bob Greene’s Wikipedia entry, which tells it all:

Erroneous Reports of His Death

It was reported on this Wikipedia page that Bob Greene died on April 10th, 2008 after a long illness. In truth, that death was Robert W. Greene, the pioneering Newsday reporter and editor.

Whew. We almost lost a ... one.

2. "What's This?" It's a Skafish report. Careful readers of this blog (hah!) know I’m an appreciator of early Chicago punk-esque entertainer Jim Skafish. So I was glad to read in Time Out Chicago that Skafish has released a new CD of unreleased old outtakes, titled What’s This? 1976-1979.

OK, I don’t really have any smartass remarks about this item, but I think it’s good news. I might even (gasp) buy a copy. For info and song samples, go here. Worth a look and listen. Over on YouTube, there’s a clip from the movie Urgh! A Music War featuring Skafish’s “Sign of the Cross,” but embedding is disallowed, so you’d have to click over there to see it (which is worth doing). In addition, Skafish is blogging.

3. I say we close 'em all, forever. I don’t think this has made national news, so transplanted former Chicagoans might not have heard that the campus of St. Xavier University, on the southwest side, has been closed “indefinitely” after threats were found written on the wall of a dorm bathroom. Which means, I think, that it’s definitely closed, but for how long, no one’s saying yet.

I guess they didn’t have much choice. It seemed ridiculous when similar threats shut down Northern Ill. U. for a few days late last year (this is all it takes to paralyze a university, some knob with an El Marko? And do mass murderers usually leave cryptic warnings ahead of time? Who are these people, The Riddler?), but then a couple months later some presumably unrelated drool-bone swiss-cheesed up a lecture hall, so I can understand the public relations pressure they’re under when this sort of thing happens now ... as it seems to do every other day, at some campus somewhere.

I dunno, maybe this is just a good start. I’ve long believed that college is a waste of time and money, and is good for nothing other than putting a four-year delay (give or take) on the entry of dimwitted and impudent brats into the workforce. Maybe if college becomes simply impossible, our society will finally have to route around it. Which would be preferable to the current modus of encouraging more and more post-pubescent cementheads to pony up the hardcore loan money for the pyramid-scheme charade of higher book-larnin’. But then, I think all children should be segregated in labor camps until at least the age of 21 (age 30 for any of them that might pose a physical or financial threat to me), so I could be a little outside the mainstream hyah.

Saturday Morning Roland Kirk Nose Flute Post

I had a ton of writing for money to do this week, and I've been feeling pretty tapped out. But I have a few ideas for posts that I'll try to get to this weekend. Teaser Keywords: Bob Greene, Jim Skafish, Saint Xavier University. Until then, here's this.

Happy birthday, Hag

Born in Bakersfield, California, on April 6, 1937, ladies and gents ... Merle Haggard.



Mama Tried



Ramblin' Fever



I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am

Thursday Night Esoteric YouTube Set: Danny Kirwan's Fleetwood Mac

So Feral Mom’s talking about getting a Fleetwood Mac cover band together – Rumours-era, naturally. Which set me to thinking about all the early stuff Fleetwood Mac did in its various incarnations, stuff that’s largely forgotten nowadays, except by rock geekmos like myself. And, thought leading to action, as it does about 1 in 1,000 times in my case, I threw together a quick YouTube set featuring one of the great songwriters and guitarists from the pre-Nicks/Buckingham days.

As everyone knows (they still teach this stuff in school, right?), Fleetwood Mac is regarded as having three major phases – the early blues band formed around Peter Green, the “transitional” period, and the Mac lineup we’ve all been overexposed to for most of our lives. Tonight's subject, Danny Kirwan, factored heavily in the “transitional” phase. Kirwan, in my opinion, is one of the big “shoulda beens” of rock and roll – solid songwriter, great guitar player, but he just never became a household name.

Danny Kirwan joined Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac in 1969 and played on this Peter Green–written single from 1970, shortly before Green left the band:



Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac – The Green Manalishi

Here’s a blues song in the early style of the band, written by Danny Kirwan and recorded in 1970:



Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac – Like It This Way

Unfortunately, there isn’t much YouTube material from the first post-Green album, Kiln House, where Kirwan really begins to make his presence felt. But here’s a pretty good live performance from 1975 by the best-known lineup of the band, of the song “Station Man,” (co-penned with Jeremy Spencer and John McVie), which originally appeared on that disc.



Fleetwood Mac - Station Man

I can’t find anything from 1971’s Future Games LP, and until a few days ago there was nothing from 1972’s underrated Bare Trees, either. That album heavily featured Kirwan’s songwriting, including the following (a personal favorite):




Fleetwood Mac – Bare Trees

The following trippy video from 1971 is notable for the early, if … overly trippy images of the band in what I call its “middle period.” The song is "Dragonfly," released only as a UK single and turning up on a “best of” compilation or two:



Fleetwood Mac – Dragonfly

And, to round out the mix, here’s a solo single released in the UK in 1979:



Danny Kirwan – Only You

Kirwan’s health reportedly declined in the late '70s and he’s been out of the music biz for a long time. According to that unassailable font of truth, Wikipedia, there have been rumo(u)rs of a reunion by the early members of Fleetwood Mac. John McVie was quoted as saying that Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer might be up for it, but Danny Kirwan probably would not participate.

ADDENDUM: I can also toss out a Bob Welch post, if there's any sign of interest.

It's Opening Day (so be nice to your openings)

Baseball! Baseball today! Baseball in Chicago today! If the weather permits, that is. Yes, it's another classic Opening Day at Wrinkly Folds ... cold, wet, dark, and utterly futile. And there's a big band of gnarly showers on the radar headed this way. (I think it's the Benny Goodman Band, but that could be ground clutter, not clarinet. Trivia item: Benny Goodman was born in Chicago on May 30, 1909, so even he was not born early enough to have lived during a Cubs championship season.)

Meanwhile, the White Sox get started this afternoon in Cleveland, where the forecast is for ... rain.

Let me get out my crystal ball of Zanzibar here. (Wipe wipe, polish polish.) Ahem. Doody doody doo. I ... I see many double headers in our future.

I do have some breaking news, however. Big scoop. I might have to switch team allegiances, in fact, because the Cubs have just solved their shortstop problem by signing 95-year-young free agent "Tongue" Studs Terkel to an eight-year, $35 million deal. Let's play two four!

"If tin whistles are made of tin, what do they make fog horns from?" Sunday Night No Particular Reason YouTube Post

So, who digs skiffle?

(Crickets.)

OK. But everybody digs Lonnie Donegan, at least, right?

(More crickets. And a few spazzy grasshoppers playing air crickets.)

Lonnie Donegan was the king of skiffle. Skiffle was a form of folk music that was popular in the UK for a while. This is all Wikipediable, of course.

When I was 4 or 5 years old, my mom had a 45 in her collection -- in the section with all the records marked "NO" in ballpoint pen, which meant I wasn't to mess with them (after I had scratched up her vintage copy of Carl Perkins' "Blue Suede Shoes"), which "NO" of course meaning that those were the platters to home in on, of course -- that was the first record I think I ever really flipped for. It was Lonnie Donegan's 1958 recording of "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (On the Bedpost Overnight)".

When I played that song on the stereo in the basement, I used to utterly unhinge, freak out like a toddler monkey on caffeinated cocaine, and do a dance that consisted of facing the couch in our basement rec room and grabbing the cushions with both hands, bending at the waist, and slamming my head to the left and right, back and forth, as fast and hard as I could, onto the couch cushions, until I collapsed in exhaustion. Oy, I don't envy people with small children. But I do envy their kids.

Thanks to the magic that is the Tube of You, here's a video of Lonnie performing "Does Your Chewing Gum etc" on German TV in 1972, right around the time I was bashing my skull against upholstery to the studio recording of it.

Well, just got back / Been gone too long

Wasn't my idea, didn't pull the trigger
Oh, oh, oh
I, I, I
I'm just so glad
I'm just so glad to be back home

Cheap Trick - Just Got Back

I just got back from a three-day bidniss trip to our nation's crapital, which is still just as crapitalitastic as the last time I was there, albeit with somewhat better weather.



George Clinton - Paint the White House Black

More blogging, with renewed vigor and spirit, soon to come. That is my pledge to you. I am Stronger Than Dirt Pete Moss, and I approve this message.

Watching baseball / sitting in the sun / eating popcorn / reading Ezra Pound

Happy 89th birthday to Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Baseball Canto

Watching baseball, sitting in the sun, eating popcorn,
reading Ezra Pound,
and wishing that Juan Marichal would hit a hole right through the
Anglo-Saxon tradition in the first Canto
and demolish the barbarian invaders.
When the San Francisco Giants take the field
and everybody stands up for the National Anthem,
with some Irish tenor's voice piped over the loudspeakers,
with all the players struck dead in their places
and the white umpires like Irish cops in their black suits and little
black caps pressed over their hearts,
Standing straight and still like at some funeral of a blarney bartender,
and all facing east,
as if expecting some Great White Hope or the Founding Fathers to
appear on the horizon like 1066 or 1776.

But Willie Mays appears instead,
in the bottom of the first,
and a roar goes up as he clouts the first one into the sun and takes
off, like a footrunner from Thebes.
The ball is lost in the sun and maidens wail after him
as he keeps running through the Anglo-Saxon epic.
And Tito Fuentes comes up looking like a bullfighter
in his tight pants and small pointy shoes.
And the right field bleechers go mad with Chicanos and blacks
and Brooklyn beer-drinkers,
"Tito! Sock it to him, sweet Tito!"
And sweet Tito puts his foot in the bucket
and smacks one that don't come back at all,
and flees around the bases
like he's escaping from the United Fruit Company.
As the gringo dollar beats out the pound.
And sweet Tito beats it out like he's beating out usury,
not to mention fascism and anti-semitism.
And Juan Marichal comes up,
and the Chicano bleechers go loco again,
as Juan belts the first ball out of sight,
and rounds first and keeps going
and rounds second and rounds third,
and keeps going and hits paydirt
to the roars of the grungy populace.
As some nut presses the backstage panic button
for the tape-recorded National Anthem again,
to save the situation.

But it don't stop nobody this time,
in their revolution round the loaded white bases,
in this last of the great Anglo-Saxon epics,
in the territorio libre of Baseball.

AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT:

Also birthdaying today is Holger Czukay ...



... and Nick Lowe.

Happy Belated Birthday to Good Old Number 56

I have been remiss in failing to mention that Jim Bouton turned 69 on March 8. Well, now I've mentioned it. And I feel much better.

Here's a foto of Bouton beside yers trooly, STDPM, at the Vintage Base Ball World Series in Westfield, Massachusetts, last August. I know I look bloated and sick in this foto, but that's mainly because I was bloated and sick, having just narrowly survived a rusty-knife fight with a plate of One O Ball's habanero burritos the night before. Also, I was on vacation. I always look bloated and sick on vacation. Wouldn't you?



Out of the many interesting items of trivia from Bouton's life, this one is possibly my favorite:

[After the publication of Bouton's groundbreaking name-naming season diary, Ball Four,] Pete Rose took to yelling "Fuck you, Shakespeare!" from the dugout whenever Bouton was pitching.

And I believe this Bouton quote brings an end to a longstanding debate between various George Will and Andy Rooney contingents:

Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?

Quick Friday New Wave Ukulele Get Up and Dance Like a Hawaiian Robot YouTube Post

Gugug - Are Friends Electric? (Tubeway Army)



Gugug - What Do I Get? (Buzzcocks)



Gugug - Jack the Ripper (not New Wave, but it's Link Wray, goddammit! Link Wray!!!)

Blog Neglect Is a Terrible Thing

Sorry, all youse few but important readers (quality over quantity, I always say, when I can't obtain much quantity), but my brain is still too flu-ravaged to be of much use. It's about all I can do to churn out the hackery, er, "value-added content" I spew for a living, let alone blog.

The worst has been over for a while, but the fog has not quite lifted. Suffice to say that, shit, goddamn, that was a muthafuckin flu jam. A tearing-the-roof-off-the-sucka virus, to be sure. And you know how it goes -- flu your mind, and your ass will follow. That is, if by "follow" you mean "shiver under a pile of blankets and watch weird TV shows while feeling sorry for oneself due to one's solitary existence in a world in which chicken soup does not purchase or heat up itself and in which one lacked the prescience to be properly stocked up on such favorite flu-time meals as ibuprofen and Sprite -- and then the diarrhea kicked in."

Annnyway ... watch weird TV I did. Specifically, about 20 episodes of "Red Dwarf" in Divx format, as well as a few Terrence McKenna lectures, because apparently I didn't feel disconnected from reality enough. But what really warped my gray matter was "Breaking Bad" on AMC. I only caught a couple of those, but they had a weird persistence, in that, in my fever state, I kept sort of hallucinating that I was Bryan Cranston's character, dying of cancer, cooking meth, and trying to work out about a million nonsensical chemistry formulas. I think I spent about two solid days obsessively mulling over an endless series of numbers and symbols that made no sense whatsoever. Ecch. So how the hell was I supposed to blog?

My brain is still far from what passes for normal. Here's an example. Last night I dreamed that I went back in time and attended a meeting of our old hippie-dumbshit club at NIU in the late 1980s, "The John Lennon Society," for the specific purpose of delivering warnings from the future, and two of my dude friends -- who shall remain nameless -- were sitting cross-legged on the floor, without any pants on, and they both had pussies, big gaping gleaming fur-capped vaginas. Which didn't seem to bug them or anyone else, so I shrugged and went on with giving all the hippie dipshits the lowdown about 2008.

IN OTHER NEWS: All video games and video game machinery should be seized by the government, wadded up in a giant bag made of cactus spines, broken wine bottles, and shredded paint cans, and rammed, repeatedly and forcefully, up my upstairs neighbors' unlubricated rectums. For a hundred years, continuously.

PUPPY CHASER:



Harry Nilsson - The Puppy Song

Hey Blogosphere, I gotta note!

Dear Blogosphere,

Please excuse little Stronger Than Dirt Pete from finishing his rambling and questionable multi-part post about Cole Hall at Northern Illinois University today. I know it's overdue, but he has a cold and needs to focus on coughing, aching, and being a baby about it. He'll write up the conclusion when he feels better like it.

[signed]

Moss's Mother

POSTSCRIPT -- HORRIBLE, STUPID, TRITE POSTSCRIPT: In the meantime you can compare and contrast my approach to the subject with that taken by a certain post-disgraced columnist with the non-initials "ob reene." Can you guess what he says before you click the link? Here's a hint: on-campus shooting sprees -- he's agin em. And, somehow, for some reason, he attempts to link them up with the presidential election campaign. My favorite line: "Please disregard the previous mayhem." Oh, I'm way ahead of you, "ob."

Cole Hall, Part Two -- The Saga of Exidor

It’s now been just over a week since Unspellable Name Jerk shot up a lecture hall and its occupants at my old school -- which, smartass remarks aside, I take a little bit personally. The story gets weirder and weirder, the more we learn about this jamoke. I don’t have anything substantive to say about that. What I’d rather talk about right now is how weird the place was 20 years ago, give or take, in the middle of a long, dull stretch of nothing particularly dramatic happening. Because it was dull, yeah -- but it was weird, too. Koo koo for ko ko puffs weird.

Part two in a series of n about my personal experiences between 1985 and 1990 in that now-infamous auditorium in Cole Hall on the NIU campus is all about Exidor. If you were there at the time, you know exactly who I mean.

But first --

An Interstitial Debaffler

So -- some hypothetical reader might have wondered -- what the hell was the point of the first part of this thing? And what’s with the title(s)?

Well, it’s all a convoluted reference to something that Karlheinz Stockhausen said in 2001. The FAQ on some unofficial Stockhausen website tells it this way:

13 Did Stockhausen call September 11th a "work of art"?

At a Hamburg press conference in 2001 Stockhausen said he believed that the destructive activities of Lucifer (the Devil) were apparent in the world today, for example in New York. When asked to be more specific Stockhausen said the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre was Lucifer's greatest work of art. Johannes Schulz of NDR, just one of the reporters in attendance, filed a seemingly malicious report (omitting the word Lucifer and the context of the question) which was subsequently broadcast on German radio. Before the broadcaster had clarified its original mistake other networks world-wide picked up the story, humiliating the composer cruelly and unjustly. Many newspapers set the record straight in future articles, but inevitably these corrections achieved less prominence.

(Emphasis added.)

It’s obvious now, right? Death and destruction as lecture hall performance (by Lucifer) … the movie “Performance” starring Mick Jagger shown in the lecture hall (Jagger as Lucifer -- Satanic Majesties; Sympathy for the Devil, etc.) … Easy peasy. Probably not even necessary to provide this gloss.

So.

And now, onto the main event --

The Exidor Saga

All right, Mork, put your hands in front of your face, and repeat after me. "Oh, no, please don't."

I don’t like math, and math doesn’t like me. For most of the time from 1986 onward, math and I have been living under a reasonably amicable mutual nonaggression pact, but the pointy-headed pencil pushers in charge of writing up the general education requirements at NIU laid down the law and made me take some of it.

So, in the second semester of my freshman year, I reluctantly took a course called “Finite Math.” I still have no idea what the class was about, but the name sounded good to me. Especially the word “Finite.” I definitely liked the idea of a limited quantity of math. If there had been a course called “Infinitesimal Math,” I would have taken that one instead.

“Finite Math” was kind of one of those “Math for Poets” type courses, only it was more like a “Math for Poli Sci Students” type thing -- and, you can be certain, poli sci students are generally not poets. (With the possible exception of yours truly, of course.)

Anyway, once a week, small groups of us met with a teaching assistant, who, as I recall, was a personable enough grad student from India. Everyone but me constantly complained that they couldn’t understand what he was saying -- which I thought was rank bullshit. He spoke better English than most of the drunken, hypertestosteronated buffoons on my dorm floor. But I digress.

Three times a week (on paper), we met in Cole Hall to hear a lecture delivered by Exidor. Everybody called him Exidor, because … are you familiar with the Exidor character from “Mork and Mindy”? He looked like this:



And so did Exidor. I mean, both Exidors looked like Exidor. I mean … you know what I mean.

I think everybody came up with the “Exidor” nickname on their own, independently, because any offhand reference to Exidor always, without fail, elicited a reaction along the lines of “Hah! Exidor! That guy!” It was almost a Jungian thing.

Exidor was a freak. It’s not nice to make fun of the weird-looking, I guess, but I periodically ran into the dude throughout my undergrad career, and Exidor clearly was weird to the core.

This is totally hearsay, but someone told me he lived in a crappy boarding house somewhere in the student ghetto, like in a single room -- which was believable, because he spent all day, every day hanging out in common areas on campus. For example, if you ever went to one of the reading rooms at the Student Center, at any given time, there was about a 25% chance that Exidor would be lounging in there. And if he wasn't there, he was skulking in the law library. Or camped out in the coffee shop. Or tramping between hangouts. He did a lot of reading. He also, allegedly, did a lot of creepy ogling at coeds, but I can’t vouch for that (although I don’t doubt it).

During my last year at NIU, I had a job at the newspaper library in Reavis Hall, and Exidor used to show up every day for an hour or so and sit and read five or six papers. That’s how I discovered that, from a distance of 12 or 15 feet (I never got any closer), Exidor smelled … really … weird. The best way I can describe it is, the smell was like what you would smell if you stuck your nose inside a pencil sharpener. A full one. It was a unique funk that I truly never expect to encounter again.

All that is the stuff of collegiate legend, to be sure. But Exidor had his indisuputably finest, grandest, magnificentest moment in that fricking lecture hall, in Spring 1986, in my Finite Math Class.

Every single meeting of that class was the same. I squonched myself down into one of the movie-theater-style seats and hovered in a state between sleeping and waking while Exidor squoggled some squaggles on an acetate sheet overheadedly projectified onto a big screen and droned some nonsense that might have been human speech, but might as well have been dolphin, or mackerel.

Meanwhile, there were 70 or 80 other kids in there with me, sitting in the dark, in what amounts to a big movie theater, bored out of their soft little inchoate minds, just like me, while this dorkmazoid from the planet Ugottabekiddinme drew horribly unfunny number-centric cartoons on an overhead projector and said a bunch of stuff that made no sense whatsoever, as far as we could tell.

And then … and then … and then. Picture this. Picture the huge, bright white movie screen at the head of the classroom, and picture the huge black shadow of Exidor’s Sharpie-wielding fist scribbling whatever it was scribbling, and the even huger black shadow of Exidor’s head encroaching on the frame.

Then picture the remarkably big black shadow of something round and six-legged falling out of the shadow of Exidor’s hair and plopping smack onto the middle of the acetate. And then -- before you could even finish gasping at the fact that a wriggling insect had just fallen out of your math teacher’s hair and was being projected onto the huge bright white movie screen at the head of the class -- picture the huge black shadowy finger of Exidor casually and nonchalantly descending from the sky and squishing the bug into oblivion.

Oh. Man.

I’m not sure I have ever heard the expression “Did you see that?” so many times in the hallway after a lecture in my life. I am reasonably sure I have never experienced a better reason to say “Did you see that?” in the hallway after a lecture.

I am almost completely sure of one thing. As weird as he was, Exidor never killed anybody, never shot up a room full of people, never lost his mind and took it out on a bunch of strangers. And the only thing I ever saw die in Cole Hall was that bug.

The Crack of the Bat, the Roar of the Crowd ... the Eek Eek of the Monkeys?

While approximately four of you in Internet Land are patiently awaiting the resumption of my questionable and rambling multi-part NIU saga, "Cole Hall," dig this: Carl Skanberg's got a new White Sox-related online comic strip, Palehose 8: Don Guillote. It combines two of my favorite things: baseball and monkeys.

“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”The greatest lecture hall performance (by Lucifer)Preface and Part One

Preface

So the other day I was at the local bodega after work, waiting in line at the register to pay for some beer, when I caught the news on the TV that’s always turned on in that place. As I was leaving work about 75 minutes earlier, I had heard a little something about someone getting shot at Northern Illinois University, but I didn’t pay much attention. DeKalb isn’t a rough burg, too much, but people shoot people sometimes there, I think. Once in a while. Pretty sure it happens. So I forgot all about it during the drive home. The local college radio stations were under programming routines as per standard usual normal.

So it startled me at the bodega when I heard the Channel 7 reporter say that at least 17 people had been wounded. Then I looked up at the screen and saw a familiar building, looking exactly the same as it did the last time I was inside it, in May of 1990. And I felt a little weak in the knees.

See, I’m an old man now. I don’t even think any of my old professors are still at NIU, and I certainly don’t have any personal connections to any undergrads there. Nor any grad students anymore, I guess. But college kids in 2008 don’t really look all that different from college kids 20 years ago. They probably wouldn’t want to hear that … but they don’t. They have more gadgets. But they look about the same.

Well, there is one big difference, in terms of language. They seem to be much more fluent in the idioms of crisis, insecurity, chaos, mayhem, and terror than many, if any, of us were in the late 1980s. They’ve grown up in a world that has kept shattering over and over again. This is an era when candlelight vigils and campus-wide lockdowns seem to be almost as common as illicit keggers in dorm rooms (assuming they still have illicit keggers in dorm rooms – someone please tell me they do). When I was a student at NIU, I think the worst thing that happened to shock the consciousnesses of the student body was that, one time, a few miscreants plastered the campus with posters for a rock show that had some dirty cartoons on them. (Which those of us who were damaged by it attempted to express ourselves … uh. Never mind. That’s another whole set of posts.)

Pre-9/11, pre-Virginia Tech, pre-everything like that, people used to get away with all kinds of shit that would probably earn you a tasing now, or worse. Climbing onto the roof of Altgeld Hall for a puff. Sneaking up to the 16th floor balcony of the student center for a few tokes with a panoramic view of Corn Country. Breaking into the steam tunnels and roaming around … while stoned. Slipping into the power plant and shutting off the lights in the library at 8 p.m. one night for a weed-fueled laugh. Getting high in the arboretum. Getting high behind some bushes in the Mall. Getting high in the bathroom at Cole Hall.

Yeah. The days of that last one are most likely over, permanently.

Which makes me kind of sad, even though it isn’t like I was going to re-matriculate and do everything all over again – despite the fact that I have frequently recurring dreams about doing just that.

OK. This is getting raggedy. I should try to focus. All right, campers, what I think I’m going to focus on is Cole Hall itself. Since I don’t know any current students at NIU, or teachers, or anyone (except Bobbo at Record Rev – woot!), I’m finding myself fixated on the location itself. I spent a lot of time in that building, and in that specific room, and it’s very easy to place myself there in my mind. I can pretty much picture exactly what the whole horrorshow looked like.

So. I’m going to do three posts about specific memories from my ancient times at NIU – (shortish) anecdotes – set in the exact room where Mr. Dweeb-ass Jerk With the Unspellable Name did you know what last Thursday. These pieces will be titled “Performance,” “Exidor,” and “Graduation.” And after the anecdotes … we’ll see. I have some other things to say, I think.


Part One – Performance

This first one maybe isn’t that much of an anecdote, but it has audiovisual aids. And I never said this exercise wouldn’t involve some rocking.

Anyway, the Cine Club used to screen movies in Cole Hall – foreign pictures, art house flicks, etc. – and I used to catch one once in a while. One Friday, Zippy Squeak-Gun and I caught a talkie from 1970 called “Performance,” starring Mick Jagger. Here's the synopsis:

Chas, a violent and psychotic East London gangster needs a place to lie low after a hit that should never have been carried out. He finds the perfect cover in the form of guest house run by the mysterious Mr. Turner, a one-time rock superstar, who is looking for the right spark to rekindle his faded talent.

And here's the trailer:



This movie freaked me out (in a good way) -- one reason being that the song "E=MC²" by Big Audio Dynamite used a bunch of samples from it, and I had played that song about a million times, so when the lines were spoken in the movie, it was like something falling into place backwards through time ... or something.



Also, I was getting pretty heavily into William Burroughs at the time, and the movie features a line (spoken by Jagger's character) that Burroughs, in Cities of the Red Night, attributed to Hassan i Sabbah (leader of the Assassins):

Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.

Which, at the time, was a fascinating concept to me. Although I never could defend it against anyone who pointed out that it's complete bullshit.

Also in the movie, this kickass song, with slide guitar by Ry Cooder:

Memo From Turner



Not much of an anecdote, I guess. Zipka and I saw a movie, which tied in with a bunch of the farkakta "counter-cultural" mishegoss I was deeply interested in at the time. And it was a movie with all sorts of violent acts and themes exploring violence, etc., that I watched in a room that, 20 years later, was the scene of a mass murder. Ooy ... it might be kind of a crummy anecdote, but I can't quite shake the weird feeling that it's all connected.

So long, Chief

This is a little belated, but here's a flashback post from April 2006 as a way to say goodbye to Roy Scheider, who died last week:


"Hello. This is Chief Brody of the Amity Police Department with a public service announcement about childhood obesity.

"Folks, if kids in this country get any fatter ... we're gonna need a bigger boat.

"Ha ha! See what I did there? That was my line from Jaws 1. 'We're gonna need a bigger boat.'

"Seriously, kids, try to slim down a little."

(References to and/or fake quotes by any person or persons real or imaginary are completely noncommercial, satiric, and parodic in nature, and are not meant to convey or imply any connection, endorsement, affiliation, or relationship between this blog and said person or persons, because there isn't any. This blog is in full compliance with Title 15 of the United States Code, Title 17 of the United States Code, Title 18 of the United States Code, Title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations, the Paris Convention, the Berne Convention, the Berne Identity, the Berne Supremacy, the Madrid Protocol, the Sigma Protocol, the WIPO Treaty, the Nice Agreement, the Nasty Agreement, the Nasty Disagreement, and the laws and regulations of the 50 United States, a variable number of member countries of the European Union, and a handful of provinces of Canada. Folks, if intellectual property law gets any more complicated, we're gonna need a bigger boat. Love, the legal department.)

Cole Hall

I'm going to write some stuff about what happened today at my alma mater, Northern Illinois University. I've already started writing it. But for the rest of tonight, I just want to take a breath and sit still for a while. In that connection, here's a reminder that joy and beauty also exist.



Charles Mingus - Goodbye Pork Pie Hat

"The true harbinger of spring is not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of the bat on the ball." -- Bill Veeck

We now interrupt our wildcat strike against Mother Nature to mark a very important date: Bill Veeck's birthday. "Sport Shirt Bill" would have been 94.

Here at CBRAT Headquarters, Bill Veeck's birthday is a major holiday. Although we prefer to observe another of Bill's wise sayings: "Every day a Holiday; Every fan -- Supreme!"



This is perhaps the earliest image of Veeck that I can personally remember -- Opening Day at Comiskey Park, 1976, with Bicentennial Fever heavy on the hypothalamuses of all red-blooded American boys, a young Stronger Than Dirt Pete Moss being no exception.

Also seen, and also noteworthy, in this photo is Veeck's right-hand man, Rudie Schaffer, playing the drum. Rudie died last November 27 at the age of 96.

So. Happy Bill Veeck's Birthday to you and yours. The groundhog might have let us down again this year, but Bill's birthday is an irrefutable sign that spring is on the way. Because, as Bill said, "There are only two seasons -- Winter and Baseball." And -- finally -- here comes Baseball.

Just six days to go till White Sox pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training. The Cubs start two days earlier, because ... they need all the time they can get.

POSTSCRIPT:

In other birthday news of today's birthdays, it's Joe Ely's birthday today! It's a double holiday!



Well All Right



She Never Spoke Spanish to Me



Carnival Bum

STDPM to Planet Earth: Fuck You

I am officially on strike from everything -- including blogging -- until this goddamned winter stops trying to kill me to death.

Also. All computers in my life: Fuck you, too, and fuck your goddamned hourglasses that I spend half my waking hours staring at.

Guest Commentary: The Return of Bob Greene

We knew this day would come. We knew that, eventually, disgraced ex-newspaper-columnist and serial Nightline appearer Bob "Bob" Greene would live down the ignominy of his being forced from the words-for-pay business due to his long history of obnoxious horndoggin' catching up with him. We knew that, someday, Bob Greene would be back.

That day has, in fact, as we knew it would, finally, at last, at this time, as of now, come. In response thereto, we have a guest review of the first installment of Bob Greene's "Bob Greene Across America" (featuring Bob Greene, as told to Bob Greene, to be filed in the index of posterity under "Greene, Bob"), courtesy of CBRAT's official mascot, Des "Dez" Desmodeus, in the form of a short series of excerpts from an email conversation between Dez and yours "STDPM" truly.

STDPM writes:

I just learned that Bob Greene is back in print ... or web ... or something:

Dez replies:

...and still rehashing the same column he's been recycling for 60 years. The old chestnut "Oh, it's that evil FM radio, uh I mean boomboxes, uh I mean cassette playing Walkmans, uh I mean I-pods, uh I mean (insert new technology) that's keeping each of us in a cocoon." And are you trying to share that cocoon with an unsuspecting college intern, Mr. Bob Greene? I particularly enjoyed his line, "And she departed without saying a word of farewell. And why should she? We didn't exist." Maybe it's just you that's dead to her, Bob, not everyone in the universe. How do you get paid to project being ignored on an elevator into an indictment on 21st century America? Maybe she was able to read you as transparently as one of your worthless columns and could actually see you burning the comment "I told Curtis to bring some alcohol" into your memory cells and already scheming to somehow work your way into whatever shenanigans she had planned.

But he wasn't done yet ...

Dez replies some more:

Okay, I re-read the article again and can't believe I missed Bob's signature, "and, me, your humble reporter from the Midwest." Bob, you're 96 fucking years old! How can you still walk around with your "Well, I'm just a simple Midwestern boy who doesn't understand this high-falutin' 'technology' or people from 'the city', 'cause I come from an overgrown cow town where people used to be simple and would bowl together before things slightly changed in society 212 years ago." Ugh.

Welcome back, Bob. Good luck.

Controversial Stance Against Gentrification Taken by Aging Punk Pioneer

Happy fuckn birfday to Handsome Dick Manitoba.




The Dictators - Avenue A (Live in Chicago at Empty Bottle, 1999)

New Feature: Answering the Unanswered Questions in SiteMeter Stats, Episode Number One

Yeah, what the title of the post says. We'll start with an easy one from today's SiteMeter stats -- the Yahoo search query, "What year did Bill Veeck install the exploding scoreboard at comiskey park?" — which led one visitor to an old CBRAT post that did not, sadly, answer the question.

Well, curious Yahoo search referral visitor person, I'm here to solve that oversight right now. Because I have done the research for you, personally, and am pleased to supply the following information —

Drum roll, please.

The answer is: 1960. Bill Veeck installed the exploding scoreboard at Comiskey Park in 1960. You can quote me on it.

As a bonus, here's a site with some nifty pix of said scoreboard.

Next question?

Bud Selig Does the Impossible and Redeems Self

Those of you who follow the baseballs probably heard that Bud Selig has signed on to remain as Commissioner of MLB until 2012. The news elicited the usual series of groans and curses from yours truly, although a piece over at Slate covers it from an unusually cheery angle:

Bush just lost the job he has always wanted much more than the one he's in.

Hah!!! Yeah, that hadn't occurred to me, but it is frickin' hilarious. The scuttlebutt about Dubya since before he was Preznit has always been that his chief ambition in life was to be Commissioner of Baseball.

I didn't realize, though, just how far back that ambition went. Apparently it was a lifelong thing. Which raises the question, What kind of fucking nerdlinger has the childhood ambition of being Commissioner of Baseball? Sheesh. I mean, I gave up on the idea of playing baseball very early in life, but then I started fantasizing about being a broadcaster. Fantasizing about being the asswipe in charge of the front office bullshit? Jesus, he should have been wedgied for eternity for that.

There are other problems with Dubya's dream. For instance, there will never be a commissioner named "George." They all have goofy first names:

• Kenesaw Mountain Landis
• Happy Chandler
• Ford Frick
• Bowie Kuhn
• Fay Vincent
• Bud Selig

OK, there are a few normal names in the bunch, a "William," a "Peter," and a "Bart," but mostly you gotta be a freakishly named eejit to be commissioner of baseball.

One of Bush's close childhood friends, Doug Hannah, told Vanity Fair's Gail Sheehy ... in 2000: "He wanted to be Kenesaw Mountain Landis,” America's first baseball commissioner, legendary for his power and dictatorial style.

Yeah ... Judge Landis ... there's a hero for every red-blooded boy in America. A tyrannical, egomaniacal, racist fuckhead. If you're not familiar with the story of Judge Landis, here's a well-worn factoid (this iteration of it from Wikipedia):

Club owner Bill Veeck claimed Landis prevented him from purchasing the Phillies when Landis learned of Veeck's plan to integrate the team.

Sounds like Gee Dub to me.

I'm not sure I have ever seen a Commissioner I liked. I'm not an appreciator of authority figures in general. I gotta say, though, that my admiration for the fish-lipped, corrupt, charisma-less mummy, Bud Selig, has just risen above zero for the first time.

Marching Band Music Strikes Back

This morning on the way to work, for no particular reason at all, a one-syllable word popped into my head, and all the assumptions and assertions of the previous few weeks, vis a vis marching bands, was called into controversy, doubt, and confusion. That word was, "Tusk."

When this video first aired on "Solid Gold," I definitely thought the Trojan marching band was hella cool. Of course, I was a complete geekun dorkmus at the time, but I think I was in sixth or seventh grade. Give me a break. I got worse later.



Nice old footage of Dodger Stadium, by the way, with the original yellow seats, before they switched to blue seats ... and then back to yellow seats in the last couple of years. But I digress.

Oh yeah, and then a little farther up the Edens Expressway this morning, I remembered an even shorter word in favor of marching bands, in terms of personal code words -- "Bud." That one isn't as self-explanatory.

When I was a kid in my frickin' wholesome Illinois small town, parades were a big deal. There wasn't really a lot of spectacle going on most of the time, so the occasional long line of fire trucks, clowns, soldiers, baton twirlers, and candy-throwing politicians winding down the main street was pretty exciting. An added attraction was the fact that our street lay along the set-up zone -- or whatever the hell I should call it -- for all the parades, so the different units would be gathering and lining up all over the neighborhood early in the morning on parade days. I love to get the backstage, behind-the-scenes perspective whenever I can ... I guess that's where I developed that affinity.

Anyway, marching band music was, of course, a big part of the whole parade burgoo. My favorite part of the marching band segment of the parade was the drum cadence they'd march to when they weren't playing a song. I'd feel the rumble of the beat in my chest before I could really hear it, as they approached from the left (parades always went east to west in my home town, and I always stood on the north side of the main street ... I guess because that was the side we lived on).

I wasn't so in love with the music itself, which they'd fire up when they got to the reviewing stand by the park in what passed for "downtown." Except I did love -- and in fact considered it the highlight of the parade -- to listen to the junior high (Viking School, yes, home of the Viking Vikings, I shit you not) band during the three or so years in the mid-1970s when they were run by a particular band director with a pretty good sense of humor. Viking School's colors were (and still are) red and white -- which happen to be the colors featured in Anheuser-Busch's trade dress for its Budweiser® brand beer-like-beverage-product. So, this band director adopted, as a band theme song, Budweiser's theme song, "Here Comes the King," also popularly known as "When You Say Bud."



I vaguely recall that a few eyebrows were raised at the band director's putting up a bunch of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders to playing a beer company's commercial jingle on their dewy, tender, practically virginal musical instruments, but if the owners of those eyebrows said anything, they were brushed off. I'm pretty sure the song remained the Viking School Marching Band theme song until that particular band diretor retired, which unfortunately happened a year or two before I got to junior high age, so that era was strickly an awe from below deal, a young punk admiring the older kids thing.

Just as well. I quit band after about four weeks of struggling with a french horn in 4th grade. I never have quite gotten over it. Goddamn french horn. Pretty sure it's still back at the old house -- it was my mom's horn from her school days in the 1950s. Next time I go home, I'm gonna find it, and kick it right in the back end of the case. That'll teach it to reveal my lack of musical aptitude!

POSTSCRIPT: Apparently it's a marching band tradition at Georgia Tech games to play the Budweiser song at some point in the Saturday stupidity. Marching bands might be OK in some contexts, but in college, they are evil. Eeeeville.

Muhammad Ali -- The Greatest of All Time

Happy birthday, Champ.



Johnny Wakelin and the Kinshasa Band - Black Superman

The 2007 CBRAT YouTube Veddeo Awards -- Best Song

The CBRAT YouTube Veddeo Award for best song of 2007 ... is a tie. I just can't pick between these two, from the outstanding album, "We'll Never Turn Back." So they both win.



Mavis Staples - Down in Mississippi



Mavis Staples - 99 and 1/2

Happy birthday, Elvis, wherever you are

Friends, I don't care who you are or what you may be, but if you can't agree that the world would be at least a little bit more fun of a place to live in today if we'd have been blessed to have a 73-year-old Elvis Presley alive among us on Earth right now and blowing out some candles on a big old birthday cake, well, then I don't know what.



Polk Salad Annie

Seventy-six trombones ... would be seventy-five more than it would take to make me jump off a cliff

It seems like the hideous, tedious, seemingly endless college bowl season is going to come to a close, at long last, after tonight's championship game ... please, God. The BCS system has more bowls than the world's biggest head shop. And, this season, despite a few half-hearted attempts, I have succeeded in watching more than two minutes of none. Nor did I watch more than a few minutes of any college football game during the regular season. So, tonight's my last chance until autumn to do something I really hate doing -- watch college football!

I don't think I'll last more than another few seconds. The pre-game show itself, obnoxiously bleating in the background, made me finally realize why I can't get into college football, even slightly.

It's because I fucking hate marching band music. I never quite realized how much I hated it before now, but the urge to throw myself outside into the thunderstorming night and under a lightning bolt is giving me a clue as to how deep and broad my despisementition of this awful noise goes. I apologize to anyone who was a band nerd ... Wait. No. No, I don't. YOU apologize to ME.

Jesus Christ, it sounds like a column of fascists torturing cats. Farting cats. And farting fascists. With farting cats in their assholes. Actually, I take that back. What I've just described would probably sound pretty damn cool. Marching band music, on the other hand, is just bombastic, shrill, assaultive, and ugly.

Ach. It almost makes me wish they'd start running that goddamn They Might Be Giants "That's FrItalian" Dunkin Donuts commercial again during every break (sometimes twice in a row), just to wash the stink of brass and valve-drained spit out of my brain. Almost.

If Ken Williams can wake up long enough to make a trade, I guess I can wake up long enough to blog about it

I like the Nick Swisher trade. Prospects be fucked. Prospects are like the first pancake in a batch -- you never know how they're gonna turn out -- fluffy, delicious, and VORPy, or torn, overcooked, and disgusting. Swisher is going to work out well for the Sox. Hey, I'm the guy who correctly predicted how much the Sox would suck last season, so you can trust me. Yes! I know everything before it's gonna happen! Spooky, huh?

Jesus Christ, a lot of Sox fans are whiny ass titty babies. You'd think they were Cubs fans, for crying out loud.

"Boo hoo! Kenny traded De los dos del los las dis dat deez doze Santos! He traded Geo Metro ... or whatever his name is!"

Yup, two minor league pitchers in their early 20s who may or may not end up being any good at all. (Also traded: a minor league outfielder whom we already know is for crap.) Two days ago they were kvetching about how he hadn't made enough deals this off-season.

"But we meant that he should get somebody awesome without giving up anybody at all!!! WAAAHHH!!! We got pwnzored by Billy Beane again!!!!!!"

Uh ... I think you got off the Red Line at the wrong stop. I think you meant to exit at Addison. You whining pussy of a straw-man pretend fan.

Granted, Kenny has been assfucked in the ass time and again by Beane, anorectally in the butt. And this deal, by itself, does not put the White Sox in a position where they're going to do better than 4th place in 2008 (you heard it here, folks -- the Sox are going to stink to high heaven again) -- nor does it do anything to improve their future outlook.

But ... and here comes one more crazy prediction, folks ... after the creaky and aging Paulie Konerko gets traded along with with injury- and Boras-representation-plagued Joe Crede to the O.C. Angels of Anaheim, Aztlan, y California (or whatever their name is this year) for Chone Figgins and a mint-condition Farrah Fawcett poster, Kenny and the White Sox are going to look much better.

After, that is, torch-and-pitchfork-wielding South Siders tantrum themselves out and collapse into an "Oh, aren't they cute when they sleep?" state of exhaustion due to what will surely be a highly unpopular move, Paulie being as irrationally beloved as he is among the White Sox District. (No "Nation" for you, small-market fans!)

Yeah. So the followings are goings to happens: Nick Swisher is going to get on base a lot, hit a respectable number of home runs in home-run-friendly Sox Park, and get a nice tally of RBIs and runs scored and OBP and yippa yappa, etc. He will be serviceable at first base -- which position will be open because Paulie will be outta hyah. And Chone Figgins is going to kick ass at shortstop after -- thank yeeee, Baby Jesus -- Juan Uribe is fie-nuh-lee gotten rid of (for a can of wasabi peanuts and a half-hearted neck rub, I'm guessing). And Josh Fields is gonna be decent at third base and people are gonna like him.

And the White Sox will be lucky to finish in third place.

Meanwhile, on the North Side, the Cubs will look like strong contenders for at least three days this season, before they fold like skillfully prepared omelets that are much less delicious than actual non-baseball-team versions of said breakfast treats and ... win the division anyway, cuz their division looks like it's gonna suck. But they will lose dismally in the playoffs again. Granted, that's a blue chip prediction, but I don't have any outlandish ones to make about the Cubbies. Except that Mark Cuban will not be buying them ... which, come to think of it, is not exactly going out on a limb either.

In other (i.e., non-baseball) news, here we are in 2008. I hope it doesn't suck as much as 2007 did, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be even worse. Much, much worse. My crystal ball contains images of health worries, professional miseries, and continued increases in extreme alienation levels dominating the timescape this year -- and those are the good things in store. And 2009? Good God, I don't even wanna think about it. If I'm still alive, ask me then.

But on the bright side, it's only 40 days till pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training.

And YouTube Xmas comes early for STDPM

I've been waiting for someone to repost the higher-rez version of this rare vocal performance by Link Wray, and finally somebody did.



Trying to Find Your Love

BONUS:



LINCOLN HIGHWAY DEKALB illinois: Link Wray High Way

"Isn't there ANYONE who knows what Christmas is all ABOUT!?!"

Hey, this is pretty damn fancy, and kudos to the dude that frickita frakked that thing together, but ... something doesn't seem right.



"I have over 45,000 lights synchronized to music using 216 channels of Light-O-Rama [and synched to Linus and Lucy, man ... can you feel my might?]"

Compare and contrast.



Colicky Christmas, everyone!

"And on the continent of North America, winter became very, very unhappy. Decided to stay."-- Gil Scott-Heron

Winter in America (1990)



Winter in America & Whitey on the Moon (vintage unknown)



A Lovely Day (SNL, December 13, 1975)

David Eckstein is not scrappy -- but I am

While whiling away these gray and wintry days of winter, I have been enjoying the multi-post discourse about the alleged and vaunted, and allegedly vaunted, and vauntedly alleged "scrappiness" of Mr. David Eckstein (most notably in recent years, the very short shortstop for the St Louis base-ball Cardinals of Missouri, and next season to be a hyperbolically overpaid [and still underheighted] shortstop for the Toronto base-ball Blue Jays of Oh, Canada, blah blah blah, true patriot love in all thy sons command [repeat en français, s'il vous plait]) at the most excellent and hilarious skewerer of bad sports journalism (and particularly bad baseball journalism), Fire Joe Morgan.

Over there lately there has some good fun made of a crappy sportswriter's ado-making about a Google search on the assertion, "David Eckstein is scrappy," and the gnipgnopulously huge number of hits that result from that string. (Subsequently, a reader pointed out that many hits also result from googling "David Eckstein is crappy," which amused me a great deal ... so now you know just how easy to amuse I am.)

In connection with all of that, there's a thing I have just discovered that could be relevant to the analysis (but probably not). To wit:

If you Google the string, in quotes, "David Eckstein is not scrappy", you get ZERO hits. None. Nada. Bupkis, non-etc.

Therefore, there is nobody in the Internet that affirmatively affirms that this particular itty bitty ball player is "not scrappy." They either think he's scrappy, or they have held their tongues ... er, keyboard fingers.

What that means is nobody's guess, because nobody cares. Not that I'm letting that stop me. Because this is a scrappy blog, and I am a scrappy blogger. Scrappier than Dirt, even. Too small for the game, but scrappy to the finish.