Weds Nite No Reason at All Post

One or two or more of the people at large and in the roster of occasional blog visitees know that I am one of the larger Mike Nesmith fans, and not just by volume or carat weight. Here's a YT thang I am especially taken with because during the part where Mike is trying to remember what key it's in, I shouted "G!" and then right on cue he said "No, it's definitely not G."

Anyway, sweet song.


Mike Nesmith - Wax Minute

But it ain't my favorite Nez song. This one is. This is the song I fell for after checking out the "Live at the Palais" LP from the Gurnee public library sometime in the early 1980s. And this version contains a story -- the story of the song, even.



Mike Nesmith - Grand Ennui

Actually, though, this is my favorite Mike Nesmith tune. He did it with the Monkees. It's also my favorite Monkees song. I could listen to this one over and over, and sometimes I do.



The Monkees - You Just May Be The One

Words lack the power ...

I'm going to lift the following (short) news item from ChicagoTribune.com wholesale because it contains so much ... so ... much that mere reference is insufficient. Just a few of the CBRATian elements (would-be tags if I had the energy to set up a whole tagging scheme): Cubs, Sox, Gurnee, drunken suburban violence, unspellable names, and inaccessibility by phone.

For some reason this story reminds me of a bit of spam I received last week, which had the best spam email subject heading I think I've ever gotten. It said:

Nazi toddlers ruined my birthday

It was all I could do not to open it. Anyway, I guess this is more like "Nazis ruin toddler's birthday," but that's pretty damn close. Close enough to spur a little "thematic connection" synapse in my brain.

Maybe I'll expound more on this tomorrow, with more prose and whatnot, but for now here it is, the most Stronger Than Dirt Pete Mossiest news item of 2008, so far:

Cubs fans accused of beating White Sox fan

The Associated Press
8:31 PM CDT, July 28, 2008

HUNTLEY, Ill. - McHenry County authorities say three Chicago Cubs fans face felony battery charges after allegedly beating a Chicago White Sox fan so badly he lost his right eye.

The men are accused of beating 32-year-old Robert Steele of Gurnee during a 2-year-old girl's Sesame Street-themed birthday party.

Police said Monday the men were drinking alcohol at the July 19th party and taunting Steele.

They say Steele was kicked in the head and his nose was broken. He stayed several days at an Elgin hospital.

Thirty-one-year-old Jaroslaw Czapla, 37-year-old Boguslaw Czapla and 33-year-old Maciej Trojnar face mob action and aggravated battery charges.

Jaroslaw Czapla's number is unlisted. There were no listings for Boguslaw Czapla or Trojnar.

Ich bin ein Old Man

Oy. Apparently I cannot rrrock like I vaguely recall being able to do. Caught a show at the Empty Bottle last nite, and boy are my everythings tired. I only had two beers, but my body is no longer equipped to stand upright for that many hours in a row. Anyway, another fine performance by Scott Hiram Biram, supported by the outlandish Bob Log III and Fort Wayniacs Left Lane Cruiser. If you weren't there, sorry to have missed you.

This blog is undergoing serious summertime neglect, for which I apologize to my dozen or so readers. With any luck, and some rest, I'll get back to it pretty soon, maybe tonight. For now, here's a YouTubed-up sampling of the stuff that's making me drag ass like McCain's older brother today.



Left Lane Cruiser - Wash It



Bob Log III - I Want Your Shit on My Leg



Scott H. Biram - Fixing to Die

Krazy Kitten Korner: Piper and Mingus Glad to Be Back in Chi, Wrecking Stuff

City baby cats say, "Oi, oi! What shall we destroy next?"



Charged GBH - City Baby Attacked By Rats/City Baby's Revenge

Sat Nite YT Vid Post: I Wonder What the Hell Ever Happened to My Goddamn Ween Tape Edition

Sometime in 1992 I lost a goddamn Ween tape, specifically the cassette version of their 1991 album "The Pod," and I never found the mutherfucker. I was in law school at the time, living in a somewhat crappy apartment in Urbana, Illinois, in between Green Street and Main Street, on Elm. Just in case you want to get in a time machine and past-stalk me. I have no idea what happened to that fucking Ween tape. It's bugged me ever since. Where did you go, Ween tape? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Woo woo woo.

Roughly around that same time (as in, roughly around some set of dates within the confines of the three year period I lived in that apartment) there was a homeless dude squatting in the utility closet in the hallway. Not literally squatting -- actually, he would sort of lie in there on his back with his rancid legs sticking out the makeshift wood-panel door (sans padlock). And, naturally, he would cough, snort, hack, spit, and rant and rave all night long, snarling curses at Jesus H. Christ and whatever other motherfucking cocksucking shit shit shit fuck demons that were getting his Irish up. That utility closet was separated from my living room by a metal grating that I didn't feel incredibly confident about, vis a vis its physical integrity, so after about four days I got the landlord to put a lock on the closet door. But ... maybe during those four days, that dude used telekinetic powers to unscrew the screws to that metal grate, crawled into my living room, and TOOK MY GODDAMN WEEN TAPE. Then he crawled back into the closet, re-telekinetically-screwed the screws back into place, and left the entire scene as he found it, with no apparent evidence of tampering. OTHER THAN THE ABSENCE OF MY WEEN TAPE.

Or else maybe something else happened to it. Beats me. Anyway, I used to like this "Pork Roll Egg and Cheese" tune from that tape a lot, and now of course there's YouTube (until Sumner Redstone and his evil fucking minions of fuck ruin it), so I don't even need that futhermucking goddamn missing shit tape shit shit shit Jesus fuck your mother fuck your brother bleaaaggghhhh grmble gbah ghrahrr blegghghhhh! Hack! Ptui! Wheeze!

Dream of the Sam Adams and Drambuie Fiend (don't ask)

Last night I dreamed that I was making out with Jenna Fischer, and then we were interrupted by Stephen Colbert, who wanted me to look over a little John McCain skit he'd written for his show, you know, to see what I thought about it. It was pretty funny and surreal, something about a plane crash that McCain averted with his superhero-like physical strength. Then Jenna Fischer and I started making out again, while Colbert and his entire crew watched. Then I woke up. God damn it. Where's a persistent vegetative state when you need one?

Politics and History Corner: Profiles in Scrotal Courage: Like Riding a Wire Fence: The LBJ's Slacks Years

People often, in my imagination, ask me, "Hey Colicky, hey Mr. Obama's Not Good Enough, has there ever been a President you've liked? Do you have a favorite?"

Well, pretend questioner person, that one's easy. Yes! My favorite President of the USA is the one who was (purely coincidentally) occupying the White House when I was born -- and that would be Mr. Lyndon Baines Johnson, of Texas.

Yeah, I know. Nobody but history profs looking for something contrary to say in a bid to get attention defend LBJ's presidency. LBJ escalated the Vietnam War, was a lifelong racist, and probably ordered the hit on JFK, but he made some really excellent tapes of his own private phone conversations. Much better than the Nixon tapes, even.

Everyone knows all about the wacky LBJ tapes already -- at least they do if they've listened to about five seconds of NPR in the last 10 or 11 years. But that fact doesn't diminish their total brilliancy and sublime geniosity.

Below is embedded a YouTube rendering of my favorite LBJ tape. Nope, it's not the "goat glands" tape, although that one kicks zany ass, too. And it's not the really creepy one where he hits on Jackie Kennedy. My favorite LBJ tape -- I've summoned recollection of bits of it often for more than 10 years now; as such, it's been an invaluable source of inspiration and wisdom: you might say it's my bright shining beacon in a dark and stormy world -- is the tape of the phone call he made to the Haggar people, ordering six pairs of lightweight pants for casual summer wear.

Among the things we learn from this recording is that LBJ carried his own money -- and a pocket knife. Imagine that -- I don't think John McCain has even set eyes on cash money in at least 25 years, let alone toted his own supply. The Secret Service would probably never allow any President or candidate to carry around a knife. The current Preznit might have allegedly prodigious brush-clearing skills, but I suspect that if he'd ever been permitted the possession of his very own keen Victorinox Swiss Army model, he wouldn't have choked on a pretzel a few years ago -- he would have gouged out his hard palate with the sewing awl. If LBJ were still alive, he'd probably be brandishing a Leatherman Juice Xe6 multi-tool -- or two -- Secret Service be damned.

We also learn at right around two minutes into the excerpt that when LBJ gained a little weight, he suffered from ... a specific variety of physical discomfort. As a guy who's made the mistake of over-hasty and over-thrifty trouser selections, I gotta admit, I can sympathize. If I could get Haggar on the horn and make them throw in an inch here and two inches there, I would.

He does seem very pleased with himself when the gentleman at Haggar asks where he wants them sent, and LBJ replies, "White House," but wouldn't you? Sure, we're all humble and lovable shoe-shine boys and girls in our humdrum lives here, but I defy any one of you to become leader of the Western world without revealing a little pride when you give your address to catalog retailers. Although I like to believe I'd temper it a little bit -- "Yeah, send them to the White House -- basement apartment." Besides, I wouldn't really need to impress anyone -- I'd just be happy that my balls finally felt really good.

So, please enjoy. There's also a Real Media version and a real nice transcript hyah.

Ess Ayy Tee YouTube Arr Dee Ayy Why Nite Video Post: You Can't Spell "Gurnee" Without "Gun" Edition

I hope everybody had a nice Jesus Christ's Favorite Country's Birthday yesterday. I'm still up hyah in the wilds of northeastern Lake County, on the edge of nothing, at the tangential point between zero and the square root of negative one. Near the skeevy crotch formed by the Lake Mitchikan coast and the shockingly non-fortifried border with Winksconskin.

I last lived full-time in this region (in this house, even) in that decade I like to call "The Eighties." During the last half of that decade, I was pretty heavily into hardcore punk -- especially Midwest-style (you know, that Naked Raygun-type "Whoa oh" variety) -- an example of which being frontman Tesco Vee's Michigan/D.C. combo, The Meatmen.

Here's a fine Meatmen number that, for me, at the time, in the place, under the conditions prevailing, summed up the local Zeitgeist fairly close to 100 percent accurately. With references to Harleys, snowmobiling, monster trucks, Pabst, Montgomery Ward, and bowling, you've got just about every ingredient of this still-rural, brackish zone between IL and WI in the Reagan '80s. Not to mention the misogyny and general violent fuckheadery. I'm not sure if this Upper Midwest brand of redneck cretinism still dominates hereabouts, or if things have ch-ch-ch-changed, but I have a feeling you don't have to search with a fine-toothed comb to find plenty of dudes like the character in this tune.

Not that I have much latitude to mock. For a while in high school my own uniform involved a mullet and a flannel shirt, and my best friend drove an El Camino. And just yesterday I grilled up some brats, ja hey, and smoked some beers, so ... yeah, I guess I might be an Upper Midwest Redneck, too.

Who's for another beer? Hell, ja! You fuckin' betcha!



The Meatmen - True Grit

My wife laments -- I drink! I’m crass!
Plug her little sister in the ass
Please do not of house chores, dearest, speak
Cuz the truck pull derby is this week

I’m a scumbag -- I know what I like
Plodding loony on my Harley D. bike
Bowling league and a dozen beer runs
Snowmobiling over bunnies is fun

My four-wheeler is 60 feet high
Jack and Cokes in the morning, spouse cries
Poaching wildlife for personal gain
Gunaholic commie-hatin’ insane!

When I get all hostile, in a snit
I’m true blue dirtbag -- I am true grit!
When I shine my piece it gets real stiff
I’m a nasty, ass-kickin' prick when I get miffed!

Shooting pool at "White Trash Magnet Lanes"
Flirt with boozy, sleazy, bleachy dames
I was weaned on my dad’s sphincter ring
Ten years old before I said a thing

I’m a redneck -- I know what I like
Death for fudge-packin’ homos and dykes
Equal rights for the wenches? No way!
Mother, guts, God and Ronnie’s OK

Got a case of Pabst soaked in me gourd
Got my "Action Slacks" from Montgomery Wards
Poaching wildlife for personal gain
Gunaholic commie-hatin’ insane!

When I get all hostile, in a snit
I’m true blue dirtbag -- I am true grit!
When I shine my piece it gets real stiff
I’m a nasty, ass-kickin' prick when I get miffed!

Summertime, and the blogger is lazy

Some people say there are two kinds of Republican voter: millionaires and suckers. OK. I'll buy that. But there's only one kind of Democratic voter: suckers. (There are millionaires who vote Democratic, to be sure, but they're subsumed within the "sucker" category.)

Why I Drink: Stinking in the Suburbs Edition

Yeah, so, I'm up in Lake friggin County (land of not quite enough flooding, unfortunately), house and cat sitting for my parents while they're back east on their annual visit to see my dad's side of the family. The kittens are pestering their old cat, eating his food, playing with his toys. He's not too happy about it. I'd prefer to be elsewhere, myself. This is my least favorite part of the summer. I can't stand the suburbs. I did some grocery shopping at a "Super Wal-Mart" in Waukegan this afternoon and I wanted to break into one of the shotgun cases and Hemingway (Cobain?) myself. Hellish. Nothing's within walking distance, all the cars are gigantic, and everyone drives 900 miles an hour -- badly. The people are all super-sized, too, as if someone injected them with a huge syringe full of brine, like a cheap ham. Not just fat -- big. Necks bigger around than my waist -- and I have a pretty fat waist. Calves like beer barrels. Goddamn military crewcuts on their leathery, huge heads. And the men are even worse!

Feline Engineering Disasters

Episode 1: Fresca Box Tunnel breached by pesky sister.

Argh: In which a rant about FISA devolves into a strange sports metaphor and then ends ... simply ends

Two things I can't sit through without the word "bullshit" playing in my mind over and over for the duration are: a church service (any church service) and a House floor debate on C-SPAN.

After watching Nancy Pelosi this morning, I may be unable to eat for the rest of the day. My appetite has seceded from the Union. My entire digestive system is now calling itself The Free Alimentary Canal Zone of Occupied North America.

I wonder how my old crim law prof, Wayne LaFave, feels these days. LaFave is the country's leading expert on Fourth Amendment law, and his treatise on search & seizure is recognized as the leading work on the subject. I don't want to ascribe any particular political leanings to him -- because I, frankly, don't know for sure what his political opinions are -- but I have to imagine that it must be weird for him that the entire span of meaningful Fourth Amendment protection has fit within his entire professional career.

LaFave's writing was, it can be argued, instrumental in the development of search & seizure law as we knew it. One thing they don't teach the heck out of in high school civics and history classes is that the Bill of Rights didn't have a lot of practical value for ordinary citizens until relatively recently. Depending on which right you're talking about, none of the "rights" in the Constitution really existed until some point in the 20th Century. The Fourth Amendment was not applied to state governments until 1961 -- before that, it had no effect on most criminal prosecutions. The "reasonable expectation of privacy" test for search and seizure -- which has become at least somewhat familiar to most reasonably well-educated Americans -- didn't exist until 1967. Even the exclusionary rule -- without which, the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures was essentially meaningless -- wasn't established until 1914.

After the Warren Court expanded search and seizure protections into something approaching practical reality, the Burger and Rehnquist Courts began taking a whittling knife to the Fourth Amendment. Exception after exception was adopted throughout the Reagan-Bush-Clinton years. The Bush Two administration has made tool upgrades to an axe, a chain saw, and an Acme®-brand Wile E. Coyote-style TNT demolition device. The Roberts Court seems likely to accelerate the process.

The NSA approached telecoms with its plan for comprehensive citizen surveillance six months prior to that Big Boom-Boom Day that's used to justify all subsequent legal erosions to our civil liberties. Everything from FISA to Daley's lust for CCTV cameras convinces me that "privacy rights" existed only as long as it was too technologically unfeasible or expensive to spy on everyone. Now that the technology is capable and cheap, all bets are off. Total exposure to government monitoring now seems inevitable. Why? Because they can.

For a brief time -- well shorter than the average span of a human life -- the Constitution rose slightly above mere "piece of paper" status. It is now, to borrow a phrase from the baseball stat nerds, "reverting to the mean." The Constitution is like a pitcher who had several lousy seasons in his early career, then broke out and won 20 games for a couple of seasons and a Cy Young Award, and then blew his arm out.

Yeah, that's right, I just implied that the Constitution is like Steve Stone. Which indicates to me that this rant has run its course. In closing, as Lenny Bruce would say, "Emmis."

ON A LIGHTER NOTE: But, hey, it's Crosstown Classic weekend! I predict the Sox will take two out of three at Wrigley, and sweep next weekend at The Cell. This could be good news for Friend of CBRAT, Mr. "Pat" Jacobson, who vowed a few weeks ago that he would give up his left nut in exchange for a Sox sweep of the whole kaboodle.

So, if you find yourself walking around in the Uptown/Andersonville Terrace area this weekend, and you hear a voice coming from a window somewhere -- yelling "Pat's left nut! Pat's left nut!" -- don't be alarmed. That will just be me.

UPDATE: PAT'S LEFT NUT LIVES: Well, we can put away the Burdizzo. Cubs win, 4-3. The Sox will not be sweeping the Crosstown Classic in 2008.

This update was brought to you by "Pat's Left Nuts on Clark," serving the Wrigleyville Community for nearly 30 snacktastic years.

Wednesday Night Blog Meeting: Cats Named, Sox Good Again

After much deliberation and trial and error, I laid names on my crazy new furry buddies. I'm calling the boy Mingus, after Charles, my favorite jazz genius. Mingus the cat has some of Mingus the man's audacity. And Charles Mingus was tuned in enough with felines that he was able to teach his cat Nightlife to use the toilet.

I'm calling the girl Piper, not so much after notable girl Pipers Piper Laurie, Piper Perabo, or even Buzz Kilman's daughter Piper, as Rowdy Roddy. My favorite pro grappler. I know Roddy is a dude, but if you saw Piper the kitten wrestle, you'd get where I'm coming from. Piper is here to do two things: kill toy mice, and kick your ass. And all the toy mice are lost under the couch.

In other good news, the Sox pummeled the Pittsburgh Butt Pirates again tonight. I call them the Butt Pirates because they are butt pirates. Actually, I still have some nostalgia for the Pirates, because I attended game four of the 1979 World Series, at Three Rivers Stadium ... which they lost, but they came back to win the series. Steve Stone pitched in relief for the Orioles at that game, and now he's doing excellent radio work with Ed Farmer on AM 670, so it all comes back to the White Sox in the final analysis. I'm believing in them again. Don't let me down, you (pale) hosers.

And now for some YouTubes, cuz at least a few people seem to enjoy them. First up is a short biography of Charles Mingus, followed by a little "Hot Rod" Piper.

Personnel Announcement

I'm pleased to announce that today we added two new staffers to the CBRAT®-brand blogging family. Please join me in welcoming ... uh ... they don't have names yet.

On the left: unnamed girl kitten. On the right: unnamed boy kitten. Their interests include attacking my sneakers, falling asleep on my sneakers, and attacking my sneakers some more.

Don't you know / The Lord above / Created you / Just for me to love

At the risk of overloading this here CBRAT with Gugug (impossible!), I'm embedding up this YouTube video just 16 hours old, offered in tribute to Bo Diddley. This is a number I first heard on a collection I bought on cassette shortly after being blown all the way to the end of creation and back by Bo's set at the Chicago Blues Fest in June 1986. I still haven't stopped yammering about that performance. Changed my damn life.

Peter Meehan Is a Blithering Idiot

The NY Times "Travel" section today has an interactive map of ballparks, allegedly describing the best and worst food choices available at them.

What does dimwitted, water-headed, shit-for-a-palate "food writer" Peter "Wouldn't Know My Ass From a Hole in the Ground Except That My Ass Is What I Pull My Prose Out Of" Meehan have to say about U.S. Cellular Field?



I have a feeling that Meehan has never actually visited Sox Park. As long as I've been going to baseball games in Chicago -- which is over 30 years -- Sox Park has had far superior food to the ivy-covered urinal on the North Side. (At Wrigley, he recommended the Italian sausage and advised skipping the hot dogs, with which I can't argue. Except that I'd advise skipping the Italian sausage and the entire trip, as well. Nothing is good at Wrigley, unless you enjoy comparing your tackle with other mens' while pissing in a trough.)

Paper of record? To quote Lee Elia, "My ass."

POSTSCRIPT: For a more sensible review of U.S. Cellular Field's food, see this Sports Illustrated fan survey, in which Sox Park ranked 2nd best for eats, with 58.8% rating it as "excellent." (Wrigley Field -- 22nd best, with 14% excellence.)

So long, Bo

Ha'ina 'ia mai ana ka puana: Friday Evening Ukulele Post

I promised, and I'm delivering. Enjoy for your pleasure some items of ukulelal interest, please.

Friend of the blogger from back-in-the-day days The Viper has a blog. OK, he has had it for a while, but I didn't stumble upon it until this week. And I'm glad I did. Do everyone a favor and go read it thoroughly. We won't go anywhere in the meantime.

Scotland's YouTube frickin' genius sensation(s) Gugug has more of what Gugug does up on the thing. Here's a small selection. Watch it and see if you fail to smile, you soulless bastid.



Gugug (feat. Duglas) - Georgy Girl

William H. Macy plays the ukulele and dishes dirt about co-stars, simultaneously!



William H. Macy does what I said, on Oprah ... well, not literally on Oprah ... that'd be a real scoop, though ... damn

From the fine programme, Later with Jools Holland:



Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain - Smells Like Teen Spirit

The Undertones get coverage (this one is dedicated to John Peel, RIP):



Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain - Teenage Kicks

I can't stand to leave out this cover of one of my favorite Bowie numbers (which also relates to my reference to the Mars lander in the last post -- not included, audio of me singing along to this in falsetto in my apartment ... sorry):



Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain - Life on Mars

"Ha'ina 'ia mai ana ka puana" means, "Begin again at the refrain," or "Tell the story in the refrain," depending on the translator.



Warren Zevon - Hula Hula Boys

I've spent a few weeks on the Big Island, but I've not been to this place. It's on the agenda for next visit.



Keonepax - Pu'u Anahulu

Please excuse the politics, I'll try to keep it brief

I generally don't blog about politics here (or anywhere) because this is Colicky Baby Records and Tapes, not Enraged and Disgusted Quasi-Marxist Post-Situationist Records and Tapes (yet), but the Pfather Pfleger pflap ricocheting around the pipes today like a particularly evil unit of Quick Draw McGraw ammo has my guts in a roil, and it's got to come out. (Another reason I don't blog about politics is that they inspire the worst in mixed metaphors by me. One more alert: The following rant is unrehearsed, hastily written, sloppy, and unedited, for the most part, so you all may wanna skip it entirely and wait for some more wacky smartass baseball posts and/or obscure YouTube rock, jazz, and ukulele videos, which will follow fairly soon, I'm sure.)

Conventional punditry has it that Obama faces big difficulties from racism among rural, poor, uneducated white people. Frankly, I think he's got enough to worry about from (a more subtle but just as virulent type of) racism among the urban (and suburban and exurban), relatively affluent, nominally educated ones. The reaction to Pfleger's sermon proves to me once again that even "liberals" are not ready to discuss race in a way that makes whitey uncomfortable. To fail to suck liberal white ass just isn't cricket; it just isn't, as they say in Blighty, done. Tut tut. Pfleger didn't get the memo, I guess, the memo that clearly indicates that all oratory on racial issues must be prefaced, during-faced, and post-faced with repeated assurances that almost all white people are A-OK, except for a few of those bad, uneducated ruffians, mostly from the distant past. Any suggestions that such a thing as white privilege exists are just not cool, bro. Those suggestions, are, in fact, "black racism," because "making some sensitive pale-faced suburbanites feel bad by saying some nasty, nasty words in loud, loud voices" is totally on a par with "creating a permanent underclass via the 'badges and indicia' of slavery, continued institutionalized bias, systematic police harassment and torture, disproportionately harsh treatment by the criminal justice system, coverage in the media that vacillates between 'benign' neglect and unconcealed disdain, etc. etc., and so forth."

I didn't read all of Pfleger's sermon, and I don't really feel like watching the video, so I don't know about the assertions on Pandagon.net that he dove into the realm of misogyny -- to which, if true, I say, shame on the Pfather. I'm not among Pfleger's pfans, by any means. I'll be ticked off at him pforever for getting all the head shops shut down, and he's demonstrated a large degree of unthinking ass-headedness several times over the years ... but I'm sticking with what I said in the previous graf. Maybe ostensibly progressive white people are so easily bruised in the emotionality because of a huge case of subconscious guilt -- or fear. That'd make some sense. It's still irritating as all get-out. OK, that's enough from me on that. Challenges and/or practically anything at all in the comments are welcome.

One last parting shot -- in somewhat ironic honor of the new Mars mission (which I hasten to disclose, I consider to be hella cool), here's this (followed by more Gil, just because if it's good to you it must be good for you):



Gil Scott-Heron - Whitey on the Moon



Gil Scott-Heron - Black History



Gil Scott-Heron - No Knock



Gil Scott-Heron - Whitey on the Moon (another version) & Hold On

Notes from Section 529: And it was at that point that I said to my Sherpa, "Gunga galunga ... gunga, gunga-galunga"

I went to the Sox game yesterday, and Steve Nick Swisher played in a Sox game yesterday. But I think we were at totally different Sox games.

[Laboratory-made testosterone aficionado Gary] Matthews [Jr.] threw out Nick [Pom Poms for Brains] Swisher at second base in the fifth. Swisher lined a single toward the right-field corner and Matthews slid on one knee to cut off the ball and -- all with fluidity -- popped up to make a perfect throw on the fly from deep right.

"Unbelievable play," Swisher said.

I believe a certain Mr. Jacobson and a certain Squeaky Z will attest to the fact that, as soon as the outfielder picked up the ball and started to throw, a certain Dirt Moss said, out loud, audibly, "He's out." And he was out. In other words, I found the play to be totally believable. And predictable. And that was from the very top row behind home plate, which is at an altitude of approximately 18,750 feet above sea level.

I will edit Swishy's statement for him.

"Unbelievably stupid baserunning by me," Swisher should have said. "Might have cost us the game. But at least I have swagger! I'm a great cheerleader! I can't hit or run or catch or throw all that well, but I have ENTHUSIASM! Everyone LOVES me cuz I'm so damn HILARIOUS! Check it out, I can fit an entire GLASS in my mouth! Hey, lay-deee!!!"

Ready for some baseball

Going to the Sox game this afternoon. New winning streak starts today at some point in the indeterminate future.

No Mas Equis, Por Favor

To the elderly bearded "Stay thirsty, my friend" guy in the Dos Equis commercials airing endlessly every commercial break during major league baseball games this season: Hey, I think your obituary is "beefed up" enough. I'm ready to read it. In the morning paper.

In other embedded thoughts regarding last night's Sox telecast: During the pre-game ceremony for Carlton Fisk (which was, of course, rife with typical sports-TV male soap opera weepiness, including hideous rock ballads, to which I supplied my own impromptu lyrics, including, "I'm not gay, but I'd love to suck your joint" and the less subtle "I want to wake up with your burly he-man pubes stuck between my teeth and the stink of your musk on my sheets" -- I guess you had to be there) did Carlton Fisk's bike have training wheels? Ron Kittle didn't use no training wheels. And Bo Jackson's hips, ankles, elbows, and kneecaps were fashioned by surgical Druids from Welsh bluestone, and he didn't need no training wheels. I guess Pudge left his "Pole" at Fenway. There's a wicked obscure attempt at some Red Sox humah for yah.

I was also trying to come up with a "Lute Fisk" joke but I gave up. I think he is of Swedish extraction, though. I guess we'll take him.

Motivational blogging puts Sox back in first place

Also, an interleague series with the totally weak San Francisco Giants helped, too.

OK, that's all for now. More posting if and when I get over the stomach bug that hit me over the weekend. You don't wanna know about it.

If I write the one-millionth "Down with OBP" joke headline in blogging history, will balloons and confetti fall from my ceiling?

I've been living in some considerable dread that I will be challenged about an anomalous development in the pages of this Blogger®-brand web-based publication. That challenge -- which would come from an imaginary critic that I'll imagine with the voice of my old pal, Kirby the Beekeeper, who can issue a loud challenge, to be sure -- would consist of something like, "Hey, Colicky! Hey, Mr. White Sox fan! How come all's you write about on this blog anymore is the Cubs?"

Well, I'll tell you. First, check the name of the blog. If you're aiming to create some kind of semi-fictional (OK, quarter-fictional) Colicky Baby characterization for yourself, you can't beat the Chicago National League Ball Club for material. Plus, I live on the North Side (granted, in Uptown, which is sort of the North Side's least favorite body part, aside from maybe East Rogers Park -- although East Rogers at least has the advantage of being a couple miles farther away from Wrigleyville), and the constant turnover of doe-eyed (or is that wall-eyed?) Iowa and Michigan temporary transplants serving out their three-to-five-year post-collegiate "urban adventure" (heavy on the public drunkenness and urination) and wearing various faux-vintage machine-antiqued Cubs gear in all the liquor stores and taverns (my places, damn it -- I've earned title to them through 10 years of hard Uptown living) before spawning little replicants clad in spittle-stained Cubs onesies and then moving to godforsaken places like Schaumburg and Naperville after driving up rents in "The City" -- well, sorry for the run-on, but those transients are a constant source of inspiration -- colicky-wise.

Short version: It's too much fun to pick on the Cubs to resist doing so.

Second, the White Sox. Have you been watching them lately? If so, I'm sorry. In particular, I'm sorry for predicting, a few months ago, that Nick Swisher would "get on base a lot." Oops. Nick's OBP is currently a few points higher than the team's OBP, but the team's OBP is sadder than a Kazuo Ishiguro novel. Yes, the Sox are like an old English butler whose time has passed and who gave up the chance for true love to live out a dying ideal, when it comes to on-base percentage right now. Or something like that. Anyway, maybe I should go back and quietly edit that post by adding the phrase "in April." As in, "Nick Swisher will get on base a lot in April, before turning into a strikeout machine with grotesque facial hair."

Although predicting that Nick Swisher would "get on base a lot" might be less embarrassing than accidentally referring to him, as I've done about a dozen times in meat-space, as "Steve Swisher" ... but then that probably just means I'm getting old.

And I don't get much pleasure, personally, from making fun of the Sox at this time. I could slag Konerko, but why? I guess I actually did make fun of Juan Uribe the other day, but that's allowed.

Have the Cubs signed Jim "Hollywood" Edmonds yet? That should go at least as well as the Nomar signing.

See what I mean?

Brennaman Was Right

Cubs fans are the biggest assholes in the Solar System. Until Voyager or SETI or some other gizmo turns up evidence of superior extraterrestrial assholery orbiting distant stars, Cubs fans are the ranking assholes in the entire universe.

The latest rectal display: booing former Eastern Illinois University quarterback Tony Romo at yesterday's game. Sure, I'm no Dallas Cowboys fan, and Jessica Simpson's boyfriend is a pretty tempting target, but the whole booing bullshit has been way out of hand at Wrigley Field for a long time. I hate that 7th inning stretch "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" guest singer nonsense and wish they'd drop it, but Cubs fans, you are dicks. By all accounts, Romo can't sing and he murdered the wretched song, but it's supposed to be a stupid little bit of fun. Are you telling me Harry Caray could sing?

Also, it's a goddamned game. Responding to everything you don't appreciate by making an ass of yourself -- booing, throwing garbage onto the field, etc. -- is pathetic. And Cubs fans have demonstrated themselves to be the schmuckiest of schmucks in that regard. Booing opposing players is jerky enough, but Cubs fans constantly boo their own home team. When the cheap seats cost upward of $40, and you show up to boo and throw shit onto the field ... you are a cock. A chancrous, leaking, tiny cock.

Plus, it was Mother's Day. Romo's mom was probably in attendance. Booing some guy for trying to entertain you for a minute or two, in front of his mom, on Mother's Day ... well, fuck you, Cubs fans. Fuck you to hell. To paraphrase Bill Shatner, you sicken me.

Cubs fans are like every irritating fuckhead on my dorm floor in college. Every dimwitted drunken blowhard who thought it was cute to act like Bluto from Delta House at all times. Luckily for me, most of those anuses flunked out after one semester, but Cubs fans never ... go ... away. In fact, they seem to multiply like a virus.

And word has gotten around. To wit, see embedded below, an instant classic from a few weeks ago -- crotchety old Reds announcer Marty Brennaman pointing out the obvious. When a noted chumfucker like Brennaman can't abide your dickery, your dickery is considerable in magnitude. Brennaman may be an unlovable bag of hostile dementia, but he's right.

Happy Mother's Day

Just got off the phone with Ma Moss. Among other things, we talked some politics. Like me, she's dissatisfied with all of the major party candidates.

"If they keep it up," she said, "I'm going to vote for Nader again."

Yep. That's my Ma.

And now for all you mothers and muthaz, here's some Mothers. (I'm Stronger Than Dirt Pete Moss, the Swede of the group.)



Mother People



Motherly Love



Son of Suzy Creamcheese



My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama

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