Dear diary, 080629

Odd weekend. Saw most of an Elvis Perkins set Friday, and we would have loved to stay for the whole of it (Lori's been a fan; I'm a newbee) but for the teenage crowd (there largely to socialize, or maybe hanging on for the Cold War Kids?) and the old blowhard sitting behind us, shining his apple real hard and loud and trying to impress the younger boys with it. Saturday we listened to much of a Wingdale Community Singers set while sipping at the Barbes bar.

Rained on and off like a banshee the last two days, once so hard that the roof drains were all overflown and I got out there in my shorts to pop the grate before the kitchen ceiling flooded (again) and did pop it and the water started sucking down, but MAN OH MAN that was a cold bitchin' rain on a merciless hot day and I took to shivering so hard I barely squoze back in the window.

And somewhere in there I read Simenon's La Tête d'un homme. Yowza.

Carolina Chocolate Drops, wow!

Can't say enough good stuff about the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Saw their show last evening at the park, and they had everyone completely engaged, stomping and singing from their first minutes on stage until their last. I don't think I could have guessed it from the recording I have - see them if you can. Woof! Vidi.

By the by-blow: they talked about Howard & Judith Sacks' Way Up North In Dixie, which is now on my must-read list. And maybe hunt down every version of Blind Willie Johnson's City of Refuge that I can.

juju must stop reading clusterflock...

else he never get any work done...

first item: let's talk about equipment;
second item: breasteses for energy independence. YAH BAYBEE !
y una cosa mas, something from the local fishwrap, news truly representative of the changing times, Oakland's De Lauer's Newsstand is Closing.

oh oh oh...
this ought to do it for today, something that seems like a pretty damned good idea...

I really think that we could make it, girl...

Now I lay me down to sleep,
iPod on and weary deep,
Dusty in Memphis is in my ear,
and Zane's 33 on my bedside near.

Buttermilk (culture)

Wednesday is a biggy for us here in cowtown. First there's some sort of spanky opening thing we've been invited to at the Whiteney - Bucky Fuller & Paul McCarthy exhibits opening. Then, the nightcap is TR Warszawa's Macbeth, under the very summer stars at the tobacco warehouse across from St. Ann's. (Have I ever told you about the time we saw Steppenwolf in Krakow? Jah, I probably have.) Starkist tuna will want me, for sure. (And it seems that Del Monte or someone else has forced all the Charlie the Tuna animations off the web. Sucko.)

Goodbye, Hippy Dippy Weatherman.

Late McCarthy addition: Santa Claus with Buttplug.

(And I see we've had our first hit from Ireland - is that you, Mellie Mel? What are you eating?)

Our block. Ain't it grand?

Fabu block party here on 11th. Lots of folks early til late. Yummy food. Many stories being told - some of them probably true.

About the efforts of a few of our neighbors:
Nicky Grist & unmarried.org.
Doyle Warren & the Provincetown Playhouse.
Brooke Hauser & This Strange Thing Called Prom.

What say we mosey on over to Governors Island at lunch time...

Via Transportation Alternatives. Thank you, TA.
& thank you, G.I.P.E.C.
Which also gives me an excuse to say something about Buttermilk Channel. I've heard a couple of riff's on what the wiki says is urban legend - how it got it's name. I prefer to believe them. The riffs. Not the wiki.

monkey love and naked bike riding...

one for me ol' pal esteban-
get thee to london for the naked bike ride...

and when yourstruly is stressed an' unhappy, nuttin' makes us feel better than a couple o'kisses and hugs, we sure that's true for you too...

credit where credit's due, aforementioned linky goodness came our way via the wonder that is clusterflock

Small bat head removed from candidate McCain's left eye

Photo collage was briefly on the Coulter web site but seems to have been taken down. It was just the head. Not the rest of the bat. That's weird!

I am distracted, but my face smells good

Finding it hard to concentrate, and my reading is all jumpy. Am grazing through Michael Chabon's Maps and Legends, Leslie Day's Field Guide to the Natural World of New York City (and more about that on a day when I have it more together), and Jim Sheeler's Obit: Inspiring Stories of Ordinary People Who Led Extraordinary Lives. Obit and Field Guide are, clearly, bathroom books, while Maps is a subway book.

The news is, after more than a year of using a brush and soap to shave, I've tried a bar of Lightfoot's Pine Shave Creme Soap, and WOW! I climbed a couple of flights of stairs yesterday morning, working up the slightest sheen of perspiration, and was overcome with the sense of piney freshness all around me. I looked left and right, wondering where it was coming from. Then I realized: it was coming from my face.

Can't wait to get a whiff of myself on the bike ride down town.

Convergence: Brooklyn for Peace / Mermaid Parade

Be a Mermaid for Peace!
Join Brooklyn For Peace Contingent in the Fabulous Coney Island Mermaid Parade!
Saturday, June 21, 12:00 Noon

We'll dress up (costumes provided, or bring your own) as mermaids, mermen, and other nautical characters, and hand out peace sign Mardi Gras beads along with glossy cards urging spectators to contact our Senators demanding an end to the Iraq War, and no new war against Iran, as well as information on alternatives to the military for our young people.
Tuesday June 17, 7 pm: Pot-luck supper and costume-making party. nowar at brooklynpeace.org for location.
Saturday June 21, 12 noon: meet at NE corner of W. 8th St and Surf Avenue, in front of Aquarium Parking Lot. See a map

1 pm: Proceed as a group to Parade starting point.
2 pm: Parade starts. It's over by 4 pm.
$9 fee per individual to participate.

Questions, and to let us know you'll be coming, email nowar at brooklynpeace.org,....

Dear Diary, bless our hot buttered souls

Thursday evening was Isaac Hayes in the park. I got to there a little late and, oh, what a crush. IH already on stage & so may people it must have taken 20 minutes to squeeze from the 11th St. entrance to the 9th St.side where there were fewer people and no line @ the beer tent. Hey, there were no local beers - what's up with that, Celebrate Brooklyn? Found it pretty airy behind the Gala area and IH had set out on what seemed an evening long version of Walk On By, and that was heaven. (And it was nothing like the video blow, but what the heck:

Really more like:


Leaning on the Gala fence I remembered that Lota & I often chatted about becoming members or donors or whatever, and this might be a nice time to look for a membership table. But as I cast my eyes abut, I also noticed that all of the many big flat panels in the members tent were showing sort-of best-of performances from past years. While Mr. Hayes and his orkestra were making soulful music 50 yards away. I stopped looking for a membership table.

Tres Kinks

So, last Saturday, NY concert producer extraordinaire Danny Kapilian told us he was sending us the first 6 kinks albums in the mail - watch for them. He told us at our humble home amidst the puttanesca hoopla, and coinkykinky, just about then in walked the head loser of the lounge, Joe McGinty with Lota's sometimes producing partner, Amy Hobby - and what are we going to see tomorrow night? Nuthin other than Joe's Losers' Lounge tribute to the Kinks, at Joe's Pub (the other Joe. Papp. But not Poopdeck Pappy McCain.). And then, this morning, begorrah, what did I get but email from he that is BAWK, 9th Circuit Chief Judge Snared in Web of Kink!

Betting people bet Bam Bam

Kind of weird. But at least the money right now (or at any of the past dates) isn't on Poopdeck Pappy. Lookah here. Or lookah there.

No, really, remember the inhaler

So, I didn't remember it but did resume the commute bike ride. Result was having to rest, gasping on a bench when I got to Borough Hall - but, O what a beautiful morning!
Sent via thingy.

This is what (50, democracy, your brain) looks (or sounds) like (sometimes modified by a mind altering substance or event)

Funny, I almost posted yesterday about Gloria Steinem's famous This is what 50 looks like remark along with the marching chant This is what democracy sounds like, but I was too pooped. Then Lori told me that GS was on TV explaining that Hillary's defeat was due to sexism, not addressing Hillary & her campaign's behavior and tone over the last year. The segment explaining that Rome's collapse was due to lead pots was apparently not aired or archived on CNN.

Hey, I'm reading Scott McClellan's What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. About a quarter of the way through. Scott, I'll call him bubala, seems very sincere and pretty boring. Way right of you and me, left of where the Bushies turned out, and either suicidal or really driven by conscience. Anyway, bubala talks a good deal about the mindset of the permanent campaign and the replacement of governance with the altering of public opinion. He spreads the blame. But he also talks about how, pre shrub, the Clintons were the absolute masters of attack and psy-ops. (He thinks they've been bested by the current administration).

Personally, I'd always resisted of thinking of the Clinton administration that way - and I wonder if this was pure partisanship on my part. I mean, how likely is it that the ugliness they've shown in the past year is genuinely new? Depressed me to think of what judgements I might be setting aside in the interest of supporting the home team.

Anyway, here's the synopses of my thinking this last year:
Who is Obama? I like him, but do you vote for someone because you like him? Maybe you vote for someone you like if you believe he or she will uphold the platform of the party. The one thing I absolutely do not want is another president half the country hates. Please, Lordy, no more sick divisiveness. I start giving Bam Bam lots of fond nicknames, a sure sign. The only D I'm liking less than H right now is Lieberman. H slips below Lieberman. I have a dream that Larry Olivier has a dentist's drill in his hand and I am Dustin Hoffman and I'm strapped into the chair and screaming and Larry rips his own face off and underneath is Hillary's face.

That was the party that was

To the one or two of you who know this blog is here and who were at the house this weekend, and to the other 80 of you who were at the house and don't know this blog is here - THANK YOU! BIG UP! Professore Guido was, once again, heroic and his puttanesca fortifying in the 95 degree heat. And the wine, she flowed like wine, with maybe an ice cube or two to help cool the fevered brow: 40 bottles of the home ferment and a sprinkling here and there of commercial white & brewskie. A thousand thanks. Looking forward to next year.

happy friday!

Everyone is trying to get to the bar.
The name of the bar, the bar is called heaven.
The band in heaven plays my favorite song.
They play it once again, they play it all night long.

& just in case you're there looking for the bar, a map of heaven...
(tho' you'll likely have to look for me thru the Damned Viewer)

jessferdahalibut:
google david byrne and heaven and this is what you get,
and una cosa mas, a guitarist's notebook

Author's query: Triangle & a Square - Victor Kayam, Si Symms, Jim Levanthol and Lee Iaccoca

Author's query re the events leading to Lee Iaccoca's disruption of the infamous love triangle. Particularly searching for information about the photographer and photos taken outside Angelo's in Little Italy, NYC, in early June, 1974.

Charlie Rose hosts Dante Oblimov and Chelsea Cinton

Dante: Charlie, thanks for having me back, and I can't thank you enough for having my imaginary friend, Chelsea, here with us this evening.

Charlie: A lot of people don't realize Chelsea is imaginary.

Chelsea: Charlie, that's sooo true! A lot of people confuse me with the real Chelsea, the child of privilege who is the daughter of an ex-president and a powerful senator, Stanford / Oxford wunderkind who wrote a thesis about Daddy, blah, blah, blah. But that's not me! I'm the Chelsea that for whom my Mom wants to have a roll call vote, like days of yore, so that the delegates of states she won would cast the first ballot for her at the convention. She said she wanted that for me. I am soooo imaginary!

fun at work...

damn...
don't know what i'd do if i couldn't blog from work
muchas gracias, esteban, for allowin' me to keep my hand in..

mini discussion amongst my co workers and myself re Alt bands, 90's bands...
my mention of original Alt rocker Captain Beefheart had 'em all going
"Huh?"

damn, me old...

Practice in front of a bush: Captain Beefheart's rules for guitarists
and jessferdahalibut, some mo' Bo D. (courtesy A.'s gmtPlus9(-15) )

Bike update - I'm no a dead yet

After posting this morning, I decided I was a wuss, so put on by business suit, got on the bike, rode to Borough Hall where it was just one R stop to wurk. (Note to self: bring inhaler tomorrow. Note to self: stay the frig off Atlantic Ave.)

Rewarded myself when I got to the street with a cup of Colombian from a vendor I haven't been to in maybe a couple of years. Very nice guy. When he's done down here at Water and Whitehall he heads up to John Street where he sells books off a cart.

(And, I'm just so giddy I'm gonna try to pst this by email from the phone...)

Biking on my mind

Streetsblog; Transportation Alternatives; Block Magazine; Bikeroute;

Yesterday Danny Boy biked down from the 160's where he lives to our office accross from the Staten Island Ferry. Damn him. We've both been talking about riding to work and now he's upped the ante by actually doing it. Madman. Now I need to de-duff.

rock and roll will never die...

altho' some of them pioneers be passing on.
Adios, Bo D.;
jess 'magine that chunk-ka-chunk-a-chunk - chunk chunk
t'ing happenin' in da backroun'..
mo', mo', mo', mo', mo', mo', mo', and then, just one mo'...

Laika, Laika!

Big time at the Toy Theater Festival last evening. Highlights of the finale night for me were Paul Zaloom and Lynn Jeffries' alphabet piece, Peter Schumann's fiddle lecture re the West Bank occupation (which just wasn't a toy theater piece, but it certainly was a fiddle lecture), the absolutely stunning Laika's Coffin by Seth Bockley and Kevn O'Donnell and directed by Frank Magueri,

(in last evening's performance there was entire additional act of scientific tests on Laika before her selection, and there was a full chorus), and the very last act of the evening, The Rag Show.