Interesting things happen to me

Part 1: Something that had never happened to me before.
A couple weeks ago, I was walking with one of my male friends from choir, who was giving me a ride home. We walked into Washington Park, where his car was parked, at the Henry Johnson Boulevard entrance. Suddenly we hear yelling from somewhere behind us, “Hey, faggots! Whatcha doing?” And this went on for 10 or 12 seconds as we kept walking towards the car. It was most peculiar for two heterosexual men to experience.

Part 2: Something that has happened to me, or a variation of the same, quite often before.
Last week, I got off the bus at Madison and West Lawrence, as did this older white man at about 6pm, which was dusk. He went one block north, I went one block north. He started walking west, I did the same. He was walking fast enough that I couldn’t just pass him – not with my knee – but not so fast that I couldn’t easily just let him get ahead. He kept looking over his left shoulder every 20 or 30 feet at me. I peeled off to the right to go to the library, and he practically had to do a 360 to find me. This did not seem to relieve him overly much, since I was just returning some items in the night slot, but I turned right to head home, and he appeared relieved. Call me paranoid, but this IS something this apparently intimidating black male has experienced before.
***
I was having lunch yesterday with someone who asked me what I thought of the President. I said something like, “He’s dreadful.” She said, “But he’s a Christian!” If you get into that kind of conversation, get the Sojourners Voting Guide. She’s getting a copy today.
***
Fred Hembeck gives me props – mostly – as he answers my questions about one Tom Clay, the Binghamton-born DJ who created that bizarre WWTNNIL/AM&J cut I described recently. There’s a bit of Rashomon in the piece, some crime, a little punishment. The story has it all, including a couple goofs which may get corrected.
***
Tosy did a post about the shortest and longest tracks in his music collection. I thought it was sort of funny/silly question, until I realized that my answers (Simpsons and Dylan, at least) were EXACTLY THE SAME. Then it just hurt my head.
***
Eddie describes music he sent me and analyzes music I sent him.
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Check out the webpage in the first comment to this post of mine. Talk about warm and fuzzy.
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Our long national nightmare is nearly over. Senator John Kerry has apologized for his joke/misstatement/expression of his true feelings suggesting that our armed forces were stupid for being in Iraq. Now if the Administration would only apologize for sending them there in the first place, we’d be all set.
***
Here’s an excellent animation on YouTube, explaining Instant Runoff (IRV) basics in a clear and friendly style. I’m really fond of IRV.

Also on YouTube, Michael J Fox on “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos, interesting because he explains how sometimes he’s “herky-jerky” and sometimes he hits a plateau.

Finally, an oldie. The video quality is dreadful, and the audio is out of sync. Nonetheless, it’s still damn good. Jesse Jackson reads “Green Eggs and Ham. Worth listening to, at least, because it’s Green.

Kathryn Dawn Lang


Born in Consort, Alberta, Canada, on November 2, 1961, Kathryn Dawn Lang grew up the youngest of four kids in a musical family. She remembers hours spent lying on the floor listening to albums from her next eldest sibling, Keltie: Linda Ronstadt, Cream, Delaney & Bonnie, Emmylou Harris, eventually graduating to singer-songwriters of her own choosing like Kate Bush and Rickie Lee Jones.

I have this complicated feeling about k.d. lang. On one hand, she has a truly wonderful voice in two distinct genres, country and the songs of the chaunteuse. On the other hand, I identify her music with my ex. A LOT.

I already had 1987’s Angel With a Lariat on vinyl and 1988’s Shadowland and 1989’s Absolute Torch and Twang on CD when I was telling her about the new songs on the radio. At first, she didn’t know who I was talking about, even though “Constant Craving” was constantly on the radio. But when I bought 1992’s Ingenue, and she did finally identify her sound, she went k.d. crazy, playing her music heavily, and buying magazines, purchasing – or maybe I purchased for her, since I am an enabler – 1984’s A Truly Western Experience, a fairly obscure album that doesn’t even show up on some discographies, as well as the 1993 soundtrack to Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. Western ends with a song called “Hooked on Junk”, a strange song which seemed at the time to come out of nowhere, compared to the more traditional country tunes on the album. Think of “You Know My Name” by the Beatles, or some other song on an album you’ve heard and said, “How’d THAT get on?”

“I was really into punk and performance art and singers like Jonathan Richman and the Roches, which is very different from where I ended up going…on my 21st birthday, two different people gave me Patsy Cline albums as a gift…Patsy was also getting hip in the gay circles at the time.”

So, when we split in 1994, I got Angel, Shadowland, Torch and Ingenue, as well as the Roy Orbison album that features k.d.’s duet of “Crying” the superior version of the song, I think; Red, Hot and Blue (the beautiful but mournful “So In Love”), the Dick Tracy soundtrack (the fun “Ridin’ the Rails” with Take 6); and Tame Yourself (the hard-to-categorize “Damned Old Dog”). Z got Western, Cowgirls, and some Coneheads movie soundtrack, plus all the print stuff.

I’ve continued to buy k.d.’s music:
1995 All You Can Eat
1997 Drag
2000 Invincible Summer
2001 Live by Request
2004 Hymns of the 49th Parallel
Plus she has a duet on the Tony Bennett MTV album, another on the new Bennett Duets album, and a whole album of their duets together, 2003’s Wonderful World.
But now she has a retrospective album of her country period, Reintarnation, featuring songs from those 1984-1993 albums, excluding Ingenue, and it puts me right back in that period.

lang, a painter, showed up in a hand-painted shirt she made with the word ‘Patsy’ splashed across it in rough punk lettering as an homage to her new hero. It wasn’t until she got home after the audition and looked in the mirror that lang realized she’d misspelled and gotten the gig despite wearing a shirt that said ‘Pasty’.

The album cover, BTW, is evocative of a famous Elvis cover: go to this website, which you might have read about in Fred Hembeck’s post of April 2, 2005, and go to 978 – as of this writing – items are added constantly- for Elvis, and 980 for k.d., (oh, and 992 for The Clash).

In any case, I think I’ll wait to buy her NEXT album. Now YOU might consider getting this if you don’t have a lot of her country albums. It’s fun music that confounded the country music establishment of the time. No, it doesn’t include “Hooked on Junk”.

As lang put it, they couldn’t figure out if this shorthaired gal from Canada was making fun of them or trying to add some sizzle…

And the album has great liner notes, some of which I’ve copped.

Happy 45th birthday, k.d.
***
ALSO: The big 5-0 for my friend, the Hoffinator. Happy natal day.

I will relate to this?

It’ll be a year and a half of blogging tomorrow. Sometimes, I write on the hard-hitting issues of the day. Then there are other times:

Got one of “those” e-mails that was supposed to remind me of the “good old days”, which I might have just read and deleted, but which somehow penetrated my mind:

About ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930’s 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

Well, my mom didn’t drink or smoke, and in any case, fetal alcohol syndrome is a real problem that some kids didn’t survive.

Plus they took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.

81 mg of aspirin daily except the week before I’m about to donate blood.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

Yeah, we DIDN’T die of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, luckily.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.

Seat belts almost certainly saved my life at least once.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we
rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

To this day, I wouldn’t ride my bike without a helmet; it reduces the chance of brain injury something like 80%.
I DID used to hitchhike regularly until about 1979, but I had a few peculiar encounters.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

Yes, I did do that and survived not falling out.

We didn’t cough into our elbows, we forgot to wash our hands sometimes, and never used a sanitizing gel to get clean.

Actually, I wonder about the efficacy of sanitizing gel. Where do the germs GO?

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

I AM astonished about the bottled water industry. Some comedian – why do I think it was Carlin? – pretty much asked the same question. So, were we all dehydrated for years? Probably.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle
NO ONE and actually died from this.

As far as we know.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank koolade made with sugar, but we weren’t overweight because …

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING !

Well, I WAS overweight as a kid, though I was, in fact, always out playing.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day.
And we were O.K.

Largely true in my case, actually, though I was always likely at Valley Street park, the Ansco ball field past the cemetery, or on the school playground.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down
the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

Well, it wasn’t go-karts, but I did ride my bike with bad brakes down a steep hill into bushes. I survived in spite of that, but I was lucky a couple times.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD’s, no surround-sound or CD’s, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms…….
WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

I had friends, but I also had a lot of solitary pursuits as well.

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no
lawsuits from these accidents.

Always need the requisite lawyer-bashing in these things.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

Well, no.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays,

Ditto.

made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

The first half IS true.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang
the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Not in my neighborhood, even then.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

This DOES resonate a bit.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.

They actually sided with the law!

Except when the law was a ass.

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned

HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

Implicit in this is that persons born later than 1979 will not be innovative and creative? Oh, please.

If YOU are one of them . . . CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids,
before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.

And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?!

The whole premise of “the good, old days,” when the life expectancy was less, when people died of diseases that are now all but eradicated, with injuries that can now be treated is bogus.

But the other underlying theme, that we can now have GPS on our kids’ cellphones so we know where they are at every minute, almost literally, IS largely true. Even when I was a kid, I was cognizant of “bad people out there”. But IS our reaction too much? I don’t know, but as Lydia grows up, I suspect I’ll find out.

Your thoughts are welcome.

All Hallows Eve 2006


Lydia’s daycare is celebrating its “Fall Festival” today, no doubt in response to those who fear the infliction of religion; the Winter Festival’s in a couple months.

Halloween.com: History, origins, costume ideas and links, news, Christian perspective on Halloween “in response to email castigating Halloween.com for glorifying evil :-)”, and jokes such as:
Q. Why do demons and ghouls hang out together?
A. Because demons are a ghoul’s best friend!

Bittersweet October. The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter. – Carol Bishop Hipps (Stolen from a friend)

There must be 30 Ways To Eat a Pumpkin. Ah, a new Paul Simon song, no doubt. And speaking of which – Paul’s 65th birthday this month went unmentioned on this page.

So did Sting’s 55th birthday. Here’s a fun story about the FIRST time Sting met Edin Karamazov, the lute player from Sarajevo, 12 years ago at a circus. You fans of Studio 60 may recognize Karamazov from the episode featuring Sting (and Lauren Graham).

Facts for Halloween from the Census BOO-reau.

CYOP

Picture above from NASA.

Enthroned In The Hearts Of Kings-Mixed CD

Here’s the thing about the disc I described yesterday. While I liked the songs, I didn’t like the flow terribly much. So I decided to scrap it and start over. But I needed a first song, and a feel. The feel became a bit of Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan.

QUALITY OF MERCY-Michelle Shocked. This is a song from the Dead Man Walking soundtrack. It’s the title song, as it were, for in the Billy Shakes play Merchant of Venice, Portia has an impressive speech, from which I took the title of this disc.
Johnny Cash connection: He also has a song on the soundtrack, In Your Mind.
WHO KILLED DAVEY MOORE? – Pete Seeger. From that 1963 live album I bought recently.
Bob Dylan connection: written by Bob.
DON’T TAKE YOUR GUNS TO TOWN- Charlie Robison. Love the feel.
Johnny Cash connection: from a JRC tribute album.
I HUNG MY HEAD – Sting. Great song.
Johnny Cash connection: covered by Johnny, and arguably done better.
FOLSOM PRISON BLUES-Keb’ Mo’. He changes a vital lyric! Still, I love the performance.
Johnny Cash connection: from a JRC tribute album.
RUN FOR YOUR LIFE-Beatles. “Rather see you dead, little girl.” Without looking it up, I seem to recall, John pretty much disavowing this song.
Bob Dylan connection: likely written after the Beatles and Dylan smoked dope together.
PRETTY POLLY – Judy Collins. Starts off softly, but packs a punch, featuring guitar by Steve Stills. Murder ballad. “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”, indeed.
Bob Dylan connection: on the album Who Knows Where The Time Goes, which featurers this cut, Judy also sings Dylan’s Poor Immigrant.
DELIA’S GONE -Johnny Cash. From his first American Recordings album.
Johnny Cash connection: The very first song on that disc.
GOODBYE EARL – Dixie Chicks. Controversial because the protagonist gets away with murder. With a video that’s been heavily parodied.
Johnny Cash connection: their most recent album was produced by Rick Rubin, who produced Johnny’s American Recordings in the 1990s and beyond.
WHERE DID YOU SLEEP LAST NIGHT – Nirvana – I knew this as a Leadbelly song.
Bob Dylan connection: performed by Bob in 1961 and in 1990.
‘TIL I DIE- Beach Boys. Someone once suggested that I ask my church choir to sing this. It’s too nihilist, and, as I suspected, about suicide. But it IS beautiful.
Bob Dylan connection: The Beach Boys and Dylan performed at the same festival in 2003. Both have a Top 5 album on the Rolling Stone: The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.
SUICIDE ALLEY -Shawn Colvin. One DOES want a response to suicide, and this is it.
Bob Dylan connection: For Bob Dylan: The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Rosanne Cash and Shawn Colvin sang You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.
DEATH IS NOT THE END- Nick Cave. Last song on the sometimes brutal “Murder Ballads” album.
Bob Dylan connection: written by Bob.

I think this album has a better flow to it, with men killing men, then men killing women, women killing men, and people threatening to kill themselves.

The problem I had was copying it, for I couldn’t get it not to do strange things during the playback at a certain point. Finally, I isolated the problem: the Nirvana track was somehow defective, although not audibly so, so the five-minute track kept going and going and going, messing up everything past it. I ended up buying the cut on iTunes (buying a song I already own, ironically, which SHOULD make up for something), and it seemed to work OK.

Please let me know if you’d like a copy.

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