Month: October 2005

My (not so old) friend Susan had a bunch of friends that I knew, primarily from a poetry workshop she helped organize. One of the group was going to have a Halloween costume party. I’m not sure that I had any costume ideas, but Susan did, and when she suggested, I embraced it. (Or so I remember.)

I had a beard and a mustache at the time, so I shaved them. Then Susan and a couple of her friends made me up. We found a dress in a second-hand store, a wig and shoes from somewhere, and we went to the party, she as “Sid”, and me as “Shirley”.

I affected a high pitched voice, but frankly, I figured that people would know it was me. After all, I was still a six-foot black person. Much to my shock and amazement, no one recognized me! Well, not until later in the evening, when my “five o’clock shadow” starred to appear.

The Halloween of 1978 inspired me to dress up for several years thereafter, though never again in drag.

Happy Halloween to everyone, especially to “Sid”, who I’ve finally gotten in contact with again after several years, and to FGH for scanning the picture.

Well, swell, but how do I sleep now, knowing that there’s a beast only a few yards away?

About ten minutes later, the bat suddenly swooped down towards us. We put the covers over our heads, ran out of the room, and closed the door behind us.
I went onto the computer and came to the site of the Monroe County Health Department in Rochester. The site says: “If it is certain the bat did not have contact with a person or pet, the bat can be allowed to leave through an open window.”
Well, we weren’t exposed, so that’s good.

We went to sleep in the guest room, with the door closed, after thorough examination of the corners.
The next morning (oh, two hours later), I ran into our bedroom, opened the window, ran out, and closed the door. A while later, I opened the door and didn’t see the bat. But my wife wanted to be sure, so she called a bat removal guy. He came over in a few hours, checked around, and didn’t find a bat. But he was obliged to contact the Albany County Health Department and tell them about possible rabies exposure. Since we were asleep when the bat arrived, there was no way to KNOW that we were not exposed, and since the bat had escaped, the creature couldn’t be tested. Two people in Albany County died of rabies from bats in the previous 5 or 6 years. That meant one thing:
RABIES SHOTS.

Carol was planning to go to Ukraine for a week of teaching within the week. The bat guy said, “Oh, you’re not going ANYWHERE,” which was greatly disappointing to her.
The good news about rabies shots is that they no longer shoot long needles into your stomach.
The bad news about rabies shots is that they still use long needles, and they leave them in until all of the serum is out. Worse, the heavier you are, the more needles you get.
So, we go to the county health department to get these shots. I got four of them. First, two nurses gave me simultaneous shots in the front of of my thighs. Involuntarily, I started humming as the needles s-l-o-w-l-y discharged the serum. Then, two shots in the back of my thighs. Pain. Humming.

Then, we needed booster shots the 3rd, 7th, 14th, and 28th days after. These are traditional shots in the arm. The head of the Health Department wrote a letter explaining to whomever that Carol would be carrying serum halfway across the world. Would the airlines be OK with Carol carrying a needle in her carry-on luggage?
Her flights were from Albany to Toronto, then Toronto to Vienna on Air Canada, then Vienna to Dnipropetrovs’k on the Austrian line. (Yes, she had to fly west to go east.) We called Air Canada to tell them the situation, but we never got the assurances we were really seeking.
On the third day, we had arranged to have our then-neighbor, who was a doctor coming home from Albany Medical Center’s night shift, to give Carol her first booster shot. Her second dosage was in a bag filled with dry ice in her carry-on bag.

No problems in Canada or Austria.
When she gets to Ukraine, the Customs personnel want to know EVERYTHING she’s carrying in, including her wedding ring, and its value. Apparently, they don’t want a lot of wealth entering and not leaving the country, or for much wealth to leave the country. When Carol declared about her medicine, though, the guy said, “Never mind,” because it would be too much of a hassle to deal with, and he failed to write it down.
So, the tour people arranged for a Ukrainian doctor to get her shot on the 7th day, and she was home for the last two boosters. Of course, I got all of my boosters at the Health department in Albany.
I was telling this story to a friend of mine, about thinking I was not exposed when health officials would determine that I might have been, when I was interrupted. “Oh, yeah, my sister went through the Same Thing.” Boy, I wish I had known that before!

In June of 2003, I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. On the first floor of our house, the chimney is in the center, adjacent to the living room and dining room. I look down and see a bat flying round and round our chimney. I go back to bed, with the door closed. Carol is awake, and I tell her what I saw. I don’t know if either of us went back to sleep.
In the morning, we called the bat removal guy, who looked for the animal, and FOUND it in the window on the landing between the first and second floor. He took it to be tested, and it was negative for rabies.

2. Do you still have the Halloween spirit? If not, what age did you lose it? Or did it go and come back? (Having children could do that to one, e.g.)

But ya know, I’m not one of those All Hallows Eve folks. As an adult, I can remember only a few times that I dressed up, (but one of those times, I looked fabulous, just FABULOUS!) I don’t really collect, or even gravitate to, Halloween tunes, so it would be a difficult exercise. So why do it? Because it would be a difficult exercise.

I used to belong to a book club at my former church. 10 months a year, we’d get together and read a book, any book in a category agreed to by the group: nature, humor, love, whatever. Sometimes I’d find a book on my shelf that I had been planning to read that fit the category, but sometimes I had to read something that I would not otherwise have attempted. I decided that the exercise was worthwhile; it’s how I ended up reading Margaret Atwood, among others.

So, I’ve decided that this is a good thing. But I might not do it NEXT year.

Oh, and one more thing. I AGNONIZED over what it would the tunes, and especially the order. Must have recorded it FIVE times, and if I didn’t let it go, I’d STILL be fussing with it. The one thing that was on a couple versions that didn’t make the final cut is Night on the Bare Mountain, not the Rimsky-Korsikov adaptation, but the 12-minute original Mussorsky. Maybe next year. Maybe not.

Most of these songs have deep, resonating vocals. Here’s what I came up with:

1. Evil-Howlin’ Wolf: love that rumbling voice! A blues classic.

2. Title Music from A Clockwork Orange: as I think I’ve said before, you ought to see this movie ONCE. This is moody moog music from Walter/Wendy Carlos

3. Halloween-Duplex Planet: occasionally, I join record clubs. Not your traditional record clubs, but quirky record clubs. Hello Records put out a bunch of oddball artists, along with obscure stuff from people like Andy Partridge (XTC), Frank Black, and They Might Be Giants. This is one of them. Most of the albums are 15-20 minutes long. One of the few cuts specifically on target.

4. Celtic Rock-Donovan: my friend Mark and I were big fans of the Open Road album that came out in the early 1970s. Sounds Lord of the Ringian, I think.

5. Intruder-Peter Gabriel: first song from his third album, generally called “Melt”. I think someone is in the house.

6. Lovely Creature-Nick Cave: from his Murder Ballads album. One that isn’t as gruesome as some of the other tunes, and not filled with curses like a couple of the tracks, but still very moody/scary, even with the leavening of the female vocal. I have a friend who worked for a record company and sent me discs from time to time; this was one.

7. Your Long White Fingers-Gothic Archies: another Hello disc. The songs on this album are all very short; this one is 1:29.

8. Gnomus (Pictures at an Exhibition): a section from the Mussorsky classic. Change of pace.

9. Greed-Duplex Planet. Less than 30 seconds.

10. The Dead Only Quickly-Gothic Archies. Just over a minute.

11. Paint It, Black-the Rolling Stones. When I was growing up, I had (and still have) the Aftermath LP. Then in the 1980s, Tom Skulan of FantaCo brought me the Aftermath CD from England. I decided on this song, and then I realized that I DID NOT OWN Paint It, Black. I had forgotten that the American version had the song:
1. Paint It Black
2. Stupid Girl
3. Lady Jane
4. Under My Thumb
5. Doncha Bother Me
6. Think
7. Flight 505
8. High and Dry
9. It’s Not Easy
10. I Am Waiting
11. Going Home
but that the British version did NOT:
1. Mother’s Little Helper
2. Stupid Girl
3. Lady Jane
4. Under My Thumb
5. Doncha Bother Me
6. Goin’ Home
7. Flight 505
8. High And Dry
9. Out Of Time
10. It’s Not Easy
11. I Am Waiting
12. Take It Or Leave It
13. Think
14. What To Do
It’s like the Beatles’ Rubber Soul; an American album with the same name and some common tunes, but not all. And of course, the American version is always shorter. (This music butchering also explains why “Ruby Tuesday” shows up on two U.S. LPs in a row.) NOW I have all the Rolling Stones albums through Goat’s Head Soup, at least the non-live, non-Greatest Hits discs.

12. Voodoo-the Neville Brothers: New Orleans funk from the Yellow Moon album (the second time I’ve referenced that album this week, the first being when Rosa Parks died). It probably belongs on my Top 50 or so list.

13. I Put a Spell on You-Creedence Clearwater Revival: logical follow up as both talk about casting a spell.

14. Zombie Jamboree-Rockapella: this wasn’t on the first couple versions because I FORGOT. Harry Belafonte did a version of this song that I received from Zombie Tom. From the Spike & Co. a cappella album, Spike being Mr. Lee, who was in Albany this month (didn’t see him).

15. Catacombs (Pictures at an Exhibition) – starts with an abrupt octave change.

16: Thriller rap-Vincent Price and Michael Jackson: on the extended Thriller CD, you can hear the second verse of Price’s priceless pontification.

17. Black Cat-Janet Jackson. This was on, then off, then on again. I couldn’t resist putting Michael and his baby sister together.

18. Wastepaper Basket Fire-Brian Dewan: another Hello disc. Just because. Very dramatic reading of a dramatic event.

Thanks to Al, Brian, Darrin, and Mark (who will get a copy of this disc when he comes up to fix my computer!) for some sources of the tunes and/or suggestions.

Lefty has reviewed my disc on October 25.

Others have sent me their musical masterpieces and I won’t review them per se, if only because I haven’t heard them enough.

Logan did a cover version piece. Thing about cover versions is that you really appreciate them, or hate them best, when you can compare them with the originals. I liked all of the covers for which I recognized the originals. For those I didn’t, primarily the rap stuff, it was more of a mixed bag. Played twice.

Gordon picked songs that evoked the mood, many of them familiar to me. And it ticked me off. Why didn’t I think of that track from the Specials? Actually, I liked the collection quite a bit. Played once.

(Note: Roger’s Rule is that one cannot fully judge a piece of music until it has been played thrice.)

I just got discs from a guy named Gilbert (a “bad song” mix, featuring the Williams Shatner and Hung) and Greg Burgas, which I haven’t heard yet.

Not only that, but a week’s worth of Doonesbury strips are n.g. and next week’s strips will be reruns.

And now, Libby’s been indicted, for perjury and obstruction, and has resigned. Another bummer, because: