Month: August 2006

From Jaquandor, via Tosy

Five things . . .

…in my refrigerator (without looking).
1. Lots of milk 2% organic for Lydia, 1% non-organic for Carol and me, but that may change.
2. Lots of yogurt,some for Lydia in the large (cottage cheese sized) containers, and some (single serving types) for me. (Carol steals Lydia’s)
3. A can of cola I got, left over from a party.
4. Bread, because it’d get moldy on the counter.
5. Several types of pickles.

. . . in my closet.
I don’t have a closet. I have an armoire, imposed upon me by my wife when the child came around and stole my closet. My sister came and reorganized it so I can’t find anything.

….in my bag (this would be my backpack)
1. Music taken to or from work Currently- Tony Bennett, who turned 80 last week, Buddy Guy, who turned 70 last week, Complete Stax/Volt, Alison Krauss, the Band).
2. Underwear taken to the Y, or dirty clothes taken from the Y.
3. Loose change, because it otherwise makes so much noise in my pocket.
4. Some recent, but not current, periodical. Parts of Saturday’s newspaper.
5. My spare glasses (my sunglasses when it’s cloudy.

….in my vehicle.
My vehicle’s my bike. There is nothing in it, and the only things on it when it’s put away is the bike lock and the helmet.

…on my desk (at work).
1. Way too many loose papers.
2. Some newspapers from last week.
3. A picture of Carol, and trimmed photo of Lydia inserted therein.
4. A reference question I’m working on.
5. At least two pens, probably with no caps.

…on my walls (at work).
1. A picture of John Lennon.
2. A map of the United States.
That’s about it. It’s a small space.

….on my bookshelves (other than books).
1. A spindle of CD-Rs.
2. Census CDs.
3. A few comic books people have given me.
4. A few music CDs.
5. A stack of unsorted papers.

. . . I want to do in the next few years.
1. Read more books not geared toward children.
2. See more plays.
3. See more movies, if even at home.
4. See a Broadway play or two.
5. See more live baseball.

. . . On my nightstand.
1. A battery-powered push light in case the power goes out, so I can see.
2. A telephone receiver. Lydia has knocked the rest of it on the floor so repeatedly that we’ve unplugged it, but easily reinstall.
3. A clock/radio.
4. An old lamp.
5. A cup holding pencils and pens.

Actually, he didn’t exactly call ME specifically a geezer. But in his weekly Metroland column Rapp on This, in his guise as mild-mannered intellectual property attorney Paul Rapp – which you should read every week if you care about music and the changing technology, Paul wrote:
You don’t need 75 minutes of music from every artist you take a fancy to. You probably don’t need more than a song or two. And you certainly don’t need the idiotic “jewel case” or a shiny plastic disc or a glossy little book you’ll maybe look at once, if you can get it out of the idiotic jewel case without trashing it. All you need is a digital file, that you can put on a hard drive somewhere, stick on a gizmo that you can put in your pocket, and maybe burn onto a CD with 15 or 20 of your other favorite songs by different artists.

If this all sounds foreign or scary to you, it’s time to wake up. This has been the future for a long time.

But, gee, I LIKE that little book, and I look at it almost every time. Who wrote that song? Who are the backup vocalists, the producer, the guest musicians? Maybe it’s just me, the librarian who has a NEED TO KNOW, and will regret the loss of that information.

My band, Blotto, had its first CD go out of print recently. We’re selling nicely on iTunes and about 20 other (and lesser) online music sites. I seriously considered just not reprinting any more CDs – why deal with the expense, the hassle, the shipping, the shelf-space and the goddamned jewel-boxes? But I realized that, well, we’re talking about a collection of 25-year-old music here, with prospective purchasers who – how can I say this delicately? – tend to trend to an older demographic? Many Blottophiles, I suspect, aren’t yet completely hep to that crazy digital scene, daddy-o. So, it’s probably a good idea for us keep the CDs available, at least for now, and we will.

But if we had a geezer-free fan base, I don’t think we’d bother. Kids don’t care about CDs anymore. Why should they?

Having had to TRACK down the Blotto CD only a couple years ago (I had all the music except for the live and karaoke versions of “I Wanna Be a Lifeguard” on vinyl already), I appreciate his point. The tunes will be available, but will one know the names of the members of the band? Or does that no longer matter? It’s not my geezerosity that’s kicking in, it’s my librarianship.

Which got me to thinking:
1) When are you bored? AND
2) What do you do about it?

Truth is, I’m almost never bored when I am in control of my own time.

When am I bored?
*At some meetings I’m not running. (If I were to be bored at a meeting I WAS running, I wouldn’t be running a very effective one.)
*When I’m doing some mundane task, usually asked by someone else. I may be the world’s worst collater, you know, take one sheet each from a half dozen piles and staple them together. I quickly lose interest and one or more piles always comes out short. I’m easily distracted.
*When I’m doing a task I hate. This includes hour three of working on our taxes. Given the fact that I never GOT to hour three (or four or six or eight) when I was single and filing a 1040A (simple form) and was done in about 45 minutes leaves my wife with the heavy lifting on most of the Schedules, while I concentrate on the main form, and to do whatever calculations she requests.

What do I do about it? Music, of course, something that relies on the bass line, preferably.

So when this string of 14 weeks at number one ended on May 9, who WAS #1?
Was it Bobby Vinton or Roy Orbison, American artists popular in the pre-Beatles era? No, though Vinton’s There! I’ve said It Again was #1 for the four weeks prior to the Beatles’ ascension. And The Beatles had toured with Orbison.
How about another British Invasion group, such as Peter and Gordon, the Animals, or Manfred Mann? No, though P&G did chart later in the year with a Lennon-McCartney tune, World Without Love.
Perhaps a Motown artist, such as the Supremes or Mary Wells, or a “girl group” such as the Shangra-las or the Dixie Cups or a resurgent American band such as the Beach Boys or the Four Tops? All of those groups had a #1 hit in 1964, as did Dean Martin and Lorne Greene(?!)

But the artist who first displaced the Beatles was a 63-year old trumpeter who hadn’t had a Top 10 hit in eight years, a guy who was named “satchel-mouth” as a kid, and who started recording in 1923. Of course, I’m talking about Louis Armstrong, and his hit rendition of Hello, Dolly! For years, he said his birthday was July 4, 1900, but later research suggested that his birth was actually on August 4, 1901, which would have made him 105 today had he not died back in 1971.

97 on Tuesday, down to 96 yesterday, but humid. And the room I type in is the warmest room in the house.

It’s so warm that I’m compelled to provide this link about an even hotter place, a piece I kinda, sorta midwived, as it were.

I suppose I could review the new Johnny Cash album, but I think Nik just about covered it, except for one thing: the second track, God’s Gonna Cut You Down, is a remake of Run On from Moby’s Play album, which in turn is a remix of Run On For A Long Time by Bill Landford and The Landfordaires. I now have three versions of this song, the latter from this album, all quite listenable in different ways.

Oh, are you getting what the Wall Street Journal calls “empty spam”, i.e., e-mail with text from literary works? Most recently, I got parts of Ultima Thule, by Henry Handel Richardson (chapter 5).
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HOW STRANGE IS RICK SANTORUM? (from Brian)
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The COST OF WAR here and here. (From Dan).
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Carbohydrate Addicts’ Official Frequently Asked Questions and Answerson Artificial Sweeteners and Non-Sugar Substitutes (Don’t remember offhand.)
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My friend Sarah sent a list of bumper stickers, some of which I’ve included:

Blind Faith in Bad Leadership Is Not Patriotism

Religious Fundamentalism – A Threat Abroad, A Treat At Home

Feel Safer Now?

Stop Mad Cowboy Disease

Honor Our Troops; Demand The Truth

Fact: Bush Oil
1999 – $19 / barrel
2006 – $70 / barrel
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My friends Paul & Mary Liz Stewart sent me a couple items of interest to me. They are among the experts on the Underground Railroad, especially in New York:

As outlined in this news release, a number of African American remains dating from the Colonial period were uncovered in Colonie in a previously unidentified burial ground last year. There were 13 sets of remains. News reports mistakenly identified the remains as having a connection to the French and Indian War. Subsequent investigation yielded that the remains were African Americans from the Colonial or post-colonial period. Examining the remains will yield information about how African Americans lived, and worked in this period. It will also be a chance to examine remains from first and second generation African people in America. At the meeting identified below you will hear about the discovery, the archaeology that took place, some of the bioarchaeology that tells us about the lives of those discovered, and input will be solicited regarding plans for the re-interment of the remains and marking of this burial site. I hope you can attend this important and historic meeting.