I Fell On Black Days

The Big List #2

01.) Paint It, Black - Rolling Stones
02.) Black Is Black - Los Bravos
03.) Long Black Veil - Johnny Cash
04.) Black Maria - Todd Rundgren
05.) Black Hole Sun - Soundgarden
06.) Blackbird - Beatles
07.) Black Friday - Steely Dan
08.) Jeremiah Black - Rusty Weir
09.) Long Black Limousine - Rolling Stones
10.) Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black) - Neil Young
11.) Little Black Book - Robert Johnson
12.) Black Diamond - Kiss
13.) Black Cloud - Trapeze
14.) Back In Black - AC/DC
15.) Black Water - Doobie Brothers
16.) Black Dog - Led Zeppelin
17.) Black In America - Jesse Johnson
18.) Black Rose - Waylon Jennings
19.) Black Snake Moan - Blind Lemon Jefferson
20.) Is It Because I'm Black? - Syl Johnson
21.) Black And White - Three Dog Night
22.) Fear Of A Black Planet - Public Enemy
23.) Man In The Long Black Coat - Bob Dylan
24.) Black Sheep - Sam The Sham & The Pharoahs
25.) Black Cat - Lightnin' Hopkins
26.) Theme From The Black Hole - Parliament
27.) Black And White - Todd Rundgren
28.) Black Bottom - The Troggs
29.) Black Day - Depeche Mode
30.) Walk In The Black Forest - Hörst Jankowski
31.) Black Hole - Beck
32.) Black Helicopters - Cupcakes
33.) Black-Hearted Woman - Allman Brothers
34.) Say It Loud (I'm Black And I'm Proud) - James Brown
35.) Black And White World - Elvis Costello
36.) Black Honey - Graham Parker & The Rumour
37.) Black Hole - Gun Club
38.) Black Coffee - Humble Pie
39.) Black Betty - Leadbelly
40.) Black Widow - Alice Cooper
41.) Black Sky - Brewer & Shipley
42.) Under The Big Black Sun - X

43.) Black Magic Woman - Fleetwood Mac

Everybody's Got To Be Somebody

Thinking Back On All The Crap I Learned In High School

I took a quiz at a friend’s site yesterday that was supposed to determine which high school social category I fit into (were I still in high school, of course.) This determination was to be made from evaluating my responses to 50 questions mostly concerned with current pop culture and what my personal choices would be in certain preconceived situations.

It was kind of funny, first of all because I had only a tenuous grasp on most of the cultural references used in the test questions. I knew maybe 75% of the bands, understood some of the category labels, but hardly any of the ‘hip’ jargon.

This was the day of that long-anticipated formal announcement, then: “On this day in the Year of the Lord 2006, we pronounce you, Mr. Inca F. Peru, officially old and out of it. After a short speech and some Q & A, there will be coffee and donuts available in the lobby. Thank you.”

I tried to give truthful answers, though some of the questions were pretty vague or couldn’t really be answered in the relative scale format provided. Anyway, the results were tabulated and it was concluded that I am (or would be) 52% Jock, 42% Stoner, and 40% Emo Kid.

Obviously the percentages weren’t meant to total 100, as I had originally assumed. I guess what they mean is around 50% of me is a mixture of Jock, Stoner, and Emo Kid (I have some other smaller percentages in me, too; in categories like Hot, Loner, Prep, Geek-Nerd, and Punk. In short, I appear to be a cultural mutt. Also, I apparently have zero traits common to two other categories – Ghetto and Goth.)

The rest of me is left up to my own determination, I suppose.

**********

The first thing that occurred to me is that high school doesn’t appear to have changed a whole lot since I attended, back in the late 1970’s. Determining categories to put others in, and figuring out where you had been placed, was of paramount concern. In that sense, things are almost exactly like they were 30 years ago, and probably 60 years ago, too.

The labels have changed names here and there, and there appear to be more specialized sub-categories now, but really, from what I can tell the basic definitions and parameters are still in place.

We had Jocks, too, and Jockettes, who were girls who played sports and/or who dated jocks. We also had Wannabes, both boys and girls who wanted to be Jocks/Jockettes really bad, but couldn’t make it; so instead they hung around the fringes of the Jock world, as athletic trainers, hangers-on, and all-purpose sycophants.

In my school the drug consumers were called Jellies, short for Jellyheads. The modern equivalent would be Stoners, and we may have used that term as well. But there is a subtle difference, I think. At the time I was in high school, most everyone in my class got high at least sometimes. Whether one was a credentialed Jellyhead or not was determined by frequency of use and visible devotion to the practice. If you only smoked occasionally, at a party when someone passed over a joint (think Bill Clinton), you really didn’t qualify for drughead status. On the other hand, if you carried your weed with you at all times, kept a bong on the floor in your back seat, manicured your lid on top of your desk in the back of your English class during third period, drew marijuana leaves all over your cardboard book covers, etc., (think Cheech & Chong) you were likely a member in good standing of the Jellyhead club.

The rough 1970s equivalent for a Geek-Nerd was a Brain. I say roughly because I sense today’s Geek-Nerd designation is as much a critique of one’s social life (or lack thereof) as it is of one’s relative intelligence; whereas Brains were the kids who were obviously so intelligent that we couldn’t even think of anything derogatory to call them. Of course, Brains were often Geeks and Nerds socially, too; but not necessarily always. I had one friend who was of exceptional intelligence, far beyond what would be regarded as simply really smart. But he was also a starter on the football team, and drank beer and smoked weed with the best of them. I used to wonder sometimes when we were partying, since my friend was exponentially more intelligent than I was, did that mean when we were drinking and getting high that he was destroying exponentially more brain cells than I was? If so, I doubt it hurt him too much. He had plenty to spare.

By the way, if you were really aggravated at a Brain and wanted to take a shot at him, you called him "Slide Rule." That's right, Slide Rule. That was considered to be "dropping the big one" on somebody, as these things went.

The most universally despised category was the Straights, also called the Goodies, or (worst of all) the Narcs. No one wanted to be in this category. It was really a catch-all for Brains who knew they were Brains and were snooty about it; for Jocks who recited the company line their coaches fed them and/or were members of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes; and also for Student Council participants, determined virgins of both sexes, and people who wouldn't get high with you.

There were a few others I’ve forgot by now, I am sure, and some subcategories I left out intentionally so as not to make things more confusing than they already are (Goat Ropers a/k/a Shit Kickers, for one; these were specifically children of the well-off who decided to get back to their roots, or somebody's roots, and dip Skoal and join the FFA and sign up for Industrial Arts classes.) But I think I got most of them. Today’s Jocks and Stoners match up almost directly with their 1970s antecedents, and the Geek-Nerds are a rough match for the Brains of yesteryear. Today’s Preps were yesterday’s Straights, basically. However, that still leaves us with today’s Hot, Loners, Emo Kids, Punks, Ghettos, and Goths.

The Punk, Ghetto and Goth kids would have been Jellies in the 1970s. The Jelly Heads as a category had ambiguous boundaries, and just about anyone who got high and was a little off otherwise got that designation. "Hot" is a pornography term that has crept into the culture since I was in school; at any rate, I don’t remember any strict categorization based on looks only. We did have Loners, of course, but I guess we did not put them into a separate category. If forced to choose, I guess the Loners would have been Jelly Heads, too, probably further designated by a sub-category like Freaks, a/k/a Weirdos. That meant freaky and/or weird in a vaguely positive sense, by the way.

The oddest category I came across in today’s parlance was Emo Kids. Initially I had no idea what that was, even though I am apparently 40% one. Checking online at the Urban Dictionary confused me even more. I finally decided the Emo Kids category is the 2000s version of a catch-all designation, since apparently no one agrees on a general definition. I gather one predominant Emo Kid trait is what we used to call being “laid back.” Someone who was laid back was universally admired for not getting too worked up about anything, for not being overly concerned with outward appearances, and for not slavishly following trends.

Someone who was laid back was always “cool”; and knowing someone who was cool and being cool oneself was the coolest thing of all. As I am sure it still is.

Emo Kids, huh?

Happy

Keith Richards Is 63

There have been less likely things. Moses parted the Red Sea. Jesus turned water into wine. George W. Bush was elected president of something. Twice. (Well, more or less.) And Keith Richards, "The Human Riff", the Rolling Stones' rhythm guitarist who played the decadent rock-and-roller part faster and harder than a hundred other guys who couldn't handle it and paid dearly. . . Keith Richards turns 63 today. By now he has already lived longer on this planet than one of my grandfathers did, and he is fast approaching the longevity of the other one.

I'm sorry, but it is just weird to think of Keith Richards in his 60's.

Part of the difficulty is no one expected they would need to. The man was the walking definition of the excessive hedonistic lifestyle afforded to only the very top echelon of rock stars in his era, and he stayed at it for a long time. No one could keep up with him; and the road to hell is paved with the bones of those - other musicians, hangers on, sycophants, and fans - who thought they could. Over the years, the slightly built Richards drank enough whiskey - first Jack Daniels, later Rebel Yell - to float a 747. He shot up enough heroin to fly a battleship. He has basically been chain smoking since 1964. He was famous in his peer group for staying awake for days on end, and then crashing utterly. He is as far as I know the only popular musician who had another musician write and perform a song dedicated to him, specifically requesting that he not off himself, for his fans' sake if nothing else (Nils Lofgren, "Keith Don't Go", 1976)

But against some sizeable odds, Richards has lived to tell. Even through all the drug years, he could always write and play. And he exerted a tidal pull that is hard to describe to anyone who was not there for it. Too many followers took that call literally, and happily destroyed themselves with alarming alacrity. They fell for the accoutrements surrounding the core of Richards' lifestyle, the drinking and the drugs, mostly.

Richards himself had to go literally through hell to get there, but what I think he found was that the point was not to dive down some hole and pull it in after you, as many of his idolizers did, but rather to keep fighting in the darkness, until some light finally comes through.

Or not. It is an argument that could go on for awhile, but the only pertinent evidence really is the man himself, still breathing and still vital, long after it was suspected he would be anything but.

I cannot imagine what it would be like to have someone like Keith Richards for a grandfather, but one of the funniest things he mentioned in a recent interview was that after he passes out nowadays, on a sofa somewhere in his house, his grandchildren like to sneak up and play with his famously unkempt hair. They put paper clips and beads in it and braid it and things like that. Then when he comes to, Richards just brushes it back out of his face, adjusts his red bandanna headband, and goes along his merry way.

Bless you, my man. Happy 63rd. And thank you for everything.

Merry, er-- Happy Holidays!

Scrooging A Little In The Home Stretch

I am sorry to say I am just not a very Christmas-sy person.

There, I said it.

I don't have any objections to Christmas on religious or cultural grounds; in fact, I don't really have any objections to Christmas at all. And I think the water-heads supposedly trying to "outlaw" Christmas because it offends their tender secular sensibilities should direct their energy and social consciences somewhere else, perhaps at something of more practical concern, like world hunger or class divisions or economic disparity or burning rain forests.

Or they can go fuck themselves, too. I really don't care which.

My disaffection with the holiday season is not based on anti-commercial sentiments, either. I don't have any problem with the "commercialization" of Christmas - in fact I think it may inadvertently help reinforce some basic values we might not otherwise think about too often on our own. People go out shopping this time of year and fight mind-numbing gridlock on the roads and packed strip centers and malls and yet still seem to be basically in good cheer; because it really is better to give than receive, and even more so if one has to make some sacrifices in order to give just the right thing. The overcrowded stores also promote social interaction on a level some of us might not seek out otherwise. It does not matter how aloof one is, one cannot stand in line at Best Buy for two-and-a-half hours and not get to know one's neighbors a little bit, no matter who they are or what they look like; even if only to commiserate about the consistently shitty customer service one finds practically everywhere nowadays. And while tangled up traffic can also promote road rage, it offers multiple opportunities to do something nice for a stranger, by letting him or her cut in line, by yielding that parking spot you have been eyeing for five minutes to someone else and parking instead a half a block further away, or just by holding open a door for someone loaded down with bags and packages. At the very least, one can drop some change in the Salvation Army bucket out front and have a brief sense of good feeling wash over.

While the crassness of the commercial aspects may be a turnoff, it remains that there is no other time of year loaded with so many opportunities to do the right thing, and to be compelled to. If one cannot feel good about oneself and one’s fellow man at Christmas time, then I am not sure one can ever feel good any of that stuff anytime at all.

I feel good about it. It is just that there are some celebrated cultural touchstones regarding Christmas I feel like I must have missed out on somehow.

I don't like Christmas music much, for one thing. Some people I know get almost rapturous in late November or early December when they break out the Christmas music for the first time, digging out some Mannheim Steamroller CDs, a Pat Boone cassette or two, and way in the back of the cabinet there, a scratchy old Harry Belafonte LP that has a great version of "Little Drummer Boy" on it. Too bad about Harry, I think he may be going senile from what I've heard. He always had a great voice, though.

Personally, I am indifferent to almost all of the traditional yuletide musical fare. There are some non-traditional songs I like all right. John Prine's "Christmas in Prison" comes to mind, or maybe the concert version of Bruce Springsteen and Little Steven and the E-Streeters doing "Merry Christmas, Baby." At a holiday get-together once, I was asked what my favorite Christmas song was, and I blurted out Leon Russell's "Stranger in a Strange Land". That brought some vacant stares. Listen to the lyrics sometime, is all I can say.

I got bummed out one time when I realized one of my neighborhood friends had a grandmother who drove a Chevrolet, so he could authentically sing the "Jingle Bells" parody we all thought was so comical at the time, the one with the line about "oh what fun it is to ride in grandma's Chevrolet." My grandma drove a Buick, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't work that in. What the hell rhymes with Buick?

In addition, I don't have strong nostalgic feelings for Christmases past as some seem to. I have good memories, but part of my problem has to do with growing up with not much extended family around. Other than an aunt, uncle and cousins in Dickinson, who we did celebrate with – that’s one part of Christmas I do remember fondly - the nearest people in my mom's huge family were in and around Pittsburgh, and my dad did not have much of a family left by the time my siblings and I came along. So the concept of huge Norman Rockwell-ish extended family get-togethers, sitting around the groaning board eating goose and brandied plums and bread pudding and such at Christmas-time does not resonate much with me.

We did have a couple of holly trees in the backyard of the first house I lived in while growing up; but it never occurred to any of us to cut some boughs off of one and ‘deck the hall’ with it - our house was nice but fairly modest, a 'starter home' it used to be called, and we only had one hall, anyway.

Another impediment to connecting with the Christmas atmosphere was growing up in a sub-tropical climate. I have seen snow at Christmas exactly once - a few years back - and I am sure my cousins in Pennsylvania would have laughed at it, as it was mostly just a dusting. In fact, it was often warm and humid enough around Christmas to wear shorts and a T-shirt outdoors. When I was 13 or 14 we had a warm front come through off the Gulf of Mexico right before Christmas, and in the course of getting the house and grounds looking nice for company (an obsession of my mother's) I actually had to go out and mow the yard, because the St. Augustine was still growing like it was late July. I remember pushing this heavy old self-propelled Sears mower that didn't self-propel around the yard, sweating my ass off, all the while singing to myself, "Mow the yard and trim the hedges/Fa la la la la, la la la la".

So there you have it, the confessions of one Southeast Texas grinch-like individual.

“When the baby looks around him
It's such a sight to see
He shares a simple secret
With the wise man”

**********

Well, okay, not really. Christmas Eve is my birthday for one thing, and I like that all right. And I will get to see my brother and sister-in-law and their kids, nieces and nephews I don't get to see as often as I like. Plus, I didn't ask for many things, but a couple of the things I did ask for are pretty cool, so if I get any of them. . . You know, this Christmas could turn out to be a good one. Maybe that is why I have been walking around the last couple of days humming that "do you hear what I hear?" song that is playing in my head.

After all the hassle and hustle and bustle, for a brief moment on Christmas morning there is usually a sort of lull; a quiet time between giving and receiving gifts in the living room around the tree, and moving on to the dining room to chow down with the family. And in that quiet time it is possible that some - dare I say? - divine knowledge may possibly be bestowed upon one, and all the things having to do with Christmas, the secular and the religious, the ridiculous and the sublime, are all put in order in one’s mind for a moment.

It is just possible in the brief quietude to hear a faint voice, singing about what it all really means, and why it still matters as much as it does.

”And the baby looks around him
And shares his bed of hay
With the burro in the palace of the king”

He's a stranger in a strange land
Tell me why. . . “

**********

And so it is Christmas, John Lennon once sang. No, the war ain't over, but I am going to try and celebrate anyway, and be thankful for what I can. Merry Christmas to everyone, the indifferent and the disaffected and the haters included. And Peace on Earth, too. Maybe one day.

A Mitt Full Of Shit

from The Heretik

Campaign 2006, Part 1: Talkin' Out The Side Of Your Neck

I saw an interview with Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney last night on FOX News. Apparently Romney, who is a lame duck in Massachusetts, is about to announce that he will be running for President in 2008. At this point one should assume he will be just one of many, many candidates to throw their hat in the ring in the time leading up to the election itself.

Romney has an interesting biography. His father was George Romney, former governor of Michigan and CEO of American Motors in Detroit. For anyone too young to remember, long-defunct American Motors gave us legitimate 1970's muscle cars like the Javelin and AMX, as well as some of the worst looking and running vehicles in the history of the combustion engine; like the AMC Gremlin, or the awesomely designed AMC Pacer.

A side view really doesn't do the Pacer justice, except to emphasize just how low to the ground it was. A man of average height standing next to one would find the top of the roof coming up to midway between his belt and his chest. From above one would notice the car seemed exceptionally wide, and also that it probably had more square inches of exposed window than any other car on the road at that time. I knew a couple of sisters who shared one when we were in school, and they called it their "rolling terrarium."

My best friend in high school, Jimmy S------, lived just down the street from me. All through junior high school, and our freshman year and part of our sophomore year of high school, we had to get up before dawn each morning in order to catch a school bus that came by our stop at 7:00 A.M. but most days somehow only managed to deliver us to our school (about 5 miles away) right around 8:00, about the time the first bell rang.

We would often talk about the day we turned 16, and how we would drive to school instead of having to stand around on a busy street corner with a bunch of other kids at an ungodly hour, waiting for a bus. Instead of listening to a bunch of puerile high school gossip and dumb chatter, we would turn up the stereo really loud and meditate along our way (neither of us were big talkers, especially prior to 8:00 A.M.)

I would turn 16 first, and prior to that my dad had been letting me drive him everywhere (with my 'learner's permit'.) He was real laid back about it, didn't criticize anything I did on the fly or harangue me or anything. Truth is, I was a pretty good driver from the start. If I did anything seriously wrong, he would mention it after we arrived wherever we were going, in even tones.

"You might try squaring off your left turns instead of cutting across the bow of the car in the opposite lane. Just go straight forward for a second before you begin to turn the wheel to the left."

"OK, dad."

"You'll be fine."

He had a friend who sold cars, and we had picked out a 1969 Chevrolet Impala for me. A real tank, with solid chrome bumpers that weighed a couple hundred pounds each. I wouldn't officially get it until my birthday, but I was able to have it repainted (white) and have a stereo installed, AM/FM and an 8-track player, beforehand. In other words, I was all set.

My buddy and I decided I would drive him to school each morning, and then when he got his license and his own sled a few months later, we would take turns driving each other to school and back weekly. It was a good plan, and it worked for awhile. On his 16th birthday, Jimmy got a used AMC Gremlin, metallic green with white racing stripes. He put in an 8-track player as well, and I'll never forget our inaugural commute to school in that glowing green monument to 1970s American engineering and design, Styx blasting on the 8-track, Jimmy and I passing a spliff back and forth. . . either that weed was really strong, or maybe it was just the rewarding feeling of knowing we had achieved a dream and had been delivered from the scheduling idiosyncrasies of our greasy-haired and mostly toothless bus driver. Whichever, I had a buzz all day long that day.

Of course, we were both driving cars that were pretty well used up by the time we got them, so there were problems here and there. I never could get the heater in my Impala to work properly, for one. In this part of the world, that is not a major problem most of the time. But I do remember during the one or two weeks a year when it was really cold driving to school while literally freezing, rubbing my hands together when I could, wiping the inside of the fogged-up windshield with a rag, blowing hoary frost with each breath. . . and I was inside the car.

Jimmy's Gremlin broke down after the initial few months, and basically never ran for more than a week at a time after that. It turns out that aside from being one of the oddest-looking domestic market cars I'd ever seen (it looked like the designer was working on his model, got the front half of the body done, and then set it down to go to lunch or somewhere and never got back to it) , the Gremlin was well-known for running poorly, if at all. My friend nursed that thing along for a year or two, until he finally decided to hit the silk and take his losses. He traded his AMC rolling piece of crap in for a black Grand Am that ran (and looked) much better. Still, I kind of remember that Gremlin with fondness. Of course, I didn't have to own it.

**********

Somehow I have gone far afield here. I do remember Mitt Romney's dad vaguely; George Romney was a fixture in mainstream Republican politics for some time in the 1960s and 1970s. Recognition-wise, he was something akin to what John McCain is now, maybe a bit less well-known nationally. He ran for president in 1968, as a moderate, and had his ass handed to him by Richard Nixon in the Republican primaries. Romney pere was also a devout Mormon who was born in northern Mexico, where his parents had fled after Utah outlawed polygamy. Despite his faith, he was known for getting down and dirty with the auto unions, especially the Mafia-run Teamsters, at contract time and for usually coming away with a deal favorable to the car companies.

His son went to Brigham Young and Harvard and then got into selling investments. Mitt Romney founded an investment firm and got rich, and decided to run for the Senate in Massachusetts in 1994. This was in the middle of the famous Republican takeover of the Congress, the Contract with America, etc. Romney figured his opponent, Ted Kennedy, was a flaming liberal and long-time bogeyman to conservatives everywhere, and would be at his most vulnerable at that point.

In a way, Romney was right. Kennedy rolled over him 58-42, yes; but it was the smallest margin Kennedy had been re-elected by in some time. Romney licked his wounds, and came back to be elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002. He has been making noise since 2004 about running for president.

Romney has some allure because he is basically unknown and an outsider nationally, and he has also acquired a bit of the aura of an enlightened conservative - not moderate - Republican. I do not know how he got the latter, because he is anti-everything right down the line, and appears to be edging more to the right as he gears up his campaign. Still, I was interested to see his interview on FOX, because I don't know that I'd ever heard him speak about anything before, and I was curious how he would 'come off' on camera as opposed to any prior impressions I had from simply reading about him.

Right away, the interview was a letdown. Romney may be an upstart or an outsider, but he has been around politics long enough to master the "good looking guy with not much substance" approach. The soon-to-be candidate was impeccably dressed and groomed, wearing an expensive suit and power tie; he is youngish-looking for his age (he is actually 59, and I am guessing colors his hair) and clear speaking. The initial visual impression is a strong one, and I suppose Romney and his people are hoping this will cause voters to overlook the fact that the candidate answers reporters questions in the slickest, most condescending, evasive, mealy-mouthed, talking-a lot-but-say-nothing style we have seen in some time. It took about ten seconds to form the impression that the man is not overburdened with deep thoughts or reflection or substance.

When asked about his Mormonism and if that might not affect popularity with voters, Romney seemed to be trying to align himself somehow with the religious right, saying to the reporter, "The full name of my church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, you know?" This was said in a very condescending way. I am surprised the reporter did not reply, equally condescendingly, "You are aware that the religious right considers Mormonism a non-Christian cult, aren't you?" But then, this was FOX News. Too bad.

It is entirely possible my initial impression of Romney is wrong. I hope so, because I have been looking forward to 2008 for awhile now. With Bush gone and no clear heir-apparent type in either party, the campaign and primaries leading up to the general election should be fascinating, with all kinds of new faces bobbing up here and there on both sides, giving our national politics and injection of new people and dare I say new ideas it really, really needs. I hope Mitt Romney and his handlers figure out neither the 'bullshit your way through the primaries' strategy nor the 'outsider come to clean up Washington' strategy will likely work too well this time. I hope Romney comes into this with something to add, rather than just looking for something to take away for himself. By now, none of us should be too picky about where the answers come from or who is the bearer of them, as long as we get them from somewhere. Even after being monumentally turned off by him last night, I guess I still harbor a hope that Mitt Romney will be worthy of playing a part in the great show that the 2008 elections are shaping up to be.

In other words, let's hope Mitt Romney is a Javelin. And not a Gremlin.

Proof Through The Night

Life During Wartime

I watched Charlie Rose last night. One of his guests was Henry Kissinger, a person I am assuming needs no introduction. I'll say one thing about Kissinger, though; he doesn't look any older or seem any less sharp than he did/was back in his glory days in the 1970's and 1980's. Pretty remarkable.

Anyway, amidst a longer discussion about current and possible future American foreign policy, Rose asked Kissinger if the Iraq war hadn't by now grown to be "the worst foreign policy disaster in American history." Kissinger replied that it was too early to say, that it was too strong a statement to make at this point, that 30 years of American and Middle Eastern history would have to play out before we would really know.

These were predictable and I think sensible responses. What struck me was that when Rose put the question to him, I expected a swift negative reply from Kissinger. Instead, there was a long hesitation before he began his response. That was four or five seconds of silence that spoke volumes, to my thinking.

Once one begins to question everything the news media reports, it becomes more difficult to recognize a fairly definitive truth, even if it slaps one in the face, day after day. I have for some time been getting the feeling that the whole situation in Iraq is really careening out of control, but the strongest advocates of that view up to now have been twerps like Anderson Cooper and Keith Olberman, who are compelling personalities and good reporters, I am sure, but do not really come off as founts of balanced, empirical information. When reportage from equally uneven sources like FOX went completely the other way, I often felt like they were really, really trying to convince me that something was untrue (impending disaster in Iraq), making me think that maybe it was true, at least to some degree.

Sometimes it is input from an obtuse source - Republican Senator Gordon Smith coming out and saying our continuing participation in an Iraqi "civil war" is absurd and may even be criminal, Henry Kissinger hesitating to codemn an assertion that the war may be the worst U.S. foreign policy disaster in history - that sheds real light on things.

Sometimes when you shine a flashlight in a dark corner, you end up wishing maybe you wouldn't have; because you end up seeing what you could not before, and it can sometimes be very ugly and really disgusting.

**********

I have more ambivalent feelings for Charlie Rose than I do any other reporter/personality I can think of.

On one hand, I generally like his show (it airs at 11:00 p.m. or thereabouts weeknights on PBS in this market.) Rose has consistently terrific guests. If he wants to talk about science, he'll have a Nobel Prize winner or three at his table that night. If it is literature, a Pulitzer Prize winner or National Book Award winner or someone similarly noted. I find more interesting discussion on Charlie Rose's show than on any other since Brian Lamb retired his weekly Booknotes program on C-SPAN a few years back (I should note that I often find Tavis Smiley's show similarly informative and interesting, but usually I am too tired to stay up for it - it airs after Charlie Rose.)

The reason Brian Lamb is the Interview God (seriously, the best one-on-one interviewer I have ever seen) and Charlie Rose is not is that for one thing, Lamb is always absolutely prepared. I heard once that he read each author/guest's book in its entirety prior to filming that person's interview, which means he read at least 50 often lengthy and technical books a year, while also hosting several other shows and running three or four C-SPAN networks. Charlie Rose often appears to have walked onto the set without having done any prior research at all.

Also, the most singular characteristic of Brian Lamb the interviewer is that he asks his question and then shuts the hell up for one minute or ten while his guest forms and presents a thoughtful response. Rose on the other hand cannot stop himself from talking over his guests. He will ask a question and then as soon as his guest gets into an answer, he will be butting in, talking over, finishing the interviewee's sentences, etc. It is irritating as hell to watch, and I would think his guests feel similarly. In fact, I have wondered if the interviews are less than they could be simply because the guest is too conscious of Rose's inevitable interruption of it to take the time to come up with a better response.

My question is, why invite maybe the foremost expert on the planet in a particular subject area to be a guest on your show, and then instead of listening and learning from that person, spend the whole time interrupting the expert's responses and talking over him/her, as if trying to prove one's own expertise in a subject as compared to that of the expert's? Normally I would say it was insecurity. Maybe it is some North Carolina thing (I believe that is where Rose grew up.) Actually, I don't really care; I just wish Charlie Rose would stop it.

There. That should do it. :exhale:

Little Hitlers

Chile Sendoff

The Reagan Years were just great. . . they gave us hair bands, Head of the Class, The Hooters, and a half-dozen or so petty little Central and South American despots, perpetually propped up by the U.S. State Department and/or the C.I.A., suddenly finding they were losing their footing and wondering if the U.S. would rush in and save them from their own subjects.

Their doubts were raised by the fact the U.S. had recently given in to international sentiment (and to the idea of universal human rights) and for the first time had let one of its former puppet regimes fall to a popular native uprising, in Nicaragua. This successful revolution happened technically in Carter's administration, but Reagan had assumed power by the time former Nicaraguan leader Anastasio Somoza was blown to smithereens by a car bomb in Paraguay, where he had gone into exile after being overthrown. The reverberations from this assassination were felt by every two-bit military dictator in that part of the Southern Hemisphere, from the leader of the lowliest banana republic to that of one of the large, emerging Second World countries.

If you don't believe me, it was all documented on The Clash's Sandinista! LP (1980), a record that helped make the Reagan era bearable. And of course Reagan himself will be forever remembered for overseeing a scheme around that same time whereby, 'off the books', the U.S. sold arms to our bitterest enemy in order to raise money for the reactionary paramilitary forces challenging the Sandinistas in Nicaragua a few years after the revolution. The infamous Iran-Contra scheme also involved using various South American drug lords as middle men, and was integral in emboldening that particular group of murderous thugs, who then greatly expanded the smuggling of weed and cocaine into the U.S. in the years immediately following Iran-Contra, with incredibly disastrous consequences for the U.S. government and many of its citizens.

Iran-Contra was also responsible for inflicting Marine Lt. Col. Ollie North on the culture for the first time. This may have been the gravest consequence of all. North gained popularity with the faith-and-values set by boldly standing up to Congressional inquisitors and lying and obfuscating his way through the entirety of his testimony in nationally televised hearings. The reverence for the man and his courageous act of lying through his fucking teeth under oath was such that at the time the mere invocation of his name brought some strong, patriotic Americans literally to tears.

Anyway, pretty soon all these brutal South and Central American Presidents for Life/martinets/CIA puppets were falling like dominos all over - Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay, Omar Torrijos and then Manuel Noriega (who was driven from power partly by really loud recordings from the Guns 'N' Roses oeuvre) in Panama, Jorge Videla in Argentina, "Baby Doc" Duvalier in Haiti. One of the other members of the club, Augusto Pinochet in Chile, held out until 1990. I guess because I associated all the Latin American facism with the 1980's, I just assumed Pinochet was long dead, so I was startled to see he expired just this past Sunday, at the ripe old age of 91. Pinochet had in fact outlived many of his bitterest enemies. Now a debate has started in Chile as to whether he should be remembered as a brave defender against Marxism, or as a bloody fascist who was responsible directly or indirectly for the deaths of over 3,000 of his fellow Chilean citizens during his repressive reign.

At any rate, hearing of his demise somehow reminded me of another of Pinochet's ruthless and repressive fascist bretheren, Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain who himself is, I think we may all safely assume, still dead.

Earth to Inca From Peru, Part 1

Here are the playlists from a couple of audio CDs I burned for myself this weekend. Each list fits nicely onto a 700 mb (80 minute) blank audio CD.

Number 1

01.) King, Freddie - Ain't No Sunshine (3:20) (1972)
02.) El Chicano - Viva Tirado, Pt. 1 (4:44) (1970)
03.) Davis, Rev. Gary - Sally, Where'd You Get Your Whiskey? (4:19) (1941)
04.) Jennings, Waylon - Ain't Living Long Like This (3:38) (1979)
05.) Marshall Tucker Band - Southern Woman (7:55) (1974)
06.) Viva Voce - Free (3:48) (2004)
07.) Lo Fidelity All Stars w/Bootsy Collins - On The Pier (6:50) (2002)
08.) Hill, King Solomon - Gone Dead Train (3:18) (1934)
09.) Morrison, Van - Tupelo Honey (6:53) (1971)
10.) Young, Neil - Hippie Dream (4:13) (1986)
11.) Marley, Bob & the Wailers - Sun Is Shining (4:58) (1978)
12.) Strawbs - Burning For Me (4:02) (1977)
13.) Russell, Leon - Stranger In A Strange Land (4:02) (1971)
14.) English Beat - End Of The Party (3:33) (1982)
15.) Cash, Johnny - Delia's Gone (2:17) (1994)
16.) House, Son - John The Revelator (2:32) (1965)
17.) Crosby, Stills & Nash - Dark Star (4:45) (1977)
18.) Palmer, Robert - Give Me An Inch (3:18) (1976)

Number 2

01.) Pickett, Wilson - Mustang Sally (3:04) (1966)
02.) Police, The - Walking On The Moon (5:03) (1979)
03.) Cramer, Floyd - Last Date (2:29) (1961)
04.) Beck, Jeff - 'Cause We've Ended As Lovers (5:42) (1975)
05.) Was (Not Was) - Somewhere in America (3:41) (1988)
06.) Sahm, Doug - Houston Chicks (3:51) (1974)
07.) Beck - Go It Alone (4:18) (2005)
08.) Eno, Brian - Julie with... (6:20) (1977)
09.) Beautiful People - If 60's Was 90's (6:10) (1994)
10.) Siouxsie & The Banshees - Cities In Dust (3:49) (1986)
11.) Kraftwerk - Expo 2000 (3:11) (1999)
12.) Mazzy Star - Fade Into You (4:55) (1993)
13.) Reinhardt, Django - Django's Blues (3:04) (1947)
14.) Viva Voce - Free Nude Celebs (3:12) (2004)
15.) Allman Brothers - Melissa (4:02) (1972)
16.) Stone Roses, The - Fool's Gold (4:12) (1989)
17.) Brubeck, Dave - Take 5 (5:23) (1960)

18.) Donovan - Season Of The Witch (4:55) (1966)

More Songs About Buildings And Food

The Big List #1

1.) T-Bone - Neil Young
2.) Fountainbleu - Stills Young Band
3.) Rock Candy - Montrose
4.) Tower of Song - Leonard Cohen
5.) Rock And Roll Stew - Traffic
6.) Hotel California - Eagles
7.) Cheeseburger! - Gang of Four
8.) Bridge Of Sighs - Robin Trower
9.) Theme From Burnt Weeny Sandwich - Frank Zappa & The Mothers
10.) Brick House - Commodores
11.) Safe As Milk - Captain Beefheart
12.) Tom's Diner - Suzanne Vega & DNA
13.) Stealin' Watermelons - Elvin Bishop
14.) I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down - Graham Parker
15.) TV Dinners - ZZ Top
16.) Mansion On The Hill - Bruce Springsteen
17.) Hamburger Hell - Todd Rundgren
18.) Love Shack - B-52s
19.) Jambalaya - Hank Williams, Sr.
20.) Red House - Jimi Hendrix
21.) Green Onions - Booker T. & The MGs
22.) Roadhouse Blues - The Doors
23.) Candy - Cameo
24.) Candy's Room - Bruce Springsteen

25.) Cheeseburger In Paradise - Jimmy Buffet

26.) In My Room - Beach Boys

27.) Brown Sugar - Rolling Stones

28.) Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones

29.) Salt Of The Earth - Rolling Stones

30.) Factory Girl - Rolling Stones

31.) Fish Heads - Barnes & Barnes

32.) Smokestack Lightning - Howlin' Wolf

33.) Timothy - The Buoys

Trudging Back To Brighter Days

We are at the halfway point of the baseball offseason, more-or-less. Up to now I have been basically disinterested in most of the hot stove goings on. It is like this every year: I decompress for a couple of months after the World Series, not really caring about who gets the post-season awards, or the trade rumblings or free-agent signings. I think I get more wrapped up in the regular season than I realize, and then I need some time away from it after it is over. And for a hard core Houston Astros fan, the last few of off-season decompression periods have been especially welcome, as the team has developed the perhaps thrilling but maddening habit of waiting until the last possible moment to quit floundering around and put together a mad dash for the pennant (actually a wild card spot.) They made it in 2004 and 2005, but fell just short this past season. All three were draining for the serious fan.

But about this time each offseason, though, I get over it. NFL football has grown interminably boring to me, and offers no diversionary charm; and I cannot keep up with the college teams, BCS, bowls, etc. I've never been much of a fan of basketball, and I simply don't understand or care about most of the other things that pass for "sport" in the baseball offseason. And then there's the fact that unlike any other major sport, baseball in its dormant state offers an almost continual stream of at least vaguely pertinent news, from early November all the way to that happy day in mid-February when the pitchers and catchers report again to the spring training camps in Florida and Arizona. So I have been peripherally keeping up with all that; and then of course the Astros have been busy, signing FA slugger Carlos Lee and adding hometown boy Woody Williams and perhaps Jon Garland of the White Sox to the starting rotation to help replace Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, who appear to be gone. And so on.

So anyway, I am becoming engaged again; but before heading off full tilt into 2007, this talk about the late charges the Astros have made toward the ends of the last few seasons reminds me of something I wrote awhile back to commemorate one of the Astros division rivals, the ridiculous Chicago Cubs; who haven't been to a World Series since FDR was running things, or won one since Woodrow Wilson was, who are known less for winning and more for their many late season collapses, their belief in silly curses, and their fans' propensity for showing up in droves to their "green cathedral" ballpark to watch the games, be seen, and get stupid drunk, year after year after year, whether the team out on the field is any good or not.

I wrote the following just after the end of the 2004 season, and it is highly topical. 2004 was the year after the most famous Cubs collapse of all when, up 3 games to 1 in a best-of-seven playoff series against Florida and with a huge late lead (at home) in game 5, the act of a fan maybe interfering with the flight of a foul ball that maybe the Cubs left fielder could have leapt up into the stands and caught but did not caused the curse-obsessed Cubs and their followers to fall instantly, completely apart. The Cubbies quickly blew the lead and lost game 5, and the next two games also, and the upstart Marlins went on to win the World Series against the mighty Yankees. Meanwhile the Cub fans considered lynching one of their own, the poor bastard who had supposedly caused it all to happen by reaching out for a souvenir at exactly the wrong time. They thought better of it in time, and instead they held a ceremony where (I am not kidding) they blew up the ball.

Anyway, 2004 was the season after the meltdown. The Cubs, obviously recovered from that horror and still with dominant starting pitching were again a solid playoff contender, and looked to be drafting the even-better St. Louis Cardinals to an easy wild card playoff berth in the NL Central. The Cubs coasted along like that for a month or so, and then around mid-August they casually glanced in the rear-view mirror to see just how far back the rest of the pack was. . . but what they actually saw was the Astros gearing up for another insane run.

That was one hell of a month-and-a-half, after that. Houston went 36-10 while the Cubs sputtered. There were a couple of awesome home-and-home series between the two clubs along the way, filled with beanballs and ejections and bitter accusations and generalized acrimony all around. In the end, Houston ran the Cubs down from behind, and then ran them over.

Damn, that was a fun month. Even though the Astros were later knocked out of the playoffs by St. Louis, I was still thinking about the thrilling beatdown of the Cubbies when I decided it really should be commemorated in verse.

My apologies to T.S. Eliot, by the way. On the other hand, Eliot was a St. Louis native, and for all I know a Cardinal fan in his youth, at least. If so, then I'd like to think he'd understand.

**********

The Love Song of John Q. Cubfan

Vous pouvez connerie le boulanger
Et obtenir les brioches
Que vous pouvez soutenir de chaque affaire
Excepté une

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a Cub fan drunk and passed out in his seat;
Let us go, through certain Wrigleyville streets,
The muttering retreats
Of idiots who believe they're cursed by goats
Who drink old fashioned beer that tastes like oats:
Streets that follow like a tedious interview
Of a whiny manager with a fucked-up world-view
That leads to an overwhelming question. . .
Oh, do not ask, "What the hell?"
Let us head for Wrigley on the El.


In the stands the vendors come and go
Selling their swill for six bucks a go.


The yellow journalists who just can't rant enough
The yellow piss that makes the hands so tough
Get mixed together on some lost afternoon
When Sammy the rightfielder, who is a buffoon
Hops around like a bunny at the sight of a long, lazy drive
And gets gunned down at second by four feet or five,
And sensing another sign of the gods' disdain
We order up another nasty brew to drain.


And indeed there will be time
For the wild card lead to disappear,
Onrushing giants and spacemen getting near;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare to face the nagging fear;
There will be time to whine and moan,
For the umpires to conspire, the announcers to berate
As after another loss we head for home;
Time for beanballs and ejections,
Time for the sunshine to wear out the whiteys,
And time for Steve Stone to call us un-mighty,
As pointless as a lonely, Viagra-fueled erection.


In the stands the vendors come and go
They sell that shit for six bucks, you know?


And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "What the fuck?" and "What the fuck?"
Is it The Curse? Is it lousy luck?
Or just that our bullpen really sucks?
[They will say, "Your bullpen blows."]
Borowski's hurt, so the one we chose
LaTroy, to come in late and close
[They will say, "You cut off your face to spite your nose!"]
Do we dare
Take the Almighty's name in vain?
In a minute there is time
To curse a blue streak, and go down in flames.


For we have known them all, already, known them all: --
Have known the games pissed away by errors, wind-borne flies, blown saves,
We have measured out our lives by the games we gave away;
We have lost must-win games to chumps, and have been appalled.
From the second deck falls a chunk of concrete, about half a ton
Should I try and run under one?


And we have known the indignities, already, know them all --
Beat out by a team in McDonald’s uniforms back in ’84,
Or ’89 Will Clark went all Babe Ruth on us (“It’s gone! It’s gone!”)
And how could we forget Brant Brown (Brant Brown?!) dropping that fly ball?
What the hell is going on?
Cincinnati (Cincinnati?!) beats us three of four
Should I go and get a gun?


And we know how this ends, already; we must remember –
Confident in a solid lead held almost up to the end,
[“Oh, don’t be silly!” they say, as the inevitable descends]
How will it be this time? Like the ’69 Mets?
Another incredible mind-fuck we will never forget?
Our hopes as dead as the ivy in November.
Could I sneak a knife in, nice and neat
Commit Harry Caray right in my seat?
. . . . .

When Ruth stood pointing out to Waveland Ave., was he really calling his shot?
Or just showing us the way to the exits, saying,
“This thing’s all over, boys; why’n’t you just head on home?”


I should have been a ragged old glove
Scuttling across the floors of silent dugouts
. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
As smoothed by several rounds
Asleep…tired…slowing down,
Stretched out on the bar next to my ratty blue cap with the “C”.
Should I, after another shot ‘n’ a beer
Have the strength to walk on out of here?
But though I have wept and fasted, blown up balls and genuflected,
Though I have longed to see Dusty’s head [the stupid toothpick in its mouth]
brought in upon a platter,
Truth is, I can’t do shit—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of our greatness flicker,
And I have seen the Base Ball Gods shake their heads, and snicker,
And in short, I’ve seen my own impotence reflected.


And was it all worth it, after all,
After elimination, the acrimony, the accusations,
Bitter doubt entering our conversations?
Was it worth raising the payroll to $100 million
Just to bring the types of players with the skills in
When one skill is not holding onto the fucking ball?
The skill to wear sunglasses and still not see,
The can of corn come wafting out,
While our pitcher grins on the mound with glee,
Saying, “I know you’ll catch that ball."
"I know you’ll catch that fucking ball!”


And was it all worth it, after all,
Worth all the money, care, and time spent,
Putting together a team which only wasted all its promise?
Which would rather initiate, and then retaliate, than win the game –
Rather kick a wall and get a knee sprain –
And get 15 days on the DL,
While the whole season goes to hell.
Was it worth it, all the discontent?
When, with our backs up against the wall,
Against the lowly Redlegs and the Braves,
They say, “You lost them all."
"You lost them all!”
. . . . .


No, we are not championship material, nor were meant to be,
We are lovable losers, lots of fun,
Someone to get well against, if you’ve been on a bad run,
Come to the ballpark, the ‘Taj Mahal’, and get drunk out in the sun.
We’ve got great starters, but our bullpen sucks,
Our offense has its moments, but is full of holes,
And just when you think they give a fuck,
They blow a lead and lose control,
And the whole damn season comes undone.


We can’t take it. . . we can’t take it. . .
When our Sammy starts to jake it,


Shall we keep our hopes alive? Shall we go into the breech?
We shall play the Reds at home, and watch their offense be unleashed.
I have heard the fat ladies singing, each to each.


I do not think they will sing for me.


We have seen them at night wearing too-tight slacks
Stumbling out of the bars in Lincoln Park
Looking for their SUV's double-parked.


We have lingered in the dream world of fantasy
Sustained by our collective hysteria, and a whole lot of booze
'Til reality sets in, and we lose and lose

Sea Change

I have seen the sea change

When it's least expected

The air is calm, the water still

Then everything's affected

Waves and whitecaps, tidal waves and more

The howling wind hurls violence at the shore

It's really not all that strange

Waiting for a sea change

I have seen my woman leaving

Walking out the door

Everything was perfect

And then she wanted more

Words are spoken, deeds are done

There's no going back once the blood begins to run

It's really not quite naive

Waiting for your woman to leave

I have seen disaster come

Tearing everything asunder

To at once be riding high

And then have it pulled from under you

A complete disaster, a headlong crash

No picking up the pieces in a total collapse

It's really not all that dumb

Waiting for disaster to come

I have seen the sea change

Scuttling my heart

No way to chart a new course

Once the whole world falls apart

The pause that destroys, the look that chills

The winds of change blow, but the sea change kills

It's really not quite deranged

Waiting for the sea to change

To be leaning on a piling

Just outside of sight range

Sucking on a bottle

Waiting for the sea change. . .

Remembrance of Bars Past, Vol.3

McGill's Way

And so continues the Inca F.P. 2006 Club Comeback, er, Wayback Tour, brought to you for your reading and visceral enjoyment by, well, by my somewhat damaged but still basically intact bicameral mind; this being installment number three.

We have previously covered the Cactus Lounge (i.e., The Mother Ship) and Fat Dawg's, both located on Railroad Ave. in south Beaumont, near Lamar University. Now, we come to our next entry, and we are still on the same damn street, although as it got closer to the freeway, Railroad Ave. was sometimes more properly called Spur 380 (the whole thing is MLK Parkway now, of course.)

**********

3. The Foxy Lady. Located a block off of Highway 69S (Cardinal Dr.), the Foxy Lady was housed in a non-descript low-slung building on the corner of Spur 380 and Florida Street. I believe the club itself had its origins in the late 1960's as a college-age rock 'n' roll club serving Lamar. That, if true, and the Hendrix-ian name, would have caused me to be predisposed to favor the place, even though it did not look like much from the outside.

For most of the time I can recall, the entire exterior of the one-story wood building was painted a flat gray, like the primer coat on a car; the only exterior feature that stood out at all was a small-ish lighted sign on a pole in the parking lot announcing the place in script, with I think an attempt at an identifying logo, a small drawing of a fox wearing a hat or something. Inside, the area was divided into several small rooms, most of them dimly lit. As one entered, the bar was dead ahead; off to the left at an angle was the entrance to the main area of the club, a larger room with several tables and chairs and at the back of the room, on the south side of the building, a cramped stage elevated maybe a foot above the floor. The ceiling in there seemed awfully low, as I recall. It was probably 8 feet, but when the place was crowded and loud and full of smoke, it seemed much lower. I am right at 6 feet tall, and I used to rise up in a sort of involuntarry modified crouch every time I needed to go get another drink, or visit the restroom. My peripheral body imaging system had me thinking I was about to hit my head on some overhead pipes or something.

What got me out to the Foxy Lady in the first place was that the club frequently featured live music. I was 18 and a senior in high school, and at the time guitarist Scott McGill was huge locally, and he had a regular gig out there. I think it was on Thursday evenings, I am not sure about that; but one of my best friends at the time, Mike O------, would come pick me up and we'd go out there to hear McGill play.

The music was good -- Scott played mostly hard rock covers, and could whang the guitar around a little bit. I remember several tunes, but the one that really stands out was McGill's version of Ten Years After's "Choo-Choo Mama", probably because the song gave him room to really kick out the jams and solo like a mo-fo, and also because I always wondered if him picking that song to cover had anything to do with the almost constant rumbling of freight trains just outside.

But even more than McGill's always-excellent performances, what I really remember about those initial visits to The Foxy Lady was being first exposed to that club atmosphere -- crowded, smoky, liquor flowing, live music; it is impossible for me to describe exactly how that was, feeling that weird energy made up of several things, including exhilaration, underlying but not-too-far underlying sexual tension, and a vague sense of danger. My friend Mike and I were truly out beyond the pale a bit. If trouble started, no parents or principal or coach or anyone would be able to save us. And if some girl was hit on either of us, well. . . Of course, being new to it all, I likely exaggerated some of the possibilities in my mind. Still, I was getting a pretty good idea of what it was like to be 'down in it', and before long I was hooked.

After an intial period of several visits, Mike and I got to be 'regulars', and became more comfortable with the whole scene. We would try to get out there an hour or so before the show started, to get a good table and also because I think they ran a special on pitchers of beer early in the evening. One of the areas off the main room had a couple of pool tables, and we would often shoot pool and drink beer, waiting for the live music. One night my turn came up on one of the tables, and I was to be playing some guy I'd never seen before. He was a more-or-less regular looking guy for the times (late 1970's) -- mid- to late-20's, long hair, jeans, sleeveless black Deep Purple T-shirt, Wolverine work boots -- and he seemed decent enough. I did notice he was drinking his beer rather quickly, and straight from the pitcher instead of a mug. And also that he had several tattoos on his upper arms, which was pretty unusual back then. Anyway, we began playing, and at some point in the course of small talk it was revealed that my opponent had just been paroled out of the Huntsville Unit of the Texas Department of Corrections only the day before. He'd been serving a five-year sentence for auto theft or maybe armed robbery, I cannot recall for sure which; and he'd got out early for 'good behavior.'

I had got comfortable with the club scene by then, as I said; and I suppose there was a part of me that was even a little cocky about it, because a lot of my school friends weren't allowed to even go out of the house on weeknights, not to mention to some seedy nightclub. But I was mostly still just a cheese-eating high school boy myself, really. The realization I was playing pool with a half-drunk ex-con was a nice little wake up call for me, and a reminder too that there was a whole lot about the great big world out there I still did not know about just yet. At the time this fellow informed me of his 'record', we were playing rotation, I believe; and I think I was even ahead by a bit. Somehow, though, my game suddenly and inexplicably fell apart, and my opponent ended up beating me handily. We shook hands, and I eased on out of the billiards area and went looking for a good table for when McGill and his band cranked it up a bit later.

I got to know Scott McGill a little later on, just in passing. He worked for awhile at a record store in Parkdale Mall along with a couple of friends of mine, and I saw him there and at some of their employee get-togethers. He seemed like a nice guy. He is still playing locally, too; or was the last time I checked.

One thing Scott unknowingly did for me back then was give me a little insight into what it meant to be a local guitar hero. The difference between the best local player, which Scott probably was at the time, and the rest of the area wannabes was significant enough, I'm sure. But the gap probably was not all that great. On the other hand, the difference between any local great and the guys who actually made The Big Time was vast; maybe not exclusively talent-wise, there is always the story about the lucky break launching the unremarkably talented into the stratosphere. Yet there is the palpable sense I think to the local guy sometimes that, talent aside, you just can't get there from here. Those big time guys are limo-ed around everywhere and indulged hand-and-foot, while the local player, who has the same dreams and maybe even the same talent, clerks in a record store for close to minimum wage during the day, and sweats it out in the local clubs at night for a piece of the cover charge.

That is not nearly all there is to it, of course. I went to school with and was friends with a fair number of musicians - in fact I dated a keyboardist/vocalist for a few years - and I think every one of them who by choice or due to circumstance went on to live unglamorous everyday lives (like most of the rest of us) still plays; either on their own or in some mostly informal local scene. It turns out that the playing, singing, and writing of music is in their bones; and that while some secret or not-so-secret wish for stardom and big success might have been the focus for awhile, the truth is they already had the real reward, all along. They had (and have) the music in them. They really just want to play. And they still can. That is the real gift.

My own musical talents such as they are could probably clear a room full of adults in under a minute in most instances, but still I can very much relate to the creative drive the musically gifted among us possess, this urgent desire that cannot be erased, by intention or by time. And I have no problem saying I was always very respectful of anyone like that, who could play, and I was envious of them, too; Scott McGill not being the least among them.

Of course, Mr. McGill eventually went on to other things. So, too, did the rest of us. I went to college, my friend Mike joined the merchant marine. Our nights of good times and great music at The Foxy Lady were relatively brief. Even so, the club went on for awhile. I remember seeing Gatemouth Brown there once - he was great - and the '60s psychedelic band Fever Tree, about a decade after their one hit ("San Francisco Girls".) Then at some point in the 1980's the whole establishment was entirely re-made, into a strip club. I never visited it in that incarnation; but I did hear from someone who did that even within the relatively easy criteria of that low category, the 'Lady' was at the bottom end of the scale.

Which is fitting, I suppose. It was a place that could never have been called, in any context, a 'gentlemen's club.' In the long view, I think I count that as a plus.

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HONORABLE MENTION #2

The Purple Trojan. Thinking of early experiences in clubs and with live music reminded me of this place, my very first nightclub so to speak. Actually, it was what would be called today a "teen club", for 8th graders (Friday nights) and 9th graders (Saturday nights.) Or maybe it was 7th graders and 8th graders, I am not sure. It has been awhile.

In fact, to definitely date myself once and for all, the name of the the establishment in question was derived from the mascots of the two high schools (along with their jr. high school 'feeders') it primarily served -- Beaumont High (the Royal Purples; and no, I don't know what a 'royal purple' is) and Forest Park (Trojans). At the time, Beaumont had I believe seven high schools, and two school districts. There could have been a Greenie Panther club, or maybe a Bulldog Buffalo Bulldog club as well, for all I know.

Bulldog Buffalo Bulldog club, I like that. Kind of reminds me of Ford Madox Ford. Anyway, the club was located on the grounds of what used to be the Oaks Country Club, on the east side of N. Major Drive, between Manion and Gladys. I don't remember the Oaks CC, and the building and grounds didn't much look like any country club I'd ever seen, but that is what our parents called it, so. . .

The club was in a small one-story building divided into four main rooms; the one in the back, southeast corner was where the stage and dance floor was. The other back room (NE corner) was for spillover from the dance floor and general conversation. The front two rooms were basically for socializing only.

The place was well-lit (except for the stage/dance floor area), heavily chaperoned (by volunteer parents -the 'worst' kind, from an 8th grader's point of view), and of course there was no smoking or alcohol, officially. There was live music sometimes, though; and it was usually pretty good. One local band I remember was called Shadowfax, I think; Gary Tomberlin was in it (a/k/a The Lovable Gar-Bear, later a DJ). There were other local bands that came through there, too. I remember some killer covers, of The Beatles "Drive My Car", The Clique's "I'll Hold Out My Hand" and "Sparkle and Shine", and Tommy James and The Shondells' "Crimson & Clover", among others. On the nights with no live music, there was a DJ. One popular request - and remember, a goodly percentage of the club patrons were 13- and 14-year old boys - was Bloodrock's gore-fest "D.O.A.", about a guy describing, in vivid detail, how he didn't quite survive a plane crash. Another was Chicago's "Color My World", a laughably turgid and off-key ballad that was nevertheless foolproof for getting girls to slow dance with us, up close and all. Other songs heavily requested tended to more regional favorites, like Rufus Jagneaux's "Opelousas Sostan (I Can Hear The Jukebox Play)" or John Nitzinger's "Louisiana Cockfight".

Parents would drop us off out front around 7:30 and pick us up at 11:00. I am sure it was a pain in the ass for them (and especially those who had to chaperone), and in retrospect it was kind of cheesy for the kids, too. On the other hand, the whole scene was an invaluable learning tool for those of us who still were a little rough around the edges and/or wet behind the ears when it came to the social graces. I asked a girl out for the very first time in one of the front rooms of The Purple Trojan, to my 8th grade graduation dance. I was pretty nervous about it, and upping the ante even further was the fact that we attended different jr. high schools, and she didn't know me very well. I don't know if it was my good looks or what -- actually, hell yeah, I am sure it was my good looks -- but anyway, whatever the reason, she said yes.

Thank goodness. Had she said no, my subsequent life might have been altered forever, in unfathomable ways.

The Purple Trojan didn't fare nearly as well as I did, it turns out. In a few years it closed, and eventually the building was razed. The foundation is still there, though; at the back of a big open field on otherwise hyper-developed North Major Drive. There used to be youth soccer played in that field, before the league moved to the DD6 retention ponds a little further northwest. Nowadays one might occaisonally see some guy out there working on his short game, while another throws Frisbees to his dog. Most of the time, though, the field and the area at the back of it, where the club once stood, is entirely empty.

Into The Void, Boys

I'm Not Sick, But I'm Not Well

Below please find my Larry King™ style column, fashioned after the infamous blurb-o-fest the CNN celebrity nitwit used to publish in his column every week in USA Today.

This is actually a rather slapdash and poorly constructed creation meant to make up entirely for the last two weeks of non-productivity in this space, which can be attributed either to A.) a serious and deeply reflective reconsideration of faith and family and values during the Thanksgiving holiday just past, or B.) a whole lot of serious dicking off on my part. Take your pick.

One thing is for sure; it is time to back up the semi with the big order from Ellipsis 'R' Us loaded on it, because I'll need it now, for sure.

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You know the commonly-accepted urban myth that the meat of a turkey contains some natural sedative, a sort of generic Quaalude™ which renders one laggard and soporific all Thanksgiving afternoon, unable to do anything much except take one or two or fifteen naps and watch some pointless NFL football game with one eye open and one shut? Well, in scientific terms, Bullshit. Turkey meat is lighter than most, and is actually considered 'heart-healthy', remember? Now, let's think; what else does one eat only on Thanksgiving which might also possess sedative qualities? Here's a hint: A big pile of crumbled-up, starch-laden cornbread, moistened with fatty turkey juice and gravy, and often fortified with the ground-up organ meat from the otherwise nutritionally beneficial almost national symbol (instead of the bald eagle, had Ben Franklin had his way.) That's right. Why accuse turkey of inducing somnolence when we have the aptly named "stuffing" as an obvious suspect? I'm telling you, the dignified Meleagris gallopavo, a cousin of the pheasant after all, has been slandered all these years. . .

Want to know why emu is considered an even healthier alternative meat than turkey? I don't know, either; but it might have to do with the fact that when the market for emu meat totally collapsed 20 years ago, all the farmers in the area who had invested thousands in set up costs and breeding pairs, thinking they were about to strike it rich, suddenly couldn't give their emus away; and rather than continue paying for the birds' feed and upkeep, they just let them loose indiscriminately all over the wilds of East Texas. So now to eat an emu, if you can even find one, you have to chase it for miles first, through swamp and/or forest and across open range. Now that's heart healthy. . .

Speaking of oddly-configured feral fauna, did anyone notice in the bustle of the holidays that CNN dingbat Nancy Grace was recently sued by the family of Melissa Duckett for wrongful death? Grace is the wild-eyed, Georgia-drawling, former prosecutor turned pundit with the oddly-shaped, vaguely Picasso-esque head who appears nightly on CNN Headline News, her primary function apparently being to beat some insignificant-in-the-overall-scope-of-things true crime story to death; and the sleazier the better, too. The Duckett case is a good example: As best I can tell, an infant was kidnapped from his home in Florida while his 20-year-old mother partied in the next room. After suspecting everyone in the extended family and eventually most of south Florida, police scrutiny eventually fell on the mother herself. This was where Nancy Grace jumped in. She flogged the story every night for months, while meanwhile all hell was breaking loose in Iraq, the U.S. appeared to undergo a fundamental political change in the mid-term elections, and Tom and Katie gave birth to a daughter, goddammit. I'm telling you, if during that period an alien mothership or even Jesus Christ Himself suddenly appeared on the south lawn of the White House, Nancy Grace would have lead her show that evening with another obscure angle on the "Trenton Duckett Story". What she finally did do was get Melinda Duckett, Trenton's mother, on camera and then proceeded to do a pretty hardcore ambush interview, broadcast nationwide in early September. The next day, Ms. Duckett committed suicide by 12-gauge, and then her family filed suit against Ms. Grace, for causing the girl considerable stress which led directly to her subsequent suicide. I don't know the merits of it, but I think I'll find this lawsuit more compelling than the case that ultimately caused it, and hope that if nothing else it will cause Ms. Grace to squirm a little - in a moral sense, I mean. But I doubt it. . .

Over the holiday I saw the A & E special regarding the pilgrims who settled the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts and started the whole Thanksgiving thing in the first place, or at least inspired it. Two things I found most interesting were 1.) many of the myths one associates with that group's crossing of the Atlantic and subsequent settlement in New England are largely based in fact; and 2.) Squanto (Tisquantum), one of the native Americans who was friendly with and aided the Pilgrims early on had spent close to fifteen years in Europe prior to the Pilgrim's arrival in Massachusetts. I knew he had been kidnapped by an earlier expedition and could speak English, but I had not realized how extensive his travels abroad had been. It must have been startling, or it would have been to me at any rate, to land in this 'wild' place after such a long and treacherous voyage, now fearing among other things the 'savage' inhabitants thereof; only to have one of them march up to you one day in full regalia and begin discoursing in the King's English (with a 'Bah-sten' accent, perhaps?) My only beef (so to speak) with Squanto is he missed his opportunity to alter history; when instructing the Pilgrims in planting corn, he should have buried the turkey in the hole with the seed corn for fertilizer, and saved the fish for the feast. Just think, for all these years instead of a bland turkey with cornbread dressing and cranberry sauce for dinner, we could have been having a crabmeat-stuffed broiled flounder, with french fries and hush puppies, tartar sauce on the side. Dammit.