I am in such a foul mood today. I’m not really sure why. I have to get out of this foul mood somehow.
Wow. The Happy Organ didn’t work. This is some foul mood I’m in.
Time for a tune-up
Take a look at this road-ready licorice stick trio:
The stage show gets a little too Yahoo Serious/fusion for my taste, but it’s still pretty interesting. See what thou hath wrought, Zappa?
found via Neatorama
A man’s castle
Once there was a boy who grew up in a family of performers. The boy’s father was a very hard taskmaster and made sure all of the children became excellent dancers and music makers. At a certain point in his life, the boy lived in a tremendous castle in southern California, and on the grounds of the castle were bridges and waterfalls and wishing wells and all sorts of magical things. Then the boy didn’t live there any more. But it was okay. The boy grew up and continued to make more music to even greater acclaim and he lived happily ever after.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to little Alex Koren:
What – were you expecting someone else? I said happily ever after.
The big trip
“Well, I think you could retire when you die. I don’t, however, believe in death, so I guess I will retire when I leave my body. But I plan to continue writing and performing in heaven.”
- Sky Sunlight Saxon March 2009
I hope there wasn’t too much of a line to get in to Heaven today, Sky. If there was, I’m sure you managed to write at least three songs while you were waiting.
Free wheeled, well tempered
Actually, I don’t know if the bicycle that Frank Zappa played on the Steve Allen Show was tuned using just intonation or equal temperament. And I don’t really care.
Mold King Cole
You want proof that the music industry is dead? Go no further than the mural outside of Hollywood’s Capitol Records building depicting their top artists:
Nothing says success like depicting your talent roster as reanimated corpses. There’s zombie Nat “King” Cole, accompanied by (I think) zombie Sarah Vaughan and an Italian-looking zombie I can’t identify. Zombie Al Martino, perhaps? It’s an awfully prominent placement in the mural for it to be Al Martino. It’s not zombie Tony Bennett; he was on Columbia. Zombie Dean Martin? It sure doesn’t look like Dean Martin. I’m looking at the zombie roll call, and it’s not helping.
If that Italian-looking zombie is the Misty Miss Christie, the ravages of the crypt are worse than I thought. When I go, just throw me to the coyotes, thank you. What’s that you say? You want more zombies? Of course you do. Everybody loves zombies. Okay, then. Here’s zombie Gerry Mulligan, maybe:
Then again, Gerry Mulligan was mostly a Verve artist. Let’s try this again. Zombie Miles Davis:
Yes, that’s better. That’s Miles Davis, all right. Perhaps Miles was a zombie for longer than any of us knew.
Struttin’ cock
I don’t normally post more than once a day, especially on weekends, but I just can’t keep this to myself a second longer. Have a sexy Saturday night, everybody.
Unlike Fatty Jubbo, I am pretty sure that this is not safe for work. Fatty, where exactly do you work?
Sometimes it all comes together
I just had another one of those moments – one of those moments when I find a few of my interests have come together in a fantastic package, and I’m amazed that I didn’t know about this fantastic package earlier. An example earlier this year of one of these moments was when I started hearing about Edward Gorey’s naughty etiquette book The Recently Deflowered Girl. I have loved Edward Gorey and naughty books and etiquette since I was a kid, so how was it that I never knew about this book until this year?
But anyway, I just had another one of those moments. I love Mad Magazine artist Don Martin. I inherited my parents’ pretty good ’50s-’60s jazz vinyl collection. I play trombone. Why was I not aware until just 30 minutes ago that Don Martin made album covers for Prestige Records?
Finding these moments makes me feel like I’m on the right path somehow. Do you ever have these moments?
News you can believe in
I find that when I get too busy at work, I fall behind in keeping up with the news. And when I can’t keep up with the news, I get a strange feeling of alienation; somebody starts making cracks about Miss California and I have no idea what they’re talking about. I need a news digest program that can help me out. Preferably one with more snap to it than those boring Sunday morning news wrap-up shows.
Of course I’m ambivalent about the angry gorilla commentator, but other than that, I think I’ve found my new MacNeil and Lehrer. Thanks, guys.
Woodshedding
I imagine that jazz aficionados were mortified when Disney started making hepcat nursery rhyme cartoons.
I don’t care. That pig makes me almost like the saxophone.
