Spitball Army

Here’s a great and hilarious scene from WC Field’s 1941 film, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break.  There are at least ten great quotable moments here, plus the appearance of Margaret Dumont, foil for many a Marx Brothers antic.

Here are more self-absorbed musings on my own musical tastes, sparked by the discovery of a cassette tape labeled “Fred FM 4” in my dark and dingy basement.

This tape was a bit more balanced than Fred FM 1 was, with equal helpings of rarities/oddities and some songs that are among my all-time favorites.

When asked for my top three all-time favorite songs – and when not asked, I frequently just blurt this out – I will predictably name “Alfie,” “The Hucklebuck,” and one other song (most frequently Elton John’s “Your Song,” but it is a slot that sees several visitors).  It doesn’t matter to me who is playing or singing “Alfie” or “The Hucklebuck.”  I just love the songs.  “Alfie” is a special wonder to me.  I can never sing the words to that song without getting them all mixed up.  Specifically, the line (and I am now looking up the lyrics, because I just stumbled over them in my head), “And if only fools are kind, Alfie, then I guess it is wise to be cruel.”  I’ve even tried to remember the line by cueing it with lyrics from Nick Lowe’s “Cruel to Be Kind,” but that only creates a muddle between the two songs.  I currently have 23 versions of “Alfie” stored on my computer; of them all, the Dionne Warwick version is usually my favorite, but the Philly-style Delfonics version and the John Holt reggae-fication are right at the top of the list.

[audio:Delfonics___Alfie.mp3]
“Alfie” (1968), by The Delfonics

[audio:John_Holt___Alfie.mp3]
“Alfie” (1983), by John Holt

“Strawberry Blonde,” from Ron Sexsmith’s self-titled album, is one of his best songs, finding him in story-telling mode.  When Ron is “on,” no one can match him in his brevity and eloquence.  This is a lovely song full of wistfulness and heart.  People always request it from the audience at his live shows.

I also have a really soft spot for Cornershop’s “Good Shit,” if only for its unabashed positive vibe.  “Good shit’s all around, good people / Don’t let it get you down, good people / Good shit’s all around, it’s all around.”  Repeat.  Repeat.  And if four-letter words aren’t your thing, the song’s got a groovy cross-cultural shang-a-lang beat going on that I know you won’t be able to resist.

[audio:Cornershop___Good_Shit.mp3]
“Good Shit” (1997), by Cornershop

The Marvin Gaye ballad is sublime.  The Pete Belasco song, “Love Train,” sounds just like a Marvin track, complete with baby-making lyrics and cooing falsetto (it’s not a cover of the O’Jay’s song).  And the version of Todd Rundgren’s “The Verb ‘To Love'” that is here is not the version I first fell in like with.  That was on a live album, Back to the Bars, that I had on vinyl.  It was ten to twenty years later that I finally heard the studio version that was put onto this tape.  It’s pretty great, too.

I was embarassed to see that I, at one time, could have been considered a fan of Maroon 5.  Not now, baby, no way, no how, bleecch.  But their previous incarnation as Kara’s Flowers yielded an album with at least one redeeming quality, which was “Soap Disco.”  The song was punchy, bouncy, and wore its pop ‘n’ roll influences right out there for all to see.  I first heard it at a label convention in Atlanta, the same convention that introduced me to Cornershop and the band Hurricane #1.  Hurricane #1 sounded just like Oasis to me, and we tried to sell it at l’Edge, but it wasn’t an easy sell (maybe they sounded too much like Oasis).  Both the Hurricane #1 album and the Kara’s Flowers album went straight into the remainder bins at stores.  The later success of Maroon 5 encouraged the label to re-issue the Kara’s Flowers record on CD, and I think it tanked big time, for the second time.

[audio:Karas_Flowers___Soap_Disco.mp3]
“Soap Disco” (1997), by Kara’s Flowers

[audio:Hurricane_No._1___Step_Into_My_World.mp3]
“Step Into My World” (1997), by Hurricane #1

Out of curiosity, I tried to find Monaco’s “What Do You Want From Me?” as a download file.  I hadn’t heard it for nearly ten years, and don’t remember it at all.  It could not be found at iTunes or Amazon.  There are used copies available for a couple of bucks, but, eh.  New Order spinoff, right?

8½ Souvenirs were a specialty band, very much like Squirrel Nut Zippers and Pink Martini, who created music rooted in an older idiom, but with a “modern sensibility.”  Pink Martini’s touchstone is lounge music, the Squirrel Nut Zippers were into gypsy jazz, and 8½ Souvenirs leaned heavily on swing and tango.  “Tango Lunatico” was indeed an insane tango number, complete with a wailing, screaming wordless female vocal.  I’ll find that somewhere and post it, ’cause it must be heard to be believed.

[audio:8.5_Souvenirs___Tango_Lunatico.mp3]
“Tango Lunatico” (1997), by 8½ Souvenirs

For years, like legions of other professionals, Mr. Obama has been all but addicted to his BlackBerry. The device has rarely been far from his side — on most days, it was fastened to his belt — to provide a singular conduit to the outside world as the bubble around him grew tighter and tighter throughout his campaign.

“How about that?” Mr. Obama replied to a friend’s congratulatory e-mail message on the night of his victory.

But before he arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.

For all the perquisites and power afforded the president, the chief executive of the United States is essentially deprived by law and by culture of some of the very tools that other chief executives depend on to survive and to thrive. Mr. Obama, however, seems intent on pulling the office at least partly into the 21st century on that score; aides said he hopes to have a laptop computer on his desk in the Oval Office, making him the first American president to do so.

Mr. Obama has not sent a farewell dispatch from the personal e-mail account he uses — he has not changed his address in years — but friends say the frequency of correspondence has diminished. In recent days, though, he has been seen typing his thoughts on transition matters and other items on his BlackBerry, bypassing, at least temporarily, the bureaucracy that is quickly encircling him.

Full article here.

Dick Cavett shines a piercing light on Sarah Palin and her savage butchery of the English language:

What on earth are our underpaid teachers, laboring in the vineyards of education, supposed to tell students about the following sentence, committed by the serial syntax-killer from Wasilla High and gleaned by my colleague Maureen Dowd for preservation for those who ask, “How was it she talked?”

My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.

And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”

It’s admittedly a rare gift to produce a paragraph in which whole clumps of words could be removed without noticeably affecting the sense, if any.

For the full article from Friday’s online New York Times, jump here.

[audio:Tom_Waits___Eggs_and_Sausage_(excerpt).mp3]
from “Eggs and Sausage (in a Cadillac with Susan Michelson)” (1975), by Tom Waits

The Presidential recipe for chili in a bowl:

Yield: Serves 6

Ingredients:
1 large onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
Several cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound ground turkey or beef
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon ground oregano
¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
¼ teaspoon ground basil
1 tablespoon chili powder
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Several tomatoes, depending on size, chopped
1 can red kidney beans

Instructions:
Saute onions, green pepper and garlic in olive oil until soft
Add ground turkey or beef and brown
Combine spices together then add to ground meat
Add red wine vinegar
Add tomatoes and let simmer, until tomatoes cook down
Add kidney beans and cook for a few more minutes
Serve over white or brown rice
Garnish with grated cheddar cheese, onions and sour cream

Source: ABCNews

Make your own Obama poster at http://www.pentdego.com/obama.aspx.

The clever folks at 23/6, who created the condensed version of the Presidential debates, have done the same to Keith Olbermann’s “special comments.” Olbermann fires off the occasional show-closing tirade whenever something is seriously stuck in his craw, and it makes for great theatre every time (a good example here). This condensed version dispenses with the message and serves up 60 seconds of vitriol. You’ll love it.

It is an impossible word in Scrabble.

Also…I walked into the house this evening and turned on the TV news to see what had happened today (Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State??!!?). On MSNBC, Chris Matthews was leading a discussion about current politics with The New Yorker‘s Ryan Lizza and The Washington Post‘s Chris Cillizza.

I know that it is completely silly, but ever since I got wrapped up – again – in the political frenzy of another campaign season, I have been waiting for these two to appear at the same time on one of these shows.

Ryan Lizza, meet Chris Cillizza.  It’s all about the Izza.

• Today is an overcast day with little seeming threat of rain.  Just cloudy and gray, a light wind shuffling the falling leaves around the yard and the streets.  It finally feels like Autumn.
• Jim, over on Facebook, posted a link a few days ago to a puppy cam.  The camera seems to be set over the bed of six adorable Shiba Inu puppies, who rarely stray from their enclosure (though it doesn’t appear that they can’t just walk out at will).  I found myself watching it for about five minutes then, after slapping myself out of a Hallmark trance, decided to embed the puppy cam feed on this site.  There it is, in the upper right corner of this page.  I think this particular puppy cam will last another two or three weeks, after which the puppies will locate to their new homes.
• I get really fed up with the RSS feed to Paste Music’s website.  It is constantly giving out error messages, so that, as often as not, what you see on Spitball Army is an html script meaning nothing.  That is purpose-defeating.  I have replaced it with an RSS feed to No Depression‘s news listings, which are probably more interesting, anyway.
• Speaking of No Depression, I was really sad when they “folded” late last year.  Not only was their bi-monthly publication consistently interesting and well-written and filled with good humor and enthusiasm, but the small staff was a joy to deal with, from a retailer’s viewpoint.  They have revived their website (http://www.nodepression.com/) and have just resumed publication.  I can guess that the cost of running a website is infinitely less expensive than printing and distributing a paper magazine (besides the fact that is infinitely more “green”).  And readers don’t have to wait two months between fixes.  For example, this morning’s update featured a review of a John Doe/Kathleen Edwards concert that had me feeling green (“green with envy,” that is).  The new publication format – the paper version – is being called a “bookazine,” a 144-page thicker version of the magazine.  It can be ordered at http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/ald76p.html, or purchased from an independent bookseller near you (I ordered my copy from Little Professor – (205) 870-7461 – in Homewood just this morning, and their stated turn-around time is only a couple of days).
• After visiting Little Professor and the Homewood post office, I stopped by Tria Market to grab a quick lunch.  If you live in this area, you probably already have heard of the disappearance of Nadia Kersh, who has been a cashier and deli server there practically since the store’s opening two or three years ago.  I talked to a couple of the long-time employees who were working today and asked how it’s been since she vanished.  One of them told me that it is a constant topic of conversation; at least every other customer seems to want to ask about or talk about her.  I was no exception, as you just found out.  I used to go into Tria nearly daily, as my shop was separated from the market only by a parking lot.  Nadia was a fixture there, and always greeted me by name, and would pull the newest photograph of her baby out of her pocket to show him off to me.  I’m really hoping that she returns safely, but it has been over a week now since she was last seen and the hope supply is beginning to run low.
• Tonight is the season premiere of Top Chef, one of my favorite shows.  This time around, the competition is based in New York City and, rumor has it, the challenge tonight is themed around the ethnicity of The City’s many boroughs.  Top Chef is not the usual mindless reality-competition show, and there is ample opportunity for the contestants to show off some culinary brilliance.  I recommend it.
• More food news: local star chef Frank Stitt has just published his second book, Bottega Favorita, named after his restaurant of the same name.  Bottega is my favorite of his Birmingham restaurants, so it may be fun to attempt to duplicate some of the meals I’ve had there from this new book.  I’ll let you know how it works.  There is a big-ass pile of these books at Little Professor, as well, but I resisted today.
• At the risk of getting beat upside the head by someone, I would like to very loudly protest the premature idea of an “Obama Holiday,” which the mid-day announcers on MSNBC are describing as a proposed holiday to celebrate the election of America’s first African-American president.  C’mon…we’re talking about this before he even takes the oath of office?  Let’s allow him to fix the ailing economy, get our troops back home and shut down these endless wars, put a wind turbine in every backyard…you know, DO SOMETHING!!  Then, once he’s proven to be the great president that we are hoping he’ll be, let’s talk about an Obama Holiday.  But at this point in the timeline, we ought to just as well propose a George W. Bush Holiday, since he’s the main reason we were fortunate enough to get Barack Obama elected.  Or a Clinton Holiday (first president from Arkansas), or a JFK Holiday (first Irish-Catholic president),…you get the picture.  Those guys were Arkansan and Irish-Catholic before they were President, and imagine how immensely proud their fellow Arkansans and Irish-Catholics must have felt, and still do feel.  Maybe we should just finally make the annual Fall election day a national holiday (we could call it Obama Day, since it was, in essence, his coming-out day), and treat that day with the focused respect it deserves.

So, yeah, there was a lot of junk down there in the basement.  But, also, there were some treasures (like that ViewMaster reel).

[Please notice that I used the words “also” and “there” in immediate proximity, just like Governor Palin!]

One bittersweet discovery was a cardboard box of cassette tapes that must have been in the trunk of my car at one time.  There was a Sting mix tape without even one Police song (huh!?!) and a Fats Waller mix tape (hooray for Fats!!), and four really mixed-up mix tapes titled “Fred FM,” volumes 1, 2, 4 and 6.  This was a sad discovery because the tapes themselves were humidified beyond the point of use; the inserts were quite well preserved, however.

So, in true self-absorbed fashion, I decided to turn the spotlight on my own musical tastes.  Not like that’s never happened before here.  Below, you will see the insert for the cassette tape titled “Fred FM 1.” I made it using Microsoft Publisher and some fancy color ink cartridges, on an inkjet printer that is now possibly rotting in a landfill in southeast Asia (according to the latest report from “60 Minutes“).

Now that a copy of that piece of paper has been made, I can throw the musty-smelling version away.

The first thing about the contents of Fred FM 1 that struck me was that I don’t even own half of the songs on this tape today.  Twelve and one-half years later.  That really surprised me, as I constantly feel that I – and my house – are completely overrun by CDs.  Also, this tape was made the day after my birthday, according to the date stamp.

I do not recognize some of these artists by name: Barbara Dinnerlein, Houra Aichi.  I was going to add the Brno Chamber Orchestra to that short list, but I seem to remember attending a concert by them at Samford University in the early 1990s.  I bought a compact disc at their performance, and the Biber-composed track is from that CD.  I think.

During this period of the ’90s, there were a handful of female singers that I was really into.  Rory Block was in this bunch, along with Lynn Miles, Shawn Colvin and Catie Curtis.  Curtis’ warm, folksy style always struck me as honest and kind and, after I met her one year at the City Stages Festival, I became a follower for life.  A gentler, friendlier person I have yet to meet (and that includes all of you gentle, friendly people out there that I already know!).

[audio:Catie_Curtis___Everybody_Was_Dancing.mp3]
“Everybody Was Dancing” (1996), by Catie Curtis

Ben Vaughn – he’s a crack-up.  I seem to remember that “Big House with a Yard” is about a prison but, not having a copy of that song anymore, can’t immediately verify it for you.  It’s funny to think that it is a peppy rock and roll song about living in prison.  Certainly beats a hard-core rap song on the subject.  Besides, Ben would have played it with lots of reverb and a rockabilly or skiffle beat.

Terry Evans was/is half of the singing duo of Bobby King & Terry Evans.  King & Evans provided the backing vocals for many a classic-period Ry Cooder album, and they are especially prominent on Ry’s live Show Time album.  But their albums as a duo alone never stirred the public much.  They are great fun, even without Ry on the masthead.  The Terry Evans song on this mix tape was from a project he did without Bobby King, and it suffers without that classic collaboration.  That said, I remember that there were still some good single tracks on that solo album, “In This Day and Time” being one off them.

The more I think about the contents of this mix tape, this lifetime of a pre-teenager later, the more I realize that there is some music represented on Fred FM 1 that I currently listen to with regularity and enjoy greatly. Not much, though. For example, that Show Boat cast recording with John Raitt and Barbara Cook is among the best Broadway albums I’ve heard, then and now. I don’t listen to very many, but when I reach for one, it’s generally Show Boat. The Blood Oranges’ tragically short life as a band (only two albums and one EP) is still criminally overlooked by practically everybody – if you are a fan of what has been called “No Depression” or “Alt-Country,” you owe it to yourself to track down the few recordings made by this trio. And I still look forward to new releases by classical violinist Gil Shaham. It is oddly coincidental that the track by Gil on this just-found mix tape is a piece composed by Sir Edward Elgar; Gil’s new CD, released this month, is of Elgar’s concerto for violin. Cue the eerie-coincidence music.

[audio:John_Raitt_and_Barbara_Cook___Make_Believe.mp3]
“Make Believe” from Show Boat (1962), by John Raitt & Barbara Cook

[audio:Blood_Oranges___Fire_Escape.mp3]
“Fire Escape” (1992), by Blood Oranges

[audio:Gil_Shaham___Elgar’s_La_Capricieuse.mp3]
Elgar: “La Capricieuse,” by Gil Shaham (1986)

And, of course, there is Jackson Browne, who seems to be everywhere in my life.

During an overhaul of the basement this past weekend, I found a lot of junk. Most of it had been there for so long that it was irreparably damaged by moisture – moisture in the air, primarily, though there was some ground water damage on a few things. The majority of this stuff made its way into garbage bags and hit the road this morning when the trashmen made their rounds.

While I was trudging back and forth between the basement and the street, carrying bags filled with debris, my eye caught a glimmer, something catching the sunlight from beneath one of the flower boxes on the front of the house. I stopped and looked, not wanting to have a nail exposed, thinking that’s what it must have been. On closer inspection, I saw a battery fastened to the wooden bottom of the planter.

It wasn’t nailed or glued in place. All I had to do was slip the tip of a fingernail between one edge of it and the wood and it popped right off. There is no telling how long it had been there, nor how it got there. My best guess is that the last time I had taken the boxes down for either cleaning or planting or painting, it must have been on the ground and got picked up by the alchemic magic of heat and paint. The battery didn’t look that old, but I honestly can’t remember the last time I’d taken those down. The planters were re-painted when the house was painted, maybe five or six years ago.

Late Sunday morning, I was dismantling a shelf in the stairwell leading into the basement. It had been fastened in an opening over the second step heading down, and I was bumping my forehead on the edge of it with painful regularity. There wasn’t much to it, just a couple pieces of wood nailed to the wall. But, many years ago, it must have been a secret hiding place for one of the boys who grew up in this house.  There were two sons, close to me in age, in the family that occupied this home before I purchased it in 1995.

I found three wrappers for the delicious and wonderful peanut butter and coconut confection known as Chick-O-Sticks. Yum!

I also found something that sent my mind jetting back to my childhood days. One lonely ViewMaster stereo viewing reel was buried beneath a handful of rusty tacks and a piece of cardboard.

Here are shots of three of the transparencies on this reel:

I used to collect these, and had a big stack of ViewMaster reels in one of the drawers of my bedroom dresser.  The Disneyland ones were especially cool, and I think I had most of them.