Spitball Army

Hokey smokes!  Have you seen this yet?  It’s the teaser trailer for the new Oliver Stone film, entitled W..  According to what we see in the trailer, it’s about the transformation of the current president from sloppy-drunk party boy to humbled (or triumphant?) victor over the parental authority figure (that other president).  The swoony music used toward the end of the teaser (“What a Wonderful World”) had me expecting animated fawns, raccoons and bunny rabbits to converge from the sides of the screen and eat out of W.’s hand.  This movie is surely going to piss a lot of people off, or maybe it will wither and go away, like The Reagans did.

The casting looks great, particularly Toby Jones as Karl Rove, and Jeffrey Wright as General Colin Powell.

Digging around through some old photographs, trying to spark memories buried in the recesses of my brain, I discovered this shot from around New Year’s Eve/Day in January of 1981.  That’s me, FO, on the right, and that’s Mo on the left.  We’re in some classy joint in San Diego, with luxurious pinewood paneling and bedsheets for curtains.  The overeager flash apparatus on the camera has almost completely wiped our faces off!  Flash burn, or something like it.  Only the inanimate objects in the room – notice the lamp in the background – survived with faces intact.

The photo above has been sitting on my desk for a couple of weeks.  I didn’t know what to do with it.  Then, in a moment of mindless whimsy, I decided to scribble us new faces using Microsoft Paint.  Paint is an awkward program; simulating drawing with a mouse is much harder to do than the real thing, unless you don’t mind your work looking like it has been done by a kindergarten student (or younger).  Witness my effort below, with apologies to Mo (who, frankly, turned out a whole lot better-looking there than I did):

If you want to try giving us faces with whatever programs you have, be my guest.  If you do, please e-mail your efforts to me, and I’ll post ’em!  Improvements especially welcomed.

Today’s New York Times contains an article written by David Browne, titled “For Shoutouts to Mom and God? See Online.”  [Note the citation of both the author and the source.]  In the article, Browne discusses the disturbing trend toward not printing liner notes in CD booklets and sending purchasers of the hard CD online to find personnel information for the recording.  He quotes from an interview with musician Teddy Thompson, whose recent album A Piece of What You Need, reflects this new industry pattern.

Mr. Browne writes:

Music geeks flipping through the CD booklet for Teddy Thompson’s “A Piece of What You Need,” released last month by Verve Forecast, may be in for a shock. Instead of the names of the musicians and technicians who worked on the album, or any thank-you’s to friends, they’ll find a photo of a beach, followed by a blank panel. A sentence in small type directs listeners to Mr. Thompson’s Web site for “full album credits and more details.”

In the mid-year survey of my favorite music of 2008, posted on July 1st, I singled out Thompson’s album, praising its musical content, while decrying the absence of any liner notes beyond the instructions to head to the internet:

I almost hesitate to mention one problem that I have with this release, as it has nothing to do with the audio content, but what the heck.  Joining a growing trend in the CD market, A Piece of What You Need comes housed in a standard jewel case containing the disc, a tray card with the track listing, and a single-fold booklet containing only a two-panel photograph on the inside…there are no liner notes!  For lyrics and musician and production credit information, Verve directs purchasers of the CD to Teddy Thompson’s website, an insulting move that I equate with Random House, or any book publisher, sending book readers to the internet for footnotes or the index.  Stop it!!

I am fully aware that this vanishing act is not an issue on par with the state of the economy, global warming, or the ongoing genocide in Darfur.  It is, however, an annoyance, like a gnat buzzing in one’s ear, and a dreadful harbinger of things to come (dreadful to us music geeks, as Mr. Browne calls us, and as I have previously labelled myself on these very pages).

Liner notes have been a fascinating part of the music album listening experience, as Browne correctly points out.  It’s hard to forget the rambling stream-of-consciousness essays that Bob Dylan included in his early records.  I have returned to them on more than one occasion just to attempt deciphering his prose.  Have you ever read the notes written by jazz artist Brad Mehldau for his releases?  Mehldau uses the musical content of the album as a starting point for essays covering matters philosophical, personal and sociological, in language that indicates that his brain is roiling with intense, analytic thought – this serves to underscore the pensive and intelligent playing found on the recording.  Check out this ample mouthful from his notes to the album Places (ironically, Brad Mehldau’s writings, including his album liner notes, can now be found online):

That same person who tells me to be in the moment says I’m ‘romanticizing’ when I remember a place from the past with longing. He’s right. ‘Romantic’ for me is always after, filled with lateness, whether it’s  Wordsworth or Kurt Cobain. At one point there was a unity to everything, a unity that was shattered. Arriving too late, the romantic finds everything in pieces. Where there was oneness, now it’s all dualities. Nothing is ever clear-cut; there’s always paradox, irony. All you can do is make music from the remains, and sing about the brokenness. Is that all a necessary fiction dreamed up by the human imagination to tell sad stories? If so, it’s a convincing one, because it tells about time. Our being is marked by what Heidegger called Geworfenheit — ‘thrown-ness’. We’ve been thrown into a world of time with no choice. It’s a world full of mortality — everything is dying, everywhere. The problem isn’t so much that reality in itself. The problem is that we care. 

Anyone wanting validation of their opinion that American Idol contestants are merely mouthpieces for corporate swill need look no further than the writing credits for songs on their post-show albums (One song on Season 5 winner Taylor Hicks’ major label debut lists a committee of eight writers, credits that traditionally have been relegated to the “Thank You’s.”  We also find a nod to Mr. Hicks’ “Groomer,” terminology commonly used to describe services provided to a horse in a stable.).  I can imagine the look of confusion on my mother’s face if I had proudly handed her a copy of Hem’s Rabbit Songs, crowed that I had been thanked in the album’s acknowledgements, and then told her that if she wanted to see them she’d have to go to the public library to access the internets.  That would have been cruel, though, thankfully, the members of Hem know how to present liner notes appropriately and with style.

But even a thoughtful smattering of words on a record album can omit crucial information.  On the back cover notes of Ken Griffin’s The Organ Plays at Christmas (Columbia Records LP CL 692) – one of the greatest records of the LP era – we find a short history of the Christmas Carol, and the following suggestion:

For the best reproduction of your records, play them on a COLUMBIA phonograph.  COLUMBIA, THE GREATEST NAME IN SOUND, is the originator of the modern “Lp” record and the “360” phonograph.  Your dealer can demonstrate a varied line of COLUMBIA phonographs, styled to enhance the decorative scheme of your home.  See him today for the pleasure of your life!

Nowhere in the notes, however, is the particular model of Mr. Griffin’s organ – the origin of the only sounds we hear when playing this COLUMBIA record – mentioned.

This was clever: the owner of a car in front of me on the road yesterday made their own Barack Obama bumper sticker.  All it took was layering one of those “blue dot in a red state” stickers over the beginning “Ala” of a generic Alabama sticker.  Voila! O-bama!!  (Can you see it?  If not, we’ll blame it on the cell phone camera.)

My admiration for that driver’s cleverness dissipated, however, as the traffic light turned green and he gunned it, weaving in and out of traffic – not signalling, of course – as he took the lives of the rest of us into his hands. The last I saw of him, he was squealing down Lakeshore Blvd. toward a McDonald’s.

The collision of President Kennedy, James Mason, Sean Connery…
and, as of his Berlin Tiergarten address, Barack Obama.

By way of the twisted mind of Eddie Izzard.

26 minutes of Barack Obama’s speech from yesterday can be found here.  He has delivered better than this, for sure.  Still, it’s not every day that you get to hear someone let out what sounds like a Kenyan shepherding cry at a political event [at approximately 01:00].

(Margy is responsible for showing me this video.)

Temporary impact?  Possibly.  But you can bet that the non-freezers in the station that day thought about the experience for days or, at least, hours afterward.

In the same spirit, tomorrow is the date of this month’s Critical Mass Birmingham.  Meet us with your bicycle at 6:00 p.m. at the Linn Park fountain.  It’s going to be hot, so don’t forget your water bottle!

The true start of the remodelling of my home’s “1” bathroom (as opposed to the “½” bathroom, which also needs a floor-to-ceiling refurbishment) began this month.  Earlier this year, I spent an inordinately large amount of time sleuthing my way through wallpaper removal in this room.  Now, the real work began, in earnest, with a big fit and a raggedy start.

The room, aside from the primed upper wall and few other patches of white provided by fixtures, was an explosion of yellow, what one might imagine as the remnants of a cataclysmic event involving Big Bird.  Correcting that eyesore was not the main objective for this day, however.  Measurements had been made for a new tub and shower with surround.  This was going to be involved, as it turned out.  On inspection, it was found that the wood underneath the tub area had been victimized by water leaks over the last 80 years, to the dangerous point of nearly giving way under the weight of the massive cast iron tub.  Before any new fixtures could be installed, the floor needed replacement, and the underlying foundation and joists needed partial rebuilding.

The foundation and floor replacement and tub removal took place on a Sunday.  All day.  7:00 a.m. through to nearly 9:00 p.m.

That blue wall. Ugh. There had previously been a plastic surround crazy-glued over the blueness. The surround was in six parts and at least 40 years old. Even if they weren’t manufacturing plastic tub surrounds 40 years ago, this one was definitely showing that degree of aging. It could only be removed in shards, which created a hazard – the slicing of gashes in hands and arms – that I hadn’t anticipated. When the jagged, moldy, fractured surround was completely removed, the wall was the wholly unappetizing color of alien baby vomit flavored with chocolate squiggles.

It also turned out that the walls surrounding the tub were finished after the tub had been placed in the bathing alcove.  And, the tub was wedged about three inches below the level of the bathroom floor, on a slanted concrete pad.  Removing the tub was an ugly job which involved cutting away part of the plaster wall (fine plaster dust on everything!).  Once the tub and the lower portion of the plaster wall behind it were removed, it was apparent that several of the wall studs had been rotted away with decades of water seepage.

The galvanized pipes behind the tub were old, though not nearly as old as the tub itself.  There were no pipe-bursting mishaps, thankfully.

Once we constructed an inversely slanted wooden platform to insert atop the slanted concrete pad, and once it was fastened into place, it was time to repair the wall lumber and create a flush wall surface with sheet rock.

All in all, a labor-intensive full day of dirty work.  Next up, bring on the new tub and shower!

Thirty minutes before this picture was taken, it was all “rabbit food,” as my oldest sister used to call it.  Happily, Tria has added hard-boiled egg whites to their salad bar, and there seemed to be a few different varieties of vinaigrette. Bravo, Tria Market!

• Do black scuba divers wear white wet suits?
• Do pigeons aim?
• Do cannibals on a diet eat short people?
• Do golfers play doctor on their days off?
• Who does Mickey Mouse have on the face of his watch?
• Roses are reddish, violets are bluish, if it weren’t for Jesus, we’d all be Jewish.*

*Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

• If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done at the library?
• Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.
• Maybe if we listened to it, history would stop repeating itself.
• If the nickname for Lawrence is Larry, why isn’t the nickname for Florence Flarry?
• Life is like a recessed filter – always just a quarter-inch away.
• If you’ve read a lot of books, you’re considered well-read.  But if you watch a lot of TV, you’re not considered well-viewed.
• Why is it when we talk to God, we’re said to be praying, but when God talks to us, we’re schizophrenic?