Beat Box Greatness!

I heard this song the other day at a coffee shop in SE. It first pricked my ears up cuz it is a Portishead song, and I really like Portishead. I asked the incredibly twee hipster behind the counter who it was and he told me then he pointed out that all of the sounds were created with a microphone, some lungs, a lot of air, and one intrigingly dexterious tongue.
I picked up the CD that afternoon and the other songs were throw away crisco tracks, only worth listening to for the fact that the man has taken beatboxing to a new level.
Ever since I first heard 'The Show' by Doug E. Fresh back in '85 or 86' I have been in awe of the art.
Hope you dig it.

Is there a musician in the house?

So, I write a lot of things that I want to be lyrics, but the writer in me overrides the musician and it (the Writer) gets carried away and pukes up something that, as far as I have been able to tell, absolutely can not be put to music. And I don't want to pull a King Missle thing. I want the lyrics to go with music. Something you could sing along with while having fun or hating yourself or driving or getting booked into an Alabama prison on consensual sodomy charges (a friend of a friend... yeah). So, here's a challenge to the two of you, if you play music. Help me out here. Put this to a song, I'll buy you a beer and we'll play it for old people in a rest home. Good luck, if you care. If not, well, yeah.
If you didn't notice, I am talking to myself here. Please disregard this post. All of it:
"YOU GOT THE PRETTIEST FUCKING EYES I’VE EVER SEEN,
AN…
huh? Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize I was screaming. It’s just that I got a little carried away and…
wha? Yeah, I know you don’t like the language. I’m sorry, it just came out. When I think of you…
whu? Yeah, I know. Yes, yelling and swearing aren’t good manners, I am aware of this, it’s just that…
yeah, I know but if you’d just give me a sec…
whu? Oh come on! Jesus, every time I try to compliment you you do this. Yes, every damned time. You don’t even acknowledge the fact that I’m trying to be nice, you just correct the presentation or change the subject. Yes, you most certainly do. I… no, it’s..
just wai…
you know what? I just wanted to tell you that you had pretty eyes, it’s as simple as that. And you couldn’t accept it. So now…no you listen to me…
you still have pretty eyes but enough is enough.
Go get fucked.
I’m outta here."
I'm thinking a simple G-C-D progression, a little twang, but like PW Long twang--greasy and untrustworthy. You know what I mean.
OK, I am done talking to myself. Move on to the Falwell post.

Jerry Falwell is Dead!

I am not typically one to celebrate someone’s death, and I am not celebrating this one. I offer my condolences to his family and friends, but at the same time I breath a big sigh of relief. This guy had way too much access to the White House for my comfort. Sadly, someone else just as militant and bigoted, preaching hate under the flag of a misrepresented God, will spring up and take his place.
Such is life.
That said, Jerry Falwell is dead. Fuck that guy.

Quotables:

“AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals”

“If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being”

“I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!”

“I do not believe the homosexual community deserves minority status. One's misbehavior does not qualify him or her for minority status. Blacks, Hispanics, women, etc., are God-ordained minorities who do indeed deserve minority status.”
[I wasn’t aware that God himself… sorry, Himself... personally ordained minorities.]


And just to be fair, he said some good things:

“God created the family to provide the maximum love and support and morality and example that one can imagine.”

For all of the shit that spewed forth from his hate-filled mouth, he was bound to say a nice thing or two, but on a whole, he was a wicked, self-righteous bigot of a man who preached love but really was just a big fat dick. He called a Teletubby gay, for fuck's sake. Sure, call them evil, or responsible for the dumbing down of children, blame them for the death of the English language... but to call one gay?! What, are we on a playground here, calling names and shoving? It's about as ridiculous as Eminem taking a swing at a hand puppet (another low in the history of mankind).

Old Biddies and a Cute Butt

So, years ago, back in the Paleolithic era, I was young, small, tiny, a much more limited, though clean, vocabulary. Things were simple and magical and mysterious and all kinds of other things that slowly slip away as you get older and discover the answers to things, stop caring or forget all together the questions to other things.
Anyhoo, at certain times, when in the proper locale, and in the proper mood, with the proper amount of curiosity, I would go to my Granny’s house and spin through her giant record collection. She had this big, spinning square contraption that doubled as a coffee table. My memory tells me it held thousands of albums, but I was small, and it was larger, so my memory may be a little distorted. I loved to spin it and listen to the ball bearings…thrum? grate? roar?… we’ll just say “labor” and call it good-- I loved to spin it and listen to the ball bearings "labor" under the weight of wood and vinyl.
I would pick through randomly and study the 12” images of people and groups that I had never heard of and would never listen to. It was good times.
The only albums that stand out in my doomed and utterly useless memory are an orange-toned Halloween sounds record that I probably listened to a few times, and the reason for this post, Granny’s Tom Jones records. If I can recall correctly, she had a few. I just remember a afro-headed white man with a lot of chest hair, a lot of gold chains, and typically covered in a lot of sweat. Sometimes he had his shirt, collar up, unbuttoned down to his balls.
Had I known what sexy was at the time… I still wouldn’t have thought him sexy.
The Carly Simon albums, however. Well, that is a different story.
So, years and years (some would call them decades)later I decided to get my own Tom Jones album. I was going through a “Vocalists” phase, to use record shop categorizing parlance, and I picked up a Tom Jones greatest hits along with a Dean Martin greatest hits cd.
I loved them of course, as they filled a musical void that sorely needed a stuffing. I was blown away by the sheer excellence of “Chills and Fever” and I was also to discover that “What’s New, Pussycat?” leapt to the top of my “Worst Songs of All Time” list.
I had to let my Granny know that I had, partly due to her distant influence, purchased my first ever Tom Jones album. What follows is the story she sent back to me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

“I'm sure that in one of my numerous boxes of memorabilia I have a number of photos taken when attending his concerts 5 nights in a row (did that 2 or 3 times), and a couple of concerts in Tahoe. The latter was the height of middle-aged women hysteria - 5 or 6 of us old biddies rented a cabin for a week solely to see TJ. He was truly an entertainer who got his energy from audience response. The first night we went the crowd was subdued, and he was kind of 'flat.' The next night we thought we might get his juices flowing with the old ploy of throwing panties, room keys, etc. on the stage. We all searched our keyrings for keys we didn't need - my friend, Sydney, sacrificed a black lace bra (size at least 48 quadruple E cup) and we sewed the keys to it. We had a front row table for the dinner show - threw our offering onto the stage during his first song, (it made quite a clatter), and he was on fire!!! What fun! He did (and still does) have an incredible voice along with the cutest butt in maledom. Several of us went to a concert he did at Wente Winery in Livermore 5 or 6 years ago. Mistake..........some things are better left to memory.”

My Granny is awesome.