Cioppino or Champuru?

20 November 2011

I did an interview with Engrid Whisenant today. She is a PhD candidate in Music Geography at the University of Nevada, Reno. Thirty years ago Peter Hugh Nash of the University of Waterloo wrote “Music Regions and Regional Music,” the first scholarly article on music authored by a professional geographer, and the field has grown since then. Engrid is researching Virginia City, and specifically the Red Dog Saloon, as a nexus for music and other bohemian activity.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Stefanie Keys who will be our fabulous chanteuse this weekend at Moe’s in Santa Cruz and Georges in San Rafael, California.

This is Ochi Shiho-san. She is quite talented and very well known in Japan where she lives. Shiho-san came to record with us in Sausalito, and then, a little later, she sang a couple of songs with us at a very important event in Woodstock, New York. Our usual singer Sophia Ramos had the courage and the bigness of heart to give Shiho-san a lot of space on the Woodstock stage. This is when Sophia proved herself to me as a lionness of kindness and generosity of spirit. You will see a lot of photographs of Shiho-san below.

The first second I saw Shiho-san.

Lynn Asher says she will sing a song with us at Geroge’s, 26 November.

Can’t wait. What song should it be, Lynn? Bye, Bye, Baby?

Any fool can make some rules,

But someone wise will know they’re lies.

We have three hundred different hamburgers here at every fast food joint in the country, and yet we are supposed to get along with only two political parties? Long ago we gave up recording on two track machines.

“Washington Irving.”

Answer to the question “Who was the first president, Max?”

With Superfly (Shiho-san) and Tom Finch.

Ed Earley. He’s played with everyone. James Brown, Albert King, even me. Unfailing good cheer and positive thoughts, he always wants to help and he keeps the ball rolling in the good direction. Ed Earley is a National Treasure. Beyond measure.

Telly Savalas was Jennifer Anniston’s godfather.

In a hotel lobby in São Paulo with Natalie.

You want to try to win a war?

Win an earthquake?

Why? What for?

Other than the Book of Leviticus, you won’t find many jokes in the Bible.

Steve Martin was born on the day that Japan surrendered, WWII.

Examples of cliché over use and brain under use:

People who

call themselves “yours truly.”

speak of themselves in the third person.

say “we” when they mean “I.”

say that something they did is “life affirming.”

say “ongoing,” “early on,” “on the ground” and “as we speak.”

Chloe Lowery and Eliise Piliwale, Hawaii.

Is Sade a sadist?

Beats me.

With Nikita Germaine.

No, i haven’t read the New Testament, but I read the Old Testament, and I liked it very, very much, he said sheepishly.

“Henry Kissinger may have wished I had presented him as a combination of Charles DeGaulle and Disraeli, but I didn’t… out of respect for DeGaulle and Disraeli. I described him as a cowboy because that is how he described himself. If I were a cowboy I would be offended.” (Oriana Fallaci)

I wonder who’s Kissinger now?

The first kiss was delivered by god when she breathed life into Adam.

The Romans had three different types of kiss: basium (the kiss on the lips); osculum (a friendly kiss on the cheek) and suavium, the soul kiss.

Those who couldn’t write made their mark with an X. The demonstrative ones would then kiss the X to show love, sincerity, deep feeling. The Romans sealed their contracts with a kiss. XXX.

Polar bears kiss. So do kangaroos. Chimpanzees French-kiss. Sea lions rub mouths. A male mouse licks the mouth of a female mouse. An elephant sometimes brushes his trunk against the female’s lips.

Lord Nelson said “Kiss me, Hardy,” as he was dying in the Battle of Trafalgar. Manly historians, ignorant of historical context, have claimed that what the Admiral really said was “Kismet, Hardy.” Hardy, little dreaming that he would be the ancestor of Stan Laurel’s partner, Oliver Hardy, heard Nelson’s request and kissed him. “Now I am satisfied,” quoth the Admiral and promptly expired.

The film with the most kisses is the 1926 Don Juan in which John Barrymore performed 191 kisses with different women.

The first genuine French kiss in a Hollywood film was between Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty in the 1961 Splendor In The Grass.

Eskimos rub noses. Polynesians like rubbing noses, but also enjoy the mitakuku, which involves biting hairs from eyebrows. Chinese touch each other’s cheeks and then sniff. Pacific Islanders inhale each other’s breath. In Gambia a man holds the back of a lover’s hand against his nose.

Kissing a frog doesn’t necessarily get you a prince, but it might get rid of your cold sore, thanks to a chemical secreted from frog skins.

The first kiss in an Indian film didn’t take place until 1978’s Love Sublime, when Shashi Kapoor and Zeenat Aman embraced. An Indian minister described the kissing scenes as “an insult” and called for a mass protest.

Every musician, however modest, keeps a montrous ego chained like a wild beast in the isolation chamber of his soul.

Ben Stiller was taught how to swim by the Pips. Not Gladys Knight, but the Pips.

When you reach a certain age, you get better and better at recognizing a mistake you make again and again.

Sakai, such a wonderful singer.

Turn off the TV, don’t read the news. Why listen to yesterday’s blues?

This is Mari Mack. She sang with us once in Woodacre, California. She and I have been trying to plan a duo gig for sometime now, and I hope it happens soon. i am trying to get her to come down and sing a song with us at Georges in San Rafael this Saturday.

Singers aren’t exactly people. They’re a whole lot of people trying to be one person.

Opera in English is like the NFL in italian.

No sane man will dance. Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

If you don’t take good care of your body, where are you going to live?

Wilhelmina Mann Andrew, 1939.

Note to Pizza Man: Thou shalt not admit adultery.

I never really trust a man until I know I have his pecker in my pocket.

(Lyndon Baines Johnson)

James Gandolfini and Samuel L. Jacson play the trumpet.

What to do in case of emergency:

1. Grab your coat,

2. Get your hat,

3. Leave your worries on the doorstep.

4. Just direct your feet,

5. To the sunny side of the street.

Elise Piliwale, San Geronimo, California.

Everything weighs one percent less at the equator.

Alfred Hitchcock refused to learn to drive for fear of being stopped by a policeman.

William Shatner has a Doberman pinscher named Kirk.

The most impossible item to flush is a Ping-Pong ball.

Bumpersticker:

How many roads must a man travel down before he admits he is lost?

Help! I’m a prisoner of nature and nurture.

Elise’s spiritual photograph of a lonely chair.

Because of the rotation of the earth, an object can be thrown farther if it is thrown west.

Tasmania has the cleanest air in the inhabited world.

Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a Friday the 13th.

The saltwater crocodile kills 2,000 people a year because it is fast in and out of the water. It can outrun a galloping horse and kills in seconds.

Predigital observation:

Fear is that little darkroom of the soul where negatives are developed.

Diane Lotny, Kate Pierson and Elise Piliwale.

Kirsten Dunst turned down Mena Suvari’s role in American Beauty.

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”

Harry Warner of Warner Brothers, 1927.

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”

Western Union internal memo, 1876.

Elise Piliwale and Stephanie Valenti.

Tabo Koichi-san and Ochi Shiho-san.

Prince William is a bungee jumper.

With Narada Michael Walden and Mario Cipollina.

Judy Garland tried hypnosis for her stage fright but found that Irish whiskey worked better.

Elise Piliwale and Donnie Baldwin.

Banjo players a little better known for some other activity:

Steve Martin, George Segal, EwanMcGregor.

Susan Zelinsky was going to sing Down On Me and Hold Me with us this Saturday at George’s in San Rafael. She called today with an obvious case of laryngitis, so we are going to miss her this time.

“There is no sweeter sound than the crumbling of one’s fellow man.”

Groucho Marx (1890-1977)

And doesn’t “Groucho” seem rather too innocent a name for such a man?

Formula for success: Rise early, Work hard, Win the lottery.

The trouble with first thing in the morning is that it comes too early in the day.

With Buddha, bassist beyond bad.

If you have a job without difficulties, frustrations, annoyances, and a boss who is stupider than you, then you don’t have a job.

On Hallowe’en, some people broke into my house and replaced everything with identical copies. When I pointed this out to my wife, she said, “Do I know you?”