Lucubrations

13 March 2011

What would men be without women? Rare, very rare and not well done.

“No one sang nor will sing as she. Listen to Summertime or Kozmic Blues and you will understand that this is an unrepeatable phenomenon.”

The main thing that we learn from history is that no one has learned much from history.

I sailed to Okinawa on this ship. 1946. We were the first American children on the Island. Ever.

Country song title: She Was Only A Whisky Maker, But He Loved Her Still.

Things that Emily Litella worried about:

1. Conservation of national race horses

2. Sax and violins on television

3. Soviet jewelry

4. Endangered feces

Makena Beach, Maui. James Gurley and I lived on this beach off and on for two years or so.

It’s easier to get older than wiser.

Rodney Albin, Peter’s brother drew this poster for our first gigs. 1965.

Epitaph:

Obesa Cantavit.

The fat lady has sung.

I made this in Sunnyvale, California, 1980s.

LIFE Magazine 1939. There was a real danger at this time that things could seriously go wrong in this country. There was the usual lunatic fringe on the right who didn’t bother actually to look anything up, but, as the birthers do today, would just uncritically accept anything they were told. Leaving aside, for a moment, the question of why it would be bad for Roosevelt to be Jewish, all anyone had to do was consult the President’s genealogy to see how ridiculous this advertisement is. After all, it’s not exactly as if the Roosevelts were unknown. There has always been this kind of Know Nothing, inimical to science, deny climate change, deny evolution side to the Republican Party which would be funny if it weren’t so serious. These people need to be closely watched. Always.

Gravity: It’s not only a good idea. It’s the law.

Sam Andrew Band: Scott Matthews, me, Robin Sylvester, Peter Walsh. 1990s

A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

My friends love me anyway.

I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

From the Church bulletin:

A songfest was hell at the Methodist church Wednesday.

Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and community.

Mary Bridget Davies with Uriah Heep, Austria.

Die? That’s the last thing I want to do.

“We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada. And I think now, isn’t that ironic?” Sarah Palin

Dove eravamo rimasti?

Now, where were we?

We are all who we were in high school.

Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, I’ve lost my electron. The other says,

Are you sure.

Yes, I’m positive.

Guy walks into the bar with a duck under his arm. Bartender says,

Hey, what are you doing with that pig?

What are you talking about. This is not a pig. This is a duck.

I was talking to the duck.

What does a duck like to eat with soup?

Quackers.

How do lawyers sleep?

First they lie on one side and then they lie on the other.

Actual courtroom dialogue:

Q: What was the first thing your husband said to you when he woke

that morning?

A: He said, “Where am I, Cathy?”

Q: And why did that upset you?

A: My name is Susan.

Q: Did you blow your horn or anything?

A: After the accident?

Q: Before the accident.

A: Sure, I played for ten years. I even went to school for it.

Q: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition

notice which I sent to your attorney?

A: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.

Banyan trees, Lahaina, Maui.

Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?

A: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.

Q: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?

A: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.

Q: And Mr. Dennington was dead at the time?

A: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an

autopsy on him.

Something else I made in Sunnyvale.

Nachschlepper (German) a dragger after, a toady, a hanger on. This word became “nuchshlepper” in Yiddish. Famous and/or wealthy people usually have a few Nachschlepper in tow.

Another country song title: I Gave Her A Ring, But She Gave Me The Finger.

Is life worth living? That depends on the liver.

When you hear something funny, listen for the truth in it.

If you live long enough, you become honored somewhat as a museum is honored.

Wade In The Water, Wade In The Water, Children.

The old neighborhood has changed. The Lewis Family Funeral Home is now called Deaths R Us.

Isn’t Muamar Gadhafy the sound you make when you’re allergic to acacia? Or should that be Moammar Khadafy?

I was walking across the Pont Neuf in Paris when I saw her boating on the river. “Hey,” I shouted, “you’re in Seine.”

Death is not the end where there’s a will.

Dumb saying: Everything comes in threes. Some things come in fours. Some don’t come at all.

Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way.

Death Valley University, more than one hundred degrees available.

Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

If at first you don’t succeed, you’re about average.

Packard dealership 1927, on Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco.

The trouble with Born Again Christians is that they don’t seem to be much improved the second time around.

Epitaph:

Sic Friatur Crustum Dulce

(That’s the way the cookie crumbles.)

This is what our house looked like the second time we were in Okinawa, Japan.

He was a wise man who invented God. Plato

Who says that I am not under the special protection of God? Adolf Hitler

Many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant. Edward Gibbon

Elise’s paternal grandfather Silver Piliwale is literally a Hawaiian National Treasure and there are trails and other geographical features named for him. One of them is Piliwale Ridge.

Silver Piliwale is something of a legend on the islands of Oahu and Maui.

Il mio consiglio a tutti i giovani è: cominciate a dar la caccia alle ragazze il giorno in cui cominciate ad allacciarvi da soli le scarpe e non mettetivi in testa stramberie che alla fine possono rovinarvi fisicamente e moralmente, e, oggi, perfino politicamente.

My advice to all young men is: start chasing girls the day that you can lace your shoes up by yourself and don’t get crazy ideas in your head that in the end can ruin you physically and morally, and, today, perhaps politically.

Easy Street is a blind alley.

People used to take drugs. Now they do drugs. They do everything. Guy says to the barista, “I’m going to do a plain croissant with butter, and then I’ll do a meeting.”

Quote me if I’m wrong.

There are some people who map the universe and search out the stars. I can’t cross Market Street at the right place to get to Grant Avenue.

Note to my accountant:

Haec summa, estne quod merui aut quod debeo?

This amount, is that what I made, or what I owe?

We pass through here. Zzzzzzip! Once and once only. So quick. Who remembers that person six thousand years ago who was so valuable and unforgettable to her friends? She was the light of their lives. Not only is she gone, but they are all gone. All trace of them. Gone. We don’t even know what language she spoke. What did her life mean?

Life is what you make it mean my friend. (line from a Sam Andrew song)

When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness…No show, however good could conceivably be good forever…I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it. H.L. Mencken

Le affondai un gomito nelle costole. “Cara,” mormorai con tutta la cattiveria di cui fui capace, “sta’ zitta. Questo è un dramma e le tue risate disturbano il pubblico.”

I sunk an elbow into her ribs. “My dear,” I murmured with all of the wickedness I could muster, “calm yourself. This is a drama and your laughiter is disturbing the public.”

If Shakespeare had been a rock musician, he would never have had the time to write his soliloquies and sonnets. He would have always been in a rent a car between Trasimeno and Padova. And we won’t even mention how long the sound check is going to take.