Polyonymously Perverse

Posted on July 7, 2013 by J L tagged.

Polyonomous could mean having many names. Cicero was known in his time as Marcus Tullius Cicero. My name is Sam Houston Andrew III.

Where we lived at the Fur Peace Ranch.

Melina Riverblues has many names.

Stephen Bruton, Leah Hawk and Kris Kristofferson.

Jorma Kaukonen and Don Aters

Il diavolo si nasconde nei dettagli. The devil is hiding in the details.

My beautiful and wise friend Sally.

We were the Spice Boys.

The meeting and eating house at the Fur Peace Ranch near Darwin, Ohio.

I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am. Ann Coulter (how does she find any?)

La bottega dei sogni. The dream boutique.

If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. Ann Coulter.

The welcome kitty at Fur Peace Ranch.

I’ll play what you want or I won’t play at all.

All the world is a birthday cake, so take a little, but not too much.

Ahahahahhaah, ma che faccia ho! My god, what a face I have!

About fifteen minutes from Athens, Ohio.

I think there should be a literacy test and a poll tax for people to vote. Ann Coulter (noted cheater at the polls).

I wanted to be successful, not famous.

Gossip is the devil’s radio.

Jorma was so kind and generous to us. Everyone was. This was a wonderful stay.

Le ragazze del rock. The girls of rock.

Polls? Nah! They’re for strippers and cross country skiers. Sarah Palin.

I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong.

Music belongs to everyone. It’s only the music publishers who think that someone in particular owns it.

Don Aters took this photo of Levon Helm.

Interessante…. dove? come? partecipazione libera? Interesting… where? how? free participation?

I could possibly have beaten Senator McCain in the primary. Then I could have been the candidate who lost to Barack Obama. Mitt Romney.

President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and their team have failed the American people, and that is why their majority will soon be out the door. Mitt Romney.

Elise Wainani Piliwale at Fur Peace Ranch: 29 June 2013.

If someone thinks that “love and peace” is a cliché that must be left behind in the 1960s, that’s his problem. Love and peace are eternal.

Absolutely all the people I know are a little crazy.

Che presenza inquietante hai lì dietro di te! Con tanto di simil “funcia”! What a disquieting presence there behind you! And you can function with all of that!

As usual there is a great woman behind every idiot.

Hot Tuna à l’italiana.

When the President does it, that means it’s not illegal. Richard M. Nixon.

People react to fear, not love; they don’t teach that in Sunday School, but it’s true. Richard M. Nixon.

Janis Joplin and Jorma Kaukonen sat in an apartment one day and recorded some songs while Jorma’s then wife Margareta typed a paper for her UC Berkeley class in the next room. This is the typewriter she used.

The clicking and clacking of the keys went straight onto the tape.

Ho perso tutte le foto di quella sera tranne la più bella. I have lost all the photos from that evening except for the most beautiful one.

It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody. Richard M. Nixon.

Solutions are not the answer. Richard M. Nixon.

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too. Richard M. Nixon.

Vanessa Kaukonen made us feel at home on the Fur Peace Ranch. She is Jorma’s wife now and a capable, intelligent woman.

Mi viene da piangere. Cosa mi sono persa? I’m about to cry. Oh, no, I missed it.

The press is the enemy. Richard M. Nixon.

Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren’t for the goddamned people. Richard M. Nixon.

John Hurlbut, a prince among men, the factotum at Fur Peace.

I let the American people down. Richard M. Nixon.

Ringrazia la sorellona che ti ha fatto questa foto. Thank the big sister who took this photo for you.

What a terrible thing to have lost one’s mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is. Dan Quayle.

Peter Albin and I did an interview with John Hurlbut and Jorma. John wrote questions like this one, and Jorma asked them.

I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican. Dan Quayle.

I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix. Dan Quayle.

Ma che figata!

Edd Hart. Elise’s mother Carla Piliwale is married to Edd. We had a beautiful drive through Ohio with these people.

Bank failures are caused by depositors who don’t deposit enough money to cover losses due to mismanagement. Dan Quayle.

People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history. Dan Quayle.

Bobby Knight told me this: ‘There is nothing that a good defense cannot beat a better offense.’ In other words a good offense wins. Dan Quayle.

Carla Piliwale.

Musica e rappoorti umani…camminano insieme. Music and human relationships…they go together.

Republicans have been accused of abandoning the poor. It’s the other way around. They never vote for us. Dan Quayle.

I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy – but that could change. Dan Quayle.

For NASA, space is still a high priority. Dan Quayle.

We stayed in London, Ohio, for a couple of days and I haunted the library.

Volevo farti i complimenti perchè hai reso perfettamente l’idea di quello che, credo, ognuna di noi pensa. Complimenti! I wanted to give you my regards because you have rendered perfectly the idea that each of us, I believe, thinks. Congratulations!

The future will be better tomorrow. Dan Quayle.

I deserve respect for the things I did not do. Dan Quayle.

Nella vita e nelle feste non smettere mai di giocare!

Jim Wall, drummer extraordinaire and good friend.

It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it. Dan Quayle.

It’s wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago. Dan Quayle.

Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child. Dan Quayle.

Adorabile.

Peter Albin in the green room at Fur Peace.

If Al Gore invented the Internet, I invented spell check. Dan Quayle.

The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation’s history. I mean in this century’s history. But we all lived in this century. I didn’t live in this century. Dan Quayle.

A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls. Dan Quayle.

Minchia questa e fantasticaaaa!

I love this Kevin Morgan painting of Jorma.

This president is going to lead us out of this recovery. Dan Quayle.

The global importance of the Middle East is that it keeps the Far East and the Near East from encroaching on each other. Dan Quayle.

Every once in a while, you let a word or phrase out and you want to catch it and bring it back. You can’t do that. It’s gone, gone forever. Dan Quayle.

Grazie alla fotografa. Thanks to the photographer.

The loss of life will be irreplaceable. Dan Quayle.

We’re all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made. Dan Quayle.

I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future. Dan Quayle.

Che uomo fortunato che è Luca… What a lucky guy Luke is…

Vanessa, Jorma and John Hurlbut.

In George Bush you get experience, and with me you get – The Future! Dan Quayle.

It’s a question of whether we’re going forward into the future, or past to the back. Dan Quayle.

It’s time for the human race to enter the solar system. Dan Quayle.

Questa è la mia preferita. This one is my favorite.

Ben, Sam, Jim, Stefanie and Peter holding forth at the Fur Peace Ranch.

My friends, no matter how rough the road may be, we can and we will, never, never surrender to what is right. Dan Quayle.

One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice-president, and that one word is ‘to be prepared.’ Dan Quayle.

This election is about who’s going to be the next President of the United States! Dan Quayle.

Veramente bella questa foto. Truly beautiful this photo.

Jorma with lovely Nikon.

Unfortunately, the people of Louisiana are not racists. Dan Quayle.

Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is in the Pacific. It is a part of the United States that is an island that is right here. Dan Quayle.

I do have a political agenda. It’s to have as few regulations as possible. Dan Quayle.

“Cosa sono questi occhi stupiti”, diceva una vecchia canzone italiana… “What are those amazing eyes,” said an old Italian song…

Jorma’s family.

I don’t watch it, but I know enough to comment on it. Dan Quayle.

I stand by all the misstatements that I’ve made. Dan Quayle.

Che belle le rottoballe! What beautiful bales of hay!

Jorma on his way to Hawaii.

I was known as the chief grave robber of my state. Dan Quayle.

I want to be Robin to Bush’s Batman. Dan Quayle.

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there would be peace. John Lennon

If we don’t succeed we run the risk of failure. Dan Quayle.

Non ti facevo così mainstream. I didn’t think you were that mainstream.

Jack Nicholson has his eyebrows insured. Jack Casady should probably do the same.

I’ve never professed to be anything but an average student. Dan Quayle.

Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it. Dan Quayle.

People who bowl vote. Bowlers are not the cultural elite. Dan Quayle.

Se tutte le serate finissero cosi… If only all nights finished this way…

Don Aters

Reading is like kissing: with someone who doesn’t do it a lot, you notice it on their tongue.

It’s a very good historical book about history. Dan Quayle.

It’s rural America. It’s where I came from. We always refer to ourselves as real America. Rural America, real America, real, real, America. Dan Quayle.

..chi ci ha già rinunciato e ti ride alle spalle forse è ancora più pazzo di te.. …who has already refused and maybe laughs behind your back is even crazier than you..

Rabbits in the road at the Fur Peace Ranch.

Let me just be very clear that the Republican Party will select a nominee that will beat Bill Clinton. Dan Quayle.

Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children. Dan Quayle.

Space is almost infinite. As a matter of fact, we think it is infinite. Dan Quayle.

Sarebbe davvero bello rivedersi! It would be really wonderful to see each other again.

Driving into the Fur Peace Ranch in the early morning.

The more I see, the less I know for sure.

The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make. Dan Quayle.

Tobacco exports should be expanded aggressively because Americans are smoking less. Dan Quayle.

Sentivamo la tua mancanza. We felt your absence.

Brett at Fur Peace.

We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur. Dan Quayle.

The President is going to benefit from me reporting directly to him when I arrive. Dan Quayle.

We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe. Dan Quayle.

Stupenda.

Don’s Nikon.

We should develop anti-satellite weapons because we could not have prevailed without them in ‘Red Storm Rising.’ Dan Quayle.

We’re going to have the best American educated people in the world. Dan Quayle.

What you guys want, I’m for. Dan Quayle.

Svegliarsi dalla notte e vedere certe sorprese.. To wake up in the night and see certain surprises..

Changing strings.

Welcome to President Bush, Mrs. Bush and my fellow astronauts. Dan Quayle.

The other day the President said, I know you’ve had some rough times, and I want to do something that will show the nation what faith that I have in you, in your maturity and sense of responsibility. He paused, then said, would you like a puppy? Dan Quayle.

I have a very good family. I’m very fortunate to have a very good family. I believe very strongly in the family. It’s one of the things we have in our platform, is to talk about it. Dan Quayle.

Due MITICI! Two MYTHS!

Hubert Sumlin. I love his guitar playing.

When I talked to him on the phone yesterday. I called him George rather than Mr. Vice President. But, in public, it’s Mr. Vice President, because that is who he is. Dan Quayle.

You do the policy. I’ll do the politics. Dan Quayle.

You all look like happy campers to me. Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been, and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be. Dan Quayle.

Guardali…bellissimi! Look at them…beautiful!

Janis!

We shouldn’t have to be burdened with all the technicalities that come up from time to time with shrewd, smart lawyers interpreting what the Constitution may or may not say. Dan Quayle.

El Salvador is a democracy so it’s not surprising that there are many voices to be heard there. Yet in my conversations with Salvadorans…I have heard a single voice. Dan Quayle.

I spend a great deal of time with the President. We have a very close, personal, loyal relationship. I’m not, as they say, a potted plant in these meetings. Dan Quayle.

Che belli che siete! How beautiful you are!

Warm, friendly people.

I’m going to be a vice president very much like George Bush was. He proved to be a very effective vice president, perhaps the most effective we’ve had in a couple of hundred years. Dan Quayle.

Japan is an important ally of ours. Japan and the United States of the Western industrialized capacity, 60 percent of the GNP, two countries. That’s a statement in and of itself. Dan Quayle.

The thing is, if you control the Senate meetings, you control the gavel. And the gavel is a very important instrument…an instrument of power. An instrument that establishes the agenda. Dan Quayle.

…scusate sono di fretta devo correre a Porcia…..la festa sta’ per iniziare….. Excuse me, I am in a hurry, I should run to Porcia…the party is about to begin….

Lenny Bruce and the Mothers. What a bill.

Votes are like trees, if you are trying to build a forest. If you have more trees than you have forests, then at that point the pollsters will probably say you will win. Dan Quayle.

To those of you who received honors and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you, too, can be president of the United States. George W. Bush.

When I take action, I’m not going to fire a $ 2 million missile at a $ 10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It’s going to be decisive. George W. Bush.

Non è vero, se non fosse stato per Samuele sarei caduta 8000 volte. It’s not true, if it weren’t for Sam I would have fallen 8,000 times.

It was fun driving through Ohio.

You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on. George W. Bush.

A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there’s no question about it. George W. Bush.

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace. George W. Bush.

Voto 10. I vote 10.

Educating myself in the London, Ohio pubic, I mean, public library.

I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun. George W. Bush.

It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it. George W. Bush.

You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test. George W. Bush.

Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric in nature because it is a product that we can find in our neighborhoods. George W. Bush.

We got to put more food on our families. George W. Bush.

Bellissime le mie bimbe.. Most beautiful my bimbos.

The London, Ohio, city hall.

The legislature’s job is to write law. It’s the executive branch’s job to interpret law. George W. Bush.

Saddam Hussein is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction. George W. Bush.

No one was more shocked or angry than I was when we didn’t find the weapons. I had a sickening feeling every time I thought about it. I still do. George W. Bush.

Ma no te si neanca bona a girar le foto?

Don Aters captures life at the Fur Peace Station.

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first. Ronald Reagan.

A people free to choose will always choose peace. Ronald Reagan.

Ahhh, ecco! Contenta? Ah, there! Happy?

Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement. Ronald Reagan.

But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected I had my high school grades classified Top Secret. Ronald Reagan.

Polyonymous for sure…

Elise Wainani Piliwale and Sam Houston Andrew III

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Notes from a Bindle Stiff

Posted on June 23, 2013 by J L tagged.

Bindle Stiff: (bundle man, hobo) Jack London in a 1901 letter, ”Wyckoff only knows the workingman, the stake-man, the bindle-stiff.”

Come live in my tent and pay no rent.

Appreciation makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

Don’t play what’s there. Play what’s not there.

A good education will show you how little you know.

If you understood everything I say, you would be I… or me.

Mistakes in improvised music? There are none.

Probably the main duty of the young is to challenge the received notions of the old.

A jest is a truth with a melody.

I sometimes wonder if Americans aren’t fooled by our accent into detecting brilliance that may not really be there.

When are you going to figure it out about guns? How many shootings is it going take? They are occurring almost daily now.

People see the past as better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be

It says “extinguisher,” but it looks more like “stinker.”

Anything is possible as long as you keep working at it. Don’t back down.

Common sense is not so common.

You can’t leave yourself out of that mix. You have to be honest enough to say, I’m the messed-up one in the family.

I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.

The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

God gives us nuts, but she doesn’t crack them.

Take a deep breath after any outburst of vanity or complacency.

It wasn’t Don Quixote’s madness that bothered him. It was Sancho Panza.

You Greeks are god driven crazy! One of the most beautiful peoples of the kosmos.

A stairstep not worn by footsteps is only a boring something made of wood.

Begin with what is right rather than what is usual.

Women dress for women.

I’d rather they all hate it and I like it, than vice versa. I make music to please myself first, and if the audience likes it, all the better.

My father wouldn’t get us a TV, he wouldn’t allow a TV in the house.

Kindness and politeness are not overrated at all. If anything, they are underrated.

I’m always happy to have a job.

Interviews are all right with me. I don’t pursue them. When the people I work with deem them appropriate, I’m perfectly willing to serve.

Characters with no integrity are just as interesting as characters with lots of integrity.

I think that no matter how much you don’t like yourself or the drama of your life you can still find some comedy in it.

The proper union of vodka and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth, and one of the shortest lived.

The mind and the heart have their own logic but do not often let others in on it.

It’s scary to wake up one morning and discover that your university class is running your state.

Watch out how you see yourself, because how you see yourself may be what you are.

Growing old is an interesting process. There’s no cure for it. The best medicine may be laughter, if laughter is any kind of medicine at all.

I’ll play it and tell you what it is later.

The universe is truly large. From here to Alpha Centauri is an unimaginable distance, and that is just a tiny, tiny corner in this whole universe, almost imperceptible. So, now, what were you worrying about again?

The feeling about a soldier is he wasn’t really going to do very much with his life anyway. The example usually is: he wasn’t going to play music that would be as ravishing, enlightening and as impassioned as there ever was, but how do we know this? History is full of examples of people who were almost going to die, and yet, because of some unlooked for miracle, survived and went on to do such great things that benefited us all. What a narrow escape, and think of those who didn’t escape. Anyone who reads biographies will be very conscious of this. There is only the most tenuous thread between life and death for us all. Accidents play a much larger part in life than we are willing to recognize. What if Jimi Hendrix had been killed in Viet Nam? Who WAS killed in Viet Nam?

I wanted to write about a normal young girl whose only difference was that she behaved in the way a boy might, without any sense of guilt on a moral or sexual level.

If you’re feeling strong and emotional when you’re creating something, it will come out that way.

Whiskey is by far the most popular of all remedies that won’t cure a cold.

Name me an emperor who was ever struck by a cannonball.

I don’t really want to control anyone, to be honest.

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing views. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.

I speak Spanish to god, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my goat.

Abolition of a woman’s right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsive maternity, a form of rape by the state.

The missionaries go forth to Christianize the savages, as if the savages weren’t dangerous enough already.

The tragedy of war is that young soldiers die fighting each other, instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.

A drink a day keeps the shrink away.

The trouble with returning to a place where you once were is that you can never repeat the same experience.

Our neoconservatives are neither new nor conservative. They’re as old as Babylon and evil as Hell.

Ignorance, apathy, hate, fear, greed, as long as these things are in human nature the Republicans will get some votes.

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity for the human spirit.

It’s not the equipment, it’s the operator. It’s the singer, not the song.

I think when I practice, but feel when I play. The playing occurs ahead of my ability to understand it.

Some parts of my solos are OK and other parts I can’t stand. You have to live with that.

I keep reading between the lies.

I was born lucky. I’ll be the first to admit that.

TV = Terrible Vaudeville.

If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do a job, wait until you hire an amateur.

A person’s intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view she can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.

Forgiveness is good for your health.

Aeschylus said that it is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered, but I think I have this quality. Several of my friends have gone on to fame and glory and I very seldom want to kill them.

OK, I’ll give Brooke back her underwear.

There are a lot of people in the phone book, but very few ideas.

Not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian.

The best time to buy something is a couple of years ago.

We all think we’re going to get out of debt.

I would have answered your letter sooner but you didn’t send one.

Much better to desire than to have.

I’d better say I belong to myself and the world rather than belonging to one nationality or another.

Nothing is ever the same as they said it was.

You gotta have swine to show you where the truffles are.

The best cure for hypochondria is to forget about your body and become interested in someone else’s.

The thing that’s important to know is that you never know. You’re always sort of feeling your way.

Artists don’t retire. They stop when there’s no more art in them.

We might be be the holographic image of a two dimensional structure.

Tell me about yourself, your struggles, your dreams, your telephone number.

I consider your conduct unethical and lousy.

There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them.

All my life my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name.

I consider myself more of a visual comedian than a physical one.

People look for happiness as a drunk looks for his house: he can’t find it, but he knows that it exists.

If you get the quality right, then the marketability or whatever; your ability to sell videos or your ability to earn money or whatever, will follow naturally. But try to be creatively lead rather than market lead.

I’ve been so liberated it hurts.

Tokyo to Nagoya.

One of the most attractive things about writing your autobiography is that you’re not dead.

While I have never been a regular churchgoer, I’m anything but immune to the power and the majesty of a spiritual experience.

I swear, if you existed I’d divorce you.

In those days, boxing was very glamorous and romantic. You listened to fights on the radio, and a good announcer made it seem like a contest between gladiators.

The marvelous thing about a double entendre is that it only means one thing.

He won’t, won’t he? Then bring me my boots.

If Attila the Hun were alive today, he’d be a music critic.

I am the the type to have a personal experience with a celebrity, but I’m too classy to bring that up.

I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. She said that I was being ridiculous… everyone hasn’t met me yet.

If ten was the perfect score, he needed help in French.

My wife was afraid of the dark. Then she saw me naked and now she’s afraid of the light.

The way my luck is going, if I were a politician I’d be honest.

Nossa! Quanto tempo!

One of the fundamental truths about marriage. The wife is in charge. Fine by me.

There is hope for the future because god has a sense of humor and she thinks we’re funny.

When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them.

Do you ever really look at people in a health food store. They are pale, skinny and look half dead. In a steak house you see robust, ruddy people. They’re dying, of course, but they look great.

Wally!

Old is always fifteen years from now.

There are no authorities on love, just those who have had luck with it and those who haven’t.

May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.

Death is caused by being born.

His eyes so dim, so wasted each limb, that, heedless of grammar, they all cried, that’s him!

I have one day today, and I’m going to be happy in it.

Anyone who says he understands women is missing a lot.

Just because you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean that the circus has left town.

Timmy from Lassie.

Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do.

Bella questa. Che stelline che siete! What stars you are.

I wanted to improve my looks at The Body Shop, but now I’m improving them at the Photoshop.

I’m shy, but I’m not clinically shy. I don’t have social anxiety disorder or anything like that. I more have a gentle shyness. Like, I have a little trouble mingling at parties.

One way to find out if someone’s honest. Ask. If he says yes, you know he’s not.

In the beginning there was nothing. Then god said, “Let there be light.” So then there was still nothing but you could see a lot better.

Aim high. That way you won’t shoot yourself in the foot.

People think because I can make them laugh on the stage, I’ll be able to make them laugh in person. That isn’t the case at all. I am essentially a rather quiet, dull person who just happens to be a performer.

Hello Kitty will never speak.

Marriage is a mistake every man should make.

As I get older, I get smaller. I see other parts of the world I didn’t see before. Other points of view. I see outside myself more. I was one meter and eighty-five centimeters when I lived in Paris in my twenties and now I am one meter and eighty-three centimeters, so I’m smaller that way too.

Better to burn out than to rust out.

Act the way you’d like to be and soon you’ll be the way you act.

Partnership is the way.

When we talk to god, we’re praying. When she talks to us, we’re schizophrenic.

Journalists were so unkind to me. They said I knew only three chords, but they were wrong. I knew four.

Sometimes the best songs come all at once in twenty minutes or half an hour. Chords, words, melody, everything.

Everything that used to be a sin is now a disease.

Multitasking? I can’t even do one thing at once.

Who’s your real friend? The person who tells you the truth.

If you think your life is tough, read a bit of history.

Karl Rove said that if Arnold Schwarzenegger’s father weren’t a Nazi, Arnold wouldn’t have any credibility with conservatives at all.

The advantage for the snorer is that he is the one who’s sleeping. (Merci à toi, Thomas.)

The word “privacy” does not appear in the Constitution.

I want the world to be better because I was here.

Everybody’s nuts. Enjoy the ride.

If you hear me saying, “I’m a serious artist,” please slap me.

“Republican party” is an oxymoron, isn’t it?

People take comedians seriously and politicians as a joke.

Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. Believe in what you are doing.

Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.

You can learn by travel, by reading or by associating with people who are smarter than you.

Advertising can convince you to spend money you don’t have to buy something you don’t need to impress somebody you don’t like.

Crime does pay… if you’re a lawyer.

Things aren’t what they used to be, and that’s a good thing.

There is nothing that will get your mind off everything like golf. I’ve never been depressed enough to take up the game, but they say that you can become so angry with yourself that you forget to hate your enemy. Actually, I doubt this very much.

A holding company is a guy you hand the stolen goods to when the police arrive.

Marriages are made in heaven. So are hurricanes.

Life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans.

Don’t just do something, sit there.

If you love someone, say so.

What if, at this very moment, we were living up to our full potential?

People who complain about President Obama should consider how things would be if Romney and Ryan were running the country.

Not everyone in Hollywood is on the left. Just the smart ones.

Strength doesn’t have to be boastful, belligerent and loud. Quite the opposite, really.

Every musician knows that a melody can come to you that is so beautiful, so universal that it’s not yours but god’s. You’re just a conduit.

That’s what show business is, sincere insincerity.

The harder you work, the luckier you get.

Such is life and life is such, and after all it isn’t much, first a cradle then a hearse, could’ve been better, could’ve been worse.

I started school in Okinawa, Japan, and have never really stopped.

Steam punk can be scary.

Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.

I always wanted to be a physicist, but it seemed that I was doomed to be nothing more than a very silly person.

Thank you for being here and we’ll see you next week.

__________________________________________________________

I Homologate This Message.

Posted on June 9, 2013 by J L tagged.

Homologate: agree with, approve, approbate, sanction, authorize, warrant, countenance, ratify, confirm, confess, acknowledge.

Janis homologated these images.

To render valid by some subsequent act.

A marriage contract, though defective in legal solemnities, is held to be homologated by the subsequent marriage of the parties.

Homologate is derived from the Greek homologeo (ὁμολογέω) for “I agree”, which is generally used in English to signify the granting of approval by an official.

The homologating body may be a court of law, a government department, or an academic or professional body, any of which would normally work from a set of strict rules or standards to determine whether such approval should be given.

The word may be considered very roughly synonymous with accreditation, and in fact in French and Spanish may be used with regard to academic degrees.

Certification is another possible synonym. To homologate is the infinitive.

Products must often be homologated by some public agency to assure that they meet standards for such things as safety and environmental impact.

A court action may also sometimes be homologated by a judicial authority before it can proceed, and the term has a precise legal meaning in the judicial codes of some countries, especially in Scotland.

The equivalent process of testing and certification for conformance to technical standards is usually known as Type Approval in English-language jurisdictions.

Another example of the use of homologate pertains to the biological sciences, where it may describe the similarities used to assign organisms to the same family or taxon, similarities they have jointly inherited from a common ancestor.

So, dear reader, what would this organization, Girls Together Outrageously (GTOs) have to do with the word “homologate?”

In racing, a vehicle must be homologated by the sanctioning body to race in a given league, such as World Superbikes, International Level Kart Racing or other sportscar racing series.

Where a racing class requires that the vehicles raced be production vehicles only slightly adapted for racing, manufacturers typically produce a limited run of such vehicles for public sale so that they can legitimately race them in the class.

These vehicles are commonly called “homologation specials.”

The term homologation is also applicable in the Olympic Games, in venue certifications, prior to the start of competition.

An issue was raised at Cesena Pariol—the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton track used for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino (Turin) —over its safety in luge.

This delayed homologation of the track from January 2005 to October 2005 in order to achieve safe runs during luge competitions.

A judge must homologate the plea bargain between the district attorney and the defense.

Gran Turismo Omologato is the origin of the acronym GTO.

“We’ve major issues which appear to be discussed in the press. Decisions are made and then we’re asked to homologate these decisions.”

“What was needed was a more streamlined street car to homologate for racing.”

Now the same amazing race technology is available in fully homologated form for use on the road by drivers who know what satisfaction means.

This protective front headlight grill for use off-road is not homologated for on-road use.

Homologation is the certification of a product or specification to indicate that it meets regulatory standards.

There are companies that specialize in helping manufacturers achieve regulatory compliance.

These homologating companies have services that might include the explanation and interpretation of standards and specifications.

There may be homologatory assistance in plant facility audit and approval, testing and certification of materials, product design consulting, and translation of manuals, legal mandates and other written material.

My friend Melina has a beautiful collection of black and white photographs of blues players and she has tacitly homologated my use of them from time to time, just as she may use any image that I have.

I don’t know why I did it, I don’t know why I enjoyed it, and I don’t know why I will do it again. What do you want? It’s a birthday.

Reason itself is fallible and this fallibility must find a place in our logic.

We started out as opportunistic renegades. By now, we’ve lasted long enough to become American Original Respectable Renegades.

I want it to go on, but I want us to go out on top. Well, so much for that. OK, then, go out on the bottom, yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket.

I don’t miss the rat race, but occasionally I miss the rats.

One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal, or even inability, to be compromised.

The element of surprise is what I look for when I am playing.

We all come into the world not knowing who we are.

Women get the work done, with lesser play of ego.

If anyone thinks I am wrong, I am inclined to agree with her.

You know what would be interesting to see? A film about an Al Qaeda follower from her own point of view, how she became that, what her ambitions are, her name, her family, her petty dislikes, her secret wishes. This would show us more than a thousand state documents.

There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it ill behooves any of us to find fault with the rest of us.

If you want to change your life, change your mind.

Don’t be afraid of failure. Be afraid of succeeding too early.

God limited the intelligence of humanity, but not the stupidity.

One sure way to please a tigress is to let her eat you.

The biggest risk in life is not taking any risks.

A bad temper is a sign of weakness.

They had several car crashes in that film, but none of them killed the right people.

When you see old photographs, it’s lovely to remember being young, but even better to know that you grew up.

Every now and then do something that you think you are really bad at.

Some white people hate black people, and some white people love black people, some black people hate white people, and some black people love white people. So you see it’s not an issue of black and white, it’s an issue of Lovers and Haters.

I like to do interviews where I see that the questioner is pondering his next line while I am answering his last… NOT!

I’m definitely not a shopper. I totally hate the process of researching and then haggling for the price. I wish I could just snap my fingers and it would be there. I would pay extra for that, actually, and, in fact, I suppose I do pay extra for that. Actually, I would pay extra for not having the thing at all.

My family were Democrats. In fact, if one of us children was acting up and being stubborn, my father would say, “Stop acting like a damned Republican.”

Music is irrational. The better it is, the madder it is.

Life is a song, so sing along. Life is a game, it’s never the same. Make it your goal to nourish your soul.

This looks totally posed. They’re probably his cousins.

On two occasions I have been asked, “Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?” I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

Neither success nor failure is ever final.

The best command of the language is often shown by saying nothing.

To make your dream come true, you need to be wide awake.

Bad politicians are elected by good people who don’t vote.

Look up. When you’re flat on your back, look up.

Don’t worry about what is going to happen. It’s bad enough worrying about what is happening now.

Everybody doesn’t have to get every joke. People really appreciate not being condescended to.

If you have health, friends and enough money to pay the rent and eat, you have a lot.

Legends are all about the past and have nothing to do with the present.

You can’t think clearly when your fists are clenched.

I often play language learning CDs in my car, and I’ve noticed that when I become angry at another driver, I don’t learn anything at all from the CDs. I have to listen to that spot over again. This in itself is educational.

I’m the L word. Liberal.

It’s not so much the taxes we pay as it is the feeling that someone is picking our pockets without our knowing why.

As long as there is one pretty woman on stage, the theatre will live.

When you’re wrong, admit it. When you’re right, be quite. (Or quiet, whichever is best.)

A door is what a cat is always on the wrong side of.

Am I a late bloomer or an early rotter?

Most people would rather be right than be reasonable.

You cannot move others unless you too are moved.

Remorse or reminiscence?

The fruits of our private study should appear in our public behavior.

Sometimes I look at the stars for so long that they seem to move and dance in the sky.

My father seemed to me to know everything, all about the artists in the Renaissance, all about the carburetor under the hood, all about the rocks and how they came to be that way, all about the plants and their histories. If he couldn’t afford something, he would simply make it with his own hands.

Labels are for medicine bottles. Labels are for clothes. Labels aren’t for people.

Whoever said, “It’s not whether you win or lose that counts,” probably lost.

People want to matter. Help them to do that and show them that they do.

For the caterpillar it’s the end of the world. For the butterfly it’s her birthday.

My wife. She makes life come to life.

A professional musician is an amateur who didn’t stop.

If you want something in your life, act as if it’s already there.

Living to the highest standard you know leads to happiness.

A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the word you first thought of.

Learning when to leave is not a negligible part of one’s education.

I have been in the twilight of my career for longer than most people have had careers.

Actually, I’ve been in the twilight of my career for longer than many people have lived.

Music has given me soul.

Talented people are the easiest to get along with.

The simpler it is, the more beautiful it can become.

One must always maintain one’s connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it.

When you walk into a party, you don’t see someone’s brain right away, although it doesn’t take long to see her soul.

No matter what you do, you can’t live in the past.

I wake up at five every day, even if I went to bed at three. I’m blaming it on my cats.

The optimist says we live in the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears that may be true.

Write the kind of song you would like to hear.

No lady is ever a gentleman.

You begin growing your wisdom teeth the first time you bite off more than you can chew.

People worry more about what they can’t see than what they can.

It is better to create than to learn.

Picture you upon my knee, just tea for two and two for tea.

My ambition is to do a good job. I never plan anything.

Life is accepting what is and working with that, or, as my mother put it, you work with what you got.

Everyone has a story that is worth telling and, if told right, it can be a beautiful song.

Self consciousness, shyness, timidity are all forms of egotism and that’s all right.

People believe quickly what they wish to be true.

You take the truth and you put a little curlicue on the end.

Every language has its own song.

James Gurley.

You can’t teach talent, but you can teach competence and confidence.

I used to be afraid of being normal even though nothing is normal.

Films have the power to change people’s minds. A film can make you a better person. In fact, a film should make you a better person.

Good old days? What good old days? People who wish for the old days have very selective memories.

Life is much shorter than it seemed at first.

For at least a hundred and fifty years, America’s best ambassador has been her music.

Being a musician is just a job, but it can be an interesting job.

I was always shy, timid, introverted, whatever you want to call it, and mortally afraid of going onstage. I bet that is true of many, many performers.

I wrote Flower in the Sun in a bathroom in Bernal Heights, San Francisco. It was the only place I could find any privacy.

I try to live by the Golden Rule. Most of the time that works.

We’re not disgruntled. We’re actually fairly gruntled and couth.

Anybody can succeed, anybody can play, but you’ve got to work hard to do it.

I’m a skilled professional musician. Whether or not I have any talent is beside the point. Main thing is to do the job well.

I read many, many books, but I am careful to to let anything I read influence me.

Many people who are brutally honest are more brutal than honest.

At 53 I got the girl! Now she’s almost 53.

Dying is easy, comedy is hard, as Edmund Kean observed on his deathbed.

Comedy is not only hard to act, but hard to write. As Michael Caine noted, you get one comedy script for every twenty dramas.

Comedy is underrepresented in every actor’s résumé because comedy is very difficult.

English is clipped in speech. Texan is clopped in speech.

Be like a duck, always oily calm on the surface and furiously paddling underneath.

I admire other musicians but I would never think of competing with them. What we do is so different. I compete with myself. I have had so many great guitarists play and sit in with Big Brother over the years. More guitar players have performed with Big Brother than musicians on any other instrument. Even singers, and that’s saying something.

The Jack Benny philosophy: I feel like 39. At 39 you’re old enough to know something and young enough to look forward to what you can do with that knowledge. So I’m staying at 39. It sounds so much better than 40, doesn’t it? It sounds better than 71 too, which is what I really am, and very happy to be 71 too.

Talk low, talk slow, and don’t talk much.

Count your money. I’m not going to retire, so I don’t have to worry about that part, but you always need about three times as much money as you think you are going to need.

The first star I saw was Lash La Rue, and I thought, that’s what I want to do, be Lash La Rue.

If you see money as the solution for every problem, then money is the problem.

You get paid the same for a bad gig as for a good one.

My fan mail is enormous. Everyone is under six.

To an engineer it’s “good enough for government work.” To an artist there’s no such thing as good enough.

There are as many ways of loving as there are people in the world.

I sang before I talked, before I had a memory. When my memory began, I was already singing.

I’m a huge shoe person. I only wear shoes that are truly enormous.

Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can – there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.

The fact is that great musical pieces take and hold the stage because they provide great emotional experiences.

Success is important only to the extent that it puts one in a position to do more things one likes to do but it’s even more important because it can allow you to help people who truly deserve help.

Music is a process which is successful only if it is achieved by people who love to collaborate.

If you approach a song as though it were something that always went a certain way, that’s what you get. Maybe best to approach a song as though you never heard it before.

We all make mistakes. Best to look at them closely, confront them honestly and learn from them.

Are we not all desperate in one way or another?

I have been the victim of heartless and, worse, pointless malice delivered by stupid people who truly believed that they had something to say.

Giving a phenomenon a name does not explain it.

Even the most malignant gods would not continue to inflict life upon humanity, time without end.

Don’t rush into adulthood. It is not really all that much fun.

The only real failure is one you don’t learn from.

The most important things in life aren’t things.

Promise a lot, and then give more.

Learning is an avenue to happiness, ever open to those who are deprived of honors or wealth.

The worst thing is to get involved with people who aren’t passionate about what they’re doing.

A little nonsense now and then is good for women and good for men.

I wish I could understand why the electoral college is necessary.

The greatest peril to the soul is an answered prayer.

I don’t have everything I want, but I have a lot that I am grateful for.

You can sell out if you want to, but just because you did doesn’t mean they’re going to keep their end of the bargain.

In film there’s just one chance to make something decent. In the theatre, you get to do it over and over.

Don’t worry about being modern. That’s something you can’t avoid.

A miracle can happen at any time.

Don’t be silly and don’t waste your time.

I appreciate the love and respect behind such an award, but I can’t help thinking about people like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton, Son House, Skip James, Tommy Johnson, Willie Brown, Geeshie Wiley, Ishmon Bracey, Kid Bailey, Arthur Crudup, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Mississippi John Hurt, Booker White, Furry Lewis, T-Bone Walker and Ike Turner, so I am going to write about them next week.

Thank you for being here.

________________________________________________

A Heterogeneous Assemblage

Posted on March 2, 2013 by J L tagged.

In Australia, the number-one topping for pizza is eggs. In the United States, it’s pepperoni. I like the one in Italy called Caprese, goat cheese and tomatoes.

Fanfaronade: fulsomeness, from Spanish fanfarrón, a word that was probably an imitation of the blaring blowhardedness and braggadocio of bigheaded braggarts.

Stop the presses! Dirty Harry’s last name is Callahan.

Reading too many underground comic books? The name of Jabba the Hutt’s pet spider monkey is Salacious Crumb.

The famous Dragnet theme was actually composed by Miklos Rosza for the 1946 film noir classic The Killers.

The total number of bridge hands is 54 octillion.

General Lew Wallace’s best-seller Ben-Hur was the first work of fiction to be blessed by the Pope.

Lassie, the TV collie, first appeared in a 1930s short novel entitled Lassie Come Home, written by Eric Mowbray Knight. The dog in the novel was based on Eric Knight’s real-life collie Toots.

People in Iceland read more books per capita than any other people in the world.

The book of Esther is the only book in the Bible that does not mention the name of god.

Arnold Schönberg was a triskaidekaphobe. He died thirteen minutes from midnight on Friday the thirteenth.

Tabloids, chronicles and gazettes were what they called newspapers in the 19th century.

The word is WAY older than that: In Irish police stations in the nineteenth century, couples were charged with being Found Under Carnal Knowldege, which the police abbreviated calling it a F.U.C.K. charge.

A sultan’s wife is called a sultana.

The real name for lead poisoning is plumbism.

The word byte is a contraction of “by eight.”

Only words we use now that end in -gry are angry and hungry.

There are solid reasons for both of these facts: Native speakers of Japanese learn Spanish more easily than English. Native speakers of English learn Spanish more easily than Japanese.

Give him 2.54 centimeters and he’ll take 91.44 centimeters: 10 October is National Metric Day.

A beverage in China called white tea is simply boiled water.

Ray Kroc bought McDonald’s for $2.7 million in 1961 from the McDonald brothers.

And just why would you want to do that? Beer foam will go down if you lick your finger and then stick it in the beer.

Vegetarians make up four percent of the US population.

Bananas don’t grow on trees. They grow on rhizomes.

Coffee is the second largest item of international commerce in the world. Statements like this drive me crazy, because then I always have to wonder what is the FIRST largest item of international commerce in the world. You don’t know, do you?

Less than three percent of Nestle’s sales are for chocolate.

The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for blood plasma in an emergency.

Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.

Rice is grown on more than ten percent of the earth’s surface and is the main food for half of the people of the world.

Salt is the only rock humans can eat.

Playing cards in India are round.

More people use blue toothbrushes than red ones.

A flush toilet exists today that dates back to 2,000 BCE.

Most people button their shirts upward. Not me, though.

Totally Hair Barbie is the best-selling Barbie of all time.

The yo-yo originated in the Philippines where it is used for hunting.

The side of a hammer is called a cheek.

The average lead pencil can draw a line thirty-five miles long or write approximately fifty thousand English words.

People in China sometimes leave firecrackers around the house as fire alarms.

It takes a plastic container fifty thousand years to start decomposing.

Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are blood donors.

In Cleveland, Ohio, it is illegal to catch mice without a hunting license.

Most burglaries occur in the winter.

Abdul Kassam Ismael, Grand Vizier of Persia in the tenth century, carried his library with him wherever he went. The 117,000 volumes were carried by 400 camels trained to walk in alphabetical order.

A golden razor found in King Tut’s tomb was still sharp enough to be used.

In 290 BCE, Aristarchus suggested that the sun was the center of the solar system.

Candidus is Latin for shining white. All office seekers in Rome were obliged to wear a certain white toga for a period of one year before the election. They were said to be candidati and one hopes that they were candid in their speeches, but, well, probably not.

Two dogs were among the Titanic survivors.

Robert E. Lee wore a size 4 1/2 shoe.

Olive oil was used for washing the body in the ancient Mediterranean world.

New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote, in 1890.

The words of the Japanese national anthem, dating from the ninth century CE are the oldest of any nation’s songs. but the music is from 1880.

Built in 1697, the Frankford Avenue Bridge, which crosses Pennypack Creek in Philadelphia, is the oldest U.S. bridge in continuous use.

Printed on the book that the Statue of Liberty is holding is “July IV, MDCCLXXVI.” The statue’s mouth is three feet wide.

The main library at Indiana University sinks more than an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.

The Future’s Museum in Sweden contains a scale model of the solar system. The sun is 105 meters in diameter, and the planets range from five millimeters to six kilometers from the sun. This particular model also contains the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, still to scale, situated in the Museum of Victora, Australia.

The Angel Falls in Venezuela are nearly twenty times taller than Niagra Falls.

All the dirt from the foundation to build the World Trade Center was dumped into the Hudson River to form the community now known as Battery City Park.

San Francisco cable cars are the only mobile national monuments.

The largest object ever found in the Los Angeles sewer system was a motorcycle.

If you bring a raccoon’s head to the Henniker, New Hampshire, town hall, you are entitled to receive ten dollars.

In 1980, a Las Vegas hospital suspended workers for betting on when patients would die.

I had no idea that I was ever that close to forty-seven czars. Forty-seven czars are buried in the Kremlin which is just across the square from where we stayed when we played in Moscow.

“Czar” is the Russian rendering of “Caesar,” just as Kaiser is the German version. “Kaiser” is very close to the classical Latin pronunciation of “Caesar.”

Says here the Romans originated the practice of giving presents at Christmas, which was known to them as the Saturnalia, but the veneration of the Egyptian god Horus who was born on 25 December and who had twelve days of worship probably included presents too. Horus was born of a virgin and he had twelve apostles.

Sister Boom-Boom was a transvestite nun who ran for mayor of San Francisco in 1982. S/he received more than twenty thousand votes, if you look closely she looks very much like the shemales linked here.

Hmmm. Pope Adrian VI died after a fly got stuck in his throat as he was drinking from a water fountain.

According to the ceremonial customs of Orthodox Judaism, it is officially sundown when you cannot tell the difference between a black thread and a red thread.

Wives and husbands in India who desire children whisper their wish into the ear of a sacred cow.

A third of Taiwanese funeral processions include a stripper.

Not even real foam? NERF, the popular foam children’s toy company, doesn’t actually stand for anything.

Ted Turner owns five percent of New Mexico.

Time to go online. It takes about 63,000 trees to make the newsprint for the average Sunday edition of The New York Times.

The most dangerous job in the United States is sanitation worker. Fire fighters and police officers are a close second and third, followed by leather tanners fourth.

The sale of vodka makes up ten percent of Russian government income.

In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.

Vanilla is used to make chocolate.

Sixty percent of big-firm executives say the cover letter is as important as, or more important than, the résumé itself when you are applying for a new job.

John Dillinger played professional baseball.

Anise is the scent on the artificial rabbit that is used in greyhound races.

It takes three thousand cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year’s supply of footballs.

Nearly all sumo wrestlers have flat feet and big bottoms.

Meteorologists claim they’re right 85% of the time.

Astronauts in orbit around the earth can see the wakes of ships.

A manned rocket can reach the moon in less time than it took a stagecoach to travel the length of England.

A neutron star has such a powerful gravitational pull that it can spin on its axis in one-thirtieth of a second without tearing itself apart. A pulsar is a neutron star, and it gets its energy from its rotation.

A full moon always rises at sunset.

The first computer ever made was called the ENIAC. A silicon chip a quarter-inch square has the capability of the original 1949 ENIAC computer, which occupied a city block.

The tail section of an airplane gives the bumpiest ride.

Gold was the first metal to be discovered.

One out of five trees in the world is a Siberian larch.

During the time that the atom bomb was being developed at Alamogordo, New Mexico, applicants for routine jobs like janitors were disqualified if they could read.

All organic compounds contain carbon.

Hydrogen is the most common atom in the universe.

One hundred seven incorrect medical procedures will be performed today.

Moisture, not air, causes superglue to dry.

The smallest unit of time is the yoctosecond.

A baby blue whale is twenty-five feet long at birth.

The only two mammals to lay eggs are the echidna and the platypus. The mothers nurse their babies through pores in their skin.

In 1859, twenty-four rabbits were released in Australia. Within six years, the population grew to two million.

Human beings and the two-toed sloth are the only land animals that typically mate face to face.

At least one species of lizard is known to reproduce by parthenogenesis.

A dragonfly has a life span of four to seven weeks.

A square mile of fertile earth has thirty-two million earthworms in it.

No wonder they put up the seagull monument. A large swarm of locusts can eat eighty thousand tons of corn in a day.

There is an average of 50,000 spiders per acre in green areas.

The poison arrow frog has enough poison to kill about 2,200 people.

Marine iguanas, saltwater crocodiles, sea snakes and sea turtles are the only surviving seawater adapted reptiles.

The tuatara lizard of New Zealand only has to breathe once an hour.

A chameleon’s tongue is twice the length of its body.

Snakes, like cows, cannot activate their vitamin D without the presence of sunlight.

A group of geese on the ground is called a gaggle, but in the air they are called a skein.

A group of goats is called a trip.

A group of hares is called a husk.

Kangaroos in a group are known as a mob.

A tribe of rhinos is called a crash.

A group of toads is called a knot.

A bale of turtles, a clowder of cats, a gam of whales and a streak of tigers.

A parliament of owls.

We’ll see you next week.

Big Brother and the Holding Company

________________________________________

Big Brother and the Holding Company, part fourteen. 2002

Posted on July 8, 2012 by J L tagged.

2002

19 January 2002 Turlock California

28 January 2002 Chanhassen Minnesota

31 January 2002 Area 22 Newport Rhode Island

1 February 2002 Bank Street Café New London Connecticut

Every time I play at the Bank Street Café, someone asks me about my brother Dan who went to the Coast Guard Academy in New London.

Study for a painting.

2 February 2002 The Company Theatre Norwell Massachusetts

After playing in Norwell, we fly over the amazing Atlantic Ocean to England.

13 February 2002 The Astor Theatre Deal UK I feel as if Charles Dickens may have written about this place.

Right on the English Channel. Dover is a bit farther south down the coast and Southampton more so.

14 February The Brook Southampton UK

Beth Hart played many of these same places just before us. We once followed Yngvie Malmsteen all over Europe in a similar fashion.

I suppose you could call it the Beans and Bangers Circuit.

15 February 2002 The Point Cardiff Wales As we were entering Wales, our driver said, “Do you have your passports?” I started and replied, “No, no one told us to… ” He smiled. We fell for it. I fell for it… and her.

The French call Wales the pays de Galles. It’s a land of singers, poets, actors.

Bards

People of the voice.

Charlotte Church

The Point used to be St. Stephen’s Church and it still felt like it.

16 February 2001 The Flowerpot Derby

Derby is in the north and center of England.

It’s pronounced “darby,” as in Darby Slick.

I asked a Black Country man how he pronounced the name of this big city and he said, “BUH min ghum.” Rather different from “Birming hayam,” as they say in Alabama.

17 February 2002 The Stables Milton Keynes UK Cleo Laine, the American singer, lives here and she and her husband built this place.

Chad Quist Sam Andrew Lisa Mills Todd Vinciguerra Peter Albin

20 February 2002 The Limelight Crewe UK

Crewe is in the northwest of England, in Cheshire, where the cat lives. Crewe is the home of the Bentley automobile.

And the Limelight.

21 February 2002 Picture House Beverley UK This is such a beautiful place.

Beverley is near Hull on the Humber river.

Brierley Hill is in the West Midlands, the Black Country.

Brierley Hill is in Dudley. Samuel Johnson grew up in the town of Lichfield on the east side of Birmingham, the other side.

22 February 2002 Robin Hood Brierley Hill UK This is where Robert Plant came and stole Lisa Mills away from us. Hood Robin.

Oh, well, I have stolen and I have been stolen from, and so it goes. Paul Kantner paid me the compliment of stealing Cathy Richardson from me.

And then once or twice they took Sophia Ramos also.

I’ll just take it as a salute to my good taste in singers.

Just call me the unpaid talent scout for the Jefferson Starship. But I have stolen many a musician from them, and Jimmy Page saved my life once, so, eh?, we’re even.

23 February 2002 The Boardwalk Sheffield UK

24 February 2002 The Mean Fiddler London

27 February 2002 Piesel Fulda Germany

28 February 2002 Theater Rex Lorsch Germany

We took this photo in Liverpool, but I’m using it for Lorsch.

Laura Albergante Visconti took this photograph.

Then we went to Schwerin, Germany, way up north. It felt like going to the end of the world.

1 March 2002 Speicher Schwerin Germany

2 March 2002 Blues Garage Hannover Germany

This is where we met Michael Spörke who wrote a book about our band called: Big Brother and the Holding Company, Die Band, die Janis Joplin berühmt machte. I translated this book and in English it is now called: Living With the Myth of Janis Joplin. Michael is writing a new book about Willie Mae Big Mama Thornton and I am doing some light translating and editing on that one too. It’s an interesting story. We played many times with Big Mama and she was a fascinating character, so Michael’s book is well worth reading.

“Alte Weberei” could mean “the old weavery.”

3 March 2002 Alte Weberei Cottbus Germany

Cottbus is very far east, almost in Poland, and it feels like it.

4 March 2002 Hahn (which means “hen”) is the other airport near Frankfurt, smaller, a lille easier to negotiate. It’s like La Guardia compared to JFK.

Our friend Elena Lichtenberger (upper left) is from Kaiserslautern.

Saint Anthony (San Antonio) praying over my head.

Muddy Waters and his wife. She’s playing an A and he’s making it play.

I stole the Muddy image from Jessie Brawer. Jessie, thank you.

23 March 2002 The Powerhouse Pub Folsom California

6 April 2002 Center for the Arts Grass Valley California Drew (great name for an artist, right?) Friedman did this drawing.

20 April 2002 The Majestic Theatre Streator Illinois

Alex Call and I wrote a couple of songs together. I recorded one of them with Mary Bridget Davies, Ben Nieves and Jim Wall just last December.

At that same recording session, we did a couple of songs that Wendy Rich and I wrote just about the time this photograph was taken.

3 May 2002 Avalon Ballroom San Francisco

23 May 2002 Melba Theatre Batesville Arkansas

Beverly Ambort

Thank you, Rona Walstra.

Beverly Ambort Chad Quist Help ! Chad has a giant Bud growing out of his head. No, not that kind of Bud.

An illustration from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam, artist Edmund J. Sullivan.

Some singers sound like they have a microphone in their throat. She sounds as if she has the whole PA in there.

24 May 2002 Pop’s Sauget Illinois

26 May 2002 The Waterfront Covington Kentucky

From my fingerpainting period.

“Tatemae honne,” the title of this painting, is Japanese for the public face and the private self.

Sam Andrew Lisa Mills

1 June 2002 The Thirsty Ear Columbus Ohio

One of my first sculptures.

2 June 2002 Motown Harley Davidson Taylor Michigan

14 June 2002 Constable Jack’s Newcastle California

Two good friends of the band: Judy and Todd Bolton.

15 June 2002 Lake County Fairgrounds Lakeport California On the west shore of Clearlake.

Sam Andrew senior year Kubasaki High School Okinawa Japan

29 June 2002 Tussey Mountain Amphitheatre Boalsburg Pennsylvania

7 July 2002

Musicians for Love, Janis in San Diego.

12 July 2002 Festival Grounds At The Pier Buffalo New York

27 July 2002 Kronberg Germany In a gemütliches Gasthaus. Very typical post gig scene.

31 July 2002 Woodstock Swiss style

8 August 2002 Point Breeze Webster Massachusetts

9 August 2002 Fall River Celebrates Fall River Massachusetts

10 August 2002 Ocean Beach Park New London Connecticut

15 August 2002 Coeur d’Alene Casino Worley Idaho

16 August 2002 Whitehorse Mountain Amphitheatre Darrington Washington

17 August 2002 Grant County Fair Moses Lake Washington

4 October 2002 The Landmark Hotel, room 105 Los Angeles

12 October 2002 Avalon Ballroom San Francisco I was watching Manhattan (Woody Allen) in this cinema when Alan Weiss approached. “Recognize the place ?” I looked around and it slowly dawned on me that this was the Avalon, a place where I had been caught in the broom closet with Dany and a joint. I swallowed the joint and tried to swallow Dany too.

Sign for our road when we lived in Lagunitas, California.

19 October 2002 Center For The Fine Arts Grass Valley California

20 October 2002 Spirit of Peace San Francisco Civic Center

26 October 2002 The Brookdale Lodge Brookdale California

Marie-Hélène Castelain

Françoise Hardy When I lived in Paris, Françoise Hardy and Johnny Hallyday were the king and queen of the scene.

I was barely aware of them, but in restaurants I would see them on Scopitone, a kind of proto MTV, video jukeboxes that would play a song for a franc.

27 November 2002 When musicians play snatches of other melodies during a solo, they are said to be “quoting.” These are some of the quotes I use when s0loing on Blindman.

Next week, part fifteen. Thank you for being here.

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IRONY.

Posted on February 26, 2012 by J L tagged.

26 February 2012

Max Clarke sent me this one:

This word in Greek meant “dissimulation.” It became ironía, die Ironie, irony.

Oh, the irony of it all.

“Irony” supposedly began with Eiron who was the clever comic charater in Greek drama who tricked his “better,” the braggart Alazon.

In irony the surface meaning and the underlying meaning are not the same.

Lelaina: Can you define “irony?”

Troy Dyer: It’s when the actual meaning is the complete opposite from the literal meaning.

Reality Bites.

“It is a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon, launder became a dirty word.” William Zinsser.

Situational irony is a condition of affairs or events opposite to what was, or might naturally be, expected, a contradictory outcome to events as if in mockery of the promise and fitness things. For example, Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize while he was bombing Cambodia. This man was nominated for the Peace Prize in 1939.

Dramatic irony can occur in a play where we are watching a character and we know something s/he does not.

“Simply put, dramatic irony is when a person makes a harmless remark, and someone else who hears it knows something that makes the remark have a different, and usually unpleasant, meaning. For instance, if you were in a restaurant and said out loud, “I can’t wait to eat the veal marsala I ordered,” and there were people around who knew that the veal marsala was poisoned and that you would die as soon as you took a bite, your situation would be one of dramatic irony.” Lemony Snicket, The Reptile Room

Oedipus Rex is an example of dramatic irony. We know that Oedipus is having a love affair with his mother, but he doesn’t know that.

Look at the Socratic method. Socrates pretends he does not know the answer to a question he is asking. He feigns ignorance in order to lead his student to a better understanding of the topic. This is ignorance purposely affected.

• Kampenfeldt: This is a grave matter, a very grave matter. It has just been reported to me that you’ve been expressing sentiments hostile to the Fatherland.

Schwab: What, me sir?

Kampenfeldt: I warn you, Schwab, such treasonable conduct will lead you to a concentration camp.

Schwab: But sir, what did I say?

Kampenfeldt: You were distinctly heard to remark, “This is a fine country to live in.”

Schwab: Oh, no, sir. There’s some mistake. No, what I said was, “This is a fine country to live in.”

Kampenfeldt: Huh? You sure?

Schwab: Yes sir.

Kampenfeldt: I see. Well, in future don’t make remarks that can be taken two ways. (Raymond Huntley and Eliot Makeham in Night Train to Munich, 1940)

• “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room.” (Peter Sellers as President Merkin Muffley in Dr. Strangelove, 1964)

• “I’m aware of the irony of appearing on TV in order to decry it.” (Sideshow Bob, The Simpsons)

• “Math was my worst subject because I could never persuade the teacher that my answers were meant ironically.” (Calvin Trillin)

• “We’re conceived in irony. We float in it from the womb. It’s the amniotic fluid. It’s the silver sea. It’s the waters at their priest-like task, washing away guilt and purpose and responsibility. Joking but not joking. Caring but not caring. Serious but not serious.” (Hilary in The Old Country by Alan Bennett, 1977)

• Lyn Cassady: It’s okay, you can “attack” me.

Bob Wilton: What’s with the quotation fingers? It’s like saying I’m only capable of ironic attacking or something. (The Men Who Stare at Goats, 2009)

Suppose you hear a political candidate give a terribly long speech, one that rambles on and on without end. Afterward you might turn to a friend sitting next to you and say, ‘Well, that was short and to the point, wasn’t it?’ You are being ironic. You are counting on your friend to turn the literal meaning, to read it as exactly the opposite of what your words actually mean.

The word “irony” might be one of the most misused words in English.

Irony is sometimes used as a synonym for incongruous and applied to “every trivial oddity.” This happens so often that one day “irony” will come to mean this because so many people misuse the word, which is distressing to contemplate. The notion of irony will have been cheapened and counterfeited.

Many people say “ironic” when they really mean curious, odd, unusual, interesting or funny. Take these examples, interesting but not ironic:

It seemed ironic that Lowell Levine and I, who were both Jewish, were going over to identify the remains of a man who was so anti-Semitic. Michael Baden

It’s also ironic that in the old days of tape and tape hiss and vinyl records and surface noise, we were always trying to get records louder and louder to overcome that. T-Bone Burnett

It’s ironic that in our culture everyone’s biggest complaint is about not having enough time; yet nothing terrifies us more than the thought of eternity. Dennis Miller

Here is another example of the misuse of the word “irony.” “Sullivan, whose real interest was, ironically, serious music, which he composed with varying degrees of success, achieved fame for his comic opera scores rather than for his more earnest efforts.”

The following is true, but not ironic: For a Latino to vote for a Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.

This is a pun and maybe even a visual pun on the two meanings of “bebe” (“baby” and the imperative of “drink”). Drink on board ! If you’re in the car, you shouldn’t drink.

I have read James Boswell since I was in the 8th grade. I have read every word he has written, although people keep finding new Boswell journals in castles and haylofts. All my life, Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson has been my Bible. This is Samuel Johnson telling the young Boswell how to live eithically and intelligently. The book is full of good sense expressed in a precise and beautiful language. I have also revered Robert Crumb to an inordinate degree. Imagine my surprise and gratification, then, when Mr. Crumb released this set of drawings:

More non irony:

“Corporations are people, my friend… of coure they are.” Mitt Romney.

Mitt would have sounded much more intelligent if he had meant this ironically.

“The only way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is to use them.” Rush Limbaugh.

“I’m a Christian first, and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don’t you ever forget it.” Ann Coulter.

“I’m more of a man than any liberal.” Ann Coulter.

Stop me when you’ve heard something you like.

The Irony of Incomprehension.

“Ironic, isn’t it?” Shawn said.

“It’s not ironic at all,” Gus said.

“Dude, it’s so like a black fly in your chardonnay.”

“How many times do I have to tell you that’s not ironic, either?”

“Rain on your wedding day?”

“‘Irony’ is the use of words to convey a meaning that’s opposite to their literal meaning,” Gus said. “That stupid song came out fourteen years ago, and we still have this exact conversation at least once a week.”

“Yeah,” Shawn said. “Ironic, isn’t it? William Rabkin, A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read

That face, that grace, that beauty !

Now, THAT is irony.

With fame I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very common phenomenon. Albert Einstein.

100,000 sperm and you were the fastest?

For your information I would like to ask a question. Samuel Goldwyn.

A play is made by sensing how the forces in life simulate ignorance – you set free the concealed irony, the deadly joke. Arthur Miller.

“Although you know how to swim, always wear your floaters. What irony.” No. Not irony. A silly pun on floaters and breasts, but not ironic in any way.

You have delighted us long enough. Jane Austen.

Now away with you.

With Anthea Sidiropoulos.

Thank you, and I will see you in a week.

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

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Chime Children

Posted on January 22, 2012 by J L tagged.

22 January 2012

Alan Merril wrote I Love Rock and Roll… and then he retired. He’s truly a gifted singer and a good friend.

J.K. Rowling’s books, targeted for their sorcery, were banned by some American libraries and burned in some cases. Shame, shame. You are the followers of Qin Shi Huang, Diocletian, Savonarola, the Nazis, Republican senator Joseph McCarthy and other ignorant book burners throughout history. Have you learned nothing? Of course not. You are book burners.

With Susan Zelinsky.

La bellissima Arianna Antinori, Roman by birth, and now she lives in Vicenza.

Ben Nieves, a real, true musician, born that way, and has studied since.

Lani from New Orleans, love you, Lani.

Herb Caen, what is there to say? He was Mr. San Francisco for fifty years, even though he was a suburban kid from Sacramento.

He did what he called “three dot journalism” EVERY DAY for years and years. Item, item, hoosegotta item?

Carmine and Kacee, Hawaii.

Chad Quist, a Berklee product, although I knew him before he went to Berklee and he was very good then.

Cher and Gregg Allman in their funky southern phase.

Cher in her earlier Sonny and Bob chapter.

Don Graham with Chloe, who was our singer that night, but she has since moved on, with Joel Hoekstra, to the Trans Siberian Orchestra.

Danny Dastrup at Aroma Café. There was a big hole in our lives when Danny moved on, as we knew he would.

Dava’s lower half. And her upper half is even better, but we’re not going to see it today.

David Peters is in Uganda now, filming in Ginga, helping people become better, as he is wont to do.

Don’s party.

And, then, a little later in the evening…

Dylan.

Eartha Kitt and James Dean in a dance class. Now, you don’t see that every day.

You are what you think.

Engrid Whisenant, scholar, partisan, Renaissance woman, PhD.

Ezio Guaitamacchi, Italian talk show host, researcher, media personality.

Franco, Szilvia and Veronica.

Fred lives across the street from where I paint.

George Michalski and Chet Helms. George has the money and Chet has the time.

Szilvia when she was a beautiful baby.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. Don Aters took this photo.

Amazing Grace, how sweet that face.

Musicians on the big island, Hawaii.

Szilvia, all grown up.

… and her beautiful friends.

Jackie and Steve.

Jane and Freddie.

Janis and James.

Joel Hoekstra.

Jennifer, the goddess, Espinoza.

She can really sing.

She’s 18 now.

Not bad looking either.

She’d be a good model for a Madonna.

Jimi in Little Richard’s band.

With Bobby Womack and Wilson Pickett.

Quanked: overpowered by fatigue. From Anglo-Saxon cwanian, to be weary or faint, and cwencan, to quench.

Chirology: the art of conversing with the hands or fingers.

Pythonic: pretending to foretell future events; from pythoness, the female or priestess who gave oracular answers at Delphi.

Things to say while driving:

Thou damned tripe-visaged rascal. Thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson, obscene, greasy tallow-catch.

Lifelode: the leading of one’s life (Middle English). So much prettier and apt than lifestyle, isn’t it?

Gommacks: tricks, mischief, foolery, from Gaelic guaineach, giddy, sportive, frolicking.

Millefleurs: a perfume distilled from flowers of different kinds; formed on the French eau de millefleurs. The equivalent Italian millefiori is a glass sculpture.

Ensorcell: to enchant, bewitch, fascinate. Adapted from French ensorceler, from sorcier, sorcerer.

I wrote many songs with Kim Nomad. Only now are some of them being recorded. She has a beautiful way of singing.

Kristina Kopriva and Liam Hanrahan.

(Book title, 1672)

New Instructions unto Youth for Their Behavior: A Discourse upon Some Innovations of Habits and Dressing, Against Powdering of Hair, Naked Breasts, Black Spots, and Other Unseemly Customs.

Lucubrator: a person who studies by night, or by candlelight.

La Città della Pieve, Umbria, Italia.

Linda LaFlamme.

This was fun.

Snickersneeze: a term without meaning used to frighten children, “I’ll snickersneeze you, if you don’t.”

When at Niagara Falls, I was escorting a young lady with whom I was on friendly terms. She had been standing on a piece of rock, the better to view the scene, when she slipped down

and was evidently hurt. “Did you hurt your leg much?” She turned from me, evidently much shocked, “The word ‘leg’ is never mentioned before ladies. I am not so particular as some people are,

for I know those who always say ‘limb’ of a table, or ‘limb’ of a pianoforte.” I then recalled seeing a pianoforte in a “seminary for young ladies” whose four legs had been dressed by prudish

residents in modest little trousers with frills at the bottom.” Frederick Maryatt, English army captain, 1837.

Lunarian: an inhabitant of the moon.

“I abroad with my wife and little Betty Mitchell…to show them a play, The Chances…The whole play pleases me well, and most of all the sight of many fine ladies, among others

my Lady Castlemayne and Mrs. Middleton. The latter of the two hath also a very excellent face and body, I think. Thence by coach to the New Exchange, and there laid out money,

and I did give Betty Mitchell two pairs of gloves…I was troubled with my pain, having got a bruise on my right testicle, I know not how. But this I did make good use of to make my wife

shift sides with me, and I did come to sit avec Betty Mitchell, and there had her hand which elle did give me very frankly, and did hazer whatever I voudrais avec la, which did plaisir

me grandement, and so set home with my mind mighty glad.” Samuel Pepys 5 February 1667.

Navvy: a toiler, principally with a spade, short for navigator, but a navigator of the land, day laborers without benefit of bulldozers, backhoes, computers.

Chantepleure: she that sings and weeps both together.

Napiform: having the shape or appearance of a turnip (Latin napus, turnip).

Bezaubernde: German, bewitching, charming, ensorcellating.

Norton and Lisa Buffalo. Norton was a prince among men and a real musician. Lisa is a high quality person, and I wish her well.

Shana rhymes with Anna, Savannah, or, if you’re loose, with Shannon. Kat rhymes with “Who dat?” Naturally.

A missed opportunity. To paint a portrait is a knack I possess, which many artists, far better than I, lack. I painted hers, but then was asked to do it again for a fee, and I could not.

When money is involved, I immediately lose interest, if you’ll pardon the expression.

Shrumpsed: beaten in games. I’m sure Rachel could shrumps me anytime in any game.

Fragor: a strong or sweet scent.

Saltation: the act of dancing or jumping.

Sasha and her beau.

Dowsabell: a common name in sixteenth-century poetry for a sweetheart, especially for an unsophisticated country girl.

The word means “sweet and beautiful,” from French douce et belle.

Today is the birthday of William Smith, an English admiral who compiled the rich and varied glossary of nautical terms Sailor’s Word Book, 1867. His famous grandson Robert Baden-Powell

founded the British Boy Scouts in 1908.

One of Admiral Smith’s words was “mallemarocking,” the visiting and carousing of seamen in the Greenland ships. This word came from the Dutch “mallemarok,” a foolish woman,

a tomboy, from “mal,” foolish and “marok,” adaptation of the French “marotte,” an object of foolish attention.

Carfuddle: to discompose, to rumple, synonymous with carfuffle, to disorder. Also spelled kerfuffle.

Susan Zelinsky and Ruby who has grown to look exactly like her mother.

Galericulate: covered, as with a hat. (Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, 1755)

Lycanthropia: January was called wolf month because people are always wont in that month to be more in danger of being devoured by wolves than in any other.

Just last week the first wolf in a hundred years crossed into California. We welcome this creature now and wish him well. Some of us do anyway.

Szilvia.

Drury: gallantry, courtship, love, delight (from the French drue, a mistress). I have often walked Drury Lane in London.

In the days before motels and hotels, travelers often stayed anywhere they could, and sometimes slept in the same bed as their hosts. Husbands and parents frequently permitted these guests

to “bundle” with their wives and daughters. Prudent mothers gave daughters approaching the bundling age a “courting-stocking” completely covering the girl’s body from the waist downwards,

with room for both legs within it. Such stockings were often heirlooms.

Veronica Farnetani and Andrea Zurli. I met them in Umbria.

Vicki is from South Africa. Her accent is soft and beautiful, just as she is.

Wassail Eve, also known as Twelfth Night was the evening when the Three Wise Men came.

“Wassail” was derived from the 13th century Norse toast Waes hail. (Be thou healthy.)

Crazling: a person affected with a craze or mania.

See you next week !

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

__________________________________________________________

Making A CD.

Posted on December 14, 2011 by J L tagged.

14 December 2011

We Made A CD.

Inspiring, Interesting, enlightening, in vitro, intuitive.

Engrossing, incipient, inclusive, infatuating, impulsive.

In tempo.

On 4 December 2011, I made my way to Cleveland, Ohio.

After landing at the airport, I called Holiday Inn to send me a shuttle

They took me to Snow Road which seemed like a good song title, so Jim Wall, Ben Nieves and I later recorded a thrash/death/progressive/groove/funk metal tune called Snow Road.

In 1965, when Big Brother and the Holding Company started playing with drummer Chuck Jones, we would often go insane for fifteen minutes with no plan at all. In Cleveland just last week, Ben, Jim and I used the same approach to record Snow Road. It is as much fun now as it was then.

Snow Road is in Brook Park which is a part of the Big Creek Watershed in Cleveland.

I was given a room at the end of the hall and very happy with my roll-in shower. It all seemed so Japanese with the drain in the middle of the bathroom floor.

My plan was to walk the watershed to Jim’s house every day.

Easy, right? Educational too.

On the way to the sessions I ran into all sorts of interesting places.

This tree in front of Jim’s house sprouted from an acorn about the time the Declaration of Independence was signed.

Some town officials came out and certified the tree’s age with a plaque, but she stretched as she grew and the plaque disappeared. Maybe she ate it.

Being a rather hoary creature myself, I identified with this magnificent oak.

Hairy, hurried recording sessions.

Mary Bridget Davies showed up with this bag featuring my old pal Chet Helms and his close friend Jesus in their new identities as photo buttons.

Where the magic happened.

I wrote a song called Rock a Bye, Baby when my daughter was born, and then later recorded it with Kathi MacDonald. We decided to try it again here.

Jim’s shirt.

I wrote a couple of ballads that seem straight out of the 1940s, and Ben got into the spirit of it. His solos are so beautiful.

Ben played everything with this thumb. That face is a blister.

Mary Bridget Davies.

We recorded a tune called Dogs In The Rain. I wrote it with Wendy Rich, but we couldn’t hear all the words, so Teressa Wilcox supplied some, and Ben Nieves, always a volunteer, added a few more.

Trying to look like my dad.

We did You’ve Been On My Mind Lately, a positive version of a tune that Big Brother did long ago.

Ben Nieves does Coast To Coast On A Piece Of Toast.

Mary Bridget sang Shining Glory. I wrote this song in the 1990s and it sounds better than ever now.

With Jim Wall.

Beneath that quiet, civilized exterior lies the heart of a savage.

Ditto.

We did a song called Now. Chris Hanna is going to play piano, and Teressa Wilcox will write the words. This is a tune that I played on the piano long ago and I want Jim Wall to compose an interlude for it, some kind of bridge to another section of the tune. Not absolutely necessary, but it would be fun.

I stayed in the Big Creek watershed area of Cleveland and walked four miles every day from Brook Park to Jim Wall’s house in Parma Heights. I took Snow Road for two and a half miles and then turned right on Stumpf Avenue for a mile and a half.

As I walked to Jim’s house every day, I thought about people who traveled through these woods before me. The Erie and the Shawnee tribes were here, and the Seneca and Iroquois nations came later.

When the Iroquois arrived, they called this land Ohiyo (it is beautiful). One of the songs we recorded is called Beautiful. I wrote it a long time ago with Kim Nomad. Jim Wall helped Mary Bridget Davies decipher and complete the words to this lovely tune, which is, after all, the literal translation of “Ohio.”

Leaf Shake Blues was fun, our only blues. I didn’t write this one. I made it up. Yes, I stole that line from Janis Joplin.

Ben Nieves and I played a song called Anxious Heart. Teressa Wilcox wrote the very beautiful words and Ben came up with a line or two. We had fun playing this one.

What Anxious Heart orignially looked like.

Jim Wall produced this whole session and we valued his intelligence, tact, talent. Very creative and helpful all the way.

There was a spirit of cooperation and mutual respect during this recording process.

I was ecstatic most of the time.

How Ben got that sweet sound on Whispers In My Mind.

And on Fairy Tales, a tune that Wendy Rich and I wrote in Florida.

Alex Call and I wrote a song called All Things Are Equal In The Eyes of the Lord. Jim Wall supplied some words for this tune. So did Mary Bridget.

You know a tune is good when everyone wants to contribute.

Some days were cold.

Some days were strange.

All the days were beautiful.

Mary worked hard on these sessions and helped pull everything together.

Coast To Coast On A Piece Of Toast. I wrote the title and, dammit, I’m proud of it. We all wrote the song.

We did a song in 3/4 called All The Love You Need. I wrote this one with Gary Albright who used to play drums in The Sam Andrew Band.

My guitar.

Ben’s bass (which he played very well indeed).

Jim Wall, Ben, Mary Bridget and I did a song called The Clap, but we’re hoping that that is not the final title. Silver Bullet might be better.

Doing a solo on The Clap.

And watching the ribbons of sound.

“Play it my way… or else!”

After my four mile walk to Jim’s neighborhood, I would often stop for something to eat at the Udupi Café.

Whoops, a little late for the one o’clock band.

Paul Mondavi, thank you.

This is a season to remember that things are not always what they seem.

Sunrise in Cleveland and I am about to get on the airplane.

Almost home. There’s the Airporter.

Home to Elise, and her dear reign, or her reindeer, or something like that.

See you next week!

SamAndrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

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The Musical Secret of Life (or one of them anyway)

Posted on October 9, 2011 by J L tagged.

9 October 2011

For any of our friends who will be on Okinawa during the Uchinanchu Festival, there will be an invitation only event on Sunday, October 16, 2011 at Sam’s by the Sea. Because space is limited, tickets are required and are available upon request, but the event is free, and is open to the alumni and teachers of Kubasaki, OCS and CKS, and to all of our friends from around the world.

A little honesty can get you in trouble. A lot of it can be downright dangerous.

Well, if I called the wrong number, then why did you answer the phone?

Photo: Max Clarke.

A che cosa serve la noia?

What is boredom for?

This face has lasted for a long time. It’s a Barrymore face from the 19th century.

Drew’s father was John Drew Barrymore. If they ever made a film about his life, Sean Penn could play him in a second. Drew has two great acting strains in her family, the Drews and the Barrymores.

John Drew (1853-1927) was an actor and a matinée idol, one of the great stars of his day. His father was also a great actor. Louisa Lane Drew, John Drew’s mother, became the manager of the Arch Street theatre in San Francisco, which she ran successfully for thirty years.

On her opening night at age 21 in New York, Ethel Barrymore was scared, and someone shouted from the gallery, “Speak up, Ethel, all the Drews are great actors.” A lot of people still think she was the greatest actress of her generation.

We should show life neither as it is nor as it ought to be, but as we see it in our dreams. (Chekhov)

(John Barrymore)

Lionel Barrymore, a huge talent, painter and actor, who had so many great roles, maybe the most interesting in Dinner At Eight (1933).

So, let’s just say that Drew Barrymore has a lot in her soul. Still continuing the tradition after more than a hundred years. Here’s to you, talented one. You are a Drew and a Barrymore.

Big Brother and the Holding Company, Sophia Ramos.

Elie Piliwale, the youngest and most attractive member of a very young and attractive family,

Art must begin locally so that it may end universally.

Will The Circle Be Unbroken? (I just today learned the trick of painting this, after a week of frustration. I’ve only got a little start, but it is a start, and now I know how to do it. That was a tough beginning. (Photo: Max Clarke)

What we love tells the story of who we are.

Laura Joplin and her daughter Claire.

An old saying in English: She was “in the pink,”

means roughly the same as the French “la vie en rose.”

What people look like on the street in São Paolo, Brazil. (Photo: Elise Piliwale)

Nat King Cole was such a great piano player. He was as fleet, fast, furious and fun as anyone who ever played the instrument. I still can’t believe how good he was.

Die Welt des Glücklichen ist eine andere als die des Unglücklichen. (Wittgenstein)

The world of the happy is other than the world of the unhappy. (Photo: Max Clarke)

LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA VOI CH’ENTRATE. (Dante)

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

Beginning improvisors, here is the Secret Of Life:

Arpeggios with a judicious addition of chromaticism, scale motion and blue notes. (Milan Melvin and Mimi Fariña, 1968)

The great object of music is to touch the heart, and this end can never be obtained by mere noise, drumming and arpeggios. Karl Philipp Emmanuel Bach.

One of the most ancient and reverential gestures that accompanied prayer was the spreading of arms and hands heavenward. In time, the arms were pulled in, folded across the breast, wrists intersecting above the heart. Each of these gestures possesses an intrinsic logic and obviousness of intent.

The folding of hands, in the now familar image of prayer, is mentioned nowhere in the Bible.

This prayer gesture didn’t appear in the Christian church until the ninth century. Subsequently, sculptors and artists incorporated it into scenes that predated its origin… which, it turns out, has nothing to do with religion or worship, and owes much to subjugation and servitude.

The folding of hands in prayer, as we know it, originated from the holding out of hands to be handcuffed. The joined hands became a standard, widely practiced gesture long before it was appropriated and formalized by the Catholic Church.

Before waving a white flag signaling surrender, a captured Roman could avert immediate slaughter by affecting the shackled hands posture.

He’s tough, sir, tough is Slick Aguilar, and devlish sly !

That’s her name there written out in hieroglyphics. Kleopatra.

The arpeggios are like the big road map and the chromaticism and blue notes are like little detailed roads to the next town, the next chord.

Elise Piliwale, if she were one of those fancy women at the Red Dog Saloon, Virginia City, Nevada.

Main thing is… learn the arpeggios of all keys in all positions and inversions. Major, minor, augmented, diminished and, especially, half diminished chords.

Knowing the “melody” is also important, even if it is only your own melody.

Christy is beautiful, inside and out.

Big Boobster and the Holding Company, Maury Baker, Sophia Ramos, Peter Albin, Ben Nieves.

I am trying to get one of these people, if not both, to come sing with us soon.

Melody and arpeggios… of course they are both vital. it’s like line and color in painting.

I’m Charley’s aunt frrom Brazil where the nuts come from. In fact, Brazil was named frm the nut and not the other way round.

I still haven’t done a satisfactory portrait of Ben Nieves, but this one is growing on me.

To Alechim without whose never-failing sympathy and encouragement this blog would have been finished in half the time.

A long way is nothing. It’s how you take the first step that counts.

(Jim Wall, PhD Percussion, Doctor Drums)

Learn all these arpeggios in all these positions and modes and save years of time.

On the other hand, I suppose it could take a lifetime to learn all these arpeggios in all these positions.

It certainly has taken me a lifetime.

Of course, i didn’t realize for a long while that learning arpeggios should have been my goal.

When I began, I played in a linear style. Melody was the only thing. Melody and paraphrase of that melody.

So I played “horizontally.” Up and down the neck from first position on a string all the way up to as high as I could go, 20th fret and beyond.

After going through the Berklee methods for guitar, I slowly, dimly began to realize the importance of arpeggios.

Then, in the 1980s, 1990s, i began in earnest to learn the arpeggios everywhere on the guitar neck… and on the piano, saxophone and voice also.

The arpeggios give a schematic of where we are in the music. We don’t have to play them, but feeling them is good, because they are the outline of the chord. The skeleton. The map.

It is important to feel music horizontally and vertically at the same time.

This means being able to play melodically step by step and chordally by leaps and bounds. Melody lines and arpeggios.

There are many new tricks, mostly in the right hand, that I will probably never learn, but which are important for someone to learn now because most serious players use them at present.

If you look up my friend Joel Hoekstra, you will find a gifted teacher who will show you more in his videos and writings than you can probably learn in a lifetime.

(Mick Taylor, Sam Andrew)

Joel is not only a teacher, he plays in real life, plays as well as anyone, better than anyone really. See for yourself.

I heard a recording tonight of Joel Hoekstra, Blake Thompson and me in a room in Arizona going over Summertime for the show Love, Janis. The musicianship in that room was astonishing. I am tempted to release that recording, but it would only interest guitar players and other musical people. It’s not going to be on the Top Ten real soon, but it is a fascinating document.

The chronicler of daily nonsense in Zug, Switzerland.

Music is a tongue that utters no mean nor sarcastic words. Photo: Don Aters.

This is the Foul Fiend Flibbertigibbet.

Sophia Ramos and I in Las Vegas.

Conscience, an inner voice that warns us that someone is looking, even if it’s only ourselves. Photo: Max Clarke

Cogito, ergo sum.

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant… You may talk in this manner; it is a mode of talking in society: but don’t THINK foolishly. Samuel Johnson.

Cant (Latin cantus, song)

Phraseology taken up and used for fashion’s sake, and not as a genuine expression of sentiment.

Insincere, especially conventional expressions of enthusiasm for high ideals, goodness or piety, the jargon peculiar to a particular class, party, profession, e.g., The cant of the music industry.

You usually hear cant when people aren’t really thinking. Their mind slips into neutral and they begin parroting common, trendy thoughts. Politicians do this a lot. You hear accepted notions fly by like banners of banality.

Marin County Cant, early 21st Century:

(Full Disclosure, I am a vegetarian from Marin County.)

MARIN CANT

I’m radiating total acceptance now, so, I love you, man, no, I really love you.

It’s all good. Don’t blame me for that Astral Projection. My Mars was conjuncting Jupiter.

What color is my aura? Red? Holy Atlantis, it was green just yesterday !

I wish my chakra were red. I’m channeling BaBa Lu and psychometrisized on my spiritual journey. I’m on the path, closer to the godess, bro.

There are other realities, like, like tantric sex which will lead us to manifesting abundance. It’s a Higher Consciousness, so consult the Tarot and use your Third Eye. That’s my special mantra.

We’re going to Okinawa, Japan. We’ll see you next week.

(I think Kat Feaver snapped this.)

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

__________________________________________________________

Polyonymously Perverse

Notes from a Bindle Stiff

I Homologate This Message.

A Heterogeneous Assemblage

Big Brother and the Holding Company, part fourteen. 2002

IRONY.

Chime Children

Making A CD.

The Musical Secret of Life (or one of them anyway)

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