I HEAR MUSIC

I have been tagged by Splotchy, thusly:

Seeing as the traffic to my blog is nearing a fever pitch, I thought I'd try and start one of them taggy things that meme all over the place...so I tag Bubs and Mizbubs. And you, dear reader. I tag you.

Let the wild stallion that is this meme run free.

I ask you, how could I resist?

What was the first recorded music you bought?
-It was a used copy of the Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" that I bought at a thrift shop when I was in 6th or 7th grade.

What was the last?
-I can't say here, because it was a gift for MizBubs that she won't get until June. Before that it was Tom Waits' "Orphans".

What was the first "professional" music show you ever went to?
-Oh, I'll always remember this one--Johnny Cash and the Carter Family at Madison Square Garden. June Carter was big and pregnant at the time, and couldn't perform with everyone else. I'm guessing this was in 1969 or 1970. What was really cool about this was my dad took us, and he wasn't even much of a country music fan.

What was the last?
-The Raconteurs at the Riviera Theater in Chicago.

What's your "desert island" album?
-Probably "Rain Dogs" by Tom Waits

What's your favorite album/song title? (the *title* which is your fav, not the actual album or song)
-Without a doubt, it's "Weasels Ripped My Flesh" by the Mothers of Invention. I've never owned it, never heard more than a couple of tracks from it. Rzzzzz!

What's your favorite album art (include an image of it if you can)?
-I can't think of one off the top of my head, but most of my favorites are in this collection here.

Ideal choice for a karaoke song?
-My favorite is "Suspicious Minds" but when I'm boozed up like a big hillbilly with Tourette's, my friends and family want to hear me sing Tom Jones' "Delilah." Did you know that "Delilah" is the Tom Jones song most sung by impersonators and karaoke fans?

Song you don't like that WILL NOT LEAVE YOUR HEAD if you hear it.
-There are a few choices on the Weebls Stuff site that, if my youngest daughter plays them, will be stuck in my head for days. But I'm not sure I don't like them...I'm not sure if "My Humps", which is annoying as hell, is stuck in my head or if it's just still being played to death; those Blades of Glory ads don't help.

Which is cooler? -- Vinyl? CD? Cassette? 8-track?
-Dude, vinyl! Everything about it, the album art, the sleeve art and lyrics, the promotional extras you could cram inside, the anticipation watching the needle lower onto the record, the slight hiss and pop, everything.

Ok you primitive screwheads, listen up! The following people should consider themselves tagged:

Dale, Beth, Mob, in particular, and anyone else who reads this and has some time on his hands.

Get to work.

Mister Donut Cosplay Dance Party

Yes, this is a group of Japanese cosplay enthusiasts forming a dance party flash mob in front of a Tokyo Mister Donut. The party is broken up by two cops on their way for a coffee break.

Here's a link to the original story, courtesy of Southside bureau chief Dena.

Freak of the week

Recently Coaster Punchman and Dale have written, entertainingly and frighteningly, about dentists. Mob over at Dear Bastards has written of his ongoing dental torture.

Call me a kooky optimistic do-gooder, but I like to try and make my friends feel better whenever I can. Or at least I graciously, and without a hint of smug know-it-allness, point out that things could be far, far worse.

Which brings me to this week's FREAK OF THE WEEK:

British dentist Alan Hutchinson

Dr. Hutchinson is to dentists as Harvey Keitel was to lieutenants--bad. Bad and unclean:

Updated: 12:34 p.m. CT April 5, 2007

LONDON - A British dentist was found guilty on Thursday of urinating in his surgery sink and using dental tools meant for patients to clean his fingernails and ears.

A medical tribunal said it was satisfied the evidence showed 51-year-old Alan Hutchinson, who "routinely" did not wear gloves or wash his hands, had risked the health of "himself, staff and patients" for more than 28 years.

A dental nurse who worked for Hutchinson for 16 years said she had caught him urinating in the sink more than once.

"He was tucking something into his trousers before zipping them up hastily. I walked over and I was behind him. He moved to the left and I could smell urine," the nurse told the tribunal.

A later hearing will decide if the dentist's unhygienic habits impaired his ability to treat patients, and if so, whether he should banned from practicing.

Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited.

Why do they all use Spry?

HERE'S WHY THEY ALL USE SPRY!


"It's marvelous. It creams so easily."


"Foods fried in Spry are as digestible as if baked or boiled."


"Spry is so white. I just know it's purer."



Valued readers like Dino, aka Katy, want to know about miracle product Spry Pure Vegetable Shortening. So, putting aside the fact that I get oddly and inappropriately excited when talking about fat and deep frying, here it is, in all its white whipped oleaginous glory.

Back at Thanksgiving we visited a few antique shops in Marion, Iowa, and I picked up a few old cookbooks. Not regular cookbooks, the little pamphlets put together by food companies, books like Medley of Meat Recipes from the American Meat Institute. Lucky me--I buy a few old pamphlets, and then, a few weeks later, I get some neat presents from my mother-in-law: some modern home magazines from the 50's and 60's, and a guide to building the "modern vacation home" from Popular Science. Anyway, one of the pamphlets I got was from Spry. Imagine a 48 page cookbook in which every single recipe calls for vegetable shortening. I love it.

Spry was a vegetable shortening (like Crisco) made by Lever Brothers. They had a spokeswoman known as Aunt Jenny, who hawked the product from the 1930's through the 1950's. You can see for yourself why Spry is the superior shortening here and here.

There are plenty of good recipes in here, but my real find was the newspaper clipping hidden inside. Click here for this delicious recipe for pineapple and carrot salad, circa 1940.


F*ck you Rachel Ray.

Plug it in, fire it up, Mr. President...

From the April 7 Detroit News "Business Insider" section:

Plug it in, fire it up, Mr. President

The Detroit News

Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the leader of the free world from self-immolation.

Mulally told journalists at the New York auto show that he intervened to prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of Ford's hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last week. Ford wanted to give the Commander-in-Chief an actual demonstration of the innovative vehicle, so the automaker arranged for an electrical outlet to be installed on the South Lawn and ran a charging cord to the hybrid. However, as Mulally followed Bush out to the car, he noticed someone had left the cord lying at the rear of the vehicle, near the fuel tank.

"I just thought, 'Oh my goodness!' So, I started walking faster, and the President walked faster and he got to the cord before I did. I violated all the protocols. I touched the President. I grabbed his arm and I moved him up to the front," Mulally said. "I wanted the president to make sure he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen.

This is all off the record, right?"

What shall I blog today?

Happy Easter IV: Now it's dark

My eldest noted that someone appears to have photoshopped an evil bunny head onto a scary Santa. No problem--either way, the kid cries.

Happy Easter III: Lord of the Harvest

See that poster in the background? Does it refer to the big moldy-smelling pink bunny, back from the pet sematary to visit the kids at Sunday school? The little girl on the left knows it's harvest time, and bunny has come to collect.

Happy Easter II

Happy Easter

OK, time to move on

After yesterday's tattooed granny I felt a responsibility to provide my readers with a more positive image. I think this fits the bill.

This lovely young stewardess is from the George Petty gallery at a neat little animation website called The Pin-Up Files.

HELLO!

MizBubs frequently gets forwarded emails from a friend of hers at work. You know what I'm talking about--heartwarming stuff like cute pictures of dogs that adopt fawns , or of Finnegan the squirrel pup, or natural oddities like frozen landscapes, and jokes like the elephant and the camel.

Sometimes MizBubs forwards them on to me, and they're usually a welcome diversion for a few moments.

This morning was different.

This morning she opened this email:

Subject: [Fwd: [Fwd: FW: Fwd: FW: oh no.... mom went to another of Marcos' tatoo parties]]

The email had been forwarded more than 5 or 6 times, and it took a lot of scrolling. A lot of scrolling, to get to the woman you see pictured here. I have placed a discreet black square on this photo to make it family-friendly. Because seeing a bare, tattooed septuagenarian breast is only offensive if you can also see its pierced nipple, right?

This is one of the mildest pictures in the series. Granny appears in a variety of red and black vinyl outfits, looking like, in the words of my oldest daughter, "a ho'd-up Betty White." Toward the end of the series she displays a, uh, unique set of piercings.

You can see the rest of the pictures here. They are most definitely not safe for work.

Have fun!

Friday Random Ten

Lately I've seen folks like Dale and Johnny Yen give some commentary on their shuffle choices, instead of merely throwing out ten random song titles. Dale has even been generous enough to provide the tunes themselves, through the wonders of his data bus.

There are four of us here at the compound using iTunes on the computer, so a lot of these random ten lists don't just reflect my tastes--it's really more of a glimpse of what the soundtrack to our family life sounds like.

Rains—Jim Edgar & the Roadrunners

This is one of mine, from a collection called "Rockabilly Gold."

Sweet Rockin' Baby—Sonny West

Another one of mine from the excellent Rhino collection "Rockin' Bones."

La valse d'Amelie—Yann Tiersen

This belongs to my youngest, from the soundtrack to her favorite movie Amelie. For a while now she's been on a tear where she listens almost exclusively to old and/or foreign language music. It's really cool to hear Edith Piaf or Fats Waller coming from her room.

Peace in the Valley—Johnny Cash

This was a gift to me from MizBubs' family. It's from a boxed set: The Essential Johnny Cash 1955-1983.

Pretty Boy Floyd—Woody Guthrie

MizBubs loves Woody Guthrie. This track is from a 3-disc set titled This Machine Kills Fascists.

Tainted Love—Marilyn Manson

Here we see the influence of our oldest daughter. She's listed as a contributor to this blog, and I'd love to see her write more (she's appeared as a Tromette at some horror conventions and goes to lots of cool shows that we don't have time to go see) but she tells me she has "too much of a real life" to spend time blogging. Ouch.

Ballade Von Der Sexuellen Horigkeit—Kurt Weill

I found this version of the Three Penny Opera for my youngest. It doesn't get much play because, in her words, "it sounds too new." She prefers older recordings that have some hiss and pop to them; she's especially fond of Bertholt Brecht singing "Mac the Knife" in German on a collection titled September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill.

Ever Fallen In Love? --The Buzzcocks

From Singles Going Steady. I can't remember if I got this on CD to replace old vinyl, or if our eldest got this as part of her ongoing quest to listen to all of our old favorites from the late 70's and early 80's.

Abba Zabba—Captain Beefheart

This is a recent acquisition of mine. I've never listened to an entire Captain Beefheart album, so I figured the reissue of Safe as Milk would be a good place to start.

Stompin' The Bug—Fats Waller

Another one from our youngest. This is off the collection Young Fats at the Organ. She got this after she saw Eraserhead, and wanted some of the soundtrack music.

Now, if you want some more fun, go see Splotchy's take on the Friday Random Ten. I'll use just these four words as a teaser: pussy pussy pussy marijuana.

I had opinions that didn't matter

I had a brain that felt like pancake batter

I got a backyard
With nothing in it
Except a stick, a dog
And a box with something in it...

This is your brain on country music.

Psych Evaluation Ordered For Supernaw

In a pretrial hearing, Supernaw, 46, listed off police agencies that he said had beaten him to ruin his recording career and his chances at a baseball career.

"It has been a political economic conspiracy, and I have proved it time and time and time again," he told Brazos County Court Judge Jim Locke. Supernaw said the abuse started when he was "held hostage in Paris" in a "mentally retarded home for terrorists" for two weeks in 2002.

Country singer Doug Supernaw also claimed that he was a "test monkey" to see if someone could smoke marijuana and play baseball at the same time.

I don't know about you, but I don't think there's anything in the world, really, that's cooler than a smoking monkey. Except, as I've said before, a smoking monkey wearing a fez. Or a cowboy hat. A big cowboy hat.

**special thanks to Dream City Bureau Chief Bawb the Revelator

Let's Make a Sandwich!

"Part of the trick to entertaining unexpected guests, is keeping on hand certain generally useful foods. One of these is cheese of an easy melting type...Mother is a great believer in the aesthetic value of parsley..."

Tagged?!?

Bubs tagged me! So, this is Mizbubs, in expository mode.

A- Available or Single?

Even when I was single, I was never truly "available" to anyone but Bubs.

B- Best Friend?

Bubs, my daughters Nora and Hannah, my sister Kate, my niece Terra. It's all about family...

C- Cake or Pie?

Totally pie. You can put anything, sweet or savory in a pie, and it's fabulous. Even a moose turd, right Dad?

D- Drink of Choice?

We're talking alcohol here, right? C'mon, you know we are! Beer. Really good beer. Dark and rich, malty with a creamy head in the winter. Paler, hoppy, but still full-bodied in the summer...

E- Essential Item?

I know it sounds ingenuous, but I'm not much for essential items. Ask Bubs. Ask my kids how I react when a beautiful vase, piece of china, etc. is broken. I like to be warm, dry and well-fed, but I have low standards for all of those things.

F- Favorite Color?

Green.

G- Gummi Bears or worms?

Who can resist sour gummi worms slithering down your throat?

H- Hometown?

Chicago. I'm from an area that was called Hollywood Park when I was a kid. Now I think it's called Peterson Park for the park that used to be a tuberculosis sanitarium. I was only in grammar school, but I cried when Mayor Daley died.

I- Indulgence?

Undeserved self-pity. And chocolate, of course.

J- January or February?

February. If I make it to my birthday (February 28), the rest of the year is a piece of cake!

K- Kids?

Yes, thank god. If life were a sci-fi novel, Bubs and I would've been designated breeders. We breed easily, and produce a superior product.

L- Life is incomplete without?

Family.

M- Marriage date?

June 21, 1986. Twenty-one calendar years, and yet I haven't aged a day...

N- Number of siblings?

Oh, this can get complicated! Three much older brothers on my mothers side, one much younger sister on my fathers side. I also have a nephew and niece who are near my age, and endured much of the same childhood trauma I did. How many does that make?

O- Oranges or apples?

Apples, but fruit nirvana for me is a perfect, sweet/tart, juice-running-down-your-chin plum.

P- Phobias/fears?

Heights. Especially standing at the top of a flight of stairs. Don't ask.

Q- Favorite Quote?

"Take it easy, but take it." Woody Guthrie

R- Reasons to smile?

Family.

S- Season?

Fall. I would love ten months of October, punctuated by July and December.

T- Tag 3 people

No, it's not in my nature to tag anyone.

U- Unknown fact about me

I'm a repressed girly-girl.

V- Vegetable you hate?

I have learned there are no bad vegetables, only bad methods of preparation. What made my mother think boiled carrots and celery would be good?

W- Worst habit?

Not really listening.

X- X-rays you've had?

Chest (bike injury as a kid), left ankle (snapped the tendons jumping over a puddle), right ankle (slipped on ice down the stairs), MRI's of neck for herniated disk, obligatory mammogram when I turned 40.

Y- Your favorite foods?

Hmmm, I really like food....

Z- Zodiac?

OK, it's often accurate, but isn't that how it's written?

The Future, the way it used to be: The Bell Rocket Belt

When people think of the future the way it used to be, they almost always think of the rocket belt. Specifically, the Bell Rocket Belt. Pictured to the right is the Bell Rocket Belt Traveling Team, relaxing poolside in Williamsburg, VA. The inventor of the Rocket Belt, Wendell Moore, is the fellow leaning on the umbrella stand.

The US Army Transportation Research Command and the press got their first look at the Rocket Belt at Fort Eustis, Virginia, on June 8, 1961.

Who got to fly this masterpiece? Hal Graham. Hal Graham, who in my book is one of the 10 coolest human beings in all of history, has a fascinating website devoted to the Rocket Belt.

Here's a link to the official US Army Transportation Museum page dedicated to the Rocket Belt.
Click here to see a cool picture of another individual flying machine concept, the solar copter imagined in 1957.

Now enjoy the educational video.

What percentile are you?

Believe it or not, my life is not all joy and dope fiends and sex perverts and circus clowns and alligators. Nope. Some times I try and focus on serious topics, like the economic health of our great nation. And when I do focus long enough to read stories like this one in the Boston Globe, my head hurts.

The chart at right is from the March 28 Economic Snapshots page at the Economic Policy Institute. Here's the title:

Recent income gains went to those with highest income. Here's an excerpt:

The economy expanded in 2005, with gross domestic product and productivity both posting solid gains (3.2% and 2.1%, respectively). Yet, as shown in the chart ..., real market income (i.e., income aside from government transfers) actually fell slightly (-0.6%) for those in the bottom 90% of the income scale.

Income growth for households within the 90-95th percentile was moderate in 2005, up 2.2%. But higher income households did much better. In fact, income growth among the top half of the top 1%—a group whose average annual income is already $1.8 million—was up another 16% in 2005 alone.

So, in other words, wealth distribution in this country has come to resemble Bruce Campbell's pitch in those Old Spice ads:

If you have it, you don't need it. If you need it, you don't have it. If you have it, you need more of it. If you have more of it, you don't need less of it. You need it to get it. And you certainly need it to get more of it. But if you don't already have any of it to begin with, you can't get any of it to get started...

Look around: a million Americans went bankrupt as a result of medical problems in 2004, and half of all bankruptcies in this nation are due to medical issues. Household debt continues to rise.

The subprime lending market is falling apart, having suckered millions of people into buying houses they couldn't really afford, or borrowing against the paper value of their homes.

I got an email from my friend Bawb the Revelator under the heading "And from the 'I GOT MINE, UP YOURS' desk". That caught my eye, and I opened it to find this L.A. Times story about the latest business failure:

Subprime lender New Century files for bankruptcy, fires 3,200 people

You know, you just know, that for those 3,200 drones who are now out of work, and all those thousands of foreclosures and bankruptcies, that there were quite a few people (maybe that top 1 percent?) who made out like bandits.

It seems to me that for the last 7 years there's been a conscious effort to ransack the middle of this country to enrich a handful of cronies and greedheads at the top. Enron, the subcontracting of the war in Iraq, the bungling horrors of Katrina--if we thought about it we could probably name even more examples of that predator mindset, the one that says maximize profit and f*ck the consequences. This is what happens when you have a president who's quite open about looking out for that top 1%, and doesn't care at all about the bottom 90.

Get Splotchy

I just found out that someone in Miz Bubs' extended family has started up a blog:

I, Splotchy

He's only got two entries so far, but it's clear he plans on tackling all the important issues. One of his posts explores the connections between bee colony collapse and song titles, and the other addresses one of our favorite compound topics: the relative merits of various retail outlets in the event of zombie attack. I expect that if he puts his mind to it, he could probably replace me as the world's foremost narcozoologist.

Mr. Splotchy has one of the most phenomenal and extensive music collections I've ever seen, and he's a wealth of odd pop culture information. He's responsible for my newfound love of Tropicalia, which I've been listening to a lot of lately. While you're waiting for him to put up more material, go check out his loving tribute to Lincoln Avenue hooker motels.

Take my word on this--he bears watching.