Thursday, May 18, 2023
"Hi, Doug." Well, that's my name and it's nice to say hello as we're passing in the hallway, but the only people I sorta know at Haugen & Dahl are my immediate co-workers, and my boss, and my boss's boss. When any of them say "Hi, Doug," it makes sense.
There are, however, four people at the company — out of about 150 — who say "Hi, Doug" when we pass in the hall, but I simply don't know who they are. They're not people I met one morning a month ago, whose names I've forgotten. They're people I have never met, period. Yet they say to me, "Hi, Doug."
At some point they've presumably asked, who's that new guy, the fat, ugly, gray-bearded man in rumpled clothes? That's Doug, the new hire, someone answered, and OK, I'm somewhat distinctive in appearance.
Still, it's weird when people I've never met greet me by name. The rules of ordinary human behavior have always been vague to me, but it feels like a violation.
"Hi," I say back, and What the fuck?, I say to myself.
I wrote that a month ago, but it's the only semi-readable semi-story that's ready for today. And it's outdated, since I've actually become sorta cordial with two of the "Hi, Doug" people.
God, I miss the luxury of unemployment and all that recliner time.
And I've lost most of the last couple of days to a growing fog of frustration with my mother, a story I'm hoping to write this weekend.
Meanwhile, let there be links...
News you need,
whether you know it or not
• Judge: Racism permeates U.S. legal system — and Spokane case proves it
• Austin ends parking minimums
• Supreme Court rules Andy Warhol's Prince art is copyright infringement
• Missouri high-schooler suspended for recording teacher using racial slur
• Company giving away TVs with second screen that shows constant ads
• The world's largest lakes are losing 5.7 trillion gallons of water a year to climate change, study finds• Climate change linked to — we shit you not — increased pirate attacks
• Graphic: Carbon dioxide hits new high
• "Show me your boobs" cop gets 15 days• NYPD officers charged in champagne theft at Electric Zoo Festival
• Former LAPD officer charged with sexually assaulting multiple boys
• DeSantis signs five more bills hating on trans rights in Florida• Republicans hold secretive anti-trans dinner in San Francisco
• Montana is paying a climate denier to give expert testimony in upcoming trial
• Haley calls for subway strangler's pardon
• Florida rejects Modern Genocides and History of the Holocaust textbooks
• Religious Right quietly drops pretense that it's about anything but misogyny
• Pastor who prophesied that Trump won in 2020 insists that Trump is President today
• Josh Hawley explains how the Bible can solve our country's masculinity crisis
Mystery links
There's no knowing where you're going
• Click • Click • Click •
• Click • Click •
My browser history
without the porn
• Paul Linebarger wrote science fiction as Cordwainer Smith. His multiple selves did not stop there.
• Life's been good to Joe Walsh
• Gay Bob, the first gay doll, came with a penis
♫♬ It don't mean a thing ♫
if it don't have that swing
• Electric Worm — Beastie Boys
• Land of Do What You're Told — Chumbawamba
Eventually, everyone
leaves the building
5/18/2023
Cranky Old Fart is annoyed and complains and very occasionally offers a kindness, along with anything off the internet that's made me smile or snarl. All opinions fresh from my ass. Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.
Tip 'o the hat to ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, CaptCreate's Log, Dumnezero, Katameme, Looking for My Perfect Sandwich, One Finger Medical, Two Finger Magical, Miss Miriam's Mirror, Nebulously Burnished, RanPrieur.com, Voenix Rising, and anywhere else I've stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration.
Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Wynn Bruce, Joey Jo Jo, John the Basket, Dave S, Name Withheld, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn't always shitty.
Fucking Joe Walsh, love him.
ReplyDeleteThis always makes me so wistful:
https://youtu.be/hfLV_hSj_uE
He's so great:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lL71JR9p4e4Icp0VNMr1fs5RL8SzFndWY
I never understood why The Dude hated the Eagles.
DeleteFour guitars.
DeleteI don't hate the Eagles, I just think that they're a little lame.
DeleteThey're built around four guitars? Is that what's going on the last half hour or so?
DeleteI got curious and listened to a handful of songs that the internet tells me are the Eagles' best, choosing especially the songs that weren't familiar to me, and... they're polished, they're never a band that makes me want to shut 'em off or up, wouldn't say they're lame Captain, but the songs all sounded like each other.
When I listened to rock radio as a kid, I never knew what band I was listening to but a lot of it was probably the Eagles. Not many of my favorites, though.
They had Joe Walsh for a while, though, and him I like.
Rock wasn't born polished. Big Joe Turner and Little Richard and Chuck Berry were provocative, slightly dangerous, and tuneful without being smooth. Little Richard's backup band was called The Upsetters. When rock became corporatized, the big labels didn't want to upset anybody. Thank god for STAX/VOLT and Sun and all the mongrel labels, which retained the wild essence of Rock. Don't get me started.
DeleteJohn
I like a polished sound, of course — that's my preference for studio over live recordings again — but if you're getting all the vocals and instruments perfectly synched and smooth as baby's first bowel movement, I want the music to say something through all the perfection, like I dunno, Creedence or CSNY or Chicago — any of the polished C bands. I kinda like "Peaceful Easy Feeling" but a lot of the Eagles I was listening to this morning struck me as perfection with nothing much behind it.
DeleteSays a guy who knows nothing of what he's talking about.
Also, not really pertinent, but every time I see the name Big Joe Turner, my eyeballs read it as Big Toe Journer.
Well, the Eagles evolved from Big Joe Turner and Hank Williams, so they're both worth knowing. Also:
DeleteStarting in January, 1965, Bob Dylan recorded and released three albums in 14 months. He also toured the US extensively and completed two tours of England and also toured Europe and Australia. Even the Beatles, having stopped touring, and working five days a week on song production didn't produce material this fast. Here's a song called Bob Dylan's 115th Dream off the first of those three albums, Bringing It All Back Home. The song starts with Dylan strumming, then the rest of the band is supposed to come in. On the first take, they get confused and forget to start and Dylan finds himself singing and strumming alone. Dylan and his producer decide to include this "false start" in the recorded record. It sounds like a setup, but it isn't. This shit happens all the time when you're going 70 MPH. It usually just gets erased or archived for party use. In this case, it gets passed on to the fans, whoever they might be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbdF4hBfQiE
John
"
Addendum: Then he fell off his motorcycle.
DeleteMost stories about Dylan and Jesus should end this way and I forgot, even though at least one of them might be fictional.
jtb
It's not my favorite Dylan, but it's a great outtake (though I guess it's not an outtake since they left it in).
DeleteI want the story of Jesus to end in a motorcycle wreck. It doesn't kill him, though. Just makes him cross.
Hmmm. I'm liking this Dylan number more on the third and 4th listen.
DeleteI was just about to turn 15 when this album came out and I bought it on the first day it was available. I played it more than several times on the family home entertainment console and after a couple of hours my Mom, who was pretty damn cool about my music came into the living room and said, (I paraphrase) John, I know you like Bob Dylan, but could you please play ANYTHING else for a while? Or just let the needle scratch around on the turntable?
DeleteI tried to explain that Bob Dylan was a better singer than his voice would indicate, but she wasn't buying that day.
She's been gone these 30 years and I still miss her.
John
John
Here's another cut from Bringing It All Back Home. It's called Love Minus Zero/No Limit. Sixty years later I still sing it sometimes when I'm driving alone.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZzyRcySgK8
John
The third and (last cut I'm going to write about) from Bringing It All Back Home is Subterranean Homesick Blues. It's short and hot and this version (with audio from the album) is considered by most music professionals to be the first music video made anywhere. It was filmed by D. A. Pennebaker during Dylan's 1965 tour of England. The two guys in the background are poet Allen Ginsberg and Dylan's henchman Bob Neuwirth. The 2:15 video opens the film which is called "Don't Look Back".
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxjIBEZvx0
John
I read that title as "Love Anus Zero," twice. Didn't know Dylan had gone there. It's possible I watch too much porn.
DeleteWhat gets me about Mr Dylan is that he *can* sing. He's singing in "Love Minus Zero." But often he decides not to sing.
I saw DON'T LOOK BACK, and that opening video still hammers and kicks.. The rest of it, not so much. But I do like the dude. Just wish he sang more often.
DeleteSocial and Physical Anthropologists strongly suspect that human singing preceded human speech when we started vocalizing language 300,000 years ago or so. Communication was essential in collaborative hunting, the second half of the first global economy. (The first half was gathering). I'm guessing that we sounded more like Subterranean Homesick Blues than Love Minus Zero/No Limit. There was something ancient about Dylan when he had a voice. Or maybe I'm just talking out of my anus.
DeleteJohn
By the way, that's why Dylan was a lifesaver for popular music. He broke most of the unwritten rules that Pat Boone and Bobby Darin and (god help me) Andy Williams brought to "Rock 'n' Roll" and did it with a Major (Columbia Records and Tapes) protected by a guy who couldn't be fired (John Hammond). Dylan just kept breaking rules and selling records until the Beatles and Stones and ultimately the really crazy groups grabbed the tiller with their bloodstained hands. Then he fell off his motorcycle.
ReplyDeleteJohn
I'm aware of Boone and actually respect Mr Darin, but had been unaware there was ever a crossover between Andy Williams and rock'n'roll. An apocalypse has already happened?
DeleteLet's remember that Pat Boone recorded and released several Little Richard songs and actually outsold Little Richard because Black singers had a hard time getting played on white radio. Boone paid Little Richard absolutely nothing even though Richard was both the writer and singer of most of his songs. The courts simply wouldn't award money from a white man to a black man and Boone knew that. He's a monster of the worst kind.
DeleteJohn
Fucker is still alive. I'm assuming he's never even apologized and made good on it.
DeleteHe was also awful in JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH.
Reminds me of a story I wrote once and will rewrite tonight, publish soon...
I forgot all about him in that, it's all about James Mason.
Deletehttps://youtu.be/5NvuvQ6pQIQ
DeleteI may have seen it, may have now, many many years ago. Looks like maybe something good, but I have to ask, "How did they dare make it?"
DeleteThanks for the Wendy Carlos link. I bought his/her first album and enjoyed the hell out of it, then, many years later bought her/his remake of the first album and also enjoyed it, including the upgraded electronics. Wendy deserves recognition.
ReplyDeleteJohn
She makes excellent music, electronic without making electronic the emphasis like some do these days. First, it's music. You could listen and love it without thinking about tubes and transistors.
ReplyDeletehttps://archive.org/details/theshininglostscore/00.+%5BShining+Title+Music+(From+'The+Shining')%5D.mp3
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7icaV1kQr6mVHgu2OjXM_iyadyZevryB
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnpIGDCblPQWPYm0ryIVyWM9yDW7-xfHX
https://youtu.be/pn2cGRKnMKc
Her SHINING stuff is so good. I saw that movie half a dozen times and never thought it was in any way electronic.
DeleteThat she sued over that song is weird and funny, like the song. It's a rule of nature, that everyone's an ass now and again and again and again. The ones who aren't just kept it quiet better.
Delete