Let’s see what happens when your host (me) has nothing to say, and instead it’s open mike night. Step right up, speak your mind, tell a story, sing a song, whatever.
4/28/2025
Anything goes #25
16 responses to “Anything goes #25”
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I’ve always been a little suspicious of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and I don’t know exactly why. It could be that they have inducted musicians and singers that have little to do with rock and roll and it could be that I’m suspicious of any undertaking that hires I.M. Pei to design its headquarters. Or it could be that several important elements in the development of rock and roll have been undertaken by underclass people who were dead broke except for their guitars like Jimmy James when he ran into Andrés Segovia in New York and liked his style. Or it could be suspicion of any event that requires a new set of clothes.
But the bastards finally voted Cyndi Lauper into the R&RHOF: rock and roll has largely been a do-it-yourself operation, and Cyndi has most always done it herself. Besides a 3 1/2 octave pitch perfect range, she used to regularly quote Captain Lou Albano as a specialist in decorum, which he wasn’t. I liked that she did it and I liked that she stopped.
Mostly, I enjoy Ms Lauper for the rock and roll spirit she brings to her performances. And I like her politics and her refusal to stop talking about them. They embody that lovely “fuck you” rock and roll brought to the world.
I don’t have cable TV or an antenna, so I hope somebody lets me know how she does at her induction. I understand that she’s on her final tour at 71 and that it is global in nature, so they might have to beam her in. I think she’s had fun. That’s all she ever wanted.
John
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One of the best of her era, and I only say “one of” to avoid hurting Tina Turner’s feelings. Ms Lauper’s albums were, I think, the last LPs I purchased before lightening my life-load by giving away my record-player. There are a dozen or so Cyndi songs where I’d pull over and park just to listen, when I had a car, but that doesn’t happen much on the bus.
I share your admiration, and also share your suspicion about the RRHOF. The jam sessions are fun for everyone, but everything else about the business smells of business. That’s also my opinion of the Museum of Pop Culture, here in Seattle. Never been there. Too expensive. Seems snooty as fuck, the opposite of Ms Lauper.
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Yeah, well you know the brief, tragic history of the MPC: Built by Paul Allen as the Experience Music Project (a pseudo-mausoleum for the memory of Jimi Hendrix and his modest start in Seattle), it was intended to spend a fair number of Microsoft millions to honor his memory. Then Paul gets sick and dies and his sister inherits. The consultants tell his sister that the EMP will never be a moneymaker (the original fucking intent) and should be reconstituted on a broader base (I believe they said “re-imagined” but they were consultants and they get to use those words). Viola, as the magicians and musicians say, an institute that people of all interests will pay some money to visit.
I have no idea what pop culture is, but Jimi wasn’t that. His ten thousand hours of practice were hours of art, not money. He now occupies a couple of displays in a structure dedicated to breaking even, then surging to profit. Jimi and Paul deserved better.
John
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Wasn’t it also rejiggered as a science fiction museum at some strange point? Museum of Jimi Hendrix and Science Fiction, or something like that.
Pop culture is what people talk about when they have nothing to talk about. We all unavoidably live in pop culture, but that doesn’t entice me to spend $35 to see a museum of it.
Note also that they’re too highfalutin to participate in free museum days, the once-a-month when *most* museums in the city drop the admission price to nada and allow poor people inside.
I’m not sure Paul Allen deserved better. He was a rich bastard with a soft spot for Hendrix and movies (restored and re-opened the Cinerama theater in Seattle). But with all his frickin’ money, he couldn’t iron-clad lawyer-proof his non-profit efforts to survive after his death? Either he was a dummy, or his vision for EMP and the Cinerama was as something to be proud of while he was alive, and after that, who cares?
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I’m not an insider so I certainly can’t say for sure, but I suspect he mistakenly trusted his sister. There have been ironclad wills that survived death, but not too damn many of them. Things change.
jtb
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Somebody deserved better, if only the inventors of rock and roll including Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Sam Phillips, and a couple dozen mostly Black musicians and singers who changed the world. Paul Allen tried to preserve some of the details of that Big Bang, and for that I think he deserves some credit. But history is not jam-packed with people who wrote death-proof wills.
jtb
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I’m not writing a will at all.
What’s in MOPOP or the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame, anyway? Tom Petty’s concert posters and the Big Bopper’s air ticket? I love a good museum, but have no urge to see Jimi Hendrix’s guitar pick under glass.
For $44 admission, probably.
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Just for clarity, I drove 35 miles in a beater car on a freeway under construction to see Jimi and the boys play Side 1 of Are You Experienced note for note just to show they could, then slide forward and show off a little. I’m pretty sure it was eight bucks, but we got seats about 30 feet above Jimi. Yes, he played with his teeth without hitting a sour note.
jtb
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You might get me into MOPOP or RNRHOF, if the price was halved and it was a dozen different stages always showing classic concerts from genuine rockers. I don’t think it’s that, though, and we’re priced out because we’re not welcome.
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Eureka: A Trip To The 215 Doctor
I went up to get my 215 (medical marijuana prescription) last month, and the little Latina lady was sitting at her desk.
“Those are some pretty kids,” I said, looking up at the picture on the wall behind her.
“Yes,” she said. “And my husband, he’s a chiropractor. And how are you?”
“So yeah, I’m back, same deal as before, you remember? I smoke it for prostate health, right? Like I heard that orgasms are good for the prostate, and weed enhances the orgasm exponentially so that I’ll want to smoke, to have the technicolor orgasms, and that’s good for the prostate.”
“Yes, I remember.” she said. “And I have these salves and tinctures also, very good for the back—I see you have your lumbar support pillow with you.”
“Oh yeah, I always take it with me, I’m probably my physical therapist’s most religious client, take it everywhere just like he said. Once I was taking it uptown on a Saturday night and my friend said ‘You are not taking that into the bar!’ but I did anyway—I call it my OMP: Old Man Pillow. No, I’m not receptive to those little products you have there, for now.”
“Okay, and what are you up to today in Eureka?” She began to take my blood pressure.
“Well, I just picked up my birthday cake from Ramone’s next door. When I got it the checkout girl said ‘You are so cool!’ which is funny because I am so notoriously uncool, ie, I say whatever is on my mind without filters. My cake says Pray For Pussy on it.”
“Oh yeah?” She laughs.
“Yeah, you know, all of my peers, guys in their 60’s, we haven’t been laid in years.”
“No! Really? Ohhhh…”
“Yeah, so I was going to try to get my friends to come over and really pray for pussy with me on my birthday tomorrow, I mean, probably none of us have ever prayed for anything, si? But hey, gotta try something! I have a young woman friend and I’m going to ask her to play the goddess, to lead us in our little ceremony—I’ve already written it up, scripted it out.”
“You know, that woman, your friend the goddess? She should give you a blow job for your birthday!”
“No, no, that’s not going to happen, we’re just friends and…”
“Yes! She should give you a blowjob! I have this friend and once or twice a year I give him a blowjob, just on special occasions. Let me give you a hug.”
She was so short that I didn’t have to leave the chair to hug her.
“Thanks, “I said. “I feel special.”
“Oh, I give all my clients hugs,” she said.
“Well I guess I don’t feel so special then—maybe I’ll ask that goddess lady, about the BJ.”(Yes Doug, all true…)
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Delightful. Hope your birthday wish came true. Added the lovely cake image you sent, thanks.
I’ve never tried qualifying for medical marijuana. You know me, hate the pleading and paperwork. Where I live now, Washington, cannabis is straight-up legal, no prescription necessary. Does Cali still require a prescription?
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I’ve probably used marijuana three times in the last 20 years and have discovered no malady it cures, but of course if it helps you in any way you should be able to smoke it right up without doing twelve in Elevenworth. I’m not sure I buy the enhanced orgasm stuff, but live and be well. Don’t overdo it and cause an accident, but find beauty all around you with or without it.
jtb
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I like my orgasms just fine. They’re fully satisfactory, without enhancement. Start enhancing ’em, I might die.
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Yes, you could say it came true, a year later I got repeated laid, what a woman, more on her later…
How dare JTB not buy the enhanced orgasm stuff, hasn’t he read my piece “Orgasm Addict?” ‘Splains everything…
(Yes, no prescription necessary, that story was from 2016.)
Question: Can you track number of visitors to your site and visitors to posts on your site, like Anything Goes?-
There is, I believe, somewhere in the innards of the software, a summary of how many visitors have dropped in. With the old software, I knew where to find those numbers, but rarely checked. With the new software, I don’t know where or how to check. I have not only no interest, but negative interest in seeing the tally.
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I’m not unwilling to buy enhancement on a volume discount basis: I guess you’d say that’s betting on the come.
jtb
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