Just Kids
If even half the stories in Just Kids are true, then Patti Smith is a punk rock Forrest Gump. Maybe the title should be Just Kidding. There is a lot of name dropping here. Allen Ginsberg tries to pick her up in an auto mat, only to learn that Patti is inconveniently female. Jimi Hendrix says he is really shy. Grace Slick says hello to you too. The Chelsea Hotel says the rent is due.
For those who are new here, Patti Smith had a series of albums in the seventies. Some liked them, some did not. Meanwhile, onetime bf Robert Mapplethorpe was taking raunchy pictures, and becoming infamous. Eventually, Ms. Smith got married to Mr. Smith, and had two babies. Mr. Mapplethorpe was cut down by the plague.
All kidding aside, JK is a powerful book. Ms. Smith … who once said that Ms. sounds like a sick bumblebee … is a good writer. If you can find it at the library, it is worth your time. There is a double p in Mapplethorpe. It is pronouced maple thorpe, like maple syrup.
Loud Music
By now, the fuss about the Michael Dunn trial has mostly faded away. This is where the man shot some people, after a dispute over loud music. The piece that follows will not try to justify this act, it will not discuss the second amendment, nor will it consider the verdict of a Florida jury. This bit of text is about the way people act about their music.
There are problems about loud music every day. People are way too quick to take the matter personally. It becomes a matter of duelling egos. Anger is expressed, people talk louder and louder, and threats are made. People are showing their neighbors how bad they are. With the wide availability of firearms, and alcohol, it should not be surprising that people get killed.
Between April 1998, and January 1999, PG had two run-ins with co-workers about radios. In the first one, a store manager played a music station at low volume. PG could barely hear it over the noise of the machines. The radio became one more source of unpleasant sound. It was like listening to rice crispies going snap crackle pop, all day, every day.
One morning, PG told the store manager “I do not enjoy your radio.” The lady went into hysterics. A week later, PG was given the choice of going to another store, or being laid off.
A few months later, PG came out of the bathroom one day. A radio was playing on a table beside the entrance. A religious radio station was playing. A lady was praying for entertainment. “The blood of the lambs has cleansed my heart.” PG was grossed out by this confrontation with bleeding lambs. The owner of the radio was listening to something else, using an earplug.
Three weeks later, the radio was still being played. The owner of the radio was still listening to his earplug. PG asked him to turn down the speaker radio. The person went into hysterics. A lawsuit was threatened. The dispute continued, off and on, for the next six years.
In the Florida incident, one party was black, and the other party was white. In the two work related incidents described above, one radio fan was white, the other black.
What happened in the Florida parking lot seems to depend on who you talked to. If four young men had a hysterical reaction to a radio volume request, then Mr. Dunn might have felt threatened. When you are armed, and possibly intoxicated, it is a formula for trouble.
Once again, this feature does not try to justify what Mr. Dunn did. You just don’t shooting people over loud music. What we would like to suggest is that people show some consideration for their neighbors. Not everyone enjoys your music. If someone does not like your music box, turn the damn thing down. You never know when that person is armed and drunk. You do know that they are your fellow human beings, and deserve respect.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Profanity Free Post
The culture monk starts his caffeinated tour in midtown Atlanta today. Good luck finding a parking spot in that area. The wandering continues on La Vista road this afternoon, which is just a few miles away from Brookhaven. Will PG make it there? Only time will tell.
CM likes to put up material every morning, which is good. Today’s offering is Atlanta, Big Bibles, and Cussing…REALLY??? He got acquainted with the Atlanta custom of sitting in traffic for hours on end, and sought refuge at a mermaid enabled caffeine dispensary. A young lady, equipped with an artillery bible, said she had dropped out of the theater after being christianized. It seems as though the parts she played had too much bad language.
Many Jesus worshipers seem to have a thing about cusswords. Certain words are taboo. Many Jesus worshipers are rather smug about this prohibition.
The person who taught PG the most about Jesus was a former coworker, known here as the bully for Jesus. The man has anger management issues. Often, when he lost his temper, words like G-d, Jesus, and holy ghost would fire out of his mouth.
The third commandment is a very underrated suggestion. It is much more than G-d’s last name. PG decided long ago that using sacred names out of anger was a violation of the third commandment. Maybe, when the need for strong language presents itself, a person would do less harm by talking about reproduction and excretion, rather than father and son.
PG learned about CM in the comments at the thirty million hit dude, Matt Walsh. His latest offering relates to this issue. The title is Dear America, you’re too smart to listen to Beyonce’.
The subject of this discussion is Mr. Walsh’s dislike of popular music. The words could have been borrowed from any rant about music kids listen to today. This product has cusswords, promotes icky behavior, and is dumb, dumb, dumb.
To a certain point, PG agrees. The autotuned product of today is not that great. Unfortunately, Mr. Walsh does not have many suggestions for an alternative. The religion he touts is little more than a scheme for life after death.
The political POV Mr. Walsh offers is little more than endless Obama bashing. The post about Beyonce’ has the Obama reference in paragraph seven. (This counts five standalone words as a full paragraph.) What is the alternative here? Maybe Sarah Palin will put out an album of contemporary christian music. It would probably be an improvement.
How Do You Take Your Coffee?
It was a saturday. They are different when you work the rest of the week. Between laundry, buying stuff, unclogging pipes, and writing bad poetry, PG found time to take two internet quizzes.
The first one, The How Gay Are You Test, was an artificial joke. “Put your fabulousness on test and find out just how gay you are by answering those few questions! We dare you! Cher is… Who? ~ Goddess of Pop ~ Meh!” (Spell check suggestion: fabulousness – nebulousness, fatuousness)
The designers of this test might have been on drugs. When you click on the possible answer, it dances around, and blinks off and on. You have to click it several times to select, and then half the time it doesn’t take. When you try to get your results, the test makes you fill in the missing questions. You click on it a few more times, and eventually it is selected.
The gayness test can be copied in it’s entirety, unlike the other test, Which Punk Icon Are You? Punk icon is a buzzfeed thing. It has snappy graphics, and is mostly uncopiable. You do have the thrilling option of selecting buzzfeed as an answer to the question, “What’s the least punk thing you can think of?” The questions are in all caps, which PG finds vaguely immoral.
This is going to be a short post. The text averse can go ahead and skip to the pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. One result was “13% gay! This makes you not really gay. We’re sorry… In any case, you can get yourself a Gay Pack and develop your gayness further! ” The other was Patti Smith.
Which David Bowie Are You?
Zimbio is yet another entertainment websites. Marshall McLuhan is rolling over in his grave over the message medium mix. The eyeball snatcher on the screen now is a quiz, Which David Bowie Are You? The affair is sponsored by an ad for “Brain on Fire, My month of madness,” a book. If you are lucky, you can “win 10 FREE copies for your book club!”
PG has written about David Bowie before. To find that link, he used google advanced search. The logo for google today is winter athletes, against a rainbow background. Good grief.
The first question is “What causes you the most anxiety? ~ Societal decay. ~ Americans. ~ Fear of losing control. ~ Love, or the lack thereof. ~ My job. ~ Nothing. I sleep very well. ” Multiple choice queries are easy to score. They also force the test taker to choose the least bad answer. Now, PG does sleep well, which is not the same as saying that day to day living does not fill him with anxiety. Between I 285, jesus run amok, commercial exploitation of amateur athletics, and not having a book club to give 10 free copies to, life can be downright challenging.
“Pick a breakfast food” and “How much time, on average, do you spend on your hair?” were good excuses for subliminal advertising, making the digital world go round. Then we come to a real head scratcher, “What’s your relationship with reality?” PG is more or less detoxed from substances, which should leave reality. It doesn’t always work that way. One of the happiest moments of life was the blissful discovery that a person could be a degenerate, without alcohol. Maybe it is best to just move on to “Do you consider yourself popular?”
Each question is illustated with a pupop popup ad. For “You’re involved in a major scandal. How do you handle it?,” the sponsor is Charmin toilet paper. For “Spandex: How does it make you feel?,” Charlie the tuna promotes Star Kist gourmet tuna fillets. Are you in good taste, or do you taste good?
The answer was “Thin White Duke.” This was druggie Bowie. After the tour, he moved to Berlin, and Enooodled with electronics. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Union soldiers, from the War Between the States, did not take an internet quiz sponsored by Charmin toilet paper.
Jesus Gets A New Nickname
There is a video making the rounds now. The title involves Jesus, and a certain racial slur, delicately known as the N word. The video is embedded above. You can feel the magic for yourself.
Here is a story about the song, with the edgy language bleeped. “One pastor is trying to spread the word of God with an edgy rap song. The rapping pastor and his wife claim they have “Christian swag” while tossing around the n-word. … The video of the rapping pastor was recently uploaded to YouTube but it’s not clear when it was filmed. It was taken at a church in Iowa which closed in 2004.” Another helpful interneter has the lyrics.
In case you didn’t know, Pastor Jim Colerick, and Mrs Mary-Sue Colerick, are melanin deficient. They are, as Bette Midler once said about Karen Carpenter, so white they are invisible. It is not considered good manners for Caucasians to use this word, with or without salvation.
There is another angle to this equation. Many Jesus worshipers see not using cusswords as a sign of righteousness. As a result, many Jesus worshipers use the words G-d, and Jesus Christ, as tools of their anger. This violates the third commandment. Now, this use of a sacred name, as profanity, is being extended to using a sacred name as a racial slur. Someone is always ready to manipulate language to serve an agenda.
When you call a book “the word of G-d”, you give certain words too much power. When you designate the lazy way of saying black as a super duper naughty word, you give those six letters way too much power. Now, we see the convergence of these two taboos. Let the party begin.
Pictures of Pastor and Mrs. Colerick are taken from the video. The other images are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
What Is Dirty About Louie Louie?
The sixties were a great time to be a kid. As long as you were too young for a Vietnam Vacation, there were kicks to be had.
One of the more enduring legends was the dirty lyrics to “Louie Louie”. Recorded by an obscure band called the Kingsmen, the song was a massive hit in 1963 (It never was Number One). When WQXI put out lists of the greatest songs of all time, “Louie Louie” was at the top of the list. This is despite, or because of, the raucous sound. The song was recorded in one take, when the band thought they were playing a rehearsal. The vocals are difficult to make sense of, and rumored to be obscene. No one was ever quite sure why. With the garbled sound on the record, the listener could hear almost anything they wanted to.
The Governor of Indiana, Matthew Welsh, banned radio stations from playing the song in that state. On February 7, 1964, Attorney General Robert Kennedy got a letter from an outraged parent about the lyrics to “Louie Louie”. An F.B.I. investigation followed. After thirty months of investigation, the Bureau concluded that they could not make sense of the lyrics.
PG had a neighbor named Carol. A tomboy who could whip most of the boys, she had a pet skunk named Napoleon. Carol claimed to have heard a band at Lenox Square play “Louie Louie”. “He said the words real slow so you could understand them. I can’t repeat what he said, but it was dirty”.
Louie, Louie Oh no, me gotta go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, said, ah
Louie, Louie Oh, baby, me gotta go
A fine little girl she waits for me Me
catch a ship for cross the sea.
Me sail that ship all alone Me never think how I make it home.
Ah, Louie, Louie No, no, no, no, me gotta go.
Oh, no. Said, Louie, Louie Oh, baby, said we gotta go.
Three nights and days I sail the sea Think of girl, oh, constantly.
Ah, on that ship I dream she there
I smell the rose, ah, in her hair.
Ah, Louie, Louie Oh, no, sayin’ we gotta go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but, ah, Louie, Louie Oh, baby, said, we gotta go.
[Yelled] Okay, let’s give it to ‘em right now! [instrumental]
Me see Jamaica, ah, moon above.
It won’t be long, me see me love.
Take her in my arms again, I got her; I’ll never leave again.
Ah, Louie, Louie Oh, no, sayin’ me gotta go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
But, ah, Louie, Louie Oh, baby, said, ah, we gotta go.
I said we gotta go now, Let’s get on outta here.
[Yelled] Let’s go.
Transcribed by David Spector Sept. 2000 Public Domain. If anyone reading this can explain what was so dirty about this song, please leave a comment. Thank you Wikipedia for your help in assembling this. This is a repost. Pictures by The Library of Congress
David Bowie
This is a repost. David Bowie is 67 today, and Elvis is ageless. Sarah Palin is obsolete.
A webpage called CaptainsDead has a download of a David Bowie concert, that can only be called a Christmas present. Most Bowie live recordings are pretty dull. While the Thin White Duke is renowned for his concerts, they tend to be live events, that depend on staging and costumes as much as music. This show, from 1974, is different. Focusing on material from “Diamond Dogs”, the sound he produces comes close to matching the studio sound, and in a few cases surpasses it.
The next move for Bowie in 1974 was the “white soul” sound of “Young Americans”. He is moving in that direction in this show, even while he lingers in the glitter apocalypse. This tour included a stop at the Fox Theater, the first Atlanta show for Mr.Bowie. On the way to Florida for the next show, the truck with the sets and costumes crashed into a swamp full of rattlesnakes. The show in Tampa was performed in street clothes.
Maybe it is time for a Chamblee54 tribute to David Bowie. It is six am, and PG has stumbled into a job. The time and energy required to write new material is not always available.
The first album by David Bowie that PG heard about was “Hunky Dory”. At the time, Mr. Bowie had generated some buzz by admitting that he fancies blokes, or some uber british expression for being queer. In time, this would be seen as more publicity stunt than brave confession. The RCA debut got some good reviews, but not much else.
The next year produced “Ziggy Stardust”, a concept album. At about this time he did a tour of the United States, with costumes and onstage antics that generated even more publicity. More and more people started listening, some in spite of his outrageous image, and quite a few more because of it. He broke up his band, the spiders from mars, and announced his retirement. The band learned about this while standing on stage behind him. Mr. Bowie, for all his genius, is not always a nice man.
In 1974 there was an album, “Diamond Dogs”, about the decadent urban life in the scifi future. A stage show based on this album…the source of the download mentioned above…marked a return to the concert stage. The next year gave us “Young Americans”, and the year after that “Station to Station”. Every year was a different sound and vision.
Meanwhile, the artist was not doing so good as a human being. According to all reports, he was doing mountains of cocaine. (There is a story of going to meet the parents of Ava Cherry, one of his girlfriends. He shows up at 3am, and does coke on the dining room table.) There was an interview in Playboy (or maybe it was Rolling Stone ) where the first thing he says is, don’t believe anything I say. He went on to say that he admired Adolf Hitler. Have we mentioned the physical appearance of David Bowie in 1975? He looked like he was dead, and nobody bothered to tell him.( By contrast, in recent photo collections of rock stars, Mr. Bowie looks pretty good for a man who is 63 y.o.)
This was the era of Rocky Horror show. At one point, Riff Raff sings (Tim O’Brien wrote the show, and gave himself some darn good lines ) Frank n furter, it’s all over, your mission is a failure, your lifestyle’s too extreme.I’m your new commander you now are my prisoner we return to transylvania prepare the transit beam While this may not have been directed at David Bowie, he took the hint.
We interrupt this David Bowie tribute with an emergency announcement. A person, reputed to be an entertainer, was seen using the n word on facebook. The screen shots have disappeared, and all we have is the word of the accuser. More details will be available as soon as anyone is interested.
So David Bowie saw himself at a dead end, and possibly a dead life. He moved into a little apartment in West Berlin, on top of a garage. Brian Eno offered his assistance, and a series of electronic albums was the result. The next few years saw rock and roll, dance music, and finally, crap. PG bought a Bowie album in 1984, the first time he saw it on sale, and was immensely disappointed. The last David Bowie album that PG got was a free cd that was given to people buying a magazine.
Around 1981, MTV was born, and radio was suddenly obsolete. A visual artiste like David Bowie was a natural for video. Unfortunately, many of these videos are not available for embedding in blogs. Ashes to Ashes was a staple of early MTV. Boys Keep Swinging , off the “Lodger” album, is a return to the gender bender Bowie of younger days.
David Bowie continued to do tours, and PG got to see two of the shows. In 1987, something called the “Glass Spider Tour” came to the Omni. (In a later interview, it turns out Mr. Bowie was extremely unhappy during this tour, and close to suicide at some points.) The Glass Spider was this mass of lighting effects that hovered over the stage, and was used to best advantage during “Scary Monsters”. The show featured Peter Frampton on guitar, and had a pack of dancers. (One apparent female took her drag off during the finale.) A good time was had by all.
In 1990, another retirement tour came to the Omni. This one had movies projected on a screen behind the stage, and featured guitar hero Adrian Bellew. The night had the feel of a contractual obligation. David Bowie is too professional to give a bad show, but this one did not have the fire of “Glass Spider”. PG had a new set of contact lenses, and his eyes were painfully dry most of the night.
This is a repost.
Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Tag some others who might enjoy this. You can’t use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It’s a lot harder than you think! Re-post as “my life according to (band name)”Pick your Artist: David Bowie
Are you a male or female: The Bewley Brothers
Describe yourself: Quicksand
How do you feel:Always crashing in the same car
Describe where you currently live: Life on Mars
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Width of a circle
Your favorite form of transportation: Queen Bitch
Your best friend is: Young Americans
You and your best friends are: Kooks
What’s the weather like: Changes
Favorite time of day: Eight Line Poem
If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: Scary Monsters
What is life to you: Panic in Detroit
Your relationship: Fame
Your fear: Sound and Vision
What is the best advice you have to give:Somebody up there likes me
Thought for the Day: Hang onto yourself
How I would like to die: Ashes to Ashes
My soul’s present condition: Moonage Daydream
My motto: Andy Warhol
The Number One Hit When I Was Born
This post went up for the first time on May 28, 2008. The meme of looking up the number one hit on your date of birth is making the rounds again. It is a good excuse for something to post on a slow day. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
There is a man known as XWinger. He sells Celtic music, promotes DimSum groups, and has a blog.
Once at his place I saw a link to a site that tells you what the Number One song was on that day. The arbiter of number oneness is Billboard Magazine.
The List goes back to 1892. On January 1, 1892, the #1 hit was “Drill, Ye Terriers, Drill” by George J. Gaskin. I imagine that before a certain date this would refer to sheet music, or maybe player piano thingies. Other big hits from the Gay Nineties include “The Fatal Wedding” (1894, George J. Gaskin), “Little Alabama Coon” (1895. Len Spencer) and ” A Hot Time in the Old Town”(1897, Dan Quinn).
When my daddy was born in 1916, the top hit was “M-O-T-H-E-R ( A Word that Means So Much to Me) by Henry Burr. When my mother was born in 1922, the top of the billboard charts was “Stumbling” by Paul Whiteman.
In October 1929, the stock market crashed to “Am I Blue” by Ethel Waters. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the big song was “Chattanooga Choo Choo” by Glenn Miller. Mr. Miller joined the Army after the start of the War, and toured with a band to entertain troops. On December 15, 1944, his plane disappeared in France. The number one hit that day was “I’m Making Believe” by the Ink Spots and Ella Fitzgerald. The Ink Spots played at the Domino Lounge downtown when I was a kid. I heard people say, “the Ink Spots have been around for a while”.
In 1954, this reporter was born. The number one hit that day was “Wanted” by Perry Como. Two years later, my brother was born to the sounds of “Heartbreak Hotel” by Elvis Presley.
One way to track the hits through the years is to pick a date and follow it. It should be noted that Billboard is the essence of “commercial”. On my tenth birthday, the big sound was “Hello Dolly” by Louis Armstrong. On the verge of the summer of Love, the big hit was “Something Stupid” by Nancy Sinatra and Frank Sinatra. At no time did the Beatles have a number one hit on my birthday. This attitude improved in 1969 with “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” by the Fifth Dimension.
The seventies continued the commercial tradition with “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night. This was in 1971, the year they played a big show at Atlanta Stadium. The disco monster raised its glittering hand with “Night Fever”, by the Bee Gees in 1978.
As the eighties rolled in, I got a job and apartment, and music became less familiar. The first big May hit of the eighties was “Call Me” by Blondie. It was from a movie starring Richard Gere. The movie did not feature gerbils. The decade was not a total loss, as 1983 featured “Beat It” by Michael Jackson.
Moving into the nineties and oughts, my old fogey decrepitude is near total. Or is that the wasteland of pop music? By this time top 40 is all but extinct, am radio given over to all talk stations, and fm music so spread out that no one style of music is dominant. The number one hit on my birthday, one recent year, is “Bleeding Love” by Leona Lewis.
Of course, the leaders of our country don’t always listen. On May 28, 1915, the biggest song was “I Didn’t Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier” by the Peerless Quartet. And, on May 28, 1964, the number one hit was “Love Me Do” by the Beatles.
Free Speech
Free speech is much talked about. PG has long maintained that you can say anything in America, but no one will pay attention. One of the videos embedded today is John Waters rambling on about free speech. While he listened to this, PG was downloading picture files from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. These pictures are included today. Before long, a little lesson in free speech came into play.
The pictures were from the World Premiere of “Song of the South.” Here is the story, copied from a previously published Chamblee54 feature
In 1946, “Song Of The South” had it’s premiere at the Fox Theater. SOTS is a controversial item these days. It was based on the Uncle Remus stories, which were written down by Joel Chandler Harris. For those who don’t know, these stories were told by the rural black people that Mr. Harris knew when he was growing up near Eatonton GA. As Wikipedia tells the tale “Controversy surrounding his southern plantation themes, narrative structure, collection of African-American folklore, use of dialect, and Uncle Remus character, however, has denigrated the significance of Harris’ work”. In other words, Brer Rabbit is not politically correct.
The reviews at IMDB tell a different tale. To them, SOTS is a happy children’s movie. The Disney company seems to wish it would go away and be forgotten. Copies are tough to come by these days. PG would say to see it for yourself and make up your own mind, but Disney won’t let you. (The movie is available for viewing on youtube.)
The female lead in SOTS was Ruth Warrick. Miss Warrick was a versatile talent. Her first movie role was in “Citizen Kane”, as Kane’s first wife. She was in many movies, before moving to television. She was perhaps best known as Phoebe Tyler, in the soap opera “All My Children”. Wikipedia tells a story about her, that is ironic for the female lead of “Song Of The South”
“In July 2000, she refused to accept a lifetime achievement award from the South Carolina Arts Commission because she was offended by legislators’ decision to move the Confederate flag from the state Capitol dome to another spot on the grounds in response to a boycott of the state by flag opponents. A lifelong supporter of African-American rights, she felt the flag should be removed completely, and commented, “In my view, this was no compromise. It was a deliberate affront to the African-Americans, who see it as a sign of oppression and hate.”
Snopes weighed in on the SOTS controversy. Apparently, the suppression of the movie did take place. A different form of censorship takes place at Snopes. A popup ad for Oreck vacuum cleaners will not go away, and blocks key parts of the text from view.
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