Brilliant architecture, they say, has been described as frozen music.
I describe my music as defrosted architecture.
OK. More Pam Ayres. This song still gives me hysterical laughing fits to the point of facial cramps and borderline incontinence, almost 30 years after the first time I heard it. A cautionary tale to parents of musical prodigies as well as music store employees everywhere.
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Oh Don't Sell Our Edgar No More Violins
by
Pam Ayres
Oh, don't sell our Edgar no more violins,
That dear little laddie of mine.
Although he's but eight, we'd prefer him to wait
Or I doubt if he'll live to be nine.
He plays the same song, and it's sad and it's long
And when Edgar reaches the end
With his face full of woe, he just rosins the bow
And starts it all over again.
Now Dad he says Edgar's a right little gem,
It's only his face that looks bored.
It's really delight makes his face appear white
When Edgar scrapes out that first chord.
Daddy, of course, was filled with remorse
When Edgar came home from the choir
To find that his fiddle, well, the sides and the middle
Were stuffed down the back of the fire.
So don't sell our Edgar no more violins
When next he appears in your shop.
His daddy and me, well, we both do agree
That his fiddling will soon have to stop.
Sell him a clean or a filthy magazine,
Ply him with whisky or gin,
A teddy, a bunny, or just pinch the kid's money
But don't sell our Edgar no more violins.
Although it would be a mortal sin,
We'll do the little fiddler in,
Don't sell our Edgar no more violins.
Another classic from my very favorite poet Pam Ayres. Say, does anybody out there know who this woman is besides me?
Don't forget to floss, me lovelies.
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OH, I WISH I'D LOOKED AFTER ME TEETH
by
Pam Ayres
Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth,
And spotted the perils beneath,
All the toffees I chewed,
And the sweet sticky food,
Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.
I wish I'd been that much more willin'
When I had more tooth there than fillin'
To pass up gobstoppers,
From respect to me choppers
And to buy something else with me shillin'.
When I think of the lollies I licked,
And the liquorice allsorts I picked,
Sherbet dabs, big and little,
All that hard peanut brittle,
My conscience gets horribly pricked.
My Mother, she told me no end,
"If you got a tooth, you got a friend"
I was young then, and careless,
My toothbrush was hairless,
I never had much time to spend.
Oh I showed them the toothpaste all right,
I flashed it about late at night,
But up-and-down brushin'
And pokin' and fussin'
Didn't seem worth the time... I could bite!
If I'd known I was paving the way,
To cavities, caps and decay,
The murder of fillin's
Injections and drillin's
I'd have thrown all me sherbet away.
So I lay in the old dentist's chair,
And I gaze up his nose in despair,
And his drill it do whine,
In these molars of mine,
"Two amalgum," he'll say, "for in there."
How I laughed at my Mother's false teeth,
As they foamed in the waters beneath,
But now comes the reckonin'
It's me they are beckonin'
Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.
You may have noticed a handful of odd words I like to throw in from time to time around here, and may have been curious about their origins. Our complaint department has been getting a little abuse, so maybe some clarification is in order.
•Hront:
Verb; meaning to pillage, destroy, stomp on, smash with a hammer, mosh with authority, drink smuggled whiskey to excess at Giants games, etc. This "word" originated from the Iron Maiden song 'Invaders', first song off 'Number of the Beast', wherein Bruce Dickinson noisily yelps something sonically approximating "HRONTING" near the end of the tune, after 'pillaging', 'invading', and other joyful horseback-and-buggery-inspired activities. Either Commander Scott Kendig or Rich Jankowski first identified it as a legitimate and linguistically/commercially viable verb, and I hope it catches on. It's a frequent participant in my vocabulary, as in "Commander, let's go hront like drooling bastards in North Beach until they have to wet-dry vac us out of the gutter." Hronting is not for the timid.
•Pismotic
Adjective, and a damn good one. I think Kenny P and I developed this word, and its origins are a little convoluted, so bear with me. When a musician/band makes a mistake, it's colloquially called a 'clam.' Where do we find clams, and the perfect climate in which to bake them? Lovely Pismo Beach, CA. Bugs Bunny liked to go there. The Pismo Beach Clam Bake, aka the horribly unforgivable flat note you hit a measure or two ago, got distilled down into 'pismotic'. It finds voice at every rehearsal.
•Domestuffs
Plural noun. Not sure if there is a singular. A Young Ones reference for anything used for house cleaning; sponges, Lysol, scrubbing bubbles, so on. Mike Thecoolperson spied the tremendously neglected toilet and declared, " I better go get some domestuffs," to which the particularly surly toilet remarked, "What's domestuffs?" and then belched. The world needs no more belching toilets to be sure, but it's still a fine British word.
So, I'm thinking about giving Roget a run for his money in the thesaurus racket. I hear there are some serious bucks to be made playing the word numbers and manipulating syllables for profit. Any and all suggestions welcome.
Been listening to a lot of Beach Boys lately. It truly is the work of, well, a madman. I just finished listening to "The Warmth Of The Sun" about 5 times in a row, and I still marvel at what an impossibly beautiful song it is. I tried recording it my way once, and gave up half way through. Impossible. "Girls On The Beach", "In My Room", "Wendy", "Surfer Girl", "Good Vibrations"; all comparable in complexity and nuttiness, and in the same songwriting box. When I was a kid I hated the Beach Boys. "Tack it up, tack it up, buddy gonna shut you down"?!?!?!?!? What kind of stupid lyric is that? That's not The Beatles! "Do you love me, do you Surfer Girl"?!?!?!? Come ON!! Sap supreme! How dumb is that? Gimme more Leo Sayer!
And now I can't get enough of it. To my musician friends, especially singers and guitar players, toss on Endless Summer and sing/play along. In about a minute or two you'll figure out how hard it is. "Girls On The Beach" has a key change at every other bar, proving once and for all that Brian Wilson has always been a complete nut job.
And then I threw on Saxon's "The Eagle Has Landed," speaking of lame lyrics. Why, why, WHY do I still love this stupid worthless hack band? Nigel Glockler remains among the very best hard rock drummers ever, but the songs are so very idiotic. How many times can you use "in the night" as a lyric in one song? Whatever the number, Biff holds the record. And as Country Dick Montana said shortly before he keeled over from a massive beerhat-induced coronary on stage, don't ever write songs about being on the road when you're on the road.
Just living my fantasies at 20,000 feet. Sure wish it paid.
Oh yeah. Our president is still an idiot. Just need to throw that in now and then.
A lovely weekend to one and all.
Fun gig at the T&G. We were good and loud, minimal mistakes (only one super-pismotic corker), silly headliner guys who were kind enough to let us use their enormous pile of Ampeg SVT and the huge expensive mal-tuned drum kit. Good thing they drive a Hummer to haul it all around in. Squeaky clean grunge. Doesn't work somehow. In-ear monitors at the T&G; now I asks ya.
And Jeff Garcia was in the house, which was kind of exciting and more than a little odd. I feel like such an idiot around really famous people sometimes, depending who it is. So I just shook his hand and randalled out the door, leaving him alone at the bar. Didn't he just get a DUI? Hope he got back to friggin' Detroit OK.
All I wanted to do was go home and surprise Mom for Mother's Day (a fabulous success). What do I get? Irreversible and possibly terminal nausea.
Attention, all San Diegans (me with bullhorn). Put down the Big Mac and dump out your 48oz soda. You can't win. Just put down the burger, and come out with your flabby arms raised high in the air. Oh, why did I say that?
Unbelievable. I thought this was San Diego, my lovely hometown, better Mexican food than Mexico, land of the thin and home of the beautiful, with some anti-Florida retirees and gay Marines thrown in for fun.
But no. It looks more like a palm-treed Philadelphia these days. Fat people EVERYWHERE! Fat children everywhere. Not just fat, but FAT. 'Obese' doesn't do it justice. And, given my folks' proximity to Blacks Beach, fat, sunburned, and naked. EeeeeYAAAACCHH!!
The twenty-first century's ideal American, in case it hasn't been said enough, is a revolting creature, and more so than ever. We richly deserve the world's ridicule and snickering. I heard that Detroit is proposing a 2% "fat tax" on french fries. Critics cry out that it would hurt the poor and the fast food industry. A) I am poor and I can whip up a lovely meal in my shoe box of a kitchen to feed four for way less money than a bucket of greasy-ass KFC, and B) the entire fast food industry needs to be towed out to sea on The Barge and uncermoniously scuttled. More about that later.
Trend based on troglodidic politics? Maybe. These things come and go.
Like the huge "pre-historic" reptile wondering about this curious little furry mammal stealing its eggs? Likely.
The fall of the Roman Empire? Most certainly. Think about it.
Nah, don't think about it. Just come to The Bedrockers show this Thursday night at the Tongue & Groove, Van Ness & Union, SF CA. We'll make you forget about everything that bothers you and force you to drink alot, which I hear is really fattening. Sorry...
I'm in throbbing pain, I can't sleep, and it's time to whine.
I sliced the living piss out of my right ring finger tonight on a particularly surly piece of rogue glass, formerly incorporated into a wine glass, while cleaning the kitchen. It was hiding behind the dish rack, lying in wait, poised to pounce on anyone daring to approach its territory with a domestuffs-soaked sponge. After mauling that finger and creating a bloody mess it then leapt up and cut my thumb, drawing more blood. By the time it got around to attacking my middle finger it was all tuckered out and only shaved my fingertip. I managed to wrangle it into a corner, and in a fabulously deft maneuver I blinded it with my own blood and herded the little fucker into the trash. I'm sure it's busy shredding its way through the bag as we speak and making its way to the bedroom, the uppity little bastard.
Note to self: broken wine glasses, like wolverines, don't make good pets.
Sorry for the prolonged silence. Computer issues dealt with, and I'm happy to be back among the living.
Wendo and I went to see "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" this weekend. All I can say is that it's about time this movie came out. It's reasonably true to the book, with some nice tangents thrown in. This particular incarnation of Zaphod is really fantastic. All hyperbole intended, it really is a must see, especially these days. It's the best movie I've seen in years, and I had a big fat grin on my face the whole time. The wine we smuggled in didn't hurt either. John Malkovich is scary though...
Douglas Adams was a genius. And Bill Rushing got to meet him, the lucky sod. My closer friends probably know that The Guide is more or less my bible, and there aren't many annoying or downright dangerous foibles of the human race that Adams didn't run through the wringer perfectly. He said one of the top three smartest things ever said; "Religion is such a small way of looking at the universe." I think of that line every time I see some loudmouth Christian/Jew/Muslim frothing at the mouth about God's will or some other brand of entitlement. The Mormons are out in force right now. "Here, read this," I'd yell as I toss a copy of The Guide at their heads while rat-tailing them with my Marks & Spencer towel. "The answer is 42. Now shut up, wipe that smarmy grin off your face, and go back to Utah."
Slartibartfast said it best; "The chances of finding out what's really going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied...I'd far rather be happy than right any day."
"Does it really cosmically matter if I don't get up and go to work today?" Of course not. Everybody take the day off.