Get on the bus. Ride the tubular seat driven monster from stop to stop. Make it happen for your dollar. Many, many, many song lyrics revolve around the bus, but does anyone you know (including yourself) actually ride the damned thing?
I have been doing a good bit of seat riding these days and would like to share some the light fantastic moments and morning sunshine minutes that have transpired on my route of morning commute back to the abode after a long night of work, work, work.
First I should tell you what I am dressed like coming back on this cruising coffin of public transportation that I use and abuse in order to get from A to B. I am in a pair of ‘business’ shorts. Neat trimmed up high ones that would need to go to confession if they ever were to touch my knees. They are navy, navy blue - a deep blue that at a distance or at night could be taken as black. I wear blank page t-shirts of either green or blue and a shirt over that. The ‘over’ shirt is one of a dress plaid of either green and blue or blue and orange. I look pretty dapper except for my weight and my big long pony tail poofed out behind my head like a Fraggle running for a Doozer’s construction stick. I have on a plain pair of sneakers, or tennies of you must call them that, and a simple pair of white socks rolled just right to just above my ankles. I also have on a black pair of volleyball knee pads that I use for work which I slide down into a 45 degree angle of use when not working so the actual pad turns out from my ankle knob - perpendicular to how they should look when at the knee. By the way, the beard is gone as requirement for the job so my frequently shaven face is full of wonder with my protruding cleft that would make Kirk Douglas and son Michael ask why their clefts got so much slack when there was me in the world. That is my garb, my look, my work attire. Yay! I am a freak and am on the bus for a reason.
I ride the OCTA (Orange County Transit Authority - that is a complete joke considering how pathetically flailing and seizing the public transport is in these epileptic-transit parts) bus route known as the ‘Pathetic 87’ which runs from Rancho Santa Margarita to Laguna Niguel. The ride costs one dollar and twenty-five cents - exact chage is required (pennies are NOT accepted). It has a forty five minute cycle, hourly on Saturdays and does not even think about transporting people on Sundays. I find this curious since the OCTA is running free bus service on New Year’s Eve from 6 p.m. PST till 4 a.m. PST on New Year’s Eve into New Year’s Day. How does a bus with no service offer free service? I ride it across approximately twelve stops as the above ground tube stops about every other intersection and takes a bizarre clover leaf turn about to accommodate the elderly leaving in Laguna Woods (a town incorporated by the Leisure World Corporation which is referred to by non-dwelling locals as Seizure World or Leisure Land). My 4.6 mile commute takes about 35 minutes which is far better than the hour and thirty minutes that it takes by foot. Most of the commute from employment to home is up hill, and by most I mean about 95% of it, not a mere 51% or 55% majority.
I must tell you that it is not only the poor and psychologically deranged that ride this vessel but also the eccentric and the elderly who were not privileged enough to maintain vehicles beyond their spouses passing. There are a lot of immigrants (ILLEGAL and otherwise) as well as the modern day grid averters that refuse to be known by any agency operated by the government on any level. There are also the 'Save the Earther’s', but they are not as common for some reason (they must be all on that one big train running through South Orange County CA - no it does not go to Treblinka, it goes to North Orange County and runs far less frequently than the Sobibor express did). I ride and enjoy the ride for many different reasons. I must, as I do not have my license, but also I find it therapeutic and it helps knock down my muster and hem up the ol’ britches a bit. If I had not found myself in this predicament I would be missing out on something that I most definitely need to experience ‘West Coast Style’. There are the riders themselves as well as the stop dwellers (people who never actually pay to get on the bus but hang out as if the people getting on and off are actually a form of entertainment or some sort of salvation not seen by most - most certainly not by the riders themselves). One of these stop dwellers is a man I have coined the name ‘George Clinton’. He is a very, very tall black man - he must stand about 6’5” (I know it isn't NBA but it is tall to even my 6' frame). He has braided dreadlocks which could easily pass as a very mangy wig due to their form and their nasty ass orange tinged afro bleaching - much like one of the seasonings, 'Salt or Peppa'. They trickle down his back to his waist and make his ass line quite well known. It looks as if his brain has swallowed a poorly stitched Muppet and someone, somewhere, is pissed that they are not getting credit for the stitching, even though no one notices beyond the Bus People. He walks around aimlessly at the Laguna Niguel Transportation Center and talks to stop signs, curbs, and the exhaust fumes. He occasionally will wave at bus drivers who assumedly know him due to their repetitive routes. He is normally in slacks that are covered by shorts and his mop ‘o’ ragamuffin hangs down over a well worn sports coat. He has a small hubcap (about 10" in diameter) as a belt buckle. It is pristinely shined out, as if immersed in White Lightening every night, yet you know that could not be. Around his neck is a hood ornament of gold that is not defined to any one make or brand of automobile. He is decked out with huge shades and many gold rings and watches that reflect off of gold arm bands. He is my personal George Clinton with no music needed, no listen to any funk or funkadelic whistle required - this man is more than Clinton or Bootsy could have ever been - there's a deal up on the hill and this dweller never got an invite, just the costume. I wonder what he is saying every morning as we stop and I want so badly to get off and hear him yet I do not have the extra $1.25 to get back on down the road and I am surely much too tired too even if I had the bread. I will be stopping some day. I know his rap must be amazing, prophetical. I will soon. I just want to hear. When the bus bends around through that clover leaf of which I spoke, I look back out the bus windows at him and wonder what he is thinking as he takes a break and sits at the depot, on a bench. What is it that he is saying? Why is it that he has a hubcap as a belt buckle? An extra $1.25 is worth getting off. He gets off all day long and does not pay one red cent.
Since I mentioned arm bands, gauntlets, bracers, I should mention the man that I called the 'Ostrich Pedophile Man'. He waved the bus down a block ahead of time - and the damn thing was at a red light waiting to make the left turn to the stop he was going to board at. The bus swung around in order to suck in it’s transports and there he was, the last one on. He had large leather arm bands on that were the colour of Hannibal Lector’s face mask. He made bizarre bird-feeding-their-young noises that were phlegm ridden guttural gargles that were trying to convince the rest of the bus that they were coughs; I knew better. I assumed him to be admonished to the affliction of Pica. At the very least, I knew him to be ‘special’. He sat next to an older woman who he really pissed of by saying, “How are you to-ach, achh, glug, achhh, geck,-day, Ma’am?” The stupid woman actually gave the poor sod a dirty look! From that point on he cranked up his walkman real loud. It was an old school seventies jobby with the single Radio Shack ear bulb, not bud (you know, the felsh colored ones that look like large, weird mushrooms or butt plugs for giant smurfs). At first it was out loud and then he remembered to plug it in. Damn thing was so loud. The most distinctive noise was the off kilter beat something in 11/4 or otherwise god ass difficult rhythm and then the standard 4/4 triangle ‘ting’. I was convinced that he was trying to learn marching band music and figure out the triangle parts like from the movie “The Other Sister’. As I got off the bus before him I thought of how a friend of mine explained that paranoid schizophrenics with multiple personalities drowned out the voices in their heads with really loud music played directly into the ear. As I stepped off the bus that morning I wondered what his arm bands were really for.
That same day I had an ‘ice eater’ sit next to me. An ‘ice eater” is someone who feels compelled to constantly be sticking freezing wet things in their mouth at all times with no regard for anyone around them and what they may think to be offensive, or non-offensive, regarding the chomping and enamel cracking habit of ice chewing. Dry mouth is a legitimate side effect of Lithium as well as B-12 shots. This woman asked the bus driver four times, in two miles - 8 stops, to turn the heat on. She kept explaining to me how friggin’ cold it was. I just figured it was 'cause she was chewing ice! I mean, come on, how fucking unbalanced do you have to be to not understand that if you are not warm and the bus heater is not doing the fucking trick that maybe it is the fact that you are eating and chewing and consuming a substance that is 0 degrees Celsius? You think? Mmmmmm? Maybe, huh? Just maybe it is the ice. On that morning I was bringing Lady home a a lovely sleeve of 14 long stem red roses and of course ‘ice broad’ wanted to know what they were. I told her they were roses. Arm band man gargled and throat fucked himself - gags abound as the triangle ting’ed. She asked to look at them and I showed her through the card board sheath that they were wrapped in since they had been received at the store just hours before. I said they were a ‘wake up present’. She said, “They are a make-up present”. I said, “NO! They are a WAKE UP present. A make up present would require more than roses.” The man of leather forearms smiled and turned up the triangle. Somewhere Ed Grimmly was smiling.
There are two women of this adventure that are worth mentioning. One of them is a beauty-queen-sexy-take-my-dreams girl of Hispanic decent (who I know has at least one child) and the other is a bizarre, almost androgynous, buck toothed girl with a hairy mole and a revolution sack that also plays a walkman too loud. Beware the loud ear entertainment.
Hot or Not first?
Upon discovery must be the means of relation, of resolve.
Hot! First that is ...
The first morning that cute ass dimple Meha came aboard Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club of Transport (I wanted to type Peeper’s and thought you would all think it a typo) was the morning she had her son. He was a big brown eyed boy of excitement and wonder. His wonderlust intrigued everyone he saw and his mother dotted over him and giggled the whole way to their destination. Her dimples were deep and her tits were huge. She smiled so wide her tits illuminated with joy. From dimple to nipple to dimple again the boy giggled silly little boy laughs that reminded him that his Mommy was God and that he soon would be able to hold the power of being able to pull the ‘next stop’ chord and make the sign light up and the bus stop. Which do you think makes a young boy more powerful? Making the sign ding and light up? Making the bus stop in a single downward arm pull? Making your Mother’s nipples hard as she smiles at your glee? I did not know. I knew she was hot and he said to them both as they embarked out the back door of the bus onto their journey that he wanted his Mommy to ‘hold his hand’. I have seen her three more times since then and each and every time I think of dirty awful thoughts regarding her dimples and her asking for more. Every time she has got on the bus since that first time she has been alone. Every time I ask myself if I will ever get the opportunity to ask her to ‘hold my hand’ as I fill her dimples.
The second woman to take notice of is rather eccentric to say the least. She stand about 5’11” and is horribly buck toothed. Her teeth make me think of two things. The techno song that choruses “If girls start early they get buck teeth” and the shape and need of a bottle opener. Both apply one hundred percent without insult implied but only truth of description. She also has a huge mole above the right side flare out of those chomper choppers. It is a big mole, HUGE; one that requires extra postage or a defined set of directions in order to navigate (at the very least a seperate DMV office or division of fire and police - something very RFD but without the Mayberry thing going on because Mayberry would have run this thing out of town as it would have to compete with Aunt Bea's ass). It has about seven big nasty hairs that grow out of it like tarantula legs that glisten in the sunlight that pushes itself through the tinted windows as we drive on. She always has on a thick grey flannel coat, a set of rose tinted police glasses. She carries an over the shoulder bag with many buttons on it but a graphic of a ski masked man is the predominant image. I don’t know where she gets off because it is after my stop. I dream of following her on to her stop just to see where she works; so I know where the mole goes. I must say that I heard her answer her cell phone today on the bus and I am not sure whether or not she is male or female; all I do know is that her weird pseudo Beatle hairdo, her political pins, her glasses, her foot tapping in her neo-classic converse shoes and her black slack cuffs that dangle above make me randy - they drive my mind forward with inquisitive fury and loin bending splendor. I hope to know her/his deal someday but I know that it will never be - just like holy hottie dimples from the paragraph above.
Everyone on the bus looks nothing like what Ralph Cramden ever saw or thought of. There are no Rosa Parks. All the riders are Rosa and all the drivers know Ralph - it is what they clean up after free service on New Year’s Eve.
I sit there curled up in a seat that I do not fit into or a bench that I must twist my neck for 30 minutes at an unearthly degree in order to see what is going on in front of the bus.
I watch everyone who gets on, gets off, leaves the bus, arrives in a seat, pays a toll, swipes a day pass, loads a bike, or pulls the ‘stop requested’ chain.
I know they are all watching me too.
I twist and writhe and wonder what they think of my knee pads around my ankles and why I am wearing shorts in 40 degree weather (this time Fahrenheit) and why only my thumb nails are long and why they are filthy yet I keep nibbling from underneath them as if there is ambrosia or an other God-like nectar to be found from underneath the keratin.
They make me as nervous as I make them.
There are many more characters. Too many to tell of.
Women with makeup outlined lips and pink sweat shirts who look at me nervously every time, but sit closer each ride.
The black man who only rides two stops to his connection.
The elderly woman who rides twice a week and does so with an intense amount of professional disdain.
The Mexican that follows me if I get off a stop early in order to go to the store.
The Asian woman who sat next to me this morning while I tried to enjoy a smoke before the bus arrived at the bench. She rubbed lotion on her poor raw hands five times, before the bus came, telling me about bus schedules and asking me if it was cold and it all was when the bus was coming, as the lotion scent kept wafting my way and distracting me from everything but the cold.
They keep changing, just like the drivers.
They all change just like all of us, within and without.
Ride on.
Raffi is writing a song about it soon I am sure. Yanni may follow.
Be good and safe this New Year’s Eve.
Trust in the bus riders, and the drivers too.
Things could be worse.
This New Year’s Eve you could make it that way if you don’t watch yourself or your step.
Taking destiny, full fold like a newspaper, under the arm and walking swiftly to a bus stop that may, or may not, lead to where the day has designed for you, me, and us to be. No boogie-woogie walkman style of ingestion could ever take it all in, regardless of I-pods and MP3 players dancing, as hoodies dance around listening to their trick bags we find reflection.
It is Christmas morning and all revelations and relations tend to revolve in a resounding resonance that recedes from revelry in the round about mornings that revive resistance. Calling out to the World and trying to make it matter. No need for this or that but rather now. I need to know there is more peace for those who have not found it in their sock drawer or their bookcases as I have. I could think for minutes building to hours growing to days about all that I have consumed from music to books to drugs to religion to life to the country to sex to love to hate and I would not trade one God damned second of it to have a better Christmas. I have lived; not just to the fullest but to the most electric eclectic ecstatic existence of ecstasy riddled euphoria and euthanasia that only the Big Man could take away or tell me that knowing what I know is wrong.
I stuffed my stockings with the do-gooder, need-to-be’s and all of the other necessity trinkets found in the big hung sock. I even lit the fire in a soul album revision of late night go to bed that entrances the watcher, the masticator, to purchase all of the Al Green, Barry White, and Peabo Bryson moments that I could ever hang on a tree in little glass figurines of a gall and guilt and gilt and all of the other G’s that apply but do not exist. A giant seventies record collection of bright velvet oranges and chocolate browns of velour that rub the right ways and make incense burn brighter and smoke harder than the tail pipes of rancheros and camaros in dreams of criminals that wish they did not take the style and lifestyle as seriously as it had really been found to apply.
There was a time where I was much more bad ass than I am now and maybe this prolonged Christmas (Christ Mass), this abridged Chanukah (Chaka Kahn), has driven me to a whole lot of self reflection that could not have occurred without the bereavement of the seasoned pine and the gilded boxes of tag names and bows curled just right with the flung opened scissor jaws that make ribbon tails spiral just so. None of those shenanigans this year. A simple slab of ham and plenty of leftovers to be tossed together with cheese and wheat bread and this fabulous relish mayonnaise spread that I have found to tickle and giggle my taste buds in such a way that I can not help but to belly roll laugh and smile as my tongue curls in the back upon consumptive contact celebration. I am not that bad ass man anymore.
I know that I need to wish all a Happy-Merry-Spectacular amalgamation of Holidays to be accepted and resounded; the celebratory crisis of get to the market and the department stores and the drug stores with the stuffers and paper and bows and tags and tape - gotta have that magic Scotch stuff that does not frost up when pressed to the print of present hide. It is hard. I spread my ‘day’ over three days. An abbreviated Chanukah, an extended Christmas, a Kwanza celebrated by two white people in Orange County California who have only dreamt of being black and once thought of going to Africa but know it will never happen.
It is Christmas. It is Christmas. It is Christmas.
At 1:45 a.m. E.S.T. James Brown died. James ‘I Am The Man’ Brown suffered from complications due to pneumonia and had been in the hospital since mid day Sunday (Christmas Eve) in Atlanta. Papa now has a brand new bag. I am actually looking forward to the statement that is bound to ensue from Bootsy Collins. In my opinion there are two acts from the Sixties and Seventies that affected and effected rap, hip-hop, soul, R+B, afro-pop, and dance; that was James Brown and the Neville family (The Meters and, of course, Aaron Neville - complete with evil mole of the same last name).
I can only think briefly about glory and Christmas. Most of my Christmas is done now that we are into the first hours of the Holy Day.
I remembered hearing the techno song with the chorus ‘James Brown Is Dead’; I think it was actually considered ‘industrial techno’.
I remember hearing the Dead Milkmen spoof on James Brown from the ‘Beelzebubba’ album where they sing the line ‘Gonna hit you with a bridge truck, gonna run you down with a lawn mower; Gonna Beat My Wife’.
I remember 'Weird' Al Yankovic singing, "Living with a Hernia".
I love Christmas even though they have been hard holidays these past few years.
I love the taste of it; the cold icy smell of clove and allspice in a blanket of cinnamon and sugar.
Jesus is with me more now than ever and even he realizes the down falls of the holiday and the upswings as well.
Jesus is celebrated as being born on this day even though we all know it was January.
But we continue it out and on in order to recognize His birth and his death as well; to remind of us Christ.
Today James Brown died.
In all of his sweat, his ascot wiggle, his pompadour, his shoes, his wife beating; he died today.
Did James Brown die for our sins?
He had his righteousness and his conflicts as well.
Should we now ask, “What Would James Brown Do?”
You know damn well it is a Spike Lee movie in the making.
JB or JC; I can hear the conspiracies now.
Sad men wishing they could be ‘Living in America’.
I will listen to the Meters (the Nevilles) and know simply that it is in the music as well as the faith.
Bootsy, release that statement soon.
Do it with those star glasses on and have George behind you.
No, not the President but the other George, the other Clinton.
Somehow it came to me, upon my rising to the glory of day, that I should pick up the Book and see what it was telling me, to really listen to what it, or Him, wanted to present to my day. I opened the black bound book randomly and I was given the first pages of Daniel. I read and read and did not stop reading until it was buried deep into my soul and stamped onto my mind like a hot metal stamp of undeniable connection. This morning I was branded by the book of Daniel.
I know there are the fair share of religious zealots, faithful believers, non-believers, anti-believers, and down right deniers here on the World Wide Web, just as there are in the World beyond this box. I have always shunned organized religion but have always considered myself quite spiritual. I have read many religious texts and this morning was found to be caught with my pants down regarding something that I drastically confused and now have clarity on.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
These three characters first came into my mind via the Beastie Boys’ song ’Shadrach’ from the 1988 release ’Paul’s Boutique’. With it’s wayward lyrics and it’s amazing soundscape I was under the false impression (and I admit quite foolishly) that these three men were the wise men, the magi, the gift bearers to our Lord Jesus Christ upon his birth. Obviously, I was quite wrong, quite wrong indeed. For years I made that connection from the song to the bible and back out of my mouth to those who just did not know any better. I am sure some religiously schooled folks laughed there asses off at me as I spouted such nonsense.
So here I am awaking just before Christmas, a mere four days away, and randomly turning to the very first page of Daniel. There it was atop the page on my left in big letters across the top, ‘Daniel’. I began to read because I felt the need to, but also in response to the opening to the first page of a chapter, in my opinion it is rare to do such unless the book is spine bent and creased due to previous reading of this first page or something within the vicinity (this particular copy of the Bible I picked up is barely read or worn). I read and read and read and my heartbeat grew faster, my mind raced; I was ecstatic to be realizing my wrong name placement all these years. Not only did it shed a whole hell of a lot of light regarding the song ‘Shadrach’, but it also applied very much so to my current days and my over all experiences with many group thinkers. For some reason in my mind it explained the Milgram Experiments of the early sixties along with the Stanford Prison Experiment of the early ‘70’s and the other human behaviour experiments of the 1960’s and 1970’s. One chapter of the bible, one song written thousands of years later, three characters that I was confused about but did not know it, one morning to put that all into perspective regarding ‘group’ thought and mentality. This truly has become a wondrous, ponderous morning.
These are the passages I found to apply the most:
Daniel 1:15, 1:16, 1:17 “At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished then any of the young men who had ate the royal food. So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead. To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand dreams and visions of all kinds.”
Daniel 3:13, 3:14, 3:15, 3:16, 3:17, 3:18 “Furious with rage, Nebuchadnezzar summoned Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, ‘Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made , very good. But if you do not worship, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?’ Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, ‘O, Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
Daniel 7:7, 7:8, 7:9, 7:10 “After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was the fourth beast - terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured it’s victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns. While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little one, which came up among them; and the three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth that spoke boastfully. ‘As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and it’s wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened.’”
Daniel 12:8, 12:9, 12:10, 12:11, 12:12, 12:13 “I heard but I did not understand. So I asked, ‘My lord, what will the outcome of all this be?’ He replied, ‘Go your way, Daniel, because the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end. Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand. From the time that the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination that cause desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days. Blessed is the one who waits for and reaches the end of the 1,335 days. As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance.’”
And so here I am scratching my head and smiling wider than a double wide. I finally understood something. I finally understand a lot.
Only four days till Christmas morn.
Only eleven hours till I go back to work.
Who shall inherit the Earth, the meek shall!
I wish you ALL the Merriest of Christmases.
A season of giving and also humility and the ability to be humble. A season of forgiving.
Some people just don’t accept apologies. Others continue with sharpened teeth and lost souls.
I once was lost.
Now I'm found.
Understanding is a steadfast pursuit, for if you lose one step you could be set back a life time.
We ALL are as strong as our weakest moment and until recognition takes place deep within ourselves, we are left confused and expediently and treachorously professing our strengths.
Simple words. Real easy. To know of all and then nothing. To die. To live before having died. Existence found in bus rides. Cold nights that make your face only ‘feel’ pink. To breath out the condensation. Quickly breathing it back in as if it were 'fun and games'. Must be what the bare souled babe feels like being ripped from womb. Just long lived enough to have breathed on it’s own. Real air.
I used the word 'perpidicular' today and perplexed someone.
Too many sentences starting with the ‘to’ bereft of w’s and extended o’s. Ewes and owls in a fight that no one goes to. Only an elephant sits waiting on bent back legs. Watching intently. Eating peanuts; all of them - even Marcy and Pigpen. Sometimes it is easier to just ride the bus.
Elephants graze my thigh, He prtoects me. Ganesha!
Lean back against the plastic wanna-be glass smoked wall behind the bus bench. Feel the heat from the Hydrogen Sphere beat against your brow beaten back - your neck. Massage via the sun. Know it. The brain can take it in root - the chord, the stem - and make it more than just Vitamin E.
I have decided, for this post, that short sentences need some attention. They frown. They smile. They know that Wolfman Jack will have less time then the words I type before the period. All of the boys and girls. Megaphone, bullhorn, splendor love lust lent in a playground. A simple play that would make Thornton Wilder be less wild than his passive and docile existence could have lent to us - ever. Maybe the longest one. Maybe not. May be, maybe, Aunt Bee, Killer Bees, spelling bees, bb’s. Something shot through a fat ass and some language to get to the points of uncertainty.
Monkey bars are not in 'Our Town'. Dead people are.
The paragraphs have even shrunk and yet the days are going ala tidy bowl. I heard a bus driver today wish someone ‘Assa Lamma Lakem’. Harry S. Truman could have not got the newspapers right enough to have the ‘Bus Stop Here’ - he was looking for ‘Buck’. John Candy is dead. Macauley is getting over pot - or is he?
Many mornings of hot damn and yuck all scrambled like egg yolks into the yoke. Right on out, oh fab Oxen. Ride the rice as if there are no grenades. Listen closely to what may happen with the snakes when you are Pentecostal. Hold the serpent. Drink the poison. Fight the flame. Pray hard - I am quite sure the strychnine has nothing to do with it. No. Not even the mason jars, the venom. Leary, Leary indeed!
I still will take rice and fireworks and Vietnam racism any day over the snake.
"Ride the Snake!"
Too many calls (and this time with the forgotten 'O'); too many manias, monies, many‘s. Life is as simple as straw hats hung by fires. Burnt head. Better than Burt head. Where was Jack though? Shot down in Witchita - that is where silly goose. Don't shed a tear. The shooter did not either.
Look down the line.
Follow the tracks.
Scream ‘Peggy O’ like it is a saintly event.
Peace will never come to men that do not seek it.
Multiple essays only get read by the topic of most recent - or men far too bald to ever admitt it. There is that extra 'O' again!
Bonus: No Fire Hose To The Nose; Jazz And Appologies
In a flash of lightening and the bulk of a Speedo superhero’s bulk, we find ourselves somewhere in the time where things were easier because they were more difficult and in doing so we find that the absurd had a bit more of a place in our hearts and I can think of many people in my life that could, and would, appreciate this piece but unfortunately they are all dead. Calling Whit! Whit, can you hear me? My Southern Californian neighbor, I think you may be able to relate to this. Maybe you can’t, and I am as delusional as all say and think, but something tells me you will get out the transport pack, pick up some Dick Tracey and Flash Gordon along with a bit of Blackjack gum; whistle your way down the ivy path and picket fence with 78's as soundtracks, and knock me out to the soda fountain for an egg cream or a real chocolate soda!
Let’s meet up at a Woolworth’s counter many moons ago. So many moons ago that not even Jimmy Stewart could lasso them in fast enough.
If we are real men, we will settle on a glass of ice cold Moxie and discuss hair balm and talcum along with the many wonders of wearing pants high and proper and over all good etiquette (something that I have neglected regarding you , the Whit - for that I am sorry).
I once knew of a man, a composer, whom I admired more than most; maybe not as much as Varese or Zappa or even Sartie but maybe more so - the jury is still out. This man would creep into my cerebellum and finger my synapse into a flurry and fury of serotonin extremes and massive electrical ecstasy. His name was Raymond Scott, he was far beyond his time. Sartie, Scott, and Robert Moog (father of the electronic keyboard and the synthesizer the MOOG) were the creators of electronic music and insanity in the field of auditory consumption that inspired at least three generations of musicians to explore those simple twelve notes in a far different way than Irving Berlin, Fats Waller, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, or Glenn Miller could have ever done (even though they were all amazing geniuses; music and society shapers in their own rights).
Raymond Scott died in 1994 and it is a shame, a damn crying shame, that most do not know of him or his efforts to change music, beyond cartoons and the occasional commercial.
I had forgotten about Mr. Scott for awhile and had been preoccupied by modern Latin jazz by composers such as Chick Corea and listening to a lot of Coltrane and Puente as jazz compliments to my normal Zappa diet. I was reminded of Raymond Scott by the new Visa commercial that came out about a month ago. I struggled in my vast banks of mind to recall where exactly I knew the song from and after a long quest of interrogation and introspection I concluded, with the help of Google and YouTube, that the song was indeed Raymond Scott.
This is the song that inspired this post (I am quite sure you all will recognize it):
Mr. Scott creeps into all of our memories from movies to cartoons. His band has also backed up many, many famous singers including the talents of Eddie Cantor and Dorothy Collins. His songs were never meant to be cartoon soundtracks but that is where we most remember them from. A lot of ‘Looney Tunes’ cartoons were sound tracked with many songs of Raymond Scott and if they were not direct compositions they were most certainly inspired or derived from his genius. Here is a selection featuring some Scott compositions (remember to LISTEN to the music):
Something to keep in mind is that cartoons were not initially what they are now or what the old ones have become. They were amazing adult social commentaries that featured legitimate and respected music, as this previous clip shows.
This following clip is a great result of Mr. Scott [not to be confused with Dr. Scott (GREAT SCOTT!) from ’Rocky Horror Picture Show Fame’] collaborating with his band and producing ’real’ music for a film. It is one of many examples of how his self created genre of eclecticism found a diverse foundry of outlets to be explored by the American populace:
Another example of this can be found in this Arabian themed film that I am sure Whit will like (yes Walter this piece is about teaching the kiddos, but also making amends with you in some odd way that can only be seen as an apology that maybe you can understand - remember: no politics here in a while, but I know this politically incorrect bit will hopefully generate a good spirited comment from you while you reflect on the music and the intention of my hope to make things right between you and I). The overtones of the piece in general are interesting:
No matter how deep you stray into an oblivious weekend of boxer shorts and liquor store credit receipts, with only empty bottles to show for it, you know that Raymond had some sort of insight to the human mind, it’s need to radiate into the world and onto other psyches. He made things make sense in a very eccentric and adrenaline filled form of expression that we can only to hope to understand and appreciate now that he is gone, and has been so for over a decade. We should only admit to and follow through with the statement, “I listen to Raymond Scott and I am damn proud of it!”
~~~
In an attempt to create some BlogStream peace (I hardly ever address the social constructs of BS in my posts and feel as though I really need to at this time - it has almost been a year and I would like to see us all get along. I am tired of the feuds, misconstrued ideas of who people are, the fake names and blogs, the activation and deactivation game, as well as the PM game of out of context rubbish and slander - I know I am not the only one who feels this way!) and in the same vein as Marc’s ‘Love Bomb’, I would like everyone to take a listen to this and offer an opinion. If you know some one who would like to or need to hear this please let them know and encourage them to comment. This post should be solely about Mr. Scott but this song came up through my searches (it is one of my favourite songs) and I think it may apply to all of us regardless of politics, social standing, location, religion, and disagreements:
I hope everyone has a very magical holiday season, one that is safe and happy and full of all that can be achieved through conviction and positive thought as well as being able to admit that we all can be wrong and lack the attribute of being able to listen sometimes.
Many Blogstream members are there
already! Quotes from members: "It's like blog lite!" -- "I like the instant
gratification!" -- "Stop spectating, get in the game!"
If you have not joined in, you are really missing out!
