Jammin' the Blues (1944)

I have nothing particularly stupid to say this time --'course ya never know 'cause I'm not done yet. This is simply a great video clip. I found out about it from watching a recent release of the WB Humphrey Bogart movie "Passage to Marseille". It's featured amongst a batch of shorts under the "Warner night at the movies" menu on the DVD. I also found this copy on Youtube, as you can see above. The version on the DVD is immaculately remastered. You just want to eat it. [On that note, I realize that the Youtube video doesn't exactly captivate like the DVD, which is silky and detailed. But if you hang in there through the second half, it gets more up-tempo and visually dynamic.]

They were so much cooler then. What the hell are we doing here in 2006 ?!!!

Podcast #2: "TV Party Hangover"

Click HERE to hear in you ear.

A brief cross section of songs that
corrupted my brain for life :

Top Cat theme,
Gigantor theme,
Giant Robot dialogue,
Lidsville theme,
Speed Racer theme (Japanese vers.),
Star Trek interstellar hippie protest dialogue,
Fireball XL5 theme,
Superchicken theme (the perfect TV score),
Supercar theme,
Ernie Kovacs Show classic Nairobi Trio

Functioning without my Magic 8-Ball

I'm fitfully trying to decide what to be for Halloween. Should I go as...

Hot Magma ?

An Egg Salad Sandwich?

Or, a Bosom?

Please cast your vote.

Podcast #1: The Lost Dick Edgemont Tapes

Being a culturally sophisticated fan of this blog, you'd rather listen to rare out-takes and demo recordings vs. slick professionally produced music, right? I know I would. Therefore, to celebrate the 1st anniversary of Bloggy-Blog, I'm tossing in a bonus Podcast. [For those of you without pods... no worries. You can listen too.] Today's Podcast containts 4 tracks from an unfinished CD project called "Explode on the Scene" by Dick Edgemont, which I attempted to Produce (or 'Spectorize') in 2002.


The back-story on Edgemont is appropriately as shadowy as the man himself. He's one of those legends, like Daniel Boone or Bigfoot, whose legacy has been shaped mostly by local yarns and few verified facts. Trying to sift the fiction from the myth is enough to make you want to throw up your hands and run screaming in a zig-zag pattern into the horizon.


Dick Factoid: Dick Edgemont was an integral shaper of the fledgling suburban lounge lizard scene centered in and around the city of Torrance, California. There he shared the pale spotlight with other small-town acts like Gil Bernal, Herbie Tepper's "TNT", The Romans and other yokels showcased in dubious cocktail hideaways with neon titles like: "The Hot'n'Tot", "The San Franciscan", and the "Open Hearth". Dick's strong suit was his nimble solo trumpet stylings, along with composition skills that would give Herb Alpert night sweats.

Edgemont was also a soloist in the rough-and-tumble game of life. Although he was often spotted with a variety of floozies hanging on his arm, his dalliances were always stormy and short-lived. For years Dick's performances were interrupted by a string of humiliating encounters with a mysterious platinum blonde. She'd rush the stage, shoving a flaming hairpiece into the bell of his trumpet, often triggering the automatic overhead sprinkler system. Later in his career, Dick would only make unannounced appearances, always slipping out the back way and never saying much except, of course, through the language of his music.


Finally in the mid-80s, in front of an audience of five Torrance waste management engineers, Dick played an unusually spirited trumpet improvisation. That's when something truly otherworldly transpired. In an exuberant spasm, Edgemont had chanced upon a note outside the musical scale that nobody had ever heard before. This errant note apparently violated something in the laws of physics, rending the fabric of spacetime and causing Dick to vanished into thin air (leaving only a smoking shoe behind), never to be seen again!

Then in 2002, Edgemont Estate representative and music impresario Richard Alan Crane and I hashed out a deal which had me "producing and finishing off" a batch of Dick E tracks of an unknown vintage. Indeed, there were several dusty reel-to-reel tapes stored away in a hat box --originally engineered by Richard Derrick, who also played a smooth brush drum kit on many takes. Naturally, I threw myself into this project utilizing my humble home studio; even fiddled around with various graphic concepts for the CD.


Unfortunately, "Explode on the Scene" turned out to be the kind of uphill endeavor that I couldn't quite surmount. That's because pasting studio overdubs over live takes just didn't fuse cohesively with the spirit of the thing. There were, however, various bright spots, including solo guitar work provided by Mr. SS Seatbelt.... and a other moments which stay true to the "Edgemont ethic".

So click HERE and enjoy four never-before-released Dick Edgemont CD tracks captured in their various stages of decomposition. Or don't.

1 Year Aniversary & why I can't do this any more (Pt.8 in a series)

What a notch in my bedpost. Bloggy -Blog is celebrating its one-year anniversary! In observance, I've been AWOL on an extended drinking binge, which also means that I've not been around to post anything on Bloggy-Blog. How ironic is that? I mean c'mon!

Now this handy tip:

if you're gonna sell your ventriloquist dummy on ebay,
you must light it effectively to lend a positive mood... this one's perfect!

This blog has been running on fumes for so long now, it's hardly worth the mention. But what great asphyxiating fumes we've shared over this last year, eh? If you doubt me, just get a load of them archives (especially the early ones)! By activating internet technology like a bilge pump, I've created a direct pipeline for the world to "peer into my stockpiles of shit", as Marie Antoinette would say. From nonsensical writings, to creepy photos and to more creepy photos. It's been said that if you placed all the creepy photos that I've posted here end-to-end, it would bisect the universe like a toothpick through an olive --and there I go again, yet another martini reference.

creepy photo # 3302000000.
the sorry state of bloggy-blog: asphyxiation,
hidden dynamite, wrong-headed politics, etc

My posts have diminished, admittedly, because the world has become such a politically charged place that the sophomoric activity of this blog is like a declaration of the developmentally-stunted. It's conspicuously irresponsible and out of touch. Meanwhile, everyone else around me has become radicalized and angry about the status quo and, what's most galling in a developmentally-stunted world, they're getting all the chicks! I've always known that the path to being cooler is just an fashion statement away but I'm stalwart, wearing the same unsexy shoes day after day.

another eternal moment's tick

upended chessboard

Deer These Days

These photos were taken this last weekend in Topanga State Park.

I don't know whether any of you have been reading up on these things but we have a real problem with the local deer population in the Santa Monica mountains. Their numbers have been infiltrated by Communists who, by exposure to the primal sway of jazz records, have converted their once abiding ranks into roving bands of loitering ne'er-do-wells. It's a sad and dangerous situation. This poppy consuming deer seen above couldn't even stand upright. All he could do was look for loose change on the ground and mutter incoherently.

The little guy in this shot approached and asked, "Please sir, can you spare a moment for global warming?". Naturally, I approached in good faith to sign his petition when a sudden burst of flames issued forth from his mouth and singed off all my hair. Then, like something from a horror movie, his head detached like a projectile heading right at me. With bulging red eyes and fangs extended, it began frenetically chewing open the veins in my neck. All I could do was protest that I was "on a nature walk to sample some fresh air, getting centered" ... that I was "hip" & "cool" but to no avail!

As I fled down the path in the opposite direction, I interrupted this pair's game of mumbletypeg. They blocked my way, took all my money, my clothes, and everything. Then I was trampled to death and I'm now blogging from the great beyond. Thank you reprobate Communist deer!

Stealing Your Soul With My Digital Camera

This is what results when I'm lying around with a laptop, fiddling with Apple's Imovie. What is it they say, "Idle hands are the devil's egg salad sandwich"? Thank you Steve Jobs for turning me into a complete vegetable.