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.

Exclusive Celebrity Interview: Petunia Pig

Petunia Pig turned 96 years old this week and we're lucky to have her with us for this exclusive Bloggy-Blog interview. I caught up with Petunia after spotting her in upper Manhattan shopping at Keihl's with friend, and likewise ancient veteran of the stage and screen, Kitty Carlisle. I tripped Ms. Pig on the escalator exit and pinned her to the floor where the following interview took place.

_________________________

smouldering glamour: circa 1938

Bloggy-Blog: You started out in cartoons in 1937 in "Porky's Romance". Can you describe how this role came about?

Pig: I met Frank Tashlin, the director, at Schwab's Pharmacy on Sunset. They had a counter there with a soda fountain.

Bloggy-Blog: A soda fountain at a pharmacy?

Pig: Oh yes, but with a twist. In those days cocaine was very open and available. Schwab's had a guy there, the soda jerk, and he'd sprinkle cocaine into your root beer float or on your fudge sundae, whatever. It was a gimmick to keep the customers loyal. Consequently, Schwab's was a wildly popular scene. Very chic. The equivalent of Woody Harrelson's Oxygen Bar.

Bloggy-Blog: I believe Mr. Harrelson sold that a while ago.

Pig: Oh, did he? Anyway, Hollywood was full of stories of stars being discovered at Schwabs Pharmacy. People like Tallulah Bankhead, Alfalfa Schweitzer, Lassie, and lord knows... They were all plucked from Schwabs. So one day I'm in there when this oversized lug in a pinstripe suit sits next to me at the counter talking his head off. I thought maybe he was hawking insurance.

Bloggy-Blog: Tashlin?

Pig: Yeah. Or "Tish-Tash", as he was also known. He tells me he's a big-shot cartoon director at the Schlesinger studio and the whole nine yards. Meanwhile, he's sucking up this banana-whip cocaine cocktail and he gets this idea, see?... He says something like, "Hey doll-puss, what'ya say you come down to the Termite Terrace [the studio's nickname] for an audition? We need to cast a dame, a girlfriend part, to work with Porky in his new motion picture... and you're da' spittin' image. A real pip!" And so I went down to the casting office that afternoon.

Bloggy-Blog: So, just like that?

Pig: I was so naive. But sometimes you need a little of that to get places... fortunes have been made by way of blind naivete, ya know what I mean?

screen test excerpt

Bloggy-Blog: What kind of work had you doing before then?

Pig: A little of everything. I filled in various chorus girl jobs here and there. I was in a couple of Busby Berkley things, way, way in the background. At night I worked clubs like the Macambo where Jack Benny was a regular with his own booth. On odd days I'd waitress this little place down on the east end of Hollywood called "Laughing' Jack's Canteen". Lots of sailors and mugs there. 'Seemed like every night the boozing led to fist fights and stabbings. I was a Cigarette girl, hat check girl, coat check... random things to make rent.

Bloggy-Blog: I see. So now you successfully passed the audition. Then, the next day, you're supporting Porky Pig in "Porky's Romance", in 1937. People talked about you as an overnight sensation and, in fact, you were the real deal. What was it like going from a meager lifestyle to working with a big star like Porky Pig?

Pig: Well, it was exhilarating. You bet. I mean, they're all bastards in Hollywood but I was very excited to be there and smitten with Porky in the very early days. I had to demure from my crush and keep my composure as a professional. Particularly In "Porky's Romance", I played a woman who was more attentive to her Pekinese dog than to the romantic offerings and boxes of chocolates showered on her by Porky's character. ...a stark reversal of our so-called "real-lives" around the lot. Along those lines, I would later see what a real swine Porky could be.

Bloggy-Blog: That Pekinese dog was played by--

Pig: A fellow from the San Fernando valley, a bit player named Xavier Pierce . A year later, he was run over by a Red Car while crossing Selma. In his pockets, they found a collection of various silk panties, fishnet stockings and the like. Something was going on with "X" that they never quite figured out. It's always the quiet ones.

Bloggy-Blog: Speaking of gender ambiguities, wasn't it Hedda Hopper who wrote, "Petunia looks like Porky's double, only in a woman's dress, heels and 'come-hither' lashes"?

"oh Poooorky?"

Pig: Yes. But I didn't care. Let me tell you about the "dreaded" Hedda Hopper. She was a hack with a deadline and a column to fill --a parasitical, battle-axe with a sick talent for proffering reams of yellow journalism. The problem was that she did wield a heavy-handed influence around town. Jack Warner, in particular was scared to death of her. Of course, Jack carried himself with his blustery exterior but he'd completely buckle to whatever was brought to bear by Hopper, the Catholics and the Hayes Commission and all that. Actually though, there was nothing hugely offensive in her review of "Porky's Romance".

Bloggy-Blog: You don't think her statement was - -

Pig: Sure, I was a large burley woman with a 5 o'clock shadow. But I was voluptuous like Mae West. As a dancer I knew how to carry myself gracefully, while dressing complimentary with the Art Decco sensibilities of the day. Hollywood Stars weren't so much the pretty runway models, like you have now, you understand? We were larger-than-life characters. Consider Cagney, Eddie Robinson, Petey Lorre, Popeye and those type of guys. All short, stocky and, one could say "ugly" but with top billing!

Bloggy-Blog: It seems that even Porky would never stand a chance in today's world of fashion over talent.

Pig: Exactly. But remember, it was good to have a gimmick back then too. There's always been a great deal of showmanship in this business, talent or not. I used heavy Max Factor rouge in perfectly delineated circles, which was my own trademark. I was lucky to be blessed with a natural skin radiance that lit up on the silver screen. So I wasn't threatened by catty remarks coming from Hollywood gossip rags. I was happy during that period. I'd hitched my wagon to this anthropomorphic stuttering pig juggernaut. Cartoons were a staple in movie houses all across the country! And, of course, I was finally making some pretty decent bread. I don't mind admitting that I bought plenty of hats and chewing gum. It was good.

Bloggy-Blog: And yet, from there the trajectory of your career was rather rocky. What happened?

[to be continued]

William F Buckley Week (Yes it's been that slow)

There's really no need to watch the following video past the profile shot of Buckley's independently moving hair. Priceless. SCTV, by the way, was arguably the best show in the universe.



As a bonus, here's Buckley and Chomsky kicking it around in the late 60s. Just for fun and irritation purposes.



Pt.2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9Samvw6Z08

Nothing, sorry

There are chain saws roaring on either side of my apartment this morning. It's got me on edge. I understand that people do feel very threatened by the overgrowth of residential oak branches and palm fronds. After all, you can't let those trees get the upper limb. We must hack at them and trim them back! It's the only language they understand. Give a tree an inch and it'll be a bastard on your back for life.

I know for a fact that the crew operating the chain saws get a macho kick from the sound they make. They're just a bit too enthused to rev the gas motors in salivating anticipation of the actual cutting. It's the old primordial snarl of territorial rights. Yes, they want to taunt the tree before doing their merciless act of mechanical chewing and spitting up chunks of debris.

So, I guess there's nothing I can do about this noise situation... or is there? I mean, what can I do? I feel like John Henry vs. the legendary "Inky-Poo". It would be' like arguing with an automatic weapon. But I'm determined not to be out-whined by a machine -not as long as I've got breath and a Blog. At least for my peace of mind, I need to go out there and actually see if he city didn't, in fact, hire a bunch of guys just to dramatically interrupt my normal sleep pattern. ...I'm gonna go out and have a look.

OK, I'm back. Aside from the chiding I took for wearing my blue velvet pajamas with the cute drop drawer hatch, they admitted that there was no purpose to infernal chain saw racket beyond the sheer sadistic pleasure of annoying me. What a relief! For a moment there I though I was paranoid.

The Mother of all Posts

In yet another rant designed to alienate every last person I know, I just have to ask: How did sports reporting slither its way into becoming a legit part of newscasting ?

I wonder.

I just can't see any justifiable reason why my daily viewing of brutality, murder and mayhem must give way to an interval of sports banter! It's as though you're not a normal member of society if you just don't give a crap about it.

There's typically some bumbling, but lovable, oaf by the name of "Buddy" anchoring the sports segment (I'm merely deflecting my jealousy here because he's the same "jock" who always got the chicks in high school --which, for me, was a morbidly depressing tip-off at how unjust the universe was, and is). Somehow, by his very presence, the sports reporter inspires all the other anchors to relax from the shackles of feigned serious expressions. They spot the Dodger pin on the lapel and become completely docile, receptive to any suggestion. Yet, eventually, the news team must collect itself and press on with the hard-boiled stories of brutality, murder and mayhem. Now away from the camera, the sports anchor is unplugged by a technician and, with great solemnity, wheeled back to his chamber of suspended animation.

With all the preceding in mind, I'm encouraging my fellow Blogger-thusiasts to vote Yes on Prop. 132, which shalll relegate all sports broadcasting to its appropriate time slot (around 3 am), never to be integrated into news programming again. Sponsored, of course, by the clean wholesome fun people here at BloggyBlog. "We Love Shaved Pits!"


Meanwhile, here ya go: Tampa Bay 4 vs. N.Y. Yankees 6


[Afterthought: I will give Vin Scully credit as a baseball announcer, as I recall his nasally voice wafting out of AM transistor radios during summer days of yore. Its effect on me was, no less, narcotic-like: "Don Drysdale on the mound...." Ahhhh, yes. Lemonaide, dichondra grass and Scully. Otherwise, I have some kind of genetic deficit when it comes to being a sports spectator. Me Not Caring: 6 vs. The World Not Caring That I Don't Care: 10.]

Lynx

And here's a LINK to some interesting animation. Apologies in advance if this is something that's been traded around the web by hipsters last year. There's some good stuff here that points in the opposite direction of computer 3D gloss, which only enhances its return-to-form charm.

G'nite.

The Smell of Blogging

If you'll pardon my boast, pushing certain buttons here on the "blog-o-sphere" to gain readership, influence, and complete subjugation of the masses has become like child's play. Oh, and by the way... I hope you don't mind that, since its inception, Bloggy-Blog has been a front for certain, shall we say, "human experiments".

It's no big deal but many of the preceding posts have contained doses of plutonium and assorted isotope rays. Some of you have fared better than others; some don't write in anymore, but hey... I've earned enough pocket change from the US military for my daily 10-cent pony ride in front of Lucky's Supermart. That means an awful lot to me. And although some maneuvering intellectuals out there cry "victim", you have no idea how much this data is mobilizing Congress to finance some very accommodating fallout bunkers complete with Starbucks and FREE Internet.

In terms of having a wildly successful blog like this one, with or without covert human experimentation, you have to understand the whole endeavor in terms of its cultural ties to the long-forgotten office mimeograph machine. If you worked in one of the big aerospace outfits during the Cold War days of Southern California (and suffered male-pattern baldness), there would always be some clown using the mimeograph machine to pass around one-liners and off-color jokes to the work force. This self-appointed crank was serving a vital communal role, in terms of providing a needed stress relief valve to his colleagues. After all, they had weapons to build under deadline and they were also concerned with plutonium and human experiments. But now the community has gone global and so goes the reach of such utilitarian idiocy.

So as long as you've got an eye for the REAL relevant pastimes in the work-a-day world, i.e.: Peeing Calvin bumper stickers, daydreaming about "boobies", chewing on pen caps, you've got the right stuff. That's exactly the aesthetic you aim for because most people are dropping in while chained to a desk.

In summary: good blogs are essentially electronic joke mimeographs to distract from the impending terror of our eventual conversion into skeletons. But what I miss the most, and what computers don't supply, is the comforting smell of a fresh mimeograph.

I need hugs.

Protesting the Infinite Paradox with Calvin

Non-Threatening Pastimes Stolen From NPR

I just overheard an NPR host encouraging listeners to write in to answer the following survey question: "What film do you watch over and over? ". I went to their website and couldn't find the bloody link. Perhaps it's now expired. To vent my disasppointment, I'm going to bring it here and ask YOU, the astute reader of this blog, to answer the same question.

Ready, go.

I will collect the responses and make a pie.

iMonkeyPaw Pt. II

Charlie Bo Barley said...
I wanna hear the audio file!

___________________

OK, HERE it is. As usual, it's all rather idiosyncratic and you can't bob your head to it.

Oh, and the corrupted music notation software (previous post) was part of Logic Express, although the "song" was actually recorded on Garageband. It's a long story of no particular import... and that's the wonder of blogging.

iMonkeyPaw

Listen up you mugs,

I have this here whatch'call "music software" that'll print out what which you push on the 88 keys, see? No matter what you play, it usually looks very impressive, see? It's as if you brought your composition to life using a pen and quill. It really gets the dames all excited. You can't miss! Even you non-musician dopes can do it.

Here's a little number of mine, which you can play, entitled "Proclimation de constipation". Now get crackin'!

Macca Spuds

Youtube.com is loaded with Paul McCartney clips. His face is everywhere, doing this and prattling on about that. It's like he's cruising to supernova for billions of fans on a global satellite link. The good news is that he's finally gotten 'round to showing us how to make mashed potatoes in this video --and I say it's about time!

Uber Geek's Remote Blog Overdrive

I'm at an Apple store. Someone left their "Photo Booth" photos on the desktop of this demo computer. Here's one of them:

Free-Association Fun and Whimsy

OK, I'll going to start with one simple word in the comments' section. You must reply with a response word that you free-associate to it. The next person adds to that and on-and-on... It's the perfect game to play while on long car trips or while comatose, etc.

Ready, get set, go!