Each and every morning, creeping up the hollow

I just this very moment discovered “Sunrise Earth”. And it just so happens to be the probable episode of “Buddhists of Wat Svay”.
I’m surfing at dawn and annoyed with the selections. Suddenly there is a temple, and chanting, and a huge rainbow over it and that’s it, for minutes, then some monks walk out. Then the scene changes to some birds hanging out on some stupas, a few bicyclists go by. Some students are walking by some Fu-Lions and a bird is pecking the roof by a golden dragon relief. Here’s doorways with Buddha’s above them. Sunlight through trees. Two barefoot girls carrying a wash basket between them. More rooftops, and it’s over.

Other than the commercials that was blessedly un-glaring and blaring. If one must watch TV, and I really kind of must, that is a lovely break.
We’re on to “Mediterranean Port” now. Time to open the curtains and look at my own sunrise.

AM earworm

The KKK Took My Baby Away - The Ramones
Ummm that’s just weird.

So far

Since Saturday night:

• 250 or so meatballs
• Sauce for aforementioned
• 2 lemon breads
• 56 shrimp for cocktail
• Cocktail sauce (organic)
• Pan of gingerbread
• Pan of tollhouse bars
• Pan of butterscotch brownies
• Pate (I am so dumb, it was only today that I really got that pate is basically frenchified and fancied up liver and onions)
• Cilantro chutney
Still to come
• Crunions!
• More butterscotch brownies
• Shortbread
• More gingerbread

Sleep Tight

I have what they call in the biz, fairly good sleep hygiene. Well ok, there are few knots. I wake up too much during the night and I do “stuff” in bed other than sleep. But when it comes to waking up, I’m a champ. I almost always wake up within a 45 minute span right around 7 am. No matter how late I went to bed (up till 3am anyway) or how drunk I got last night. That’s right baby, I got smashed last night. Woke right up at 7. Took a couple ibuprofen and I’m now having my cuppa tay.

See, really, at heart, I’m a big old drunk. It’s just that now I only let that girl out every four years or so. I love getting drunk. I’m not so fond of the three to four days it now takes me to recover when I get as drunk as I can though. Which is why last night was a total baby drunk (despite the seeming enormity of 17 glasses of champagne and a shot of fantastic vodka). As soon as I realized I was smashed I went home and made myself puke. In the old days it would have been time to start really drinking.

I never had such a penchant for drink until I used it to get off a much worse habit. Then I really hit my stride. I think what is so appealing about it is, that all the other drugs make me think really, really, hard. Alcohol makes me really, really stupid. When you live with a crazy busy, chattering, incessant, monkey mind it is really fun to essentially flip a switch and turn it off occasionally.

When I’m drunk I turn into Brother Martin. This is what the Rom traditionally called their dancing bears. I am slightly obsessed with Brother Martin, he shows up in my songs and poetry on a semi-regular basis. That’s because he is me and I am him. Along with spiders he’s one of my totemic folk.
Here’s a piece of a piece about him:

Brother Martin waltzes on the boulevard
Brother Martin waltzes gathering a crowd
for shiny, careless, pennies wrested from the mob
Brother Martin dances to the cymbalom.

If you think about it, blogging is totally a Brother Martin-ish thing to do.

“Groundhog’s Day” earworm

The Beat Goes On - Sonny & Cher
Don’t have a provenance for this one.

OH

and Robyn Hitchcock’s - I Often Dream Of Trains
( Except one song)

OR

Roxy Music - Avalon
The Pixies - Bossanova
CSNY - Deja Vu
Vangelis - BladeRunner Soundtrack
Dave Brubeck - Take Five
Le Tigre - Feminist Sweepstakes
Aerosmith - Get Your Wings
King Crimson - Discipline
Joanie Mitchell - Clouds
Bill Evans - Waltz For Debby

I been chewin' this thing like a bone for about 24 hours now.

No limit's dammit

You know that list kind of bummed me out. Because I forgot or couldn’t put on, so many things.
Like
Saucer Full Of Secrets, Umma Gumma, and Piper At The Gates of Dawn.
or Peter Gabriel Plays Live
or Elvis Costello’s Spike
or Etta James’ Tell Mama
or Black Sabbath's Paranoid
or Dead Meadow's (self titled)
or It's a Beautiful Day's (self titled)
or Devo's Are We Not Men or Freedom Of Choice
or The Talking Heads Speaking In Tongues
or The Red Hot Chili Peppers (self titled)
or Bob Marley & The Wailers’s Rastaman Vibration
or Philip Glass/ Ravi Shankar’s Passages
or Donovan’s Sunshine Superman
or Coltrane’s Giant Steps
or 2 or 3 George Clinton albums - One Nation Under a Groove, Maggot Brain, most notably
or all the great comps I love
or all the soundtracks
or all the jazz I pretty much glossed over
or all the other albums by groups I already listed
or the albums I left off because it’s really like 3 songs that I love, love, love and could pretty much leave the rest
or the mixes I make for myself of tons and tons of my favourite songs under groupings that only I understand

Aaaghhhh I need a top million songs, we hates limits we does. When it comes to music especially. I could do top books easier. Well, don’t challenge me on that. I think that just might have been a lie.

AM Earworm

Sweet, Sticky Thing - The Ohio Players
Why fancy that. How could that possibly have happened?

PS

Tomorrow, Friday, 6:00PM, my old pal Anselm will possibly be seen on HGTV. His mother’s place in Kenya, an art studios/living compound called Kitengela will be featured on a show called something to the effect of “Most Extreme Homes on the Planet”. So TiVo or watch or what have you.

Another one of them, memes

Top 25 Albums por moi
Snitched from Nigel. It was supposed to be 20, but I can never leave these things alone and 25, a quarter century, seemed more realistic. And in no particular order. And I had to leave off a lot. A lot.

Rain Dogs - Tom Waits
Their Satanic Majesties Request - The Rolling Stones
World Clique - Dee-Lite
Hunky Dory - David Bowie
We’re Only In It For The Money - Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention
Another Green World - Brian Eno
Love It To Death - Alice Cooper
The Best of The Ohio Players - The Ohio Players
Rumblefish Soundtrack - Stewart Copeland
Whirled - Vasen
Parallel Lines - Blondie
That’s The Way Of The World - Earth, Wind and Fire
Boys Don’t Cry - The Cure
Innervisions - Stevie Wonder
The B-52’s - The B-52’s
At Folsom Prison - Johnny Cash
The Heat Is On - The Isley Brothers
Maiden Voyage - Herbie Hancock
Rum, Sodomy and The Lash - The Pogues
Madman Across the Water - Elton John
Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncey - The Who
Dirty Mind - Prince
Disreali Gears - Cream
Los Angeles - X
Red - King Crimson

If you hadn’t noticed, I’m old.

Critchmas En Spiritu

Man I love vacation. Yesterday I spent the whole day noodling around YouTube. I started out on somebody’s blog watching a clip. Then I searched witches/brujas. This progressed to ghosts, paranormal, UFO footage, cryptozoology and mysterious humanoids. I ended up with EMO boys kissing and gay porn. Sweet.

Today it’s been Bond films. “The Man With The Golden Gun” and “You Only Live Twice”. Sweet.

Since I made a ton of soups (3 quarts each) I don’t have to cook much, though I think I will anyway today.
I made a variation of my creamy potato leek soup with lots more dill and with broccoli as well. Then I made up a sesame chicken vegetable dal, which is weird as hell, but really quite good.

I think I’ll meander on down to the corner store and see what looks good. I haven’t done any XMas shopping yet. I don’t have no kind of spirit. But I know a couple things I’m going to pick up, think I’ll give the convalescent and the Dad a good book. I got a good local one at a local store recently so I guess I’ll see you this weekend UBU. Think Local!

Ear vermi

Yesterday: The Dance Of The Sugarplum Fairies - Tchaikovsky
Today: Simply Irresistible - Robert Palmer
Well thank goodness it’s off the XMas muzak for a little while. Although I’d like to think that TDOTSPF was more Ren and Stimpy inspired as they use it for incidentals on occasion. But, really, we know the truth.

AM Earworm

Let's face it, I just adore musicals and show tunes. Especially when the song writing is so strong it could easily crossover into mainstream music and become a standard. Like “Somewhere” or “Some Enchanted Evening” or “The Street Where You Live” or “Stranger In Paradise”. I suppose even “76 Trombones” qualifies somewhere in there, although really you’re only likely to hear that as standard for high school marching bands.

But why this (one of my all time favourites) never caught on, I don’t know. I suppose because it has the word Frankenstein in it. Whereas “The Time Warp” really does stand alone and can be taken out of context more easily. But “Timewarp” is about a third of the way down the list of my favourite songs from the show.

There’s A Light (Over at The Frankenstein Place) - Richard O’Brien

In the velvet darkness
Of the blackest night
Burning bright, there's a guiding star
No matter what or who you are

There's a light
Over at the Frankenstein place
There's a light
Burning in the fireplace
There's a light, a light
In the darkness of everybody's life

The darkness must go
Down the river of night's dreaming
Flow Morpheus slow let the sun and light
Come streaming
Into my life, Into my life

There's a light
Over at the Frankenstein place
There's a light
Burning in the fireplace,
there's a light, a light
In the darkness of everybody's life

I could just as easily be insane

I just pulled the first all nighter of my college (alleged) career. I stayed up all night writing an eight and a half page paper comparing Aristotelean Virtue Ethics with Mahayana Buddhism. This while nursing a purely, delightful, kidney infection.

25 cigarettes, a cup of tea, a half a bar of Lindt chocolate with hazelnut creme, a wash basket full of specific and generalized super stress, a 101 fever and a quart or so of un-sweetened cranberry juice later, I feel positively Holmesian.

I have no idea what I wrote (and already electronically submitted). I could be scathingly brilliant, I could have gibbered like a blue monkey. And the best part is that, like Holmes, I will likely have a Dr.’s excuse at the end of it all, ready and waiting to whip it on out, if it all comes apart in my face.

God I wasted a lot of money on cocaine in my youth.

Earworms and singin’ dreams

I can’t stand the rain - Ann Peebles’ version

I’m dreaming that I had just had a conversation with Oliver and the new handyman, (who looked just like a handyman should) who were headed down to the basement to build cool music equipment stuff, reminding them that I had needs as well, namely book cases and a looooong shoe rack. As I walked out the back door holding a cat box the cat poop fell on my skirt which used to be my nice GQ, beige, wool, side button one from high school days but now was some cat poopy, rusted, beige, denim, one that I’m not sure where it ever came from.

While I was trying to scrape the poop off, some kids were walking by and asked 2 things: One if they could borrow a “canning planner” and secondly if I’d like to sing Al Green’s “I can’t stand the rain”. I said that I knew a better one which was Ann Peebles’ version and proceeded to sing it, starting it in a good low key and octave so I could maximize the gut bucketing of it and show off a bit. I proceeded to sing the crap outta that tune and it became a bit of a production number in the backyard. Adding a new ending verse of
“ Now that we’ve parted,
My world is so blue
I need you to come back to me
So I can do,
So I can do what you want me to”
At which point Don Cornelius and the Soul Train Gang (who apparently had been watching from the neighbors porch) all cheered wildly.
I turned around and asked those kids “what in the hell is a canning planner?"

Cider-phobic

About ten years ago I bought me some nice fall cider. I drank it and almost died. I came this close to going to ER. Anyone who knows me, knows my feelings about ER, so that is a really good indicator of how sick I was. I have to be pretty much dying or being threatened with death to get me anywhere near ER. It was in those halcyon days before mandatory pasteurization of juices but even now I won’t drink any cold cider, only hot and mulled.

It’s been interesting. Last night did not turn out as planned. Can’t tell if it was stress, a sudden onslaught of being completely convinced of how huge an asshole I am, or evil, bad, boughten, Kroger punkin’ pie, but I came even closer to the portals of that devil’s lair in the basement of the hospital (both the ER and the morgue) than the cider event.

I’m pretty sure I brought up a couple toenails. I scared the crap out of Oliver by eventually asking him to not leave the room again as I did not want to be found dead, aspirated and asphyxiated on my own vomit. I mean, that club has some great members, but I’m just not a joiner.

So as to not shoot the horse or anything, I’m climbing back on this very moment. I felt so very bad that he had to throw out, close to his whole pie, I am baking Oliver two of ‘em as we speak.

And I’m gonna eat some too dammit. I really, really, really, don’t want to become punkin’ pie-o-phobic.

Write Right? Yer Bloody Well Write

I am supposed to be writing a paper, I am supposed to be writing lyrics to like, 15 songs that are waiting, I’m supposed to be writing for the writing group, I’m supposed to be writing for this, for my own my personal satisfaction, I’m supposed to be writing for Poetry Club.
I am not writing. (As I’m sure you have noticed.)

I’m smoking like I am. I’m not doing common domestic stuff as if I was in “the vortex”. I am experiencing all the lack of other discipline that would seem to indicate the need to feed the creative beast.

Either some kind of frenzy is lurking around the corner and I’m gearing up for it, or I’m in a slump.

I have, however, been cooking my butt off. You should have tasted my stuffing last week, ok two weeks ago, it was a miracle. Perhaps there is some cosmic rule that I can only create unidirectionally. But I want to be fully renaissance though. One of those Clive Barker, Nitro Von Borax, UBU, and dare I say it, Maynard, types who can be creative in 6 directions at once.

Wah wah wah. It sucks to be, limited me.

Long term earworm

For almost 24 hours now - Gonna Buy Me A Rainbow - Meg & The Griffins
I’m clearly doomed.