Wednesday, January 25, 2012

1000 Posts

I like to think the quality and not the quantity of posts is what matters. It started as a joke to amuse myself or to regain my sanity after the Los Angeles silicone tit implant/hair extension/lip enlargement and penis enhancing low fat coffee experience I had in Venice. Thong wearing women rollerblading backwards on the beach boardwalk (walking their pure breed lapdog named Tsong (silent T) on a diamond leash) as drum circles full of LSD and medicinal marijuana junkies beat mad rhythms to the $2.5 million dollar homes of Eric Clapton who would yell at me to turn my amplifier down as I attempted to play Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb solo in G minor pentatonic with a nod to David Gilmore's demonic attack, basically begging for change from millionaires and starving to death. Now, 1000 posts later I must refer to my blog to remember those days in Santa Monica fixing bicycles and office furniture during the day and shoplifting my food out of Donald Sutherland's Whole Foods cart during the evening and in the night I would defend my van from the legions of drunk homeless seeking shelter. One day, I thought, this will all end up in the great Oggy Bleacher tragi-comedy saga.

Lately, I've been listening to Petula Clark on LP. Her delivery of the Tony Hatch songs is dated and "of an era" but it's very appealing to me in a Neil Diamond kind of way. Structure is basic, melody is paramount and subject matter is simple and the Key is G Major. It's when folk music was about to make a comeback, the Vietnam war was not only winnable but America was going to go to the moon first too, skirts were shortening, hair was getting longer and penicillin could cure any STDs. Long haired kids like Bob Dylan and John Lennon were making music that folks our age were certain would be forgotten about in 6 months and Big Bands would reclaim their seat in Music's throne. Talentless Elvis had other plans. "The fucking Rolling Stones can't even spell music! Every song they play is in the same minor key!!" I can hear my past self yelling as I cling to my Nat King Cole Trio records (Nat's guitarist was phenomenal and after a feud with Nat he ended up laying brick for racist and snobby movie stars.) Oh, the clock spins round and round but the numbers never change.

In 1966 the singer must deliver the goods and that's all there is to it. Pet Clark stood alone and belted these songs and that made them famous. (The Vogues did a good cover too)

I plan to make a nice tribute video to her now that I bought a new Canon Optura 30 mini dv video camera. Once the replacement battery comes I'll be in good shape to finish the wolf video. I figured out that the recording heads of my old camcorder are dirty (possibly ruining all my footage) but it might be good for something in the future if only as a vcr to transfer video to my computer or to get footage of throwing the camera off a bridge where it will smash into the ground or running it over with a car. In the meantime, here's a "Thank you" to my two or three fans. I couldn't live without your love...and your hate sometimes motivates me too. My top 5 songs lately are as follows:

Walker Brothers: The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore
Petula Clark: You're The One
Bruce Springsteen: Racing In The Streets
Percy Faith: Theme From Summer Place
Ronettes: Be My Baby


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Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.