Bonnie Video

I posted a video of my dog companion that took so long to process that I've already moved past it. Check it out here!

The Mic is Open

Tuesday is open mic night at the Press Room and I've been playing Jackson Brown's "For A Dancer" so much in my room that I figured I just have to get out and play it. I mean, what the fuck am I doing with my life?

So I braved the rain and went to the Jazz jam but was snubbed by the pros. I waited my turn at the open mic and got incredibly nervous even though I've played these songs hundreds of times and there is no one there. Fortunately there was no turning back but as usual I changed my plan at the last second and sang "Nobody Home" by Pink Floyd on the piano. "I've got a little black book with my poems in it..."
Then into "Rosie" by Jackson Brown "For all the lonely guys in the audience." And I really wanted to sing "After The Goldrush" by Neil Young but chickened out because I forgot how the last verse goes. I love those seventies songwriters and I'm told I look like Jackson so here's a comparison of myself and J.B. One guy said I look like Cris Angel, the magician, but I don't see that at all. George Harrison and Cat Stevens and I have some features in common but I think Jackson Browne is the closest celebrity look-alike. Oh, if I could sing like him all would be perfect.So I got up and grabbed the guitar (I haven't practiced the changes on the piano because apparently not one church in Portsmouth wants a free janitor) and started into "For A Dancer". I wanted to video tape the performance but also chickened out because I'd have to ask someone to hold the camera and it seems so intrusive. I heard someone say, "I love this song." as I started singing and I don't blame them. It's great songwriting and easy to play. Not so easy to sing as I sounded like a wounded cat. Fortunately that song is so good you can't fuck it up. Since there were so few people I was able to fit in "Shanty" by Jonathan Edwards which kind of sucks to play alone as it is a blues with no solo. I gotta bring my harmonica next time.

But the cool part was the host was Jerry T. and he sings a song called "Forty Dollars" that has been haunting me for a month because I decided it was the song I want to make a music video for. Now, a music video usually involves a studio recording and then many different takes of the band pretending to play that exact studio recording. They don't actually play on the video. It's dubbed. They lip sync the whole thing. But I don't have a studio recording so I'm just going to get creative with the live footage. I told Jerry I wanted to make a video and he seemed surprised. He's probably 70 years old and who knows how he's survived in the world but he's a good songwriter. His hands were cramping up and last time he had some teeth fall out so it's not like he's got a long career ahead of him. So I got that in the can.
There's another trio of a David Gray-ish cat and two young women harmony singers that are next on the list. Never mind that the girls are cute I feel like they are actually talented and charismatic and should have a video. They also seemed surprised that I wanted to record them. Are we not living in a video age? Is this news? And music videos can be put together in a few hours for no money. Well, they're next on the list. I forget their name...like Gideon Breeze or something like that. Fuck. I didn't get their number either. Fortunately they are there every Tuesday so next week we're filming whether they like it or not. They must have a studio recording. For three kids they were pretty good and I'd love to promote them with a video. Or give them the video to promote themselves with. Maybe they do have a recording of their performance but they don't consider it a video because it had no production value. We'll see.

I was satisfied with Jerry's tale of bus stop heartbreak when a guy stood up to read some poetry. Really?
"You want to make a psychedelic video?" I asked.
"I'd love to."
"Ok. Don't mind me. Just read what you have."

And I crawled all over him with the camera and lay on the ground looking up at him and behind him and everything. I think the footage was too dark and the audio will bleed over with crowd sounds but between that and some pictures of frogs and a walking bass line I'll get something out of it. It was really spoken word although some of it rhymed. Not bad at all with a good delivery.

So that's another video project to work on as the world floods. I've got bananas and Ramen noodles. Why do I need to leave the house? I think videography is a legit career path for the next six months. I need a 3 chip HD camera with wide angle and a 1000 watt lighting and an audio set but that's about it. Oh, and a fast computer. $5-6 grand is all I need. My Sexy Chicken manifesto video will probably make that much in a week! The chicken doc is in standby until me and the chicken man can screen it to decide the next step. The chicken man apparently had a complete meltdown over the last couple days, lost power, lost (ate) his phones, dismantled his truck, etc. The Johnny Walker Wisdom was running high, as Leonard Cohen would say. I still need eggs. But not bad enough to drive to Nottingham on a prayer I won't be shot with a rifle when I walk on the property. I'll have to wave a white flag...or a White Russian in this case.

Bonnie Sad Eyes

Bonnie's visit was uneventful compared to her last stay. We went to the dog park and the beach and toured Portsmouth a few times in the rain but there were no hurricane force winds and flooding. I didn't work at the day labor so I took her outside whenever she even looked at the door. I put a dog proof lock on the trash door so there were no banana peels for Bonnie.

The stairs are are too steep for most people so I'm not surprised she had trouble with them. With a treat in front of her she was able to focus and climb but with no treat she just wanted to get back down. To her it was a crazy obstacle course we had to negotiate to get food. And forget about walking back down them since her back legs would be directly above her head and her little front paws would be doing all the work. It would be like a hand stand. So I carried her down every time and she just closed her eyes and prayed. This video is a tribute to her courage in tackling the stairs in spite of her fears.

I thought my desktop computer was slow but this laptop is almost incapable of editing movies. It's the RAM that it uses that causes a latency problem. You need a fast processor and lots of RAM to work with digital video. I'll be shocked if this video plays normally on the internet as it was jumping all over the place on my computer.
Thanks to my cousin for giving me the camera and the dog to complete the project. I'll add it to my reel. The songs are by Robert John and Richard Strauss.

Economy

It used to be called Pic 'N Pay way back when I walked without a limp and thought no more of taking a shit than I did of running as fast as I could run. Brad and I would have foot races for absolutely no reason at all down Union Ave. Just walking down the road, "Race you to that stop sign. Ready....Go!" That was a long time ago and if I have to cross the street fast now I'm winded for ten minutes. Anyway, this is one supermarket that I can honestly say I never stole anything from. Unlike the nonexistent A&P market that is now a convention center. I stole a pack of gum once from them. Probably cost a $0.25 more than I had at the time. It really is laughable how magnified those childhood moments are when compared to the crimes adults commit. Don't steal a pack of gum, but later on your country will call on you to bomb a village. It doesn't add up. And I guess it doesn't have to for a society to survive. We try to teach kids to be honest and peaceful. We try. And when we fail they become survivalists like us. I decided that laws are how we punish ourselves for failing as parents. Pic N Pay changed its name to Hannafords back in the early '90s. I wonder if they sponsor a little league team. Anyone know? Pic 'N Pay is immortalized in my book Memorabilia because they sponsored the team that Mack Wynter played for. Mack's memorial water fountain is over at the little league field as we speak. Pic 'N Pay made that possible. I think the brand name was a sign of the times as smaller stores had to choose loyalties and it was either Shaws or Walmart or Hannafords who would get the title. It's nothing personal. Under any name it does less damage to my wallet. I've been reading about the nature of the economy in The Wealth of Nations summation by P.J. O'Rourke. On one side it's as simple as this: One guy sharpens a spear, one guy uses the spear to kill a deer, one guy butchers the deer and they all divide the meat up. But it gets pretty complicated after that. I'm told they have whole classes on it in college. P.J. O'Rourke is, for those who don't know, a thinking man's Dave Barry. He's pure comedy but with language and concepts like Norman Mailer. Dave Barry writes about standing in the check out line and counting how many items the person in front of him has (to see if he's under the limit for the express lane). It's funny but pretty superficial. O'Rourke on the other hand tosses out quips like this, "If Money doesn't mean anything, why was Alan Greenspan such a big cheese all those years? Did he just go to his office and do Sudoku puzzles all day?" I think that's hilarious and I'm not alone as O'Rourke is pretty much THE political comedy writer of the century, surpassing John Stewart and Stephen Colbert (though those guys are hilarious). O'Rourke doesn't lampoon one party or another. He just takes what's given and makes it funny. In case you're interested the major influences on my comedy writing are as follows: Erma Bombeck - Hilarious '60s era housewife humor. Probably the most punchlines per paragraph of any writer ever. Could make a joke out of soap scum. P.G. Wodehouse - '40s era novella writer from England. The language and conspicuous lack of punchlines is what sets him apart. The humor is all in the subtext. Dry as dust comedy and the plot almost always stays tight. "Can I touch you for a fiver?" Brad and I laughed and laughed at the characters in his books. The famous butler Jeeves comes from Wodehouse. Bertie Wooster is the perennial bachelor who needs Jeeves to save his ass every ten minutes. But Wooster drives while Jeeves drinks tea in the passenger seat. So funny! Dave Barry - A great tongue for comedy. His voice doesn't whine or push for a joke. He's just naturally and consistently funny about common life anecdotes. His books aren't as funny as his columns in my opinion. Hunter Thompson - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was the funniest book I'd ever read in 1990 and I had never smoked pot, dropped acid, sniffed ether or been to Las Vegas. But I understood immediately that Thompson was making fun of the situation he was taking advantage of. He was making fun of himself and society through the situation. It was performance art and his dry delivery of horrific debauchery blew my mind. The scene with the lawyer puking in his shoes and the cleaning lady opening the door and he grabs a knife and yells, "What do you know?" is priceless. He says to Thompson, "I was just cleaning my shoes when this agent bust in. Let's kill her." Cleaning his shoes?? He was vomiting in them. So absurd. I thought to myself that if this is what I've been missing without acid and pot then I'd better get busy. This was a fearless writer and a fearless man and he taught me that if you want to run with the big dogs then you've got to lay it all on the line. Eventually your ashes will be shot from a cannon. You might as well live like that too. P.J. O'Rourke - Full of quips and jests and waggish comments O'Rourke is almost always the butt of his own joke. Everyone loves a comedian who doesn't put himself above others and O'Rourke's comedy is the voice of reason. "For those uninterested in the historiography of currency supply [this book] is like reading Modern Maturity in Urdu." Jokes like that can be enjoyed by 100% of humanity and that phrasing can be found all over my writing. See, the funny word is Urdu [not Greek], an Indo-aryan dialect, so the sentence has to end with that. And the loftiness of "For those uninterested..." sets you up for a mature statement instead of the childish though recognizable simile of reading a senior citizen magazine in a language you don't understand. It's good humor and the dude is wildly successful. Mark Twain - I had a cat named after this guy. The story "Letters From The Earth" is as dark as you will ever see comedy before it becomes ponderous and preachy. The "Letters" are from the devil back to Gabriel about this "irresponsible, hypocritical animal known as Man." Not at all funny, the stories, and also the tale "The Mysterious Stranger", are the works of a funny man who has gone completely over the deep end of despair. I think if you read too much Mark Twain and take him too seriously you end up like George Carlin right before he died, bitter, mean, scathing with all the disdain projected outwards at society. Still, I respect him for trying to be funny. Here's a quote from Stranger... "It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream - a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought - a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!" Are you laughing yet? Notable Mentions are David Sedaris and Bill Bryson, both contemporary writers who keep an otherwise dull anecdote alive with comedy. The staff on The Onion is amazing. Gallows humor at its best. I'm so proud that their satire of media saturation/trivia/gossip will be forever linked to my generation. I would write for them but I hear they pay their writers in Starbucks gift certificates. Fuck that. Also, John Kennedy Toole wrote A Confederacy of Dunces. He loses points with me because he locked himself in a garage with the car running instead of getting a grip and using the talent he had to write more books. This guy had the talent to be a real giant of American humor but he took rejection too seriously. Dunces is funny because of the subtext. A fat, unemployable, self-proclaimed philosopher sets out to (I can't even type it without laughing) create a Neo-medieval monarchy, ruled by geometry and "taste", in 1960s New Orleans. His methods? Masturbate in his bed, eat hot dogs and loudly mock the latest movies. (As crazy as it sounds he's also the only character in the book who has any recognizable game plan to life) Toole crafted a perfect farce without ever letting on that he knew it was a farce. His voice is so refined as he talks about a dirty strip joint floor and a prancing cross-dresser that you hardly realize the comedy is there for you to find it, rather than pushed at you. I read this in 1992 and it completely changed the way I wrote post cards to people. Before, I would try to be descriptive and honest like, "Fell asleep in the bus depot, someone stole my shoes...the fuckers." After, I wouldn't be so obvious, "As soon as I get my next pay check I'm going to drive to Guatemala and raise chickens in preparation for the coming apocalypse. Should I pick you up or will you meet me there?" To the dismay of many, I allowed Toole to influence more than just my writing, but to be fair I was already on my path when I encountered Ignatius Reilly. There were probably others ( see comment section) but these were the major ones. If I'm not funny then you can blame Jack Kerouac, who, overly influenced by Thomas Wolfe, managed to write a dozen books without one punchline or attempt at humor. What Hunter Thompson makes funny is sad and forlorn in the hands of the poet Kerouac. William T. Vollmann isn't funny either but I'd trade every punchline I will ever write to have his talent. He taught me that if you pick a ridiculous goal and plunge in completely then you will end up with something unusual. Above all, write the story only you could write. That's a more refined way to say "Write what you know." What was my point? I forget. I think it was a comparison of my two grocery bills. One was from the yuppie place on the hill where the apples are in quaint wicker baskets, and the other was from Hannafords where it's all on a wet, slanted plastic shelf. But shopping at Hannafords I not only saved over $10 but I got like twice the groceries including an impulse buy of some ice cream and cookies. Economy. Thoreau wrote a whole chapter on it but his definition was less currency related and more simplification related. I'm dealing with the currency side of it right now as I have to squeeze the most from every penny. Tonight I was at a bar, banging my head against the wall and some guys were playing a game called 3 ball pool. You each put a buck in and whoever sinks the three balls in the fewest shots wins the pot. If two people tie then the pot carries over and everyone puts another dollar in. Let me tell you that I've never seen that game played but it's definitely the way to learn to play pool. The fewest shots possible is sinking all three balls on the break. They told the story of seeing that happen once. Sinking two on the break and then the third on your second shot is very very rare. Tonight I saw two people sink all three in three shots. That's one on the break, then one on the next shot and then the next. Both people won $20 pots including my money. I sunk all three in five because I scratched so I really sunk all three in four shots. It makes you think very hard about your shot and where you want the cue ball to stop. And because the table only has three balls and the cue ball on it you can see everything. The guys I played with were all good bar players. They had their own sticks and knew a good shot from a bad shot. I stopped playing because I can not afford $1 or $2 so I can take three shots of pool. That fits in with my sermon on economy. Three ball pool forces you to think about economy. You agonize over every tiny inch the cue ball rolls. It's very hard but you know what the opposite of that is? Sloppy. You play sloppy or you play economically. Why is this an excellent rule for pool but totally ignored once you walk out the door? Shit, there's probably a better punchline to end this with but I'm too wired on cookie dough and ice cream to think of it. Go read Dave Barry if you want humor. I'm a documentary filmmaker!

For the record, my favorite author is Hermann Hesse, followed by Somerset Maugham. But I don't consider either of them elite writers. The elite of the elite are Thomas Wolfe, Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad, and the greatest English writer I've ever read, H.G. Wells. They could sling prose like no one before or since.

5 minutes in Lowes made me suffocate

I pretty much fell to my knees in relief when I left Lowes WITHOUT a job. Only the Epcot center is more artificial than that fucking miserable place. To assemble lawn furniture and barbecue grills all day there would be like jumping into a bin of rusty nails and at the bottom of the bin is a quarter and the only food in the entire world is those stale gumballs and my job would be to impale myself on the nails to get the quarter and then go eat the gumballs. My hands were trembling as I filled out the application. The interviewer could tell I was sweating and just shook his head. I hugged him and fled. I've failed to get hired for more jobs in the past three months than in the last 40 years. It is raining but I huddled in the shelter of the church singing Irish carols for spare change. I thought, by no practical yardstick is this [life] working out. I'm going to Guatemala. Fuck this bullshit.