Doo Wop

This is obviously lip-synched since there are no microphones and the audio is flawless but I give them credit. Dion and The Belmonts were on the Winter Dance Party tour with Buddy Holly in early 1959. They were the only headliner to survive the Iowa gig. I kind of dig the doo wop sound. Dion later sang the hipster tune "Abraham, Martin, and John" which went great lengths to foster good will and peace in the world and that worked great!

I want to point out that this particular song was covered with real period correctness in the Coppola directed "Peggy Sue Got Married"...Nick Cage's character has designs to become the next Dion but a certain charisma escaped him...so he became "Crazy Charlie" slashing prices on washing machines. Such is life. I once practiced catching a baseball in the snow by bashing it off a concrete racquetball court wall in big boots.

Western Swing Medley

I lost my voice due to travel stress and whatever viruses are between Texas and Boston. But the result is a more Western style of hoarseness that appeals to me. Ernest Tubb probably smoked cigarettes to get his voice in good form.

Dockside Tribute

About 1 year ago I decided only Funerals and Weddings will get me on a plane. The conventionality and generic cattle car treatment I receive in standard travel is like volunteering to be strip searched by an underpaid condescending immigrant...and since I've lost so much weight in the 110 heat all my pants fall down around my ass when I take my belt off. And when I take my boots off everyone can see my crippled toes...and I have to take my rings off...and my bracelets and my arrowhead necklace...and every pack of peanuts costs $5. It's a fucking insult.

This wasn't in Texas

During this last trip I amended that decision to 1 Funeral and 1 Wedding...so someone better get married to get me on a plane because my funeral quota has been met. This trip didn't really qualify as a funeral but it was family, so although I have frozen to death mere miles from the warm houses of my family, been evicted from parking lots, lived at a halfway house, etc while they shrugged and pointed fingers from across the street*...I still recognize my blood relatives. I haven't been disowned by sheer perseverance and emotional decay.

I am planning an illustrated essay of this last trip but I'm feeling unmotivated. I do want to point out that my breakfast plans for the morning of my departure were aborted when the TSA goon casually tossed my milk in the trash. This sign specifically makes milk an exception to the 3 ounce rule. I wasn't pissed because it is petty and I am overfed like lactose intolerant swine and this was merely one of a series of personal violations I expected to tolerate in my travels. Compared to the shit smothered toilet seat in Dallas, this was quite minor.

"Permitted: Milk...(except when you are Oggy. Then we throw it in the garbage.)"

"...the security officer will immediately throw them away..."

My uncle's musical tastes were about the same as mine (gospel, bluegrass, folk) so it was my pleasure to sing his soul up to the great sailboat regatta in the sky... where the wind is always fair and the sea is always the sea.





*Lest I forget they made sure I had leftover thanksgiving turkey in aluminum foil that would instantly freeze in my van. THANKS!

Me and Buddy

Buddy

18 months is all he enjoyed as a pro. Don't Fade Away.

Dumbo Moment Public Service Announcement

Unlikely In More Ways Than One

I was watching Dumbo recently with a smile because the climax of the movie is actually a universal plot essential; basically Dumbo has already learned to fly with the mental help of this tiny feather he's holding in his trunk...and the psychological encouragement from the crows and Timothy the Mouse. But in the last scene of the movie he jumps from the burning building (as part of the circus act) and LOSES THE FEATHER. So he must fly without any mental help. The Character must Grow.

It's a great scene because it's exactly the pivotal moment in all good movies. I think of George McFly punching Biff in Back to The Future I, or Baby doing the lift with Johnny at the end of Dirty Dancing...Or Darth Vader refusing to kill Luke in Return of the Jedi. I will call it the "Dumbo Moment". I may have already had my Dumbo Moment pass me by but I was mired in self-examination at the time.
Interestingly, a movie like Top Gun has a scene that the filmmakers would like to describe as a Dumbo Moment but is really nothing more than artificial tension. When Maverick panics during the ultimate gunfight and wanders away from the dogfight he eventually turns around. Why? How? The character change is totally manufactured. The real climax is when Mav refuses to leave his position as wingman...thus signifying his change into a team player. However, this also is manufactured and hollow because he's only doing his job finally. BIG DEAL. Furthermore, Mav's immediate action after this enemy encounter is to elect to be an instructor back at Top Gun academy...signifying another hollow and unbelievable change and he's abandoning active duty to teach pilots those hard lessons he learned on the beach volleyball court!

The image above is something that troubled me because those look like power lines...because they have ceramic insulators at the top and they are separated. This image is from 1941 so I'm not sure what the animation artists were thinking. Those wires look like standard 3 phase power transmission wires and Dumbo is doing exactly what would cause him to be fried. We discussed this phenomena in the electrical field even though we were not power company electricians. A bird can land on a power line because he is not crossing phases. He can only touch one line at a time and he is not grounded so he won't get electrocuted. But a bird can not touch two lines at the same time, as Dumbo is doing here, or else he'd be toasted elephant. Telephone lines don't have to be separated...and they don't need ceramic insulators. But maybe in 1941 this is what telephone/telegraph wires looked like. I don't know. I want to caution all the elephants reading that when you learn to fly DO NOT land on power lines. You can land on telephone lines but they are very similar in appearance to power lines so just to be safe don't land on any lines. Ok?