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October 2004

Political Season

It is ’political season,’ again.  All the tension, the catcalling, the misrepresentations are pounded into us from every angle.  I am most annoyed by the all the distracting signs on the roadside, and soon all the zealots will be standing at intersections, waving the signs, obstructing my view of the oncoming traffic.  Do the candidates think that I will alter my decisions on the basis of a barrage of signs along the road? 

I find myself thinking about the last time there was any peace and quiet in this country, though the peace and quiet masked our most serious domestic problem, racial discrimination.  And though there was no hot war, there was a cold war and a race for nuclear arms supremacy.  That ‘peaceful time’ was 1952-1960 and the president was Dwight D. Eisenhower, aka, Ike.  (The signs said, “I Like Ike.”  Ring a bell?)  Who can forget diving under their school desk so we’d be protected from ‘the bomb?’  How about those fabulous colors introduced by Formica?  Weren’t the cars incredibly large, gaudy and oddly beautiful?  Wasn’t Doris Farrell a peach, with her Estabrook fountain pen and its aqua ink?  Who can forget Barbara Ostrowski, whose womanly body drove us eighth grade boys to...well, you know.

I slept through this brief era, politically speaking.  Heck, I was in grammar school and then high school; it was the best of times.  After a quick breakfast, I’d peak out the window and watch for Jacqueline Burns coming down the street.  I popped out the front door just as she got to my house, so we could walk to the bus together.  Jacqueline was Catholic and blonde, pretty and thin; all things I was not allowed to admire, and desire.  We liked each other, but it never went beyond a walk to the bus, alas.

It occurred to me early on that I was good at certain subjects in school and bad at others.  Math was at the top of the good list.  Numbers were delicious, even the imaginary ones.  Next best was science.  I got it, from theory to methodology to analysis to application. 

On the other side were history and grammar.  I got history from regular school and from Hebrew school.  In the latter, I learned that my ancestors were slaves who took a long walk across the desert, where, mysteriously, bushes talked while they burned, people had the ability to melt and form gold, and basic laws could be found on the top of a mountain, chiseled in stone.  In the former setting, I learned almost nothing.  Sure, there were important dates, important events, presidents, documents, the industrial revolution, but there was no context so I merely passed the tests and generally got ‘C’s and ‘D’s.  I did not understand history.  Now that I am almost history, myself, and have figured out a context that appeals to me, a good history book, or a conversation on what it all means, is a pleasure.

The very worst for me was grammar.  There were rules for everything, and then rule violations galore.  Except for ‘present’ and ‘past’ tenses, the names of the other tenses were beyond my comprehension.  When it came to parsing sentences, I watched Doris Farrell.  My inability to understand grammar continues today, though I have spent more than 40 years trying to improve my writing skills.  It’s grammar by sound, for me, plus of few tests to make sure I use ‘me’ or ‘I’ correctly.

In the early Eisenhower years, there seemed to be an implicit promise that everything was going to be all right.  Television shows were about happy families; drugs had not yet been invented.  Movies were about mature love on the beach, and there were Broadway shows set to film.  Music was Frank Sinatra and Nelson Riddle and song lyrics that were downright stupid.  But darn if society wasn‘t in for a major awakening, because in the Eisenhower years, the first signs appeared;  McCarthyism, Rebel Without A Cause, Elvis and Johnny Cash, the RUSSIANS and  Sputnik, and black people were making a fuss.

Not that Eisenhower could do anything about the changes that were in progress.  His strengths were military strategy and foreign policy, not domestic problems or issues.  But he was not about to start a war for the sake of having something to do; he‘d served his country admirably in World War II, showing up for all  his physicals.  His domestic legacy is the American highway system because he admired the German roadway system when he ‘visited‘ it during WWII.  So, my take on the situation back then was, all I needed was a new car, driving along all that new highway, and Doris Farrell next to me on that front bench seat.

It didn’t work out that way.  Did it?

Forty-four years later there are signs along the road suggesting that I vote for this one or that one.  I have given up on the notion that everything will be all right.  It’s come down to a matter of the direction in which we will allow compromise to occur.  On tap we have one guy who believes that rattling an iron fist is the way to go, and another guy who prefers to make peace.  One guy is for the bosses; the other guy is for the workers.  Big oil versus big ketchup.  I’m a peace-loving worker who likes his steak with ketchup.



November 2004

I Want, I Want

The holiday season is upon us and it is time to enumerate all the things I want, want, want, as I did last year.  Gosh.  Don’t you just love all the crap?  Man, I do!

For example, how about that new G7 capo, the capo to end all capos?  About $45. 

I’d also like to try out some of the new guitars out there.  For example, how about those entirely manmade carbon graphite jobs that won’t rot, rust, decay, bend or break?  About $1,500.  They can’t hardly go out of tune ‘cause the neck and body never budge.  Add some $750 worth of electronics and they sound approximately like a wooden guitar. 

Then, there are some guitars made out of ‘composite’ materials.  This is suspiciously close to ‘compost’ materials, and some of them sound like that.  But just put in some electronics and you’re all set.  But don’t allow them to get wet.  That compos(t)ite smell is, well..., around $800.

Also on my list are items that will enhance the Fishken & Groves act.  This includes cowboy shirts, of the vintage variety, of course.   Some of ‘today’s’ cowboy shirts are awful looking, either boring plaids or loud, Garth Brooks styles.  Yuk.  Give me those good old, cowboy movie shirts in black, white, blue, red, green...yum.  Add a nice, silk neckerchief, a gus-crease, white or light beige Stetson, a pair of fancy Justin boots (my brand preferences), a pair of those ‘slimming’ Lee jeans, a snazzy belt buckle and a 1930, or so, 00-45 Martin guitar and I am ready to go.  Go in what, you ask?  Around $45,000.

So many vehicle options.  Shall I go in an environmentally correct  one, 1/2 electric motor, half fossil fuel?  Shall I choose American made (is there still such a thing)?  Perhaps something with a military look. SUV?  Van?  Converted school bus?  Comfy gas guzzler?  I think a couple of vehicles; short-range, mid-range, long-range.  GIANT MOTHER ORANGE HUMMER LIMOUSINE; perfect for those festivals in the mid west.  Maybe $150,000? 

Once I get this stuff, I will be happy and satisfied.  But not for long.  There will be other things I see that I will want.  Stuff will continue to be developed and invented.  That is important so that people can go to work to make this stuff so they can make money to buy the stuff.  Then, as new stuff replaces the formerly new stuff, people lose their jobs and the economy takes a dip, but not for people who are making the new stuff, only for the people making the formerly new stuff.  To address this constant fluctuation, companies send their jobs somewhere else so that the price of the new stuff is so low that even the out-of-work people can afford to buy the new stuff.  This is called PROGRESS.  People, like many in Ohio, like this kind of progress and vote to continue the progression.  Apparently, this is what modern culture is all about, making new stuff so as to support the cycle of life.  Of course, there are some spoil sports out there who don’t like this system and its consequences so they fool around with nuclear weapons, suicide bombs, territorial war.  We have to get rid of all those people so we can keep making new stuff and live happily ever after.

As I remind you every year around this time, give thanks for what you have, give away some of the things you don’t need, and drop a buck into the cup of that guy or gal on the street in front of the 7-11 in Central Square.  Quit fighting with your kids.  After all, you parented them.  Forgive someone.  You probably forgot the details of the grudge, anyway.  Do ‘it’ for the pleasure, not the money.

I must remember this.

 

 

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August 2004

Pass The Bottle, I Have A Race To Run

Ah, yet another opportunity to take a few shots at the Olympics, the  industrial-strength sporting (?) event pitting country against country during a couple of weeks of good-natured competition where an Iranian wrestler refused to compete against his first round Israeli opponent; something about protesting Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.  Humbug, I say, on with the games.

This year, the games are also the subject of photos published in Playboy magazine.  We guys can get a glance at slightly bared women athletes flexing their muscled bods as they prepare, financially, to march into Athens, slickly oiled, yeah! 

As usual, the Olympics has been tainted by drugs.  Sports fans have been drinking copious amounts of coffee during the day, yet greater amounts of beer and cocktails in the evening, smoking cigarettes, and some have been taking diet concoctions as well as steroids, if only to get into the Olympic mood.  Some athletes have ‘tested positive’ for drugs that have been banned by the Olympic committee.  These are drugs [1] that purportedly enhance performance and [2] whose manufacturers have not paid a sufficiently large bribe to the committee.

I am not bothered by the issue of sports and drugs, as you well know.  I am bothered, however, by anesthesiologists who take drugs, pilots who take drugs, and drivers who are drunk.  My basic rule: if there’s a high probability that you’ll hurt more than just yourself when you take drugs, don’t.  That is, either don’t undertake the activity or don’t take the drugs.  Athletes who lose their events may be sad, but otherwise there are no substantive consequences when athletes use drugs.  Let athletes take whatever drugs they want!  I want to see the current limits of athletic capacity. 

The future is even brighter.  Imagine the athletes who have been genetically modified.  Wow!  After all, athletes now mate with other athletes.  Selective breeding is only a step away from genetic engineering.  Some day the record for the 100-meter dash will be under 7 seconds; like athletes shot from guns!  Men and women will be ideally shaped and molded for their particular events.  Athletes zooming over the high bar set at 12 feet, pole vaulters heading into orbit, broad jumpers blasting off for 50 feet.  Now, consider some of the sports after genetic engineering and drug enhancement; synchronized swimming, diving, the marathon, putting the shot, and lost more.  And this is just the summer Olympics.  The winter is coming!

 

 

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May, 2004.  Staten Island, NY.  Time Traveler From 2055 Appears, Gives Interview, Plays Guitar.

In an atmosphere of dazzling, dizzying hopefulness as well as  uncertainty and fearfulness, Jorge Velasquez, self-proclaimed time traveler, allowed me to interview him in his temporary home, just across the street from Mandolin Bros. guitar store on Staten Island, NY.  I had expected Mr. Velasquez to demand the questions in advance, but he said he already knew them.

LePoissonInquisitive (LPI):  Mr. Velasquez, why are you here?

JV:  First, call me Jorge.  Everyone is very informal in 2055.  I am here on  vacation.  I won a time-trip raffle at the school science fair where my son had entered a project.  It was the first time I had ever won anything.

LPI:  Wait a second!  You’re not a scientist or politician coming back in time to warn us about what lies ahead, the destruction or development of mankind, that sort of thing?

JV:  Uh, no.  Just here to visit and play some guitars across the street, maybe see a baseball game.

LPI:  But you can tell me about the state of the world, the fate of our country, personal freedom, guitar-making materials, the rain forest, the middle east, Anna Nicole Smith...right?

JV:  Well, sure, I guess.  Anna Nicole married a really young guy and when she died he got all the money.  That was really funny, you know.

LPI:  Jorge, let’s get to the important stuff.  What happens to us?  Do we screw up the world, kill everyone, poison everyone, regress to the middle ages of governance, what, what, what???

JV:  Gosho, you are so full of anxiety, and questions about really big things.  Let me tell you this.  The Boston Red Sox do NOT win a World Series.  One year, they had the best team in baseball, by far.  The pitching was amazing, hitting superb, base running...exceptional, fielding, remarkable, unbelievable.  In the World Series of 2037 they were playing the Chicago Cubs.  It was a dream come true.  But during the games a weird energy seemed to fill the air, like a layer of smelly ozone, and when you looked up you could see a face forming and it would look down and smile and at first people thought it must be Babe Ruth and all that Bambino curse crap.  But it wasn’t the Babe.  It was Ernie Banks.  The Red Sox lost the series on a steal of home in the bottom of the ninth of the seventh game in Chicago.  A gloom hung over empty Fenway Park.

LPI:  Huh!  Fenway Park is still there?

JV:  Yes.  So is Wrigley Field.  The seats are a little narrow for the big butts that have evolved, but we make do.

LPI:  Jorge, I have to ask, what are the important issues of the day?  Politics, world events, science, world population, the environment.

JV:  Let’s see.  Where to begin.  Most of the world is owned by two companies, Pfizer and a conglomerate of Honda and Toyota, Hoyota.  They finance mostly everything and employ everybody.  There are  remnants of countries, but the leaders are all on the Hoyota payroll.  Actually, it worked out okay.  It brought all the disparate factors in the world together to work for common goals, like getting enough food and medical care.

LPI:  You mean to tell me that the two major forces in the world are profit making entities?  What about personal freedom, political opinions, all the good stuff?

JV:  Actually, most of that crap went away.  We were about to enter a world catastrophe.  Viruses were all over the place, and food, clean air and water were at a premium.  Pfizer and Hoyota figured that the market for their products was about to disappear, so they really put on the dog.

LPI:  Put on the dog?  Put on the dog???  What’s that?  Put on the dog?

JV:  Well, instead of starting any kind of war, they bought everything in sight and had total control of it all, I mean ALL.  At that point, they declared a moratorium on profit taking and threw all their resources into cleaning up the mess.  Surprisingly, the cleanup took about six months.  It was amazing.  All the nuclear waste was sucked up and dumped into the nearest black hole.  Human waste was processed and cut back into the soil and crop growth went wild.  New breeds of chickens and cows were developed with gene technology.  Food...no problem.  All manufacturing byproducts were also sucked up into the black hole by installing these infinity pipes at every factory.  All the world’s toilets were hooked up to the new fertilizer production system.  With all the new plant life, the air got cleaned up, lickity-split.  Basically, it all happened because someone set up a blind date between the presidents of Pfizer and Hoyota, Tom and Gwen.  They fell in love and decided that they would give the world the chance to revive.  That’s about it.

LPI:  So you’re telling me that in 2055 everything is okay.  The world is at peace.  Everyone who wants to is working.  Everyone contributes to the greater, common good?

JV:  Yuperoo.

LPI:  But you did say there was almost a catastrophe.  What led to that.

JV:  That’s pretty funny, in retrospect.  It started in 2004 during the presidential election in the United States.  Bush won a second term but it was short-lived.  Election violations were uncovered and as the press began to unpeel the layers on his administration they discovered all forms of corruption.  As the corruption was revealed, bit by bit, the seeds of a civil war were planted.  Virtually all the wealth in the country was held by a few people and the masses revolted.  The poor and middle classes recognized that their role was merely to serve the rich and they finally got mad.  But instead of a violent war, they conducted one that called upon the masses to stop buying things.  The structure of the United States disintegrated in less than three months!  The real catastrophe came as a result of the collapse of the US.  War in the middle east spiraled and terrorists, scattered all over the world, took advantage of the situation.  It seemed as if there was no particular purpose to the killings, and there were millions of deaths each week.  In every region where there were border disputes, religious disputes or economic disputes, there was vicious war.  After about a year of this mess, China and Russia developed a plan to either end it all, the world, that is, or save it.  It was simplicity itself.  First, they dropped one huge hydrogen bomb in the desert in the middle east.  The cloud and the resulting deaths from fallout were very impressive.  China and Russia referred to this as a warning shot, and demanded cease fires around the world.  Most everyone complied, except for that jerk in North Korea, who fired a bomb off toward Tokyo.  The world held its breath during the brief flight of the missile.  The missile never made it to Tokyo; the missile faltered and fell into the sea.  The North Korean president was immediately assassinated and the world took a deep breath.

The rest of the story is just details.  The whole notion of capitalism was re-examined.  Groups with political or religious differences called truces.  And once the world decided that everyone deserved a life of health and happiness, the rest fell into place.

LPI:  Who were the heroes in all this?

JV:  Well, one of the major guys was Manny Ramirez.

LPI:  Get out.  The ballplayer?

JV:  Yeah, him.  He was just so happy playing ball in Boston, he led the effort to stop buying things in the US.  He stopped cashing his checks, and millions of dollars in checks were found in his locker.  Signs everywhere were based on Manny’s comment to the press.  “Be happy. Stop buying.”  Very effective.

LPI:  Anyone else?

JV:  Sure.  Everyone named Bob.  As a structure emerged, essentially the world controlled by Pfizer and Hoyota, there had to be some way to appoint people to positions of responsibility.  There was a need for people who could bring others together to deal with local issues.  The idea of elections was dismissed for obvious reasons.  A lottery was considered, but the possibility of fraud eliminated that idea.  So, in a bizarre, but effective, edict, all people named Bob, or the foreign equivalents of Bob, became locally responsible for helping people with their problems.  Bobs were not paid, but they were much admired.  There were some cases of Bob bribing, but bribers had to become boxers, by law, and that solved the problem.  Bob Briber Boxing was brutal and barbaric, thus, not popular.

    The selection of Bobs was so successful that other programs were conducted the same way.  The Nanette program was excellent.  All people named Nanette became nurses.  Ottos became otolaryngologists.  And so on.  It was simple, egalitarian and effective.

LPI:  What are you, Jorge?

JV:  I am a hairdresser, of course.

LPI:  Well, okay, I guess.  Now, you say you’re here to play some guitars.  Tell me more.

JV:  You might have guessed that wooden guitars became very rare and expensive, and the desirable wood still needs more time to grow.  In 2055 we play mostly metal guitars, or guitars made from discarded Tupper Ware and other plastic containers.  So, I came down here to Staten Island to play wooden guitars across the street at Mandolin Bros.  I hear that Mr. Jay has collected just about all the remaining wooden guitars in existence.  I want to play them, feel them, and smell them.  I’m thinking of buying one and bringing it back, uh, forward, to 2055.  Maybe I can get a few gigs, though the market for folk music has never been worse than in 2055.  No more good topics for songwriters, except love, of course, and that’s been overworked.

LPI:  Jorge, I now have a problem.  Should I tell everyone about what happens?  In some ways, it all turns out okay, but lots of people die en route to better times.  Maybe I could change the course of history and good times would be just around the corner.  On the other hand, maybe nobody would believe me.  I feel like I’m in one of those awful ethics courses and I’m faced with the ultimate dilemma.  What should I do?

JV:  LePoisson, have you ever heard the sound of a  flat picked 1934 Martin D-28?

LPI:  Uh, no.

JV:  Then shut up and let’s go across the street.

LPI:  Care to catch a Yankees game after that?

JV:  Screw that.  I hate the Yankees.  Let’s grab a Mets game.

 

 

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April 6, 2004

Maybe This Year

Maury just gave me a batch of Dodger things from the Vero Beach, spring training location; cards, envelopes, stationery, things that say "Dodgers" on them.  Perfect timing.  Baseball season begins!  You see, I was born in Brooklyn and I was as passionate a Dodger fan as ever there was.   I still wax romantic about the borough even though I was hauled to Queens at the age of seven, though the move to Queens did not alter my loyalty to the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Dodger-Yankee thing, I'll spare you.  (Now, as a Red Sox fan, I continue to express my feelings for the Yankees.  The Yankees are the Republicans, the Dodgers/Red Sox are the Democrats.  The Yankees are "the suits," the Dodgers/Red Sox are the "working stiffs.")

There are many wondrous things about baseball.  The dimensions of the field and the positions of the players allow for sparklingly close and frequently arguable plays.  As in no other sport (except cousin, cricket), the defense handles the ball.  We love the game for its "stats," and for its cerebral component, strategy.  And the rules cleverly define minute aspects of the game that make it a fans' delight.  The infield fly rule, indeed.  Was that really a balk?

Especially wondrous is that the beginning of baseball season coincides with the beginning of spring.  It is the season of renewal; the grass, the trees, the hopes of the team.  (That the football season begins in the fall and extends into winter, and that it is a sport of brute force punctuated by occasional finesse, is not lost on avid baseball fans.)  It is the time of the inside fastball versus the dug in hitter, the rifle-armed outfielder versus the speed demon turning around third, the beer-drinking boor in the bleachers versus the seventh inning shut off time. 

This season will last 162 games, 81 here, 81 somewhere else, maybe a few more games if we're lucky.  At every game in every ball park, some kid will be there for the first time and that kid will give a little gasp when they see the field. "Wow."  It is not what you'd expect.  It is more beautiful, clean and green than you'd imagined, more tidy and well-trimmed than seems possible.  It is also a little odd that there is this large expanse of beautiful property enclosed within the walls and the stands and with clear, open sky above.  You're indoors and outdoors at once. 

There are terrific sounds in the ballpark.  The ball meets a hunk of ash wood bat; the best that baseball writers have come up with is "crack."  There's the "pop" when the pitched ball blasts into the catcher's mitt.  Best of all,  the "roar" of the crowd.

So, pardon me.  It's time to tune in to the game.  Hey!  Who's that singing the national anthem?  I'll be darned.  It's Tom Paxton.  Look!!!  Geoff Bartley is playing guitar for him.  Honey, get me a beer and pretzel for this one.  Play ball.

 

 

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March 23, 2004
Wenzel and I took to one another immediately.  When two guys abandon their first names for the professional fun of it, they are in accord.  So it is, Wenzel and me, his pal, Fishken.  And that's merely how the day began; Sunday, March 21st, 2004. 

First, they invade the Sit'n Bull Pub in Maynard, Massachusetts on this Sunday afternoon.  But first, we entertain the invaders with our Woody Guthrie songs and readings.  "We" are Fishken & Groves, Tom Driscoll, Bill Kehoe, Hall Kirkham, Ellen & Jake (Two For The Show) and Richard Taylor.  We sing songs and read the words \\\\with care and respect and we feel proud, because we are in the presence of Guthrie's daughter, and we honor Woody through her, and we honor her for her work.  At last, after the years and the months and the weeks, Wenzel takes the stage.

He is just a little nervous, and we are nervous for him.  But he knows that a few chords on the accordion will solve the problem.  They do.  The next 45 minutes is filled with Wenzel's halting English commentary and the songs we have waited for.  I read the lyrics of the Guthrie songs he has selected for his album, so I can follow him easily.  His music is captivating.  He is captivating.  He is commanding through his music and his joy at presenting it.  At one point, he bravely takes on the issue of World War II, a productive period for Woody Guthrie.  (Woody joined the Merchant Marines and even joined the US Army during the final days of the war.  He despised fascism.)  Wenzel even tells us about his uncle in that war and leaves us with his somber thought that it was a terrible time, and he wisely leaves it at that.  We understand him, as we understand the German, national shudder at what happened. The moment passes into the music.

And the music goes on for four hours.  In the middle, Nora Guthrie comes to the stage to tell us the story of how the project with Wenzel came to be.  It began with her visit to a European conference on political song writing to reunite with Billy Bragg.  Nora and Billy produced two albums of Woody's lyrics selected from the archives.  She was fascinated by Wenzel's performance and determined to do a project with him.  Nora is the image of Woody with a big crop of Arlo Guthrie-style gray hair.  She is ‘on' all day with stories and opinions and focus on whatever is going on around her.  She listened to every minute of the music this day.  Nora is one of us.  She speaks with a New York, Jewish dialect which, for me, is comforting, like listening to my mother and her sister, Gloria.  I adore Nora.  We hug and kiss when we see each other.  She is the collective essence of all the reasons that I took on folk music back in those days.  She is the present confirmation that I did the right thing.  She teaches me so much more about Woody than books can say, and she pushes me into deeper consideration of world politics and world citizenship.  Yet, Nora is light hearted, ready to dance, ready to sing, ready to tell a story.  The apple, the tree, all that.

After four hours of this Guthrie festival, the evening comes to an end.  We pack it in, split up the modest amount of money we have collected, and prepare to part with the hugs and kisses of new friendship.  But, when we step into the street, I am urged to join the invaders and go to the Colonial Inn for a nightcap.  John Fitzsimmons is playing in the small bar room at this old, historic joint. 

Invasion!  Indeed!  Wenzel is toting his accordion and Steif totes his guitar.  Nora, Anna, Fishken, Wenzel, Steif, Sara, Sansi, Gerhardt, Deborah barge right in.  Wenzel and Steif head for the stage and set up!  Fitzsimmons has no idea what is happening, nor does he know who is in this cast of characters.  All he hears is something about singing Guthrie songs.  So, he starts singing Guthrie songs as Wenzel and Steif plug in and accompany him.  John is a good guy and lets it all happen.  There comes a time where he decides that Deportees is the song to sing.  Nora and Anna jump up to sing the chorus behind him.  What the hell.  I do to.  The harmonies are sweet and the audience loves it.  I tap Wenzel on the back and urge him to tell John that it was Nora Guthrie singing behind him.  John is stunned.  He is honored.  He is in the midst of a moment.

But this scene comes to an end with the end of John's contracted time at the bar.  So we are out of another place, but onto the next!  (Nora bows out.  She has reached the end of her day.) Gerhardt and Deborah live a few minutes away in Concord.  They reside in a very plush place owned by a couple that is now living at their other place, in Palm Beach, Florida.  The car caravan follows Deborah and we enter a most beautiful home decorated in a Spanish style; tiled floors, heavy dark doors and furniture, and rooms all over the place, big, plush couches and chairs.  And there are two dogs and couple of parrots.  The dogs are thrilled to see us, romping, rolling, laying on their backs to be petted, drooling at the thought of being fed.  Wine bottles emerge along with big hunks of cheese and whatever food Deborah can fix quickly for this crowd of invaders.  It is a riot of people all huddled around the kitchen island scarfing down wine and cheese.  Two groups form; the German speakers and the English speakers.  Everyone is perfectly happy, though.  The house is alive.

We move into the sitting room.  (There must be four sitting rooms in this place.)  Wenzel, Steif and I form up a song circle and musical mayhem ensues.  There are German folk songs, yodeling cowboy songs and a lot of wine going down.  Fitzsimmons has joined us, so the Irish song is represented, as well.  The raucous stuff goes on and reminds me of those days back in the 70's.  Back then, I was invited to join Ramblin' Jack Elliott and friends for ‘after-gig' jams at Paul Geremiah's place.  Here we were, again, after a Guthrie-esque day. 

Finally, the energy level succumbs to tiredness, it takes us almost an hour to accept the fact that we must pack it in.  I have given Wenzel one of my black cowboy hats to keep.  It is officially The Fishken Hat, and it will travel with him to gigs all over.  We head toward the kitchen; more hugs and kisses.  We head to the driveway, hugs and kisses, and finally, we part.  Goodbye my new found friends.  We'll meet again.  Maybe in October.

 

 

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October, 2003

October 13, 2003  Fred Cerebrat, folk singer, folklorist and owner of Fred's Heads in Hypoluxo, FL, was taken into custody for his own protection yesterday.  The arrest took place after a couple of dozen unhappy customers stormed Fred's Heads demanding that their money be returned for a product that, in their opinion, was defective.  Fred said the product came with no guarantee, a complete list of ingredients, and even a warning about damage if the product was improperly used. The product sold like hotcakes on Sunday.  It was an expensive item; a $125 key ring.

Attached to a simple, steel key ring is the real item in question.  It is a confectionery made of rock sugar in the form of a cube around 1.5 inches along the edge.  That's not so special.  What's inside is.  It is a perfect replica of Ted Williams's head wearing a Boston Red Sox cap.  Better yet, you can choose from among ‘young Ted,' ‘middle-age Ted,' and ‘old Ted,' the latter being strikingly similar to what Ted looked like at the very end.  Pretty ghoulish, actually.  Each item cost $125 and the complete set cost $345.  Most of the complaining customers had purchased the entire set, and most told me they bought the items as an investment.  Seems that Fred said this was a limited edition and would never be reissued after the first run.  Fred explained, "This is a simulation of Ted Williams's head in the freezer.  See.  The rock sugar looks like an ice cube and check out Ted's head.  It's beautiful, man.  What's up with these people.  This is a cool item."

Well, the cool item could not take the heat.  Each of the complaining customers had had the same experience.  The rock sugar melted in the unusually excessive heat of this October in Hypoluxo, exposing Ted's head; rather frightening looking in its perfection.  But shortly after this exposure, the head, too, began to distort in the heat.  Seems the head was sculpted by Cuban artisans out of a hardened sugar and flour mix and then hand painted.  You simply have to see these heads to believe it; the clenched jaw of young Ted, the glaring eye of middle-aged Ted, the wrinkles in the skin of old Ted.  The detail on the cap is amazing, as well; the tilt to young Ted's hat and the slightest sign of a (middle) finger print on the brim, the perfectly clean hat of the middle-aged, ball-signing Ted, totally unmarred, and the hat sitting too far atop of old Ted's head; the nursing home look.  The problem was, once the cube began to melt away, the head was exposed, and sugar-headed Teds began to distort, sadly, into grotesque forms.  One that I saw looked like Joe DiMaggio, another much like Lou Gehrig and one a bit like Ted's dog, Slugger. One customer used the word ‘blasphemy.'  These melted Ted heads were pathetic looking, and not worth a plug nickel.  (I surreptitiously picked up one of them and sneaked a lick.  It was one of the most delicious confectionery products I have ever tasted.  It was a mélange of vanilla, orange, lime, chocolate and raspberry flavors with an aroma that sent me into something akin to a drug-induced swoon.  The fact that I had licked Ted's cheek and nose made me a bit queasy, but another lick to the mouth and I was in heaven.  I thought, if the head had been intended to be encrusted within the rock sugar cube permanently, why would the creator make it so delicious.  There was something more to this story.  I had to find out what it was.)

Armed only with the knowledge that a Cuban artist has created the Ted Head facsimiles, I began my search.  I looked in the artists communities in Hypoluxo and surrounding towns.  I checked out specialty candy stores, sculptors work shops, art classes.  No one knew of a Cuban artist who was capable of creating the Ted Heads that I showed them.  Then some luck came my way.  I stopped in for a cup of coffee at Harv's Hypoluxo Baked Oddities.  (Ladies, check out their online catalogue...whew!)  There he was, Mr. Fidel Marcos.  (His parents named all their children after dictators.  It gave them great joy to swat their misbehaved kids while shouting out the names of these brutal dictators.  Go figure.)

Mr. Marcos, my waiter, strolled over to my table and saw my melted Ted Head attached to its ring there on the table.  "Senor," he said, "I see you have partaken of one of my delicious Ted Heads.  Once you get the rock sugar out of the way the head tastes great, eh."  I was stunned and awestruck.  "Are you telling me that you made them to be eaten, uh, uh..."  "Fidel, " he said.  "Fidel," I replied.  "Yes.  Yes, of course.  That's the funny part.  You'd only find out by accident that a Ted Head was delicious.  Who would suck up the rock sugar of such an expensive trinket?  Maybe you'd never find out how delicious Ted's Head really is.  Inside the rock sugar it is preserved for ever.  Great gag, eh?"

Finally absorbing what Fidel told me, I asked, "But your skill at sculpting each Ted Head is astounding.  You capture him perfectly, and even his appearance differences at different ages.  You are an outstanding artist.  Do you know this?  How did you come to be so brilliantly talented?"

"Yes, I do, Mr., Mr..."  "Poisson," I said.  "Poisson," he repeated.  He now laid out the story in lengthy detail, some of which I will spare you, dear reader.

Fidel grew up amidst the poverty of communist Cuba.  Yet, he was a happy child who spent much of his time stealing bread and fruit from little shops and from customers coming out of the shops.  When he would get caught, he'd tell his captor that his name was Fidel and that he was protected by his name.  The captor would laugh, smack him lightly, and let Fidel off the hook.

Fidel noticed that there were characters throughout the towns who made some money playing guitar on the street.  He became fascinated by the instrument, so much so that he spent hours, days, months and even years studying every movement of the guitar players' fingers and the sound that came from the beautiful, wooden instruments.  Finally, after watching and listening for several years, one of the street players offered to give him lessons.  Fidel was overjoyed and accepted the offer with a deep bow.  Lessons began the next day.

Fidel had no talent whatsoever at guitar playing.  Though his fingers were wonderfully nimble, he had no sense of melody or rhythm as a player.  He tried for many months but his teacher finally put an end to his and Fidel's misery.  Rather than breaking the news in a harsh manner, the teacher, poor as he was, took Fidel to a nice little place for lunch and broke the news.  Fidel had no musical talent and he should stop wasting his time.  As a special ending to the meal, the kindly waiter, observing the sadness in Fidel's eyes, gave Fidel a plum-sized chunk of marzipan for dessert.  The sad boy started to lightly gnaw on the hard confection and his demeanor suddenly went from sad and miserable to as joyful as anyone can be.  The taste!  The texture!  The long-lasting bouquet!  What wondrous and beautiful food is this?  And as Fidel lightly gnawed away, there appeared a face on the chunk of marzipan.  It was the face of the great dictator, himself!  "My god," thought Fidel.  "This tastes great and I can make faces on it, too.  After all this time watching the street players, I have found my calling.  I am a marzipan sculptor."

Well, you know the rest of the story, at least about Fidel and the Ted Heads.  Fidel perfected his craft using delicate tools, trained workers to do the same, opened a factory in Cuba, created new flavors and textures, and catered to royalty throughout the world.  For a while, the money rolled in.  Then, with no explanation, Queen Elizabeth went "no carbs" and Fidel's income dropped precipitously.  So, when Fidel heard about Ted Williams, the frozen head, and all that, the confectionery Ted Head came to mind immediately.  He made 100 sets of Ted Heads and stopped.

Back in Hypoluxo the angry customers have settled down somewhat while Fred rests comfortably in the cell in the basement of Hypoluxo City Hall.  When I told the Ted Head owners how delicious Ted Heads are, most everyone took a lick, and most everyone was overwhelmed by the taste.  When I told them about Fidel and his factory in Cuba and how he'd rowed all the way to Florida, their anger subsided.  At that point, most of them figured they'd better just put the remainder of their Ted Heads in the freezer to at least preserve what was left, and maybe steal a lick or two, now and then.  Better yet, for Fidel, is that they all marched down to Harv's Hypoluxo Baked Oddities to meet him.  Thereupon, they commissioned him to not only recreate Ted Heads, but to extend the effort and make confectionery heads of other famous baseball players.  The Sammy Sosa head appears at the end of a corked bat.  The Mickey Mantle head resides in a sugar-shell liquor bottle.  The Wade Boggs heads peeps out of confectionery chicken.  The Carl Yastremski head is carved from a confectionery item that looks like a potato.  The Johnny Damon head has a lump over the right eye.  You can lick the Cal Ripken head every day, but it never seems to wear down.  Jackie Robinson was the first black ballplayer head included in the series.  And so it goes.  Fidel lived happily ever after, and those angry customers sit at their computers selling confectionery sports heads on ebay and selling heads on the home shopping network.   All this because a poor boy wanted to learn to play the guitar.  It's an American success story.


How's Fred, you ask?  Doing just fine.  He and Fidel started another business.  This time it's miniature, confectionery blues artists.  When you lick them, you complete a very low voltage circuit which activates a tiny audio player that offers up a few seconds of the player's most well known vocal and instrumental riffs.  Though quite expensive at $200, they are selling very well, especially among white blues players living in the northeast.  We note, however, that ASCAP and BMI are taking a look at these creations to see if there have been any copyright infringements. 

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September, 2003

Well hotcha!  August is gone, and good-fucking riddance.  It was hot and it made me very lethargic and verbally sloppy.  My guitar strings weighed eight pounds each and my John Pearse picks stuck to the strings.  I hate that.  Now, I can feel the strings losing weight and drying out and my flatpicks are easier to flip into the audience, like tossing stones to skim off the surface. 

In a week or two the new apples will be the next thing to pick up here.  I like the first day of picking, singing Deportees and eating one apple for every one I put in the basket.  An apple stomach ache is one of the worst, with pain heading up to 9.3 on that scale the nurse carries in her pocket.  "Now look at this scale and tell me how much it hurts.  I'll give you drugs to help relieve any pain."   I moan, "What kind of drugs?"  "Really good ones," she says.  "9.7," I reply.  "I'll put in this IV and you can press the button anytime you want more drugs," says she.  "Okay.  Can I have another apple?"

It's the Cortland apples that I like the most.  For about a week, the bite is almost impossibly hard.  It is followed by a cracking sound as the flesh is separated by the pressure of the teeth pushing through. For most apples, I prepare for the rush of sourness with an anticipatory recoil.  Not necessary for a Cortland.  The balance slightly favors sweetness and the initial taste is actually a fast flourish of candy-apple aroma straight to the olfactory bulb followed by a supportive tartness that is only strong enough to keep the sweetness in its place.  Perfect...for two weeks, stomach ache and all.  Then, one day, the Cortland is too soft and the sweet-tart balance is gone.  See you next year.

With all the heat and humidity withdrawing, I can get out of these light weight, khaki-colored nylon pants and back into my worn out jeans.  Ahhhh!  For about a month I can still wear one of my modestly loud, summer-weight shirts and I feel just right, like a Cortland apple.  In another couple of weeks, out come the long-sleeved shirts, maybe a fleece vest.  I can now don a cowboy hat on a regular basis.  During the summer, the hats retain heat, preventing cooling, causing me to pass out frequently.  Not now, though.  Out come the black and beige cowboy hats, yeah!

The pesky insects begin their retreat about now.  However, that last batch of late-season mosquitoes was as annoying as hell.  They seemed to live in cars and on porches and travel in squadrons.  You drive off and have a family of the pests hovering over the windshield.  You start in swatting 'em and the next thing your driving off the road, throwing your front-end alignment out and costing you a tidy $300.  Summer..bah!

In the past week, I have not had to listen to the darned air conditioner.  Though I could not have lived without it these past couple of months, I will not miss the artificial cold combined with the constant background hum.  I have never been able to tolerate extremely hot days.  Add humidity and I am a wreck, and lack any energy or motivation.  The air-conditioned room represents both freedom from physical distress, and jail. I'll take the machine out of the window sometime soon.

Some people clean up in the spring, referring to the process as "Spring Cleaning."  I clean up in the fall.  It's not leaves that I clean up.  I clean up "things that bother me."  That includes paper that has piled up, clothes truly beyond repair and are (to Cheryl) an embarrassment for me to be seen in, and, this year, a few characters who annoy me.  To each item I say, "I no longer enjoy having you around.  So, good-bye."  The bits of paper and worn out pants are unresponsive.  The people give me a blank stare.  To be entirely fair about the matter, I also renew relationships with things and people in the Fall.  For example, I tell Cheryl, "I love you the most of anything.  Let's do this for another year."  Or, "You are still the best pair of jeans ever.  I'm sorry you were at the bottom of the pile.  I will wear you until you are worthy of using to clean my car."  Or, "My gosh.  It is so good to see you, leather notebook and old, green pen.  Let's head on down the road and record some events.  I have the best penmanship when I use you both."  All very refreshing after a hot and humid summer.

The Fall is that time of promise when the Red Sox are still in it, and that is the case this year.  You would not know it, however, upon having a conversation with Manny Ramirez, who 'earns' about 20 million dollars a year to hit the ball and frighten fans every time a ball is hit to him left field.

Fish: Hello,Manny.
Manny:
Fish: It must be pretty exciting to be in the race this time of year.
Manny: Pretty.
Fish: You've made a solid contribution to the team this year.  You must feel good about that.
Manny: Pretty.
Fish: Some people think that you have no enthusiasm for the game and that you would be a better ball player if there were some fire in your, well, loins.  What do you have to say to those folks?
Manny: Fuck them.  Let them try to hit an outside curve.  Fire my ass.
Fish: Do you want to be in the World Series?
Manny:  It makes for a longer season, so it's not a big deal on my list.
Fish:  Seeing as you have a list, what's on it?
Manny: Making 35 million a year and playing for the Yankees.
Fish:  But the Yankees like to see fire flaring from their ball players.
Manny: No they don't.
Fish: Hmmm. Maybe you're right.  Thanks for the interview, Manny.
Manny:

And even if the Red Sox take it all this season, my bet is you cannot even name all this year's starters.  It won't matter if you can, because many of them won't be here next year.  What is a team, anyway?  The guys who happen to be on the roster when it happens.  That's all.  It's not as if a World Series win will relieve the suffering from the past 85 years.  Most of those who experienced the suffering are DEAD!  Furthermore, the Red Sox will then become winners, forever altering the perception that brings people into the ball park; this is a great team of players who make losing an art form.  It's a pleasure to see how they will do it this year.  Baseball is not what it used to be.  It is what it is going to be; a sport of mercenaries -- players (free agents) roving about, looking for the top dollar.  Occasionally, a few players stick around long enough to actually represent the team, such as Trot Nixon, a non-fluent, hard-working, blue-collar player who came up from the Red Sox bowels to earn his permanent place in right field. 

Fish: Here's to you Trot.
Trot::

The Fall also means football, the single most uncreative sporting activity ever invented.  The only thing good that ever came out of football is Jimmy Brown, who had his shit together then and now.  I'd like to see a showdown between him and Arnold S(how ever you spell it) using nothing but words.  Arnold...a guy who confuses the successful building of body mass with successfully serving the needs of human beings.  Geez!  On the other hand, I may just have the purpose of politics all wrong.  It may have nothing to do with serving the needs of the people.  You think?

Spring = renewal of life following winter.
Summer = drowning, drying and rotting out the new life.
Fall = blowing away all the dead remains of summer, cleansing.
Winter = the long sleep.

Ho hum.

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 August, 2003

I admit to a pretty bad TV habit.  My first TV, a 10" Admiral, arrived in the living room when I was a wee four years old.  It's always served to take up the dead space in my thought process, fill it with crap, yielding....me!  Cowboy movies thrilled me; Bob Steele was my favorite.  The Howdy Doody show was okay; Princess SummerFallWinterSpring was my first lover.  Mr. I-magination, which was probably only in New York, was another favorite, along with Mr. Wizard.  Later came Steve Allen, The Hit Parade, Red Skelton.  Watching baseball was a favorite, and still is.  I dashed home on that fall afternoon in 1955 to watch Johnny Podres finish off those miserable, damned Yankees.  At last!  These days, I surf around the cable stations with my remote and realize that either I have the attention span of gnat, or, TV programs suck, in general.  This brings me somewhat closer to the topic of this column.

As I clicked onto ESPN2 (a sports station) the other day, there was a peaceful, bucolic scene of geese standing quietly in a grassy field, trees off in the distance, blue sky, patchy clouds; lovely and serene.  An airborne flock of geese appeared from the right of the screen, floating along to their destination, the sound of an occasional "honk" in the air.  All of a sudden, the ground literally opened up and camouflage-clothed men with rifles jumped to their feet and began blasting away at the flying geese.  The geese on the ground stood still - decoys!  Geese fell out of the air, plummeting to the ground, looking broken, dead.  The hunters (hunters!) were delighted.  How clever they were, hiding under ground, using goose decoys, firing buckshot all over the sky, scoring.  On TV, ESPN2.

So, I went out and joined the local Rod & Gun Club, out here, west of Boston.  The club owned a huge expanse of land, forest, fields, streams and ponds.  Mostly, I hung out in the club house shooting down shots of whiskey, telling dirty jokes and getting friendly with the guys who liked to go out and shoot geese.  This was costing me a lot of money and time, but I stuck with the plan.

Over the winter, I made up eleven human dummies out of hay and papier mache and then purchased camouflage outfits for them.  I formed the faces so that from a distance they looked like real people, added facial hair of different styles, really got into the details.  Late one Friday night, I placed the dummies  out in one of the fields that the club owned, not too far from the woods.  Rifle and video camera in hand, I climbed one of the trees about 50 feet into the woods and waited.  Sure enough, the next morning seven geese hunters strolled along the field toward the dummies and just about when they got there, I blasted the hunters with buckshot.  Some of the hunters fell to the ground letting out howling noises and grabbing body parts in a contorted manner.  Some of the hunters ran away, leaving the writhing hunters on the ground to their own devices.  Others started firing their rifles in random directions, here, there, up, down, everywhere.

Eventually, the hunters who had not been hit hauled away those who had, but not after smashing my dummies and burning them.  The game warden, I mean the police, showed up and used a lot of yellow, plastic tape, took samples of the shot that filled the ground, took plaster casts of boot indentations in the ground, all that.  I got it all on video tape.  I sent it to ESPN2.  I am waiting for air play.  Fair's fair, eh?
 
I just turned on ESPN2.  Three guys in camouflage suits, carrying rifles, are sneaking up on two deer who are quietly feeding on grass in a beautiful field, trees off in the distance, blue sky dotted with clouds, crystal clear air.  BLAM!

I just turned on ESPN3 and watched two guys, each weighing in at about 185 pounds and referred to as cruiser weights.  They beat the crap out of each other for 30 minutes, blood everywhere, swollen eyes and jaws, exhaustion.  The guy in the black trunks won, split decision.  Great fight.  I waited for the Main Event, heavyweights.  Maybe I should get into shape.

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June, 2003

Lying, cheating and plagiarism are the topics that dominate the news these days.   Martha Stewart sells stock the day before bad news about the company is to be revealed.  She declares her innocence with regard to insider trading. Jayson Blair, a reporter for the prestigious New York Times, falsifies interviews and lifts stories from others.  He claims mental illness and various resident demons.  George Bush tells us that  Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.  He says we'll find them, eventually.  Everyone lies, I think.  There are lies about little things.  "Who ate the last Ring Ding?"  "Not me, mommy.  It was cousin Emily."  There are lies about big things.  "Did you give the order to kill these thousands of people that we found in these mass graves?"  "No siree, Bob.  I seek peace and harmony among the different peoples within my country."  And there may be cheating about things that don't matter, but are of importance to our national psyche.  "Hey!  Your bat is corked.  Did you use a corked bat to hit all your 505 home runs?"  "Nope.  Xray my other bats.  Ain't no cork in 'em."  As usual, my curiosity was aroused so I undertook further study of the matter.  What are the origins of these behaviors?

I decided to go with the reasonably well established fact that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.  That is, as organisms develop following conception, they pass through the physical stages of the evolution of their species.  The 'proof' comes in the form of human fetuses that look like salamanders at some point, and have gill slits at another time.  (Creationists say that's humbug.  God created us in our finished form.  Maybe, they say, God made the first Eve with gill slits and reconsidered.  "These gill slits are nice, and all, but I like shapely, firm breasts better.  Breasts and lungs -- that's the way to go!"  God and I agree on this.)  Maybe, I reasoned, we also develop lying, cheating and plagiarism behaviors in the same manner.  I started out by watching babies and children.  (I was denied prenatal observation permission by every expectant mother I asked.)

I began my study by visiting maternity wards of hospitals.  (Are they still called 'wards?')  Without too much intensive study, it was pretty clear that newborns do not lie, cheat or plagiarize.  If anything, they tend to be entirely honest.  "Are you hungry, Franny?"  "Yes.  That is why I am crying."  "Did you eat the last Ring Ding, Marvin?"  "I cannot lie.  What's a Ring Ding?"  Nothing here but honest babies.

My next observations were of babies around three months old.  To get a large enough sample, I went to parks and child care facilities.  When I told the police that I was a researcher, they provided me with a guard who followed me wherever I collected data.  Here's what I noticed.  The babies, themselves, continued to seem pretty honest, but the mommies and the daddies were clearly dishonest.  "What an adorable child you have there Stella."  This was in response to looking at one of the ugliest babies I have ever seen.  I then noticed that the ugly baby looked at its admirer in disbelief.  The ugly baby then went into what seemed to be a contemplative moment.  It could have been contemplating the utility value of lying.  "I know I'm ugly.  Maybe I should just lie to everyone, and myself.  Maybe I can make up something like, 'it's what's inside that counts.  Internal beauty is where it's at.  Hmmm.' "  This could be the first step in the development of lying, cheating and plagiarism.  I made observations of lots of babies and I think I saw many examples of the first notions of babies contemplating the utility value of lying. 

Plagiarism is also apparent in babies.  We've all seen it, but no one, until now, has called it what it really is, plagiarism.  An example is the phenomenon of mass crying.  Baby A begins crying for some reason.  People come rushing to the baby's aid giving it food, picking it up, making cute noises.  Babies B....nX (that's some kind of statistical notation) now begin crying.  Why?  Why not?  Look at all the good stuff that happened when Baby A cried.  Many of us continue this behavior through adulthood.  It all starts as plagiarism around age three months.  By the way, I reported this in the Journal of Watching Babies, Volume IV, 1999, pages 12-29.

I'll cover the next baby development period briefly.  Babies lie more and more as they get older.  By the time they are facile with the use of language, they use it primarily for lying.  Eighty percent of babies responded to "How are you this morning?" by lying.  "I'm fine, great, really terrific."  Only 20% didn't lie.  "Screw you.  Leave me alone.  I hate you and what you represent."  This brings us to the age of about 1.5 years.

It gets worse as the years go by.  Lying becomes the predominant response to all anxiety-laden situations.  "Did you make this project yourself, Timmy?"  "Hey!  What are you saying?  I did it myself.  My father did not help me."  "I did not steal the CDs.  They made me do it."  "Hey, I just drove the car.  They went into the bank."  "I love you new poem."

By this time, lying, cheating and plagiarism are firmly entrenched.  But I have to go a bit further to see if this behavior evolves and, thus, appears in our evolutionary antecedents.  As a first step toward this end, I made a visit to New Zealand where, I had heard, there dwells a band of prehistoric, bi-pedal, hirsuit characters that look a lot like we do.  Their jaws stick out more than ours and their foreheads are angled back more than ours, but their eyes 'say,' "Give me a chocolate bar and I'll tell you what you want to know."  Here's what happened on the trip.

It took a long time to get there.  I waited four days for a flight that would allow me to take my guitar on board.  I stayed over in the San Francisco airport for another three days because I was doing so well at busking for dollars.  There was another layover in Hawaii.  You know.  Finally, I landed in New Zealand.  I knew it was New Zealand because I did not see any snakes.  At the airport, I signed up for the "See Pre-Historic Man" tour, and off I went.

I can tell you folks absolutely authoritatively that prehistoric man lies and plagiarizes.  I'm not sure about cheating, since I could not ascertain a moral code among this group of prehistoric folks.  But boy, do they lie.  I saw one fellow who came home to his mate after a fishing trip.  The mate looked at the fellow quizzickly as if saying, "Where is the fish, Big Eddy?"  Big Eddy looked at his mate, held his hands wide apart as if to say, "You should have seen the big one that got away."  I was amazed.  Man was lying about his fishing exploits tens of thousands of years ago.  Wow!  But I needed more evidence before submitting an article to the Journal of the Origins of Things.

 To my further amazement, I found evidence of plagiarism.  I observed another fellow, who I'll call Simon because he reminded me of Paul Simon.  (It was not just his looks.  When I played guitar one day, he reached out and fretted one of the strings and created a wonderful variation on the A minor seventh chord that I was playing.  He showed me how to move it up the neck, as well.)  Simon returned home from a 'boys night out' in the back woods.  He and his buddies got mashed on some fruit beverage they'd created by allowing the fruit to sit in the sun for a couple of days.  Apparently, Simon had told his mate that he was going out on a hunting trip during which he had hoped to bag a bunch of those bird-reptile type beasts that taste so sweet and succulent.  Upon arriving home empty handed, his mate looked at him suspiciously.  Simon, head drooped, extended his hands wide apart as if to say, "Honey, you should have seen the one that got away."  Yes, Simon plagiarized Eddy's story!  I had found all the evidence I needed to conclude that lying and plagiarism among us humans has antecedents in our evolution.  But how far back does this go?

I am now beginning to plan my trips to observe 'lower' animals, like beaver, birds and lobster to determine if lying occurs among these species, our evolutionary antecedents.  Where does it start?  My theory is that it begins with salamanders because they look like us at some point in our prenatal development.  Prior to the salamander it was all honest and above board.  On the other hand, some of my esteemed colleagues believe it all starts at the cellular level with cell replication.  They say it's the basis for plagiarism.  I have not seen cells that lie, however.  Once I get some more of your tax money, I mean, grant money, I'll let you know the complete hierarchy of evolutionary lying, cheating and plagiarism.

But for now, I leave you with an important question.  If lying and plagiarism are genetically predetermined, WHAT'S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT?  We should just learn to live our lives differently.  Adjust to it accordingly.  We'll have to assume that we are being misled, deceived and misinformed.  It's a shame, and that's the truth.  I love each and every one of you.  Bye, for now.

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  May, 2003

The items that presently amuse me are,

    [1]     Old man's face falls off mountain in New Hampshire
    [2]     New York Times reporter resigns after repeated incidents, and warnings, about plagiarism and fabrication
    [3]    Contests among folk artists who generally purport to believe in the equality of all
    [4]    The counterpoint between the development of weapons of mass destruction and non-lethal weapons that merely cause lots of pain
    [5]    The observation that entertainment personalities seem to be getting younger, thereby seriously constricting the market for young hopefuls

All these items are intimately related, of course, except for the old man's face falling off the mountain.  The face fell off the mountain because he could not ‘keep up appearances.'  (All the other items are really about keeping up appearances in ways that I shall make up a little later.)  It was a tired, old face and sick of being the symbol of some hunk of territory whose perimeter was arbitrarily defined in the first place.  Had it been asked, the face might have preferred to be in Montana or Idaho or Canada.  (I like Canada.  As pointed out by my friend CG, there is no national cuisine in Canada.  The food is either English or French.  But this is okay.  It is not confusing.  Now that I am there, what is American cuisine?  Is it the thick steak, potato of some sort on the side, an uneaten vegetable and apple pie with ice cream?  Can you call that a national cuisine?  I can't.  I think the national cuisine is take-out, or whatever kind of food we choose to eat out on the most Sunday nights during the year.  Then there's that non-descript cuisine called Continental.  I think that's supposed to be European, as opposed to English, the latter being an island, and Europe being referred to as the continent.  "Shall we take the chunnel to the continent today, dearie?  We can get a decent meal and be home by midnight."  Continental cuisine!  What a joke.  It's a hunk of meat or fish or fowl with a carbohydrate and an overcooked vegetable served on nice plates with nice utensils at a table with a white tablecloth.  It costs $4.00 more than American food.  But I have seriously digressed.)   For that matter, had it been asked, it might have revealed its true gender.  We are merely assuming it's male.  Otherwise, we'd have to refer to it as ‘a handsome woman.'  Handsome woman, continental cuisine--there's something going on there.  Maybe it wasn't such a serious digression, after all.

Now, you ask, what is the common feature among the other four items on my list?  Simple.  They are all about being good, better or best.

I assume that a reporter would copy material, or fabricate material, because he felt his own material was not good enough.  This is a slippery topic.  I can't quite get a grip on it.  Why would someone enter the field of journalism and steal material from other journalists?  I mean, what was the primary consideration for going into journalism?  Was it to be the best journalist, discovering you're the worst journalist, then stealing from the best journalists to make yourself better?  Slippery, eh?  Fabrication?  Don't get me started!

Countries are now developing non-lethal weapons for war so that they can impose their will upon others who remain alive and then tell them, "See.  We are better than you are.  We even kept you alive to tell you.  We used to want to kill you and tell everyone else that we are better than you.  But now, we even want to tell you that we are better than you, so we kept you alive...to tell you."  I love this kind of reasoning.  So, eventually, the end result of a war will be [1] a little damage to a country's infrastructure but [2] no death to soldiers or civilians.  There'll just be a lot of people with lots of  black & blue marks.  Bruised, but listening.  "We are here to tell you what to do.  Do as we tell you, or else we will bruise you even more.  It will hurt, but you won't be dead.  So, the best thing is to do what we tell you to do."

Entertainment personalities are getting younger.  Just watch a movie or TV or something.  Everyone has fewer wrinkles than last week.  It seems they are all shooting some poison under their skin that removes wrinkles.  This is apparently better than pulling the skin back and attaching the extra stuff to the back of the head.  When the skin pulling method is used, peoples' eyes eventually pop out and stare peculiarly at the camera.  They have this insane look.  Yet, we recall them as endearing and warm human beings.  It's difficult to put this new look and the old, endearing nature of the person together.  And their noses would get pointier as more and more skin was zipped in the back, which I like, personally.  But those eyes are a bit frightening to see.  Look at Wayne Newton, but not for too long.  I'm just going to let my skin fall down in the old fashioned way, gradually, then more quickly.  The young kids can have all my gigs.

Finally, the item I find most unusual and distasteful; contests among folk singers.  I really thought that folk music was about the equality of man and the recognition that some are meant to sing, others are meant to build boats, yet others are meant to discover the principles that explain how the universe functions.  What the heck has happened?  There are contests for best guitar player, best songwriter, best performance by a solo or group.  Then, following the receipt of the award, that individual or group dashes madly about the country collecting its cash award, but only for about a year.  After that, the individual or group is replaced by the next award winner.  Notably, many of these individuals or groups are not heard from again.  Everyone has enjoyed them for a year and they are then gone.  But if they do stay around for a long time, even if close to invisibly, they win another award for lifetime achievement.  My solution?  People should stop entering contests.  Pete Seeger stopped.  He just goes out to play.

Now, I know there is no solution to the good, better, best issue.  It is part of what evolved, and maybe we would not have evolved as what we are without it.  Perhaps it's akin to violence.  It got us here.  We know it's bad.  But we seem to be very limited in our ability to eliminate it.  However, when you raise your hand to strike someone, if you have the will you can count to ten and hold back.  Folk friends,  count to ten before entering the next contest.  And keep in mind that your skin looks just fine.

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April, 2003

I refuse to write about this specific war, or operation, or whatever it may be.  Suffice it to say that we have virtually guaranteed ourselves the sub-two-dollar gallon of gasoline for the next couple of decades.  Likewise, the French have guaranteed themselves the five-dollar ‘gallon' of gas for the next couple of decades.  Merci beaucoup.

What is of more interest to me is that there are rules of war, strict definitions by which we kill and maim, followed by rules of how we must treat people who are captured or injured, even if they are the invaders.  It's all part of the Geneva Convention.  That, in itself, is suspect.  Who would hold a meeting in such a dull place like Geneva?  Let's examine some of this foolishness.

There are rules about weapons.  I enjoy these rules.  Nuclear weapons are not allowed.  Now, in the days where wars were about territory, this rule makes sense.  Who would want a piece of property that is thoroughly poisoned for thousands of years to come?  Also, nuclear bombs kill too many people all at once.  Instead, it is permissible to kill fewer people at once with, say, a MOAB (Mother Of All Bombs).  I don't know how many MOABs equal one nuke, but MOABs are considered ‘clean' bombs, ask anyone who has been struck by one.  "The bomb really hurt, but I didn't glow afterwards."  So, huge, conventional bombs are okay.  Small nuclear bombs are not.  The issue of how many people are killed at any one time is not really important.

Chemical and biological weapons are not permitted.  They cause unnecessary suffering, prolonged death, horrifying ailments, writhing on the ground, stuff like that.  Conventional bombs and hail storms of bullets, missiles, etc., are okay presumably because shrapnel that takes off body parts is not particularly horrifying and death would come quickly.  "He didn't know what hit him." (Actually, he did.)  It is deemed better to be maimed and alive than killed by chemistry or biology.  That's an interesting conclusion.  I'd like to see the data that led to it.

Then there's the assassination game.  It is not permissible to kill a national leader outright.  Instead, one must hope that he/she is destroyed by a cluster bomb and is buried under a pile of rubble.  However, if the leader of a reputable country says that a leader is not reputable, it is okay to kill him by firing a shot through his bedroom window.  On the other hand, if the disreputable leader is committing genocide in his country, he/she cannot be killed.  Rather, the World Court will deal with the leader.  The leader must be captured alive and dragged into court where he/she declares, "I do not recognize this court." 

The other situation these days is that some leaders do not have national affiliations.  I think we're allowed to kill those types, no questions asked.  In fact, I think their dead bodies can be broadcast on TV even if they have been shot in the eye and really look, well, you know.

The treatment of prisoners of war is another of those mandated issues to emerge from the Geneva Convention.  Soldiers who have just tried to kill you must be treated really well.  Decent food and medical care must be provided.  It is not permitted to march prisoners around for propaganda purposes, or to show their scared faces on TV or in the newspapers.  Why?  Because that makes us feel badly when we see our own under threat.  We'd prefer not to see this stuff.  Torture is not allowed, of course, but the captor can ask all kinds of questions of the prisoner.  The prisoner, likewise, need not give any answers, but they are not allowed to lie about their name, rank or serial number.  Really.  Keep in mind that none of this considers the social and cultural history of the countries at war.  For example, we here in the US love the death penalty but European countries frown upon it.  Some countries find that finger removal is a good way to control criminal behavior.  Others go for the whole hand or just the external ear (called the pinna, by the way).  So, the questions becomes, is it torture when you merely apply part of the criminal code to soldiers who have invaded your country?  I guess if anyone invades the US we will merely kill them, no questions asked.  But we could not do it by lethal injection.  That would be akin to chemical warfare, which is prohibited, though one could argue that it is a reasonably pleasant form of death.  We'd have to step back in time and use firing squads, as inefficient as that may be.  But they are pretty good to watch on TV, and they sort of comply with ‘death by shrapnel,' which is allowed.

So, let's step back and see what humanity has done.

We accept the fact that we have to fight with one another.  This is probably correct.  The limbic system in the brain isn't there for nothing.  Give it a little electrical juice and our aggressive side pops right up.  Since we have to fight, let's have some rules.  And since we are so smart as to invent really terrific ways to kill, we'll have to have rules for that.  Personally, I can see this going one of two ways.

The first way is similar to my opinions about sports.  You may recall that I advocate the use of any and all drugs by all sports participants.  Let's see how far the human species can take it, I say.  Drink up.  Shoot up.  Run, you two-legged human, run!  But it's football that sets the example here.  In our brand of football, these huge guys take the field and opposing teams make every effort to disable one another.  The observers drink beer so as to become aggressive like the players, and the alcohol dulls them to the grotesque scenes of injuries on the field.  Yet, there are rules of just how far players can go in their efforts to disable one another.  Imagine it!  A player can't pull on another players face mask.  Poppycock, I say.  Let's have no such rules whatsoever.  It's four downs per possession, first down and you keep the ball, 6 points, extra point, field goal, okay.  But what you do to get the points, anything goes.  Face masks, clipping, calling your mother names, all that is fine with me.  So, applied to war, anything goes.  Screw the value of human life.  Armageddon?  Bring it on, baby!  Let's drop the big one now!

The other direction is far more genteel, though it still recognizes that we humans have a tendency toward aggressiveness, territoriality, discrimination, anger, yelling, possessiveness, irritability and so forth.  In this approach, killing must be limited to one death at a time, using a weapon that requires skill and proximity to the enemy.  This form of warring would also preserve all the stuff that we like so much; buildings, computers, asphalt-paved roads, refrigerators, flush toilets, etc.  According to the Brooklyn Convention, permissible weapons are as follows: the pea shooter, the linoleum gun, the BB gun, the 1.5 inch firecracker, the sling shot, the bow and arrow, the knife, the blow dart, the big stick, the poison-coated ice dart and the cinderblock.  That is, weapons of individual and personalized destruction are allowed.  Mass destruction is now defined as ‘any number of deaths more than one.'  (By application to the Convention, you could be permitted to use The Car as a weapon if you agree to limit killings to one at a time.)

I am torn between the two approaches.  In the first, we'd get it all over with soon.  It's the anticipation I can't stand.  In the second, the killing would become so personalized we may find we actually have no taste for it and cut it out.  Let me think about this.

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February-2, 2003

Political and economic events cannot be predicted very well.  That old saying, ‘history repeats itself,' is just a lot of baloney, unless you go for the really obvious, big  stuff;  peace will be followed by war, the rise and fall of this and that, etc.  Remember a few years ago that some historians were saying that ‘history is over,' upon the fall of Communism and the apparent democratization of everything (except good old Fidel down in Cuba.  What a guy, eh?)  It looks like history has started up again, and  the next phase is ‘Christianization versus Muslimization' of the world.  Political history may be over, but religious history is just starting up, again.  Once that is settled and one religion rules the world, and history is once again declared to be over, there will be world-level debates about the best economic structure, leading to divisiveness over capitalism, socialism and communism (I doubt that there will be any ‘ism' that includes the term ‘human,' however.)  This will result in competitive systems, leading to war, then the choice of a single system, which will prove to have flaws allowing unscrupulous political leaders to take advantage of billions of people, who will then rise up to move the history wheel, once again. 

Why is this all happening?  I have no idea.  But it is as boring as hell.  The only thing that makes it interesting is that we, who are alive just now, are experiencing it.  If you were dead, and watching from the great beyond, you would not even bother to turn on the news.  It is all that boring.  I, myself, view it from a position similar to being dead and find it all boring.  What is interesting to me is that we all sit around griping about the situation and follow that up by doing...NOTHING.  I'm figuring that the world economic situation will decline precipitously in the next couple of years to the point where we, the rich and well-fed of the western world, will be the ones on videos with that needy look in our eyes, like the folks during the dust bowl of the 1930's, during the great depression.  Wars will be going on just about everywhere as the fight for wealth masquerades as the war for ‘god.'  We'll find ourselves in some form of dark age.  I will watch from the dead zone, and find it all very BORING.

So, allow me to address something else.

Duct Tape.  It is truly beneath our collective dignities to even discuss duct tape and the reason behind its recent boom in sales.  Suffice it to say that you should simply put ‘duct tape' in your search engine and let ‘er rip.  You'll find duct tape uses galore, products made from duct tape, colorful duct tape, and lots more.  I'm using it it to remove the pesky hairs from places where old men find them during business meetings.  Does that happen to you, too?

Cellophane Tape.  It's taking quite a beating because of the Office of Homeland Security.  As a result, its price has dropped drastically.  Fun and affordability.  Try the stuff with the glue on both sides.  Very entertaining.  Great for closing one nostril while leaving the other open.

Mucilage.  What in heck is mucilage.  Oh, yeah.  That's the gunk that comes in an oddly-shaped bottle with the rubber stopper/applicator that you smush around to get the stuff onto paper, or any body parts that you need glue.  It doesn't work.  (There's someone on the ‘net that has devoted a site to an anti-mucilage campaign.) You can't get off on it.  So, don't even try.

Elmer's White Glue.  Who is Elmer?  Good old white glue with that reminiscent odor is nice.  You can use it to put layers of glue on your skin and peel it off to get those little skin orgasms.  There's always some extra that comes out of the hole you're filling.  Non-toxic, non-addictive.  Hardly any fun at all.

Airplane Glue.  Really the best for the skin>orgasm thing.  When you remove the glue from your palm, WATCH OUT!  That tickle goes on all over the place.  Love it.  And there are more benefits, as you surely know.  So, go out, get a kit for a PBY-42 (make sure all the decals and the landing gear are included in the box), work in a small, enclosed space, and have a blast.  Light up a big, mother, fat J and your eyes start dancing wildly.  Wow...look at those decals.  Yeah.  I laugh when they tell me about brain cell loss. Ha ha!  Ha, ha!

Space Ship Glue.  I ain't going there.

Krazy Glue, The Liquid.  No good for the skin>orgasm thing.  Trust me.  But really good for pinning back babies' ears.  Lasts about a week.  Fast actin', like Tinactin.  Unpredictable, like history.

Krazy Glue, The Gel.  Stays in place better than the liquid, thus, there is less fun involved.  Too predictable.

Those Little Balls of Stuff That Hold Your Mail Together.  A real favorite of mine.  Neat and clean.  Use it once and that's it.  Fun to remove from the paper and then roll in your hand.  Nice resistance feeling when bitten between the upper and lower front teeth.  Don't try the side teeth, however.

Epoxy Glue.  You get two tubes of stuff that you mix.  Then, you wait 14 nanoseconds, say a prayer, and nothing happens.  Nothing.  I don't get it.  But the packaging is really great.  It looks like it should keep things stuck together forever.  I can't get it to work.  So, after I use it, I go for a real orgasm, which is effective for mitigating frustration.  (I used to get the same frustration when I was late for appointments, dates, things like that.  The frustration would come on in the most unusual way.  Did you ever get that?  Pretty cool, eh?)

Hot Glue Gun Technique.  I love this stuff.  Ready!  Aim!  Fire!  I built my kids a doll house just because I liked using the hot glue gun.  Well, I liked the kids, too.  Don't get me wrong.  But there's something about the glue gun that kids just can't match.  You know what I mean?  That glue gun...a little squirt and it's stuck for life.  Hey, that's just like having kids, isn't it?

I'm stuck for anything else to say.

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February-1, 2003

Chicago, IL  In a quiet ceremony today President Bush signed the papers that finalized the deal selling the United States of America to Oprah Winfrey.  "This is the ultimate manifestation of both capitalism and privatization, the basic tenets of our great country," said Bush, looking sheepish, as well a bit like a deer caught in the headlights.  "And our credit situation required that we find a buyer who could pay off our debts so that we could, once again, get on with business."  Bush continued, "The search for a buyer moved along quickly.  It identified Oprah not merely because she now holds 72% of the world's wealth, but because she has now embarked on a mission to provide therapy to every individual in the United States.  The choice was obvious.  The combination of money and caring could not be denied."

In a hastily prepared speech, Ms. Winfrey merely hinted at what the future would be.  Notably, she strongly denied that the name of the country would be changed to the United States of Oprah Winfrey, but did not deny that a name change was under consideration.  She said she would be head of state but was not willing to say that she would be (referred to as) the President.  She blushed when the notion of a monarchy was suggested.  The color?  Purple. Some possibilities for the future included:

> The Oprah Book Club as the basic text source for all public schools in the country

> Dr. Phil (McGraw) as Chief of Guidance for Everything

> Modification, possibly elimination, of the existing judicial and legislative systems.  Dr. Phil will take care of 'all that stuff.'

> A unified currency system with all bills portraying Oprah.  Denominations would correlate with Oprah's varying weight over her professional career.  The smallest paper denomination, and thinnest Oprah,  would be the $100 bill.  Coins would be adorned with guests from her now world-wide broadcast show.  David Letterman, though never a guest on the show, would be placed on the 'ha-penny,' a non-negotiable coin that could only be used as the brunt of jokes.  New coins with the faces of citizens would be minted if citizen stories were sufficiently touching, and if the citizen responded to therapy provided by Dr. Phil.

The capitol of the country would move to Chicago.  Utterances (!) of mooing (not booing) were heard throughout the room when this announcement was made.  The national food would be biscuits and gravy, said Winfrey, and mayonnaise would replace ketchup as the national condiment.

The press conference ended with an announcement that Winfrey would not be naming not cabinet members right away.  Instead, she would focus on developing more national symbols, and finding more touching stories, that would bring our country together.  These will  be published in book form, of course, and placed in every library in the country.  It was hinted that Martha Stewart would be in charge of naming all the symbols related to homemaking, such as the national satin sheet color, the queen size bed as the national bed size, to name a few.  As she left the room, Ms. Winfrey waved and, in a ministerial manner, said, "God bless our country.  I'll announce its name next week."

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January, 2003

I am really confused about public radio.  What's public about it?  Is it that I, a member of the public, can listen to it?  Is it that the money to support it comes from the public, not from the private sector?  But aren't many of the companies in the private sector publicly owned (or, held, whatever that means).  It now looks like public radio accepts money from the private sector, like publicly owned car companies and cheese companies, publicly ‘held' companies that make condoms that glow in the dark, and companies that make frozen breakfasts, yum.  Aren't they also taking money from the real private sector, like from the Mrs. Eleanor Strickland-Deutsch Private Foundation for World Peace.  (That's the outfit that sends deodorant and perfume to poverty-stricken countries in really hot climates.  "There's no excuse for poor people smelling badly," says Mrs. Strickland-Deutsch.)  When I give some money to public radio, I actually think it's really a private act, and I own myself, sort of, so I'm giving private money with a personal self interest to public radio.  You can see my confusion..private, public, Mrs. Strickland-Deutsch.

This confusion persisted until I finally heard broadcasters using the term ‘non-commercial' radio.  Ah, now I began to get it.  The stations will not broadcast commercials, those short snippets intended to sell you products and services.  So, I did a test.  I listened and listened and listened.  Sure enough, I did not hear commercials during the shows.  I heard them at the beginning and at the end of the shows!  Saab, Ford, Chrysler, Fleet Bank, something called TIAA-CREF, Martin Guitars, and a bunch of foundations.  Public (or private), non-commercial (or commercial) radio confuses me.

Given that public radio now accepts corporate money...public, private, whatever, why in heck are they still asking listeners for money?  It is because public radio does not wish to be influenced by the corporations and their private interests.  But many of these corporations are publicly held.  Do you get my drift?  I don't.

Anyway, now that I'm listening to this stuff I hear lots of news from people with British accents and American broadcasters who are obviously a lot smarter than I am.  (They pronounce words correctly all the time, speak with a soothing drone, and they constantly try to teach me something.  I like that.)  What I am detecting is that there are almost always four sides to every story.  The first, and most important, is the NPR (National Public Radio) side.  That is the academic, liberal, somewhat left of center side of the issue; in other words, the correct side.  The second most important side is that of the individual upon whom the story is focused.  (Remember, the broadcaster is really the most important party, "all things considered.")  The third side of the story comes from the people who are being politically and economically suppressed by the guy who is the focus of the story...the bad guy, not the broadcaster. (Stick with me here.  This can get confusing.)  Then there is the fourth side, the George W. Bush side.  Basically, this side can be summarized as follows.  If the guy who is the focus of the story in any way threatens the well-being of the average US citizen, who is, as you know, entitled to a gallon of gas for about a buck and half, we will place an embargo on that individual, inspect him for any darn thing we want, and declare war on him.  But, if the bad guy backs off, we will give him money and ‘protect' him.  (Sort of the protection game backwards.)  Listen enough, you'll see, there are always these four sides.

The conclusion I come to is that we need something more than public radio (and public TV) to express the people's ideas.  Happily, we have it.  It is the medium you are now reading, using for learning and communicating, having sex with, listening to, and lord knows what...it is our own (own, get it) internet.  In what other medium could I spread my message to millions of people?  Notably, the internet is thoroughly infested with commercials, but that commercialism fails to undercut the overall force and impact of a ‘people-owned' internet.  Pop-ups?  A little annoying, but along comes a company that writes software to prevent them.  Porno ads in my email?  Delete ‘em...or take a peek!  Need an opinion?  Oh boy!  Just ask.  Does the internet allow all kinds of opinions even THE BAD ONES?  Well, yes.  Have you heard all the internet broadcasting stations?  There's every kind of music and not a single commercial, nor is there a contribution from Mrs. Eleanor Strickland-Deutsch.  (Keep your money and your deodorant, baby!)  THAT'S PUBLIC RADIO, FOLKS. Listen.

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December, 2002

Dear Santa,

I have been a good boy this year.  Before I tell you what I want, want, want, you should know all the good things I did this year.  First, I did not write a single folk song.  I had lots of things to say about my personal problems, but I chose to keep them to myself and to not bother innocent audiences with them.  Second, I did not play banjo on stage.  I do it only in front of my wife and mother-in-law. ( They don't like it.)  Third, I gave two mercy gigs to performers.  One sang about his personal problems and the other played the banjo.  These were my major acts of kindness.  Fourth, I told Buffie that I really liked her melodica playing but it would really look goofy on stage.  This saved her a lot of pain.  (I really wasn't crazy about her melodica playing, to be honest.)  Fifth, I helped a blind banjo player to cross the street.  (I later learned that he didn't want to cross the street, but at least he didn't get hit by a car.)  Sixth, I worked hard to behave myself at folk clubs by not yelling out things like "yeah!" and "right on, brother."  They sound insincere, anyway.  Seventh, I learned how to laugh so hard that I cut off the oxygen to my brain and have near death experiences.  I now can do this while driving on the New York Thruway and passengers think it's hilarious.  It is.  Eighth, I learned to sing better by fooling with my tongue and the shape of my mouth.  When I get the combination right, I can initiate a tickle that goes up my right leg and right to 'you know where.'  I now do this at least three times during a one-hour set.  It's almost as good a cutting off the oxygen to my brain.  I'm hoping I can send out this tickle remotely to others so that they can enjoy me as much as I enjoy me, so to speak.  Ninth, I established the baseline for the proportion of times that I tell people what I am thinking versus the times I hold my tongue.  The baseline from this past year is 96 to 4.  Some folks advise me to always say what I'm thinking.  Some advise me to hold my tongue all the time.  All I can do is keep track and report how I'm doing next year.  So, all I mean to say is that I have established the baseline but have no idea what it means.  Tenth, and the last good thing I did this year, was to help a blind banjo player to cross the street.  

Now, what do I want?  I want to be rich beyond belief.  Then, I'll be able to have experiences about which I can write lots of new folk songs.  I would like to have more power.  I have a little bit now, but want more.  You'd think wealth and power would be enough.  Right?  Uh-uh.  I want to be able to flatpick so freaking fast that the guitar breaks into flames.  Yeah!  I want to win the National Flatpicking Championship, then hand the trophy over to Marlon Brando.  Then, it's on to the banjo!  

Actually, now that I think about it, all I really want is to see my kids have lots of good years ahead of them.  Here's to you Matthew (and Christine), Amanda, Jessica, Alyssa (and Franz) and grandson, Hunter.  Here are wishes for happiness to my wife Cheryl and her mom, Kathy.  Good health and happiness to Buffie and her mom Alice.  And best wishes for happiness to so many friends and relatives.  Please be patient while I learn to play this DAMNED BANJO!

Love...Fishken


And while we are still in 2002...

Any day now, a whole bunch of countries and cultures will flip the page on the calendar to the year 2003.  Therefore, it's a good time to reflect on just how the new millennium is going.  This should probably be done every couple of years so that we'll have a good record of the thousand years leading up to year 3000.  I'll do this.

The first problem encountered in this, the first installation of this record, is defining how many years we've spent in the new millennium.  It's either two or three.  For now, I will leave this topic alone, and quote my friend GB, "who cares?"  This being said, I can move on to the more important, one word summary (upon which I will expand) for the new millennium; WHATTHEHELLISHAPPENINGHERETHISSUCKS?

First off, I was led to believe that either the world would end or that all things dependent on computers would go awry.  I was looking forward to either the end or the chaos, and neither occurred.  (I am most at ease during chaos.  There's little I can do so I just relax and enjoy.)  So, for me, the millennium starts off disappointingly; I should not have been here, or I'd be having trouble writing this at my computer.  Therefore, DISAPPOINTING, is my first judgment of the new millennium. 

To reference this opinion, I have compared the beginning of this millennium with the beginning of the previous millennium.  Most folks said that the change from 999 to 1,000 (though some held out for the change from 1000 to 1001) was also disappointing.  They had expected the world to end, but no go.  Of course, we cannot yet make the case for a generality...not enough millennium changes on record.  Some feel that the change from 1 BC to 0 AD was pretty exciting, the new messiah and all.  But that did not seem to last all that long.  After 33 years they crucified the guy.  What does that say about the new millennium?  Then, nothing happened for a couple of hundred years (unless you count stuff in Norway) and that was followed by the DARK AGES.  I mean, how good could that millennium have been if folks called it the dark ages and then expected (hoped?) that the next millennium would mark the end of the world.  "I've lived through enough of this crap.  Let the commencement of the next millennium be the end of the damned world.  Enough is enough."

Luckily, the millennium from 0-1000 went by really quickly.  It was the millennium 1000-2000 that took an extraordinarily long time.  God, I thought it would never end.  How long will this one last, I wonder.

It should be pointed out that in all the millennium changes so far, not everyone expected, or wanted, the world to end.  Some people did really well during the preceding millennia.  They made a lot of money, acquired a lot of property, had lots of power, things like that.  (In the early days, some of them even  hypothesized a life after death so they could take all that stuff with them. They wanted the world to keep going.  "Fuck the new millennium," they said.  "Give me more gold, and let's fool around with this powder that explodes. The new cuisine has really changed my life.  This rash makes me a bit crazy, not to mention the rats, but what the heck. Think of the possibilities."  I heard some people say, in 1999, "I'm going to make even more money in the new millennium.  Think of all those stupid things that people will buy if you just put ‘2000' on them.  Cocoa Puffs 2000, the cereal for the new millennium.  Lever 2000, the soap for the new millennium.  Rolex 2000, it's about time."  And so forth.  This is merely to point out that there are two sides to every thing.  Some people want ot just die.  Others want to make more money.

In summary, and as context for evaluating the status of the current millennium:

- Millennium 1000 BC to 0...not a bad millennium, overall.  A lot of wandering around, not all that much killing (a slaughter here and there), Archimedes Screw, camel domestication methods, lots of death by infection (man, what is all that green stuff?), the final refinement of the sandal, first reports of alien abductions.

- Millennium 0 - 1000...a really lousy millennium.  Dark, dreary, smelly, greasy, though there is new evidence of soap in England where pots with fat and ashes have been found, not too far from the site of Westminster Abbey. ( The soap recipe may have been lost, however.  All the movies I see show really dirty English people in pubs during the Renaissance, which comes in the next millennium.)  Lots of mystical stuff going on and some really cool languages that few of us can pronounce.  Good stories.  Lots of plant and animal evolution around New Zealand.  Only one report of an alien abduction in this millennium....one!

-Millennium 1000-2000...a pretty good millennium, especially compared to the previous one.  Books, education, nicer clothes, governments, countries, weapons, coal mining, tastier food, drug stores, guitars made of Brazilian rosewood, kings, singer-songwriters, Marilyn Monroe, baseball, bluegrass, slavery, strip mines, computers, institutionalized poverty, The Cantab Lounge, Ted Kennedy.  Millions of actual alien abductions.  Duck, man!

- Millennium 2000-3000...not off to a very good start.  We still have Ted Kennedy.  If I put the word ‘TERRORISM' in this document, I will be sought after by THE SHADOW GOVERNMENT.  Bombs are going off all over the place and there is a proliferation of singer-songwriters.  How good can life be if you get gastrointestinal disorders on cruise ships?  Good god, bacteria on cruise ships!  On the other hand, Trent Lott and Cardinal Law are outta here!  The guy across the street is making porno films in his living room.  The miniature paint ball gun has been invented, as has that powered scooter so we won't ever have to walk again.  Apparently, there are new species coming into existence fairly frequently, but no one tells us about them.  Ted Williams will stay frozen,  until, someday in the future, he will be placed on a cruise ship headed for the Caribbean so that he can thaw out and be fixed.  (It's a darned shame that Slugger, Ted's pup, was cremated.)

Then there's the issue of unharnessed capitalism.  I just don't know where this is going.  Do you?  For example, there are probably more than 200 brands of shampoo.  (I, by the way, can't find a really good one.  For years I have never understood the one that says, ‘For Oily Hair.'  Why would anyone want oily hair, I reasoned?  I have oily hair and don't like it.  So, I chose the one that said, ‘For Dry Hair.'  Man, my hair kept getting more and more oily.  Finally, someone told me!)  If there are more and more brands of shampoo, maybe each one of us will eventually have their own, personalized shampoo.  That would be good, right?  In that case, maybe unharnessed capitalism is okay.  (Hey!  You can get personalized jeans created by computer.  "Could you please pooch up my ass?")

Gambling casinos.  Now there's something good for (western) mankind.  Now, states like Massachusetts are hunting down Native Americans, not to steal their land, but to qualify them as ‘the real thing' so that the government can ‘bless' them with a casino and collect tax revenue from them.  Of note:  The Native American Daily Casino News reports that Native Americans who ‘own' casinos are in debt to the land and casino developers.   Imagine that!

And how about the middle east, the far east, the near east, Tony Blair?  What in heck is happening in South America, other than plastic surgery?  And you have to love how Fidel just hangs in there; screw the poverty, ideology onward!  Is there any recognition of the trend to steal whatever money we were allotted by the capitalists?  First, they gave us percentage points to use their banks.  Then they got us to put our money into gambling...the stock market.  Now they're stealing the money we put in the stock market.  When they get caught stealing, the fines go to...THE GOVERNMENT.  To quote my ex-sister-in-law, "Geepers."

I could go on, but "geepers" seems like a good way to a close.  The current millennium has no where to go but UP, even though I have plenty of porno going on across the street every day.  There's only so much....never mind.  I will keep a watch on how things are going and report back to you at regular intervals, say, every 25 years, or so.  In the meantime, see that man over there, he's down on his luck, reach in your pocket, and give him a buck.

Thanks Ed and Cousin Bob, my only two readers.

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October, 2002

The folk scene lives!  We have just come back from a swell time in Ithaca on Phil Shapiro's radio show, Bound For Glory and we prepare for our second visit to Mike Agranoff's Minstrel Coffeehouse in Morristown, NJ.  These two gents have been responsible for keeping an old folk tradition alive for over 30 years.  Through radio, concerts, festivals and general support of both folk artists on tour and folk artists at home, Mike and Phil have brought folk singers together and brought folk music to their audiences for no other reason than love of the music and a desire to be involved.  Putting these shows together requires enormous amounts of work.  It does not happen mysteriously.  Both Mike and Phil are supported by a net work of volunteers, the ones who put out the chairs, buy the donuts, make the coffee, sit at the CD sales table, provide accommodations for touring artists, plant the publicity in the press, and more.  So, I take this moment to thank them for supporting us and for supporting the folk community.   There should be awards for folks like Mike and Phil, and as we head to The NorthEast Regional Folk Alliance I shall have to keep that in mind.

Also noteworthy is that December, 2002 is the 11th anniversary of Geoff Bartley's Open Mic at the fabulous Cantab Lounge in Cambridge, MA.  Congratulations, Geoff!

According to marketing types, Halloween marks the start of the holiday season.  If we were buying enough crap right now, the season would not begin until Thanksgiving.   But the economy is a bust, so we'll have to tolerate western capitalism's ode to the dollar for the next two months.   My guess is that best sellers will be those really ugly insulated flannel shirts from Sears.  They will be 'last year's' colors (whatever that means), and they will take two years to break in, at which time you will receive another one as a gift, also in the previous year's color.

Another best seller will be connector cables.  These will allow you to connect every piece of computer, audio and video equipment known to mankind.  You be able to color code everything as you gaily upload, download and sideload.  You'll need special cables and adapters for each different brand so you can increase voltage, lower impedance, and vice versa.  And since you spend so much time in the car, you'll need a whole bunch of special cables and connectors for that, too.  But, I predict that all this will get simplified soon.  Yes, there will be a connector that will be THE MOTHER OF ALL CONNECTORS.  Input anything and merely dial the desired output, digital, analogue, desired voltage and impedance, and so forth.  Any kind of connector can be used, RCA, headphone cable, mini plug, maxi plug, XLR, little wires, solid copper things that break when you bend them too many times, you name it.

Magnetic identification cards will also come into their own this holiday season.  Presently, you use 'swipe cards' that contain fixed information.  That's old hat, folks.  The new card will be a continuous recording device that will document your every activity, every minute of every day, including sounds, smells, movements and even video, when you want it.  This will insure that your most private moments are captured so that you can recall them later.  When you place the card in a player, your entire life passes before you, and before anyone else who is watching.  There will be countless uses for this card, everything from remembering that babe's name, the one you met in the subway, to convicting you of a lewd moment in the ladies room when you simply had to try on that new underthing.  Want to write an autobiography?  Don't even bother.  Just 'use the card.'  It's coming!

Finally, I predict the gift of gifts will be the miniature paint ball gun (MPBG).  This replaces my previous prediction of the personal nuclear weapon.  The miniature paint ball gun will allow you to express yourself secretly because the paint balls will be rather tiny, the gun easily concealed and the noise masked by a mere clearing of the throat.  For example, you are in a restaurant and the waiter is ignoring you.  In the old days, you'd get angry, lose your appetite, complain to the management, stuff like that.  But in the MPBG age, you finally get the attention of the waiter, get him to bend over the menu to clarify how a dish is prepared and then, 'blang,' you deliver a puce paint ball stain on his white shirt.  He fails to notice, of course, but all his customers are repulsed by the stain so they don't leave a tip.  They complain to the restaurant owner, who is also repulsed by the puce stain.  The waiter is fired and does not realize, until much later, that he has been MPBG'd.  He, too, is repulsed and knows that he deserved what he got.  He signs up for the night course in "How To Be A Charming Waiter."   So you, with your MPBG, have done some good in the world.  Or, you're visiting your aunt Martha, who still has that pain-in-the-ass cat who made your childhood visits a horror.  The cat, named Fleur- because your aunt pretends that she is descended from a family of French perfumers, would rub against your leg, then bite you as you petted it.  Now, as Fleur approaches, you place your finger on the trigger of your concealed MPBG.  She rubs your leg.  You bend.  She awaits your attempt to pet her so that she can put the big bite on you.  But this time, this time, you deliver the virtually silent 'BLAM!,' leaving a hot pink stain between Fleur's eyes.  Ha!  The shot was delivered so well that Fleur does not even notice, not until much later when she passes that wall-length mirror in Aunt Martha's bedroom.  "Egad!," says Fleur in meow-speak, "I have been MPBG'd down.  Alas.  I expire from the embarrassment of having been seen, stained between the eyes, the entire day.  Fleur shall be no more."   What a great gift this will be.

So, if you must participate in the holiday spending thing, buy some tickets to folk gigs, buy some folk CDs, or simply send me money for encouragement.

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September 29, 2002

Well, good grief, the world has gone mad, again, and for at least the twelfth time, as far as I can recollect.  The new twist is that the madness is now video-taped while it happens.  My favorite is the video of the mother brutalizing her 4-year old daughter in the Walmart parking lot.  Oh, those moms who lose their tempers!  This video was followed by several more reports of moms beating on their kids.  This was a pleasant  respite from all the coverage of 'fathers' beating on little boys.  This was followed by the story of the  21-year old boy who murdered his mother and father.  Thinking this through, just a little, it may be that all this harm we do to one another evens out.  Mom beats child, child kills mom.  Father molests child, child kills father.  This is all 'on the average,' of course, rather than a specific eye for an eye, or specific tooth for a tooth.  If it does average out, and we substitute vengeance for justice, perhaps we have the makings of a viable system for managing societal cruelty of this type.  Taking a tip from hunters, I suggest we have a cruelty season and a designated place where all this cruelty should take place.  And it would all be video-taped, of course.

What would be the best time for 'open season' on cruelty?  I suggest, for western 'culture,' the period prior to Christmas.  Lots of people get depressed around this time, and cruelty season might cheer them up, or offer them an outlet for expressing their depression in an acceptably cruel manner.  This is the time when kids get really tense, anxious and DEMANDING.  Perfect for bringing out the cruel nature in their parents, and uncles, for that matter.  Also, this season has a bit of chill to it, which is good for cruelty.  A simple slap has an edgy sting to it in chilly weather.  For other cultures, this notion can be generalized.  The cruelty season would be the one when children are the most annoying.   In terms of cruelty season duration, six weeks should do it.

I think all this cruelty should take place in a central location.  There's the issue of video-taping, but there's also, then, the possibility of adding live spectators into the mix.  Stadiums have always been used for displays of cruelty, and why should we change now.  But I'd suggest a huge stadium, large enough to house thousands of moms, dads and kids in separate pens.  The plan would be to let them at each other at diabolically designed release  intervals that would foster the best kinds of cruelty, defined simply by their spectator popularity.  The stadium should probably be in Canada.

I'm sorry I don't have this all worked out, down to the tiniest details, but I think the Canada site for Cruelty Season is really brilliant.  There should be some gambling associated with the event.  Everyone should have an opportunity to profit from cruelty.  This implies that there will be cruelty winners and losers.  Of course!  It would just be senseless cruelty, otherwise.

I hope you are enjoying the news as much as I am.  Please note that I am not focusing my attention on George Bush.  That's much too easy.  He can do anything he wants, as long as my cost per gallon stays under $2.  I prefer to tackle the really tough issues; child abuse, vivisection, personal hygiene, the American Whey, and that spot behind the right ear that, when rubbed properly, seems to control what we think are out-of-body experiences.  I'm going to get myself an out-of-body experience right now, if you get my drift.

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