Friday Cat Blogging While Away

On the road, here at Berit's parents' place.


We miss the kitties already.


So here they are, for us to sigh over. Our exciting pets:





Well, not always so exciting, but pretty sweet.





Very sweet when stretching amongst a random display of items on the couch.





And sometime one wonders just what they were just up to when you surprised them . . .


Maybe back with a Random Ten for Friday. Maybe not -- I don't have the usual iTunes setup with me, and I'd have to "arrange" a random selection out of whatever music I have on this laptop.

Friday Greatly-Reduced Random Ten

So, here I am, away from the usual iTunes with over 18,000 songs, on a laptop with just 1,445 tracks -- most of them oddities that I didn't want to keep anywhere else.


What happens if I shuffle through this bunch?


1. "Shake a Tail Feather" - The Five Du-Tones - Land of 1000 Dances vol. 2

Ah, how nice. Recently downloaded comp, not yet ponged over to the "song" library. Never actually heard this before; just know Ray Charles' cover from the Blues Brothers film and soundtrack.

The original rocks like hell. Jesus. Get ahold of this one, people.


2. "Not Yet Three" - Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers - Rockin' & Romance

From a cassette I've had for over 20 years recorded from LPs of my dad's. I moved this over to the computer and digitially cleaned it up last year. Nice to have. Sweet, sweet, funny song.

Heard this on WFMU's Greasy Kid Stuff show last year (R.I.P.) in the midst of about two hours of Richman they were playing (it followed, just as I hoped it would, "Just About Seventeen") and was positive he had died or something. No, it was just nearly his birthday. Thank goodness.


3. "Ballad of Mac the Knife" - Original Cast - The Threepenny Opera 1976 Lincoln Center Production

Digitized this from my old vinyl a couple years ago, as it's unlikely to make a CD appearance, unfortunately. My dad and stepmom took me to see this production (directed by Richard Foreman) in January, 1977. Philip Bosco had replaced Raul Julia as Macheath by that point. Don't remember if Ellen Greene was still Jenny.

This is the best English-Language version and recording of Threepenny there is. Actually, I think it's the ONLY acceptable one. Among the singers on this I can hear Tony Azito, who I later saw in The Pirates of Penzance and Jack Eric Williams, who I later saw in Sweeney Todd and I think Armin Shimerman (Quark from Deep Space Nine and the principal on Buffy).


4. "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" - Dusty Springfield - Dusty vol. 2

Great singer, great song (by Randy Newman). Glad I just got all this Dusty. Sounds like a Newman string arrangement, too.


5. "A Man Who Thought He Was Unmarriagable" - Tom X. Chao - Peculiar Utterance of the Day

I keep all of these downloaded on here. Listen to Tom's PUotD at THIS SITE RIGHT HERE.


6. "Colors of My Life" - West Coast Branch - Acid and Flowers: 21 Late-60s Psych Rarities

More psychedelia on download. I now have so much of this. I don;t need this much. Not nearly. But every time I listen to the stuff track by track, trying to cull out the dross, each one sounds like something I'd like to keep in a massive random shuffle.

What to do?


7. "Dental Hygiene Dilemma" - Frank Zappa - 200 Motels

It's just as if Donovan himself appeared on my very-own wall-mounted TV screen with words of PEACE, LOVE and ETERNAL COSMIC WISDOM!

Ah, from my favorite side of my favorite album as a REALLY little kid. I had no idea what any of it meant, I just liked the funny music and voices. Didn't get the lines like "His dick is a monster" (from "Daddy Daddy Daddy") and so forth.

Here, Flo, Eddie, and Jim Pons (all previously of The Turtles) enact the temptation and Faustian deal made by former Mothers of Invention singer/bassist Jeff Simmons in high-speed cartoon voices, with symphony orchestra and classical chorus.

[cough, cough] Ahmet Ertegun used this towel as a bathmat six weeks ago at a rancid motel in Orlando, Florida, with the highest MILDEW RATING of any commercial lodging facility within the territorial limits of the United States (naturally excluding tropical possessions)!



8. "The Coming War With Russia (excerpt)" - Jack Van Impe

Insane "science" from Christian propagandist Van Impe, trying to connect a quote from the Bible which (in translation) includes the word "element" with the H-Bomb (which, according to him, you can find info on at your local public library by looking up "elements").


9. "Audio Capture 0067" - Ian W. Hill

Several takes of me trying to do a Federal Express radio ad for my voice-over demo reel, false starts and all. Five minutes worth, with brief conversations with Berit in between takes as she makes suggestions and I try to explain what I'm going for. No, I'm not listening to all of this again.


10. "I Used To Think My Right Hand Was Uglier Than My Left" - Ken Nordine - Word Jazz

Poetry and jazz, poetry as jazz, jazz poetry. I'm not sure this is Nordine on vocals here, though. Doesn't sound like him -- sounds like his words and style, but not his voice. Not deep enough. Maybe just speaking higher here.


Enough then, got it done. Most of what's coming up immediately are things like sound effects I created for the Caveman Robot show (the lab door closing; Jorge Cordova multitracked and heavily-echoed yelling "Spree!") or more Tom X. Chao.


I've been fixing up more photos from my shows in Photoshop and posting them on my Flickr photostream, and have also created a set for images from my shows, for those who are interested. Enjoy.





I get to live my dream as a noir "hero" (really, here, a noir "fall guy") in this publicity photo for World Gone Wrong that has nothing to do with the show but iconography, as Bill Mist with Stacia French as Christina Wright, femme fatale.