By By B.B.

I noticed that renown blues stylist Riley B. King is playing fast and loose with life these days. Most notably the master of the modern blues has allowed
T-Bone Burnett, the fellow who got bluegrass all screwed up in that film "Oh Brother..." to produce his latest album "One kind favor". Well as anyone with any knowledge of country blues should know, that "one kind favor" is "to see that my grave is kept clean." It is possible that Riley aka B.B. King has been in the big band business a little too long and has forgotten that white people have a disastrous effect on blues musicians; Notice in the above photo where a "white woman" has put the "mojo" on King and is taking his guitar while he is helplessly entranced. I truly fear that with Burnett involved and the album getting such good reviews, King is liable to end up where a white guy musicologist feels an 82 year old Black Bluesman belongs; dead. I need to try and get in touch with Mr. King and key him in. Me not being 100% white I might have a chance to talk with him without him passing out like he does around other white folks.

Building chopper, a recipe for foolish fun and changing the world!

Now isn't that sweet? A fellow and his bluebird out for a spin back in 65 and stopping for a beer and a snapshot. Girls took it and had a poster made. They thought I was handsome. I had forgotten about the picture of me on the bobber until I got a call several years ago from the sister of a woman whom I used to date. The woman had died and the original picture was in her stuff. Her sister said there were also lots of my poems from Vietnam and maybe I should come up to NC and get them some time while her husband was off flying his airliner and maybe I should bring some pills if I had any. I asked her to please send the picture. Oh well.

Let me tell you about that bike. It was a 1954 Harley Davidson that was chopped in the Bobtail style. That's where the term chopper comes from. It was a dead man's bike from The DC impound lot It started life as a motorcycle that had a side car/box for delivering auto parts and stuff. Because of that setup you had a clutch on the left floor board and the gear shift on the tank. The back brake was a big pedal on the right board and the front brake was on the handlebar like most motorcycles. Now if you look at this motorcycle, you will note that it has no front brake lever. Why? Well at the time the folks who rode "chopped scooters" found the front brake assemblage to be déclassé and were inclined to replace it with a machined hub called a spoolie. I should mention that a lot of your original bikers worked in machine shops. Now the Bobber in the picture is black and orange. The orange is on the tank and the black lines were made with black tape. Orange and Black are the Harley Davidson colors. The seat on the bike was made from a one-way street sign covered in Naugahyde. It was not "tuck and roll" but something similar and very well done. This bob job was sort of a club project and it was an unspoken understanding that the dead person who had started the project was a black man. The seat was the first thing that we had made and we had big plans to work on the paint job too.

The Bobber had two parts on it called "suicide." The clutch and the shifter. Lets talk about the clutch. Most bikes keep the clutch up on the handlebar and here's why. Bike's got two wheels, so when you stop, down go your feet and you squeeze the clutch. Let it go by accident or because you are high and the bike stalls. Now the bob's got the clutch on your left foot. You roll to a stop put the clutch in, push on the brake forget to put your foot down and you will fall right over. The shifter? Well no one wants that big lever on their custom tank, so you take all that off and attach a ratchet fitting to the gear shaft just like a regular motorcycle has. Trouble is on a bike like the bobber the gear shaft is in back of the motor, so you must weld something to your ratchet top, like a wrench or something else shiny, and reach behind you and down just to shift gears. This is often called a Jockey Shift as well as a suicide shift. The whole deal with making a "chopper" is the bikes had rigid frames with no suspension, so you could get a springer front end and extend it out a bit and hang a 21" spoolie wheel on that then put high bars (ape hangers) on and a big fat rear tire and you were ready to terrorize the white man. Thing is you had to be a bit of a master cyclist to even get the full blown old school chopper to leave the scene of one crime and head for the next. Today's 50k+ bike that you see them build on TV is built to be ridden by, lets say, the 2008 version of Texino assuming he had just a little experience. It's a different world today, a place filled with a numbing sameness that people are happy to believe is something else. Well, I'm sorry but its not the same and I don't mean it in an "in my day we ate squirrel pie and liked it" sort of way. Back in my 1965 I was happy and free and going places where I was not wanted just to make the "Man" feel uncomfortable. Later on whole generations tried that. Didn't work because there was money to be made by then. Punk Rock? The Sex Pistols sold records. Grunge? Nirvana sold records. It's not that you cant be hip these days, you just have to be quick on your feet. Having a technical skill like welding
or programming a computer can really come in handy. Here is a hint. All the binary numbers that computers really like, such as 1,2 ,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512 and so on are made from 1 and then some zeros. Other numbers are made from 1s and zeros mixed together but computers just recognize two commands, "yes" and "no" or "on" and "off" so when someone writes a program they use a language which can be expressed as strings of numbers which are then compiled into binary numbers which is what the computer reads. That's why it is called a digital computer. Now, I don't think your average Chopper rider of today knows that unless he or she happens to have more that a passing interest in math. I don't mean to brag but I know quite a lot about fluid dynamics and how to compensate for pressure lost within a pipe due to its diameter and how far the fluid has to travel. (its a friction thing) What I really want to say here is that even if you are worthless in the eyes of society for being a certain way, you should
never stop learning stuff. Like it is impossible to do anything with physics without running into people such as Gold, Boyle and Bernoulli. Well these genii came up with some super theories like if you heat up a gas it gets bigger and if you create negative pressure positive pressure will try to fill it. (Nature abhors a vacuum) and other stuff which we take for common sense today.
Well were people less smart 100 years ago? No, but society tends toward conservatism. So in aid of that, I have promised that I will never become conservative and I will look a hard problems in hope of finding a simple answer to a complex issue. I mean doesn't it just make perfect sense that if you have a sealed container of some kind of gas and you heat it up, somethings going to happen? Well, not to over simplify, but what's to stop someone like you or me from figuring out something just as important? Nothing except becoming a grumpy conservative as far as I can tell. Thats it for now.

LIAR

It occurs that I have not been telling many lies on the blog. I don't like to lie because I used to tell lies on every subject you can think of and now that I have finally reached the end of adolescence at the age of 60 and 11/12 I feel very ashamed about being such a liar. I think I had some sort of mental condition. Why? Well, when I was in Vietnam, I had a very interesting and important job but because it had to do with winning the hearts and minds of the civilian population of that country, I was not supposed to talk about it, so I started writing these letters to my dad about these battles I was in and how we were killing the enemy right up in the wire. Now that was BS. They didn't have too many fights like that and I certainly wasn't in them. Whats more, my father had been a big shot in the Army and he could find out what I was doing (at that time, working in a motor pool) so why would I tell him I was being John Wayne? Fucking liar is why. This has a lot to do with insecurity and now that I've reached my young adulthood, I'll probably do much better. Meanwhile, back in the jungle, I had talked my way into the Civil Affairs detachment and had lots of real adventures like people have in thrillers. Back in the States; I read recently where this army officer retires and says the "The Gadsden Project was the most successful Civil Affairs thing ever in the history of the Army and the high point of his career and what all. OK, fine General Bubble Head, but you were just the C/O of the fire base where the actual people who pulled off the mission came from and went back to when we got tipped off that Viet Cong had put a bounty on our heads of 5K. (Actual money for actual head) How did they know? We had big signs on our bumpers say "Civil Affairs" so we can go in special places in aid of winning hearts and minds and buy stuff for building things on the local economy so the Army could have deniability. But you couldn't write to the folks at home and tell them about that, so I just wrote poetry to girls back there in hope of starting some fires for my return. It didn't occur that I might get damaged and fall through a spiral of terrible rest stops; each one causing me to give up some important memory or bit of pride. That's what happened though and since I had been an insecure liar most all my life, I had very little to start over on. Well I've been pretty straight the last 25 years except for the pill addiction, but I got out of that by my self. You know life is really fucked up when you do not have close friends and you are the sort who needs them. All I wanted to do here, was tell a clever lie like "Most weathermen are left handed" or "Fuel Injected Cars have the gas filler on the driver's side." and then go on to something else. Instead, I had to write a revealing essay about what a weirdo I am which is not likely to gain me any friends. It's the truth though.

Little Help Please.

My new GF Me shortly after being struck by lightning.

Hi I have a new girlfriend. Her name is Becky Wiggins and she's crazy for helicopters. We met in the ER. where I was taken after my recent bout with lightning. This is what happened. First I was leaving a house where I had been fixing a computer. Then I was sitting on the ground in an extremely quiet rain storm and my shoes were missing. ($200) Did I mention it was very quiet? Well I couldn't hear a sound, so I was not aware of the crowd standing behind me until their voices started to leak back like poor radio reception from a foreign country that used a lot of American words. I. e. "Blah blah brain injury, blah blah think he'd cover himself" Cover himself? Well I looked down and saw my shorts were split down the front ($42.75) and I had gained what the medical staff like to call a "Priapism" (a penile erection caused by some sort of trauma) Someone handed me a towel. An ambulance arrived. Anyway, I seem to be OK now excepting for a slight glow in the dark. The priapism has gone which is OK, because it is not comfortable. Now my problem rests with Becky who seems taken with me because I have a lot of experience with helicopters and also like many younger people (she's 19) is rather frank about sex. In other words she thinks I am pretty well fixed up for doing the job because she saw me when she brought me a blanket in the ER. The reality of course is that was just to do with a powerful spasm to the spinal muscles from the lightning. In truth, I do not think I could actually "do it" even if my partner was a sweet understanding soul with an operating helicopter haircut (the blades spin) who says that she wants to" hover on me." You know, I think I know guys who would really freak if they were in my situation sex wise. Me? I just go off someplace and dream up some interesting machinery like a boat that could cross the ocean using pedal power and lots of gears so it would not be too hard on you, or a truck that runs 24 hrs a day carrying a crew like a ship. If you are going to end up trapped in your head and unable to get out much it helps to have and imagination. Anyway, if anyone sees Becky Wiggins, please tell her I got called back to the Army to fly helicopters in Iraq. I think that would be the kindest thing.

Is the truth in your dreams?

Well if it is, I am stupid. Take last night for instance. I was fooling around dreamland, where I had become a rather successful timber baron. So successful in fact that I had taken a job as a volunteer showing people the way to get to the Smithsonian Institution using the least amount of gasoline. I was happy in my job and I got to go to many places in the museums I had never been before. Like the animatronic supreme court for instance and an exhibition called "Monkey Doodles." Both of these exhibitions seemed to have generated a lot of interest but before I could investigate, I was called to a office where some curators were arguing the merits of a stringed instrument. It had four strings and they were calling it a mandolin. I said I did not think of a four string instrument as necessarily being a mandolin and they looked at me as if I had really made a shocking and uncalled for statement. The head guy said not to worry because "Tomas will be leaving us presently" and handed me a fat folder. Then he said for me to leave and I would get further instructions. Well, I kept going around doing paperwork and my folder got smaller until finally I had a letter saying to go back to the fire service and a file that looked like a supervisors schedule. I was pretty excited actually because it seemed like I was finally going to get what I had though was my deserved position. I showed up at the admin. building ready to run my shift, but my old partner Mike said that the boss just wanted him and me to schedule some new hires to go to California for new uniforms. I said, well that's cool, I need uniforms and I would like to go. He got all embarrassed and said that the deal was they had been forced to hire some retarded firemen to clean the bathrooms and stuff and they needed someone to watch after them while every one was in CA. and they figured I could probably do it without fucking it up. I took the whole mess to the boss lady and told her that it was crazy and that I was a good fireman and medic and she had no right to treat me that way, but she just kept telling me how stupid I was over and over again.
I used to enjoy my dream world and think it was funny. It's becoming a real bother now. Maybe, I'll just have to get out into the real world to some degree.

Zipper Heads and why we must have them

A friend who is an author and a Vietnam Vet wrote and asked if I knew where the term "Zipperhead" came from. It was a word used by some to refer to the Vietnamese. Here is what I said in answer.

You know the whole world of Gooks and Dinks and Slopes and Zips just runs together. No one ever talked about those guys until you were in country. Where I was it was mostly "The Dinks" and sometimes gooks. Slope and Zipper Head weren't too popular. I always assumed that zip had to do with a particular sort of Vietnamese with an exaggerated slope to the head and slant to the eyes (seen more in cartoons that in real life) that suggested you could zip his eyes closed. I can see someone coming across a peasant in a conical hat and loose black pants and a long white top and saying "hey zipper head, come here" and the name sticking. I worked very closely with all manner of people in Vietnam getting my village built and I learned to tell the Chinese from the Pure Vietnamese and the various racial mixes and stereotypical issues they had. Some were extremely difficult to think of as gooks while others fit the roll to a "G". Of course most soldiers come up with a common nick name for those they might need to kill wholesale and unfairly. We either punish them for their audacity-–"take that Mr. Master Race"–– or we condemn them for their sneaky ways––"Burn you yellow Japs!" It's only later that it occurs to us that we were all young men and needed a name for the boogie man, so we would not recognize the possibility that we were shooting our kindred spirits for the pleasure and tactical entertainment of the elders who make their profits by proving the value of their machinery from time to time. It's always been so and will continue so long as we celebrate our time at arms. The fact that I sit around in my early 60s and can define my life by 17 months spent overseas in a war that had absolutely no positive bearing on my country or the life my kids led is a pretty sad commentary for the boys who were supposed to win WW III. I think what really needs to happen now is for a bunch of vets to come home –like from Iraq– and say "Fuck this" "It was the worst most useless time of my life" "Don't give me any service medals or parades, I don't feel like a hero, I feel like a sanitation worker in a project." "Now I want a job in a national park and never want to hear any patriotic BS again," " Leave me the fuck alone and lets just forget about this war like it was just a big mistake." Just let it drop, OK? Fine. There's your hero

perchance to dance

If you go outside of your home and, by chance, you hear some music playing,
It may be Hip Hop (another name for Rap) I like the term Hip Hop better because it implies dancing.
When music and dance go together like sleep and dreams, everything is OK.
I don't care for music fighting with my sense of rhythm; when I hear Bizet's Overture to Carmen, I want to high step like a Lippizaner Stallion, but I lack the proper count of legs. My next choice is cymbal crasher but it's damn impossible to sneak a pair of those suckers into a concert hall these days. So screw going to the symphony if the music has a beat. That's the whole funk thing; you hit the one or down beat then you can fool around popping and slapping so long as you get back to that one beat. Just think how much fun you could have at Symphony Hall if you sat on the floor. I'll bet all sorts of people would show up and march around or invent dances to, like, Beethoven's 5th. Get a big circle going and then all fall down. That is very powerful music. Black Music is just as powerful
but people had the good sense not to hold it hostage in a no dance environment. (even church) Just imagine, if you will, James Brown and The Famous Flames at Carnegie Hall with concert rules in effect. Wouldn't work. Jazz can get hot as well, but they keep it cool by giving the players CNS depressants and using strange meters and progressions. Any other tunes that go from the down beat are going to be a direct to dance tunes, so go with it what ever it is. Dancing is good for you. Do some soon. I'm not sure if you can though and here is why. When I was very young and growing up in Alexandria, Va. There was this place on my block called the Armory. It had something to do with the Army because during the Korean War, convoys of soldiers would show up at odd hours and march up and down in the street. "Hup two three four" "Ain't no use in going home, Jody's got your girl and gone" (I would meet up with Jody again, but I did not know it at the time) I have many stories about the armory too, but this one has to do with whether you can still dance in the street. For a summertime or maybe two and on Wednesday evenings around 7, men of middle and older age plus a couple of fat boys would converge on the Armory each one hauling a type of case that would without doubt produce a musical instrument with the exception of one that might have contained a full sized elephant's head. I must admit I lurked. Then one evening pretty much like any other and with neither a ruffle nor flourish, the group formed a band right in the middle of South Royal Street, struck up Anchors Aweigh and marched off. Children danced along. Not me. Too young. At least I figured out what was in the elephant case, tuba, a Sousaphone. The dance thing. I do not think you could just toss up a marching band in that neighborhood or too many others these days and march off at 7:30 on a summer's eve. and expect to return whole. Maybe where MS. Moon lives, but few other spots and that is just too bad. I have gone and put stories within stories again and not left any room for resolution. Hey I am just in it for the words

The Jesus Nut

The term Jesus nut has to do with Helicopter maintenance and refers to the one piece of hardware that holds the entire rotor system in place. The term was coined by Mr. Dr. Igor Sikorsky, the inventor of the rotor wing aircraft and the implication was that, should this small bit of machined metal fail in flight, the crew and anyone else aboard would be meeting Jesus as a bonus for suffering a horrible death. Now Dr. Mr. Sikorsky was a deeply religious person, so he probably meant the whole deal about the Jesus Nut and wasn't being cute.
In fact the whole Jesus Nut issue might have stayed locked in inquiring minds had it not been for the Vietnam War; the first war fought by the helicopter. What this came to mean was where the old time cavalry trooper would know about the diamond hitch to tie a load on a mule his modern counterpart knew how and when to check the Jesus Nut and other various and sundry things that would keep the "bird" in the air doing it's important work of dropping off the Troop for a fight and coming back to get them. Funny thing is Sikorsky did not have a lot of copters in the war. Today, almost all the helicopters in the military i.e. The Black Hawk and Sea Hawk are made by Sikorsky, but when people think Vietnam, they think about The Huey which looks like a mini van with sliding doors and all. It is a turbine (jet) and only has two main rotor blades. That means it is not particularly good at flying straight up off the ground and likes to have a running start. A person might get in trouble because he could easily put the helicopter into a spot where he cannot get out without some fancy and dangerous trick flying. When I was in Vietnam, I always worried over the state of the helicopter and had this fear that I would be flying along and suddenly catch site of Jesus floating by tossing my. Jesus nut in the air and catching it. You see it's quite possible to land a helicopter with no power so long as the transmission is not seized and the rotor will spin. Of course if Jesus has the Jesus Nut, the rotors will come off and the craft will fall like a stone leaving you to meet your maker as Pancake People.

I know that this is not a very clever of funny post, but it does contain information you can use.

The House of Texino

OK, when I was young I wanted to design women's clothing. I didn't tell anyone, so it was assumed I would either join the Episcopal Clergy or become a medical doctor.
First off, went through the confirmation process and became an Acolyte and a Crucifer. Now it may sound like The Crucifer would get to crucify people and perform other useful duties here on earth , but his responsibility is simply to lead the procession into the church for the service. The procession includes the ministers and the choir. If there is a junior choir, there is also a Junior Crucifer. His job is to lead the junior choir out when it is time for Sunday School. The Crucifers are called that because they carry a cross on a long pole so there is no doubt that Christians are heading your way. The Juniors cross is made from wood while the real Crucifer Carries a fancy number made of a heavy gold metal affixed to a stout wooden pole . The Acolytes are the guys who lite the candles and put them out. You get to dress up in a priest outfit (more or less) and you do other stuff, like moving "The Book" The altar of the church is a holy place and you better respect it at all times or you are going to hell. It also has two sides to preach from; The Gospel and The Epistle. When the minister is preaching the Gospel and he's done he says so, like "Here endeth the Gospel" and then you must move the bible to the other side of the Altar. Isn't that strange?
You get to help out with the Holy Communion too. I learned a lot about religion working at that church. One thing that really struck me was that church was a huge social event, and a lot of folks who sang loud and tipped to collection plate heavy couldn't wait for the coffee hour that came after the service so they could gossip about other people and say really rude stuff, but then turn on the charm when that person showed up. I kept waiting for God or at least Karl the deacon ( and a former Nazi by all accounts) to set these parishioners right and when it did not come to pass, I had no choice but to assume that if the Lord let such stuff go on in His house, He either was not home or did not care. Later as studied various types of medicine, it became fairly clear that while the overall message put forth by the cult of Jesus Christ seemed OK, the man Himself was quite possibly nuts.

It may be possible by the amount of words put down thus far for you to infer that it took me some amount of time to conclude that the ministry would not be my calling. Well, yes and by the time I had figured out that my belief in God was ambiguous at best, a group of teachers had conspired to brand me as stupid, un-trainable, not college material, a hoodlum and worse. Of course while this made me the most popular kid in school, it really dampened my hopes of getting into med school or any other trade for that matter. I kept pushing, however; I was no match for the system and as punishment for my questioning nature, they kicked me out of school and right into the waiting maw of the US Army where they would either make a man out of me or kill me in the process. A real Win-Win for the old school.

So there I was, a combat happy GI. 19 years old and in charge of a village built to house refugees from an area called The Iron Triangle. The whole idea of this triangle was that somewhere within it's boundries was the southern terminus of The Ho Chi Minh Trail. The trouble was that this was also a populated area where peasents worked the land for meager rewards . The Army came up with the grand pan to make this a free fire zone (against the rules) and since this could seriously complicate winning the hearts and minds of the non communists, they developed the Chieu Hoi program. This consisted of pieces of paper called Chieu Hoi passes that were fired at the peasents from canons and dropped on them via special bombs. This is a picture of a Chieu Hoi Pass.





Well the program was a success and a lot of Vietnamese came to call. We needed some place to put them, so we set up a building program and built a village. A sort of Vietnamese Levittown
with a duck lake and a swinery. When I left RVN in 1968, I think we had about 200 homes.
While I was at the village I learned how to be a doctor. Every Tuesday, a real doctor would come to the village and people from all over the area would come in for a free exam and a ticket for an x-ray if they needed one. The Vietnamese were very keen for having pictures made and viewed a chest X-ray as just another type of portrait. Anyway, the doc liked me and taught me lots of skills. I started a new religion in Viet Nam; Made an altar from an adobe brick, burned a bunch of Joss, sacrificed a frog, ate it. Then I wrote a rambling manifesto about the Chaplain's
assistant, singed it "The New Religion" and posted it on the official bulletin board where it stayed for a long time.

Yes, when I was young I wanted to design womens clothes. Dresses and shoes in fact, but as you can see, I was side tracked by the expectations of others. Funny thing though, I was able fight off the perception of failure that high school tried to hang on me and over time I went on to be successful in both the medical and metaphysical fields; successful enough for me. I did design some jewelry, but it wasn't very good, and when I started doing web pages I realized that I really did not have a eye for color, plus I can neither draw nor sew. On the other hand, I happened to see a show on the TV last week where "Designers" were put against one another in a contest to make clothing from various stuff. Some were very clever and some were very not.
I found myself thinking, "Hey, I would have given that skirt a little more 'flow' . Now, just like that, I am in business.
I don't want to give away all my secrets, but for my Florida Fall Line, I'm planning rain wear for you gals that just screams "SEE ME!" with Daffodil Yellow and Lime Lime Slickers with those pelican hook closures done in stainless steel. (Tres Nautique) Topped with a matching Sou'wester (that rain hat with the long back and the turned up front) My ladies will stay safe and dry. In fact, you can think of the whole Texino line as Fun & Functional or the other way around if you like. Please keep an eye out for our creations. En Salon at Paris, Milan and Honolulu.

... but nobody wants to die.

That's part of a blues song. "Every one's talking about getting to Heaven, but nobody wants to die." Blues people tend to be realists and I try to emulate the best of them by laying around most of the day and staying up late at night waiting to be tempted by the devil in the form of a woman in a red or blue dress. Rarely does this occur, so I tend toward idleness and other sinful action certain to keep me out of God's good grace and it has finally come to my attention that when the boys at R&I in Heaven's precinct pull my jacket, I will not be allowed entrance to the supernal eternal lands beyond the pearly gates. Sort of cheeses me off that I might be at the cross roads of eternal damnation while the angel grandpa from Bil Keane's Family Circus cuts a deal with St. Peter so it will snow and his grand kids can try out their new sleds. I don't remember much about Gramps Keane before he died, but, since he did, he sure gets A1 service up there in Paradise. Like I said, it bugs me, so I went looking for some folks who seem to think Heaven is a lead pipe cinch at the end of the trail and after checking them out, I'm pretty sure Heaven may not be the place for me to bump around after I die. Please allow me to share;



Any question that these people doubt their place in the after life? None in my mind, so I'm not so blue about missing the golden rocket. No, I'll take my chances with that bunch who hang around after the the band stops playing. I've always had fine times with people who like music and been real happy with the friends I made because of it. Maybe that's been my heaven all along. If there is any other sort of after life left for me, I can only hope they have a nice selection of books and that it is not too cold or too hot. I need to think about this in hopes that there will be something forthcoming for the bits and pieces of good I have done over the years. Hope I can have a dog.

"... and Tits"

Yeah that guy Carlin. The dude with the obscenity riff. The thing with the seven deadly words you can't say on television. He died. What did he do? Was he really funny? Was he as important as Lenny Bruce? Lenny Bruce used all those dirty words in his act, but he wasn't a "Blue comic." Red Foxx was a Blue Comic! Belle Barth was a Blue Comic. They said Lenny was a genius. George Carlin was a regular stand up comedian. He came from the Bob Newhart and Shelly Berman School. Guys who didn't tell jokes so much as do bits. You know, little acts, plays, monologues. The things you expect from comedians now, but it was all new after Lenny made it hip and these other guys honed it cool. It's easy to understand if you look at Lenny Bruce as Jazz and Carlin as Folk Music, good folk music, but Folk Music.
So George went along and started growing his hair and opening for musical acts in the big clubs. Acts like the Kingston Trio Stuff that was very popular, and he sort of paved the way for comics and music to exist in the same formats. You wouldn't have seen that with your famous comics of the past like Bob Hope and Milton Berle. Those guys might have worked with a big band, but there was no question that the comic was the top banana and when you look back you see that Hope and Crosby and Berle were not particularly nice men and enjoyed humor at other peoples expense. Then came Lenny with his Jazzy ways and his way out hop head morals and things were never the same and even though Hope and George Burns lived to be 100 years old they could not change a thing. Lenny did not live very long, lots of junkies don't, but he lived long enough to give us the likes of Carlin and Newhart and Steve Martin and Richard Prior and comedy flourished. George was funny. He did comparative bits like Foot Ball vs Base Ball.
He would growl in a real tough voice that football was played on a gridiron and then gently murmur that baseball was played in a park. Funny. Obvious, but still funny. George was quite expressive. Well for some reason George felt a need to embrace the "counter culture" and he came out with some questionable choices like Al Sleet, "The Hippy Dippy Weatherman" Trouble there was he did this in the Summer 'O Luv ––sometimes known as 1966 ––and there were many movers and shakers about who took their status as Hippies quite seriously, so Carlin's portrayal, while humorous, cast him in the light of grownup from then on and when you measured the man against the competition he was a pretty goofy one at best. George didn't get it though, so he kept on, becoming involved with those dirty words, the seven words you could not say on TV. It wasn't that he cared about the words so much as he worried about the the bad thoughts underlying the nation. His point was not that we should use the seven words. It was on the order that there are not any bad words just bad ideas made by bad people using all sorts of words. Carlin pressed on that point through a period of self destructive drug abuse but he came out OK, and even though his late material was a tad scary in that he seemed to feel the human race had been given a fair chance but blown it beyond redemption, his sweet demeanor never left him. I think we loved George Carlin for that sweetness; his anger was more sadness than anything else. Carlin said religion was BS and I am apt to agree especially these days, however; to bang a dull gong of irony I could point out that in the gospel of Luke the last seven words spoken by Christ were " ... for they know not what they do." Because of George Carlin and those who came after we have a platform where those odd men and women who practice the art of social comedy can keep us well informed as to exactly what "They" might be up to at any given time. It is a good thing to be able to laugh as you take stock of those who would be your enemy on the basis of how you think. You probably don't think too much about comics operating behind the lines, but when you think about guys like Rush Limbaugh getting exposed as a pill head pervert, you can bet some funny person was behind it.
So, yes it is very important that we give George Carlin his due as an innovator of the 1st generation of social comics. More important still is the fact that he is far from the last

The Fridge.

I suppose that of all the people who deserve recognition in the world of refrigeration and air conditioning/cooling development, my vote would go to Dr. John Gorrie who, in 1850 or 51 demonstrated an ice maker and set experiments in motion that would led to the invention of the paradox of compressing a liquid so it got hot and then letting it turn into a cold gas that would be sucked back into the system through an expansion valve and turn back into a liquid and then the cycle starts over again. Works pretty well. I like Dr. Gorrie because he lived in Apalachicola Florida which is an OK spot. Also, the doc figured out that sick people might feel better if they were nice and cool. He was a humanitarian.

So what is all of this in aid of? Oh, I have bought a new refrigerator. So? So this. I have, through my efforts as a refrigerator whisperer kept my former appliance running ice cold for 25 years at a cost of .016 cents per day or roughly 1 penny per week. I know whats wrong with this appliance too and I could fix it. The thermostat relay is broke and I could just bypass it. Thing is the refrigerator is past it's life. It's out lasted several others on the block by 5 or 6 years and I guess a new one might be better on the power savings as well. got to be green. The new fridge is a Kenmore white standard freezer on top. It'll do. That old coolerator sure held some fancy champagne and nervous lobsters and more fine foods than I can recall. These days we just don't live like that. Nothing from the hunt, the river the sea. I cleaned out the old box tonight and realized I was dumping the condiments of a life style I am not ready to give up but may damn well lose anyway. The curse of being ill and gaining age. You will make no new friends with whom to share the old sauces. It is not that they are not worthy, it just seems that most older couples come with auto-blatheration machine which tends to operate through the wife but can run through either or both partners. I was tailing an A-B machine through the grocery just the other day. She was on a mobile phone and from the subject of her blatheration I gathered there was a plan a foot to kill a guy called Harry by depriving him of; red meats, whole grains, raw vegetables, fishes of all types, eggs and just about everything save boiled rice gruel. you ask Bill and Marge for dinner and say how about we do salmon on the grill? In the not so long ago Marge would say "Fine, we will bring some wine." Today, however, the Auto-Blab will cut in and start giving you the 3rd degree about is it wild salmon and this and that? To which I am sorely tempted to say. "Well Margie" "We took these two fish as they returned to the sea from the Fraser River in Canada and kept them for 5 years on a strict diet of hypo allergenic Salmon Chow." Then when the urge to spawn hit them we harnessed them to a dynamo where they produced many more kilowatts of power than it will take to cook them." "Meanwhile, the fish became in such a high state of sexuality during this f spawning run to nowhere that just a mere taste will cause you to desire sexual congress with your partner later in the evening, the intensity of which will surely surprise you both to the point that you may well conceive children!" "Yeah, it's wild salmon." I think I'm going to miss the old ice box. One more thing. I got up early and decommissioned the fridge. I dragged it outside, took the doors off and washed it out with water and bleach so it would not smell it the tropical sun and little kids would not lock themselves aboard whatever craft they dreamed it to be. Stinky salmon barge to Mars most likely.

For which it stands

Today I feel compelled to write about The Flag. It is, after all, Flag Day and me being a veteran who fought and some say died in a war sort of gives me the added push I need to get going, so let's go.

One thing about the US Flag that is a little disturbing is this. If you look at a picture of it––like the one included here––the only part that seems solid are the stars upon the field of blue. Otherwise, if you do not imagine that you have 7 red strips sewn equidistant on a white field or 6 white stripes sewn on a red field the whole flag will deconstruct before you eyes. In real life flag waving, this is not a problem and our flag snaps on it's pole, staff or jack with the best of them. I know one thing and that is from an early age I had a great sense of love and pride salted in my breast for the American Flag. How this came to be I can't say. My family was somewhat eccentric and we certainly did not go in for patriotic ceremony on any regular basis. Still from the time I entered real school I was quite content to spend my days staring out the classroom window at the flag. How did I learn? Well, strange as it may sound, I seemed to already know every thing they were teaching, so I just looked at the flag for two years my heart swelling with pride and happiness. Then came the dark days of 3rd grade and room 103 across the hall with no flag view! What to do? I took a reality check just to make certain there was nothing I needed to study or learn. (there was not)
Then I made a startling discovery. The school was a vast airship! It rose up each day and flew about the clouds and returned to earth around 2 o'clock. The very logistics of the machine kept me busy for the whole of third grade. The school was built like a big T with the cross bar having two stories and being the front while the single story primary wing was in the tail of the letter. Each class room there had a door leading to the main hallway and one to the outside.
The outside doors were painted different colors so that when the kids bailed out with their flying belts for recess in the clouds they could fly back to the correct cabin and not upset the ship's balance. #103 was orange. The next year I was back on the flag side again but now I had some stuff to learn and did not stare so much. I also joined the safety patrol and got to do some flag handling; raising, lowering and folding. The school stopped flying as well; budgetary matters I think. Anyway, I learned that you should take the flag dead serious at all times. For instance if a patrol let the smallest bit of flag matter touch the ground, the kid had to kiss each star while reciting the pledge of allegiance over and over while the rest of the crew stood at attention giving you the fish eye. (I heard it was much worse in the boy scouts)

Why did I love the flag so much? How come I just learned enough to be a soldier and never really grew up? Is it possible that with so many unfulfilled lives floating around in the post war baby boom period some of these poor lost souls were sucked into the over flow of mindless babies lying in hospital for many long days before they went home. Today a new babe goes to his or her mother's breast at birth and the bonded unit goes home pretty damn quick. Back in 46-47 babies lay around the nursery forever or at least enough time to present a target for a lost soul on the cruise. Who knows?

After all this weird conjecture, I'm still very proud of the flag, I do, however, have issues with the republic for which it stands and believe that it needs a very large adjustment. That's something you grown ups will have to handle. I seem to be stuck in a loop that covers the emotions an intellectual bounds from 6 to about 18 and then life makes little sense. How's about helping a vet out?

One of these days and it won't be long-

Hey Bo Diddly! Sorry sir but Mr McDaniel has cashed his final check and we will be taking his number from our directory pending recycling after a set period. Well damn, they took another player from our team and a good one too. Bo Diddly dead at 79. Elias McDaniel was a man of driven to perform and if he had an audience, so much the better. Part comedian, part performance artist, part blues man and full on innovator it's easy to fool yourself into thinking the the Bo Diddly Beat defined the man. Then you listen to some of his hits like "Can't tell a Book..." and "I'm a man" and find it missing then you got to admit the guy was a lot more than "Shave and a Hair Cut." No two bit flash. Nope you got to put Bo in there with Chuck Berry as a sort of proto- music gangster who just did what the hell he wanted and let the DJs and record companies sort it out. I remember big sister going to see Bo Diddly at Virginia Beach way back in the early 60s when concerts were not really the thing yet. I waited up to hear about it. "Well," she said "a bunch of colored men put up a whole lot of speakers and it was really loud" (Sister seemed a little dazed) "Well was it good?" I demanded "We all danced"- "I'm going to bed" I had the information I required. Really, were it not for my older sister and her friends who turned me on to people like Jimmy Reed, and Mose Alison and Yank Rachel, I might still be sitting on a stool framming on a folk guitar stuck in the theory of relative minor. But I was very lucky indeed to be propelled toward the type of music where one was required to say a lot by doing very little and if I did not develop a whole lot of soul, I sure learned to spot it.

Now the people who let me see what was good and worthy in music are dropping out as quietly as springs passing blooms and I'm sad from the stand point that before long I'll go too. We get older and pretend that life's end is just another bump in the road. Don't believe it. We are but a collection of clockwork, fast and slow and will go to great length to draw out the cosmic tic and tock until our walls fall in. It is man's great desire to live, so to have lived well should indeed make us complete. Oddly that doesn't always seem to work because for all the honors Bo Diddly received, at the end he chose to bitch and moan about people stealing his style when they were only flattering his memory. All I can advise is try to work those grudges out before your walls of time fall in on you, and seee that your grave is kept clean.

Oh Oh

I got this warning in the mail. I think you were supposed to pass it along to everyone in the world. I was called " The new First Family" or something along those lines but what it was really about was showing lots of pictures of "African Natives" of the stereotype typified by the graphic shown here and then identify them as relatives to the natural father of presidential hopeful Barack Obama. The fact that the senior Obama was an African is no secret nor is the fact that he abandoned his US family and went back to Africa where he had some more wives and kids. I think he's dead. Never the less there are no shortage of snap shots of the relatives of Barack's Dad goofing around the Dark Continent looking like natives.

What does this have to do with Sen. Obama's qualification to be President? Nothing, however; it does show that he may have a decent chance because these are the actions of a frightened opponent. I must say that I was distressed when I saw the Democrats were putting up what seemed to be two unelectable candidates in a year when they pretty much had a lock on the race. I think a woman is electable, just not Mrs. Clinton. Too much baggage with her husband; too much cold calculation on the spot. Now a Black person? I can dig it. BUT IMO, both JFK and RFK were assassinated because they allowed states rights to be set aside on the subject of race, and even with the possibility that the "illegal" is actually the "new Nigger" I still believe they are crumpled up old men who will not allow a black to succeed and since Obama has the charismatic power and forward shaped ideas to carry the nation and his racial group into a new thought pattern, it is a given that he will be taken out by untraceable means before he can institute a legacy for a successor to honor. Boy what a country!

What the Hell do I know?

Not much. I do know that I'm not like most other people and that has stood me up over the years. Now that I am reaching an old age, however, I see where I little more conformity might have come in handy. But, what the hell do I know? I have a few ideas. Your mortal soul for instance. People including science people have shown interest in the existence of this phenomenon even going to the trouble of weighing people on sophisticated scales right at the moment of death to determine the weight of the soul, while others have used the magic of photography to capture the essence of life waving goodbye as it wafts away from it's former host, now a useless shell. But wait! What about these dead people who come back to life?
People who have all the clinical signs of death, most often from immersion in cold water or sometimes purposely cooled down like those who have heart surgery. These people are technically dead, yet, when managed properly or else by a combination of very good luck suddenly fire up, and they are just fine. This kind of rubs against the soul thing because, if that ethereal bit of "self" actually did fly off to glory when the old body lay down, these lucky ducks who wake up after 17 hours of "death" should by all events be Zombies. Of course they are not. Far from it, in fact, for your average modern day Lazarus tends to declare that "God" has a little task for them and they are positive He will let them know real soon.

Now let me tell you a little something about God. There are exactly 1 zillion people on earth and you got to ask your self this: If God is in control of the whole banana, what is the use of Him bringing people back to life or allowing them to survive some terrible calamity when He might just as well put some people on the planet with the power and intellect to put things right? What I am saying is the people who "Know they have been saved for a special reason" are not given some Biblical task, such as moving a mountain or digging a hole to China. No, if they do anything, they are likely to get on the radio or TV and ask for money to do God's work. God's Work in this case would be making sure that the preacher has a fancy car. It would certainly do God a big favor were some TV minister to live in clean but modest circumstance, drive a 1993 van and distribute all the millions of dollars directly into a structured program to help the poor and homeless without being judgemental and forcing opinions on them in exchange for a bowl of soup. I think God would gain quite a bit of favor were that to happen. People might even believe in Him and as a favor He might save the planet. But what do I know?

Hank Snow Island killer (secret message to the Canadians)

At's right. Mr. Hank Snow, The Singing Ranger from The Maritimes. The man is responsible for literally driving good solid maritime provinces from the shores of Canada and leaving the remaining populations terribly high strung. The provinces of which I speak include Newport, RI.; Martha's Vineyard, MA; The Channel Islands of CA. and most of Hawaii as well as the Philippines. A lot of good real estate has left the Commonweal due to Snow's weird habits of making up strange songs about rocket ships and squids and Filipino Eskimos. We are talking about actual islands just drifting away to other countries. In my opinion Canadians should unite to bring these homelands home. Snow's dead, he cannot hurt you anymore. Just think the surge of pride that could come from bringing the Islands home could do wonders for the poor souls in the remaining connected maritime lands, people like my friend Dane who goes ballistic at the suggestion that Canadian Baseball rules allow 5 strikes and Metal bats. It's just a joke Dane! Personally, I think it is a damn shame that Canadians can't seem to recall when these Islands were a part of the great lands north of Buffalo. Trust me, they were as Canadian as Leonard Cohen ,and while putting the land back on the Canadian Coastline may not be plausible, I should think a person with the power of The Presidency of The USA could probably put the titles right back in your pocket. Oh, you didn't know I was running for office? Well I am and it's a write in deal, soooo anyone who drops over the border
around election time might just nip into a polling place and write Texino on a ballot; as often as you want actually. If things work out for me, I wont forget you. Know what I'm saying? I am saying if you border boys help me in this election, I'll cede a bunch of valuable islands to Canada on the premise that they were originally yours. American Sovereignty? Screw that, I'm from Panama. Hows about you guys help me in Florida and maybe I give you Long Island! I tell you I'm ready to deal and there are plenty of hot properties here in the US that I can easily live without and would fit right in to cosmopolitan Canada. Like New Orleans for instance. Or Tampa, FL. Tampa/Toronto see what I mean? I say take some of these spots an infuse a little Canadian common sense and we will have two very fine countries at work.

Think it over. OK? Fine.

Frog Power

Texino here and, yes, I am still interested in being your write-in candidate for President of the United States (cha cha cha-Ole') For my parties' mascot I have chosen the humble but extremely powerful, from the occult standpoint, Green Frog. (see image)  Powerful?  Well consider this.  In Tibet rumor has it that Chinese engineers attempting to build the world's highest railroad to Lhasa were thwarted in their efforts by the interference of a frog the size of a truck.

Now the rumor does not exactly spell out what the big frog did.  I suppose one day the Chinamen were laying track with the ant-like cooperation that comes from being a good commie and the uncanny precision which causes one to continue the Chinese-insect metaphor, when all of a sudden they came upon the large amphibian sunning itself in their path.  What to do?  Well, in every People's Project, there must be a political officer to make sure that, even though everyone is the same, workers take orders from their bosses who are not really their bosses in theory but are in practice which, BTW, is why Communism looks so cool on paper and attracts intelligent and wealthy British Homosexual

 men in such large numbers.  My point here is that this being a communist undertaking it is quite possible that a committee was gathered to discuss the options afforded and just as likely that this was done at the railhead in full site of "The Frog" and even more likely still that the insect metaphor was not lost on the giant jumper who may well have decided to sample several members of the hastily convened politburo.  At this juncture, I'm certain a consensus to just "Run a-way" was reached and and the project was abandoned.  Of course it is far more likely that simple economics played the role of giant frog here and the world''s highest railroad was a victim of the world wide slump.  Big Frog makes for a better story though and the government doesn't look too bad.  Rumor is big in China.  People don't read and write.  You ever see what passes for writing in China?  Riiiight! Those pictograms are supposed to be words?  Sez who?   Well I'm not here to discuss this.

It's Frog Power that's on my mind and I think I have demonstrated that The Frog is a symbol of mystical power and certainly a worthy campaign pet.  So come on out and jump on the Texino Bandwagon and, come election day, if my name's not on your ballot, please write it in. You will be helping your country and your self.     

                                                                                                                                                   

The Last Refuge of a Scoundrel

That's correct folks, Politics.  By now it is probably no secret that I have managed to alienate one of the hardest working acts in show biz simply by questioning the way they decreed things would go and then not exactly agreeing with it.  Well one thing led to another thing and now things sit at such a point that I have no choice but to run for President of The USA either by "Draft" or "Write in".  Now drafting works because I have been drafted before and things came out OK.  In fact, while Candidate McCain was sneaking around the skies blowing up whatever was down below like a bloody terrorist, Texino was fighting the "enemy" face to face and gaining respect for him as a person which is what allowed us to end the war and get guys like McCain turned loose with their heads still attached.  I mean it people, when Terrorist blew down some buildings in NYC with our own stuff.  We went crazy and started a war with the guy who did not do it and then rejoiced as he was hung by his opposition party.   Meanwhile back in the Vietnam years when war was just starting to be in color we were blasting the crap out of any damn thing there was to hit and then hauling ass out of town, it's no wonder that the locals were a little cheesed off when they caught a brave night pilot.  BUT?  Did they hack him to death? No.  Did they cut off his business and feed it to him? Nope.  Water Board?  Water Ski? Hardly.  No, they put them in a parade with the wreckage of their plane as evidence and people yelled at them because they were angry.  Angry, just as we would have been had, during our war between the states, the Canadians suddenly appeared in flying machines dropping flaming haystacks and overly ripe OX carcasses indiscriminately about the south.

See there are two sides to every conflict and the sooner you understand what's truly the matter

, the quicker you stop it and people get friendly and trade develops.  Everythings OK.  

Well, if I'm so smart, how come I'm fighting with this couple.  Glad you asked.  These folks are like and independent country; one of the good ones that showed up after the breakup of the Soviet Union and it's going to take "Politics" to put this one to bed.

My plan?  Well I think I'm pretty bright and I know where to find the muscle when it's needed.  Texino is a proud old name and easy to write.  Really a big T and a little x will get you by on a write in.  No way that will be misconstrued.

Now I would like to speak about my running mate V.P. Candidate Linda Lookadoo (rhymes with Mikado)  Not Only does Linda's name add some oriental mysticism that has long been missing from the American Body Politic but the concept of a president with no 1st Lady at hand (Mrs T is having none of this) and an attractive unmarried VEEP is certain to set tongues wagging from The Washing Post to the Nat'l Enquirer and getting right to the people who are crass enough to vote with their repressed libidos.  My Public!  Also just because I'm rhyming Lookadoo with a Japanese name doesn't mean she is one.  She's a hot red head who will do what's necessary to help our ticket.  You know,  "Win a date with The VP to the Black Keys Concert."  We are ready to run this fucking country right know what I'm saying? (Rap)  So start the ball you all-Tommy Texino -The Candid Candidate go to the Polls write it in, things be much better than what they been!  That's TEXINO   904-540-7869 call me early call me late We'll talk about your state. (End Rap)

See you...TT

The Terrible Truth or Won't you come home Mr. Talent

Hi, You know how it is when someone gets an awful disease and they say "don't worry, I'll beat this?" Then they never do. Well the bad part about all that is they really think they are going to beat the thing. It's human nature. Even me. Not only have I been losing my ability to play stringed instruments over the last six years or so, but the whole time I've been telling myself and everyone else how hard I have been working and how I was going to get a CD of my stuff out; maybe doing all the ballads that used to get me in good with the girls. I even have a studio in my house capable of making this record. I have all the instruments, software and microphones too. The only thing missing is the talent. Yes the talent. That certain "I don't know what" that I had for all these years, the thing that allowed me to get away with being a performer while not being the best player or singer, but gave me the confidence that I could stand up against anyone in either department. The "Talent" seems to have taken stock in my situation and decided that I'm no longer a good risk . Either that or something like it because the bastard's done a back door on me. I'm serious you know. I pick up my new mandolin (was to be my salvation) and play a scale. Well part of a scale. It's like digging a hole- do re mi-but my fingers fumble and the notes will not flow. This is bad because the scales are just repeating patterns learned by rote and are something you do while Mr. Talent is having breakfast or a brief nap. Then I'll try a tune. Well most tunes are just bits of scales with a A part and a B part and hardly something to get Talent out of bed for unless you are really putting on a show. Well, in my case, I try to fight my way through a simple song I've played 1000 times and get the distinct feeling that Talent is not even in his room let alone in bed. No, I fear that the dread Parkinson Company has finally cut enough of the Rainforest in my head to affect the special broadband communication with my hands that is necessary for real guitar playing to take place and, in turn, attract an itinerant Talent. See, I can be flippant about it because I still don't really believe it can happen to me. Just give me another week or so, I'll break out. See what I mean? Thing is I wont stop trying and if anything, it does give a bit of a glimpse into how people with real problems like cancer keep going, even when the truth is right there for you to see. Human nature. It is an Awful and a Terrible thing, but if you allow those words to hold their original meaning you will know it is not bad.