Radio, Prison and Tubular Memories
Well
Like I’ve said more than once – today I’m doing the interview and then a couple of songs and then – well we’ll see what it sounds like on Saturday. (Gothamradio.org).
I’d normally say it’ll be god awful but I figure let’s just try and optimistic for a change – even if it damn kills me.
I’ve been given the questions before hand – (since we have about 2 minutes) and after the broadcast I’ll try and give more detailed answers – don’t know why – just because well I have a blog I might as well use it no?
I note that Scooter Libby has been given 30 months in Club Fed. Before sentencing there were presented and impressive number of letters by big wigs, Including Lon, Sorry Dick Cheney, other Senators and spineless bootlickers (sorry) members of the press and the like all praising Libby because he was a good family man, and was a decent human being etc. etc.
None of the letters mentioned that he’d be convicted on 4 of 5 counts. I like to think the Kissinger and Cheney’s letters got him an extra 6 months in the pokey.
What’s Scooter Libby and Paris Hilton in Jail?
A good start.
Elsewhere the 6 or 7 really really white guys had a debate last night - standard stuff Rudy threatening bodily harm to people, most of the them saying just how much they love them the Jesus (somewhere Jesus is sitting in a chair head in hands – muttering to himself and making whistling noises with his hands in utter despair) and how much they hate bad people. It’s politics for children frightened of shadows, terrorists, gays, science, and brown people – but that’s their base.
Also they all avoided mentioning George a lot – who was over in Europe in all probability re-igniting the cold war.
Meantime news comes of an incursion by the Turkish army into Northern Iraq – which is controlled by the Kurds. The Kurds and the Turks have little love for each other – the Turks in days past (as was their wont in days past) massacred the Kurds on more than one occasion. There is also a sizeable number of ethnic Kurds living in Turkey and there are enough of them who wish to see the establishment of a greater Kurdistan at Turkey’s expense to make Turkey nervous enough to launch this incursion. It was one of the reasons the Turks didn’t care much for the invasion of Iraq in the first place. More good work George.
I’m not quite what to make of the JFK plot – but I’m leading towards the demented bad people who did not have a clue how to go about doing the things they wanted to do meme. Would that all that wish to cause harm were this incompetent.
It’s the 39th anniversary of Bobby Kennedy getting shot in the head. My memory doesn’t have the stunned clarity of JFK’s death but I remember watching the TV and seeing RFK laying on the floor his wife kneeling beside him and RFK staring up with dead unfocused eyes. I remember 1968 as a year of raw bloody chaos from the Tet offensive to the election. Summer of love my ass.
I suspect it is the memory of those days – either personal or institutional that keep the Beltway on such a don’t rock the boat track all the time. They must feel they came within an eyelash of the whole thing melting down and they never want that to happen again.
Meantime thinking about the Tubes – a strange sort of band – I really loved one side of their first album, one song on their second and nothing else. But that one side and that song were just so spot on that I forgive them.
The tubes came San Francisco and got a name for a bizarre stage show – and songs that were utterly out of bounds – even by the standards of 1975. Sex Drugs misspent youth – bizarre costumes – (yeah they’re an influence so what)
I first hear about them when I was – having looked at all the pictures in the copy of OUI I had bought – OUI was playboy’s attempt to have a bit of an edgier adult magazine – Penthouse was gaining and it was making the folks at the Mansion nervous – so they put out a new mag or licensed it or something. Anyway aside from a salt and pepper three ways pictorial that pops into my mind from time to time I came away with the idea the Tubes were someone I should check out.
And I did got their first album at the local record store (they don’t exist anymore ah nostalgia will be the death of me) – the first side of the album wasn’t much – really – even now it’s just an eh on my part – but the second side – starting off with Mondo Bondage (I would run away to Spain but I’d just get tied again) then Boy Crazy (which to older ears has a touch of misogyny in it) then What do you want from Life (which starts off as a kind of well what do you really want Love maybe? Kind of song and ends with a hilarious list of Things an American citizen is entitled to ending with: “A Los Vegas Wedding, A Mexican Divorce, a solid gold Karma Sutra coffee pot, or a baby’s arm holding an apple” (I can’t recreate the distortion they put over the voice of the voice as it says “baby’s arm et al”) but it makes be smile me up every time.
Then their Mangum Opus – White Punks on Dope – a send up of the dope culture and the emptiness that spawned it (“we’re white punks on dope – mom and dad live in Hollywood, hang myself when I get enough rope”) – when on stage the lead singer Fee Waybill (once described by a hostile review as the being able to sing only two notes and both are flat) dressed up as Quay-Ludde in 70’s glitter gear and what looked like 3 foot tall platform heels (like Elton John wore in Tommy). The song ends with an angel chorus and Fee jabbering stuff until the song collapses into the sound of a toilet and someone laughing “is that all right?”
Oh yes it was. I played that damn thing over and over again - I tried to get my friends in college (grateful dead pot smoking guys who thought jerry was deep) interested but, as with the Ramones later – dead eyed states.
Which is what happened to the Tubes writ large – no matter how good or as deranged as their state show was it was a) very expensive and b) it didn’t turn into album sales – radio for the most part wouldn’t touch this shit with 20 foot poles – I hear White Punks a time or two on the old WLIR but that’s about it – WNEW was far too serious to broadcast this kind of psychotic gibberish so they were shut out (and the idea of selling their records at the gigs hadn’t occurred to anybody yet).
They went on to a decent if not fabulous career as a mor radio band, leaving the anarchy for the stage show – when I saw them at Wolman’s rink in central park they drove a motorcycle on stage for their faux fifties sex duet “don’t touch me there” . A cherished memory that one.
So if the stage show ever gets so out of hand that we have a fifty foot inflatable Stacy or people with insect heads – blame the Tubes.
Peace, Love, White Punks on Dope.
Like I’ve said more than once – today I’m doing the interview and then a couple of songs and then – well we’ll see what it sounds like on Saturday. (Gothamradio.org).
I’d normally say it’ll be god awful but I figure let’s just try and optimistic for a change – even if it damn kills me.
I’ve been given the questions before hand – (since we have about 2 minutes) and after the broadcast I’ll try and give more detailed answers – don’t know why – just because well I have a blog I might as well use it no?
I note that Scooter Libby has been given 30 months in Club Fed. Before sentencing there were presented and impressive number of letters by big wigs, Including Lon, Sorry Dick Cheney, other Senators and spineless bootlickers (sorry) members of the press and the like all praising Libby because he was a good family man, and was a decent human being etc. etc.
None of the letters mentioned that he’d be convicted on 4 of 5 counts. I like to think the Kissinger and Cheney’s letters got him an extra 6 months in the pokey.
What’s Scooter Libby and Paris Hilton in Jail?
A good start.
Elsewhere the 6 or 7 really really white guys had a debate last night - standard stuff Rudy threatening bodily harm to people, most of the them saying just how much they love them the Jesus (somewhere Jesus is sitting in a chair head in hands – muttering to himself and making whistling noises with his hands in utter despair) and how much they hate bad people. It’s politics for children frightened of shadows, terrorists, gays, science, and brown people – but that’s their base.
Also they all avoided mentioning George a lot – who was over in Europe in all probability re-igniting the cold war.
Meantime news comes of an incursion by the Turkish army into Northern Iraq – which is controlled by the Kurds. The Kurds and the Turks have little love for each other – the Turks in days past (as was their wont in days past) massacred the Kurds on more than one occasion. There is also a sizeable number of ethnic Kurds living in Turkey and there are enough of them who wish to see the establishment of a greater Kurdistan at Turkey’s expense to make Turkey nervous enough to launch this incursion. It was one of the reasons the Turks didn’t care much for the invasion of Iraq in the first place. More good work George.
I’m not quite what to make of the JFK plot – but I’m leading towards the demented bad people who did not have a clue how to go about doing the things they wanted to do meme. Would that all that wish to cause harm were this incompetent.
It’s the 39th anniversary of Bobby Kennedy getting shot in the head. My memory doesn’t have the stunned clarity of JFK’s death but I remember watching the TV and seeing RFK laying on the floor his wife kneeling beside him and RFK staring up with dead unfocused eyes. I remember 1968 as a year of raw bloody chaos from the Tet offensive to the election. Summer of love my ass.
I suspect it is the memory of those days – either personal or institutional that keep the Beltway on such a don’t rock the boat track all the time. They must feel they came within an eyelash of the whole thing melting down and they never want that to happen again.
Meantime thinking about the Tubes – a strange sort of band – I really loved one side of their first album, one song on their second and nothing else. But that one side and that song were just so spot on that I forgive them.
The tubes came San Francisco and got a name for a bizarre stage show – and songs that were utterly out of bounds – even by the standards of 1975. Sex Drugs misspent youth – bizarre costumes – (yeah they’re an influence so what)
I first hear about them when I was – having looked at all the pictures in the copy of OUI I had bought – OUI was playboy’s attempt to have a bit of an edgier adult magazine – Penthouse was gaining and it was making the folks at the Mansion nervous – so they put out a new mag or licensed it or something. Anyway aside from a salt and pepper three ways pictorial that pops into my mind from time to time I came away with the idea the Tubes were someone I should check out.
And I did got their first album at the local record store (they don’t exist anymore ah nostalgia will be the death of me) – the first side of the album wasn’t much – really – even now it’s just an eh on my part – but the second side – starting off with Mondo Bondage (I would run away to Spain but I’d just get tied again) then Boy Crazy (which to older ears has a touch of misogyny in it) then What do you want from Life (which starts off as a kind of well what do you really want Love maybe? Kind of song and ends with a hilarious list of Things an American citizen is entitled to ending with: “A Los Vegas Wedding, A Mexican Divorce, a solid gold Karma Sutra coffee pot, or a baby’s arm holding an apple” (I can’t recreate the distortion they put over the voice of the voice as it says “baby’s arm et al”) but it makes be smile me up every time.
Then their Mangum Opus – White Punks on Dope – a send up of the dope culture and the emptiness that spawned it (“we’re white punks on dope – mom and dad live in Hollywood, hang myself when I get enough rope”) – when on stage the lead singer Fee Waybill (once described by a hostile review as the being able to sing only two notes and both are flat) dressed up as Quay-Ludde in 70’s glitter gear and what looked like 3 foot tall platform heels (like Elton John wore in Tommy). The song ends with an angel chorus and Fee jabbering stuff until the song collapses into the sound of a toilet and someone laughing “is that all right?”
Oh yes it was. I played that damn thing over and over again - I tried to get my friends in college (grateful dead pot smoking guys who thought jerry was deep) interested but, as with the Ramones later – dead eyed states.
Which is what happened to the Tubes writ large – no matter how good or as deranged as their state show was it was a) very expensive and b) it didn’t turn into album sales – radio for the most part wouldn’t touch this shit with 20 foot poles – I hear White Punks a time or two on the old WLIR but that’s about it – WNEW was far too serious to broadcast this kind of psychotic gibberish so they were shut out (and the idea of selling their records at the gigs hadn’t occurred to anybody yet).
They went on to a decent if not fabulous career as a mor radio band, leaving the anarchy for the stage show – when I saw them at Wolman’s rink in central park they drove a motorcycle on stage for their faux fifties sex duet “don’t touch me there” . A cherished memory that one.
So if the stage show ever gets so out of hand that we have a fifty foot inflatable Stacy or people with insect heads – blame the Tubes.
Peace, Love, White Punks on Dope.
posted by Unknown at 10:32 AM
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