Posted 12:49 AM by sport

Liz Belmont sends this link to Rich Black's article on Uncle in the current Long Island Press.
http://www.longislandpress.com/current/music_feature_01.asp
Much obliged, Liz!
Thanks, Rich, and hail to thee!

Jim Santo is now on board to get the website up and running, so soon we'll have that to while away our hours. I envision entire full-length downloadable feature films, soft-screen blowjobtronic apps, and time travel hyperlinks. Watch this space for updates.

Personal aside to Jaime Klein: For some reason, most of the emails I send to you bounce back "undeliverable." Some get through though. What's with that?

Remind me to tell you all about the Outsider Music Show at Fez last Friday, hosted by impresario / gadfly Irwin Chusid. Mostly a wonderful evening, especially seeing the greatest performer on Earth, B.J. Snowden, and the justly legendary, unjustly neglected R. Stevie Moore. Mr. Moore and I are keen to collaborate, which would be a glorious thing for me, as his 1970s self-releases Phonography, Stance, and Delicate Tension changed my life. As gifted as any songwriter / performer who ever plugged in an amp, RSM said "eh" to an industry that ignored his magnificent songs; he rigged up a home studio, played everything himself and just put 'em out anyway. He did this LONG before it was commonplace or convenient to do, and the results were (and continue to be... he's never let up) equal to or greater than the work of every pop wunderkind who's received the acclaim and do-re-mi RSM's been denied.

His participation in the "Outsider" fest is apropos, since he's been locked "outside" for longer than I've even written songs or thought of doing so. It also demonstrates the elasticity of the concept of "outsider music." Chr*stgau has had the audacity to publicly characterize Irwin Chusid as a "tedious ideologue with a hustle," but he is more like the Alan Lomax, John Hammond and Broadway Danny Rose of the uncool, the unsung and yeah, sometimes the unhinged. Chusid celebrates artists too "out there" to fit standard definitions of "artistry," irking standard definers whose entire theology is thereby blasphemed. R. Stevie Moore, though, has produced shelves full of work even THEY would consider valid if only he'd had the courtesy to either succeed in the biz or fail in a way they could regard as noble.

He just keeps rolling along, though, outside the radar, outside the gravy train, outside the ordinary and outside categories. Out here, he's the Beatles.

Posted 1:12 AM by sport

SOME STRAY BITS…

(Been slack on the blog lately, so here are some things I've had hanging around.
The first is a clipping from the L.A. Times Book Review. In 2001, they ran a lengthy review of the book AMERICA'S MUSICAL LIFE, A History By Richard Crawford. The review was by author Ken Emerson. We join the review already in progress...)

Such impertinence goes back at least as far as America's first international hit song, Stephen Foster's "Oh! Susanna." After a couple of verses of seeming nonsense ("the sun so hot I froze to death"), an unexpected hush falls "when everything was still" and a vision or the ghost of the singer's lost love comes "running down the hill," at which point the tempo picks up and the tomfoolery resumes with "the buckwheat cake was in her mouth." On his recent CD "Magic Beans" on the "Kill Rock Stars" label, Mike "Sport" Murphy dramatizes the continuity of this tradition by interpolating Foster's verse into one of his own songs and following it with a verse from Bob Dylan's "Memphis Blues Again." ("I am convinced," Murphy e-mailed me, "Dylan used 'Susanna' as his model.") Interestingly, Chadwick's "Jubilee" also quoted Foster, in this case his "Camptown Races." Perhaps what Ralph Ellison called the "near-tragic, near-comic lyricism" of the blues is the hallmark of all American music.

Ken Emerson, the Author of "Doodah!: Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture" and Co-author of a Recent Documentary about Foster on PBS's "The American Experience," Is Working on a Book About the Brill Building Sound and Pop Songwriting in New York During the 1950s and '60s
Copyright © 2001 Los Angeles Times

(So thanks, Ken.
Here's a group of short bits from unsent batch mails I'm busy deleting. First up, a snipe.)

"I don't like his work... I think it's ugly" - Jules Feiffer on Basil Wolverton.
Ponder this a moment. Oh wait, do you know who these two are? Jules Feiffer is a New York beardo… one of these smug aesthetic wannapunchems who impress the stupid and the pretentious by simply having cultivated a louder sneer. He wrote the instantly dated Elliot Gould (see what I mean?) vehicle "Little Murders" and drew a comic strip for the Village Voice for about 300 years. The strip looked identical every week - a sequence of loose, brushed ink renderings of subjects so dull you forgot them AS you looked. The gags, such as they were, consisted of self-congratulatory p.c. ironics that sank like bad donuts every motherfucking time. What, o what could suck more than the work of Jules Feiffer?

(I never did get around to discussing Wolverton. I will, trust me. Next is an observation.)

It was revealed to me, in a blinding epiphany, that Thelonious Monk composed "Round Midnight" after viewing the Bogie/Bacall film TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT. What happened was, the score (largely a set of variations on co-star Hoagy Carmichael's "Baltimore Oriole") seeped into his head in fragments, and there took root and bloomed as the masterpiece he then entitled after a reference Bogie made (agreeing to make the plot's pivotal rendezvous around midnight) in the film. This is one way masterpiece begets masterpiece… genius inspires genius.

(And lastly, a gripe.)
Sport Murphy has never heard a note of music by Stephen Merritt. So fucking leave me alone. And Sport knows he supposedly resembles John Cusack, but come off it already.

(That's all for now. My computer is breaking down, I fear, and I have no money.)

Posted 10:41 PM by sport

What is it… Detrol?
Bladder control drug.
Anyway, it's the ad with that jingle: "Gotta go gotta go gotta go right now! gotta go gotta go gotta go!" I'm sure many people find this annoying as hell, but I applaud the song. While we're all not beset with bladder control problems, we all know that feeling, and boy oh boy does it suck! So how does one convey the urgency of this universal problem musically?

Here, the composer chose a Gene Krupa / Courageous Cat approach. Frantic tom toms and a bass that walks in place as if it's "holding its own" against that insistent drum boogie. A double tracked female voice delivers the infernal lyric line, not viva voce but confidentially… breathy, suggesting severe tension… that "bottled up and ready to burst" panic that could not come across if the lyrics were delivered too freely. Where "I'm crazy 'bout a Mercury" trades on standard gospel-derived exuberance, this is the sound of a personal emergency of the most private, physical kind and a mental torment nigh unto madness. The voices taunt with a dead-serious undercurrent rare in jingledom. Even the trumpet playing under the narration contributes, blowing a wild jazz line reined in by a mute.

What happens to a whizz deferred?
Well, nothing… it won't be. Seconds tick… the unthinkable looms. It's unbearable. Gotta see a man about a horse… and it's a bucking bronco on jimson weed. We feel terror and acute discomfort. This jingle isn't fucking around. The key is indistinct, but a minor mood prevails.
A minor mode mood that means major business…key of P …sharp.
And still the drumming, the incessant drumming. A "Sing, Sing, Sing" Sing-Sing of the soul ...and the sphincter ...in which nothing in life matters anymore except this NEED.

Payoff: the character depicted in the ad has discovered the product and - unburdened by the call of the floating kidney and all the threat it implies - goes about her business confidently. The jingle shifts to a gentle swing and the singer - as if liberated by the "pause that refreshes" but really just indebted to this drug that lets her hold her water - trills her victory song: "…and I don't hafta go right now!" This time she's not whispering the lyric, she's singing blithely and sweetly but full voiced. The melody, in a major key now, is almost reminiscent of "nya na na na naaa naaaa!" in its primal, childlike satisfaction, but she's not teasing us. She's skipping along, declaring her new freedom as guilelessly as some Holly Golightly of the nether plumbing. She'll go when she wants to, and she'll enjoy it too… but right now the sun is shining and the world is a glad place. Turn on all the faucets… drive over a bumpy road… tell the funniest joke you know… it's all just fine with her and her urethra. She invites us to share her newfound pissless bliss, and how can we resist the offer?

Whether or not we shared that "Urge For Goin" (to quote songster Tom Rush) with her, the jingle sure made us feel as if we did, and her cabaret ease here finds us "relieved" in the deepest sense a jingle for anti incontinence pills can manage to inspire.

Here is one fine, fine example of the jingler's craft. Thanks for your time… gotta go now.

Posted 6:29 PM by sport

This is a bite from the web page of Raymond Carney, a scholar who has written books on Frank Capra and other subjects, but who is notable as the main champion of the work Of John Cassavetes, my favorite film director. I highly recommend Carney's writing; he's an original thinker discussing important things. His page is here:
http://people.bu.edu/rcarney/
The selected quote is apropos to today's "event" …the release of my album "Uncle," which reminds me of a TS Eliot quote I'll keep to myself rather than risk belaboring the obvious.

Carney:
John Cassavetes tells the story of his life and work in both books, based on interviews that I and others did with him. Part of the research involved reading the reviews of Cassavetes' films that appeared when they were first released in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. The experience was an eye-opener. To call them negative would be an understatement. Pauline Kael called Faces "dumb, crudely conceived, and badly performed;" Variety jeered at Minnie and Moskowitz as "oppressive," "irritating," "shrill," "numbing," and "indulgent;" John Simon called A Woman Under the Influence "muddle-headed, pretentious, and interminable," and Stanley Kauffmann said it was "utterly without interest or merit."

End of Carney quote.
A long time ago I was sitting in a pub with Tony DeCosa and mentioned that I'd like to find some way of making records that would be analogous to the ways (note that this is plural) Cassavetes used film. Soon I broke up the rock band and began working toward that goal. I've learned that the closer I come to reaching it, the less my work will be accepted or even noticed. This is torture, but what else can I do? I'll never know if the process has been successful or to what degree it is or isn't, since response to my work tends to be a blank stare. In another direction. People derive satisfaction from their work through money earned, prestige accorded or some feeling of personal accomplishment. The first two are permanently out of the question for some reasons I understand and others I never will. The third is rare and transient, but welcome and savored when it happens. But this is what I do, for better or worse, and while I regret the personal damage it continues to cause, I am neither ashamed of it nor apologetic for any of it.

So last night, breaking my promise to avoid such things, I thought: "Well, fuck it, let's see if there's anything online about the album yet" …all I found was the following, from a St. Louis critic named Steve Pick (an admirer of well-known scumbag Robert Christgau):

Sport Murphy, "Uncle," Kill Rock Stars.
Self-indulgent concept album about childhood trauma or something like that. Subject matter as important as the time a bird flew in the house. Music that's intentionally goofy and uninterested in making anybody want to hear it.

Does it mean I've reached my Cassavetes ambition because a prick like Pick dismisses my album so utterly and demeaningly? Of course not. Does it mean he's right? Of course not. In fact it means nothing at all except that some nonentity got paid to give a cursory listen to some of this album and write a squib about it. He deliberately ignores the clearly stated circumstances behind the album, choosing to belittle it as a navel-gazer's whine. "Self-indulgent" is a favorite term of many snide critics, along with "Pretentious." He uses the "...or something like that" device of indicating that my work is probably muddled and surely trivial, but certainly beneath his sage consideration and, by extension, any listener's. This reveals the writer's pretentious self-image: the objective auditor of other people's work, patiently sifting through the chaff for examples of inarguably fine music you and he can agree upon.

He mentions one of the few apparently "silly" tunes as a means of implying that the whole thing is based upon irrelevant events and inane whimsies. Then he extends this to the music, derided as "goofy" and willfully repellent. All this is fine, and my critic-friendly friends (and my critic friends) will sigh that, once again, I'm taking this shit too much to heart. Well, what this suggests is that these friends believe that criticism means nothing. So the work of a critic is meaningless? No, that can't be. Must mean that the work critics evaluate is meaningless. No that can't be, because then, ipso facto, the work of a critic is, again, meaningless. Then all it means is I'm a thin-skinned jerkoff who takes his work too seriously.

NO. Fuck that. I am no fucking idiot; I worked hard on this album during one of the - strike that - THE worst time of my life and the lives of my loved ones. I produced a work of honesty and, I think, beauty with a specific set of creative parameters toward a particular end. I avoided the sort of tribute schtick that would play on 9-11 emotions and prop up an illusion of my own nobiltiy by attaching myself to Pete's courage and ultimate sacrifice. I see where the flaws are, and am positive that listeners of the Steve Pick variety would never notice these even if they bothered to listen and think about my work on its own terms. Assuming they were capable of comprehending an album that defines its own terms as fully and idiosyncratically as Pete and I defined the terms of our own individual lives. My friends and I spent months crafting this album and the result is something I am proud of, despite a few admitted fumbles.

This odious pismire squirted out his response in about 5 minutes or less while skipping through the cd in a noisy office (not supposition, but proven by other reviews where he states this flatly). I choose to view the arrival of this bummer - in the first hours of the day my record is released - as a reminder to keep my guard up against other insults and dismissals to come. It reminds me that I work not merely despite them, but because of the lazy, smug and ugly approach to life they represent. They've come fast and furious my whole life, and one never gets used to them. But I continue to live and work on my own wavelength and I am my own hero. If that seems "self indulgent" to say, then you may not understand what it means to try and live up to the example of the heroes you have, if any. I assume Rayond Carney would not define Cassavetes as his "hero" but in the terms I'm talking about, he is, just as Carney is the hero of Cassavetes' reputation. His writings will continue to enhance understanding of these incredible films as long as they are screened, which will be as long as true art is needed. The work of others, like Kael, will be valued by nobody but film school students - as a practical textbook on how to impress critics - and wannabe critics as a careerists' guide to what kind of blather gets published.

I'll use Pick to firm my own resolve, which means I will make his uselessness useful to me. This is the creative act. Kiss my ass.

Posted 11:33 PM by sport

KOOKY LAWS!
(Excepted from an email fwd-fwd-fwd-fwd-ed to me by a friend. Who makes these laws, anyway?)

When in ANNISTON, ALABAMA, be sure not to nail a fish to a wall! A hefty fine awaits fish-nailers in the "Magic City" caught "red-herring-handed!" Ouch! Ha ha ha!

For some reason, the good people of WILSON, NORTH CAROLINA seriously object to anyone wearing an "animal costume, sports mascot outfit or other furred disguise" in any "hospital, clinic or pharmacy" within city limits… best slip over into the next town for your meds, Barney!

Hope I'm not stuck in PROVO, UTAH next time I have an urge to take some target practice at any "dairy item!" It could land me in the hoosegow for weeks! Guess all those "Provo - lone gunmen" have to stick with deli meats!

Careful about "free speech" in CORVALLIS, OREGON! The University there insists - and I quote - "OSU asserts ownership over its name in any form or combination (such as, but not limited to: Oregon State University, OSU, Oregon State) and any other mark, logo, insignia, seal, design, slogan, mascot, service mark, symbol or any combination of these, which refer to or are associated with OSU." OK, fascists, have it your way!

Better think twice about molesting children in MAMMOTH LAKES, CALIFORNIA, where the town burghers frown upon such things! I'll keep that in mind, you fucking bastards!

Burying the body parts of unidentified drifters is not a wise choice in LEBANON, INDIANA! "Severe penalties" are "liable" to apply, according to the hypocritical scum making the laws there! C'mon, just a thigh or two… whaddya say, you Godless cocksuckers? Ha ha!

All the "fine, upstanding" citizens of NEWARK, DELAWARE, WAUSAU, WISCONSIN and KALISPELL MONTANA had better think twice about sending me any more secret psychic messages or tampering with my energy. I swear by all that is holy, mine vengeance will be unspeakable in its wrath.

Take my silence as weakness and you too shall pay, LEWISTON, MAINE! The deceitful intentions behind your smile, O City of Whores, are as visible to me as the symbols of demon-worship and all that is malevolent branded into the purulent flesh of your ill-begotten spawn. I have enough firepower stowed away to wipe you off the map. Oh, and I have maps, too. Lots of maps. And carfare.

And on a related "note," singing on a municipal bus in GLORIETA, NEW MEXICO is a no-win proposition! Keep it in the shower, Pavarotti!

Who makes these KOOKY LAWS, anyway? Ha ha ha!

Posted 6:49 PM by sport

Before I forget to mention it again, please note that mad visionary Otis Fodder is undertaking a massive, worthy project: 365 mp3s, doled out in daily increments for our delectectimification. Otis is half of The Bran Flakes, who you really ought to get hep to if'n you ain't. I'm proud to have my Chromalox dissertation included in his selections, along with a file of that awe-inducing recording. I think it's the Jan 12 entry, and do check the rest of the archive. Irwin Chusid performs Jacques Brel's "NEXT!" among other delights. Go look and listen:
http://www.otisfodder.com/365days.html

Posted 3:57 PM by sport

Today there were 69 messages in the email, of which approx 10 were not spam. Of these, approx 4 were directly to me, as opposed to gig announcements and other batch mail. One of the batch mails came from Jay Spero, who sends an amusing review he found on the "All Music Guide." This website, by the way, calls my label "Kill Rock Star" and has my nickname as "Sporty" instead of the correct "Posh" Murphy. This review is for an album entitled "Transfigured Night" but it's not Schoenberg, it's some ambient type artist I'm unfamiliar with. A grand sentence is here quoted:

The music of Ebeling Hughes is a potent spell against the disheartening mysteries of life by itself providing and framing mystery into an enjoyable, vicarious voyage of healing dosage ready to cure at will from the platform of a five-inch aluminum disc. -- Tom Schulte

Haw haw! And speaking of reviews...
While making the weekend rounds, I stopped by Tower, Borders and Barnes and Noble for to see my review in UNCUT magazine. Each store had the old issue on the racks.That's Long Island for yez, droogies. Oy. Anyway, it's supposed to be the February issue (with the Clash on the cover), not the January issue (with the Who on the cover). I always intend to avoid reading reviews, but this one sounds positive, and the writer was nice enough to send me a heads-up on it. We'll see. It wouldn't hurt to hear someone say something nice about my work.

Saw some edifying TV this weekend:
One creepy-crawly nature show featured a guy who had some parasitic fish swim UP HIS DICK! Guy had a FISH UP HS DICK! Fish just swam up as he was urinating in some South American Rio del Cess and squoze right the fuck up into his dick! Up his dick! A fish! Holy Toledo!
Then there were several hours of "Sports Disasters" ...my favorites are invariably the clips where rodeo guys, bullfighters and Pamplona knuckleheads wind up FUBAR when bulls turn the tables on their stupid motherfucking asses. I also enjoy when skater kids get their joints mashed and their faces scraped off while attempting daredevil maneuvers in public places where they oughtn't be doing such nonsense.

New Nick Cave album "Nocturama" is even more disappointing than "Murder Ballads" (which seems to be his best seller to date... figures).

While on the crapper, I perused an issue of "Elle" which featured one of these 4-foot Lolita singers on the cover. This one is called "Akita" (or "Samoyed" or Borzoi") and is Tommy Mottola's latest product. She looks exactly like Mariah Carey and insists that her career success has been preordained by the gods. The article quotes Gabriel Garcia Marquez as endorsing this songbird's self-proclaimed mystic destiny. What the hell is going on?

One last tidbit... after watching part of some movie about a dead junkie supermodel named "Gia" I did a websearch in order to confirm my suspicion that the short, uninteresting life of this tragic mannekin probably inspired a desperate cult. Hoo boy, did it ever! The message boards are crammed with both teary tributes and angry denunciations of the poor girl, and one included old fashion photos where the website owner CIRCLED HER TRACK MARKS!!!

Posted 3:49 PM by sport

(Briefly back on the topic of odors, Jim Gray sends the following, with which I fully concur...)

Incidentally, the worst smelling substance in the world is a chemical called ethyl mercaptan. You have certainly smelled a watered-down version of it on the NJ Turnpike in Elizabeth, NJ.

My two favorite smells are
1)When you open the case of a 30-40 year old brass instrument. A mixture of mildew, glue, oil, copper and zinc.
2) Six-week-old-puppy. They exude a pheromone that makes
you love them.

(...Thanks, Jim. Glad I'm not alone in this consideration of the snifftacular aromarama surrounding us, so to you I send the Ol' Factory Cheer.)

Posted 3:19 PM by sport

Put Mom back in hospital, but this time it seems she'll be home quicker. My general plan of action is to be such a noodge… such a time-wasting pest… such a complete thorn in the doctors' sides that they finally do their job if only get rid of her and me. I hate them with passion untold. Auto mechanics will lie, cheat and neglect you as well, but as crooked as they are, their chicanery won't usually KILL you, and they don't strut around like a cross between Mike Love and Mussolini.

Looks like Island Ear is gonna run a piece about me and Uncle. Huzzah and Ring-A-Ding: Long Island acknowledges my existence! To accompany the article I sent a b/w drawing depicting yours truly sitting there eyeless and entwined with a cyclops-serpent. This is all laden with heavy symbolic meaning, and should never even be pondered without adult supervision.

The New York Daily News promises ink as well, which should go over big with a certain
Kabal of Kizzunts in Brooklyn, who probably have Pete's name and image copyrighted by now.

Now there is at least a stopgap image on the website sportmurphy.com for visitors to look at, yawn, and move on. Which can also be said of the way some visitors regard the Sistine Chapel, really, except more and better things are to come on my website, while Michelangelo is dead, so you could friggin' rot waiting for updates.

Apparently Amazon.com is taking pre-orders for Uncle. KRS was not yet set up for that at last report.

And that'll complete this boring blog entry.
The fuckers have not won yet.

Posted 3:48 PM by sport

The current issue of the British music mag UNCUT includes a review of UNCLE. I am told it's a positive write-up but I have not yet read it.

If one strikes "UNC" from the mag name and the album name, what's left is" UT" and "LE". If one then puts "I" in the center, as befits my solipsistic bent, the result is "UTILE", which my dictionary defines as a synonym for "USEFUL" ...which I hope this review proves to be.

Of course one could, by the same process, reverse them for "LE" and "UT" and maintain objectivity and alphabetical custom by putting "A" first. That would leave "ALEUT" - an Eskimo. In that case I may soon be blubbering.

All of which proves that self-centeredness and individualism beat objectivity and custom.
Unless you're into Ayn Rand, which mixes up the whole thing.
Buy UNCUT and buy UNCLE is all I'm saying.

Posted 1:12 PM by sport

There are more filters on my email than in a carton of smokes. Any time certain keywords appear, the message goes right into trash. Sometimes I give the trash a quick once-over in case some message from a friend wound up there accidentally on account of that friend using one or more of the verboten words. "PENIS BALDNESS ANTIVIRUS ON DVD WITH SEXY INKJET INSURANCE REFINANCING!" "NO CREDIT? VIAGRA, MCVOUTY! FREE TEENAGE CHICKS WILL UNSUBSCRIBE FOR YOU ON LIVE LAGOS NIGERIA CAM!!!"

Usually there's a fake name claiming to be the source: "Esteban Takahachi" "Natasha Mbaqua" or something. So the unopened messages in my trash have a truncated subject line followed by the "sender:" GOVERNMENT WEIGHT LOSS WHORES!!! LIVE!!!!... ...DESMOND MNGKLRWRA"

Today I got:
"PROTECT YOURSELF AGAINST..." "JOHNNIE MATHIS"

Posted 8:27 PM by sport

SCENTS OF WONDER (or, In Fragrance Delecto)...

Shoe Repair Shop
Old-type Ben Cooper Hallowe'en Costume
Head Shop-impregnated Comic Book Pages
Freshly Printed Ditto
Lakeside (not Jesco) Gumby
Bumpercar Ozone
Heap of Burning Leaves / Heap of Wet Leaves
Unused (for-a-long-time-with windows-closed) Office
Zippo
Christmas Tree
Linseed Oil
A Whole Bunch Of old Books
Garam Masala
Berrie Jiggler
Ben Gay
Newly Line-Dried Laundry
Pinaud Clubman
Pencil Shavings
Fireworks
Escaping Air from a Popped Dry-Roof-Tar Bubble


ON THE ODOR HAND (or, Mute Nostril Agony)...

Internal Combustion Engine
Rock Club
Pet Food
Old Bait
Vitamins
Fat Guy Who Works at Comic Shop
Smoke Machine Smoke
Hair Spray
All Shit Except Faint Horse Shit
Air Freshener
Raid
Broccoli
Cologne Samples in Magazines
Tap Water in Deposit, New York
Clorox
The Subway
Money
Mall Food Court
Doctor's Office
Racks of Clothing at Certain Thrift Stores

Posted 12:25 AM by sport

Safely tucked in the blog, where I can say what I please like a paranoiac in his isolation cell, the temptation to simply complain can become irresistible. I'd describe my current life as a purgatory, and further reasons for that will doubtless be laid out here in the blog despite my attempts to resist whining. As an effort to temper that tendency and remind myself that it isn't ALL awful, I offer a brief list of personal reasons to be grateful, looking back at 2002.

1) They found Pete's body 1-1-02. There are families who didn't have that finality, as sad as it was. He was physically intact, and that is - somehow - a comfort. A man who had seen the papers and recognized Pete as the firefighter who saved his life that morning contacted my sister. He told of numerous others Pete and his men rescued, hurrying them to safety in the seconds before complete collapse of the tower. Apart from proving he died instantly, this confirms that his efforts were worthwhile (concretely, not abstractly, as it might seem to some that have no information regarding the specifics of their loved ones' final moments). There are families still laughing together today thanks to Pete's bravery and that of his buddies. There are still some people who take the trouble to share this kind of solace.

2) Went on a cruise trip with Shelley, My sister Maureen and her husband Ira, my brother Brian, and our nephew David. This was affirming, and showed us that we could still, well, laugh together. I discovered that I REALLY love escaping reality via a floating hotel with a dozen different bars, and actually proposed to Alex Crank that he dip into his benefit fund to join us on another. I suspect he has better things to do with the money, and while I don't, I have no money either, so it's kinda moot squared.

3) Don and Kathy Brockway, marvelous friends and exceptional people, hosted a "house concert" with Richard X Heyman that instilled enough good vibes to last for many moons. Don and I share the same birthday, and he's a mensch, so I can't blame the stars for any of my own bullshit. I also mention this event as proxy for the various invitations (whether accepted or regretfully declined) to salubrious conviviality offered us this year. Broken salsa bowls at the Guzman apartment and empty bottles in the LaGrutta backyard bear testimony to a thousand ephemeral moments of effusive bonhomie. Cheers, all.

4) Brian O'Connor and Bianca Bob Miller gave me paying work this year, doing two of the things I like doing most: writing and singing. Money being tighter than a clam's leotard, this is deeply appreciated. Bianca, by the way, also graced Uncle with her talents. Her efforts in response to Sept 11 were (and are) beyond merely inspiring; she is a human antidote to a world of bullshit. Brian, on the other hand, spouts and inspires bullshit of a type and degree that make me wish Vaudeville still existed so we could take our act on the road.

5) Speaking of the road, Miles Hunt and I are hoping to traipse through the UK before too long, doing our Everly act for the punters. A very strange series of coincidences emerged this year, which practically render us cousins. Watching this inebriated crooner - fresh off the plane from Dubai - strum through my tune "The Lost Children" at CMJ (after a stunning turn by Michael Ferentino and Andres Karu) warmed the very cockles, and at that time I didn't even know about the interwoven histories of our respective kinfolk.

6) Rich Black boldly stood up for my Horror Garage artwork against an inhospitable editor, and anytime anyone stands up for my work I stand up and cheer. I spend a LOT of time sitting. "Rrrrrricoooo… Negre!"

7) A sweet and revivifying trip to see Jennica and Dave Kalbaugh down in Maryland (via West Virginia) may well have proved Shelley's and my salvation as the year approached its especially anxious terminus. Mountains, antiques, dear friends too rarely seen, and a bunch of their local chums who actually LIKED my new album!

8) Uncle sessions, abetted by a host of friends under Bill Miller's generous auspices, often overcame the anxieties and sorrows behind the project for a blessed while. The result does not for the most part embarrass me, which is an accomplishment. Imagine my feeling when the phone rang: "Hi, Sport? Van Dyke Parks here." He recited Ives for the album, which is one of the things - like Nadina Simon getting me into MAD - that make doing this shit worthwhile. So is the pleasure of seeing and hearing my friends bringing these things to life.

9) Tina Herschelman and others at Kill Rock Stars (but especially Tina) handled my tardiness, schiziness and general out-to-lunch-ness with patience and kindness, making Uncle a far better experience and product than I could have otherwise managed. Slim Moon continues to demonstrate a faith in my music that I can no longer muster, but try to live up to. My thanks also to Sleater-Kinney for keeping KRS fit to carry dead weight like me.

10) David Garland, aside from generously showcasing my work on his radio show, permitted me the high honor of collaborating with him on his incredible music and my own. He totally took over 3 tracks on Uncle, raising the vout quotient well above code. Conversations with him are like a shot of B-12.

11) Through an odd route unwittingly engineered by Garland and my esteemed pal Irwin Chusid, a long-mourned childhood friendship was reanimated when Matt "Hawkeye" Mignone shot me an email. A bosom chum I haven't spoken with in 30 years, Hawkeye's emails have brought more happiness to me these past few months than he could guess. We are now planning to reconvene for real in the old schoolyard on April Fools Day, only 3 years late for a rendezvous there we solemnly agreed to make during one of our last conversations way back when.

12) I had a run in with a cop after too much wine at Adam Yauch's Dad's gallery opening (and too much of some toxic green shit at a niteclub with Steve Martin afterwards), but the charge was dismissed. Whew!

13) Olivia the English Bulldog arrived in our lives, and THIS, my friends, is a dog. When we bring her to visit my folks, they seem to lose all their infirmities for a while and laugh like kids. That's a GOOD girl!

14) J Lo touched my boner. Nah, just checking to see if you're awake.

15) The premiere of THE TWO TOWERS, which I told you all about in a triple e-spam. If you missed that, ask me for it. It's a wee bit wordy. But any chance to see Claudia Handler and Brad Dourif deserves mentioning again.

16) Did Knitting Factory with Al, Maria, Meredith, Bill, Matt and Cliff. It was nice to play, for once, in a place that impressed people. It was in every way the same kind of shit hole as usual, but these are the things that allow one to cling to fraudulent claims of actually existing.

17) Alex Sullivan graduated High School. Proud mama Shelley and proud step-pappy Sport joined Alex's grandparents Troim and Frank Handler to witness the glad event. I sat - for the first time - in bleachers, which gives me a brand new reason to avoid sports. News 12's Doug Geed sent his regards.

18) Ted Raimi offered to direct a video, a project which fate on my end has repeatedly confounded but which WILL happen, or bust.

19) Started to assemble the home studio, some Ed Roth kits, and my Irwin Interior Decorator kit.

20 and onward) So much, so may people. Alex Crank got hit with a motherfucker, but the humor and dignity with which he handles his situation can only awe a crybaby like me. Jay Spero is in better health, and that is cause for hosannas. Steve Young has enlisted me in the noble cause of immortalizing the American Industrial Musical. For the first full year, I read no newspapers and am better off for it. I have had another year of the privilege of caring for my folks, which causes much stress and fear but is a tangible way to show appreciation to (and savor time with) them.

Other things keep coming to mind, but I'm getting bleary.Some "brief list!" Life now is tough, no doubt. There are things ahead that scare me, and things that might be wonderful if I can overcome enough of my pessimism to look forward to them. But it is impressive, as I look at this stream-of consciousness list, how much of this year I've a reason to be thankful for. Too often I'm immersed in crises and depressions; too much time is spent regretting the things I was unable to do - projects, parties, so forth - and things I've failed at - careers, lifelong dreams, so forth. Too much time hating people who are better off forgotten.

Even through the recent, rough holidays there have been great things. Steve Espinola's house with Biff Rose, Joie Lee, Andrea, Shelley and Alva. Toasting the good fortune of Paul LaGrutta's hard-fought dream, his restaurant, on New Year's Eve with Julia and Wayne and others. Getting snowed-in on Christmas Night at the folks' house with Shelley, David and Maureen, camped all over the house in pajamas like old times. Swilling whiskey with Perry Serpa, Jim Santo, Gio, Steve M and David at the Nasty / Good Cop bash, and then over to see Meredith Yayanos play as magnificently as usual with Jim Sclavunos and Vanity Set. Seeing my condolences posted on the Russ Berrie corporate web site in remembrance of a wonderful gentleman with whom I had only brief contact, but to whom I owe a lot of smiles. Shelley gave me the best bunch of toys I've gotten since 1969.

All these names, and many more unmentioned, and this misanthrope has to admit that it's people, not Berrie Jigglers, that keep me breathing. Not that the Jigglers don't do their part. Spero Meliora, my friends. And thank you all.

Posted 1:01 AM by sport

Hooray for this guy! Sid Laverents!
http://www.angelfire.com/movies/SDAMC/Multiple_Sidosis.htm

Posted 6:50 PM by sport

Last night Chuck Barris appeared on Letterman, a visit occasioned by the release of a film - "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" - based on a strange, fanciful book he wrote 20 years ago. I've had the book for years, since I'm fascinated by Barris and the cover blurbs were written by Cassavetes, Falk, Rowlands and Gazzara: the thinking spud's "rat pack." At the time, the book (billed as "an unauthorized autobiography") was mocked or ignored, but now it's been reissued since George Clooney has put it on the big screen. More'n likely, the shiny fandroids on shows like "Entertainment Tonight" cluck gaily over memories of the Dating Game and share "insider dish" (a tv dinner for shut-ins) about Barris and the film's cast.

This can be taken as a lowbrow version of the very late appreciation Charles Ives experienced once his music found champions and audiences. Barris seems to be enjoying his, thank heaven. Ives was too far along to care very much, but it's hard to imagine that he didn't feel some sense of vindication (not validation; he never wanted or needed that). The only parallel is this extra-innings notice; these are the very different stories of very different men. For me, though, it's notable because my interest in Barris began the same time as my obsession with Ives: 16 years old.

When the Gong Show started airing, I loved it so much that I'd cut high school 2 periods early each day in order to catch it at home. A guidance counselor cautioned that this would doom my academic career. "But you will never receive a high school diploma!" "But I'll have seen the Gong Show." True on both counts, and while the Gong Show began to seriously suck before very long, it was probably the better choice. The program was fun for a while, and "fun for a while" is the best thing I can say about most of life. Around that same time, by the way, Pete and I regaled ourselves with another weird game show entitled "Money Maze." It was abominable: contestants scampered like rats through a huge maze looking for money (hence the name, see). Your host and star of "Money Maze" was Nick Clooney, George's pappy. The fabric of existence weaves itself whole.

So, Mazel Tov to Barris and his current burst of fame.

Posted 2:00 AM by sport

Been thinking about lyrics, since I write some myself. Mostly I consider them secondary, and I'll buy many a bad-to-mediocre lyric if the music carries it (seldom does it work in reverse). But I wanted to mention some of my favorite lyrics, and before I do, I'll lay out my prejudices and opinions on the subject. Be aware that I confess to having broken every rule I'll mention, not through perversity but through ineptitude. Every example of "bad lyrics" I cite could have been replaced with any number of my own embarrassments. Few if any of the sterling examples are rivaled by anything I've made. This is neither false modesty nor self-doubt; it's just my opinion. There are several times when I've reached the goals I set below. Too few for my satisfaction, but considering how rare a good lyric is, having written any at all is a point of pride.

"Poetic" lyrics are generally a big mistake. Sometimes you'll get a Van Dyke Parks feat like the kaleidoscopic "The Attic," which (like most of Song Cycle) achieves bewitching effects with wordcraft above and beyond wordplay. When evoking memory or considering large topics like history, his brand of punning, cross-reference, cascades of images, etc., works better than a direct lyric might. That direct approach might run the risk of bathos or overreach (respectively regarding the two topics mentioned), so Parks pulls off a verbal counterpart to the Ivesian music of that album. He recreates processes of thought and tides of emotion rather than plunking down conclusions; try Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" for a ham-handed stab at historical import. Yech. Elvis Costello, who is often brilliant, is not above things like "A butterfly feeds on a dead monkey's hand... Jesus wept; he felt abandoned" which I can't fathom (maybe that's my own fault) and which distract me from the very touching moments elsewhere in the same song. In general though, somebody like Dylan grabs me more deeply with lyrics like those of "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You" than with those in "Desolation Row." A personal preference... I'd never want to ooh and ahh over someone's smarts if I could be transported by a shared feeling.

A good lyric interacts with the music, creating something neither could evoke alone. This can be achieved through the kind of perfect match in a song like the Gershwins' "Someone to Watch Over Me" where the early lines (there's a somebody I'm longing to see... etc.) are delivered in an uncannily speech-like rhythm, with the upward melody peaking on the words representing the emotional peak of the set-up (... LONGING to see....) and then stepping down and expanding into a broad reverie on the title line: the real nugget of the character's wishes. This method is so subtle it often avoids detection; we just feel it. But it can work without the amazing craft of George and Ira, too. "Oh How Happy" by Shades of Blue is colossal to me, as the combination of simple, exuberant lyric and simple, exuberant music genuinely lift me into happiness whenever I listen. There is no higher art. It borders on magic. Conversely, the grinding, churning angst of much hard rock works to illustrate how ridiculous the lyrics are by redoubling their already terminal self-importance. Howzabout: "Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage!!!" All that energy spent for what? To give me a headache? To surrender? O Nobili. A better effect is achieved by the flat-out evil song "Don't Fear The Reaper" (let's ignore the dippy middle part), which uses light, appealing music to convey a persuasive invitation to suicide.

Another, trickier technique that impresses critics even though it's often poorly handled (critics usually like when it's poorly handled, because then it's obvious enough for them to congratulate themselves on "catching") is a contrast between music and lyric. An overt, fairly egregious example of the contrast idea is Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again Naturally," which aims for pathos by setting lyrics of abject, suicidal surrender against a jaunty little ditty. This cheesy Chaplin gambit touched America's Jarvik heart to the tune of 7 jillion bucks and counting, so who am I to scorn it? A better use of this tension is "Sunday Morning" by Lou Reed, where the twinkly pop melody enhances lyrics of implied dread and paranoia. Gene Simmons of Kiss likes to shit on the Velvets because his sole measure of success is "success." Which is like saying a McDonalds burger is better than yer home-grilled sirloin because the masses are "right." Why a spectacularly successful hack like that needs to attack actual artists is one for the shrinks. Maybe it indicates the hollow inside or betrays some personal wound, but that's a digression I'll skip.

One nice trick is the character stance, which - in first-person mode - permits either deep irony (Randy Newman) or - in third-person - a safety screen. What I mean by that is something like "Ruby Tuesday" ...by creating one of the first and finest hippie chick prototypes (like 20th Century Fox, Suzanne, the Cowsills' "flower girl" and others: patchouli-scented blow-up dolls invented by slick seducers to surely seductive effect), Mick and Keith express wide-eyed sentiments otherwise alien to their usual hard, dark POV. Not only does this allow them to offer thoughts like "catch your dreams before they slip away" - which would sound too wussy for them to admit first-person - it also gets us off the hook. We can relish this sweetness without surrendering the grim, jaded coolness we pretend to share with the Stones otherwise. One outstanding (in kind, not quality) example of "I'm so tough" listener-flattery is "Sweet Dreams" by Eurythmics, which lets us feel like the wizened cynics we wish we were, temporarily unbothered by the vulnerabilities that squirm inside us. Never underestimate how much music you love because you feel cool enjoying it. "Clever" lyrics serve the same end.

One writer who made a career out of "look ma I'm clever" stunts is Sondheim, an annoying-ass songwriter if ever one lived. His stuff dates quicker than an SNL catchphrase yet people keep falling for it. I just watched a broadcast of one of those revues of his work that pop up so frequently. These twitchy contrapuntal examinations of the secret thoughts of bitter married people at cocktail parties grind my nerves like nothing else this side of Judge Judy. Oddly, the one song of his I can stomach (really, a particular version of a song) is "Not While I'm Around" (from Sweeney Todd) as performed by Streisand, a performer from whom I otherwise run screaming. She sings as if there's no irony in it at all, though in the show it was intended as a plaint of doomed naiveté. So a songwriter I can't stand is interpreted by a singer I skeeve, and the result moves me. Go figure.

People seem to think that you can't have too much irony or garlic. Bullshit. Used very sparingly and cunningly, both enhance the dish, but some people let them overwhelm everything. Randy Newman often impresses me more than moves me, but something like "Sail Away" works mightily because of his bravery in wedding such a caustic lyric to such swooning music (which is truly a composition, more than an arranged tune). Most of us, if lucky enough to pull such music from the ether, would set it to words more apparently ingenuous (which he did, in fact… nearly rewriting it as "Louisiana 1927" a few years later). Given that lyric inspiration, we might put it to a tune that reinforces the bleak humor, just so nobody misconstrues it. Newman shows cojones on that score. On a tune called "Pretty Boy" Newman skips irony, putting vaguely anxious, oppressive music behind a scenario of threats and thuggery. It's unnerving, as are tunes like "Old Man" that drop the shield and lay bare something brutally true.

Really BAD irony can be heard in "It's A Beautiful World" by Devo, in which that band of smart stylists inexplicably flogs a dead hamster of an idea. Then they further overdo it all in the video, which pushes the nothing so far I'm almost tempted to view it as an infra-clever exercise in über-satire. But truly, irony in song is the oldest and un-fun-est monkey in the barrel. A rule of thumb should be: "Unless there's no other way to get this idea across, let me just be forthright." Or maybe just skip substance entirely, and stick to the cute jackanapes of "Jocko Homo." Better yet, the irresistible idiocy of "I'm Too Sexy." Nothing wrong with that, either.

I have enough arrogant views on this to fill a hundred tedious volumes, naturally, so enough for now. Maybe I'll do more of it some other time. What I want to do is mention specific lines I love from various songs. The reason is that these are gems I like to roll around in my hand and enjoy; one always wants to point out things of beauty. Since much of my general logorrhea is devoted to pissing and moaning, it might be nice to spend time on stuff I just plain kvell over. I'll just do a few for now.


All night long
We would sing that stupid song
And every word we sang I knew was true
(Becker / Fagen - "Dr. Wu")
My all-time favorite lyric line, strangely enough. It nails with precision the exact feeling of my own love affair with song. I can mention a million nights when this occurred, but you have a million of your own. It snapshots the moment when a dear memory is born… when a friendship is sailing through its fairest waters and some random tune becomes impregnated with personal importance. Somehow, for me, this short line holds poignancy and loss along with joy and promise. Because of that, the song itself became for me what it describes; I rarely hear it without recalling youthful nights enjoying the tune alongside some friends with whom I was once very close. As the years wipe away those alliances and harden our limited memories of them, it's tough to recapture their true flavor. This does the trick for me. Whether this emotional openness was deliberate or accidental, or whether it is really a snide joke too "in" for me to grasp, this is one of those rare Steely Dan moments when the arch comes down. Apart from all that, it also serves as a crucial element of the song's narrative, so it's objectively as well as subjectively satisfying.

In the bar hangs a cloud
Whiskey's loud...

...He's trembling for the taste
Of passion gone to waste
In memories of the past
(Phil Ochs - "Pleasures of the Harbor")
Here's a classic of compression, cramming a lot into plain words and painting vivid interior and exterior scenes at the same time. There's no phrase here that holds only one meaning. The first line is a straight double metaphor: smoke-filled room, hovering melancholy. Second line takes it further, as the din of drunken barflies is applied to the booze itself. Ochs, an alcoholic, hears the whiskey screaming over the other people. The whiskey demands his attention, and all that the whiskey represents to him (relief, remorse, death, celebration, et al) creates a racket in his head. The rest of the verse these lines are from is just as good, further describing the crowd scene confronting the character. Ochs puts a distance between himself and the character by basing the vignette on a scene from a John Ford film, but the device really makes it even more personal. If this were first-person, it wouldn't sink its hook so painfully; it would be a mere whine. The rest of it, from the next verse (beginning with "And the bottle fills the glass," an ordinary image out of context, but in the song it feels almost sexual in its anticipation) can be read the same way, as an acute portrait of the alcoholic's psychology. Memories of the past are where he wastes his current passion, and his memories are riddled with passions wasted. He trembles for the taste of the whiskey and the associations it supplies. The trembling itself is fear, helpless sorrow, and straight-up boozer shakes. The whole thing is a tender tragedy, with the repeated chorus "soon your sailing will be over..." gathering importance with each passing verse, and concluding with no cheap resolution. in fact, there's hope somewhere. A genuinely great song from an artist too little understood and too seldom remembered.

He hit a chord that rocked the spinet
And disappeared into the infinite!
(Johnny Mercer - "The Old Music Master")
Mercer is about the motherfucker. Working with an incredible array of great composers, he always nailed his collaborator's individual vibe with a flawless lyric. This one is a minor one for him and the mighty Hoagy Carmichael, but it's a delight. In the song, Beethoven is visited by a "little colored boy" from the future, who teaches him how to swing. It's a dopey conceit, for sure. Hoagy sings "infinite" as "in-FIN-et" and it's not only genuinely funny (to hear, I mean, not to read), but again it does in effect what the song describes. The melody is a "classical" pastiche that opens up to a big jazz groove on the selected line, the moment Ludwig gets hep. The melody / words combo is a marvel of syllabic, rhythmic and melodic synchronization. They way the lyric lays in against the tune, it HAS to swing… swing is built in as naturally as a Monk melody. It conveys the discovery of that freedom jazz represented to those of Hoagy's time, and carries the same sense of ecstatic release Chuck Berry's "School Day" does when he hits the line "Hail, Hail Rock and Roll" and the heavens open. So it's a love song to the artist's greatest pleasure, and with bright wit it shows us exactly why he feels that way. There's almost a Slim Gaillard sense of groov-o-reenie absurdity, but it's more than simply silly fun, it's a celebration of why such silly fun is a profound gift. More than just a goofball rhyme, "the infinite" is where jazz takes Hoagy. Anyone who loves music knows what that means, and how sometimes the lightest craft can carry us to the highest altitudes.

I'll get to others as I feel like it. Mind you the blog entires are liable to get shorter as novelty wears off. Let's hope so... these long spiels must surely scare people off. Well, so what?

Posted 9:31 PM by sport

(this was prepared for the press re:uncle, so may as well share it here for my friends)

Track By Track… this goes on a bit, and is recommended only for the truly interested.

1 - NO FAIR: This concerns several visits to our old neighborhood (where Pete had still been living) in the weeks after Sept. 11, before they found his body. The realization that we'd really lost Peter, then my loss of faith, then my loss of sobriety. The childhood cry of "No Fair" …heard after a bad stickball call or a "Monopoly" cheat… seemed appropriate somehow.
2 - JOHNNY LIGHTNING: Begun as one of the discarded songs for Magic Beans' followup, about Pete and me playing with toy cars back in the days. I reclaimed a fragment of it, now serving as a sort of elegy. The first voice is Pete at around 13, recalling even earlier times. The poem, which I consider a kind of epigram to Uncle, is a lyric by Charles Ives: "There Is A Lane," recited by an artist Pete and I enjoyed deeply: Van Dyke Parks. Van Dyke was a good friend to me in the aftermath of the catastrophe, and kindly agreed to participate in the recording.
3 - THE LOST CHILDREN: Not much need be added to this one; it's some forlorn wishful thinking. Musically, it was the performances of Bowie, the Who, et al, at the Concert For New York (and the catharsis of the firefighters surrounding us there) that convinced me that rock and roll still had some validity to me. So here goes one.
4 - IN OTHER WORDS, NEVER: The title is a comment on my own chorus for the previous song: the lead-pipe thud in your stomach every time you realize there's no fucking hope. The recording is a brass piece Jim Gray and I made in the late '80s on a four track, which was slowed down and superimposed on some sub-Jerry Goldsmith / John Cage noise experiments I did years earlier. It's my funeral dirge for my little brother.
5 - THE LATE DAYS OF SUMMER: The one direct "universal" comment that I indulged in, written and recorded so quickly that we almost forgot we'd done it. Ragged but right? Sincere, anyway.
6 - BIRD IN THE HOUSE: A true story… woke up once with a big black bird on my knee, and we both went buck wild trying to escape each other, to the great amusement of my late brother Bobby and Pete. This music was the first thing I tried to write a few months after 9/11, pounding the piano with my fists. My friend Claudia informs me that a bird in the house is a traditional symbol of death. Dunno, but I can empathize with that bird. He did get out, by the way
7 - WHAT ARE THEY DOING IN HEAVEN?: This gospel tune by Charles Tindley was recorded memorably in the 1930s by the incredible Washington Phillips. This arrangement is indebted to his version, which Pete and I admired as a truly humanist hymn largely avoiding Christian cant. It would be nice to believe in a heaven ahead.
8 - MILES ACROSS THE SEA: My friend Miles Hunt (of England's Wonder Stuff) has helped me through some dark times. The coincidence of his name and location made for a nice title proxy for all those people who make an extra effort to be true friends, even when they don't realize how close you are to jumping off a cliff. This begins a section of the album concerning friendship.
9 - WELCOME TO NEW JERSEY: Here's Pete and me, recorded on shitty cassette many, many years ago doing a chant we "wrote" after a family road trip. Those endless hours of taped kiddy shenanigans were what led me to making records, and as this is the "friends" section, it handily introduces a ditty about current Garden State resident…
10 - PAUL LaGRUTTA: Pete's lifelong best friend has also been one of my dearest buddies. Through his own heartbreak, Paul took a page from Pete's heroism and held a lot of us together. To salute him in song, I went to the Beach Boys for inspiration, figuring that the effect of a song full of in-jokes (for someone the listener never heard of) was similar to my own non-driver bafflement over lyrics like "competition clutch" and "magnesium spokes." I still loved Wilson's songs, so what the hell. Drop-ins include young Pete mentioning his pal (and eventual best man), and my Dad singing "Volare" back in the 70s. At the end, you'll hear LaGrutta himself, surreptitiously recorded last July 4th.
11 - BEHISTUN: The first song I ever "wrote" was this chant, based upon a picture of an Egyptian temple I saw in an encyclopedia at 5 years old. The year Pete was born I strutted around the house singing this, and remembered it for this unadulterated 4-track recording, made almost 20 years ago. Sure it sounds like crap… sure it's tedious and ill-played… Pete would collapse in hysterics to know it made a legit release, and that's why it's here.
12 - YOU LOUSY STINKING SCUMBAG: A hitherto unrecorded favorite from my Skels days, here in its glorious entirety. Again: to amuse him, and to bridge into the subsequent section, concerning enemies this time.
13 - BAD GUEST: This is a jaundiced glance back at the New Year's Eve party at which I met Pete's eventual in-laws, a repulsive bunch of feral vermin I spent the rest of his life avoiding. Since his death, they've wallowed in the media "celebrity" granted 9-11 "survivors," visiting unimaginable cruelties to Pete's mother (and the rest of the family) that you wouldn't believe if I described them. They continue to do so, compounding our grief. Hatred is poison; induce vomiting, have a laugh at the enemy and move on. But first…
14 - PLAYED BY LINDA BLAIR: The main character in the film "The Exorcist" was a young girl named Regan., just like Pete's widow. I'll say no more. At the time of his death, Pete's daughter Ruby was a year old, and I have a photograph of him ecstatically holding her aloft. That snapshot prompted the next song.
15 - SUCH A BEAUTIFUL SIGHT: This is intended as a counterweight to the preceding bitterness, and is -in part - based on the same music. The last time I saw Pete was in a hospital on Labor Day 2001. Both of my parents had just fallen and injured themselves severely, and the shock of Pete's death shortly afterward ensured that their recovery would be limited. We're a close family. My Sister Maureen's resolve in raising Pete without a father was only surpassed by the lifelong delight she took in him; I saw the same qualities in that photo of Pete holding Ruby. His brother David read a eulogy at the memorial service in October 2001, and his eloquence and humor in the face of absolute devastation symbolized for me all that I've loved and learned from my family. A lot of stuff behind a song that, I admit, doesn't live up to the subject.
16 - SHOO FLY SHOO: One of the first songs made for the album, and its relevance is intentionally oblique. It's part of what I call "a child's guide to misanthropy," along with the next tune. A dog is harassed by a fly, which is sort of how a kid feels when the new kid arrives. There is no insect or mangy dog I do not prefer to the human race.
17 - FROGS ARE SINGING: The first verse of this was composed after the last Christmas we spent with Pete. It plopped out with no apparent reason. After we started this album I remembered it, and realized it was a sort of dream. I understand why a soul-baring artist like Neil Young is drawn to the serenity of model trains. Little Willoughby worlds we can fill with our fancies, where nobody cares about cool or commerce, where nobody's nonexistent deity commands genocide as the ticket to heaven. I hope you've gathered that the other meaning of "Uncle" is a cry of surrender. I live now in dreams, when I can.
18 - SLEEPY RIVER: So here's one on that topic, a song the great Paul Robeson sang (in the film "Song of Freedom"), which we would play and sing along with on many long, often inebriated nights alone together at his apartment. We never worried about sounding like alleycats, and I won't worry about a stiffness of delivery here, trying to croon back a river of tears. It's corn, sure, but I'll gratefully take such corny dreams.
19 - THE SOUND OF HER VOICE: So I grow some corn of my own, this time for my wife Shelley, without whom I could not continue living. Plain, sappy and as inadequate a tribute as the rest of this album, but likewise heartfelt. She held me together so I could help hold my family together, and though we all continue to disintegrate, there are still moments of joy in living. In Pete's name, we all try hard to cultivate that possibility, despite all.
20 - THE DORAY WALTZ: The Doray Tavern was a bar in our old Brooklyn neighborhood that I used to pass on the way to school. "Where Good Friends Meet" said the sign on the window, and my youthful sarcasm thought that was ironic, given all the old no-hopers who congregated there over Scotch and Viceroys. Now I know better.
21 - EVERYBODY'S GONE: After a concentrated avoidance of directly addressing Pete, we were wrapping up the album and it was time for this. My little bro and I used to savor those times we could get away from everyone to yammer, toss back a few, and listen to music. Hoagy Carmichael, Thelonious Monk, Copland, "Smile" bootlegs, on and on. Sacred times. I set up in the studio, poured one whiskey for him and one for me, and started singing this song, completely terrified. At every pause in the lyric I gulped another glass down, and got pretty wrecked in the four minutes it took to complete. No mystical visitation, alas. Just a long night of tears, more whiskey, and this souvenir of the evening's ceremony.
22 - THE CLANG OF THE YANKEE REAPER: Van Dyke gave me permission to use a bit of his gorgeous tune as the background music for one last word from Pete. The lyric of Parks' chorus is: "Gone… just like I said. The good old days are dead; better get it through your head." True enough, but there's one thing I'll never get out of my head, so I leave Uncle with it: the sound of me and my beloved little brother… my hero Pete… laughing.

Posted 4:45 PM by sport

So by the time I posted the previous, the "test message" had in fact been removed. May this bode well for swift erasure of the rest of my hysterical concerns.

Posted 4:32 PM by sport

Tried to delete the "test" message last night, and while the procedure seemed to go smoothly, the post still shows up. Consulting "blogger help" proved fruitless, as it instructed me to do exactly what I'd already done. Further exploration yielded: "I notice you're a free user... naturally we must atttend to our 89 million paying users first, so just hold your water, you insignificant pinchpenny" ... or words to that effect.

All of which means I must carefully consider what I post, since it's all gonna stay put at least until the honorable Elijah Muhammed returns to Earth from his holy spacecraft. This mild annoyance - typical of EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING one tries to accomplish these days - reminds me to mention what's been happening with my mother. Since shortly before Xmas, she'd been experiencing bouts of weakness and dizziness. I brought her to the hospital (St Catherine of Siena Hospital in Smithtown New York, default successor to a hellhole called Smithtown General) last week upon instructions from her doctor, a mild-mannered quack with an impenetrable accent (pc note: it is not the nationality of the md that bugs me, it's the inability to interpret any of the life-or-death information he ostensibly offers... at ease, hippie) who chooses patients' prescriptions with a dart board. I sat with her in the "emergency room" for six hours before some other doctor told me she was to be admitted. At this point I returned to my parents' house to attend to my father, who also needs regular care.

My mother lay in the emergency room for two whole days before a bed was assigned to her. This was because a heart doctor wanted her placed in ccu for monitoring and there were no available beds. So she waited on a gurney virtually unattended as loud drunks were hauled in and out, cunt night nurses and prick pseudo-doctors repeatedly ignored her requests for food, and predictable indignities and discomfort ensued. My mother is the type who sits patiently and trusts that her caregivers will give care; if she were the demanding, obnoxious sort typifying the American personality she'd get more attention. Meanwhile I called her "heart doctor" ...a real mystery man who'd apparently come in to the hospital, said hello to her and left (wonder what that visit will cost?) without a word of clarification. When the asshole finally returned my call, he had nothing to tell me yet, of course, and I asked him to please let me know what was up as soon as he could. Yes of course he would. This one had no accent at all to disguise his supercilious tone. Since experience with his breed has taught me that the one thing they resent more than a patient is a concerned family member of that patient - so they never listen to a word, making sure to radiate their godlike disdain for your petty, ignorant queries - I retiterated my request.

Dr Condescention assured me thusly: "Yes, I will keep you informed. I returned your call, now, didn't I?" What a guy.

5 days later and nothing. Today's call was returned by a different doctor, one of the asshole's asshole associates. She told me my mother was fine. This means that the routine tests have proved inconclusive and, lacking an obvious justification for expensive surgery or simple prescription, they opt to hand her off to some other "specialist" for more routine tests and further billing. By the way, after several days of my mother's abandonment in the emergency room and repeated complaints from her and myself, her condition was "downgraded" to allow her admission to a regular hospital room. In other words, the heart "concerns" stopped "concerning" the good doctors once we pestered them with a few questions as to why she'd been marooned.

I will not continue detailing this situation, since it could go on for untold paragraphs. Maybe the world was never really any better than this... maybe it just seems that way in retrospect. Certainly, human beings have always been despicable vermin who care for nothing other than their own income, status, convenience, amusement and libidos, despite their ability - alone in the animal kigdom - to invent ethics. This is what was once called "evil." But I do believe there was - for a while - some commonly agreed standard of civility and mutually feigned respect. This permitted the few who were raised correctly to interact (with reasonable efficiency) with the vast majority of stupid, selfish scumbags whose selfish stupid scumbaggery was leashed by common custom. This is no longer the case, and people like my parents are left to fend for themselves in a world entirely incompatible with their temperaments and experience.

EXTREME ETIQUETTE!!!!!!
IN YOUR FACE COURTESY!!!!!!
POLITENESS WITH ATTITUDE!!!!!!
AMIABILITY ...FROM HELL!!!!!!
RESPECT ...ON ACID!!!!!!!
THIS IS NOT YOUR PARENTS' SOCIABILITY!!!!!
HARD CORE BENEVOLENCE!!!!!

But no sense in belaboring things, eh?

Other news:
Got a copy in the mail of "Mollie's Mix" - a budget Kill Rock Stars comp including a new song (not on Uncle) entitled "Beatles, Stepping Off The Plane." The song is a satirical comment on the habitual use of that same piece of fucking film footage in every documentary (on music, the 60s, various entertainment figures, the Boer War, air screws, cryptozoology, Mata Hari, veal, et al) produced for cable, PBS, and other venues catering to masturbatory boomers who still believe "their era" represented the apex of human enlightenment. Anyone interested can order the cd from the KRS website. It's like 5 dollars and also features respectable artists people actually listen to. Yes, that means Sleater-Kinney.

Two cd releases in two days. Well, better go tear down all the Christmas stuff.

Posted 1:35 AM by sport

It has been suggested that I might start one of these weblogs in order to post the various rants I sometimes send to everyone on my email list. The advantage is obvious to the people in my address book: no more batch mails from me. To me, it's dubious. For one thing, the ephemeral nature of email works in my favor as far as redundancies are concerned; some journalists have noted this in forewords to their collected pieces. Pet phrases and overused words are less obvious when previous messages have long been swooshed down the virtual crapper. This kind of thing might provoke an anxiety to actually write with care and discipline, two things I've avoided all my life. Zounds!

Another issue is whether there's any point to this at all. Who the hell cares what I think about anything? Well, if nothing else, my life has been devoted to pointless self-expression, and the Internet is peculiarly suited to such pathological vanity. Here, I am amongst my own: anonymous cranks, dilettantes, and obsessives. The Jetsam Set. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to set up the web page Kill Rock Stars is hosting for me (sportmurphy dot com - which I spell out instead of correctly typing in order to discourage spambots) but that will principally serve as a kool-aid stand for my music, and anyway I can link from there to this blog once it's up. Email may be sent to sport @ sportmurphy dot com (ditto) - effective immediately - for anyone who doesn't have my regular email address.

So. A public diary. Lord help us. May most of it consist of blithe schussing down the slopes of schtick, but naturally there will be less entertaining entries. Today's news of note is that I received the box of UNCLE (the new album) discs from KRS. I wistfully recall how it felt to open the first crates of the previous KRS cds, WILLOUGHBY and MAGIC BEANS. Willoughby was best because of the potential it held and the accomplishment it represented, going from vanity pressing to national release on a noted label. Opening Magic Beans was great too, because it was (and remains) my proudest achievement in music. It turned out to be a dud, rejected by listeners who'd liked Willoughby and ignored by almost everyone else. I'll tell the lie that I didn't care, since I'm shit-sure that you don't.

Then of course, September 11 arrived. My nephew Peter died that morning, and all of that stopped mattering to me until we decided to make an album for him. I'm not sure of the proportion of factors explaining my near indifference to opening this crate, but a lot of things figure in. Let's hope I am by now cauterized enough to gracefully endure Uncle's probable quick trip to oblivion after the January 21 release. For Pete, I hope that it's something he'd have liked, at least in part. For KRS, I hope some sentimental indulgence on the part of press / radio inspires enough units sold to justify the release. For me, I hope I can seize one of these transient moments when the old excitement about making songs returns, and ride it through to some new stuff.

For you, I hope the subsequent entries are a lot more entertaining than this.
Cheers.