Raga Muffin

While looking into the influences that Dick Dale drew upon for his iconic Miserlou for the earlier surf music blog, I found the melody came from hearing his Greek uncle playing oud in Massachusetts cafes. Flashback time! Mention of the arabian lute brings to mind two players whose albums I had played constantly: Hamza el-Din of the Sudan and New Yorker Sandy Bull. World music was not available outside of bigger city record stores 45 years ago, but I was lucky to find these Vanguard treasures in D.C. (and of course I found out about Vanguard through Joan Baez, who was available at less obscure outlets). Very sadly, the original Vanguard label is gone, but these are available now on CD. Someone in Texas with (I think, anyway) good taste bought the Bull albums a while back, and I hope he is enjoying them as much as I did.
No stringed instrument was beyond Sandy's mastery: banjo, guitar, bass, oud, steel guitar, and probably several more. He started out as a folkie, but was absorbing classical Indian ragas, middle eastern modalities, and the Western classical canon early on. He joined that band of angels who loved blending exotic traditions and improvising dreamscapes in another dimension: John Fahey, Robbie Basho and Peter Walker, for example. All must have been made of sparkling cosmic dust left by a 100-year comet's passing...
Think what was on the radio in 1963, when Fantasias for Guitar and Banjo, his first album, was released! Nothing like his no-egotistic-frills overdubbing, nothing like his version of Carmina Burana for banjo, no trips across the world and time like Blend.
Sandy died in 2001 of lung cancer, but had been a daring troubador for four decades.

Slo Mo

I came across something just as strange as the picture of Lady Gaga meeting the Queen...

In 1927, a Professor Parnell at the University of Queensland set up a demonstration experiment that is still ongoing 83 later. The intrepid physicist heated a chunk of pitch, a substance derived from tar that was used to caulk boats throughout history, and poured it into a glass funnel with the stem stoppered. In 1930, when the pitch had returned to its normal solid, brittle, state, he unstopped the funnel. And he waited.

This is slow stuff: the pitch has 100 billion times more viscosity than water. The ninth drop is now forming (and nobody has seen one fall, so anticipation is high among those excitable science guys). And to add to the suspense, it's taking about 12 years between drops recently since the building has been air-conditioned. Video camera, you say? It's being observed by one, but at the previous drop event the camera failed at that very time. And you thought waiting for Christmas when you were a kid took too long.

We were told as students the reason very old glass window panes looked rippled and sagged was that glass was actually a liquid. An oversimplification, it turns out, as glass has properties of both solids and liquids, and is not definably either one. I think all we really understand is that everything's on its way to somewhere else -- maybe just for something to do.

We sure don't know what Lady Gaga is either.

Little Gods, Little Demons

On the "Opinion" page of the newspaper (any one), you can tell immediately by the headline over the letter in what idea or concept the writer is a true believer. And these hot air blasts are clearly just another example, among millions, of the propaganda tactic of endless repetition used to recruit believers among the masses.

Taxes: We hear that their massive reduction is the only way to benefit the economy. The top tax rate in our most prosperous era of expansion, the 50s, was 90%. All of these beliefs, like this one, are simplistic and only part of the equation. The goal behind pushing this concept is to destroy government so business and exploitation of our resources may proceed unregulated and unhindered with the cost borne by us, not the developers and spoilers who take the gains and run. They started with California (Prop 13 and Gov. Reagan's "kitchen cabinet"): look at the results. Government bankrupted intentionally to prove we shouldn't pay for its functions. Electricity de-regulation in California: Enron went wild, billions were lost, huge bills to be paid by the people who voted for it. Whatever works, break it. Despite former Senator Phil Gramm and the Reagan juggernaut's wildly successful efforts, it would be better for us to be mindful that Wall Street, energy giants and utilities have to be reined in like career criminals on the loose.

Competition: It does good, it does harm. It is not, in itself, a little god to believe in fanatically to the exclusion of thinking through a situation. Cooperation is usually better for the human tribe; Ultimate Fighting-rules competition has no thought for tomorrow, no idea of community and how it works. We get today's incredibly cheap price at WalMart and then, inevitably, we suffer the unstoppable loss of American jobs in production to poor overpopulated countries. The economics of Aesop's grasshopper. Our new Chinese-made printer failed to print the second day it was here. Its three predecessors were similarly cheap, easily available, and long gone; and there are no real alternatives to choose from at retail or on-line. I could make a long list of things that went into the trash because of the failure of some small cheap electric part. Competition has little to do anymore with providing quality. We're forced to go on buying this junk produced by global outsourcing. But as the letters state every day, competition is all good. When RCA dominated American electronics up to the 60s, before Asian competition killed them, their products were built like tanks by people in Camden, NJ, who took a lot of pride in what they produced. (Their mass consumer products, like the early color TVs, were another story). We had an old RCA control board at WFMV-FM, used around the clock for decades, that never failed once. At home, we had a Hallicrafters B&W TV that lasted 20 years; you got a replacement vacuum tube at the drugstore (they provided a tester -- you weren't on your own to buy testing equipment) when it needed one. Now the basement fills with TVs and electronics that can't be repaired, or certainly not by you. But when Michelin steel-belted radial tires showed up, we found out how poor and unsafe our domestic brands were. There is a case to be made for what the Japanese and Chinese have done: copy what's great and employ trade barriers quietly and effectively (ours are usually just those pushed by lobbyists) to keep domestic industries alive. Use competition -- don't commit suicide because you believe in the concept so unreflectively.

Journey implored, "Don't Stop Believin'," but we had better. Those little gods we're pushed to follow are demons in disguise. I'm more with George Harrison: "Think for Yourself."

Not So Close Encounters

It's 1 degree wind-chill outside. The holiday decorations are down (those that didn't blow away). Those who trudge to work in the private sector have no holidays until...almost forever. In this brown season, it's too cold to do much so we start thinking about planning the garden (must put out more effort and do better this year) and traveling to some sunny place. We watched three "Samantha Brown's Travels" shows last night: she cruised, went riding a zip line through the rain forest in Jamaica and traipsed through Naples -- ah, the dessert course of life.

Nothing much exciting on the horizon except the new $1 movie rental kiosk at Tom's convenience store, and going to Richmond soon, where it will be almost as cold but youthful highjinks are on the agenda.

If you don't get out, nothing except appliance failure is ever going to happen. My first adventure out of the far-suburban cocoon of my youth in Richmond was when Dad arranged to take brother Ron and I on the company jet to New York. He traveled all over then, often to New York but to the Netherlands, Great Britain and Greece also, and a chance to experience a little of that was thrilling. The company apartment on the Upper East Side was three levels and looked like a ski chalet. The company sponsored the Richmond tennis tournament at the time and Arthur Ashe was the big deal. He stayed there sometimes and partied it up so hard they asked him to vacate. They were throwing out his clothes, so I took home a silk shirt and satin-lined leather pants handmade in Bangkok, but couldn't wear them because they were so small. Of course a teenage white guy would look beyond ridiculous trying to be SuperFly anyway. Strangely enough, around 1977 or 78 we interviewed Mr. Ashe in the Jefferson Hotel for Part II of the Richmond History film we were making for the Public Schools (Jon Parks was writer, director and camera; I just recorded the audio). He had a bodyguard and was very cold, formal and distant. I didn't say a word about the disco clothes.

The apartment was in the Yorktowne neighborhood, originally a German ethnic settlement. I'd never seen anything so foreign as a European ethnic neighborhood: deli's with more than one kind of mustard (I had no idea), newspapers in German, Yiddish and Polish -- going to your apartment home up an elevator, for heaven's sake! Uniformed doormen -- couldn't figure out what they were for. I really jumped when Dad returned from the deli next door and said he was behind Xavier Cugat and his too-hot wife, Abbe Lane, in line. It was possible to run into famous people, not just their images on screen or through their words in books? Who knew? We've never seen anyone at the L.A. or other California airports, but it's not uncommon in New York. If you gawk, though, a cab will run you down. Dad took us to the Playboy Club, but I didn't see Gloria Steinem who had left their employ a little while before and of course wasn't famous then. But still. The bunnies looked very uncomfortable and artificial, but paid attention to Ron and I, which wasn't bad at all.

Nancy and I sat next to comic actor Richard Kind (Spin City) and another TV actor whose name we couldn't recall, at the bar/lobby of a comedy improv club in Santa Monica once. When she was little, she got Elvis' autograph at the Graceland gates when he still did that sort of thing, and got Carl Perkins' too, much later. I walked by football player Jim Brown in New York years ago and was about to say I'd enjoyed his book, but someone else engaged him and I kept going on my way. I was surprised to see how short he is.

In the fall of 1970, while sitting on the curb in a daze at National Airport in D.C. waiting on the bus to Ft. Myer (having gotten up at 3 a.m. at Fort Knox for the flight), former Vice President Hubert Humphrey and his wife Muriel walked right by. She was wearing her famous blue, as always, and I didn't have to get up and salute because HH wasn't Vice President anymore. I did salute General Westmoreland on the Pentagon steps as I was going down and he was going up, but I don't think he noticed. Probably had weighty things on his mind. I was just glad to get out in the sunshine. Secretary of the Army Harold Brown made a tour of our area in the second basement of the Puzzle Palace one evening, and I pretended to type a telegram (bet a teenager today doesn't know what either word means) to look productive. We gave each other a polite nod, but haven't exchanged Christmas cards or anything.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

Worldwide domination is within my reach! I have studied with the little master, Stewie Griffin. Batman, try to stop me!!

Mostly Sideways

If, in a moment of frustration, you ask yourself what else can go wrong...you'll find out soon enough. Now I'm not railing at life in a larger sense; you have to keep your perspective and be aware of how great we have it compared to millions of others living now or before on planet Earth. As the Buddhists observed long ago, unhappiness occurs when your expectations and reality don't meet. And reality isn't going to do any adjusting. But you expect to experience forward progress if you're diligent, paying attention, and doing what you think are the right things and it's a nasty surprise when that doesn't make a whole lot of difference. What happens seems random, undeserved and maddeningly wasteful...for no reason you can discern except it's always One Damn Thing After Another.

Just recently, three new appliances failed (and not having a coffeemaker on Sunday morning is just not right), a snowblower took a nice chunk out of the garage, the replacements for the broken hinges on the brand new turntable are never going to arrive, the computer printer died (just like its many predecessors), two appointments in two days stood me up (so I wait around by the door and the phone for nothing), I can't empty the rabbit's litter pan because the composter's lid is frozen on, and to top it off the beautiful handmade martini glasses I ordered as a Christmas surprise for Nancy arrived with one smashed (and I can't make an insurance claim because the password is "invalid")!

Not major problems that knock people for a loop, but the sheer quantity of irritations is what got me cranked up. Think about good stuff: going to Richmond in a few weeks, really looking forward to that; local schools and government buildings are jumping into solar projects, including an 18-acre solar field near Carlisle (due to stimulus funds); Nancy's getting over her terrible cold and will be her old self soon; our ancient heat pump is working fine; the pets are healthy; far-flung family members are doing very well, especially the newly married twenty-somethings; the State wine specialty store is just bursting with excellent selections at ridiculously low prices (we filled the new wine rack); we're not living in Afghanistan...

Okay, things are back in perspective. Like the old Master on Kung Fu said, "Patience, Grasshopper!"

Should You Stay or Should You Go?

It's said happiness consists of having someone to love, something worthwhile to do, and something to look forward to. I can't say I do much worthwhile, but I sure look forward to going places with the someone I love. Nancy must have been bitten early by the travel bug (along with a few mosquitoes, in humid Memphis). She showed me how to get moving to visit the familiar (family and friends) or the new. She had worn out two VWs when I met her, and we've worn out several more cars and trucks since then and been on some wacky flights and in some obscure airports. I just don't know about the future, though: the highways are about threading your way through canyons of thousands of trucks just to be stuck in a standstill down the road, and we don't need to get into what a cluster---- air travel is now. The point of an adventure is NOT to feel helpless; it's reveling in that heady feeling of freedom and power.

The places some friends have been to are astounding: the Balkans, Greece and Turkey, Russia, China, Japan, Vietnam and Cambodia, Australia, even Africa... We actually stepped foot on the African continent, in Tunisia, for a day, and I'm still thrilled to have spent my 60th birthday on Malta. We've got a world map on the wall in Nancy's Worldwide Headquarters (the back bedroom) with map pins in the places we have been to together. The furthest north: Iceland (just the airport); south: Aruba; east: Malta; west: San Francisco. There is hardly an end to the list of far-flung islands I would like to get to: the Dodecanese, Scilly, the Aeolians, Rhodes, the Cook Islands, the Seychelles, Bali, Sardinia, Gotland. And great cities...I'd be happy just to get to my top two on that list, Buenos Aires and Paris.

Our kitchen remodel took the place of any grand trip this year, but Nancy has been away from the Caribbean too long already -- I have the feeling a brochure with palm trees on the cover will show up on this desk sometime soon. You've never seen anyone happier than that well-tanned rascal on a tropical island beach.

So after our short jaunt to Richmond in mid-January to see the Robbin Thompson Band show at the National, and of course the Nimrod, Cliff, we'll have to scan the horizon to see what looks irresistible along with the least painful way of getting there. All that stuff you acquire through the years you just have to store, but the memories of your great escapes -- that's where the treasure is.