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Music Really Does Makes the World a Better Place

October 17, 2012

jimpageadmin Guitars and Music , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

I heard of Jackie Guthrie’s passing yesterday when Rip Tragle, a friend of the Guthrie family and a member of the Shorpy community, posted this lovely photo he took at Jackie and Arlo’s wedding, back in 1969:

I didn’t want to post the image here without Rip’s kind permission, but he granted that just now and I’m pleased and honored that he did.

The title of this blog entry is from a series of bumper stickers that my old friend John Pearse used to give away when someone bought his guitar strings or accessories. Lord knows I bought a bunch of both, and once even bought a high-end Martin guitar from John, but the sticker he created is what’s on my mind today and John may have had the Guthrie family in mind when he wrote it. It seems to be very apt when considering the passing of Arlo Guthrie’s wife, Jackie. They were married for over 43 years.

The Guthrie family has consistently used music as a way to make the world in which they found themselves a more human, more kindly place.

What they had to say may not have always been politically correct, and I may not have agreed with every position the various members of the Guthrie family took, but no one could say that they didn’t do more than their share to help others find happiness and peace.

Woody Guthrie’s famous statement, placed prominently on his guitars, remains a touchstone for why many people picked up the instrument in the first place. Woody’s musical and philosphical DNA has spread over much of the world and many folks may not even be aware of it. But they owe him.

Arlo came into most of our lives through his wise and witty 1967 song, Alice’s Restaurant, properly titled Alice’s Restaurant Massacree, and that song was a breakthrough on many levels. It was funny, fact-based and a fingerpicker’s joy. So infectious and joyful was his playful delivery that it may have masked the more serious message of his words: Official America can sometimes be a blind lumbering beast that can step on people unless someone shouts a warning.

I recall playing that record for my dad, who had no taste or interest in music and was an outspoken opponent of the “hippy” movement or anything that smacked of a lack of respect for authority. Dad tried hard not to laugh as the song progressed but at the mention of “mother stabbers and father rapers” he surrendered and enjoyed himself and the song. I couldn’t believe it. Dad had let his short hair down, if just for the duration of a song!

So today we remember the Guthries and all they have meant to us. For those of you who haven’t listened to the music and message of the Guthries– Woody, Arlo and his and Jackie’s children Abe, Sarah Lee, Cathy and Annie– I encourage you to please take the time to do so. And here’s Arlo’s website: http://www.arlo.net/

Their world is our world and it’s a wonderful place to be.

Murphy Supervises The Construction

October 16, 2012

jimpageadmin Family Fun, Pets, Strange and Pointless , , , , Leave a comment

Murphy, our Boston terrier, is very interested in the sewer-pipe replacement activity going on in front of our house. As the photo shows, he pays strict attention to all that goes on, though he is sometimes nervous about the loud noises and shaking of the house that are part of this effort.

Here we see Murphy watching as the LBT is smushing the dirt in the big hole dug by the other machines.

I have been on the lookout in case the final resting place of Jimmy Hoffa is discovered, but so far, he has not surfaced. One of the crew said to me the other day, “This is a big pain and inconvenience for the folks on your street, but just think: In a week or so you’ll have brand-new feeder pipes for your sewerage!”

Yes; that is a wonderful thing to contemplate, and I hope that I can restrain myself from lording it over those with lesser sewerage-feeder pipes. They can’t help it, and it would just make them jealous.

I Can’t Wait For The UPS Truck!

October 15, 2012

jimpageadmin Family Fun, Strange and Pointless, Weird , Leave a comment

As many of you may already know, I’m not an impulse buyer. All my purchases are well-considered and thoroughly thought out far in advance. Still, there are opportunities that arise, chiefly on eBay, that require a snap decision and a firm commitment to furthering one’s stable of useful and necessary items. Hence the auction below, which I just won:

Just click to enlarge!

Yes, within days, I will have my own Little Blue Thing to fool around with. Sometimes Patty isn’t in 100% alignment on the things I buy, but this purchase is sure to meet with her approval. I can see it now:

“Hey, Patty; the LBT and I are up early and rearing to go! Is there anything around the house that you need smushed this morning?”

“Why, yes, my Darling Husband! Howzabout having your new mechanical friend smush that fat ugly empty thing perched on top of your neck?”

“No problem! Where’s my LBT remote control?”

Well, as you know, there wasn’t really a Little Blue Thing for sale on eBay, at least today. But maybe one day . . .

Where’s Our LBT?!?!??!

October 13, 2012

jimpageadmin Strange and Pointless , , Leave a comment

After the street crew parked everything for the weekend, having done as much damage as they could for one week, I didn’t see our old friend, Little Blue Thing.

I walked out to where all the machines, gravel, asphalt and pipe were on the side of the road, and looked around.

Wait a minute! Is that a little blue nose sticking out of that giant steel contraption used to keep the sides of the hole from caving in?

Yes! LBT is hiding inside it. I don’t know if he was driven into it via his remote-control box or if the machine operator placed the contraption over LBT.

It’s a snug fit, no matter how he got in there.

It’s a Gas Gas Gas!

October 10, 2012

jimpageadmin Family Fun, Pets, Weird , , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

I’m so proud of my Boston terrier, Murphy. He is truly a wonder dog.

Aaron and Murphy during our excitement.

I was taking a nap this afternoon about 3pm, and, as is the norm, Murphy was sleeping at the foot of my bed. My son, Aaron, who has a cold, was also asleep. Patty was at work.

Suddenly Murphy jumps on my head and starts barking incessantly. He’s never done that before. So I get up, get dressed, opened the bedroom door and was overpowered by the smell of gas. I ran downstairs, thinking that perhaps Aaron had somehow started a fire in the kitchen and the smell was even worse there.

Then it dawned on me: The street repair folks out front must have broken a gas line. I ran out on the front porch and the smell of gas was overwhelming and you could hear it hissing loudly. The crew, except for one staunch fellow and one staunch woman, had hauled ass down the street a ways.

My neighbor next door, Karl, who works nights, walked onto his front porch with a cup of coffee and an unlit cigarette in his mouth. I yelled, “Hey, Karl; I wouldn’t light that if I were you!”

Neighbors Karl and Bill; we’re cracking jokes once safely down the street.

I got Aaron up and leashed Murphy and, joined by Karl, we all went down to the corner; on the way, we saw Buddy, another neighbor, poke his head out of his front door and told him to get out of his house. By now the smell was super strong.

I called 911 and the Hyattville Fire Department showed up very quickly. The Washington Gas folks weren’t as prompt, but they showed up after about 40 minutes and sent a crew down to the hole in the street where gas had been spraying out all this time.

Hyattsville Fire Department pros suit up before walking to the gas leak.

Washington Gas trucks arrive.

Brave young men.

After about 40 more minutes, the gas line was capped and the Washington Gas techs gave us the all clear. One of their techs, a really nice man, brought a sniffer wand into my house to make sure it had aired out after I had turned on all the ceiling fans and opened the windows.

From my front porch.

So all’s well that ends well. My only concern, and I expressed this pointedly to the WSSC contractor’s supervisor, the fire department folks and the folks from Washington Gas, is that somebody should have alerted the residents of the street that there was a problem and that they should (a) not turn on any flame and (b) vacate their homes until everything was safe again and (c) the contractor should have called 911.

And I am so proud of Murphy for knowing something was amiss and waking me up!!!

That white PVC pipe down in the hole is what broke.

Words to live by . . .

7pm Update:

Still at it!

The contractors are still hard at work; now they’re filling the hole where the gas line broke. I guess they’ve got a few more hours of work ahead of them.


I love the colors in this iPhone photo. On your left, about a third of the way from the bottom of the pic, is our friend, Little Blue Thing. That’s his headlight shining.

Buddy, one of our neighbors, walked over to Jefferson Street when the gas was escaping and he said the smell of gas was very evident at that point, well over a block from where it was whooshing out of its pipe. So we were lucky that all turned out well. Karl and the folks across the street, Colleen and Mar, still don’t have their gas restored, but everyone is hard at work trying to restore the service.

Morning After Update:

As the above photo indicates, this morning the contractors have marked the gas lines a lot more obviously than they had previously done. Before, there were just thin yellow lines of paint to show where the high-pressure gas lines were; now there’s big white lettering, too. The importance of good, clear graphics!

The Washington Gas guys told me that those gas lines have a pressure of 50psi, which doesn’t sound like much but can produce a huge volume of gas in the air when the pipe is ruptured, as our event yesterday afternoon proved.

It’s Just The Best Spaghetti In The Whole World; That’s All

October 10, 2012

jimpageadmin Family Fun, Food , , , , 1 Comment

One place our family went to a lot when I was a kid was Madame Turci’s Italian Restaurant in New Orleans. The man and woman who ran the place were famed opera singers in Italy in the 1920s. I understand that the restaurant closed down in the early 1970s. Too bad; it was super!

A friend from the Shorpy.com nation (Hi, Colleen!!!) found for me a recipe for the spaghetti sauce they served at Turci’s; she found it here:

http://www.nomenu.com

The site has, among other interesting info about New Orleans food and restaurants, over 600 recipes you can try!

Here’s the Turci’s spaghetti recipe from that wonderful site. My daughter is reluctant to cook with chicken innards, but I’m encouraging her to try cooking it anyway. It’s a two-day process.

Spaghetti Ala Turci

  • Stock:
  • 1 small whole chicken (gizzards, liver and heart reserved)
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1/2 onion, cut into chunks
  • Leafy tops from 1 bunch celery
  • Stems from 1 bunch parsley
  • Sauce:
  • 1 pound ground veal
  • 1 pound ground pork
  • Gizzards and heart from the chicken above, chopped
  • 1/3 cup olive oil
  • 1/2 cup chopped onion
  • 1/2 cup chopped celery
  • 2 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 1 lb. ham steak with fat, finely diced
  • 1 8-oz. can tomato paste
  • 1 28-oz. can whole Italian tomatoes, pureed
  • 1 quart chicken stock
  • 1/4 tsp. thyme
  • 1/2 tsp. basil
  • 1 tsp. oregano
  • Meatballs:
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/4 tsp. pepper
  • 1/2 cup freshly-grated bread crumbs
  • 1/4 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
  • 1 tsp. Italian seasoning
  • 12 sprigs fresh parsley, leaves only, chopped
  • 2 eggs, beaten into a froth
  • 8 oz. white mushrooms, sliced
  • 2 lbs. spaghetti

1. Put all the stock ingredients into a saucepan with 1/2 gallon of water. Bring to a light boil, then lower to a simmer. Simmer for 90 minutes, uncovered. Strain the stock and set aside. Put the chicken into a food storage bag and into the refrigerator.

2. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a heavy, large skillet over medium-high heat. Remove a fistful each of the ground veal and ground pork (put the rest into the refrigerator). Add the meats to the skillet, along with the chicken gizzards and heart. Let the meat brown well, then break it up with a kitchen fork. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside.

3. In a large saucepan or dutch oven over medium heat, heat the remaining olive oil until it shimmers. Add the onions, celery, and garlic until they get soft.

4. Raise the heat to medium-high. Add the tomato paste and the pureed tomatoes. Cook for about ten minutes, stirring constantly, until it gets thick and noticeably darker in color.

5. Add the chopped ham and the browned veal and pork. Continue to cook and stir for another three minutes.

6. Add 5 cups of of the chicken broth, and the thyme, basil, and oregano. Bring to a boil then lower to a simmer. Cover the pot and let it simmer for for two hours. Stir the pot, scraping the bottom well every twenty minutes or so.

7. After two hours, turn off the heat and let the pot cool for a half-hour. Spoon the contents into a large bowl or food storage container. Put it into the refrigerator overnight to let the flavors come together.

8. The next day–about two hours before you’re ready to serve–put the sauce back onto the stove on low heat. If it seems too thick after it warms up, stir in add a little more chicken stock.

9. Pull about two cups of chicken meat–a blend of white and dark–from the chicken you used to make the stock. Slice it if necessary into pieces the size of the tip of your little finger.

10. Make the meatballs next. Combine the salt, pepper, bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, Italian seasoning and parsley with a fork. Wet your hands with cold water, and combine the remaining ground pork and veal with sprinklings of the bread crumb mixture and the beaten eggs. Handle all of this as gently as possible, rolling the meatballs into rough spheres about an inch and a half in diameter. Cracks should show around the outside. Gentle!

11. Heat 2 Tbs. of olive oil in a skillet until it shimmers. Drop a few of the meatballs in. Every few seconds, roll them around (gently!) until they’re browned all over (not cooked all the way through). Remove and drain. Keep going until all the meatballs are cooked.

12. Add the meatballs and the chicken to the sauce. Simmer for an hour, stirring only very lightly (to avoid breaking the meatballs). Add the mushrooms, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook another fifteen minutes.

13. Cook the spaghetti until still firm (six minutes or so). Drain and put it into a big bowl. Ladle about two cups of the liquid part of the sauce over the spaghetti and toss to coat. Serve in big bowls with the remaining sauce on top.

Serves eight to twelve.

“I Have Got to Get Me One of These!”

October 3, 2012

jimpageadmin Strange and Pointless, Weird , , , , , 2 Comments

You already know what Will Smith movie the header quote came from, so I won’t bother telling you.

The WSSC is tearing up our street again, and the letter they sent to us all promised that, during this project, we’d see “interesting machines.” Patty thought that was a strange thing for them to say, but it has proved to be true.

My neighbors and I– at least the male neighbors– have fallen in love with this little blue thing. We all want one.

It’s about half the size of a car, articulated in the middle, and is radio controlled. When it’s powered up, the round light in front flashes orange and it begins to shudder, like a puppy held tight on a leash:

It isn’t speedy, but it is determined as it moves down the road. It’s shape gives it an R2-D2 quality.

Here it is relentlessly proceeding to the actual holes in the street down our hill:

Here’s the fellow controlling it with a black box about the size of a Lipton’s tea-bag package. He stands pretty far away from this unit, so I couldn’t get them both in the same photo. The controller’s skill is high; we watched him parallel park the thing and it was most impressive.

The technical name for this device, based upon the knobby wide metal wheels, is, I believe, a “smusher.”

FRIDAY MORNING UPDATE:
Here we see Little Blue Thing parked alongside its bigger brother, Somewhat Larger Blue Thing. Go ahead; call them The Blues Brothers.


As happens occasionally even in human families, the smaller brother is the cuter one. The larger one is not unattractive, but its need to have a steering wheel, driver’s seat and roll bar get in the way of its smooth lines. It looks purposeful but not cute.

In addition, the bulging hood on Somewhat Larger Blue Thing, combined with the row of vents at the sides of the hood, give this fellow a more aggressive look. It’s like what happened to the Ford Mustang after it had been out a couple of years.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE:

Our hero, LBT (Little Blue Thing) gets a chance to show its stuff as it takes on the challenge of smushing down the red-clay dirt at the bottom of a deep trench. Notice how the crew lowers LBT down into the trench using some large machine:

Once in the trench, you can sense the LBT’s enthusiasm as it trembles in anticipation before the control-person sends it into action. Clearly in its element, LBT blithely rolls back and forth, smushing with abandon. Even the jaded construction crew smiles with joy and– yes– pride as they watch LBT’s antics:


FRIDAY EVENING UPDATE:

The crew working on this sewer project are splendid; they get in early, work steadily all day and clean up before they leave in the evening; not only sweeping the street but washing down where they’ve worked.

And I can’t say “these guys” are excellent; there are women among the crew. They dress the same as the men, including the green safety vests, so it isn’t immediately obvious that they’re female.

Some of our neighbors were initially rather upset that this work wasn’t done a couple of years ago when our street was totally replaced, but the super job that the WSSC contractors are doing has put most of that feeling to rest. After the crew leaves each day, many of us are outside marveling at the way they’ve approached their task.

So it’s become sort of a social thing but then again this is a close-knit community.

“Like Joan Sutherland and Kermit the Frog . . .”

October 3, 2012

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Hey; he said it; I didn’t!

Great clip of three of my favorites live at The Odeon in NYC in 1983: Linda Ronstadt, Randy Newman and a slicked-down Ry Cooder. I have the complete performance on VHS somewhere but no way to play it.

Here’s their version of Mr. Newman’s Rider in the Rain from his Little Criminals album. On the record, he’s backed up vocally by The Eagles, who started as Ms Ronstadt’s backup band.

This clip is a great example of what I believe is a good rule for music and other things: Take the prep and practices seriously, but have fun with the performance. It’s obviously sung in a key that isn’t Mr. Cooder’s first choice, but I love what he does with it.

When Patty, her brother Billy and I saw Randy Newman at the spooky old Tampa Theater live in the 1970s, he worked solo. He is so talented and tuneful.

In George Martin’s memoirs of his days with The Beatles, he describes visiting Mr. Newman at a jingle factory in LA. He had been sent by The Fabs to recruit Newman as their first Apple Records artist. Newman turned Mr. Martin down, as writing jingles on demand was steady work and he had a family. The Beatles chose James Taylor instead for an Apple release, and he’s done pretty well!

As has Randy Newman.

God Bless Ryland P. Cooder!

October 1, 2012

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I first heard of Ry Cooder when I was in high school; he was a session player on a couple of the better Stones albums (Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers) and on their jam session LP, Jamming With Edward. Then a friend gave me a tape of an album Ry did with Taj Mahal; they called themselves The Rising Sons.

As a geek who studied the liner notes on albums like they were the Dead Sea Scrolls, I kept seeing this name come up. When Rolling Stone magazine started coming out, I’d see his name all the time. I’d search out his work on the albums at the Record Bar in Naples; his stuff was there, if you knew where to look.

His first album, Ry Cooder on the old Reprise label, came out in 1970 and was astonishing. It wasn’t just the tasty playing on guitar and mandolin, it was the TYPE of songs he chose to do. Cooder was all over the place, with a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of any kind of music, past and present. He could play it all and play it better than anyone else. He’s done so many great albums. Once, when my old VW van was broken into, they stole all my eight-track tapes except for Ry Cooder’s; I guess the villains weren’t familiar with him. I was glad that they left the best music I had behind!

Mr. Cooder is also responsible for what may well be the best soundtrack album ever; it’s of the music he did for the movie, The Long Riders. Here’s a taste:

Here’s a spectacular clip from a Record Plant show in 1974. When they start showing him playing, about 43 seconds in, watch his hands on Blind Blake’s Police Dog Blues:

As you continue watching, and I surely hope that you will, please pay particular attention to the little fills or transistions he throws in between the sung verses. Uncanny. He’s playing what appears to be an old O-sized Martin acoustic at first and then switches to a hardtail Strat with a bound ebony fingerboard.

I have a magazine-editor friend (hey, Charlie!) who used to jam with Ry occasionally. He told me that the strings on Cooder’s many guitars are set so high off the neck that no one else could play them. If that’s the case, then Ry Cooder must have the strongest pair of hands on the planet.

It seems odd to me that a person playing a high-action guitar can have such a delicate touch. If I had to choose one word to describe Mr. Cooder’s playing, it would be majestic. Listen to his version on that video (it begins at the 6:23 mark) of the 1929 tune by Blind Alfred Reed, How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live, and see if you don’t agree. That song’s on Cooder’s first album, too.

If you just have heard of Ry Cooder as the guy who put together the Buena Vista Social Club movie, you are in for a treat.

Hands

September 30, 2012

jimpageadmin Art, Family Fun , , , Leave a comment

From as far back as I can remember, I’ve been good with a pencil. Posting about Aaron’s much greater talent reminded me of when my mom hired a drawing tutor for me when I was 12 or so. I can’t remember the woman’s name, probably because I resented her so at the time, but she was, I realize now, brilliant.

I had been fooling around for years with my drawing, mainly copying what was in the funny papers. I was good at mimicking other people’s styles, which served me well when I spent some time doing edits and corrections at Marvel Comics a few years later. But this tutor seemed so abrupt and so cold.

She handed me a thick spiral-bound pad of toothy paper and an Eberhard Faber #2 pencil and said, “Before we meet again, draw me 150 hands. Use this pad and number them as you go. Now get busy. I want to feel the bones beneath the skin.” I couldn’t believe it, but I got busy.

The following week, I handed her the pad and she looked over my work. She nodded and said, “By about #80 here, you’ve begun to draw a decent hand. Now do 150 more by next week.”

I was outraged, but I did it. The tutor never talked much but what she said was correct and guided me. After the hands, I got to draw tree bark, and the surface texture of bricks and then I did hundreds of drawings of wadded up paper of different types; some were blank paper wadded up and some had photos or type on them. I drew them all, struggling with the shading and texture. I was glad when I was done drawing the paper wads and moved on to folded cloth. By then, I was able to see the textures with a practiced eye and instead of being frustrated I felt challenged to master the tools; the pencil and the paper and especially my eyes.

The tutor’s rule was that if you want to draw, you have to be able to see. Terse but true.

Perspective was a bear, but she was able to explain it to me and once I got it, I loved it. I still love to draw perspectives; it’s somehow soothing.

I wish I could remember more about that woman. She taught me how to draw. The attached image isn’t my work; it’s something from the Web. But it is correct in what it shows us. Now get a pencil and get busy!!!

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