Enough W/ All of That Tinkle Already . . . Well Mostly

The other night I was fooling around a little bit w/ this new site Wordle and in doing so I generated the two word clouds below:





I used this blog as the address, it only seems to be using the top few posts, I lost interest in it before I could figure out how to get it to input more words. Anyway from doing that I remembered that had this screen capture widget (how I made the above images) and that made me remember this other site that I used to fool around w/ a couple of years ago but I can never remember the name of. It's Java applet thingie that makes graphs out of websites, I find it kind of neat and every so often I remember about it and I have to go wading through my bookmarks to find the site again. The reason the screen capture widget reminded me of that site is b/c I never had any kind of screen capture thingie so I could never save the the graphs that the applet generates. Well, I did and here are some of the fruits of my endeavor again using amnihilist as the input:

I don't know what happened w/ that last one but it's pretty neat none the less. the key to what it's showing is:

blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags

Piss-Bottle Man . . . and Spiel about his recent pilgrimage to see 'The Prick w/ the Stick'

PISS-BOTTLE MAN

There are some things a guy gets from his Pop
Some of those things get spaced, others are never forgot
I got such a tradition, I keep in my truck cab

Oooo Oooo Oooo
Piss bottle man
Oooo Oooo Oooo
Piss bottle man

Miles and miles and all the while I feel secure
Even when the fuse gets short I can keep my nerve
Believe in such a tradition, I got in my truck cab

Oooo Oooo Oooo
Piss bottle man
Oooo Oooo Oooo
Piss bottle man

Piss bottle man
Piss bottle man

Oooo Oooo Oooo
Piss bottle man

Piss bottle man
Piss bottle man

Oooo Oooo Oooo
Piss bottle man

Driving in his shoes, using the bottle he used
Every time I pop I think of my Pop and pay my dues
Respect such a tradition, a shrine in my truck cab.

Oooo Oooo Oooo
Piss bottle man
Oooo Oooo Oooo
Piss bottle man

Oooo Oooo Oooo
Piss bottle man
Oooo Oooo Oooo
Piss bottle man

(repeat to fade)

— Mike Watt

This post is kind of a response to the recent post by Brotha' G., over on Sunnyside Dr., that just snuck up and smacked me in the face so to speak.

. . . I been had that CRAZY picture of WATT w/ said bottles (from god only knows where originally?) . . . I love the man, WATT . . . and I had been recently thinking about him, reading a freshish tour diary . . . and knowing that he was going to be in Dublin again for this past Bloomsday, He's a big fan of "Ulysses". I had been meaning to read his spiel about it this time around, which I remembered to read just now. . . . Oh Yeah, I just remembered this, I also recently had a dream where I was telling my 'meeting Mike Watt story' but as dreams usually go I don't think I ever got to the punch-line of it, not that there is one really?

An interesting fact from what WATT wrote about being in Dublin this time around, he says that two-thirds of the songs he did for "Double Nickels . . ." were influenced by his first reading of "Ulysses", I knew about the instrumental on the album titled "June 16th" but I'll really have to go back over the rest of his songs on that classic.

UPDATE:

Not only did I find the picture below of Watt and the statue of Joyce but I also saw an article about Watt being on an album of artists setting Joyce's "Chamber Music" to music. I'm going to have to track that down.

Watt & said Prick w/ said Stick

June 16, 2008

My 2nd Favorite New Yorker Cartoon

. . . This one has made me laugh out loud.

I Am So Feelling You CC!

"Chocolate City"

Uh, what's happening CC?
They still call it the White House
But that's a temporary condition, too.
Can you dig it, CC?

To each his reach
And if I don't cop, it ain't mine to have
But I'll be reachin' for ya
'Cause I love ya, CC.
Right on.

There's a lot of chocolate cities, around
We've got Newark, we've got Gary
Somebody told me we got L.A.
And we're working on Atlanta
But you're the capital, CC

Gainin' on ya!
Get down
Gainin' on ya!
Movin' in and on ya
Gainin' on ya!
Can't you feel my breath, heh
Gainin' on ya!
All up around your neck, heh heh

Hey, CC!
They say your jivin' game, it can't be changed
But on the positive side,
You're my piece of the rock
And I love you, CC.
Can you dig it?

Hey, uh, we didn't get our forty acres and a mule
But we did get you, CC, heh, yeah
Gainin' on ya
Movin' in and around ya
God bless CC and its vanilla suburbs

Gainin' on ya!
Gainin' on ya!
Gainin' on ya! (heh!)
Gainin' on ya!
Gainin' on ya!
What's happening, blood?
Gainin' on ya!
Gainin' on ya!
Gainin' on ya!

Yeah!
What's happening, black?
Brother black, blood even
Yeah-ahh, just funnin'

Gettin' down

Ah, blood to blood
Ah, players to ladies
The last percentage count was eighty
You don't need the bullet when you got the ballot
Are you up for the downstroke, CC?
Chocolate city
Are you with me out there?

And when they come to march on ya
Tell 'em to make sure they got their James Brown pass
And don't be surprised if Ali is in the White House
Reverend Ike, Secretary of the Treasure
Richard Pryor, Minister of Education
Stevie Wonder, Secretary of FINE arts
And Miss Aretha Franklin, the First Lady
Are you out there, CC?
A chocolate city is no dream
It's my piece of the rock and I dig you, CC
God bless Chocolate City and its (gainin' on ya!) vanilla suburbs
Can y'all get to that?
Gainin' on ya!
Gainin' on ya!
Easin' in
Gainin' on ya!
In yo' stuff
Gainin' on ya!
Huh, can't get enough
Gainin' on ya!
Gainin' on ya!
Be mo' funk, be mo' funk
Gainin' on ya!
Can we funk you too
Gainin' on ya!
Right on, chocolate city!

Yeah, get deep
Real deep
Heh
Be mo' funk
Mmmph, heh
Get deep
Bad
Unh, heh
Just got New York, I'm told

— as preached by the maven of funk mutation
George Clinton, back in the day and hopefully
applicable again soon.

LaWanda Page

Happy 60th Birthday Brian Eno (A. K. A. GOD)

"Portrait of Eno with Allusions"
by Peter Schmidt

I just saw on one of the other blogs that I read daily that today is the great Brian Eno's sixtieth birthday. It's kind of funny b/c for the past few days I've been fooling around w/ this EMS Synthi AKS emulator soft-synth thingie and just yesterday (after successfully installing the English version, I had the French version installed and could not uninstall it) I finally got it to make a noise. The Synthi was Eno's synthesizer of choice back in the day and b/c of that I've always been fixated on them.

(the late) Peter Schmidt and Eno
strategizing obliquely

Be Reasonable Demand The Impossible! Pt. 1

Be Reasonable Demand The Impossible! Pt. 2

I can't get enough of these posters and here are a few pictures from the Atelier Populaire where most of them were made . . .

The Visitor(s)

Upon awakening this fine spring afternoon, here is the majestic sight that greeted me from our backyard.






In my book that constitutes what I would declare an auspicious day. And half way around the world, having an auspicious day of their very own . . .





Congratulations Amy & Dave!!!

File Under: YAY YAY YAY REDUX!!!!

I just saw over on bitchfork that a new Stereolab album has finally been announced!!!

Talk about making my day.

now i have to wait until August whatever when it's scheduled to be released, BLERGH!?!

In truth, I'm sure in a few weeks it will get leaked and I'll be all Sophie's Choices about whether to listen to it or wait until I can actually buy it. I don't know? I'll probably just wait?

GAWD it's been so long since their last real album, I need a fix so bad! The last Monade album was really pretty good, I liked it much more than the other two, it was very Stereolabesque but nothing is like the real thing. I can not wait.

It's funny I noticed that my first 'File Under: YayYayYay' post which was written upon finding out about the new Robert Wyatt album and mentioned the possibility of new Stereolab material as well, was written almost exactly a year ago.

Keep A Good Heart . . . The Worst Is Yet To Come*

I am the Great Sun

From a Normandy crucifix of 1632


I am the great sun, but you do not see me,
I am your husband, but you turn away.

I am the captive, but you do not free me,
I am the captain but you will not obey.

I am the truth, but you will not believe me,
I am the city where you will not stay.

I am your wife, your child, but you will leave me,
I am that God to whom you will not pray.

I am your counsel, but you will not hear me,
I am your lover whom you will betray.

I am the victor, but you do not cheer me,
I am the holy dove whom you will slay.

I am your life, but if you will not name me,
Seal up your soul with tears, and never blame me.

- Charles Causley

I've been listening to alot of Ghost Box material recently in particular the second Focus Group disc "Hey Let Loose Your Love". The second track of that disc, 'You Do Not See Me' has a loop of this disembodied voice repeating the phrase "I am the great sun but you do not see me". It's kind of eerie in it's blandness and that phrase always gets stuck in my head. Actually the looped phrase continues, " . . . I am your . . ." and the next word gets cut off and it always leaves me wondering what the next word is? Well w/ all of that business dancing around in my noodle the other day I remembered, "Oh Yeah, there's that internet now, I can look up pretty much anything I can think of . . . DUH. "

So I looked the phrase up and found it's from the poem "I Am The Great Sun" by the late Cornish poet Charles Causley. I rather enjoy that poem and from what little I've read about Causley he sounds pretty interesting, I'm looking forward to investigating him further.




The other bit of poetry related business that's been on my mind this week has been that PBS American Masters American Experience program on Walt Whitman. What I saw of it I thoroughly enjoyed (I still have to catch the end). Whitman has always been someone I had a vague interest in but I've never really known too much about him and it's been years since I tried reading "Leaves of Grass". What I kept thinking about while watching that program on Whitman though was how I wished Allen Ginsberg was still alive b/c they would've had him on that program talking about Whitman. Which reminded me of an addendum I was going to do on my 5th anniversary of the Iraq war post, about how the Dragon Lady, Madame Nhu is still alive and well living in Paris writing her autobiography (and I'm sure continuing to be a horrible human being) while poor Allen Ginsberg has to have merged w/ the infinite already, BLEH.

. . . And in other news of the unimportant —the GTR WRK-SHP is back home after it's year (or so) abroad, first on the Southside and then mouldering away in Forest Hills.

* That line is a piece of advice from Walt Whitman's father and it may become my new personal motto?