Oh, How We Danced All Night

The Mummydogs - Live at the Press Club, Sacramento, CA (1/7/00)

Have you been without your "Guy Kyser's Scary Voice Fix" for too long? Then jones no longer, my friends, because here are...The Mummydogs!

You guys really like Thin White Rope, from the evidence in the Download Vault, so here's the only show I have by his more recent band, The Mummydogs. Yeah, huzzah, hurrah, yippee!

As far as I know, only one album out by this band, on good ol' Frontier Records. Remember Frontier? They were one of my faves long ago. Even put out a Madison band, E*I*E*I*O and I wish I had something live to share by them, because good as they were on their albums they were much, much better live. Great band for dancing and drinking. I took my little sister - when she was still in high school, I think - to see them at the long gone Turner Hall and she couldn't believe her big brother could dance like he was dancing, and for hours. She was the one that had to take a break.

If you don't know them, the Turners were and still are a kind of German-American institution dedicated to "Sound Minds and Sound Bodies" or some suchlike Germanic scary thing that would later turn nice young blonde boys into perfect cannon fodder for Hitler. Anyway, they built these big buildings with a gymnasium and a stage (and usually a bar in the basement, naturally) that were perfect for punk rock shows in the 80s. Saw the Minutemen and Hüsker Dü and The Replacements and Naked Raygun and tons of other shows at Turner. I remember watching Bob and Greg drag a completely wasted Grant Hart from this little room at the front of the building all the way through the crowd to get him onstage. One of them was on either side of Grant with an arm hitched under his pits, Grant's feet behind them dragging on the ground, head almost hitting the floor. He played amazingly once he was propped up behind his kit, for the first half of the show. He was nodding off big-time by the end, barely able to keep a beat. Wonder what was in his tea that night?

The old Turner Hall building was downtown, just blocks from the Capitol building and in a great location to bring weirdos together - something the City didn't really like happening. It was bought by the State or the City, I can't remember which, back in 1991 or '92 and then torn down. The Turners built a new building somewhere, I've heard, but I've never been there. Probably used for a lot of weddings now, I bet.

I didn't say much about The Mummydogs, did I? Just download and listen and enjoy your weekend. Grab that Neil Young show, too, if you haven't - it's a lot of fun! Have big guitars in your head all of the time, that's my advice - it's the best way to stay sane.

Buy the 'dog's shit!

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Now playing: Gate - Spirit
via FoxyTunes

Insert Caption Here

A moment of levity is called for after the last of the 2008 Presidential debates, as we find out that the Secret Service is derelict in its duty toward Barack Obama and openly partisan in its actions, as we endure more racist bullshit from the people McCain so brazenly defended last night, as Obergruppenführer Sarah continues her mad rampages into Bizarro World, intent on destroying the last vestiges of dignity still clinging to the Republican standard.

If you can think of any captions to make this already insanely funny picture even funnier, leave them in the Comments, please.

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Now playing: The Dream Syndicate - Weathered And Torn
via FoxyTunes

A Loss for Words (Or, If It Quacks Like a Duck)

The conservative right intellectual set is flailing as wildly in the waters as McCain-Palin. Somebody pulled the plug, the waters are swirling and the drain is fast approaching!

First, Christopher Buckley - one of those Buckleys - endorsed Obama. In right and conservative circles, this is a Judas moment of epic proportions. I love it. It tickles me inside, gives me a kind of pink and green glow that I'll cherish for days.

Then, in an act of contrition to the editors of the The National Review, which Buckley's father started, he offers his resignation. They grab it like free french fries at a fat farm! (I used five F's in that last sentence. I've never done that before.)

And now they've come up with a new meme to slander Obama, based on first-year college lit-crit level analysis: Obama didn't write his own books. Bill Ayers did.

Wow. As an idjit who can read "Rape!" into a Cindy McCain campaign statement, even I'm flabbergasted. Perhaps in awe. Certainly my pink and green humors are all a-quiver.

If you have the stomach for it, read it. But it's a vaguely constructed argument full of obvious bias against both authors, aligning coincidences as facts and jumping rather willy-nilly from idea to idea, from technique to technique. The best - using "best" sarcastically, of course - is how the author compares books by Ayers and Obama to a book about boxing that he himself wrote. The logic in use is something like this: "My book was a memoir about boxing and can be used as a standard for what all memoirs are and should be." The gag-factor is very high here.

I do have a favorite part, though, lest, gentle reader, you think me naught but a partisan hack set upon destruction only. I particularly love the notion, only hinted at because the timeline is so loosely constructed it can't hold up to intense scrutiny, that Obama and Ayers met in early 1995 and somehow, within weeks, struck up a relationship so close that Ayers ended up writing Obama's first book. And managed to get it written in weeks, too, in order to meet the publishing timeline given! Dang, these guys are supermen!

If you're unfamiliar with publishing, the above notion won't rankle you as it does me. Allow me to explain why you should be pissed that this hack of an intellectual wants you to buy this gold-covered crap.

In the last ten years, I've worked on several books with different authors, proofreading and also sorting out the kind of confusion that results when a dozen articles from as many years get smashed into one book - making a mess of footnotes and references. My Smart Wife has indexed a number of books too, having to pay careful attention to schedules. I have friends that are small press publishers and have heard their tales of woe, waiting on long overdue proofs and how those damn writers don't understand printers and deadlines!!! So, I'm well aware of the kind of long-term scheduling that exist in publishing and how deadlines have to be maintained. The timeline so cavalierly hinted at by the author is ludicrous and insulting to the brain parts of the body. I think he realizes it, too, which is why it gets only a very short and choppy reference.

Anyway, cooling down, as I said before this is like a bad college lit-crit piece or a poorly conceived historiography paper. Here's my logic for why I can say this: I've read an awful lot of them. I even get paid once a year to read a few dozen of these for a college prize committee. It's not a fun job. Reading this isn't fun either. What most reminds me of this odious chore is when the author concludes that not knowing the true authorship of Obama's books is comparable to Sadam hiding his nuclear weapons program. Dangerously thin intellectual territory, kids. The average freshman would be told to rethink and rewrite this while the average senior would be slapped down with lead-filled sappers for this kind of loose cannon logical bull. And the author of this crap has a Ph.D. in American Studies. Or so he claims...

Finally, it's telling that this is the level that the intellectual arm of the right has sunk to in its senescence. They are looking desparately around for validation and support, while the few actual intellects they have are pulling up stake and looking for greener pastures. I wish those few luck and as for the rest...I honestly don't give a damn. They'll be asking Rush Limbaugh if he needs new writers soon.

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Now playing: Bill Dixon - Scribbles
via FoxyTunes

Weird Reasons to Vote for Obama #8

Because after you watch this video, you'll wish you were Jewish. I know I do.



And what other campaign in American political history has ever engendered such inspirational humor in its support? This is freakin' brilliant - the idea and the execution by Sarah "Coolest Chick in Comedy Who Swears a Lot" Silverman.

What's the best McCain can do? Limbaugh? I wish he had the guts to have this Sarah on his show rather than that helicopter-huntress VP-pick of McCain's. She'd rip his head off and shit down his throat. That was what my other friend named Larry used to say to hecklers during his short-lived career as a standup back in '84 or maybe it was '85. He did it better than me.

(This other Larry is now a state trooper in a state I won't name. He did have the distinction of having one of his best jokes ripped off by another comedian and used on David Letterman way back then. It was some long-forgotten loser that Larry opened for; the loser stole his joke and had 10 seconds of fame with it. So, I guess Larry did too. Good job, Larry, good job!)

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Now playing: The Laughing Clowns - Clown Town
via FoxyTunes

"Monk fight! Monk fight!"

How long has it been since you heard those words, eh? Brings back some great memories, I bet. Well, now you can relive them, via the magic of disorganized religion.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the holiest sites in Christendom, is about to fall down on itself, but the holy men whose charge it is to maintain and preserve it, are fighting about ladders and doors.

Sweet. Hope it falls in on all of them. End of discussion. Maybe end of religion. But that's probably too much to ask.

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Now playing: Gut Bank - Guilty As Sin
via FoxyTunes

Are You Ready?

Neil Young - Live at Bicentennial Park, Miami, Florida (11/12/77) Part 1
Neil Young - Live at Bicentennial Park, Miami, Florida (11/12/77) Part 2

If I could live in a world that's nothing but the echoes and reverberations from Neil Young's guitar, floating in the spaces between and around and inside of the notes and the noise, disembodied and gloriously auditory forever and ever, I would. That's pretty much my personal paradise.

Hell, half the time I think I'm there already. If you can find me a religion that promises personal afterlives adapted specifically to the user's desires, I'll join up because I'm ready. Gimme that new time religion!

A couple years after I bought my first bootleg at Madison's long-gone Paradise Records (the classic Falling Spikes LP boot of the VU), a friend at another record store made me a Neil boot tape from various LPs and even a rare CD source that he'd paid megabucks to get from Europe. I guess that was my first experience of the trading world, though I had nothing to give him in return. He even made a great wraparound cover for the cassette on his dot-matrix printer (which I later bought from him, I just remembered) and Mac, with a pixelated pic of Neil.

My Smart Wife and I logged hundreds of miles in her "cherry" Nissan pickup listening to this boot. A friend sang "Comes a Time" at our wedding. Wanna guess what The Boy's middle name is?

See, we're kinda obsessed with Neil at the Monkey House.

Odd that I haven't shared any of my Neil boots with ya'all yet. I've got hundreds of them and this is one of the oddest. It's a birthday party for Neil and even includes audience sing-alongs. Maybe not the best recording ever but very listenable with a great performance. It's a fascinating show with a funky setlist including some obscure tunes as well as being a totally classic audience-style bootleg with hollers and hoots galore. You can hear conversations at times from around the taper or maybe by the taper himself. This one is totally endearing if you are a Neil fan.

If you are, enjoy. If you aren't, why not?

Buy Neil's shit.

CORRECTION: If you've already downloaded this show, my apologies. It's missing the first track and another track had diginoise. Both are in the first part. You can get the missing bit and the corrected bit here. Let me know if you find problems in this post or any other post and I'll do my dang-diddley-doodley-est to fix them. Love and kisses from the 'Monkey.

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Now playing: Naked Prey - The Story Never Ends
via FoxyTunes

Stones & Bones & Things In the Ground

Gimme that ol' time, Neolithic religion!

I was browsing my favorite archaeology site today and read a couple of really fascinating stories. One is about the amazing survival ability of custom and tradition, even in the face of persecution. It's about witchcraft. Really fascinating. Really. Fascinating. Really.

And the other story is about this stone hedgehog. From Stonehenge. It's the Stonehenge-Hog, if you will.


The author, brief as the story is, hits the purely human aspect of this discovery right on the head. I could feel my own grief at just the idea of laying my child into the ground and putting his favorite toy with him for company. I was ready to weep for the father or mother that laid their child to rest forever three thousand years ago. I am actually choking up writing this. That makes about fifty times that's happened to me on this blog, I think, for those keeping track. (I tear up over a really good Jello commercial, though).

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Now playing: Danny & Dusty - Knockin' On Heaven's Door
via FoxyTunes

Black and White

It has been brought to this blogger's attention that "the perfect and non-refutable logic of guilt by association" used by him in his previous post can, evidently, cut two ways.

This blogger was under the impression via current media and political usage of "the perfect and non-refutable logic of guilt by association" that it can only be used against those one disagrees with.

He did not know that it could be used against him, in turn. And he is pissed about it.

Therefore, this blogger is forced to admit (again per the spirit of President Bush's "Telling It Like It Is Order") that he is: White, Black, Hetero, Gay, Male, Female, Japanese, Republican, Communist, Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Atheist, Norwegian, Scottish, Unitarian, Liberal, Conservative, French, Illiterate, Literate, College Educated and a High School Dropout. And Hmong.

Updates to this list will be posted as they are lived.

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Now playing: The Godfathers - Unreal World
via FoxyTunes

Out of the Closet: John McCain

John McCain is Gay. He's also Black. And Hispanic. And Jewish. And he's a Socialist, Atheist, Teenboy-Loving Pedophile.

[Proper nouns must now by used to refer to all groups and subgroups of Americans per President Bush's recent Executive Order No. 102,398, aka "The Telling It Like It Is Order"].

After all, John McCain has been serving in Congress for decades with Gays, Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, at least one Socialist, an Atheist and one known Pedophile (and who knows how many others?).

And, through the perfect and non-refutable logic of guilt by association, John McCain is a Gay, Black, Hispanic, Jewish, Socialist, Atheist Pedophile. Probably Vietnamese, too.

It's the only logical conclusion that any decent, reasonable person could draw.

Why doesn't John McCain come clean to the American people about these things? What is he hiding? Why isn't he honest about his Gayness and his God-Hating and his Boy-Loving? Why can't he tell us why he's a Socialist? What's the deal with his being Hispanic, too? How come he never talks about that?

What is John McCain hiding? And why isn't Fox News covering this breaking story?

PS Isn't "Sidney" a girl's name? Is John Transgendered, too?

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Now playing: The Terminals - Ministry of Lies
via FoxyTunes

The Who Discovered What?

Clay Allison - Live at the Electric Banana, Pittsburgh, PA (5/22/84) Part 1
Clay Allison - Live at the Electric Banana, Pittsburgh, PA (5/22/84) Part 2

Had a fun talk with a couple of my students the other day about Columbus versus the Vikings and who discovered America. Or which known European historical figure "discovered" the Americas, to be more politically correct perhaps.

They were flabbergasted at this idea; it went against everything they'd been taught. And these young ladies were 17 and 18 years old. But they had never once heard about this. Or if they had, they'd forgotten. My best guess, though, would be on the "Never Told About" side.

History teachers at the middle and high school level can be a fairly conservative bunch, both personally and politically, and it often shows in their teaching. I've met exactly two that I'd think of as "liberal." Also, the textbooks they use can be pretty conservative. After all, most textbooks in the US have to meet a vetting standard out of Texas - not a bastion of liberality. This is because textbook publishers desperately have to sell to the Texas school system, it's such a huge customer. So they tailor and basically censor their textbooks to meet the parochial demands of the Texas board which reviews such. California also plays a huge role in this process, but the best bet for publishers is to error on the side of conservatism even if historical truth and fairness and scientific reasoning and a bunch of other good things get jettisoned along the way.

My students probably didn't want to know as much about this as I told them, a common ailment I've found since I can go on and on at length on topics I enjoy (a fact any regular reader here will attest to), but the discussion was entertaining and enlightening. Their textbook actually mentioned "Lief Erickson Day' and they wanted to know when that happens. Lucky them, I said, it's this week - before Columbus Day! The rest of the conversion centered on where in town they could buy Viking helmets to celebrate.

Hmm. What does this have to do with some live Clay Allison? I dunno, except maybe that I've already said about all I can say about my obsession with all things Opal/Kendra Smith-related? And that the past is always prologue.

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Now playing: Ken Chambers - Out of the bag
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