>Men Are Just Happier People

>

Your last name stays put.
The garage is all yours.
Wedding plans take care of themselves.
Chocolate is just another snack.
You can be President.
You can never be pregnant.
You can wear a white
T-shirt to a water park.
You can wear NO shirt to a water park.
Car mechanics tell you the truth.
The world is your urinal.
You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just
too icky.
You don’t have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
Same work, more pay.
Wrinkles add character.
Wedding dress
$5000. Tux rental-$ 100.
People never stare at your chest when you’re talking to them.
The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected.
New shoes don’t cut, blister, or mangle your feet.
One mood all the time.
Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
You know stuff about tanks.
A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase. [Ed.: Actually, only a carry-on]
You can open all your own jars.
You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.
Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack.
Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
You almost never have strap problems in public.
You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.
Everything on your face stays its original color.
The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades.
You only have to shave your face and neck.
You can play with toys all your life.
Your belly usually hides your big hips.
One wallet and one pair of shoes — one color for all seasons.
You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look.
You can “do” your nails with a pocket knife.
You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.
You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes.

No wonder men are happier.

HT to Virginia @ Birmingham Daily Photo

Tagged | Leave a comment

>This, that and the other #2

>

It starts back here with Rock and Roll Doctor, a tribute album to the inimitable late, great Lowell George

This – a track from the tribute album, interpreted by one of the creme de la creme
That – the Little Feat/Lowell George original
And the Other – a good cut (or maybe 2) from the tribute album artist

Feats don’t fail me now by Taj Mahal from Rock and Roll Doctor

Feats don’t fail me now (From Sessions for Feats Don’t Fail Me Now) by Little Feat from Hotcakes and Outtakes

Corinna by Taj Mahal from Phenomenon OST

The Cuckoo by Taj Mahal from The Natch’l Blues

Live cut from Pinkpop music festival, The Netherlands, June 1976.

Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

>The Twitterer

>

The original Twitterer (Tweeter?) by Paul Klee from 1922, titled “Die Zwitscher-Machine” (“The Twittering Machine”)
MMA New York
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

Why can’t I help this stuff

 

At the Christmas exhibition at the local Craftpeople’s Guild.

I look at the scarf draped around the cranium of the show window dummy and think:

“Spoon. Gimme fiction”

I also know where I bought the CD (great little record store in Kerikeri), know where the lyrics first hit me (Hurstmere Road in Takapuna in a rental car outside The Booklover whilst Mrs jb was stocking up at Country Road.)

This used to worry me.

Not anymore.

I showed the Spoon image to the lady who was running the exhibition.

She looked at me as if I was trying explain quantum physics via yodeling.

We live on different planets.

I quite like it on mine…..

They never got me – Spoon from Gimme Fiction

Posted in It must be me, Music | 1 Comment

>Either the schnitzel’s too big….

>


…or the plate’s too small.

€5.50=US$8.00

Including tax.
Including service.

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

Baby sitting

Or…
“How to piss off a v. young-looking 49 year old”
I’ve known Robby since she was 3.
Her folks moved into our road in the early 1960s and they became Mrs jb and my best friends.
No-one else came or comes even close.
So it was natural that I’d get called upon to babysit the “Littlies”, as Isla called them, on occasion
Fast forward to 1976.
I was back in NZ on vacation and the Eagles were playing Carlaw Park.
I was nominally going out with one (or both?) of the Milnes twins, identical twin schoolteachers whose Gran lived next door and who had just returned from Philadelphia.
(We used to joke that Mum and Mrs Milnes would be quite tolerant of bigamy and would be more than happy to see me marching up the aisle with a bird on each arm. Seriously…)
And it was obvious that we were going to see the Eagles.
Robby’s eyes lit up when she heard, so I bought her a ticket and off we went.
All chattering away quite happily, with Robby getting quieter by the minute until she leans over and whispers in my ear “Don’t you DARE tell them that I’m still at school…”
Fast forward to last month.
I’m back in NZ haymaking on the farm and discover to my ABSOLUTE JOY that Ry Cooder and Nick Lowe are playing the Civic Theatre in Auckland on one of my 2 nights in town.
Ask my mate Houghton, Robby’s husband, if he’d be interested.
No (there’s no accounting for taste…), but Robby would.
Tickets bought, pick her up at the ferry from Devonport, great evening, phenomenally good concert and we’re on our way back to the car when she bumps into some friends.
Usual introductions, how do you know Robby? etc
The usual “Oh, I used to BABYSIT Robby when she was a Littlie”
More than a whisper this time.
“I just HATE it when he does that….”
Stand by me – Ry Cooder from Chicken Skin Music
Tattler – Ry Cooder from Paradise and Lunch
Do you want my job – David Lindley and Wally Ingram from Twango Bango Deluxe
Do you want my job – Cooder-Lindley Family from Live at the Vienna Opera House
I was tempted to yell out for the latter as an encore, but I was worried that Ry (he wrote it) might take me up on the offer and I’d be stuffed.
Going back to work for a living?
Heaven forbid….
Posted in Geriatric ramblings, Music | 2 Comments

>Inspired graphics on the Tube

>

If a tad blurred around the edges

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

>This, that and the other #1

>

Seriously.

There are people who have never heard of Lowell George and Little Feat.

Even people of my/his/our age.

Read about Lowell and the band on Wikipedia, and marvel at the genius of the man in this clip from 1977, filmed backstage at the Gruga Halle in Essen

There was the usual tribute album – Rock and Roll Doctor – released 20 years after his death, which is as good a place to start as any.

This – the track from the tribute album
 “Cold, cold, cold” performed by Bonnie Raitt on the album

That – a Little Feat/Lowell George original
“Cold, cold, cold” performed by Little Feat on “Hotcakes and Outtakes“

And the Other – a good cut from the tribute album artist
“Angel from Montgomery” – Bonnie Raitt from “No Nukes“

Which is one of finest readings of a truly wonderful John Prine song

I am an old woman, named after my mother
My old man is another, child that’s grown old
If dreams were thunder, lightning were desire
This old house would have burnt down, a long time ago

Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery
Make me a poster from an old rodeo
Just give me one thing that I can hold on to
To believe in this living is just a hard way to go

When I was a young girl, well I had me a cowboy
He weren’t much to look at, just a free rambling man
But that was a long time, and no matter how I try
The years just flow by, like a broken down dam

There’s flies in the kitchen, I can hear ’em there buzzing
And I ain’t done nothing, since I woke up today
How the hell can a person, go to work in the morning
And come home in the evening, and have nothing to say

Bonnie Raitt live
 

Posted in Music | Tagged | Leave a comment

>I think his name’s "Edvard"

>

Posted in Don't ask me | Leave a comment

>Now, here’s a treat….

>

Bayern 2 Radio is one of the best stations I’ve heard.

I’ll try and define the magic:

Today started off with traditional Bavarian music, mixed with local and regional news, then there’s 90 minutes of current affairs, background information, consumer topics and music, 30 minutes of cultural events, an hour featuring Tom Waits and Jack Kerouac, 2 hours of everything under the sun, live from a school (that’s on now…), a call-in program about grandparents’ role in child development, an hour of recommendations for books, music, theatre and TV, then news, interviews, kiddy program followed by….

Zündfunk, a program that never ceases to amaze me.

Here’s yesterday’s playlist:

Moneybrother
Salm
Tocotronic
Grizzly Bear
Dead Prez
Salm
The Strokes
Japandroids
Hearts No Static
Blakrok
John Watson
Olöf Arnalds
Jon Hopkins
William Fitzsimmons
Cluster & Eno
Mumford & Sons
Glasvegas

And then they have absolute gems, like an interview with Tony Allen, one of the primary co-founders of Afrobeat.

Normal sort of interview, except that the interviewer, Tobi Ruhland, brought along his dulcimer.

Which I thought was a valiha. Or a zither.

So here’s Tobi with Tony Allen  – “perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived”, as Brian Eno puts it – laying down the beat.

The full interview’s here as a podcast.

And “O Isa” – Rossy and Rakoto Frah – A World out of Time Volume 2 – gives you an idea of what a valiha sounds like.

Not a big difference, really…

Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment