Fa, a long, long way to go

I've always disliked The Sound of Music, but I love this shit. These railway station dance routines are such an extraordinary antidote to the misery of daily routine. I hope I'm in Grand Central when it happens there.

Here in the land of one senator

I had the pleasure today of interviewing Minnesota Supreme Court justice, and football hall-of-famer Alan Page for a project I'm working on.

Outside of the formal interview we spoke about national politics, particularly the job the new president is doing. Page said he was glad we now had a president who was proud of his intellectual achievements, and not, like our last president, gloating about his anti-intellectualis.

Page may very well be on the panel who will hear Norm Coleman's plea to retain his role as Minnesota's Senator, against a tide of evidence and opinion, and so he couldn't and wouldn't offer an opinion on what has become a great embarassment to the voters of Minnesota.

Hay, its plaqued me two

Now, I hope you'll understood.



H/T Jeff Hayash.

Hard pressed

I've been buying into the argument that a well-functioning free press is vital to the survival of democracy, but Jack Shafer isn't.

Still, coming from a state where the hard work of the state's newspaper brought down a rogue governor, it's hard for me to accept that solid journalism isn't vital to casting hard light into the shadows of an always-murky government.

Last walk in Sanibel

Sanibel's inferno

Sanibel has been known for centuries as a shellers paradise. If you haven't met a sheller, or don't know what one is (I've never been introduced to anyone at a cocktail party as, "Ed, this is Jerry, he's a sheller,"), you will encounter dozens on the beaches of these tiny islands. It all began with the Calusa Indians, who used the shells for tools and weapons, and even the invading Europeans could not help but engage in the Sanibel stoop - the position of choice for examining the beds of skeletal remains of formerly-living mollusks.

In truth, you are less likely to engage the eye of a sheller, which is usually embroiled in examiningg the tideline for an elusive Junonia, than you are to get an eyeful of a sheller's hind end.

When I am not on this island, I am not a sheller, but even with a conscious effort not to be one, I find myself, like most visitors, struck with a compulsion to pull pockets full of chambered nautiluses and bivalves from the sand, return them to our rented condo, and then stuff them in a suitcase to carry back to New England. They leave the clothes in my suitcase smelling like a fish sandwich left in a puddle in the sun for three days. Inevitably, the shells, once so eagerly sought after, are cast into pile of gravel in my backyard.

Though there is some value still in finding a very rare, or very large shell, these days most of the shells themselves must be appreciated for their intrinsic value. No longer passable as wampum (though those days may come soon enough), or as with any trading value as an exotic in a European market (though those days may come again), or with any manufacturing value for things like mother-of-pearl (those days are probably gone), the shells are virtually worthless, unless you can figure out something to do with them, which some, who have a creative bent, have done along the beach.

There's always a tribute to nature and the sea itself.


You can honor your country.


Or your state.


Or a Vegas casino.

Or the Easter bunny.

Or your sense of style.

But of course the most obvious honor, is man's tribute to the thing he finds most precious. And though man has erected a edifice honoring this thing before (Egyptian obelisks, the Washington monument, the Eiffel Tower, the Chrysler Building), he finds himself compelled to do it again, on the beach.

The ugly side of Sanibel

Lest you feel that my morning walks along the Gulf have been absent thoughts about what Alfred Lord Tennyson called, "nature red in tooth and claw," I thought I'd post some of the truth about the beautiful seashore.

Just above the wave's reach stand fisherman reeling in desperate finned creatures with jagged barbed hooks. And each of these million upon million of shells was once filled with a living creature, now gone. Each birds flight does not end with a happy ending, and maybe T.S. Eliot was wrong to wish, "I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas."




Well, as Eliot also wrote, "I have
heard the mermaids singing, each to each," but I've also heard a barrel-chested sunburnt wag shout, "Honey can you grab me a beer, and the sunblock."




Of course, then there's the sand Buddha and gator, and suddenly life seems sweet again.

Duane Jarvis, RIP

LA roots musician Duane Jarvis has died after a short battle with colon cancer. He played with Lucinda Williams, John Prine, Dwight Yoakum and many others, and was a fine songwriter himself.

Read it here first

(WARNING: This is an April Fool's Day joke, and as such is completely fictitious).

Before it hits the local tabloids. From the AP:

WWUH Accepts Stimulus From Government Agency
McKeon Out

WWUH FM has been promised a thin slice of the stimulus package for its efforts in promoting community resources and the arts.

The station, which has been broadcasting for 35 years, was hailed as a “lifeline of information, culture and opinion” in a becalmed sea of mediocrity by Darren Fate, a member of the Committee Underwriting National Traditions and Talent, otherwise known as COMM-TT (pronounced comm.-double-tee).

Last week station manager John Ramsey announced that WWUH would receive a grant equal to the difference in dollars raised in 2008 compared to that raised in 2009.

“We don’t see it as a bailout, exactly,” Ramsey said. “But we understand the financial pressure our listeners are experiencing, and we’re happy to have the feds step in and supplement the generosity of listeners who were able to pledge. And I don’t think we’ll have to send this year’s t-shirt to any members of Comm-double-T.”

As part of the agreement with the federal government to accept this stimulus package, WWUH has so far asked for the resignation of at least one radio show host, and Ramsey hinted that other names were in consideration.

Ed McKeon, host, of the Wednesday morning FM on Toast slot called Caterwaul, broadcast his final show last week.

“I won’t say I’m happy about leaving,” McKeon said in a prepared statement. “But I know it’s the best for the station, and I’ve had a good run. I know that many folk fans will be happy not to hear Billy Bragg songs, week in and week out.”

McKeon said that he would be retiring to Florida to spend more time with his family.

Both Ramsey and McKeon denied reports that McKeon was asked to leave for accepting so-called “retention pledges” from “loyal” listeners during the station’s Marathon fundraiser.

“Those fourteen or fifteen, hundred-dollar pledges went straight into the radio station’s bank account,” McKeon insisted. “I know nothing about listeners receiving counterfeit station t-shirts.”

“Ed is basically trustworthy,” Ramsey mused. “We don’t think there has been any impropriety, but we are checking on Ed’s unerring loyalty to singers who don’t really have a singing voice that can carry a tune.”

Calls to the management of the aforementioned Bragg and to Randy Newman, Greg Brown, Vince Bell, Pete Seeger, Shane MacGowan and Bob Dylan were not returned at press time.

While a search of McKeon’s WWUH mail slot turned up more than a dozen blank “Listner Kits,” valued at $26 each, Ramsey insisted that the envelopes bearing the Listener Kits, and all addressed to variations of McKeon’s name (Ed McEwen, Ed McKwan, Ed McKeeone, Ed McCune), were simply mailing errors.

“Look, what am I gonna do with 48 or 49 WWUH t-shirts,” McKeon asked. “They’re only worth five or six bucks on the open market. Have you checked EBAY? They’re not exactly flying off the rack.”

A petition bearing 38 names demanding McKeon’s return to the airwaves has been rejected by WWUH and COMM-Double-T, and McKeon himself seems to have found solace amongst the humidity and strip malls of South Florida.

“Hey, it’s the first time in years that I’ve actually felt young,” McKeon joked. “Let WWUH keep the stimulus check. Down here when you talk about stimulus, everyone thinks your talking about Viagra.”

For the immediate future, McKeon’s Wednesday morning slot will be filled by Susan Forbes Hansen, a pioneering folk DJ in Connecticut who promises to return the Wednesday morning slot to true folk music.

“Face it,” Forbes Hansen said. “McKeon wasn’t exactly devoted to “John Henry.” His idea of a folk song was anything older than “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

“We’ll miss Ed,” Ramsey noted whimsically. “But then again we thought we were going to miss the guy who did the bluegrass show, too.”

McKeon is currently employed as a weather reporter for Christian station WHIM in Ybor City Florida.”

BTW it's April first here in Florida, too.

Another goddamned beautiful morning walk

There's something about Sanibel Island that so un-Florida , a building code which forbids buildings of more than four stories, hundreds of acres of nature preserves, birds of astonishing plummage, dolphins, manatees (while there's plenty here to remind one that it's the kind of state we all sneer at occasionally, and to fill several more Carl Hiassen novels).

Reminds me of Randy Newman's song about LA, "looks like another perfect day...."