...while my son Liam is doing his rap thing, I've just kind of been in a JC mood.
My truck no longer has a driver's side window because Liam hasn't quite grasped the concept of potential ricochet's with the BB/Pellet gun. I think we'll hold off on getting him the .22 rifle I was looking at upgrading him to. The truck still works though and the dogs know that if I'm going someplace in it, that they too are going to get a chance to go "bye-bye". You can't say that word too loud though because if they hear it, it triggers a little bit of a freak out time for them. Sometimes a stroll through the countryside is just what the doctor ordered, although with the dogs in the truck in the middle of summer's sweltering heat (and no air conditioning), what we have is a hot wind in the face, swirling shedded dog hair, everybody wanting to be on my lap, drool flowing like a waterfall and the non-stop rhythmic sound of panting. Would be sort of comical if there could be some kind of hidden camera.
Not sure if, wherever y'all may be, you get those redneck type jokes forwarded to you in your email. I don't know that I would be officially considered one or be embraced by redneck brethren as a fellow redneck, but unavoidably the tendencies are there. Actually if I drive my truck I get ten times the waves I do when I drive my car, even the big rigs give me the high sign. The jokes are very popular among the rednecks I know, made popular by Jeff Foxworthy and the other Blue Collar Comedy guys, and I'm a little impressed by a group of people being able to laugh at how they have been stereotyped (or have stereotyped themselves). Ethnic groups do the same thing, kind of roasting themselves, but anyone outside of that group making those kind of stereotypical (racist?) jokes would be frowned upon. Anyway I get these redneck jokes forwarded to me all the time and got a few good ones I've edited recently from my Grandpa.
You're An EXTREME Redneck When.....
1. You let your 14-year-old daughter smoke at the dinner table in front of her kids.
4. You think a woman who is out of your league bowls on a different night..
6. Someone in your family died right after saying 'Hey, guys, watch this'.
17. You think loading the dishwasher means getting your wife drunk.
Along those lines, interestingly (or not) enough called the
Erudite Redneck. An interesting word, "erudite", I had to look it up, "learned, scholarly, with emphasis on knowledge gained from books". Kind of an oxymoron (another big word) if you take the stereotype to the next level. Kind of one of those resource link commentary type sites but since my buddy
The Warden" is taking a break, I need something to fill the gap in my internet buffet.
If you weren't Johnny Cashed-out before this post, that like these others before, is on, about, for or in tribute to the man, well...let's say...I'm still trying. I personally would have a hard time getting sick of his music, but then again I've never tried to break that threshold. Like everything it's all about timing and what mood your in. You may have seen that I posted two very different releases of his,
American Recordings and
The Sun Years, plus several other random tunes, sparsely salted to taste, throughout my posts here. I really can't get enough of the guy and wish that he had been like one of those mythical biblical type guys who lived 9oo years. His output was tremendous but what could it have hurt to have gone on for a few more centuries. Speaking of "hurt", I don't have all the American Recoding stuff he did with Rick Rubin, but just discovered a tune he did, written by Trent Resnor (NIN) that, if you haven't already heard it, will blow you away, especially if you're like me and have been hopelessly addicted to something,
Hurt
This fine image was stolen/borrowed/loaned without permission from
Sharp Tattoos and fit nicely since my copy of this single doesn't have a sleeve. Both tunes are perfect on this one from 1971 from what I would call the middle period of his career, but obviously Man In Black is the highlight and worth posting the lyrics to,
Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.
I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.
I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.
Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black.
I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.
And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believen' that the Lord was on their side,
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believen' that we all were on their side.
Well, there's things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin' everywhere you go,
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You'll never see me wear a suit of white.
Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black.
I'm not one to quote Wikipedia and actually I've run across many sites that pretty much just quote Wiki without credit and then call it good. Cheezy in my book, but I'm not one to talk as this place may have the reek of something like burnt Parmesan at times. This paragraph was too good to not pass on directly so,
"Cash, a devout but troubled Christian, has been characterized "as a lens through which to view American contradictions and challenges." A Biblical scholar, he penned a Christian novel entitled
Man In White, and he made a spoken word recording of the entire New King James Version of the New Testament. Even so, Cash declared that he was "the biggest sinner of them all", and viewed himself overall as a complicated and contradictory man. Accordingly, Cash is said to have "contained multitudes", and has been deemed "the philosopher-prince of American country music". A good lead in to the 'A' side of this single.
Man In Black
Little Bit Of Yesterday
I have a lot of Johnny Cash singles but this was my first from his early stuff off the Sun label. My copy is worn to say the least and actually according to "Goldmine Standards" is is rated "good", which is not so good. The label is worn, there's sticker residue, but there's "WOL" (writing on label). The vinyl itself has absolutely no sheen, just one big scuff, no scratches that skip, but there is a whole speaker that is dedicated to surface noise. Even still the sound is beautiful. I don't know their names but I dig the "Tennessee Two". Now that I live in a place where Country is THE music of choice for young and old, I can see how really popular Mr. Cash was. Watched this special on the man not to long ago that basically put him in a place where he was as popular as the British invasion. In the early 60's, when he did "Ring of Fire" he crossed over to the pop charts into that top 40. More often than not, popular, means shit, but sometimes...not,
I Walk The Line
Get Rhythm
Another seriously great one from the man, that someone has kindly shared the video of. You can pretty much find just about anything on Youtube. Ira Hayes is someone worth looking into especially if your in the mood to be angry or depressed.
Johnny Cash - The Ballad of Ira Hayes
Our little itty bitty garden. 15+ years of busting my hump (swinging a pick, kicking a shovel and chasing a wheelbarrow) for a living, I'm just not that motivated to do anything spectacular in the dirt. This is enough to put several meals worth of vegetables on the table and to get together some jars of salsa (by the way, contrary to popular belief, in my opinion salsa is much better with cilantro/coriander). The best garden I ever had was back in college with Dave Slam up in Kneeland, all dug by hand, with truck load after truck load of horse manure and crab shells, tilled in. Fruit, vegetables and flowers for drying. Amazing what a 22 year old punk rock doper/drunk college student can do (just me, Dave was clean as a whistle, studied very hard and enjoyed listening to 70's love ballads). It must have been around 50' x 50' and now I'm reduced to 6' x 6', ha, ha. All cleaned up now, but too out of shape and broke down to let my physical and creative forces flow.
Anybody ever heard this one?
Everybody deserves a sock in the eye every once in a while. In lieu of that I've got some random tunes I wanted to share with you. My buddy Alex reminded me of this one that I've got on a mixed tape somewhere. Up in Humboldt the helicopters used to fly low dawn till dusk at those special times of the year, in the never ending search for the devil's weed. Really puts you on edge when you're one involved with cultivation. Interesting take on the violent side of reggae, "...but if you continue to burn up the herbs, we gonna burn down the cane fields",
Little Jimmy came though again with another nugget from mid-80's Humboldt. Another band that I saw at many a party, but in my mind they all blur together as one party. Schmidt was a popular beer in those part, back then and actually I've never seen it anywhere else. As far as types of beer goes I'd put it in the category of "cheap", if that tells you anything. 12 packs came in four different can decorations and there were those who claimed that one type was better than another (including myself). Many drunk nights, hangovers and barfing sessions associated with that beer. Used to get it from that liquor store that was in between the motel and Hey Juans, by the footbridge over to HSU. Anyway, the Schmidtheads were one of those post punk things that only Humboldt could have produced. The members were,
Patty (Gamel) Forbes - vox
Chris Means - guit/vox
Billy Britain - guit/vox
Jason Brown - bass
Sherri Frost - drums
You'll run across these names frequently in various bands as the scene there recycled musicians constantly. Patty really could belt out a song, Chris you'll see around here a lot as time goes on with his killer chords (The Leftovers from a couple of posts ago) and Sherri has already been featured here with the tune, The Jane Maxwell Band - Some Of Us and one of my favorite bands, Students From Marin/Sherri's Flappin' Mammies. If there's one tune I remembered listening to this some 20+ years after the fact, it's "Mary Kay Cosmetic Queen. Other than that you get a few killer cover's and some of Humboldt's finest originals. So if you were there take a minute to get nostalgic and know how lucky you were, but if this is all new, know that all kinds of shit was going on in the middle of nowhere Northern California.
Bad Sound
Cherry Bomb
Mary Kay Cosmetic Queen
Avengers
GTO
Nausea
Nancy's Orange Frightwig
Love Knot
Satan Is My Dad
Billy
Billy 2
Sports Pack
Blues Jam
Billy 3
DUI
Nightmare on 11th Street
