Thursday, November 20, 2008

Boy, I am think I am heartbroken

Just thinking of MacArthur Park makes me weeping for all the lost love in my life.



Spring was never waiting for us, girl
It ran one step ahead
As we followed in the dance
Between the parted pages and were pressed,
In love's hot, fevered iron
Like a striped pair of pants



MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down...
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!



I recall the yellow cotton dress
Foaming like a wave
On the ground around your knees
The birds, like tender babies in your hands
And the old men playing checkers by the trees



There will be another song for me
For I will sing it
There will be another dream for me
Someone will bring it


I will drink the wine while it is warm
And never let you catch me looking at the sun
And after all the loves of my life
After all the loves of my life
You'll still be the one.


I will take my life into my hands and I will use it
I will win the worship in their eyes and I will lose it
I will have the things that I desire
And my passion flow like rivers through the sky.
And after all the loves of my life After all the loves of my life
I'll be thinking of you And wondering why.



MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down...
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again


Oh, no!
Oh, no
Jimmy Webb



Maybe I should seek medical attention.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Wowsers.... whole lotta taggin' been goin' on! And I have not been catching up.... mostly cause I still do not have a home computer and then second-mostly cause I have been catching up with the kids and third mostly, doing a lotta 'getting-ready-for-winter' stuff.
so......... Mathman tagged me...

The purpose is to share 6 non-important things/habits/quirks about your self. Here are the rules for this meme:
1. Link to the person that tagged you
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.
6. Let your tagged peops know once your entry is UP. Blog pal Dr Zibbs tagged me with the 6 odd things/quirks about me meme.

SIX... only six! SHeesh! non-important/quirks/habits... picking only six is akin to asking what my favorite sentences are in War and Peace! But I will give it a whirl...

1. I am a peanut butter freak. Skippy. On toast, bananas, apples, sandwichs, cottage cheese,oatmeal ...I have yet to find something that does not taste good with peanut butter. (well, there are exceptions.... smoked oysters and peanut butter do NOT taste good together)

2. I collect straight razors. I collect a lotta stuff... but I have had problems shaving (over active facial hair) since 8th grade. Friends starting giving me different razors to try. I fell in love with the beauty of antique straight razors.... ivory inlaid handles, imbedded silver work. Some are very beautiful.

3. I am afraid of heights.....but used to high dive from quarry cliffs. It was kinda like having panic attacks for fun.

4. I had a great-uncle who was a priest and presided at the burial mass for Joseph McCarthy.

5. I love watching High School Marching bands in parades. Even if they play badly. Brings tears to my eyes. Not sure why... but they are the only reason I watch parades.

6. I do not own a computer but really like blogging. I suppose I could get one.... but sometimes I think it would take away from the time I use to drink beer or watch High School Marching bands playing badly.

I am not going to tag anyone. Making links makes me think of breakfast with eggs and toast.



Then the esteemed humanitarian/activist/neat-o Border Explorer was kind enough to tag me with.....
Tagging for Blogger Album Project The multitalented Robert Rouse of Left of Centrist started up a project to track our musical tastes.THE RULES:
1. Post your list of the seven best albums, the seven bloggers you will tag, a copy of these rules, and a link back to this page.
2. Each person tagged will put a URL to their Blogger Album Project post along with a list of the seven best albums in the comment section HERE.
3. Feel free to post the “I Contributed to the Blogger Album Project” Award Graphic on your sidebar, along with a link back to this page.
4. Post a link back to the blogger who tagged you.Tagging for Blogger Album Project The multitalented Robert Rouse of Left of Centrist started up a project to track our musical tastes.

So, in no particular order...
I was a Fleetwood Freakie in the early 70's. The guitar work of Danny Kirwan and Bob Welch on Bare Trees blew me away when I first heard it. Plus I gotza thing about trees in autumn and the album jacket photo still blows me away.


Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. A little folk, a little jazz, a little swing and a lotta fun. Spawned out of the hippie Haight with a lotta different in his back pocket, he is currently in somewhat a revival. Hicks in concert is a gas. I hope to hear him live soon.

'Someone left the cake out in the rain' . Jim Webb and Richard Harris. I went through three vinyl's. I think my soul will be at peace when I find my MacArthur Park.


Emmy Lou. The voice of a broken heart and the vision of love that runs down a highway of forever. I think I have spun through multiple copies of this as well.
Some of the best piano I have ever heard. The best thing to put on the stereo on a sunday morning making tea while your lover is lounging in bed.



Herbie. Some of the best. Head Hunters was a revelation.


I was seventeen when I started college. I didn't know a soul on campus. A couple of weeks of trying to make the football team as a slow 175lb linebacker left me feeling alone, bruised and beaten. I was walking past a lounge in the union and heard Phil and realized that we are together, all of us, in feeling alone, bruised and beaten. It is what makes tomorrow possible.


I can't tag anyone on this either..... I am running out of time posting this and have to get back to real work. I hope someone reading this picks it up, like a message in a bottle, and throws it along.


Tomorrow is just another sea to go swimming in.


Love. jimm








Movie-Part Deux

OK. So they are shooting a Johnny Depp movie in town. The whole process was extremely interesting; I live only a block away and for a month it was like walking through a movie studio. I got rather chummy with some of the scenic designers and later during the actual filming spent a night drinking with some of the actors. But I never came close to Johnny Depp. My daughter did.

Now the town went kinda 'nuts' for all the movie stuff and downtown was swarming with Johnny Depp spotters and tourists. At times it did get weird. One night I called Miriam and she related that she got to meet Johnny Depp.

"Wowsers," I said.

"Yup! He shook my hand! And TALKED to me!", Miriam shouted in the phone.

"Oh, wow! Tell me about it!"

"Well, I was trying to get to my bank ATM, by the library, but they had the whole street blocked off because they had just finished shooting. I'm standing behind the barricade, the cop said it would only be a few minutes, so while I am waiting, Johnny Depp comes walking down the street shaking hands with people."

".. and he shook your hand?", I asked.

"Yup! And he looked right into my EYES and talked with me!!!!"

"What did he say?"

"He said my hand was cold. So he took my hand in BOTH of his and rubbed it to warm it up!"

"Oh Wowsers! I suppose you won't wash that hand for MONTHS, Miriam!"

"Are you kidding? Heck no! I saw how many other hands he was touching, and who knows where those hands have been..... and what those hands have been touching....I went home and washed my hands right away. I've been sick enough this last winter!"


My daughter has a brush with fame..... and she washes it away.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

I am just minding my own beer...and all these

....movie stars come walking into the bar. Really.

I was trying to think of what to write and I drew a blank. Not that it is unusual for me to draw a blank, in fact, drawing blanks is my most acute artistic statements. Miriam suggested that I attempt to write a bit about when they shot some of the Johnny Depp movie, "Public Enemy", in Oshkosh last spring. Gees, I don't know why I didn't think of that.



It was early last April when Hollywood came to town. The film details the infamous bank robber, John Dillinger, played by Johnny Depp, and directed by Michael Mann. We are an old mid-west town with many of the downtown store front very much unchanged from the 1920's. There various scenes shot around town, a bit out in the country and then some in Milwaukee, Madison and at the actual scene of a shoot out at a resort further to the north.




Johnny Depp as Dillinger
Most of the scene shooting in town took place about a block from my apartment with some of the cast and crew trailers parked about half a block away and right behind my favorite bar stool atOblio's. I got to know a few of the scenic designers rather well as they were in town a few weeks before the filming started and had found Oblio's to be a nice spot for a beer. There was also a significant amout of activity around the coffe house where I go for weekend morning brews. It is conveniently located across the street from one of the old banks Mr. Depp gets to rob. Bank with fake cobblestone
For two weeks prior to the actors showing up there were stage hands, electricians, painters, carpenters and folks of all ilks running around tow

Johnny Depp in front of Oblio's on his way to rob bank

The bar was swarming with gawky tourists, extras and folks who had leased antique cars to the film studio. Now I had to navigate the film area daily and all in all it was kinda fun. I don't know how many times I was stopped by rent-a-cops until I started wearing my work badge on a lanyard and carrying a leather back pack so that I looked a bit like some of the production people.


The tourists in town were the worst. Made it real difficult to get a beer or a cup of coffee. Some were so eager to meet a "movie star" that they would erroneously assume everyone they didn't know was connected with the filming. I had one old lady ask me if I was Steven Spielberg ( the glasses, nose and beard MAY be somewhat similar, but that's it.

More tomorrow. Miriam shakes hands with Johnny Depp.





Monday, November 17, 2008

Just Being Different



CATS!


Ya, Know... I have noticed that more than a few blogger-ites love cats.



one cat
two cat


buncha cats
few cats
no fat cats
no dead cats
barn cats
&no rats

nice cats
ok cats
weird cats
wild cats
smart cats
dumb cats
sassy cats
polite cats.
Frankly, some days I think the blog world is overrun by cats.

Not that there is anything wrong with that, but doesn't anyone have dogs? Or hamsters? Fish?

Parakeets? Hermit Crabs or mice? Lizards or snakes? What is with all the cats?
Frankly, I like to raise worms. They are very quiet, I never have to walk them........ AND
they are good protein in a pinch. I had a pet Emu egg, once.... but the realtionship got rotten.



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