This Is (N)ot Here

MaGREETINGS from John Lennon!

FSF + ZSF = SFS

Subtitle:
Daddy quotes Logic, Mommy quotes Alice, I name the Book.

I do have some occasionally useful bits of information learned at the parental knee...Daddy loved to declaim very seriously, "that all men are liars. Therefore Solomon was a liar. Therefore all men are not liars. Therefore, Solomon was not a liar. Therefore what Solomon said was true. Therefore all men are liars. Therefore..."
Scottie Fitzgerald Smith
21 August 1973

This quote is from the Foreword of F. SCOTT & ZELDA FITZGERALD Bits of Paradise.
But the link will get you to  the collected papers of Scott & Zelda's only child.


Twelve of the Bits were written by Scott; nine were written by Zelda.
Our Own Movie Queen was written by both of Scottie's parents in 1925.

Ms. Smith also quotes a letter from her mother:

Your generation was the last to bear witness to the grace and gala of those days of the doctrine of free will.

The twenty-two "Bits of Paradise" had originally been published in magazines or journals
but were not anthologized until 1974.

Two of Scott's stories were published post-humously, including Dearly Beloved–
his only story with significant Negro characters.

All of Zelda's were published between
1929 and 1932, including what you see below.

Naturally, the reference to Tweedledum & Tweedledee caught my eye but the overwhelming surrealistic imagery made my brain dance across the page, especially
the image of sunlight transforming asparagus into a xylophone.

Slang-O-Metrics *

This may not win points for political correctness. But if you find no humor in this post, please see your doctor OR replace what might be offensive with your own favorite slang terms.
Betty "Able" Grable and Greta "Do A" Garbo are most link-worthy.


Blogger's Note
SLANG-O-METRICS has been copyrighted by the Lewis Carroll School of Logic.

LA Times Tribute to SAM BROWNE

Here is what the Los Angeles Times had to say about Jefferson High School's
legendary music teacher, Samuel Rodney Browne.

Dexter Gordon called Mr. Browne "Count" and Teddy Edwards called him "Dr. Browne."

Petronius & Me

Petronius once said:

Envy is the root of all evil and the canker of virtue

G. Fatmat once said:

Hatred is just jealousy standing on a barstool

And then G. Fatmat said: In order to express my humility, I need a bullhorn.

You Say Picasso, I Say Tamayo

The title was too good to pass up but it is better to read this news report about RUFINO TAMAYO.







Rufino Tamayo
Hombre Contemplando

From Charlie to Dorothy

What Charlie Parker did with a saxophone, Dorothy Parker did with her pen.

Is it possible that Charlie and Dorothy were related?

Yes. Because relatives are not to be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their talent!
--Mentor Robinson
(Lecturer, Lewis Carroll School of Logic ≈1971)


Mr. Parker hit some very sharp notes on his saxophone. Mrs. Parker wrote some very sharp words with her pen.
Feast your eyes:

Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

He and I had an office so tiny that an inch smaller and it would have been adultery.

Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.

Scratch a lover, and find a foe.

It's not the tragedies that kill us, it's the messes.

Men don't like nobility in woman. Not any men. I suppose it is because the men like to have the copyrights on nobility -- if there is going to be anything like that in a relationship.

I require only three things of a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid.

Sorrow is tranquility remembered in emotion.

His voice was as intimate as the rustle of sheets.

The only "ism" Hollywood believes in is plagiarism.

Her mind lives tidily, apart
From cold & noise & pain
And bolts the door against her heart
Out wailing in the rain.

Take care of luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.

You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.

One more drink and I'll be under the host.

The two most beautiful words in the English language are "check enclosed."

Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

Look at him, a rhinestone in the rough.

His body has gone to his head.

I don't care what is written about me as long as it isn't true.

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

Money cannot buy health, but I'd settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair.

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.

Ducking for apples - change one letter and it's the story of my life.

The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of their tires.

Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it, and it darts away.

I don't know much about being a millionaire, but I'll bet I'd be a darling at it.

(When asked to use the word 'horticulture' in a sentence:) You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.


Four be the things I'd have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt.

That woman speaks eight languages and can't say no in any of them.

It's a small apartment, I've barely enough room to lay my hat and a few friends.

I can't write five words but that I change seven.

Wasn't the Yale prom wonderful? If all the girls in attendance were laid end to end, I wouldn't be at all surprised.

Salary is no object: I want only enough to keep body and soul apart.

He is beyond question a writer of power; and his power lies in his ability to make sex so thoroughly, graphically and aggressively unattractive that one is fairly shaken to ponder how little one has been missing.

All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.

Do me a favor. When you get home, throw your mother a bone.

(Explaining why she was fired:) Vanity fair was a magazine of no opinions, and I had opinions.

I don't do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.
I dream of a rural life - raising checks.

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy.

(In answer to what she'd like for breakfast:) Just something light and easy to fix. How about a dear little whiskey sour?

It serves me right for keeping all my eggs in one bastard.

Now, look, baby, "Union" is spelled with 5 letters. It is not a four-letter word.

Stop looking at the world through rose colored bifocals.

The Monte Carlo casino refused to admit me until I was properly dressed so I went and found my stockings, and then came back and lost my shirt.

The transatlantic crossing was so rough the only thing that I could keep on my stomach was the first mate.

(When a friend asked her how to get rid of his cat:) Have you tried curiosity?

(For her own epitaph:) Excuse my dust.


Blogger's Notes
The Dorothy Parker quotes are the copyrighted property of her heirs.
The question of kinship between Charlie Parker & Dorothy Parker could have been
equally asked and equally answered about Ella Fitzgerald & Scott Fitzgerald.

It's Charlie Parker Day

The title & the blockquoted text are Verbatim

Born this day in 1920, Charles
Parker Jr, "The Bird."

I don't know what to make about
astrology, but the fact that
Charlie Parker and Lester Young
were born two days apart on the
calendar gives me pause.

As a young man, Parker studied
Lester Young solos intensely and
his work yielded sounds that pushed
jazz into a new stratosphere.

Video:

http://www.jazzonthetube.com/page/7307.html

Ken McCarthy

- Lester Perkins
Jazz on the Tube

P.S. Please share Jazz on the Tube with your
friends and colleagues.

If they like jazz, they're going to love this.

Louis Armstrong may be the only musician more important to the history of jazz than Charlie Parker. The red ink will link you to anything better than I could write about BIRD, who is here, there, and everywhere

Hector Loves Maria: A SHORT STORY ©

To celebrate his love for Maria, Hector bought a new switchblade. He wanted to carve their initials in a tree while sparrows sang in the sky. But there were no trees in his neighborhood and when birds fly south they do not stop in the South Bronx.

He traded the blade for some spray paint and, on a tenement wall, wrote

HECTOR LOVES MARIA

in rainbow colors. This empty building was where they first made love. Maria was a virgin and Hector was a dishwasher at a pizzeria owned by Mr. Carmine.

Hector had a dream that Maria walked into the restaurant while he was sudsing at the sink. She kissed him on the ear then magically disappeared. He jubilantly juggled ten dishes without breaking any as everyone in the restaurant applauded. All the diners leave him big tips which he did not have to share with the waitresses.

A long, heavy, and sealed plastic garbage bag had to be delivered to the neighborhood across from JFK International Airport. Mr. Carmine asked Hector to drive a “borrowed” car down Quagmire Boulevard and stop at the first mountain of abandoned tires.

Under the raucous umbrella of jet breath, the parcel was to be deposited in the thicket of marsh weed beyond the debris. The car was then to be abandoned at the next mound of debris where Hector would be met by a man in a blue Lexus who would drive him to the destination of his choice.

He was to receive $200 for delivering the “merchandise.” 

Hector followed the instructions perfectly but did not believe the contents of the plastic garbage bag to be plastic garbage: he knew it contained the remains of a human life. He also knew not to ask any questions of Mr. Carmine other than to inquire about where to get an engagement ring for $200.

Mr. Carmine gave Hector a $100 bonus and the name of a trusted jeweler.

The ring had a jade stone set with two miniature diamonds. When he presented it to the joyously surprised Maria, there was a Cheshire cat glow about Hector. Understandably.

© Originally written in 1979, I revised it in 1998.

HECTOR LOVES MARIA is copyrighted by both Paul Oliverio and 

the Lewis Carroll School of Logic. 

Happy Birthday, Lester Young

 Lester Young, born this day 1909.

We can never give him enough
credit for what he did for the saxophone. 
No one was ever more "modern."

You can spend years studying his solos 
and never get to the bottom of them.
Young spent his formative years
in New Orleans/Algiers, a fact
rarely commented on 
or appreciated.



The text above is from the ubiquitous jazzonthetube.com
but the hyperlinks take you elsewhere.

Another fact rarely commented on–and quite ironic–involves the difference
between Lester and his brother Lee.
The former was a world-famous tenor saxophonist and the latter was a jazz drummer,
virtually unknown outside of intimate jazz circles and Hollywood recording studios.
But for every dollar Lester earned, Lee Young earned five
because fame and stature as a jazz musician does not
necessarily equate with financial fortune.
Steady work in a recording studio does
the exact oposite for a jazz musician.

Lester and Lee's father, Willis Young, in addition to inoculating his offspring
with the importance of music, had a piano student named BEN WEBSTER.

If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Webster, he is eminently worth googling
or youTubing. Along with Lester Young and COLEMAN HAWKINS,
Ben Webster was part of the "Holy Trinity of Tenor Saxophonists." *


Happy #103, Lester Young!

This video features "The Prez" in a rare trio setting with piano (Nat King Cole)
and drums (Buddy Rich).

Ultimately published as CENTRAL AVENUE SOUNDS, Lee Young was interviewed
for the UCLA "Oral History Program."

CENTRAL AVENUE SOUNDS has–at least–fifty references to Jefferson High School
and Samuel Rodney Browne.



*On one of the most distinguished jazz videos of all-time, the "Holy Trinity" 
plays FINE AND MELLOW. 

The 1956 performance opens with commentary by composer/singer, Billie Holiday.

I Don't Get It!

I admit to having a stupid/disgusting cigaret-smoking habit but, other than keeping the refrigerator open for extended periods of time, it is my worst vice. There is no alcohol, no recreational drugs, no meds, no lust for little girls or boys...in my life.
There is an excess of coffee consumed by moi because I am a genuine PEETS-a-holic and damn proud to be so.
My bravado and arrogance are counteracted by discretion exercised wherever it is still legal to smoke in public. Yet countless citizens still find ways to express their disapproval.
If dirty looks were dollars, I'd be a dillionaire.
The other day, someone at my gym, said "You smoke cigarets. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of going to the gym?"

I don't get it.
Does having a bad habit mean you are not entitled to having a good habit? Or was this man speaking with the entitlement associated with what are commonly known as "health Nazis?"

Cosmic Parallels

There are no coincidences. There are only cosmic parallels.

But not all cosmic parallels are desirable or cute. For example, the woman appearing on these pages as "LC" is definitely not to be confused with Lewis Carroll or the LCSoL (Lewis Carroll School of Logic). That her initials are the same as the author of Alice in Wonderland may have had some subconscious attraction for me in 2001. However, this is neither the time nor place for further discussion of that issue.

If perchance you hyperlinked here from the BUMBLEE REUNION, you probably understand that–OTTO & FATHER FRANK notwithstanding–that was the most difficult post to complete.

Have a nice day.

Dangerous Exercise

Subtitle =
This Is an NRI/NP Post
(This is a No Red Ink/No Photograph Post)
But there is a surplus of acronyms

If exercising Freedom of Speech is the most vigorous part of your daily work-out, then sooner or later, you will be guilty of TMI (Too Much information). A Through the Looking Glass connection is necessary here: Freedom of Speech must not be completely divorced from the Freedom of Silence.

Please do not interpret these words as philosophical pontification. I need to state them because I am more guilty than most people when it comes to dispensing too much information.

It's not what you say that counts, it's what you DON'T say.

There are over fifteen websites listed for the original source of those exact words. The quote became popular because of a game show, starring Vincent Price and Betty White. But there is no hyperlink here because this is an NRI post.

LOL

Surrealistic Pillow Talk

In a kowtow to history, half the Open Mic Nights in Long Beach could be subtitled 1001 Grace Slick Wannabes.

At Little Alice's Spiceless Rack party, Jefferson Airplane performed their legendary tribute to the cute little animal pictured below. But the lyrics never specifically mention the well-dressed fellow by name.
As Lewis Carroll once said, "Such is human perversity."

After their performance of WHITE RABBIT, the band presented Little Alice with a commemorative copy of the album cover. She thanked them individually and then said
"So this is why pink has become such a fashionable color!"

Stop...

And then GO...





Hopefully, to another blogpost...




Or due South to the 2-DIE-4 PHOTO GALLERY...

Love & Theft (Track 1)

Tweedle-dee Dee and Tweedle-dee Dum
All that and more and then some
They walk among the stately trees
They know the secrets of the breeze.

Did I clip this quote from Lewis Carroll's ALICE IN WONDERLAND?
NO

It has been proven that, after the Bible, the most quoted book in the English language is Lewis Carroll's ALICE IN WONDERLAND.

Thank you, Bob Dylan, for being Example #142857. His "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" is the first track on his album LOVE & THEFT.
On behalf of everyone associated with the Lewis Carroll School of Logic, we appreciate the implicit joke in the last word of the album title. Let's go ask someone when she felt almost ten feet tall.
"Thank you, Mr. Dylan. Your Tweedle tune is dynamically danceable!" ≈ Alice

Quite a terpsichorean tot is she.
Stretched as her body can be.

JC Makeover: The Third Degree

The text is pure artdaily.org with their copyright notice and a cut-worthy hyperlink:

BORJA.- A combination of three documents provided by the Centre de Estudios Borjanos on August 22, 2012 shows the original version of the painting Ecce Homo (L) by 19th-century painter Elias Garcia Martinez, the deteriorated version (C) and the restored version by an elderly woman in Spain. An elderly woman’s catastrophic attempt to “restore” a century-old oil painting of Christ in a Spanish church has provoked popular uproar, and amusement. Titled “Ecce Homo” (Behold the Man), the original was no masterpiece, painted in two hours in 1910 by a certain Elias Garcia Martinez directly on a column in the church at Borja, northeastern Spain. The well-intentioned but ham-fisted amateur artist, in her 80s, took it upon herself to fill in the patches and paint over the original work, which depicted Christ crowned with thorns, his sorrowful gaze lifted to heaven. AFP PHOTO/ CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS BORJANOS.

More Information: http://artdaily.org/index.asp?date=08/23/2012#images[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org


For even more informatation on Christ's makeunder makeover, go to TIME Magazine.



If the LCSoL were to name this tryptich photograph, they'd call it (ECCE HOMO) ^ 3
or ECCE HOMO cubed.

Tony Carrillo Strikes Again

Click here and laugh there.

The Mac & Jack WonderLand

Daniel DiMaria Jr.–one of my Lewis Carroll School "handlers"–sent me a youtube video with a proviso.

The posting must include the following equation but must not include a photograph

[(1/4) x (Beatles)] + [(1/5) x (Jackson Five)] = (3) x (Say)

Vertically Through The Looking Glass

In an earlier blogpost, there was a girl from the South Side of Chicago doing the same thing as this Filipino gentleman.
Both upside-down people are doing it the organic way.
But if the girl hadn't become First Lady, she could have been a sales lady. Michelle Obama could have ended up on an infomercial, selling Inversion Therapy Kits:

Widen your breathing passage...
Improve blood flow...
De-gunk your lungs...
Placate your pain points...

The only problem with these infomercial bullets is that they fall into the realm of Truth!


But some of us may need a wall, lots of cushions (or human support), and–most importantly–a belief in something called homeopathy.


This photograph originally appeared in National Geographic.

How Could I NOT Post This?

The Photos Of The Day at ArtDaily.org never cease to amaze me.
GHENT.- People browse books at a giant outdoor library, an installation by Italian artist Massimo Bartolini, in the vineyard of the Saint-Peters Abbey in Ghent, Belgium. Photo/Virginia Mayo

A Great Day At Dizzy's

He has the entire front row to himself. He is COUNT BASIE and today is his birthday. Unlike fellow jazz legends directly above him (Thelonius Monk & Lester Young), the Count is hatless but the reason why will be explained below. The reason for the post title: all these photographs were taken at DYZZY ON VINYL in Long Beach.

Therefore, you see surmounted security chains and creative spelling above. But Dizzy Gillespie is a primary interviewee in this stellar 1995 Academy Award nominated documentary.
*****

A GREAT DAY IN HARLEM was based on a 1958 photograph commissioned by ESQUIRE MAGAZINE for a special issue dedicated to Jazz. Miles Davis was not in New York at the time but I mention him for describing Art Farmer (apex of the pyramid) as a "thinking man's trumpeter."

Art graduated Jefferson High School in 1946.
By clicking on the red ink in the previous paragraph, a perfect film poster enables you to identify everyone in the photograph except all but one of the boys seated on the curb. The link to A GREAT DAY IN HARLEM yields a treasure trove of information about all the men and women you see plus the unseen Robert Benton (director), Art Kane (photographer) and the invaluable Mona Hilton (see below).
*****

Before the final group portrait was taken, these little rascals repeatedly removed Count Basie's hat from his head.
Mischief is payback when a photo shoot interrupts a morning stoop-ball game. Some of the boys may have lived in that building! But the one wearing white socks is also wearing a smile.


Taft Jordan Jr. became a jazz musician, just like his father who is pictured in the fourth row from the top. In the group portrait, the elder Taft Jordan has his right arm akimbo, like a landlord does when there is too much activity on the property. It is quite possible that the Jordans owned this now-legendary Harlem Brownstone.
*****

If Dizzy Gillespie succeeded in getting Roy Eldridge to look away from the camera by sticking out his tongue, what did Monk say to get Mary Lou Williams to get the same result?
In pork-pie hat, Lester Young has his tongue buried in his cheek, distracting nobody. Between the chainlinks of this photograph...


...And between Thelonius & Lester is the most important jazz personage of the day: MILT HINTON. On this incredible day in Harlem, the much sought-after bassist (and author of two photography books) brought along his wife and his 8 mm movie camera. But what Mona Hinton filmed in 1958 was never seen until this Great Day in Documentary Film History premiered in 1995.
Aint that just like a woman?
But here is a non-rhetorical question: How do you get to Harlem?
And here is the simple answer: All you have to do is Take the A-Train.

Almost last but not least, I am extremely grateful to DYZZY for that great day in 2010 when he allowed me to take these photographs.


One year before Esquire Magazine's special JAZZ edition, there was a CBS television show dedicated to the same subject. Some clips from that show appear in GREAT DAY IN HARLEM, but to watch THE SOUND OF JAZZ CBS 1957, click here.


Another Harlem photo is posted in the 2-DIE-FOR PHOTO GALLERY.

Many Current Layers of THE ONION

NO

FURTHER

TEXT

IS

NECESSARY




Other than suggesting a targeted click for enlarged print.

Also Attending the Sur Pillow Party...

Stoggie & Beardo McMasque were too big to ride the Spiceless Rack with Little Alice. They are seen here reclining in the Happy Hearth. They had an invigorating foam-roller work-out with the Fond Memory Guillotine.





In a call and response moment, party sponsors Marty Balin and Grace Slick–the lead singers of Jefferson Airplane–played WORD TWIST with an immortal quote from John Donne.
Marty: No man is an island.
Grace: He's a peninsula.


The rhythm guitarist introduced one of their songs by announcing "Someone is thirty years old today."

Little Alice & Sur Pillow

Recently, Little Alice was the guest of honor at the Spice-less Rack Party in Piscataway, New Jersey. One of the other guests was donated by Ellen Degeneres.
A straw was provided by the heirs of Frank Baum, the author of WIZARD OF OZ.
Little Alice referred to it as the "Straw Man."
The other straw belonged to the short fellow who fell in love with the Degeneres figurine. Ellen named her "Mini-Mia" but Little Alice insisted on calling her "Dorothy."

The party was sponsored by Jefferson Airplane.

Did Scott Fitzgerald Foreshadow Anti-SmokingISM?

Scott's fortieth birthday was September, 24, 1936. His mother, Mollie McQuillan Fitzgerald died the same month. Also, in 1936, New Yorker Magazine rejected a story submitted by F. Scott Fitzgerald because of the subject matter. But seventy-six years later, they changed their mind.
Another New York publication had this to say about that.

The Shadow Glove & The Grinder

Following a request from my "handlers" at the Lewis Carroll School, THE MIDNIGHT PENCIL GRINDER, has been given a makeover. Assisting in this makeover, honorable mention must be given to a (partial) bicycle wheel and a (vertical) prayer mat.

The Ring of the Lords (R L Jr #1)

"My favorite author is my brother, D.B., and my next favorite is Ring Lardner." -Holden Caulfield (in Salinger's Catcher in the Rye)

In 1971, Ring Lardner Jr. won an Academy Award for writing the screenplay of M*A*S*H. It was his second screenplay Academy Award. He was also one of the Hollywood Ten: film-makers who famously refused to co-operate with Joseph McCarthy's House of Horrors Un-American Activities Committee.
But the first appearance of "Ring Lardner Jr." in print occurred in an Illinois school newspaper. It was a pseudonym for someone named Ernest Hemingway.
During World War I, it was virtually impossible for Americans to laugh on a steady basis unless they were reading the letters of Jack O'keefe. A sample of which is in front of your very own eyes. Collectively, those letters became a novel written by Ring Lardner. Before submitting the original letters for publication, the author product-tested them on his future Academy-Award-winning toddler and his wife, Ellis Lardner.

Mrs. Lardner, contrary to most members of her gender, had a wonderful relationship with Zelda Fitzgerald.
In 1922, Mr.& Mrs. Fitzgerald rented a house in New York to be neighbors with the Lardners. Scott Fitzgerald's first famous writer/drinking buddy was Ring Lardner. They lived in Great Neck on the north shore of Long Island. Along with adjacent Little Neck, Great Neck became the model for East Egg and West Egg: the setting of THE GREAT GATSBY.

John Sayles wrote and directed EIGHT MEN OUT, a film about the 1919 World Series scandal. Sayles also starred in the movie as Ring Lardner.

It is a very good thing that YOU KNOW ME AL was originally published years before the Chicago BlackSox besmirched the sport of baseball.








You do not have enough fingers on your two hands to list all the Lardners who succeeded as professional writers. But you may use one of those fingers to click here.

Olympic & unOlympic Lennon Memorials

There are as many tributes to the Beatles on this blogsite as there are vowels in the Bible. But one and only one of the Beatles was physically a student of the Lewis Carroll School of Logic. That would be John Winston Lennon.

The campus has as many donor dollars as the Bible has consonants. The Godfather of Math has access to as many of those dollars as the Old Testament has references to the 2012 Summer Olympics.

However, at the Closing Ceremony in London, the 2012 Summer Olympics presented a magnificent memorial to John Lennon.




An upcoming blogpost will feature a memorial to George Harrison, the other deceased Beatle. But beneath the closing paragraph of this post, I present my memorial to John Winston Lennon (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980). It is a third-generation photograph but I hope it appeals to all generations.

Fallen Angels

Since the game I attended on July 23rd, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have lost fifteen baseball games while winning only nine.
Earlier this morning, a bunch of us gathered around a tear-drenched member at the gym. When he told us he was crying "Because I have four tickets for today's Angels' game," we abandoned him like a sinking ship.

I am too embarrassed to provide any hyperlinks here. But the Godfather of Math will say this to Anaheim's allegedly professional baseball team:

Thanks for the memories photographs.

Is American History Collapsible?

Insert Your Words Here

Up Against the Walls

In downtown Eugene, up above California, the Wall Family approaches the door of the Art Dispensary. The Father will be getting a Salvador Dali implant while brother Brad and partial Sister Sadie stand back-to-back until their existential dilemma is solved. Is it deja vu or deja view?

Inside the Art Dispensary, there is a Bucket of Beckett play room. The Penne librarians entertain their guests with a story about "Sammy & his Co-star." That would be Richard, who opened the door only to find a pile of rocks. But between every pair of rocks, there is a bubble.

Plan 9 Music Q&Q&Q...&A

This excerpted verse should be familiar to anyone capable of reading it.

I've got sunshine on a cloudy day.
When it's cold outside I've got the month of May.
...
What can make me feel this way?
My Girl...

However, the next verse is only familiar to people who appreciate the phrase "Motown Closet Classic."

Why waste time lookin' at the waistline?
First I look at the purse!
A woman can be fat as can be,
Kisses sweet as honey
But that don't mean a thing to me
If she ain't got no money
If the purse is fat....that's where it's at.

And NOW...the good folks at Plan 9 Music Concept ask this question:

WHAT DO THESE SONG LYRICS HAVE IN COMMON?

And NOW...the good folks at Plan 9 Music Concept provide this answer:

Both verses were written by William "Smokey" Robinson and we do not have to ask
"Where Have You Gone, Mr. Robinson?" Because his music will always be here.
Better than performing miracles, Smokey Robinson performed with the MIRACLES.




I will now let the red ink flow and wish you a happy hyperlink to the song immortalized by the TEMPTATIONS. Then you can listen to the "other" song recorded by the Motown group who famously sang "Do You Love Me?" These money-lusters were the CONTOURS.
And, of course, HERE is a plethora of pictures of the man Bob Dylan once described as
"the greatest poet in America."
If you would like to view this blogpost–in Oliverio-speak–through the looking glass,
please spend at least a few minutes watching STANDING IN THE SHADOWS OF MOTOWN.
But if you have one hundred and three minutes to spare, be ready for some utterly edifying and funky entertainment.
Feel free to enter "Plan 9 Music" in this blog's search engine.

Only the true artist–and the lowly politician–can convincingly present two opposite points of view. ≈ Scott Fitzgerald

Music is the most beautiful form of applied mathematics. ≈ Pythagoras

Humpty Dumpty Today

Wiley Miller

3-D Gatsby + 1 Great Postponement

Actually, this Hollywood bulletin is nine days old. Resulting in this blogger only misleading one hundred and twenty one people. But one of them was lucky enough to win two free passes to the Art Theater in Long Beach.

GREAT GATSBY FILM DELAYED TO 2013
7 August 2012


Baz Luhrmann's 3D adaptation of The Great Gatsby will not be released until next summer, Warner Bros has announced.

The film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan, had been due for release on Christmas Day in the US and the day after in the UK.

However Warner Bros said it was pushing the film back to ensure it "reaches the largest audience possible".

The release date puts the film, based on F Scott Fitzgerald's novel, out of contention for next year's Oscars...

Read the rest of the article here.

Bewitched Bothered & Better Words

Poets who once knew better words
Are now writing only four-letter words
-Cole Porter

What follows is an example of the "better words"  of Rodgers & Hart.

However, the first verse contains three four letter words:
like...with...even
 
Therefore, the song link is an instrumental  version
by tenor saxophonist Von Freeman.
He died earlier this week.
May he rest in Peace.

Mr. Freeman introduces the song as "The Three B's."

Below the poetry of Richard Rogers & Lorenzo Hart
is a  hyperlink to a song which,
for all intents and purposes,
is "The One B."

BEWITCHED BOTHERED & BEWILDERED
After one whole quart of brandy
Like a daisy, I'm awake
With no Bromo-Seltzer handy
I don't even shake

Men are not a new sensation
I've done pretty well I think
But this half-pint imitation
Put me on the blink

I'm wild again, beguiled again
A simpering, whimpering child again
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - am I

Couldn't sleep and wouldn't sleep
When love came and told me, I shouldn't sleep
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - am I

Lost my heart, but what of it
He is cold I agree
He can laugh, but I love it
Although the laugh's on me

I'll sing to him, each spring to him
And long, for the day when I'll cling to him
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - am I

He's a fool and don't I know it
But a fool can have his charms
I'm in love and don't I show it
Like a babe in arms

Love's the same old sad sensation
Lately I've not slept a wink
Since this half-pint imitation
Put me on the blink

I've sinned a lot, I'm mean a lot
But I'm like sweet seventeen a lot
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - am I

I'll sing to him, each spring to him
And worship the trousers that cling to him
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - am I

When he talks, he is seeking
Words to get off his chest
Horizontally speaking, he's at his very best

Vexed again, perplexed again
Thank God, I can be oversexed again
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - am I

Wise at last, my eyes at last,
Are cutting you down to your size at last
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - no more

Burned a lot, but learned a lot
And now you are broke, so you earned a lot
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - no more

Couldn't eat, was dispeptic
Life was so hard to bear
Now my heart's antiseptic
Since you moved out of there

Romance, finis.
Your chance, finis.
Those ants that invaded my pants, finis.
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - no more

           *************************************


Richard Berry was inspired by Rodgers & Hart
to write this  semi-synonymous song: BEWILDERED.

If you are unfamiliar with Richard Berry, please enter his name
in the Godfather of Math search engine.

The 40th Bullet

Attitude without aptitude will win you 

many friends 

but not for very long.

************************************************

Footnote

ALL of the pages with "Bullet" in the title

are the copyrighted property of LCSoL.

About that YearbookS Photo...

This is the proper perspective of the yearbooks photograph first posted in Bumblee Reunion. A Xeroxed copy of a 1962 St. Luke's Elementary yearbook page was hollowed out. Then it was superimposed over a 1964 St. Helena's High School yearbook page featuring my sister. Both yearbooks belonged to "LC."
At this time, my Lewis Carroll School of Logic handlers (Seamster Jr. & DiMaria Jr.) will not permit me to say anything more about my ex-fiance other than the fact that she engineered the 2004 Bumblees Reunion.

My sister was a better swimmer than me but I would have beaten her in a pogo stick contest if my nose didn't dribble. Linda could throw a football further than her brother but I once won a hula hoop contest which our mother officiated. Had I been a better cheater, I could have had higher bowling scores than St. Helena's best typist.
I was, however, a better dancer than Linda because I learned from both her and her mother. Unfortunately, the first song we three ever danced to was selected by our father.
It was entitled "Sly Mongoose, I Don't Know Your Name." The musicians were too embarrassed to put their name on the record. All that is known about them is that they lived on the Monongehela River in Pittsburg.
"Caught" was her finger-pointing mantra for her kid brother whenever his parents caught him doing some mischief. For example, sneaking an extra scoop of ice cream for dessert but the best quote came from another incident to which his mother responded "I'm glad it was pot and not grass."
Linda Oliverio was the secret love of Jack McCarthy. It was such a well-kept secret that Linda never knew it.
Whatever.



The Lewis Carroll School fact-check office has determined this post to have 95% accuracy.
--ES. Jr.
+ DD. Jr.

Calling All Girls

Duplicate this feat
With both feet skybound,
Cautiously & daily.
Upon returning to the ground

Then marry your best employee
But follow instructions to the letter
YOU can be First Lady of the USA
If not something better




Thank you, Michelle Obama, for allowing Jay Leno to share
this photograph with his viewing audience.

Thank you, Michelle, for not opting to make a million bucks
with a simple infomercial about curing asthma.

Attention Gentleman & Gentlewomen,
you may now start your
search engines. 

The Whole Strip...

And nothing but the strip

You can never re-read too much Calvin & Hobbes!

No Mystery Across The Border?

8/13/12
A woman stands on a concrete block of the the Holocaust memorial in Berlin, Germany. Created by U.S. architect Peter Eisenman, the memorial consists of an undulating field of 2,711 blocks through which visitors can wander.



AP Photo/Gero Breloer.

Barbed Wire Mystery Solved?

News from Poland via the ArtDaily Newsletter.

It involves a sixty-six year-old Italian man.

He said his father died there.

Did the son get to keep what authorities found in his suitcase?

Bumblee Reunion

If memories were millimeters,
you are looking at
a kilometer.

From left to right:

Terry Dugan,
Jack McCarthy,
and Ray Peterssen.



They were all 7th graders at St. Luke's Elementary School when they formed
the BUMBLEES with classmate John Cox on Bass.

Paul Gretschel was the drummer. Paul was a St. Luke's 8th grader and got to Bishop Reilly, our academically distinguished parochial high school, one year before the other Bumblees.

I have encircled what
Peterssen and Dugan
looked like fifty years ago.

Raymond never lost any hair.
With quiet dignity, he wore it
like a gilded crown.

Kevin O'Donnell,
the "green-boxed boy,"
would fill in for Gretschel when
Paul would play piano.

My first memory of anyone mentioned above pre-dates our having attended the same Catholic elementary school though I was only there two years. As a public school 6th-grader, my walk home from PS193 was mostly along 150th Street in Whitestone. I once saw a boy sitting on a porch playing guitar that almost sounded like Chuck Berry music but it was much slower. I was too much in awe to do anything but walk on by. Years later, Jack McCarthy told me the song was Big Bill Broonzy's KEY TO THE HIGHWAY. It became one of the first songs the Bumblees ever played.

Four Chuck Berry songs (Maybelline, Nadine, Johnny Be Good,  Sweet Little Sixteen), three Elvis Presleys (Hound Dog, Love Me Tender, Don't Be Cruel) were on the 1962 Bumblees playlist. There were also a pair of Muddy Waters' songs: Hoochie Coochie Man and Got My Mojo Working.

But the most interesting song they did was Tell Laura I Love Her. Ray Peterssen sang lead on the hit tune originally sung by "Ray Peterson." The spelling is different but I won't say the same for their musical talent. Here are some other songs from  the Bumblees repertoire:

Duke of Earl//The Twist//Surfin' Safari//Runaround Sue//Hit the road Jack//My True Story//Hello Mary Lou//Earth Angel//Spanish Harlem//The Spider & The Fly//Charlie Brown//In The Still of the Night//Cathy's Clown//Fever//Harbor lights//Shout...

***************************************************************************************

The Bumblees' reunion was a direct consequence of the St. Luke's Class of '63 reunion organized by the woman who, three years later, arranged for Dugan, Peterssen, & McCarthy to perform at a Long Island bar called the Terrace Inn.

"LC" appeared in previous blog posts and was also referred to as "my fiance" in a post entitled REALITY TV. She had vast experience in organizing both class and family reunions
but the prize attendeess of the 38th St. Luke's reunion were...
Dugan, Peterssen & Oliverio!

The date was October 8, 2001.

Despite my pleading, McCarthy was a no-show but one of his sisters had given my number to LC who telephoned me in Burbank on March 25, 2001.

Within a week, we spent at least one dozen hours on the phone playing the "Do you remember?" game and I became a definite maybe for an east coast event scheduled for the following October.

Within a fortnight, I was re-united with the first St. Luke '63 student to move to California: RAYMOND PETERSSEN.

He lived just outside of La Jolla at the time and was very active at the Veteran's Administration Hospital there...He owned a customized van to accomodate his wheel-chair confined wife. Lori and I instantly became Jewish Sis' & Italian Bro.' Because Ray's mother still lived in Whitestone, the Vietnam Vet spent a good portion of the year on Long Island. Suffice it to say that Lori talked both of us into attending the class reunion.

I would have re-connected with Raymond years before if only I had remembered how to spell his last name. We hadn't seen each other since 1969.

Jefferson High School was on a year-round schedule in 2001. Technically speaking, I had neither a summer vacation nor a Christmas break, per se. What I had was May-June, November-December off-track time: awkward to say but easy to live. Well in advance, I arranged to take a few "personal days" in October. In May, I flew into JFK Airport for an eleven-day "blindish date" with LC, who never lived anywhere but Whitestone.

To celebrate my 52nd birthday, she invited a bunch of our St. Luke's classmates to her attic apartment. Kevin O'donell showed off pictures of his beautiful wife and two young children. Pardon the cliche but his alcohol-infested days were a thing of the past and he morphed into a successful insurance salesman. I think he gave me a business card but he wasn't able to attend the upcoming class reunion. It nearly got cancelled because of 9/11. Three days after the Twin Towers collapsed–amidst the frenetic frenzy of nationwide patriotism–someone said "Wait 'til you see what happens now."

Agent Orange ultimately was responsible for the death of Raymond Peterssen but upon his return from Viet Nam in 1971, he was an active war protestor. He accompanied his post-Nam life-long friend, Ron Kovik, to Honduras. Mr. Kovik was the inspiration for the Tom Cruise-in-a wheelchair movie, BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY.

***************************************************************************************

The Terrace Inn was a hole-in-the-wall bar on Francis Lewis Boulevard (commonly known to locals as "Franny Loo"). The owner's girlfriend, Kathleen Jenner, is pictured above: second from left. She was friends with LC who had more school yearbooks than I could count. My former fiance took the Bumblees' reunion photo and it suffices to say that the "yearbooks" picture was an nth generation photograph. Raymond had grown up less than two city blocks from the Terrace Inn. Terry Dugan, a general contractor in Manhattan, lived in Montauk. Jack McCarthy and his wife owned a house within a mile of the Terrace Inn.

I took one look at the people sitting at the bar and was sure glad I stopped drinking.

Jack said yesterday when I called him about details of the Bumblees' guitar summit.
(Both McCarthy and Peterssen had been sober since the Reagan administration.)

I broke a string playing Oh Carol and Terry told me to stop playing because a Fender Stratocaster...But I kept on singing. I will always want you for my sweetheart. No matter what you do. Ray sang harmony on that one.

Eric Clapton plays the same Stratocaster guitar but has he ever written lyrics like "Through thick and thin, I said I'd always be there. But little did I know I was referring to your waistline and my hair." Those are McCarthy lyrics. Neil Sedaka wrote Oh Carol in 1958.

Kathy Jenner wanted us to do the Shirelles' SOLDIER BOY because she remembered Dugan performing it at our 8th Grade graduation with somebody playing accordion. Instead, we did BABY IT'S YOU, which the Beatles covered.

That was when the owner's girlfriend turned on the TV.

But she kept the volume down low. Before she changed the channel to the basketball game, there was a horse race. Everybody in the bar looked toward the stage but their eyes were directed upward. Terry started playing Wild Horses. Ray sang Tired of "Sticky Fingers," so easy to do. I sang harmony. Ray also played a killer lead guitar. LC was dancing by herself but three guys cut in and then she...

Stop for a minute, Jack.

So this was why I didn't learn about the 2004 Bumblees' reunion until four years later. I was on the opposite coast the night my boyhood buddies got out their best guitars to reunite in a sleazy bar. (Between them, they owned at least a dozen guitars.) I was in the process of retiring from Jefferson High School so I could go back "home" and marry LC.

HA!

When Raymond gave me the photograph all he said was "She took the picture and organized the reunion." I was too awestruck by what he had given me to ask for further details. I immediately taped it to my Long Beach refrigerator.

Instead of moving to New York in 2004, I went to Virginia to be close to my sister, the only living member of my immediate family. I returned to California in 2006.

The only time all the barflies really paid attention to the band was when Terry surprised me and Ray by playing the Talking Heads' Life During Wartime This aint no Mudd Club, no CBGB's..

That's enough information for now, Jack. Thanks but I got a plan to catch.

Sometimes a cheap pun is all I need to avert a dark state of mind: A Plan 9 Music plate of goodies is what I will present to you. Here is the Shirelles' Baby It's You and there is the Beatles' Baby It's You.

And for YOU, Ms. Jenner,

I will end this page with the Shirelles' Soldier Boy
but there is no accordion.