Sam O'Leaner (Apple #8)

"It was midnight in the Red Light district. The puppet guitarist is Sam O'leaner. The shadow on the wall is a peeled shard of the musician," said Professor McKinley Morganfield.
"I took these pictures over in Europe. My band was touring the continent with Bo Diddley and Elmore James."
Thirty music students scribbled in their notebooks. A bespectacled boy, seated in the back of the classroom, raised his hand.

"Does Bo have two or three D's in his name?"
"Three D's in his name. Diddley rhymes with 'Italy.' And Elmore James has three D's on his slide guitar when playing in Open D Tuning. His strings are tuned D-A-D-F#-A-D."
"It's the Dad Fad!" shouted the bespectacled boy from the back of the room.
"Not quite, Winston," said the Bloggerhythm & Blues professor, whose stage name was Muddy Waters.
"It would be, not 'Dad Fad' but 'Dad Fshad.' F-sharp for the fourth string!
When you are playing slide guitar, the difference between F# and F is the difference
between lightning and the lightning bug." Scribble scribble scribble.

Winston had a long nose and a loud mouth. He also had a mid-century student visa. Briefly, during the nineteen fifties, the Lewis Carroll School in Piscataway, New Jersey had a student exchange program with England. The program was funded entirely by the estate of a 19th Century "mathemagician" named Charles Lewis Dodgson, also known as Lewis Carroll.
To qualify for the mid-20th Century student visa, students had to be from working-class families. They also had to have "untapped genius potential."

"In the next photo, a sepia-toned Sam stands on top of a blockheaded mannequin. The mannequin is stuffed with falafel powder."
"If you were touring with a slide-guitarist, shouldn't you refer to these photographs as slides?"
"Winston, when are you returning to Liverpool?"



"There is one more 'slide' I need to show you but first I have to confess that if my alter ego's music was as bad as my photography, he'd still be driving a truck."
Nobody scribbled but everybody laughed. So I have been told.
"We were somewhere in Hamburg when we heard this puppet blues band. The Red Light district was all aglow. The mannequin was holding a book cover over its blockhead but Sam O'leaner–and his trusty shadow–just keep on playing guitar."



This 'slide' presentation pre-dates my time at the Lewis Carroll School but I recognized the book cover. Actually, it is a textbook cover. The contents were required reading for all School of Logic students: 600 pages of Mr. Carroll's literature. Only one-third of the book has to do with Alice's in Wonderland. Photograph of the contents are on exhibit in the 2-DIE-4 PHOTO GALLERY.

About the exchange student named "Winston," it has been said that the only time he was ever seen wearing glasses in public was in Professor Morganfield's classes. The boy with the long nose and the loud mouth certainly learned the difference between a F and an F#. However, in 1958, "Winston the Ornery" insisted on using a harmonica to slide across the guitar strings, His grade in Morganfield's was C-
Winston was voted the "student most likely to mispronounce the words of McKinley Morganfield."
According to campus legend, "That Boy" would sit lotus style between the Walrus statue and the Humpty Dumpty statue, chanting Sam O'leaner and the peeled shard...sitting atop the falafel tower.
All artists "steal." Only the best artists steal with stealth. This is not criminal theft. It is theft through the looking glass and the best person to have on the other side of the mirror is a teacher.

Semolina pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower.
Elementary penguin singing Hari Krishna.
Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen.
I am the walrus, goo goo kachoob goo goo kachoob...

Professor Morganfield and another British exchange student were the only people to ever address Winston by his preferred name which was "John Lennon." But the professor preferred to think of him as That Boy.
The other Brit is said to be the Morganfield's all-time favorite student.



Wherever there are legends, misinformation is sure to follow but occasionally the record can be set straight.

"Goo goo kachoob" were the final words that Humpty Dumpty said before he fell off the wall and died.

But this is–verbatim–how Lewis Carroll ended Chapter 6 of THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS:

'I shouldn’t know you again if we DID meet,’ Humpty Dumpty replied in a discontented tone, giving her one of his fingers to shake; 'you’re so exactly like other people.’
’The face is what one goes by, generally,’ Alice remarked in a thoughtful tone.
’That’s just what I complain of,’ said Humpty Dumpty. ’Your face is the same as everybody has–the two eyes, so–’ (marking their places in the air with this thumb) ’nose in the middle, mouth under. It’s always the same. Now if you had the two eyes on the same side of the nose, for instance–or the mouth at the top–that would be SOME help.’
’It wouldn’t look nice,’ Alice objected. But Humpty Dumpty only shut his eyes and said ’Wait till you’ve tried.’
Alice waited a minute to see if he would speak again, but as he never opened his eyes or took any further notice of her, she said ’Good-bye!’ once more, and, getting no answer to this, she quietly walked away: but she couldn’t help saying to herself as she went, ’Of all the unsatisfactory–’ (she repeated this aloud, as it was a great comfort to have such a long word to say) ’of all the unsatisfactory people I EVER met–’ She never finished the sentence, for at this moment a heavy crash shook the forest from end to end.

And Humpty Dumpty did not die. The author just reduced the character to his natural thousand-year-old nursery rhyme state.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses and all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

But there was no harm in trying...


Blogger's Note
"The other Brit" was Mick Jagger

(Apple #9) is  here.