Cleaning out a drawer a couple weeks ago I came across a little wallet with 2" x 1.5" sheets of lens paper. Little thin sheets of paper treated somehow and to be used for cleaning your glasses. Works as good or better than the wet synthetic towelettes given/sold by eye glass providers these days. Why the switch?

In other news I still work more than I sleep/eat/spend time with the wife. Well at least I'm getting paid.

At night while in the shower I outline thoughts, events of the day, projections into the future, and frame in my mind how they could make an interesting journal entry. Then I get out of the shower, brush my teeth and go to sleep.

Next morning it is either jump up oh shit I'm nearly late for work why do I keep sleeping through my alarm or like today I wake with head full of weird dreams of twisted regret for matters past or fear stemming from the daily job. Erg. Work again interfering with life.

OK. That's it for now.

Have a good day.

PS: As someone with warm place to sleep and adequate provision for eat and drink, I have the luxury of liking a snow storm.

Finally watched DVD of movie on the book "Ask the Dust" by John Fante.



picture copped from here.

I liked the movie. (Selma Hayak is screen goddess to me.) Could it have been better? Maybe. Definitely could have been done differently, but this is Towne and his visual team's paean to L.A. of '33 as inspired by Fante. I picture a grittier L.A contrasting with the gloss of L.A of aspirations.

In my dotage I'm recalling moments like when I found my copy of a Bantam printing of "Ask the Dust". At the time I was scouring any used book store for any book that seemed interesting. Around 77 or 78 I had made a trip to Washington DC vaguely in support of the radio station project. I was hitch hiking. Had stopped in Virginia to visit friends before heading back to NOLA. Someone had a errand and I waited browsing in a used book store. In a pile of cheap paperbacks the cover grabbed me. I didn't really know about Fante. The name might have been familiar, I had read it before in Bukowski's work but didn't make the connection. When we got back to my friend's place they asked if I had found anything and I showed the book and they pointed out that I had made quite a find. I read it two or three times. Still have it in a box somewhere if the roaches haven't devoured it or it hasn't gone to dust. Doubt anyone could read it now. Page would likely crumble.

Recently read John Peel auto/bio book. It was unfinished when he died of heart failure while on holiday in Peru, it was finished by his wife writing and his kids pitching in somehow.

Peel's first person narrative ends with him unhappily married to young woman he had met in Dallas TX and working as a DJ in Oklahoma City. He had got his start in radio when his phone calls to Russ Knight, the Weird Beard, led to his becoming for a time the token Liverpoolian on Dallas radio. Seems anyone young with Brit accent and passing knowledge of Liverpool or even of just anything English could easily become a minor fleeting celebrity or at least a busy cocksman to the Beatles crazed young people, particularly young females. Peel made a go at being US DJ, including a stint in city near Los Angeles, during which time he became a fan of and friend with Beefheart. The L.A. info is provided by wife and family. As I mentioned Peel's own narrative only got so far as Oklahoma.

So except for many small digressions in the first part of the book where Peel shares little anecdotes of his life among the pop music elite, the stories of Peel in swinging London are told by wife Sheila, sometimes assisted by diary that Peel kept. So a book that is a portrait in general of the man, and he took all those cool pop music moments to the grave with him. That is unless there is another book worth of such anecdotes from his diaries. Well, don't think so, it's been 7 years since he passed and we only have the one book. I think so, let me check. No, I'm wrong. There is a book of collected writings from his various articles, reviews, miscellany writings edited by his wife. Good, looking forward to reading that as well. The bio I'm kinda reviewing here is a worthwhile read, if you like English dry wit (in some parts, it feels he is channeling Vivian Stanshall) and a willfully observed life.

Oh, the book. It's JOHN PEEL, MULGRAVE OF THE MARSHES, and appears to be available used from various sources for from $.01 to $64.97. I found mine in a second hand book store that is run by friends of the library here in NYC.

they did board us promptly and now i sit, having downed dog and sud, awaiting our flight to one of the usa most congested airports, LaGuardia. this trip i've been reading john peel bio book. back to it now. about 65% done.

i timed my airport arrival to let me not leave my mom's home until i had to but allow for the drive and ga ing up the rental car. i get through security and see my flight delayed 30 minutes. had overheard check in counter worker comment about lots of delays. so i figure i got time for soup/salad/beer. after i place my order, instead of the plane slipping later, the bring it up 10 minutes. so i chug and gulp and now at gate waiting to see if they really will depart 10 minutes after this plane arrived. oh well my beer Buzz is maximized by my chugging it down in 2 minutes. chicago next stop where i hope for time for a hot dog But no major delays.

A nephew is getting married this Saturday and so I decided to come (I'm here already) to Oklahoma to spend a week visiting Mom and whomever shows up for Billy's wedding.

As has become my habit, driving into town stopped at the liquor store for beer (a Choc variety 6 pack and a Shiner variety 6 pack) and wanting a bit of something else got a small bottle of Patron XO Cafe. This stuff is dangerous because it is sweet and smooth coffee liquor. 35%. So some nuts and 2 beers and some pickled okra and a double of XO and I am going to settle in to continue the book I've brought for the trip. John Peel auto bio up to a point and then bio completed by his wife after his death on the trip to Machu Picchu.

As the age of IPAD and Kindle and text devices dominates, on the plane, as I put the book away to ready for landing, I fantasized about a flight attendant in the not too far off future being thrown off by a passenger reading a book. Sir, we are starting our descent, please turn off and put away all electronic devices. Puzzled response. But it is a book. Not electronic. Paper. No battery, no transmitter. The exchange continues with the point being that the enforcer of the rule expects the passenger to be in a state of passive alertness, not distracted by anything. But the rules say nothing of a passenger focusing on something without buttons or on off switch. This is a safety hazzard. The final result being that books are banned from flights with the dual threat of distracting passengers when not authorized as well as paper being a fire hazzard.

John Peel's English wit beckons. A good night all.

I resolve to become an active journaler. There are several that I read a couple times a week, going through their nearly daily entries. I sometimes reply, not often, but reading the live encounters of someone who has a point of view and can express it in writing. Can I aspire to the same.

The trivia of my daily and over arching is complex and involves many people, most of whom are already not happy with me. So I won't drag them into this. Instead, I will bash out some paragraphs around my main obsession. Music.

The NW (new wife) is encyclopedic in her knowledge of pop and mainstream jazz and her taste only tangentially matches mine so I will see if see can filter my obscure rants. But I start without her guidance since I start with commenting on my initial obsessions and infatuations.

Early days, in Amarillo TX, in the early 60s I already preferred the "oldies" station. Strange since most of the tunes were not so old then, just a couple years old: Chuck Berry "Mabelline" I preferred over his "Johnny Be Goode" but at least the latter was Chuck Berry. Johnny Cash and Marty Robbins stood out from the rest of the C&W pack that was the main fare on local radio.

As I moved from elementary school to Jr. high, and to the chance to play the Slingerland drum set I got to check out for a couple of weekends from school, I began to listen closely to the Ventures, disdaining the drum solo for the ensemble work. My father had a co-worker who happened to be the father of Jimmy Gilmer. I wonder if I will ever find that white jacket demo album we got from him. Is it just a novelty of a demo of their ATCO album or is it e-bay potential of a pre-contract local demo. The local lament is that the Beatles killed Gilmer's career. I thought the Beatles were silly as I reluctantly watched the Ed Sullivan show. I wanted more more more as I saw and heard Rasaan Rolank Kirk be heard from the audience. It was years before I got to get his records. Vague memory scars faint but traceable. Besides that was a couple years later so getting ahead of myself.

So let's leave it with Ventures, Robbins and Cash. And Berry. Oh, yeah, and the Everly Brothers. Plus that stack of 45s I got from J.C. Penny in that 11 for a dollar sale. Two stand outs: "Short Shorts" / "Leotards" and "Please Mr. Custer". The later of which I was entertained to hear Iggy Pop make reference to on a tune on either New Values or Blah Blah Blah. Whatever. Beer is wearing off. Better post before I think better of it and delete.

Will there be any neighborhood restaurants open? Only scattered showers so far. Hurricane is hours away but subways and buses stopped running 5 hours ago.

We'll be right back with the report in about an hour.

Lots of posts about how hot it is (cue Lou Reed: "Wild Child" "...then we spoke of the rain, always back to the rain." and I have been contemplating making my own say about it, too. 'Course I growed up in the arid panhandle, then mostly lived in Houston, Dallas and New Orleans, before coming up to NYC so lots of heat and humidity in my background. So the heat of the summer is fairly nostalgic. I spent most of my youth in marginally cooled houses, particularly after I left out at age 19 and lived the boho wanna be I dunno what life. I can recall certain times and changes (moving from Amarillo to Houston in '65; returning to NOLA after being away) with remembrances of heat and humidity.

Saturday morning standing near a window, there was the smell of the plants in the landlord's yard/garden giving up their moisture as the sun starts to bear down on them. That placed me back into many back yards of my past, when in summer I got up and out of the house at the crack of dawn, or at least by 7am, to get out and play and enjoy being outside with nothing to do except to explore the world of the neighborhood. The heat of the day beginning to bear down was a cue to my fair skinned head that I should look for shade. The coming of the heat of the day was a moment for pause and decision, about how I was going to spend the rest of the day.

More nostalgia: a link about Sex Pistols in Dallas.

That show was on my 27th birthday (shout out to Amy Winehouse and other members of the dead at 27 club). My best rock and roll friends, with whom I had played a few times, opened for that show. Months earlier they had opened for the Ramones on one of the first times that the Ramones played in Dallas. Each time I missed the show. I had left the quest to conquer youth culture with rock and roll to play with minds with radio.

For the Ramones show, I helped bring some Nervebreaker equipment to the venue in my pickup. Barry and I unloaded it and I hung around a little bit but sound checks are boring as shit if you either are not star struck or actually setting up the equipment and I had to be somewhere, so I didn't stick around long. I don't remember what it was that kept me from staying for the Ramones show, but probably had to be somewhere in another city and had to get on the highway. I was something of a traveling radio agitator for a bit.

For the Pistols show, I remember the weekend and have rehashed it in my mind many times. Looking at reports of the Pistols shows, reading Barry's write up of the that night in the Nervebreaker their story. Curious symmetry to that weekend. The Pistols played in just a few places, and three of them were closely tied to my path. New Orleans, San Antonio, Dallas.

They played at Randy's in San Antonio which was just a few hundred yards from where I lived there in about 72 - 74 (Mike and Thom of future Nervebreaker fame had visited me there 16 November 1973, where immediately upon their arrival we had trekked a block to watch the Bowie 1980 Floor show (I didn't have a tv) at the home of a friendly but puzzled young GI and his wife with whom I was acquainted.

The night the Pistols played in Dallas, I slept over night with friends in San Antonio. I had previously coordinated this trip to New Orleans to stop and visit some people whom I hadn't seen for a while.

On Monday, in New Orleans I had one of the most important meetings that set the stage for getting the permit for what became WWOZ.

So that weekend, of my 27th birthday, I was making the same stop overs as the Pistols, just going the opposite way. It was well before that that I had made the decision to focus on "community radio" but that weekend emphasized the choice to me then and has provided me a bit of a personal myth when I try to figure out how I got to where I am now and yes, sometimes to ponder the alternate paths not taken.

So, heat and nostalgia. Yeah, I should have been working instead of writing this down. Damn, 8AM is gonna come so damn fast.