Tuesday, June 6, 2017

I read the news today, oh boy





A Day in the Life

I read the news today, oh boy 
About a lucky man who made the grade 
And though the news was rather sad 
Well I just had to laugh 
I saw the photograph.









He blew his mind out in a car 
He didn't notice that the red lights had changed 
A crowd of people stood and stared 
They'd seen his face before 
Nobody was really sure 
If he was from the House of Lords.




I saw a film today, oh boy 
The English army had just won the war 
A crowd of people turned away







But I just had to look 
Having read the book 
I'd love to turn you on.




Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup, 
And looking up I noticed I was late.






Found my coat and grabbed my hat 
Made the bus in seconds flat 
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke, 
And somebody spoke and I went into a dream.








I read the news today oh boy 
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire






And though the holes were rather small 
They had to count them all 
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall. 
I'd love to turn you on.





Fuck a duck!



Monday, June 5, 2017

What is all this juice and all this joy?






Spring

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.


Gerard Manley Hopkins


Last words: a day in the life





It seems incredible that this is the first take of the Beatles' dizzyingly-powerful masterpiece A Day in the Life. The pieces of it are already coming together. Certain elements that will appear in the finished song jump out, such as the weird, disturbing counting that seems to go on forever. You wait and wait for the mounting cacophany of the orchestra, but it doesn't come, perhaps because it hasn't been thought of yet. In fact, it almost certainly hasn't. This is process in its truest, most raw-minded and risk-taking form. 

I just watched a PBS doc - it was OK but could have been better - which took apart some of the most (they thought) influential songs on Sgt. Pepper, particularly this one. But can they get to it? Can they get inside it at all? My God. "Just" the lyric, seemingly the simplest part of it, contains a compressed, crammed autobiography of John, not to mention all four Beatles, all of their generation, and all of post-War Liverpool.

Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. Mine disaster? Bomb craters? Like the rest of them, Lennon never outdistanced the war and all it did to his country.






It amazes me that the "woke up, fell out of bed" section has already been mapped here, not just roughed out, with that amazing sophisticated McCartney keyboard work. This is literally two completely different songs put together, one inside the other, and though it shouldn't work at all, it does. The workaday McCartney section in the middle, what John called the "middle eight", pulls us into a crazy normalcy that will soon slip sideways. Then there is that incredible line, "And somebody spoke, and I went into a dream . . ." 

Take one? My God. The mind or the ear or memory fills in all the rest, but this is the naked version, not just bare bones but bare genius. That final, silencing, deafening, aurally incomprehensible piano chord doesn't happen here, because it has either not been conceived of yet, or they haven't figured out how to achieve it technically. In the end (so I learned tonight on PBS), they used EIGHT pianos and an organ, which pumps up the sound so abnormally that it is impossible not to be overwhelmed by it. The "decay" lasts an incredible 43 seconds, whereas the average piano chord might make it to 10 or 15. And the mikes are cranked so wide open that you can hear the technicians minutely moving about, breathing. (A side note: more techically sophisticated re-releases of this song reveal that the massive piano chord was still reverberating, so that they could have gone on recording for another five or ten seconds.)





I post this now because this whole thing stirred up stuff in me - can't really describe it, and it made me listen very carefully to the original Day in the Life (in yet another re-release) with its much cleaner, more defined sound. It made my hair stand on end.  It did then, too. What was it about this album? Of course the songs were wildly original, and the arrangements simply mind-blowing in their originality. My favorite effect is Henry the Horse: George Martin took old calliope recordings, cut them up into one-inch pieces, threw them up in the air, and spliced them back together to make a psychedelic crazy-quilt of sound. 

But there was more to it than pyrotechnics. The album was - what? -approachable, somehow. Like someone you knew, and came back to visit again and again. Whatever facet of itself it was displaying - and there were so many of them you couldn't count - it was sure to stick to you powerfully in a place you didn't know you had. 

Most of all, listening to this made me miss John. I don't like the line "he blew his mind out in a car" because it reminds me of his fatally-wounded body lying on the ground outside the Dakota, uttering his last two words: "I'm shot!" And the sense of impending terror - even more naked here than in the final track - is raw in me now because of all that is happening around me.

I read the news today, oh boy. 









































I don't mind it for myself. It's the children I worry about. They face so many problems I never had to think about because they didn't exist, and it is harder and harder to be optimistic. And yet, I go about my business day to day, like Paul running to catch the bus, and surprise myself with an unexpected level of happiness. It makes no sense, so I just decided to accept it, a gift.

But it's still there, the undercurrent. God, what is it about genius? You're dead 36 years, and still you express people's unspoken terrors better than anyone ever could, billions of people you will never even meet! How many people who are grabbed by this song weren't (even remotely) born when it came out? How many of their PARENTS weren't even remotely born? How many will get to listen to it, be moved by it, terrified and disturbed by it, who aren't born yet? 

I have a better question. Will they have the chance?


Thursday, June 1, 2017

Campsite Quickie





You must keep in mind, as these pathetic high-school-cafeteria delights pass before your eyes, that this represents their best possible presentation. They'd never look anywhere near this good if you made them yourself. The fact people thought they WERE good - these recycled war rations, most made of glistening processed meat that looked as if it slid out of an Alpo can - only adds to the sense of incredulity. I mean - Green Bean Bunwiches? Chipped Beef in Popovers? Frank-Bean Bake? Hot-in-a-Bun for 48? End of the Trail? Who thought up these names - some dyspeptic ad executive in a boardroom, a la Mad Men? 

I just keep finding these, there seems to be no end to them. Hundreds. Thousands. There are whole YouTube channels devoted to trying out these recipes, actually cooking them and attempting to eat them. Army chow, to be bolted without thinking about it very much. Mess hall fare. Grub. Cooking wasn't a devotion or a pleasure back then so much as a utilitarian process, a necessity to be gotten over with, then the results quickly swallowed, tolerated like a dental appointment or bad sex.  


Fred and Wilma had sex!





They did. They really did, or they wouldn't have gotten Pebbles.

You know. Pebbles. She happened round about the third season, The Flintstones was beginning to sag a bit in the ratings, so the show's writers decided to add a new wrinkle. They took a truly bold step for a cartoon series.

They made Wilma pregnant.




Imagine it. A PREGNANT cartoon character! Wilma went around for a number of episodes with a big jutting fertility-goddess belly covered by a demure white maternity blouse. What does it all mean? If we're going to imagine this is any kind of normal scenario, we'll have to think of it in the same way we do in real life.

If anyone dares go there, we have to come to the conclusion that Fred and Wilma were - you know. THEY WERE HAVING SEX! Try to picture it. No, don't go there! But try. They are merely cartoon characters, after all, and not real. But they had a "real" baby, didn't they?

Picture it.




How good a lover would Fred Flintstone be? How long would he last? How adept would Wilma be at pleasing her man and keeping him satisfied so he wouldn't go after some cheap floozie in the gravel pit? I cannot imagine. I cannot imagine Fred Flintstone having sex, and deciding one day to just throw the rubber away and wing it. Or was Pebbles really just Daddy's little accident?

Another bizarre issue: the Rubbles, becoming envious upon seeing the adorable new Flintstone baby, began to sigh over the fact that they couldn't have babies of their own.

INFERTILITY! The writers had broken yet another major taboo.




Cartoon characters struggling with infertility: it seems unthinkable, especially in the early '60s. Betty had blown her ovaries somehow-or-other, or else Barney must have had a low sperm count. Picture him in the fertility clinic with a plastic beaker and a Playboy.

Well. IF the writers were going to introduce such ideas into a cartoon series, aren't we within our rights to just sort of sit here and think about how it all went down?

So there was no IVF then, no surrogacy, and a cartoon character masturbating in a clinic is just too weird to contemplate. So the Rubbles wish upon a star, and. . . voila! Bamm Bamm appears on their doorstep, his biological parents abandoning him because he is such a little freak.




It's good for Barney, because it means he never has to have sex again. And Betty no longer has to keep track of her cycles on a calendar to see when she's ovulating. (Hey, they ARE talking about having babies here!) She doesn't have to think about breastfeeding either. The advantages of a baby on your doorstep!

So Pebbles turned out to be the Flintstones' only child, at least for the duration of the show. Does that mean Fred and Wilma no longer had sex? Did they use birth control after that? Was Wilma orgasmic? Did Fred suffer from premature ejaculation?

These are the things that perplex my soul.

BLOGGER'S SOURCE OF ASTONISHMENT.
 This is an exact transcription of that sappy "Let the Sunshine In" song that Pebbles and Bamm Bamm sing in one of the episodes. I was - gobsmacked. It's religious! I mean, REALLY religious, in a creepy kind of fundamentalist way that was unusual even back then.


Open Up Your Heart and
Let the Sun Shine In




Mommy told me something
A little kid should know
It's all about the devil
And I've learned to hate him so
She said he causes trouble
When you let him in the room,
He will never ever leave you
If your heart is filled with gloom




So let the sun shine in
Face it with a grin
Smilers never lose
And frowners never win
So let the sun shine in
Face it with a grin
Open up your heart and let the sun shine in


When you are unhappy
The devil wears a grin
But oh, he starts to running
When the light comes pouring in
I know he'll be unhappy
'Cause I'll never wear a frown
Maybe if we keep on smiling
He'll get tired of hanging 'round.




If I forget to say my prayers
The devil jumps with glee
But he feels so awful awful
When he sees me on my knees
So if you're full of trouble
And you never seem to win
Just open up your heart and let the sun shine in


So let the sun shine in
Face it with a grin
Smilers never lose
And frowners never win
So let the sun shine in
Face it with a grin
Open up your heart
And let the sun shine in




(YouTube random comments): 50 years later, it's still timeless. And still true :) Thank God for Pebbles and BamBam.

If the Almighty and Powerful God didn't create Pebbles and Bam Bam on the 8th day where would we be now. Praise baby Jesus.

I had never realized how religious this song was. Creepy.

Me neither until tonight. I heard the written lyrics and it was wonderful for me too! And I'm 59!

i love it, and i am 62

WHY CANT PEOPLE JUST ENJOY LI'L CUTE THINGS,INSTEAD OF READING TOO MUCH INTO THEM/GAWD!!!!

AMEN!

You don't hear songs like this anymore, such wholesome lovely songs. Compared to today's garbage.