It's Gonna Take a Miracle

If all Sunday strips were this opaque, I might actually read the funny pages. Also I really like Mandrake the Magician, almost as much as Merlin the Magician (whose Wikipedia article, not coincidentally, I wrote).

Oh, apropos of that:

"Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?"

For a couple weeks, there's been this rocksteady tune been itching at my brain something furious and I couldn't remember what the fuck it was. It drove me crazy. Seriously, one day I came home from work at 7 and the only thing I did for the rest of the night was try to find out what the hell it was. I went to bed frustrated. Then today, when I wanted to share this Ken Boothe song I've been digging, there it was! Duh, that's right! "Moving Away"! It was also a Ken Boothe song! (I'd thought it was called "Losing You") So I uploaded that too, and a Uniques song that's also one of my favorites right now.

Ken Boothe - Moving Away
Ken Boothe - It's Gonna Take a Miracle
The Uniques - My Conversation

So it wound up that I am more or less DJ'ing my Aunt Dot's memorial party thing. The editorial decisions are awkward, probably because it's tough to judge the tenor of the thing before it happens. I should probably be prepared with several playlists. One of the few dictates I've gotten was that it should probably be kinda Sinatra-heavy, which, hey, is no problem for me. It's what I'd want.

I guess this post isn't about anything really. I'm just awake and listening to music, and I just felt like posting some songs I really like but have discarded as unsuitable for one reason or another. Mostly because they're depressing. But I like depressing songs. Or maybe because they're too solipsistic, being more about me than anything else.

Frank Sinatra - The Night We Called it a Day

Frank Sinatra - I'll Be Around

Frank Sinatra - Someone to Watch Over Me

Frank Sinatra - Stormy Weather

Frank Sinatra - When I Take My Sugar to Tea

Ray Charles - Cry

Ray Charles - I Wake Up Crying

Billy Eckstine - Bewildered

Billie Holiday - Easy Living

Louis Armstrong & Ella Fitzgerald - Dream a Little Dream of Me

Blossom Dearie - Like Someone in Love

Blossom Dearie - Someone to Watch Over Me

Doris Day - Close Your Eyes

all files zipped together

Somehow, despite actually being the son of a preacher man, I've never been able to parley this fact into any action. Maybe I didn't try hard enough, or perhaps being the spawn of Christian schizophrenia isn't as sexy as it used to be. By the time I was dating, my dad's pulpit days were more or less post hoc, ergo propter hoc anyway.

Anyway, it's a waste of my time to post the Dusty Springfield version of this song because everyone has it, right? Right.

Bobbie Gentry - Son of a Preacher Man

The Gaylettes - Son of a Preacher Man

Eddie Jefferson - Son of a Preacher Man

Mavis Staples - Son of a Preacher Man

Siouxsie & the Banshees - Bring Me the Head of the Preacher Man

I'm especially fond of the Gaylettes version, although I must admit I've got quite a reggae fixation these days.

Walking home, I was just thinking how lucky I was to have not gotten rained on despite the flash-flood that occurred while I was on the train, when I got hit with this tidal wave, and consequently soaked to the bitter bone, by two seventeen year old dicks in an Acura, who actually stopped and backed up to taunt me. In the seven or eight seconds I had available to me to retaliate I could only summon a dripping, fangless, "Fuck you, cocksucker," when only seconds later it occurred to me that the optimum response would have been to smash a bottle of beer or the jar of spaghetti sauce I'd just bought for dinner on the side of their car. Or something similarly brake-inducing. I'm no Evander Holyfield, but they were both tiny children and I'm confident that any grievous bodily harm resulting from a physical confrontation would not have been my own. I've never been particularly attached to the idea of a fair fight, so two weedy high-schoolers would be just my speed. Alas! my reaction time was too slow, and they sped off, likely to menace other harmless but potentially psychopathic pedestrians, leaving me grumbling like a Scooby Doo villain.

On the other hand, the melody of this song has been making me happy all day, when I should be exhausted and miserable (considering I only slept for about 75 minutes last night):

Linda Scott - I've Told Every Little Star

So the Neville Brothers were in Prospect Park today

The Neville Brothers - Tell it Like it is (the white dude is Gregg Allman, I think)

The Neville Brothers kicked fucking ass. And even though the crowd kinda sucked, it was still a killer show.

The set was heavy on crowd-pleasing covers, which is cool. They hit their stride around the second song Aaron sang (which were too few), a soul-stirring take on the Sam Cooke classic "A Change is Gonna Come" (the first couple songs were Meters stuff like "Fire on the Bayou"). Then there was Stephen Stills' "Love the One You're With", Bill Withers' "Use Me", Rod Stewart's "Drift Away", Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin' On?", and two or three Professor Longhair tunes and NOLA classics like "Big Chief" (I guess most recognizable as a Lily Allen sample these days). And of course the Neville/Linda Ronstadt (minus the Ronstadt) chestnut "I Don't Know Much" (which I've never really cared for) and a truly sublime, show-closing "Amazing Grace".

As I expected the instrumental stuff and the stuff Art Neville sang was very, very good, and the stuff Aaron sang was so incredible it would pull your heart out and show it to you like a Mortal Kombat fatality. (Who was that anyway, Johnny Cage?) And even though it was a completely irrational hope, I clung to the idea that they might do a bizarrely unseasonal "Please Come Home for Christmas", but no.

The crowd was a mixed bag. A lot of folks were just there for a picnic, with the free music an added bonus. So a lot of people around me were just hanging out chatting, or playing with their yuppiespawn, or being disgusting hippies with hummus smeared in their beards and massaging the fat backs of their gross, busted girlfriends. After a while I wanted to start picking up children by their ankles and bashing their brains out on the nearest tree, but I moved a little further up the hill where more people were actually interested in watching the show and that was better.

Rev. Cleophus Robinson & The Loving Sisters - Won't We Have a Time

Am I still awake?

All four files zipped up

Alfed Lewis - Friday Moan Blues

The Monarchs - Friday Night

The Specials - Friday Night, Saturday Morning

Them featuring Van Morrison - Friday's Child