Don't you ever play a rumba?

Along the lines of "The Job Song" as you've never heard it, I present the little ditty that resides in the first half of this clip: "The Wave-a-Stick Blues." C/o Jill.

I guess any job can become a drag if you let it...

Ozzie Nelson and His Orchestra

Maybe I can use it as a tour vehicle

Here's a spam message I've never seen before (must be new, cuz it made it past the filter):

Directly from our yard, we are please to offer you following for immediate transaction:

SECOND-HAND
- M/V TONG YU, 1002dwt Chemical Tanker (Built 1988 in Japan), USD 680,000
- M/V DONG HANG, 1600dwt Container General Cargo Vessel (Built 1993 in China), USD 850,000
- M/V ZI HANG, 1983dwt Gearless Cargo Vesse (built 1992, Japan), USD 1,000,000

IN POPULAR:
- 7,500dwt Oil Tanker (Built Nov, 2008 in China), USD 9,500,000
- 6740dwt Chemical Tanker (Built Nov, 2008 in China), USD 11,000,000
- 10,800dwt Bulk carrier(Built 2009 in China), USD 9,500,000

BRAND NEW FROM OUR YARD
- 9000dwt MPP (Built Sept, 2009 in China), USD 18,000,000
- 17,000dwt crude/product oil tanker(Built May, 2009 in China) , USD 23,000,000
- 19,800dwt Bulk carrier(Built May, 2009 in China), USD 17,500,000
- 23,800dwt Bulk carrier(Built May, 2009 in China), USD 23,000,000
- 32,000dwt Bulk carrier(Built May, 2009 in China), USD 28,000,000
- 38,000dwt Bulk carrier(Built May, 2009 in China), USD 35,000,000

Feel free to drop us an email or call for any question.

Well, I can honestly say that I have a shitload of questions. And I must admit that the idea of the IJG doing a world tour in a used chemical tanker has a certain appeal...

Ain't nothin' better...

...than a bad album cover contest. And though the jazz guys sometimes get downright embarrassing, let's face it: it's really the heavy metal dudes who have perfected this particular art form.

Exhibit A:



Need I say more?

Anything can be anything!

Wonkette never lets me down:

You may have read on the Internet that this week’s big movie release is the “new” original Star Trek movie, and it is going to make millions of dollars. It is the latest manifestation of Hollywood studios’ race to abandon all creativity: after a popular movie series like Batman or Superman has run its course, just start over and make the first one again. Critics then praise the director’s “new vision,” and political writers note that all of the characters are famous politicians, secretly, in real life. Everyone remembers last year’s important Wall Street Journal column, “George Bush Jr. Is The Bat Man.” This year’s version? “Barack Obama is the Spock.” Steady yourself…

This is followed by two generous excerpts from articles in Newsweek and Salon, both of which make the aforementioned comparison.

But my favorite part comes in the wake of all this, with NewsBusters' critique of the Newsweek reading. NewBusters:

Finally, we get Bill Clinton compared to the scarred and withered version of Star Trek’s Captain Pike, the man that commanded the Enterprise before Captain Kirk did in the TV series. Bill Clinton is like Pike because he was “so talented, so promising… so damaged.” And this too is a bad analogy. Pike is nothing like the disloyal, womanizing Clinton. All Captain Pike fans should be telling Newsweek to shove it.

Wonkette:

“All Captain Pike fans” probably have bigger issues to deal with than the Newsweek magazine.

Keep it coming, Internet!

What do Superman, Orson Welles, and Mars have in common?

Apparently, this comic -- which I am sure I read as a kid but am now rediscovering in the process of introducing Thandie to various superheroes.



You've got to click to see the fine print, but here's part of it:

What on earth, or should we say, "what on Mars" is Orson Welles doing wearing that outlandish, ancient costume, and duelling with the fantastic huge-headed inhabitants o another planet? It all started in Italy, when the film "Black Magic," starring Orson Welles, was being filmed. Then a firecracker series of fantastic events blasted Orson Welles to Mars! Here he found himself fighting frantically to warn the world of a Martian invasion, this time a real one!

War of the Worlds has the synopsis:

The story featuring Orson Welles is called "Black Magic On Mars" and this does offer a clue that Welles or his publicists had a hand in the creation of the comic, for just as is recounted in the comic book, Welles was in Italy at the time, acting in a movie called "Black Magic". So this may well have been an early piece of creative cross-promotion, or equally plausible, the writer may just have read about Welles' project and decided to incorporate it. The story opens in Italy, with Welles atop a rooftop in the period costume of 18th century France, and just as in the climax of the film, Welles takes a fatal plunge.

Dusting himself off, Welles and his co-star Nancy Guild (she also was in the film playing Marie Antoinette), set off to attend a fancy dress party in their costumes. Driving through the Alps, they suddenly come across a rocket ship with its hatch open. As any fan of the science fiction of the period will know, this was a pretty common occurrence. Absent minded scientists were always building rocket ships in obscure locations and leaving the door open, and sure enough, curiosity gets the better of Welles, and he finds himself trapped in the rocket as it sets off for Mars.

Two hours later (that was some rocket engine), and Welles is stepping out onto the surface of Mars, where he is swiftly assailed by the Martians and brought before their leader, the Great Martler. The Martians speak English and goose step about like Nazi's, for Martler is an admirer of Hitler and has modelled his dictatorship after Nazi Germany, in which case, why don't they speak German? This linguistic peculiarity aside, Welles has arrived on the eve of a Martian invasion, and turning down Martler's offer of a job as propaganda minister on the soon to be conquered Earth, he uses his prop sword to seize control of a radio and broadcast a warning. Of course no one believes a word of it back on Earth, for as the listeners say, Welles has fooled America once before with his earlier broadcast. But Superman is not about to take any chances and speeds off to Mars, arriving just in time to prevent Welles getting disintegrated for his troubles.

The story goes into overdrive from here on, with Superman facing a fleet of one hundred thousand warships. It's a mighty challenge even for the Man Of Steel, but Orson has a plan, and a pretty insane one at that. Plucking one of the moons of Mars from its orbit, Superman fashions a slingshot from the thousands of miles of runways used to launch the fleet. Wrapping it round the moon, he sends it careering into the path of the invasion fleet, where they are helplessly snagged by its gravity and go harmlessly into orbit about it. Welles then sits a comatose Martler on his knee and performs an impromptu ventriloquism act to persuade his followers to give up on the plan of conquest. The Earth is saved, but poor Orson will never be believed.

So not the most realistic story imaginable, but enormous fun in its simplistic disregard of the laws of physics and nature.

Indeed!

The words were so alike

It was a crappy morning until I saw this typo in my inbox, c/o Amazon.com:

"We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated Love Cry by Spyro Gyra have also purchased Live On The Riviera by Albert Ayler."

Because, 1. you know, I love Spyro Gyra, and have actually purchased albums by them from Amazon.com -- said albums help me feel all tropical and shit; and 2. Albert Ayler and Spyro Gyra are so very similar. Ayler was a terribly, terribly big influence on the Spyros...

(Wow, that was quite snark-tastic, even for me. Sorry, it was a long night...)

"The Job Song" as you've never heard it

C/o Ms. Knapp.

If you don't know the actual tune from whence this comes, it can be found on the IJG Facebook page (the tunes are in the lower left-hand column), or at the IJG ReverbNation page.

The little Republican pin is an especially nice touch.

No comment

I haven't really had a huge interest in making any remarks about this "tea-bagging" business (although I do feel a few political posts brewing, just because of all the crazy shit that is happening in general). Honestly, what can one say about it? The whole thing is so misguided and stupid.

It's funny, I get that. But it's also sad. And when one grows tired of laughing at it, and feeling sad about it, and then one notices that it is still there, like a canker sore that won't go away -- then the vibe starts to get a little scary, too.

I don't know, it just feels like the premise is too simple to support all of the jokes it has spawned (and believe me, I'm all for milking a good joke). I basically agree with this brief, effective summary from the Rude Pundit:

Ah, fuck this. Fuck the puns and the mocking. It's just too fucking depressing. Somewhere, Karl Marx is laughing his bearded ass off. Because what is this but classic exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie? It's a bunch of rich fucks, beginning with that tool Rick Santelli on CNBC and ending with the slavering profitmongers at Fox "news," making the poor idiots, who are desperate from fear of or actual job loss and heath insurance loss and home loss, do their bidding. Look at the people attending. Bedraggled Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin wannabes, clinging to the image of those who create the illusion of the working class without the work or the class. Ignorance is such bliss, man.

Yeah.

Of course, the sadist in me was disappointed that no one (as far as I know) bothered to undertake the only appropriate response to the various "parties" that were held around the nation today. To wit: hire some out-of-work porn actors to show up at a protest and start actually tea-bagging each other. (Important: the actors should appear confused and / or hurt when the bona fide protesters express outrage at said actual tea-bagging. "What's the matter? Isn't this what we all came here for?!")

But as I suggested, the joke is getting old.

The Truth May or May Not Hurt

Don't let all this blogging, facebooking, twittering, youtubing, myspacing, and flickring (etc.) -- not to mention this 16-piece bandleading! -- fool you. I'm fundamentally an introvert. Always have been.

Not sure what that means? Or how to explain that contradiction? Here's a primer.

(Okay, apparently this has been around for a while, but I just learned about it via @sivers.)

Particularly comical bits and pieces:

Extroverts are easy for introverts to understand, because extroverts spend so much of their time working out who they are in voluble, and frequently inescapable, interaction with other people. They are as inscrutable as puppy dogs. But the street does not run both ways. Extroverts have little or no grasp of introversion. They assume that company, especially their own, is always welcome. They cannot imagine why someone would need to be alone; indeed, they often take umbrage at the suggestion. [...]

Are introverts oppressed? I would have to say so. For one thing, extroverts are overrepresented in politics, a profession in which only the garrulous are really comfortable. Look at George W. Bush. Look at Bill Clinton. They seem to come fully to life only around other people. To think of the few introverts who did rise to the top in politics—Calvin Coolidge, Richard Nixon—is merely to drive home the point. With the possible exception of Ronald Reagan, whose fabled aloofness and privateness were probably signs of a deep introverted streak (many actors, I've read, are introverts, and many introverts, when socializing, feel like actors), introverts are not considered "naturals" in politics.

Extroverts therefore dominate public life. This is a pity. If we introverts ran the world, it would no doubt be a calmer, saner, more peaceful sort of place. [...]

With their endless appetite for talk and attention, extroverts also dominate social life, so they tend to set expectations. In our extrovertist society, being outgoing is considered normal and therefore desirable, a mark of happiness, confidence, leadership. Extroverts are seen as bighearted, vibrant, warm, empathic. "People person" is a compliment. Introverts are described with words like "guarded," "loner," "reserved," "taciturn," "self-contained," "private"—narrow, ungenerous words, words that suggest emotional parsimony and smallness of personality. Female introverts, I suspect, must suffer especially. In certain circles, particularly in the Midwest, a man can still sometimes get away with being what they used to call a strong and silent type; introverted women, lacking that alternative, are even more likely than men to be perceived as timid, withdrawn, haughty.

[...] We [introverts] tend to think before talking, whereas extroverts tend to think by talking, which is why their meetings never last less than six hours. "Introverts," writes a perceptive fellow named Thomas P. Crouser, in an online review of a recent book called Why Should Extroverts Make All the Money? (I'm not making that up, either), "are driven to distraction by the semi-internal dialogue extroverts tend to conduct. Introverts don't outwardly complain, instead roll their eyes and silently curse the darkness." Just so.

Personality is a hilarious thing...

Street date: your Mom!

Another of the interludes that peppered our most recent tour. This one was the show opener. I was going for a self-deprecating dada-Broadway vibe, and I guess I got a little carried away.

The video is a composite of a pre-gig rehearsal (in Bakersfield, April 3) and our live performance at Dizzy's in San Diego (April 5). Hence the discrepancies in sound quality. Footage by Matt Lichtenwalner.

The "libretto" doth proceed thusly:

Jill: Oh, crap here we go / it's another IJG show...

Jill and Tany: I've heard this band, they blow / You never really know how low they will go...

Jill: How low, low, low, low, low, low!

Tany: You never know how to act --

Band: Is it ironic?

Tany: When they dispense with wit and tact --

Dan R.: What's tact?

Band: Dinner at Applebee's! [a reference to our tactless tune, "Il Ponderoso / Apropos of Nothing"]

Jill and Tany: In the end we always end up feeling sorry for them / Pitiful, miserable jazz musicians!

[Evan's Kenny G. imitation]

Tany: Trying way too hard to make a point.

Jill: There is nothing real about this joint.

All: Speaking of joints, the new record's dropping soon!

[Gavin quotes "PDX LIX LAX" over the bassline for "Gonna Make You Sweat"]

Jill and Tany: But why should we take the time to hear this band?

Mike R.: Street date: your Mom!

Jill and Tany: Do they think we really need to understand --

Ian: We tweeted about it!

Jill and Tany: -- whatever truly ponderous thing they have planned?

All: But wait: there's more, if you act now!

Dan S.: It slices! And it dices!

All: And sounds pretty!

Tany: Oh, let's just get it over with...

* * * * *

And there you have it.

I promise I'll get back to uploading the "real" tunes soon.

Read the fine print, cont'd

Ack! This is becoming the blog o' silly pictures. It's as if I thought a photo blog was the greatest thing since "slicded bread":



Backstory: I was in the store yesterday and had to decide between sourdough or French rolls. I went with the sourdough because of this downright delicious typo.

Keep off the grass

And while you're at it, be as delicate as possible in your piano-playing:



A sign directed at my students by a well-meaning adult (not me). Click the pic for more detail.

I'm having a hard time explaining to them how to play the instrument without running their fingers across the keys. Little Richard would be shit out of luck! Ah well.

Recently

(Apologies to those of you who have already seen these via Facebook.)

Below: one "produced / edited" IJG video, one "raw feed" IJG video. Fuller commentary is available at the relevant YouTube pages (just click the videos to get there).





Enjoy 'em if you can!

The intelligence of a box of parrots

This burns with the white-hot fire of eleventy-billion awesome suns. Do you too "find cheap populism oddly arousing"? Watch it.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Read the fine print

The pooping pets are bad enough, but it's really the pooping owners you have to watch out for.

The plastic sleeve makes this extra hilarious!

(I discovered this on a recent walk around the neighborhood. I was accompanied by my pet, who never poops.)

What Lil Beck said

Via my (increasingly pointless but occasionally entertaining) Twitter feed:

"respectfully disagrees w/ Gov. Jindal & the right wing. how can we afford to NOT fund a flying train?!"

Precisely. How long are we supposed to wait for the future?

How The New Yorker is different from The New York Post

Since the IJG dabbles in musical satire and potentially offensive comedic bits from time to time, I try to cut other similarly-inclined artists a lot of slack. Many of my own cultural heroes have pissed somebody off at some point, and I get how that's an occupational hazard for anyone interested in playing around on the fringes.

That's why I didn't say much about the New Yorker cover that caused such controversy during the last presidential election. I mean, on the one hand, I could understand why people were so offended by it.

But I also understand that while politics is a field that calls out for clarity, good art, alas, is often ambiguous. I don't know if the New Yorker cartoon was good art, but it was certainly ambiguous, in that multiple interpretations could be credibly attributed to it. One of those interpretations -- that Obama was a terrorist looking to destroy the US -- was indeed offensive and racist. And the last thing anyone needed at that moment in the campaign was another instance of a fundamentally stupid assumption recklessly tossed into an already volatile discourse. The fact that there was an alternate interpretation of the same cartoon -- a Cleavon-Little-in-Blazing-Saddles interpretation, in which Obama, looking directly at the viewer, seemed to be saying "excuse me while I whip out, and taunt you with, every ridiculous preconception you have about me" -- was less important than the fact that the very people who didn't understand that Obama wasn't a terrorist in the first place would probably never understand that take on the cartoon.



In any case, the bigger point is that with the New Yorker cartoon, at least there was a credible alternative to the racist interpretation. Which is more than can be said for this travesty published by the New York Post.

When pressed about the possible comparison of Obama to a dead chimpanzee, Post editor, Col Allen, provided this rationalization:

The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy.

Allen is right that sometimes the juxtaposition of seemingly unlike things can lead to witty social commentary. I seem to remember a political cartoon from the 1980 presidential campaign, in which Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Walter Mondale were pictured as the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion, singing, respectively, "If I only had a brain," "a heart," and "the nerve." But that cartoon worked because there was a connection -- a surprising, funny connection -- between the three candidates and their three unexpected doppelgangers from the Wizard of Oz. In the end, the illustration eloquently and elegantly summed up some of the political criticism that was floating around at the time.

The Post cartoon also makes a connection between two seemingly unlike things, but it is not the connection the paper so disingenuously claims -- that both stories merely happened to be in the news at the same time. Any idiot could create a cartoon using that technique -- and, say what you like, the cartoonist in this case, Sean Delonas, doesn't seem to be an idiot. (He does, however, seem to be a bit of an asshole.)

No, the specific juxtaposition speaks volumes. I mean, shit. Instead of a dead chimp, why not choose other topical and current images of demise? Why not the geese that flew into the engines of the Hudson plane, for instance? Why not the latest kid to get booted off American Idol? Why not the (unfairly) disgraced Michael Phelps? Couldn't the caption "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill" have worked equally well in any of those scenarios?

No, there was a particular reason Delonas chose to link the chimp story with the story about Obama's stimulus package -- which was, incidentally, how the bill was described ad nauseum in the weeks leading up to its passage, so no claiming that the unnamed author of the stim is actually Pelosi (as if murdering a different politician would somehow be more palatable). The idea of a "police shooting" comes ready-made with certain associations. The idea of using a chimpanzee as a stand-in for a human being comes ready-made with certain associations. We may not want to admit those associations to ourselves. We may want to pretend that they refer to ancient history. But pretending and denying are not viable (or sane) responses to pathological phenomena.

And don't kid yourself: if we still have this sort of thing floating around in our national psyche, then "pathological" is really the right word.

Proof that music is good for something

For instance: winning a child custody case with a legal-brief-in-the-form-of-a-rap. The composition in question included such lines as these:

"Regarding frivolous filings, one thing is clear. Notice to show cause and proper service before you appear."

"And if Industrial vs. Marquardt is any measure, it's the frivolous allegations, not the venue of your endeavor."

"A domestic relations exception, I was supposed to know. Appellee would know too, so why did he spend so much doe?" [sic]

"Appellee dissed 814.04 for his 3 grand justification. But he forgets that 977.08 puts the brakes on his compensation."

All of which suggest that whoever wrote the story for WTMJ-TV doesn't have the slightest idea of what actually constitutes "good rhythm."

Freelancing

The photos here were snapped at last night's rehearsal of the Portland Jazz Composers' Ensemble. I contributed a new tune, "Et Tu, Tutu?", which will programmed in the group's February 17 show, to be held in tandem with the Portland Jazz Festival.

It's always fascinating for me to write something for a group other than the IJG. One of the assumptions I make about my own musical creativity is that it is highly dependent upon a specific context of players that I already know -- and the better I know them, the better music I can write. I really feel like my music arises from the social context of whatever band I'm in -- not from the isolation of my own head. This is why I've never been able to develop a career as a composer-for-hire (e.g., film scoring, or commercial music).

However, I do appreciate the challenge -- it comes up from time to time -- of stepping outside of the "comfort zone" of the IJG, just to see what happens, and what I can learn from that. So when Andrew Oliver (the co-leader of the PJCE) asked me to be part of the upcoming PCJE concert, of course I said yes. (It helped that the PCJE includes three now-veterans of the IJG, all great players and great people: Mary-Sue Tobin (alto / soprano sax), Mieke Bruggeman (bari sax), and Kevin Van Geem (drums).)

The PCJE has a slightly different configuration from the IJG -- more brass-heavy, for one thing, and with a greater focus on acoustic bass and a full rhythm section. So I was initially tempted to contribute a slightly revised version of "Sneaky Whispers," an older, more recognizably "jazzy" tune of mine that originally appeared on the Industrialjazzwerke album.

But ultimately I decided to offer up something new, something closer to where my head is at now. Thus "Et Tu, Tutu?" has all the hallmarks of the IJG circa 2009: simple melodies expressed through dense, layered arrangements; a strong groove; an electric bass part; a few tempo shifts; chanted words; a goofy title; some physical comedy. We'll see how it turns out, but in the meantime, I'm just honored that the players (heavy hitters all) were willing to give it an airing.

The other composers for this show are: Dan Duval, Ken Ollis, Kyle Williams, Sam Howard, and the aforementioned Andrew Oliver. Do yourself a favor and check their music out -- their tunes were all smokin'.

Razzleberry dressing, anyone?

While we're at it, I loves me some Mr. Magoo:



This cartoon scared the shit out of me when I was a kid -- no idea why. Now I find it creepy but entertaining.