That roomie of Lyle's was Robrt Earl Keen.
THANK YOU Jim (a wave and a smile a big hug for you, Sir)! That's who I saw interviewed!
You just saved me a boat load of maniacal scratching through all of my mental files. (Now, let's seeee....where did I see him interviewed recently? hmmmm...)
Jim! JIM! (jumping up and down) JIM! Okay, I KNOW the Pipkin has got a tale or two to tell on this subject! C'mon, 'fess!
The most effective "freak" I ever did was unintentional. I'd rewritten a John Denver song into something unprintably deviate, and was singing it to some friends around a campfire way up in the mountains.
Two sheriff's deputies showed up, hands on their holsters, and ordered us to cease and desist. Seems that, unbeknownst to us, there was a camp full of Mormons with a cellphone within earshot...
Ooops.
Well. . . because of various statutes of limitation, there are some stories which should be locked in the archives for a long, long time. But this one had a practical benefit:
In 1982 or so, I was playing with a country-folkie band at a club in Edmonton, Alberta. They had put us in a wonderfully-named motel, the Relax Inn. We were there for two weeks. Each morning at around 9 a.m. there would be a quick knock on the door and the sound of a key in the lock. The door would swing open and two maids would walk in calling, "Housekeeping!"
As we would typically get back to our rooms at around 3:30 a.m. it was, literally, a rude awakening.
On the third morning, one of my bandmates and I lay in wait and when the door opened we ran, totally naked, toward the maids, crying an enthusiastic "Good morning!". They shrieked, ran from the room and pulled the door closed behind them and. . .
They never came to our room again while we were still in it. Pretty cool, huh?
Ceilidh musicians often see themselves as Carnies - breezing into town and rattling people's cages. My outfit used false intros, sudden stops, dramatic changes in volume and the old favourite, speeding up until small women became airborne to spice up the action. A perfect moment was when the guitarist introduced a digital sampler into the caller's mic line. Careful timing during the walkthrough could harvest a perfect figure, which we could then fire off at random during the dance. The word 'twist' was particulary destructive.
My story is called "Freaking the Non-Conformists". Back around 1973, my college rock group did a 30-minute set for the inmates at a reformatory in central Minnesota. We cleverly decided to open our act by having our backs to the crowd as the curtain rose. We spun around, hoisted our index fingers and shouted "grease!"
Well, the silence, then the murmuring, were deafening. And the looks we got from those gentlemen! We quickly did our set and exited those bars.
And you're still a 'virgin'..? Innocence is such a rare commodity in a reformatory.
Did I intimate that we spent more than 30 minutes with the inmates? Our entire band made a getaway unsullied. As Gene Merlino sang:
C'est moi! C'est moi! The angels have chose
To fight their battles below.
And here I stand as pure as a pray'r,
Incredibly clean, with virtue to spare,
The godliest man I know.
C'est moi! Ha ha!
Leeping lizards! It's SchlElvissss!
That's a keeper, Richard!
I used to play my guitar on Yonge Street in Toronto back in the early 1970's. There were lots of us that did it, but one amazing evening we ganged up on the unsuspecting by piling as many as we could into a sunken alcove right off the sidewalk. (This used to be around Yonge and Dundas, if my memory serves.)
There were at least 30 musicians of all kinds down in that hole, and we played all sorts of tunes that night. Passersby were amazed and delighted. I particularly remember playing the Rolling Stone's "Wild Horses", and getting the greatest rush of joy seeing the crowd above rocking out with us. I took a break to join the audience, and was shocked at what a crowd we had gathered! (You could only actually see about 20 people from down in the hole.) When I got to the other side of the street, people didn't even know what all the excitement was about, but they were dancing anyway!
That was by far the "freakiest" musical experience I ever had. Far more fun than going grocery-shopping dressed as a 15th century Florentine, which I did lots of time!
10th century Norse here, Meg. (o; I had to be practical about it - difficult to sport Florentine in this fierce Ansteorran heat.
I have never dressed in archaic period clothing. But if I have this feeling that I was an Old Master in a former life, perhaps I should. Master Fool garb for me on my next shopping trip!
Actually Richard, I think that might be fitting. You have a expansive, creative mind, and why should mere time be a limitation to you? Anachronistic behavior can be fun, as long as it doesn't suck the base from your budget, for which it does have a tendency, I must say. I do miss the keen creativity of some of those people though. It's really good to find wuite a few like-minded folk here.
You lot ought to try Morris dancing!
What is Morris dancing, pray tell?
..Meniacal dancing with bells an ribbons on your ankles and wrists, meant to ward off evils such as the black plague!
Men and women of indeterminate age dress in a variety of uniforms, too various to go into, but anything from straw hats, white trousers, white shirt with a baldric and lots and lots of bells - to bonnets, faces blackened with soot, a frock, and hobnailed boots (this is just the men so far).
They then perform a set of traditional dances outside pubs (for choice). There is much waving of hankies, sticks, swords, bladders on sticks etc, and wearing of terrifying footwear. There is also much accordion music. Everyone gets savagely drunk and then rows about who's driving home (I'll never forget the fog shrouded roundabout in the middle of Hemel Hempstead - that town's most famous feature, aside from the exploding oil depot - I'll never drink and drive again!).
A good Morris team can upset a large town for several hours. One Kentish Molly side (Black-face, boots, dresses, beards) called Seven Champions, had a knack for grabbing pedestrians and spinning them through the dance - slowly but irresistably - so they ended up on the wrong side of the road or heading up an escalator.
The tradition is reviled in the South East and by the young, as being culturally embarrassing - which is partly why the English are so congenitally unhappy! Elswhere it's looked upon as an occasional hazard of British summer time. Like Cricket and wasps.
I don't do it any more because I couldn't cope with the drinking and violence, but it's enormous fun. If I find myself living in a small town with a Morris side again, I'll join.
Is this the same or similar to the dance/march down to the shoreline cliff at the end of the original '70s "Wicker Man" film, Huw? Is that what this dance is all about?
Heh! Anachronists ...... guess I oughta uncloak and just say "Ioseph of Locksley .... Dark Horde"
BOO! ;-)
Did you know you can jigger some mics to act like a tiny speaker? Seriously flipped out a local star one night with that.
Oh! Joe, will you be doing Estrella Bardic with Jim P. then?
HOw would you describe the sound coming from those tiny mic speakers? That's novel!
Great film though it is The Wicker Man is a pale wraith by comparison to a busload of Morris dancers heading into Sevenoaks on a July evening...
I rather prefer the dance of death in Ingmar Bergman's Seventh Seal. Easier footwork.
Stomp, stomp, plod, stomp...
No Estrella for me. Group has too toxic politics for my liking any more, so I've been inactive for several years.
That locking of swords and cutting off of head was pretty cool in the original "Wicker Man" though - really gave me a start, I must tell you!
That's Morris! Rapper to be precise.
Is Joe speaking English? I've looked at your website old chap, you're singing from a hymnsheet I don't know!
Estrella Bardic is an SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) event, Huw. Jim P. does it every year, I think. He's scheduled for it this year in any case. Joe's done some work with Jim, so since they've both been involved in past in the SCA, I just wondered if Joe was going to do the Estrella thing this year too.
Like Joe, I've been out of it for some years as well, except that I'm marginally involved still with the Viking boat building group here.
and speaking of fertility dances, we all did the "Ormenlange" (Great Serpent) dance at the wedding. Felt awfully naughty doing that old Norse fertility dance at the Episcopal church where it all came down. The dance didn't work though. Sadly, my ex couldn't sire kids.
SCA politics are of no interest to me. I just show up for home brew, campfire singing, and the chance to wake up hung over and covered with mud under a tree.
Btw, Jim - how's that mead coming along?
No mead this year - plenty of honey, not enough time! Alice has gotten into making Sake though...DANG she's good at it! Could be one reason no mead got put up...
Ohhhhh my..Sake - a warm hug from the inside out.
You lucky dawg you!
I see! We're inherently anachronistic in the UK. Trooping the Colour, the Edinburgh Tattoo, The Archers etc. Creative anachronism has a nice ring to it though, I'm prepared to bet there's an affiliation or franchise here. We've got the Ku Klux Klan after all!
Indeed, it seems to me that the British are the personification of anachronism!
Yes, Huw - you are in the Kingdom of Drachenwald, and there are groups which meet regularly over there. http://www.drachenwald.sca.org/
Although, as Jack said... And I don't imagine that it might be considered quite as exotic over there as it is here, but it's something to do weekends.
You mean we ran the KKK clear over to the UK? Do they call themselves the KKKUK??
Or the UKUKUKKKK??
Oh they're just the KKK because it's easy to spell. Think they're illegal over here, but there was a lodge in South Wales a few years ago - they burned a cross up over Bargoed if I remember correctly.
Which brings us back to wierding the straights, as we might put it over here. I was privileged to stand behind a party of American tourists at the Lewes bonfire festival one November a few years ago - Guy Fawkes again. In Lewes, Sussex they've cut out the middle man; instead of burning Guy Fawkes in effigy, they burn the Pope! The local churches are frankly disapproving and the Cardinal for the region once got a high court order banning them from doing it, their response was to abandon their official bonfire sites and burn the Pope in the main street outside the police station! Nowadays theyre just left to get on with it (and they burn anybocy they feel like. They've done Osama Bin Laden, Michael Jackson and Maradonna in the past).
Lewes is divided up into different bonfire societies (I was a sort of member of the Commercial Square society in the 90s). Each is based in a pub in the town, which smells increasingly of kerosene in the week leading up to the 5th. On the night, they parade their effigies through the town before the fire and then they split up and hold rival fireworks displays and fires at various sites around the town. The Americans and I watched the parade of societies pass. The Americans chattered away happily until one society replete in their traditional uniform of white robes and masked, pointy hats marched past, each holding aloft a large, burning crucifix.
"Bet you thought you came up with that idea" I said into the shocked silence of my American colleagues.
Truly nothing is new under the sun. Of course in the Deep South the Klan began to leave off white robes in favor of cammie fatigues. Those pesky, squirrel-hunting minorities found all of that white to be a perfect sight picture of an evening.
"I'm too normal"
Compared to who?
"I'm too normal"
Compared to who?
Hey, Jim - how about the "kluk-kluk-klUKKKK"..
That cross-hairs logo of theirs always seemed something of an invitation Jim.
There's an echo from you Jack, are you in a cave? On the other hand where Richard is concerned, compared to who is a question worth repeating!
JoLynn - I won't eat their eggs regardless of what they're wearing these days.
I have a distant cousin, Turk Pipkin, who mooned a Klan rally once. Could be the high water mark of our family saga.
White butt face off with white sheet..gotta love it!
Glad to hear it, Jim. You need to write a song about your cousin, and with a great name like Turk, how could you resist!
Them breed rotten eggs, Huw. I won't touch 'em either. Thing is, you still hope and pray they'll see the light. All it takes is for one per generation to break away to see some change.
It would be racist to believe otherwise.
We're all one race, Huw - hopefully "Human".
I like Jim's friend, Vinnie James' MySpace page for his words on that topic (plus some great music!).
How was the birthday, Huw? Any "wierding the straights" tales to tell?...or perhaps you're sleeping in today.. (o;
(I'll try to whisper.)
Must've filled in the Myspace form wrong! My birthday's tomorrow. Same as Prince Charles. Thanks for the messages and whatnot though. And you Jim. Frankly if Poppy dances on the 18th (launch gig for our album - Plans For Love) that'll be wierd enough; the Hope & Anchor contravenes many of the Geneva Conventions on treatment of prisoners of war, particularly with regard to volume of space per-internee. She might just kick my teeth in.
Prince Huw - can't sing very well through a mouth guard though..somebody please video the performance. I must see this!
And oh, rapture, oh, joy..your birthday is on my jury duty day. Can't raise one to celebrate you there, I'm afraid! Maybe a Shiner Kolsch later on then.
Try not to hang anyone (which side of the Pecos are you?)
I'll do my very best, Huw. If I'm lucky I can make it home by noon for a nice long nap.
What you are speaking of originated in the 60's. We referred to it back then as 'freaking out the straights'. The hippies, in all of their regal splendor (in terms of their bizarre dress, hair, lingo, etc.), would take delight in freaking out the straights wherever they went. Plenty has been written about the Haight-Asbury culture of the old days, but you should have seen the Sunset Strip culture of L.A. back in the late 60's. It was something to behold...bizarre enough to freak out the hippies...and lots of fun.
I may have mentioned this before, but one young hippy gal really did freak out my family once when we headed out west in the 60s to California. Somewhere along the way - maybe Santa Fe, NM or someplace, as we were driving in to the town in the old brown station wagon, we encountered a young, bare foot pregnant woman in nothing but a pair of buckled up overalls with the middle part cut out, and protruding from that was her ripe belly with "MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR!" painted on with bright and cheerful flowers and such. She just smiled real big, waved and watched as we passed, eyes wide open. All my Dad said was, ".....oh, my....". I thought to myself, "well, it looks as if she did just that!"
There's revenue to be made from pregnant belly placement!
If that be so, then I am a poor soul indeed, Huw...
heh-heh, but I seem to have the belly for it these days!
There was a Fisher Space Pen Club at SJU in the early 70's that celebrated normalcy.
To clarify, I feel too normal compared to Huw.
If Huw is "normal", then I don't wanna be odd!
It's "piqued", folks. Piqued someone's interest, not peaked.
This thread certainly piqued mine...unfortunately, I'm pretty normal too.
Ah! By normalcy are we referring to the mean, the median or the average. Is it better to be average, mean or mediocre? Where's that mathematician?
It is better to be mean. Mean people live longer, have cooler stuff, and fewer friends pestering them with phone calls.
..and I stand corrected. "piqued" it is, and Noemi has agreed to be my Spell Check for the Folk Alley blogs! She has one tuff job ahead of her, bless her hart! (o;
Statistically speaking I tend toward the average rather than the mean. Given the j curved nature of demographics, most of us are. I suspect that the median and mean are disproportionately close to the peak (ique or IQ+U=E QED).
I've had soo much coffee today!
Yes, Huw, I think you have peaked, and now I am piqued!
I have escaped the j-curve and achieved mean and mediocre simultaneously.
This piques many of my softer-hearted acquaintences, particularly during peak hours of pregnant belly placement.
Did I peak? Pique? Or perk? I forget.
Huw - I think you most assuredly Poked!
Did I mention the guy who's name was called out for a jury panel while I was doing jury duty recently?
"Peter Piper, please report for jury panel #...."
That awakened me just long enough to make the bus ride home to napsville after the courthouse cafeteria's special turkey dinnner!
Peter Piper penned a peck of Pecos penitents
Where's the peck of Pecos penitents Peter Piper penned?
You are freaking my mundanity with your alliterative modality
Pert near enough to pickle perspectives on prospective Pecos perpetrators!
The Piqueness Stakes ... second leg of the Triple Frown of Furrow Bread Tasting
Aww c'mon Richard that made no sense!
perchance, a plastic pipe plays a perfect part to poke a pecos perp perhaps?
portune (privately) a patent on the plastic pipe perp poker, pay pennies prey, to poke a pecos perp to penance.
Cruel and unusual indeed!
If you cared about horsing around in America, it would make sense. Someone tell Huw.
The pompous pompadoured politician probed the postulate's probity. Whereupon, the postulate called the cops and had the jerk busted.
Care to bet on that Richard?
(Quick Huw say something in English English...)
Gosh... Er?
This is getting pretty weird when the paramundanes start freaking out each other.
JoLynn: The Preakness Stakes - second leg of the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing. There...now googling enthusiasts of horse velocity will find this page. Bet on that!
I'm surprised no one got that.
I got it, but I was on my tenth mint julep at the time.
The Priqueness/Preakness was understood, but it was that 'Furrow Bread Tasting' which threw me right off! Couldn't seem to Google that!
Whatever has happened to Chris Clark?? He's definitely missed in threads such as this....
Never put money on a horse a dog or a boxer - look in their eyes - mad as a trolleybus at sea. What I know about US horseracing extends to Hunter S Thompson's account of macing the waiter at the Kentucky Derby - that and a 1950s B movie about walking horses. No further.
Whenever I put money on my dog he just looks at me funny, starts scratching, and the money falls off.
Sure miss Gonzo the mad journalist...
There's a website somewhere called, "Things on My Cat" - similar premiss, although I first thought it surely meant having the goods on your cat for purposes of blackmail or something.. an old dog trick which never seems to work very well, come to think of it..
What are we talking about? I think we have slid into the entropic zone.
It all falls apart eventually, Richard...just the nature of things.
I believe the topic was "freaking the mundanes" and it finally seems to be working!
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...
Well, thank goodness cats do not have opposable thumbs...can you imagine the entropy then?!
I had a friend when I lived in Oregon whose family cat was named Seven Toes because he had seven on each paw. The extra toes came off the side of the paw and were very much like opposable thumbs. One morning I was over at his house which was nestled on a hillside in a very wooded and secluded area. As we ate breakfast out on the deck looking out into the woods, we watched Seven Toes stalk a small bird. He stealthily circled until he was directly in front of it, then he charged it. The bird went to flight, but in a forward direction which was also where Seven Toes was so he easily snagged the bird before it had a chance to get very high off the ground. Seven Toes grasped the bird in one paw just as you or I might hold it and bit off its head. The cat was amazing to watch since he adapted to the use of opposable claws so well! I also saw him many times pick up his cat toys in one paw and hold it up to his mouth and toss them about.
So you hold birds with one hand and bite off their heads?
Cool story, BTW!
But of course, ...... don't you?
Well, it certainly worked for Ozzie, but then again..he peed on a National Texas Shrine, so that put him down a notch on the evolutionary chain for a while there, until the Daughters of the Alamo mostly forgave him and allowed him back in to the city for a concert. He definitly has opposable something!
(Ozzy, I still love you.)
uhm...but by 'birds' I'm thinking you must mean something entirely different, Jim & Jack!
Be nice to the birds and they won't bit back.
I thought that was Chicks? I really must get an American/English dictionary...
I had a boss in Sussex with a seven toed cat. Extra digits aren't restricted to the cat population down there mind!
It's 'freaking the mundanes', Huw - not
freaky mundanes!
Today I reach the age of raisin.
Grape news Richard. Always keen to keep up with currant events. Pip pip,,,
Did I miss a beat, Richard?
Dried by the sun, I remain edible.
I thought this thread was about "freaking the mundanes", not "eating" them?
Is this not our raisin d'etre?
ba-dum-bum....... you guys are killin' me over here!
LOL
The elusive Grapes of Wraith haunted me.
(Last call for 'Free and Unecessary Thought' at the tail end of things down there...)
Now, JoLynn, that was totally uncalled for...and free! I love this web site.
Richard, wait 'til you look in the archives and see what Jack wrote!
This page voted "Best Blogging Thread of 2006".
Which Jack wrote what where?
Huh? What voting, where...? (I'm lost.)
"Free and Unnecessary Thought", Richard..and Jack Swain left us the finaly word before it disappeared into the archives.
"Best Thread" -- I made it up. Judge, jury and peanut gallery. Will this thread soon die, too, and go to archive heaven?
..not until about 18 more new ones get posted! They get dumped off the end there.
Quick..think of something clever to say!
That's it - we've all become mundane!
Oh dear...
Mundane! There is no such day of the week!
Oh thank goodness...Makes struggling to get up on another Mundane morning less intimidating.
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Freaking the Mundanes
