The Way He Walked...

Photo Creative Commons 2008 by Yves Lorson.

It has come to my attention that a great punk icon has passed away.

Those of you who are familiar with The Cramps know of Lux Interior’s snarling, piercing vocals. You know of his original songs (co-written with his wife Ivy) with titles like “Can Your Pussy Do The Dog?”, his almost parodic treatment of dusty pop war-horses like “Lonesome Town”, or his band’s thrashing reading of Hasil Adkins’ “She Said...” which outdoes Mr. Adkins’ bloodcurdling original, no mean feat.

I remember hearing The Cramps’ debut 12-inch, Gravest Hits back in ‘79. I was suitably impressed to say the least! The record sounded to me like it had been made on a thrift-shop cassette deck using the cheapest grade of tape available. The reverb on most of the tracks was the classic Lincoln-Tunnel variety. All the previously-buried 1950's rockabilly cliches had been newly exhumed, hosed down and given a fresh coat of red-lead paint. In an age of Teflon-slick FM rock with synthesized orchestras and 20-minute drug-fueled guitar solos by people who flew to gigs in Lear Jets, The Cramps’ gritty back-to-basics style stood out.

News reports say that Lux died of a bad heart, which makes no sense to me. He and his band had plenty of heart. So long, Lux. It’s too bad you had to split. The music world needs people like you more than ever. My sincerest condolences to Ivy, the band and all of your fans the world over.

Everything I know, I learned from my parakeet.

Photo Creative Commons by Kent K. Barnes.

I don’t like fingers. I don’t care how much you’ve been told that parakeets like to sit on peoples’ fingers. Just because some expert says we’re supposed to like something doesn’t mean that all of us do. Put your finger in my face and I’ll snap at it. I’ll be perfectly happy to hop on your shoulder, your head, your arm, a pencil - anything but a finger. Fingers are verboten. End of discussion.

Horseplay is fine. Get too rough with me, and I’m outta there.

Puh-leeze don’t load down my cage with bird toys. I know you love me. Show it some other way. Let me out of the cage more often. Play with me. Put me on your shoulder while you do your homework or watch TV. Face time is a lot more important than stuff.

I love music (hey, I’m a bird!). Just don’t play it too loud. Too much of a good thing makes it bad.

Don’t vent your frustrations on me with verbal or physical abuse. I’ve had nothing to do with whatever it is that’s bugging you. I fully sympathize, but only if you treat me with respect. Otherwise, I’m outta there.

I like to fly to the downstairs bathroom mirror, clamp my feet to the bottom of it and peck furiously away at my reflection. I know it looks strange to you, but don’t rag on me too hard for it. We all have our strange little quirks.

Sorry about those little um, artifacts that I leave around occasionally. We birds don’t have sphincter muscles, so we can’t control our “emissions” the way you humans can. Please make allowances for that.

Tell your mother that I’m sorry if I embarrassed her when I landed on her head as she walked into the room. Like I said, I’m a bird. That’s the kind of thing we do. Our sense of decorum is different from yours, but please know that I mean well.

Please clean up the bottom of my cage a little more often, OK? You don’t like it when your own living space gets gross. Neither do I.

(Dedicated to Lightning).

Are there any copy rights left?

A while back, I linked to a couple of Youtube clips showcasing cartoonist Nina Paley and her reinterpretation of the Indian epic, Ramayana. Well, according to Question Copyright, the licensing fees demanded by the publishers of the 80-odd year-old blues numbers she's included in the film's soundtrack were so exorbitant as to all but kibosh the project, which has been three years in the making.

Ms. Paley is currently trying to raise money to pay back the loan she took out to cover the licensing fees. She's also given a 42-minute interview about the situation, which you can download from archive.org, or watch below.





In other news, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is seeking public input on the contentious issue of Digital Rights Management, or DRM. For those of you watching in black-and-white, DRM is digital code applied to audio files which can make it difficult or impossible to move them from one device to another or to even simply play files that you've legally bought and paid for. Some content providers, most notably Audible.com, include potentially-troublesome DRM in their proprietary audio files even if the author and publisher object to it.

The FTC's comment form can be found here. If you're going to be in Seattle on March 25th, 2009, you can comment in person at an FTC "town hall".

(Many thanks to BoingBoing.net for bringing these and other crucial issues to our attention, day after day!)

The truth about the Assassin of Youth!

Be sure to watch this video, which I found while looking for other things, very carefully. See if you agree that its message is one which America's youth must hear and heed!

Beating a Horse That's Not Quite Dead

Much ink and pixels have gone under the bridge in the wake of the success of Proposition 8, a ballot initiative which rendered same-sex marriages null and void in the allegedly progressive state of California. Rather than vent my own spleen over this half-witted endorsement of intolerance, I'll turn the discussion over to someone who's said a lot more than I could say - and on national TV too. (Loyalty oath department - I'm not gay. I just can't abide medieval attitudes toward sex and sexual orientation).

One Size Never Fits All.

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About the new graphic

Artist unknown.
Graphic Creative Commons 2008
C.S. Lewiston.
Non-comm, attrib, no derivs.

Like a lot of you, I spend a lot of time in thrift shops. The above graphic came from a mix tape. (Remember mix tapes? You'd sit down in front of a device called a cassette deck with a stack of vinyls. You'd choose songs from each of the vinyls and dub them onto the tape in sequence). I didn't even look to see what was on that mix tape, but this handmade collage caught my attention.

I have incorporated this graphic into my blog's new header. My sincerest thanks and compliments to the person who created it.