BOOP

Many guys have a motorized toy, mine is an aging convertible.  It is 17 years old so it was no surprise that the original stereo was dead.  I replaced it with an inexpensive unit but these days even the cheapest ones are kinda complex. 

Of course it has leventy burfillion odd-shaped buttons on the face each with a cryptic marking.  Apparently it would be disgracefully uncool to have a button marked “On/Off”.   The markings are so many in such a small space that I might be able to read them if I parked a telescope on the trunk and pointed it at the dash.

This inexpensive unit isn’t satellite capable, but I thought I could use my phone for that.  In the thousands of completely useless tricks I pay the phartsmone people WAY too much for, internet based radio services are  among the few with some appeal.  Since l'm already paying Verizon waaaay too much (do you smell a pet peeve here?) for service which includes internet radio I thought it might be cool to coerce the phartsmone into playing music through the car stereo.  I have been told this is possible - theoretically.  


Not only is this system not satellite-enabled, it also lacks bluetooth capability.  I saved about eleven cents on that wise choice !  I plugged the phone into the USB jack on the face, fired up Pandora internet radio, and with combined techniques of squinting at the "manual" and old-fashioned trial & error whacking the crypticly marked micro-buttons I tried to make the car speak Pandora.


No luck. The big LED display on the front said a few entertaining things at times, though, and that alone was worth the effort.


Eventually I gave up.  I disconnected everything and shut the stereo down properly by pushing the "off" button  - it has a symbol found in Peruvian caves where the PhD archaeologists translated it  "... then the UFO burned our antelope." 


I was done with the project, it was unsuccessful, no big deal. Then I took another look at the big LED on the face of the stereo.

It read "BOOP". I panicked.

BOOP?

BOOP??? Whatnahell is "BOOP"!?? Oh, shit! I've BOOPed the car! NOOO! PLEASE don't BOOP!

Again I rifled through that convoluted, inscrutable owner’s manual.  No mention of “BOOP”.

I looked back to the stereo. This time it was saying “BOIP”.

Great - I still didn't understand the previous problem and now I have BOIP!

What could “BOIP” be?   Well, it is the sound made by someone from New Jersey when they belch.  Could that be it?  This was a used car so I suppose it could be from New Jersey.   Furthermore it does have gas ...

No, that is probably not the answer.

Sixty seconds later the answer came to me.  The word changed again.  This time it looked like “BOZP”, and I can’t even pronounce that.   That is when I noticed something between the “B” and the “O”.  Getting out the telescope again I take a look and what do I find?  A tiny little  skinny colon ( the punctuation kind, not the anatomical kind).

Eventually I realized that my panic had been for nothing.  I had not BOOPed the car.  It never really said BOOP, it had been saying "8:00 P", meaning eight PM.  All along I had been seeing the clock.  *whew!* 

For a little while there it really freaked me out - two minutes of sweat-drenched panic seemed like a lot longer.  All that worry really tired me out, too.  I went to bed and was asleep by half past BOOP.

 © 2013 Raymond Blowers

Tribal dance.

Recently I saw a typical old-style TV documentary featuring some 'primitive' tribe somewhere in a very non-western place.  Among the many aspects of their culture being highlighted was their folk music.

We the viewers meet someone presented as the tribal elder (or  maybe just some old guy) named "Ng!tu", or something equally non-western.  Ng!tu pulls out a thoroughly non-western looking device and uses it to make very non-western sounds.  In response everybody jumps, claps, moves in circles, showing all the signs of  high party time on the veldt.  The clear message is that I am witnessing music and dance and if I don't 'get it' thats just because I'm a white male from the USA without 3 doctorates and therefore I am a hateful evil idiot and inherently inferior.  

I can accept non-western musical concepts. Sounds need not conform to my habitual expectations in order to be called "music".  Though it doesn't sound a bit like what I sing in the shower I’m not suggesting for a moment that Ng!tu or his music is less valid.  Nevertheless out of training and habit when I listen to Ng!tu’s music I seek meter, tonal centers, and recurring thematic elements. I find none of those things.  Maybe this is a precise art form very different from what I’ve heard.  
 

On the other hand maybe Ng!tu’s  music sounds odd to me because ...well, because maybe Ng!tu sucks.

NatGeo is packaging Ng!tu as the hot talent in town but let’s face it - there are other possible explanations.  We've been deceived by pseudo-intellectual television with ulterior motives so often that if you're not questioning the message then you're not thinking. Maybe the NatGeo crew is sorta embellishing this. Maybe?

Perhaps when Ng!tu brings out his …errr ...  instrument … 80% of the tribe thinks  "Oh, shit. Crazy old bastard gonna screw up my favorite song again! I hate it when he does that".

Maybe the only reason anyone listens when
 Ng!tu plays is because he is the boss.  When the Bossman plays you gotta flatter him or else when gnu dinner night comes around - you get a hoof.  

Maybe he owns the only instrument in the village and won't let anyone else touch it.

Maybe they're all waiting for him to die so they can give the damned thing to somebody who isn't tone-deaf.

I'd like to see the khaki-clad nerd boys from NatGeo go to the twentysomethings in the tribe and say "Look ... really ... is the old guy alright, or do you think he's been in the sun too long?" or maybe  “Is this how you always dance or are you just punkin' it up because the guy in the Birkenstocks has a camera?"

Then again perhaps its not only the NatGeo gang who are “embellishing” here.  Maybe when the Land Cruiser fulla smarmy eggheads is spotted kicking up dust on the horizon ol' Ng!tu gathers the family and says  "Yonder comes the dorkmobile again. What we feed ‘em this time?  Hows about I get out that stupid thing I made one night on peyote. I'll make noises like I'm squeezing a cat and you guys all jump around the way we did when N’gati broke the anthill.  We'll tell ‘em it's a party or a religious ceremony or some crap,  that should get us all some good face time.   I’ll text Uncle Mudabo in Nairobi and have him Tivo the show when it runs."

In my mind I try to envision what would happen if a similar gang of young eager journalists chose to make one of their enlightening documentaries in the small town where I grew up during the 1970s.

Hey, it’s MY imagination and I can waste it if I wanna!

In my mind I see a troupe of city folk riding into town with cameras, microphones, and notepads to document local culture, somehow arriving at the home of my uncle Clem.

Uncle Clem was kind-hearted and charming, but perpetually in need of a shave and a bath. He was known for his quick smile & folksy wit and he was generally well-liked around town (from a reasonable distance). His favorite thing to do was play guitar and sing. His musicianship was, unfortunately, as fine as his fashion sense. He had a voice like a running chain saw being swung through a window by an angry chimp. As for his sense of rhythm, he could scarcely tap out ‘shave and a haircut’ so that it was recognizable.

Uncle Clem’s guitar was just as sophisticated as the man himself, with rusted frayed strings and visible cracks in the wood predating my earliest memories. One or more of the tuners were always broken so that pliers were needed to turn them.  Since it was a long walk to the tool shed Uncle Clem just didn't worry about tuning it at all - he couldn’t tell the difference anyway. He paid $11.50 for it via mail-order in the 1950s and never took care of it. By the 70s it would have needed repair just to qualify as firewood.

When the camera crew arrives Uncle Clem is thrilled to have a new audience, so it takes little encouragement to bring out his heartfelt rendition of "Oh, Susanna".  The cameras roll, and captured for everyone's cross-cultural edification is "Oh, Susanna" without tonal center, without meter ... you know ... all that stuff I mentioned above.

"Oh, it rained hard all durn night ...it gets dry 'round here ...

Oh, Suzanna don't never cry fer me no mo neither ...

la la la..."

A few dozen of his children & grandchildren gather around to see the strangers. They giggle and squirm and jump around  - not because it is a tribal dance, but for various personal reasons including:

• the little ones have plentiful energy & can't afford to entertain themselves any other way
• some are excited because they've never been close to anyone with a car less than 20 years old
• a few have to go to the bathroom but the guy with the note pad & Harry Potter glasses is blocking the door.
• 3 of them got into poison oak and the itching is driving them bonkers
• most of the girls 12 or older are trying to flirt with the cameraman - or ANY man for that matter

Just down the road lived Edgar, a handsome well-groomed fellow with a fine quality guitar and a voice fit for Carnegie Hall.  People enjoyed listening to Edgar, which is yet another way in which he differed from Uncle Clem.

Which of these men would become the subject of someone's "cultural study" and accompanying video documentary: Edgar, or Uncle Clem? Take a guess.

I loved my Uncle Ng!tu ... er... Clem, but I always tried not to be there when he played guitar.

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© 2013 Raymond Blowers

December’s Rumbly Brainfarts will describe a studious search - to find the time.

Song parodies with your clothes on.

To a greater or lesser extent, many of us write song parodies. Or at least I think it is safe to say that at one time or another most of us are going to mess with the words to a song.   There are plenty of song parodies around, especially in this era of youtube and social media, but not many good song parodies. Many of them are pretty awful.  This month I wanted to pontificate ... err ... talk a bit about the craft of song parody writing. 

If you really want to skip the discussion and go right to the song parody, scroll down past the dotted lines.  Do not neglect the "NOTICE" after the first dotted line!

One of my first dilemmas in writing this was whether to call parody writing  an “art” or a “craft”.   After some thought I chose the term “craft” since the parody writer doesn't create the song, he takes an existing piece and messes with it.  Come to think of it the difference between writing original songs and writing parodies is kinda like the difference between being a parent and a child molester.

Parodies range greatly in scope and fame.  Some pieces gain almost household-name status, like some of Weird Al Yankovich's pieces or the classics that have been replayed on the Doctor Demento radio show for decades.  At opposite end of the fame spectrum, often a parody will only be relevant to a limited regional or demographic group because of the material or references involved - "inside jokes".  For example if you were a US serviceman stationed in Korea, you probably heard and/or sang “You Picked a Fine Time to Burn Me, Miss Lee”, but if you never wore the Uniform and went to Korea you've probably never even heard it.  (If it isn't obvious, "Miss Lee" is a parody of the Kenny Rogers hit "Lucille" from the 1970s.)

Regardless of whether the song parody you write becomes timeless or is only ever known by the members of your poker club or boy scout troop, the rules for quality parody construction are pretty much the same.

I would like to make one point adamantly - anyone can just write words about sex.  That doesn't show much originality or even thought.  I'm not opposed to a smutty joke or song but that's not the only kind of humor that exists!  Similarly, just because words are about sex doesn't automatically make them funny.  There are a lot of synonyms for "penis" and someone can make one of them go in any song anywhere.  Beavis and Butthead would be amused but I am a tad more difficult to please.   Yes, sex is awesome but  day-um, people ... there are other things to joke about ... really.  Let us be a little further evolved than rabbits,  shall we?

Essentially the closer a parody is to the original  - the more it could deceive someone who isn't really paying attention - the more well-constructed I consider it to be.  If I can play a song parody and slip it past the drinkers, yakkers,  and half-listeners out there because they don't even realize it isn't the "serious" version (or maybe they realize it halfway through) then I think that is a nice "tight" - song parody.  I love it when someone in the crowd does a double take in the middle of a song, their head snaps around and their facial expression says "Wait .... whaaaat?"

Careful parody crafting is so much more than just conforming to a rhyme scheme.  The writer should work to retain as many of the stressed letter sounds, hard-edged consonant sounds, and long vowels from the original as possible. Special attention should be paid to the sounds that fall on strong beats, climactic points in the melody, or long held notes. All those elements are the most noticeable and so have greater preservation value in a tight parody.

Given:  the line "... the only place I know" - 6 syllables.  The careless and amateurish writer may just  pen a line with 6 syllables that can be sung it to the existing melody and consider it done.  I consider it done very poorly at that level.  At a minimum, it isn't hard to compose a 6-syllable line starting with "The" and ending with a long "o" sound.  The long "o" in the word "only" and the "a" in "place" are particularly noteworthy.  Following are 3 theoretical substitutes for the line "the only place I know" ordered form worst to best:

#1 "... I found an old hobo"  This line has but a single connection to the original -the final vowel sound. - Barely respectable.

#2 "... the girl I used to know" - better. This one shares 2 complete words.

#3 The line ".. the only way to go" is a much tighter match than either of the above.  the first 2 words are preserved and then "a" and final "o" strong vowel sounds are also retained from the original.

I'm not suggesting that you'd be able to choose any of the above examples interchangeably in the same song.  Of course, much will be determined by the story line. I'm only trying to give examples in a sorta good-better-betterer format.  Often as the verses progress the writer's options will continue to narrow, as the "plot" of the lyrics becomes more defined.

In short, to make a clever, "tight" parody study the original lyrics and then change as little as possible.  It may be surprising how replacing only small bits of a lyric here and there can completely alter the meaning.  I will give you one verse of which I am particularly fond as an example from my own work.  The original verse is given first for comparison.

When this old world starts to getting me down
and people are just too much for me to face
I climb way up to the top of the stairs
and all my cares just drift out into space.
        -  From “Up on the Roof” © 1961 Carole King & Jerry Goffin



In 1994 my twisted mind decided to parody this song. Here is verse 1:

When this old world starts to getting me down
and people are just too much for me to face
I climb way up to the top of the stairs
and throw my sorry ass out into space.
        -  From “Jump Off the Roof” © 1995 Ray Blowers


Only one-half of a line has been changed but the entire meaning is subverted.  It is even more helpful that the twist arrives at the end because the listener has come to expect the original, familiar words.


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NOTICE: I'm about to share the rest of the lyrics to "Jump Off The Roof".  The lyrics are overtly about suicide.  It is intended to be lighthearted and in good fun, and often drew laughs and applause at my performances.  It is not gory or explicit and the lyrical material isn't all dark, Emo. and depressing.  If you find that subject matter unacceptable as a basis for humor you may wish stop here and move on to something else. Thanks for visiting! 

Verse-by-verse, "Up On The Roof" is on the left and "Jump Off The Roof" is right-justified immediately below.

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When this old world starts to getting me down
and people are just too much for me to face
I climb way up to the top of the stairs
and all my cares just drift out into space.

When this old world starts to getting me down

and people are just too much for me to face

I climb way up to the top of the stairs

and throw my sorry ass out into space.

When I come home feelin' tired and beat
I go up where the air is fresh and sweet
I get away from the hustling crowd
And all that rat-race noise down in the street 

When I come home feelin' tired and beat

I'll go up where the air is fresh and sweet

I'll plunge right down into the hustling crowd

And make a splat-face noise down in the street

On the roof, the only place I know
Where you just have to wish to make it so
Let's go up on the roof

Off the roof, the only way to go

its more fun if you yell “Look out below!”

Don’t ya know? Jump off the roof!

At night the stars put on a show for free
And, darling, you can share it all with me
I keep a-tellin' you

Off the roof I’ll sail like a frisbee

And then the world below will notice me!

I keep a-tellin' you

 

Right smack dab in the middle of town
I've found a paradise that's trouble proof
And if this world starts getting you down
There's room enough for two
Up on the roof

Right **SMACK** dab in the middle of town

I’ll find a great escape that's trouble proof

and if you see me a-sailin’ on down

then there’s room enough for you

to

Jump off the roof.

 

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Wasn't that lyric "smack dab" in the last verse of the original just perfect? :)   It sat there for over thirty years waiting for me.  I'd bet money a lot of you knew the instant you saw it that I would leave it there.


I hope to share more song parodies with you in the future, but I promise from now on it'll be more song, less lecture. :)

For those of you still here:

© 2013 Raymond Blowers

IMPORTANT! New Vehicle Safety Recall is desperately needed!

I am VERY disappointed in GMC, Ford & Chrysler!

Here's a pic of the dash of my GMC truck. I noticed in the owner's manual important safety features are mislabeled! Can you believe that? I circled the parts I'm referring to in red on this photo. 

 We also have a late model Ford and Jeep so I checked those manuals too. Amazingly GMC Ford and Chrysler ALL failed to identify this vital safety feature. I was stunned. It is ... disgusting .. it is dangerous!

 

Hey GMC! Ford! Chrysler! Get it right! Those are TACO COOLERS!

Angrily yours,

Bunnies & Mud

(Subtitle "Sorry, Neighbor")

With our first home in this part of Arizona we installed our first above-ground pool - ten thousand gallons of summertime desert relief.

At the outset I offer this public-service announcement: If you have never owned a pool - don't.  Owning a pool is kinda like boarding a schizophrenic ostrich with AIDS in your sock drawer.   They are foul tempered, inherently unstable and impossible to please - very high maintenance. It would be less problematic (and probably cheaper) to marry a fugitive-from-the-mob albino stripper with a crack habit.

Not having learned from our own past mistakes, we installed this pool ourselves.  Of course I never do any major project right on the first attempt. Three factors come into play here:

- I don't have a crystal ball

- hindsight is always in 20-20 vision

- I'm an idiot.

So the pool installation job came out OK but not perfect - a little too close to the deck and a little un-level.  To correct these issues we decided to drain the pool for the winter, which will also save us the expense and hassle of keeping the damned thing happy off-season.

When the time came to eviscerate this watery nemesis of mine I submerged a long garden hose in the pool, covered one end with my thumb, and dragged that end to a remote part of the property.  Removing my thumb from the end of the hose I was delighted to see the siphon action began without a hitch.  I didn't have to inhale a gallon of chlorine-n-bug soup to start the siphon action! So far, so good.

In fact, as far as I can tell at this point everything is going VERY smoothly ... which worries me. There must be something wrong.

With a soft gurgle the hose began draining onto the ground in a strong stream.  I planned to run the siphon for only about an hour each day so as not to create a sea of mud in the yard.  My wife came out of the house to tell me what I was doing wrong ... errr ... I mean ... inspect the job progress.  Finding a nearby hole in the dirt perhaps 3” in diameter she tucked the end of the hose down into it.  To my surprise the water eagerly disappeared down the hole without soon bubbling back up to ground level.

Me: "We don’t wanna do that, do we?"

Her: "Why not?"

"Aren't we gonna drown some poor rabbit?" (The neighborhood has  about a gazillion cottontails and a few scraggly Jacks)

"No, probably a snake."

"Hole's too big for snake. Looks like bunny hole to me. I don't wanna drown the bunnies!"

After a few minutes of meaningful interchange (for one of us), she won. (duh)

She was completely confident that even if there had been bunnies living in this hole:

#1: the water will soak into the ground and not drown them (I'm not buying that one at all) and :

#2: they have more than one entrance to their burrows, so that if bunnies had been in there, they already escaped.

I hadn't seen any panic-stricken bunnies popping up onto the yard elsewhere.  I was skeptical.  I was worried about da cyoot widdle bunnies.

In much less time than I expected the pool siphoned away its entire contents in a powerful non-stop stream - but the yard wasn’t even damp. Ten thousand gallons totally disappeared down this very thirsty little hole.  Wherenahell did all that water GO?

I can only assume that either:

- my property covers a huge cavern (thus giving it fine potential as a future sink hole), or

- all this water is coming out somewhere else.

It was then that I realized she was right about one thing - I had been too worried about the bunnies.  Just because I didn’t see bunnies escaping somewhere on my property doesn’t mean they didn't escape.  Bunnies don’t do building lots, property lines, or fences.  Of course they had other exits for their warren, but nothing requires those alternate doorways to be on my land.  They dunno for my land, or his land, or your land. (there's a song in there somewhere).  Of course!  They just escaped into someone else's yard! Cool. Somebody downhill! Cool.. I’m at the top of a hill, all of my neighbors are downhill from here.

... but ... if the bunnies came out in someone's yard downhill ...

... so did the water.
 

*gulp*

I haven't asked around.  I haven't driven around to look.  I don't wanna see.  Nevertheless deep inside I just know that on this evening one of my neighbors was relaxing on his deck ...

... when suddenly his yard erupted in a cascade of pissed bunnies and mud.

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© 2006, Raymond Blowers

I never did find out where the water went.

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In October's Rumby Brainfart we'll discuss song parody writing, hopefully with some fun examples.  Until then:  

 

 

Heroism, Grace, and Strawberry Socks

(This piece was written in 2000, approximately. That is about 3 lives and 3 careers ago, but I'm still clumsy. It is kinda my niche in life. )

**********
 It is hardly a secret that I am ... uhhh ... no ballerina.

Recently at my day job someone was nice enough to bring us a huge bag of hot fresh bagels from a popular local yuppie bagel bakery chain.

I chose a warm plump sliced sesame seed bagel, slathered it with heaps of strawberry cream cheese, and reassembled it into 32 fugzillion calorie sammich of warm happiness. I poured myself a cup of ...*ahem* ...Diet Pepsi (don't say it!)... and headed back to my desk. I was tingling with that sweet anticipation you get when you're about to taste a long-awaited favorite.

I settled into my chair. Holding toasted happiness between thumb and two fingers I raised it toward my face. Oh wonderful, warm, high-carb, way-high-fat, toroid of joy!  All went well until what should have been the last inch of its final journey. At a distance of a scant inch from my teeth some bizarre, tiny, spasmodic, unidentified event took place. My bagel, thus far docile and compliant, suffered a panic attack and decided to resist - violently.

Fortunately this adrenaline-pumped bakery item chose flight rather than fight. Unfortunately, I chose to pursue.

OK, so I'm kinda clumsy sometimes. Once in a while I drop stuff - but it ain't quite that simple and to say "I drop stuff" is kinda equivalent to saying "Elvis may have been careless with his medications". I compound the damage because I can't simply drop something, I always try to catch the damned thing. Despite years of evidence I apparently believe inside that I still may save it - and that this rescue mission is worth whatever immeasurable & embarassing gyrations ensue. Inside me is someone so blindly optimistic that 53 years of humiliating personal messes cannot discourage my attempt to acrobatically and self-sacrificially rescue 57 cents worth of milk in mid-spill.

The smart thing to do would be to retreat. When do I ever do the smart thing?  Every inch in the gap between me and a toppling bowl of spaghetti reduces the inevitable laundry-stain acreage by more than 11%. But no, far too gallant am I to flee the cry of some plummeting Greek yogurt in distress.

Of course I never actually rescue anything, just make the mess 16 times as big as it should have been. This is why my house features, among other intriguing decor, marinara stains 6 inches back inside the heating duct - the one near the ceiling.

The bagel jumped in terror and as is my apparent destiny I scrambled to the rescue, grabbing for it as it rolled, bounced, slid, and careened in the general direction of the floor. It resisted my efforts, brushing teasingly against my fingers, 3 times even bouncing up on the way down  just to mock me.

Part of this bagel’s strategy was to divide itself, apparently to confuse me. It worked. “Split up! He can’t catch BOTH OF US!”  In 20 years of The Learning Channel I'd never learned  about 'baglotic division' as a predator-avoidance technique.

Ten seconds later I was left defeated, with strawberry cream cheese carnage on:

-my beard
-my right cheek
-the palms and backs of both hands
-my bare right forearm
-the top and edge of my desk
-a pile of invoices
-the right leg of my jean shorts
-my bare right calf
-my right sock
and my right shoe...
while the bagel lay cream-cheese down panting and trembling on the filthy warehouse floor in two separate locations 4 meters apart.

It took me longer to clean up than it would have taken to eat the damned thing. I'll never get the pink stain out of my white sock.

There is good news, though. Rest assured that you are safe from this miscreant!  That uncooperative oven-spawn has been sentenced to hard time in a sealed Hefty, and currently awaiting transfer to Pima County landfill.

... then I still had to go back and get a bagel.