Nils Lofgren does a somersault playing a guitar solo with Springsteen's E Street Band

In this awesome video clip, Nils Lofrgen does a somersault while playing a guitar solo with Springsteen's E Street Band on tour this summer.
Now, remember, Nils is of my vintage, a spry 57 years old. Not bad, friendo! During his solo years (1974-) Nils would play guitar while doing flips on a trampoline.

Nils was in Grin in the early 70's, played with Neil Young on two of his most important albums (and at various other times since), and ended up in The E Street Band in 1984 with Bruce Springsteen, taking Little Steven's place, Clarence Clemmons, Patti Scialfa, & Max Weinberg, etc. The Boss , of course broke up E Street in 1989. He brought them back together in 1999 and both Steven Van Zandt and Nils were back in the band, as they are today.


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Text warping tools online at Festisite

I used a few lines from a poem I wrote a couple weeks ago...and waved them, circularized them, rebus'd them, and mazed them. . .

http://www.festisite.com/tools/

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All This Is That begins its 5th year today

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All This Is That is four years old today. So, I'm just going to ramble about that.

We've been farked five or six times, which is always fun, because 10,000-15,000 people show up. But the interesting thing about http://fark.com is that their readers are always looking for the next weird story. . .none of them become regulars. Once in a while we are someone's blog of the day, or a blog or website notes a--usually bizarre--post here, and between 30 and 500 people turn up.

Most of our readers Google into here. More than half the traffic on All This Is That comes from Google, Yahoo and other search engines; 40% of the visitors are regular readers. Most of our visitors come from the U.S. and Canada, England, Australia, Turkey, Japan, Germany, Croatia, Brazil, and Ireland, in that order.

Even though it's been four years, I still haven't gotten around to writing some stories I've promised (this year, for sure!). The content here, as you may have noticed, is random, and mostly generated by whatever strikes my fancy on any particular day. For the last year and a half a big focus has been the U.S. Presidential race. Six weeks in the last year were extended travelogues as I documented my travels in Mexico, England, Turkey and Greece. If I actually focused on something, we could generate tons of visitors. But I have never found any particular area I'd like to focus on. I'm not a niche kind of guy, I guess.

We've now hit Alien Lore story Number 145. I have published 150 original poems in the last four years. And we have published hundreds of weird stories. Some articles that come up at the top of a Google search: Looking for Nude Condoleezza Rice Photos?; Matt Bevalaqua, the killer; Enumclaw Horse Sex; The Brady Bunch Porn Movie; Clemenza's Godfather spaghetti sauce; and a few others). Every day dozens to hundreds of people come searching for those. A lot of people come looking for images and photos. Since even the early days, we've always published a lot of photos, paintings, and images. I've seen images I've created appear on dozens of other blogs and websites.

I've never written a word about my work (a/k/a "day job") in all this time. I think I'll keep it that way, even though I love my job, co-workers, and the business we're in...this gets too complicated as it is. . .

I still want to write these stories sometime (all are at least half-done):

My Worst Jobs, Part 6: The Fish: My five years working at Carl Fischer Music

Dad, or, John Newton Brummet II

The Kent Bus Depot (almost done!)

The Hook Arm, the Wooden Leg, False teeth, and Girdles - My people. One more hillbilly tale.

Growing Up Hillbilly (they stopped in Seattle because you'd need a boat to go further)

Growing up Kent: The Liquor Store, The Butcher, and The Barber

My life as an orderly

Well, I'll get around to it sometime. In the meantime, I've am enjoying not writing about politics for a while. Our Alien Lore readership has seriously dwindled with a dearth of content (interestingly, when I publish those stories, readership goes way up, but the regulars click away very quickly).

One in a while, I think about pulling the plug. But then I come to my senses. If a few hundred people a day show up, I must be doing something right. If I publish a book of poems--and I probably will sometime soon--it will sell a few hundred copies. If I publish a poem here, that many people will read it in one day. When I publish in a magazine that's good for my literary career, but, let's face it. . .no one reads 'em!

More soon. . .
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Nils Lofgren plays Back It Up

This is a YouTube slide-show video a/k/a "slideo" of a great Nils Lofgren tune, Back It Up. Nils Lofgren formed a great power pop band, Grin, in the early 1970's. He also played on some early Neil Young albums, and has been a long-time member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.


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Festisite: generate your own money

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This might be useful if you decide to start your own country or something.
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Music Video: The Beatles perform Revolution

Revolution

Music and lyrics by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We're doing what we can
But when you want money
for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right
Ah

ah, ah, ah, ah, ah...

You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know
You better free you mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right
all right, all right, all right
all right, all right, all right
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Nils Lofgren and Grin: Lost pop gems - Sad Letter and Love or Else

This was one of my favorite albums from my first year in college. The album included at least four or five other wonderful pop gems. Nils, as you may know, went on to work with Neil Young (playing on the masterpiece Tonight's The Night), and, of course, with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band for many years (including currently). I think they asked him to join the Rolling Stones before Ronnie Wood took the job...

This was another one of those great records (think of Big Star or The Posies) that stiffed in the marketplace--especially when you consider the influence those records had on the next generation, and rock in general.

This record is so obscure, you can't even find the lyrics. That almost never happens. I found a book, quoted on the internets, that says "The failure of Grin to sell large numbers of records in the early 1970's is one of those mysteries of popular music. They seemed to have everything..."




Love or Else, performed thirty some years later:


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TBTL - Too Beautiful To Live headlines iTunes podcast page

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My favorite radio show, Luke Burbank's TBTL is headlining the podcast page on iTunes. Download some shows there, stream it live from http://mynorthwest.com/ , or even listen to it live on KIRO 97.3 FM, if you live in the Seattle area, from 7-10 Pacific Time Monday-Friday, with a best of on Saturdays...

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The $2 million bath of ashes

This is old, but interesting news from the Daily Telegraph in London on August 22, 2008:

"The chairman of a Nigerian development company was charged in August with stealing the equivalent of $5.5 million, and burning $2 million of that in cash so he could smear the ashes over his naked body in a nighttime "fortification" ritual in a cemetery."

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, or just another trial balloon?

Is this a mindf***er, or what? According to Charles Hurt in the New York Post today, President-elect Barack Obama is considering naming Senator Clinton as secretary of state.

Democratic officials confirmed that Clinton - who has often been mentioned as a possibility - is under consideration. Obama and Clinton met yesterday in Chicago, according to an unnamed Dem source.

Knowing Obama's intolerance for leaks, you have to assume this particular leak is an approved trial balloon. Remember how I wrote earlier this week about Obama being perfectly capable of letting bygones be bygones? This would be absolutely stunning proof.



"Any speculation about Cabinet or other administration appointments is really for President-elect Obama's transition team to address," said Clinton adviser Philippe Reines.

Other Democrats floated as secretary of state possibilities are New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson Sen. John Kerry, or ex-Senator Tom Daschle.

No one knows whether Hillary would be interested. After all, that particular glass ceiling has been shattered twice before. No one seems to know how serious this is. . .is it another flattering olive branch, like his earlier dangling of the VP slot?
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Seattle cover-up: a ban on public nudity?

Seattle's tolerance for nudity may be coming to an end. A proposed rule banning nudity in area parks will have a public hearing in early 2009. The ban would include skinny dippers at beaches on lakes, rivers, and Puget Sound; nude volleyball; participants in the World Naked Bike Rides (three have been held in Seattle this year).

A Nov. 13 parks memo said "Seattle appears to be unique in receiving nudist requests for use of park facilities." The memo mentions that other cities have "some regulation of nudity in public places." As the memo points out, nudity is "per se not illegal" and "Seattle has no law regulating public nudity."

The rule won't affect the notorious naked bicycle riders in the Fremont Fair parade, since that event doesn't happen at a park.
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Paranoia strikes deep?

There is a fascinating article today in the Las Vegas Sun, of all places, on something many of you already suspected: Paranoia is on the rise. This short article is well-worth the read.

"We are now starting to discover that madness is human and that we need to look at normal people to understand it," said Dr. Jim van Os, a professor of psychiatry at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

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Don't Spook The Horse! -->> The movement to think good thoughts about Barack Obama

I realize, as I listen to some of my friends, co-workers, frenemies, and Democratic Co-conspirators, that we have collectively slid into a weird position.

This is almost more execrable than the Vegan Al Qaeda, or the P.E.T.A. paint-huckers. A "don't spook the horse" hive mind-set is the functional equivalent of the judicial doctrine of prior restraint. In short, I can no longer challenge anything Obama does or did, or suggest that he faces enormous challenges. And even during the election, criticism was regarded with suspicion. I had a large number of spirited debates here--in the comments section--with a long-time reader, Kev, on the merits of an Obama candidacy. And yet he never tried to shoosh me/ He always came back at me with facts, figures, and appeals to my Democratic heart. He convinced me that Barack was some kind of singular combination of Jesus, Mario Cuomo, Bobby Kennedy, FDR, and Socrates. I was often critical of Obama in the election, particularly during the protracted battle with The Clintons; as much as I admired his politics and oratory, he wasn't my first choice. Or even my second (that was VP Elect Joe Biden). I love the guy, and I indeed under-estimated his ground game. I knew he was an awesome wholesale politician, but I never believed he had the talent for retail politics. As it turns out, he had it all: the ground game, the brilliant organization, the wonderful family, the cash, the masterful Chairman Dean, the internet, and, yeah, even the ability to master retail politics.

Now, however, critical discourse is sidelined in the don't spook the horse mindset. Everyone is celebrating and everyone is happy to have broken both the race barrier and the republican electoral stranglehold. "Don't jinx it. Don't spook the horse. Don't get him off his game."

I just want to say to the Democratic Taliban. . .remember that Obama is a debater, and is open (at least I think and hope he is) to debate and honest discourse. Obama's followers. . .not so much. We need to be open to discourse, argument, debate, and political give-and-take. Because that is how things will be accomplished over the next eight years. If President Obama can really become a master of bipartisanship (and I truly believe he will...we ain't seen nothing yet), we will move mountains. So quit grumbling and don't have a cow if I say something nice about John McCain, and look. . .it's time to drop the Sarah Palin and Bill Clinton are the Devil talk too. Now is the time to forgive and forget. If we do, there is no end to what we can accomplish and in a year or so, Barack will truly become everyone's President in a way we haven't seen since the Roosevelt cousins. Or maybe more.

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The album Neil Young won't re-release: Times Fades Away:::::::Last Dance and Don't Be Denied (with lyrics)

Neil Young has re-released and often remastered most of his music. He has even released some albums he didn't much care for. In some ways, the album Time Fades Away is a disaster: out of tune singing, guitars out of tune, mike bumps, etc. But it is is raw Neil Young, albeit, without Crazy Horse.

Time Fades Away has always felt like a crude companion piece to an album that is arguably his best of all time: Tonight's The Night. I loved that album for its spirit and passion, and because the Harvest fans considered it such a slap in the face. Of course, they hadn't yet heard albums like Weld or Year of the Horse. Time Fades Away also includes one of his most beautiful songs of all time: The Bridge. I suspect he may include the album, or parts of it, in his Archives project whenever it finally comes out (disappointingly, it may be released only on Blu-Ray discs).

Don't Be Denied:




Don't Be Denied
Music and lyrics by Neil Young

When I was a young boy,
My mama said to me
Your daddy's leavin' home today,
I think he's gone to stay.
We packed up all our bags
And drove out to Winnipeg.

When we got to Winnipeg
I checked in to school.
I wore white bucks on my feet,
When I learned the golden rule.
The punches came fast and hard
Lying on my back
in the school yard.

Don't be denied, don't be denied.
Don't be denied, don't be denied.
Don't be denied, don't be denied.

Well pretty soon I met a friend,
He played guitar.
We used to sit
on the steps at school
And dream of being stars.
We started a band,
We played all night.

Don't be denied, don't be denied.
Don't be denied, don't be denied.
Don't be denied, don't be denied.

Oh Canada
We played all night
I really hate to leave you now
But to stay just wouldn't be right.
Down in Hollywood
We played so good

The businessmen crowded around
They came to hear the golden sound
There we were on the Sunset Strip,
Playing our songs
for the highest bid.
We played all night
The price was right.

Don't be denied, don't be denied.
Don't be denied, don't be denied.
Don't be denied, don't be denied.

Well, all that glitters isn't gold
I know you've heard
that story told.
And I'm a pauper
in a naked disguise
A millionaire
through a business man's eyes.
Oh friend of mine
Don't be denied.


Last Dance:



Last Dance
Music and Lyrics by Neil Young

Wake up! It's a Monday morning
No time left to say goodbye
Can't breathe
and the lights are changing.
You can live your own life
Making it happen
Working on your own time
Laid back and laughin'
Oh no, oh no.

Headlights,
make it home by sundown
Feeling that the day is through
Return back
to where you come from
You can live your own life
Making it happen
Working on your own time
Laid back and laughin'
Oh no, oh no.

You wake up in the mornin'
And the sun's comin' up.
Its been up for hours
and hours and hours
And hours and hours and hours
It's been up for hours
and hours and hours
And you light up the stove
And the coffee cup, its hot.
And the orange juice
is cold, cold, cold
Monday morning,
Wake up, wake up,
wake up, wake up
Its time to go,
Time to go to work.

You can live your own life
Making it happen
Working on your own time
Laid back and laughin'
Oh no, oh no.
No, no, no.
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Joe Lieberman: The Reckoning

Senator "Crazy" Joe Lieberman's day of reckoning is at hand. Interestingly, Barack Obama, whom he mercilessly slagged during the presidential campaign, has the least appetite of anyone for making him pay. Obama will take office as a relentless advocate of bi-partisanship and he will not allow Lieb to be drummed out of the party. Nor will he punish John McCain for his transgressions. In fact, I bet you will see John McCain step up and work very closely with Obama on some of those key issues.

I know why this will happen, but I still wish we couldn't take Lieberman to the woodshed for his much-deserved 40 whacks.
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