A Lovely Night and Day in Oak Lawn, Illinois

I am ensconced in a lovely hotel at 95th and Cicero enjoying truly fine weather for January in Chicago.  I turned on WFMT last night.  My friends in CUBE were performing on the radio and then Andrew Patner (a fellow U of C alumni) was on, interviewing Pierre Boulez.  I sat listening while eating a stuffed spinach and mushroom pizza from Milano's, getting ready for a job interview at Christ Hospital.   A good evening and an even better day today.   I will tell you about the interview later...but here is an old pastel of mine... from 1987 maybe....

Just Flew In From Wisconsin...

And boy is my cheese tired.

Just got offered a position in Appleton, which is swell.  I will know for sure where to go by February.  I am tired of not working boy oh boy.  Appleton is the home of some famous folks, like Harry Houdini and Joe McCarthy. I figure I will fit right in!

Which of these is not like the others?

But then again I do waste my time in nifty ways like this....

Life and Deth on Route 66

A picture is worth a thousand words..ain't that it?  A little cellphone camera...a photograph while driving east on Central Ave heading to Winning's...a few internet contributions...open photoshop and mix and...voila...

By the way If you didn't know already by clicking on the photo you can view a higher res look at the picture...

I am working on another video alongside Little Richard's as well.  Here's a hint...

Osama Bin Laden Joins ZZ Top: A Word Salad

Pieter Breughal Dulle Griet (Mad Meg) 1562

 PS  You can view a higher res look at this picture by clicking it...

Osama Bin Laden Joins ZZ Top: A Word Salad

"I was hurt real bad at birth. And I was hit by a train when I was three."

If I can get medical and stay down low

And I make it, well I'll go

Somewhere new and wash these clothes

Something certainly turned on me

Dorothy died and on the net

Is one big lie far as I see

But I got no computer yet

I'd been an actor and a star

And sold insurance and new used cars

I worked one and one half day so far

But then something got their hands on me

And beat the crap out of Two Thousand Three

I almost died. Well lucky me

But Francine. Is she okay?

And Francine. Is she still so mean?

Cup of coffee. Can of chew.

A woman to care for you

I am the same age as you

But look like I'm bout 82

I know the value pennies hold

A penny shines near good as gold

But it was poison by the way she acted

Since the '60s I been distracted

Got run over that Halloween

By a car drove from Vegas to Christmas Eve

Needles don't want me near their Lord

You'd think by the way they all were talking

It was me that run over that 4 x 4

And I get a ticket for J-walking

The cops poured me on a bus

As there weren't no hospital near

God fuck Needles and their good church folk

I been living outside these last four years

Used to be a good looking man

Vegas give you a real thick tan

Dig you a 10 foot hole in 10 minutes flat

Then drop them bodies in the sand

Good team of women behind me then

Who all turned whores for heroin

Them bikers real bad bikers yes

Cocaine mountains Ozark's best

Daredevils percodans and glue

And a wealthy grandma too

Want a place where I can crash

Got hit by a train. They paid in cash

Jesus is she still okay?

Christ I knew just what she'd say

Cup of coffee. Can of chew.

And a woman to care for you

I'm 49 same as you

But look more like I'm 82

I live back of the boxing gym

In a trailer hidden by some trees

Here I've rid myself of dreams

You couldn't even hear the screams

A coffee shop smile used to get me some

But coffee shop women don't want me none

Needles nearly took my leg

Been better had they took my head

I just had to tell them no

Then haul ass to New Mexico

Cup of coffee. Can of chew.

A woman to care for you

I am the same age as you

But look like I'm bout 82

                                         - Yesterday 1/7/09

PS A Winning's open mike reports will have to wait for my return.  Maybe next week.

An ’83 Triptych: The Old Rule of Three

News of the Day:

I worked at a disablity clinic today in Albuquerque. No particulary compelling stories today, just routine repeative dispair, homelessness, and fear. The rule of three unifiies all. Plays, novels, songs, art, phases of labor, the number of letters in the abbreviations for most NICU jargon, such as ICN, NEC, IVH, PVL, PDA, PTL, GER, F&G, CPR, DNR, PPV, PIP, RDS, BPD, IMV, FEN, EKG, EEG, WTF, with the notable exceptions of PPHN (which replaced the physiologically incorrect PFC - I mean there's no placenta anymore right) and PPHH.

So not much writing today...but these are three pages from a sketch book of mine circa 1983.

Rich Krueger Tryptych (Three from the 1983 Sketch Book)

PS You can view a higher res look at this picture by clicking it...

Tomorrow’s blog – Live from the Winning’s Open Mike on 1/7/10 and Its Afters

And check out my friend Jack Skelley's new video
New Year Song 2010: "HA HA HA HA HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

Keep It In Front Of Your Face At All Times, or Dingledodies I've Shambled After

"Whatever, in my reading, occurs concerning this our fellow creature, I do never fail to set it down by way of commonplace."--Swift.

Have you ever kept a book of commonplace? A commonplace is defined as follows:

Commonplace n.

1. An idea or expression wanting originality or interest; a trite or customary remark; a platitude.

2. A memorandum; something to be frequently consulted or referred to.

Commonplace book,n. a book in which records are made of things to be remembered
Commonplace book n. A personal journal in which quotable passages, literary excerpts, and comments are written.

I began my current book of Commonplace on 5/5/00. It was easy to do, as I could use a computer. You can download an iteration of it here, but it is probably not the current version, but you can get the idea. My working title for it was "An Impossible Cuckold’s Penrose Tribar Faintly Redolent Of Archaen Spikenard Balm In Gilead Alabaster". I don’t know why really but it makes sense somehow, doesn't it?

But actually think I began the thing years before this…probably around 1978 or 1979. I typed up four small pieces of cheap stationary paper on an old beat up manual typewriter I used in high school. It may have been m y dad's typewriter from college. I typed out three blurbs from books I was reading at the time and one of the records I was listening to. The books were Eldridge Cleaver's "Soul on Ice" and the Jack Kerouac's "On the Road". The record was Lou Reed's "Street Hassle". I wanted to keep these papers as a record of were I was and when. I kept them hanging on various walls and cork boards that always hung over my desk.

When I moved to Los Angeles and took my first real academic job, I never hung those pieces of paper up. It is certainly temporally related to the time when things started their big slide down hill. Coincidence?

I found that bulletin board in a box recently, and those four pieces of paper. They were tattered and faded and full of old pushpin marks. I scanned them and here they are. If I put them up on this blog, that might help keep them in front of me. And what is a blog if it isn't a kind of commonplace. Or at least this one is...in part.

PS You can view a higher res look at this picture by clicking it...

The Making Of The FIRST EVER Dysfunctionells Music Video: Trying To Give Credit Where It Credits Due While You Are Actually Stealing Another's Work

I am making a video for the Dysfunctionells recording of "Little Richard's World of Mirth". A little background on the band fist and then on the song. I think I will be writing a definitive history of The Dysfuncitonells, the butt ugliest band in Chicago, the band that no one wanted as part of this blog. But for now let's just say the band featured: myself on lead vocals and amplified acoustic guitar; Vernon Tonges on lead vocals, hollow body Gibson electric F-hole guitar, banjo and pedal steel; Oliver Steck on accordian, harmonic and trumpet; Russell Clark on bass, and Vence Edmunds on drums.

Early on in The Dysfunctionells epic struggle to secure historical irrelevance from of the gaping jaws of posterity, Vernon came over for dinner. He shared a story of one summer job he had had working at a carnival in Pennsylvania. The carnival was called "Little Richard's World of Mirth". His story was captivating…tales of the ride jockeys and the possum belly queen, a wedding on the ferris wheel between the contortionist and another carnival workers, tales about beating up townies, tales about his hawking "Dukes of Hazard Tees" out of the window of a trailer where he slept at night. There were tales about plans for arson, local farmers being upset that "Little Richard didn't bring the Girlie Show this year". Hopefully Vernon will read this blog and contribute more tales from the carnival.

After hearing this great story, my first thought I shared with him was "This should be a song, Vern. It could be a really great song." He discouraged the idea immediately and was certainly not going to write the thing himself. The idea never left me, as most ideas don't.

At some point after that conversation I decided to have at the song. I wrote the music mostly on the piano in the chapel in the basement of Children's Memorial Hospital on nights on call, and would work on lyrics during the days. Vernon contributed all the ideas and stories in the song, all of which were true as I understand it. Vernon however did not collaborate on the music, and he wrote only one couplet: "It's a rough untutored hand that attends a most unholy birth / So careless with the forceps at Little Richard's World of Mirth". Everyone in the band however contributed greatly to the song's arrangement.

Eventually the whole thing came together, and the band enjoyed it despite the wierdness of the chord progression and breaks. When The Dysfunctionells finally got it together to record a band demo cassette it was one of the songs we recorded. It was the best sounding track we got out of that session for sure. So hopefully with this little video can keep our recording of "Little Richard's World of Mirth" beating and breathing on.

Making A Music Video

Joe Winston once told me that "making a music video is a filmmaker's version of a pie in the face"…basically a prat fall…a physical joke. Maybe he is on to something. I know nothing about the rules that attend to copyright protections and artistic infringements that making a video out of bits of video I find on YouTube. I am not sure how much it matters unless the video ends up with some monetary value, which seems absurd to say the least.

But I thought I could at least take the trouble to site the people who can be accounted for who either collected the footage in the first place and also the circus folk who ended up in the film, if only for 1-2 seconds each. Then I figure I will collect all this information up in some coherent text file and stick it on the web where someone can refer to it if they see the film.
I think Frank "Cannonball" Richards has up to 5-10 seconds in the film so I will do him first.
The following information comes from the "Old Time Strong Man" website with some additional information from wikipedia & J. Tithonus Pednaud fine website "The Human Marvels" 

"Frank "Cannonball" Richards isn't a household name but chances are you have seen him before. You may have seen his picture on the cover of the Van Halen "III" CD. He was the inspiration for that Simpsons episode "Homerpalooza" in Simpsons season seven where Homer became part of a travelling freak show.

"In 1932 Frank ‘Cannonball’ Richards exploded onto the vaudeville entertainment scene with his remarkable act and his bombastic belly. Frank’s claim to fame was his seemingly ironclad gut and his act consisted of little more that taking heavy blows to his belly.
"However, these were no gentle taps. Richards subjected his belly to physical abuse that would put the average man into hospitalized traction for days – if not weeks.
"Richards began his strange journey into belly abuse by allowing his friends to punch him in the gut. His perceived imperviousness to the trauma prompted him to take the act a step further until, eventually, he was enduring and absorbing body blows from heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey.

'‘Cannonball’ Richards steadily increased the level of distress he subjected his belly too. He soon allowed spectators to jump on his stomach. Following that he allowed himself to be struck by a two-by-four and then, later, he was able to endure repeated sledgehammer blows. From all reports and records, there were no gimmicks at work during these performances.
"Finally, in a feat that ‘Cannonball’ Richards would forever be remembered for, Richards took to being shot in the belly with a cannonball. It is important to note, however, that ‘Cannonball’ Richards used a spring-loaded cannon to fire his cannonball. But equally, the velocity at which the ball traveled was still beyond the limits of sanity and would likely have killed or severely injured an average man.


"The image of this feat, performed twice daily during his time of greatest popularity, remains a near iconic photograph demonstrating the extremes possible in physical pain tolerance. It is also regarded, incorrectly, and the epitome of stupidity and ultimate example of a fame without talent or ability. It is a shame that most modern audiences have not realized the dedication and daredevil spirit required to perform the stunts Cannonball Richards performed. So unique was his ability that no comparable act has existed since."


Here is the film link on YouTube of 'Cannonball' Richards. Enjoy…




PS


Don't forget the Beatles Comic Book Trivia Question…still no answer yet.


And let me know is anyone knows who any of these people are?

These are presumably sideshow performers from Riverview Amusement Park in Chicago, and film of them appeared in a documentary called "I Remember Riverview" shown on WTTW Channel 11 in 1984. The film was produced by Phil Ranstrom. Jim Polanski has a credit in it too! Feel free to leave comment here, or e-mail me at richard.krueger@yahoo.com.
Here is the Riverview film link…

A Beatles Comic Book Trivia Question: What is Wrong With This Picture?

So I will give a week to see if anyone can answer this one.

The Beatles' film "A Hard Day's Night", directed by Richard Lester, begins with the lads taking the train from Liverpool to London to film a TV show, with Paul's "very clean" grandfather in tow, played in the film by the wonderful Wilfrid Brambell,. On the train there is a scene where the groups handlers Shake and Norm are sitting on the train, not aware that they have just mislaid Paul's grandfather. The character of Shake is based upon The Beatles' road manager Mal Evans, played in the film by John Junkin; The character of Norm is based (very loosely) upon The Beatle's manager Brian Epstein, played in the film by Norman Rossington.

In the scene, Shake is reading Willam M. Gaines’ "Son of MAD", one of the series of MAD paperbacks. Here is a still from that scene.

Here is the trivia question. Why doesn't this image make any sense at all?

For extra credit…what is the connection between Wilfrid Brambell and Redd Foxx, and the relevance of this to why the character of Paul's grandfather is always referred to as "very clean"?

Accomplishments for 2009: Part One, Books

I should have read more this year. And it is the same every year.  But this year I had few excuses. I mean unemployment has some benefits above and beyond stressing over how the bills will be paid and fighting with your family. There are loads of benefits.

 

It gives you time, lots and lots of time. There is finally time to lie around moping, watching movies on your TV. There is time to exercise and to over-eat, to build a catapult that resembled a cat, and to plan for unnecessary surgeries. There is time to dream and to realize the futility of dreaming.  There is time to abandon all hope. There is time to commit crimes and time to justify the crimes to yourself and to plan the alibis. I had the time to write many stupid songs that no one need hear. There is ample time for self-pity and self-delusion. There is time to understand the value of cognitive dissonance. Finally, there is the enough time to really piss away vast quantities of time, periods of time measured not by clocks but by calendars. 

 

There is also some time left over to read.

 

I finally found a copy on-line of one the few books around my house when I was very young. After my mother re-married when I was in 8th grade, we had about 30,000 books in the house ( I think that was the actual estimate), but before that there were just a few. It was the one book my mother had about childcare, entitled "A History of Capital Punishment" by George Ryley Scott, F.Ph.S. (Eng.), F.Z.S., F.R.A.I. Published in 1950, my mother had stolen her copy from the Brooklyn Public Library in 1959; to be fair, perhaps she merely had forgotten to return it.

 

Scott's opus wasn't so much of a discussion about the pros and cons of state justified murder, although that was touched upon in the last quarter of the 300+ pages. That book was "A History of Capital Punishment" (1960) by John Lawrence with comment by Clarence Darrow. George Ryley Scott's book was more a collection of tales, sort of a how to, with lots of pictures. I had spent a great deal of time looking through the book as a young tyke. Among the 38 plates and illustrations, were such childhood favorites of mine as "Chinese Method of Execution by Boiling to Death", "Chinese Method of Execution by Sawing in Two", "Pressing to Death", and of course "Death by The Thousand Cuts". It had been lost from the family library years ago although I suspect my sister had taken it for herself years ago. It was such a pleasure to hold it again and finally read it cover to cover.  Among George Ryley Scott's other fine works include "The History of Corporal Punishment", "The History of Torture Throughout the Ages", "Phallic Worship", "Ten Ladies of Joy", "Curious Customs of Sex and Marriage", "A History of Prostitution", "History of Cockfighting" and a volume each on both modern poultry and modern rabbit keeping.

 

 

I read "The Dillinger Days" by John Toland, published in 1963. It contained ample real-life lessons for any budding bank robber who is genuinely interested in his craft. Any serious artist must know the literature. Good pictures of John as a youngster, swell stories about the Karpis-Barker Gang and Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. I borrowed it from my son's school library.

I enjoyed Richard Collin's and David Skover's "The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise and of an American Icon" (2002) as well as "The Essential Lenny Bruce", the transcription of Lenny's bits published by editor John Cohen in 1967. As an aside, I met John Cohen from The New Lost City Rambler's this year, and asked him if he was that John Cohen. He said he wasn't that John Cohen, but mentioned that had once performed with Lenny at the Gate of Horn in Chicago. It really is a small world.

I began learning from and about Lenny over the past couple of years, primarily by listening over and over to his fabulous Carnegie Hall Concert performed at midnight on February 4, 1961. Despite a massive snowstorm and seventeen inches of snow, the concert was packed and was almost certainly the greatest performance of his career. I cannot recommend this recording highly enough. The book about his trials was fascinating history. Did you know that one of Lenny's prosecutors was Johnnie Cochran, or that one of his judges was Thurgood Marshall? It is incredible reading through all the trials how intensely the courts and prosecutors worked to destroy a man because he spoke his mind using as an excuse that he publicly used vulgarity that was already in common parlance in front of a paying audience of adults.

I cannot recommend too highly T. Harry Williams biography of Huey Long. Many still feel that Huey was a dangerous man. Although Dr. Williams is in no way an apologist for Huey, he certainly left me with the feeling that we need more men with Huey's vision today, as well as his balls. Huey understood that the folks he fighting held all the power and the money, and that they fought dirty. Huey understood that the only way to confront power was by wielding greater power. There is good deal of moral ambiguity in his story. I found that fascinating. 

I re-read a few plays this year. Sam Shepard's "Buried Child" and "True West", Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh", and Tennessee Williams' "Streetcar Named Desire". I enjoyed Ken Anger's "Hollywood Babylon Vol. One and Two". I began my struggle to read Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I began Proust's 'Swann's Way'. I read some P.G. Wodehouse, and a smattering of poetry, particualry Auden and Larkin. Finished Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink" which was fairly light. I read Alan Bennett's wonderful novella "The Uncommon Reader". I tried valiantly to read Michael S. Kochin's "Five Chapters on Rhetoric: Character, Action, Things, Nothing, and Art" from 2009; re-reading Kerouac's "On The Road" was much easier and more fun. I did listen to many of the Harry Potter books on CD (my son plays them constantly), and think I will have to read them this year.

Oh yes, I read Jeffrey Lewis' comix "Fuff" volumes 1,3, 4 and 7. Apparently 2, 5 and 6 are out-of-print. I have a copy of the graphic novel "The Beats" to which he contributed to read this month.

And I began to learn playing drums…and learned very little so far.

My goals for next year at least in terms of reading is the lastest edition of Nelson's Pediatrics, finishing the books I started but hadn't finished from last year. Kochin is a mountain I will climb, even if I keep feeling every one of his premises are incorrect. Have begun Ted Morgan' "Reds: McCarthyism in Twentieth Century America" from 2003. Taking another stab at the Harry Potter series, and to listen to Ulysses on CD. More Proust? Cervantes? More Waugh, Wodehouse, and WWI history letters and poetry. And I will write a book, maybe, even if it only turns out to be a collection of blogs.

And maybe I will actually get some drums to help with learning how to play them.

Can You "Name The Last Decade" ? Or Everything You Know is Wrong Including That

Under the light of a blue moon, New Year's Eve '09 sent packing one of the worst decades in human history. Midnight January 1, 2000 was rung in with fears of societal collapse due to the misencoding of years in computer databases, fears whipped into a frenzy by leading intellectuals like Pat Boone. However, Y2K came and went, and the fears waned quickly with a smirk, as we admired our surplus and our bull market. Unfortunately the smirk hung sickly over the remaining decade.

An alcoholic frat boy stole the presidency and our prosperity, then proceeded to date rape our county. His Vice-President was publicly apologized to by his close friend, for having allowed himself to be shot in the face by said VP. When our president spoke to the nation, he made it obvious that he was not only a moron, but a moron on crusade, the most dangerous kind of moron. When the VP spoke to the press, he simply said, "Go fuck yourself"; at least one had too admire his honesty. The leading films about Hitler of the past decade even portrayed Hitler as a sadly misunderstood frail human, an artist. No wonder Bush was believable enough to get reelected.

The twin towers were destroyed under a plan already generally known to and ignored by the government. A plan which ended up well executed by avocational zealot followers of an Eden Ahbez look-a-like. A plan so far fetched that it had already been attempted once by one Samuel Byck, who in 1974 tried to hijack a commercial jet and kill President Richard M. Nixon by crashing it into the White House. This story was revived again by Sondheim in "Assassins", a musical written in the 1990's; it's inclusion in the musical lead to the undoing of its Broadway revival in the wake of 9-11.

Our budget surplus was squandered. Torture and illegal war were falsely promoted as effective military and political strategy. Families died while the poorest sections of New Orleans were nearly destroyed, and all from rain, while the government did nothing. We witnessed entire collapse of the world financial system by corrupt wealthy greedy white men and those they could co-opt or coerce. The health-care system was on the brink of collapse. Infant mortality increased for the first time in two centuries. The advent of huge social networking sites for everyone, even carnival workers, served to underscore our expansive deep sepia-toned wilderness of human loneliness and isolation.

Millions are unemployed or under employed. Shit even I am unemployed. Or under employed examining adults for disabilities who in general are ground down to the ground by the last American decade. Our new president speaks of hope while on every TV screen we endure to the weeping fascism of gold-merchant Glen Beck and his declarations that the first African-American President is a racist. Even the most apparently objective reliable news program wasn't actually a news program at all. It was news satire on Comedy Central. John Stewart became the New Walter Cronkite. Steve Cobert was the New Paul Harvey. Q: The New Edward R. Murrow? A: Janeane Garofalo.

Jesus Christ, I mean how many Lenny Bruces do we need crucified before we acknowledge our sins have already been saved? Not that it matters much, but I think that an African American president is no anomaly at all. Having a President from The University of Chicago is the anomaly. Was it Rudy Vallee who once said, in a Preston Sturge's movie, that 'cultural relevancy isn't just dead, it's decayed"? But I am beginning to digress.

Yesterday, the last day of the last decade, I find a blog written by the husband of an old dear friend. The blog's author is conservative and a young academic in an Israeli University. His blog entry was "The Moral Case for Torturing Terrorists". I immediately thought about the young teacher Irwin from Alan Bennett's brilliant 2004 play 'The History Boys'.

Probably the most important theme to me in that play, which was inexplicably excised from the very good film of the play, was the danger inherent of divorcing intellectual creativity and a contrarian view of history from a moral compass. To lose your compass is a good way to lose your way.

Bennett's play opens with a monologue by Irwin who sits in a wheelchair later explained in the play's post-climax epilogue. He addresses a few unidentified government officials:

'This is the tricky one.

The effect of the bill will be to abolish trial by jury in at least half the cases that currently come before the court and will to a significant extent abolish the presumption of innocence.
Our strategy should therefore be to insist that the bill does not diminish the liberty of the subject but amplifies it; the true liberty of the subject consists of the freedom to walk the streets unmolested etc., etc., secure in the knowledge that if a crime if committed it will be promptly and sufficiently punished and that far from circumscribing the liberty of the subject this will enlarge it.

I would try not to be shrill or earnest. An amused tolerance always comes over best, particularly on television. Paradox works well and mists up the windows which is handy. 'The loss of liberty is the price we pay for freedom' type thing.

School. That's all it is. In my case anyway. Back to school."

Later in the play Irwin encourages his young bright students to find something, anything, in defense of Stalin as an exercise in dissent, or perhaps just mean-spirited cleverness, or justification…a slippery continuum.

There was one thing the last decade taught me. I think it is a variation on the ideas of Karl Popper and Wittgenstein, but it may be a poor meritage made out of their sounder ideas. I am not sure. It remains that there is only one certain fact that all human beings from the beginning of times through our last decade and for humanity's remaining years will have in common. That fact is that some portion of what any individual knows to be absolutely true is not true. It's corollary is most of the sorrow in the world that man creates for himself and for others stems largely from the heterogeneity of views regarding the first point.

Will humans ever become nostalgic for the decade? Are there even any good war songs for any future wistful romantic to remember… 'Who Let The Dogs Out?' over the airwaves of Radio Disney? As Alan Bennett's Irwin put it, 'It's not so much lest we forget as lest we remember…There is no better way of forgetting something than by commemorating it'

Surviving this decade seems a real victory somehow. May I be the first to label the now past last decade, a blazon. Maybe it will catch on who knows?

The Pyrrhic 2000's

One more victory like this and we are certainly done for.

Your Humble Servant, RK, January 1, 2010