SONG OF THE WEEK – SHIVER ME TIMBERS

Recently, and from time to time, I have read comments from people who say that Tom Waits has got to be the most underrated artist around today.  While Waits is unique and his fans are sometimes described as part of a “cult following,” he is certgainly not “underrated” by those in the know.

Waits’ raspy voice has been described, with some justification, as “like how you’d sound if you drank a quart of bourbon, smoked a pack of cigarettes and swallowed a pack of razor blades. . . . Late at night.  After not sleeping for three days.”   Many of his songs give the impression that they were recorded at 3:00 a.m., after the bars all closed, before he crawled back to his Old ’55 Chevy to sleep it off.

Whether that characterization may have been accurate at sometime in the past, I can’t say.  I believe that now, however, it is part of an artistic persona that Tom has fostered and publicly maintains because it serves him well.  In fact, he is a very talented individual who seems to be very much in control of his career decisions and creative endeavors.  He has been recording for more than 40 years and has released more than 20 albums.  Two of those albums have won Grammys and he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

He has also acted in more than 30 motion pictures – I think the most recent was Seven Psychopaths in 2012.  He was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on the soundtrack on Francis Ford Coppola’s 1982 musical film, One from the Heart (which was not a very successful movie aside from the soundtrack).

As another indication that Tom Waits is quite successful and not as underrated as some might think, look at the consequences of his staunch refusal to let his songs be used for advertising.  That position was well known even a quarter century ago when Frito-Lay produced a commercial based on his song “Step Right Up,” which is a “jazzy parody of commercial hucksterism.”  Since it was known that Waits would not participate in the project, a sound-alike singer was found and the commercial was made and played on the radio.  Tom sued and was awarded more than $2.5 million.  On appeal, Frito-Lay claimed that Waits was not “widely known” enough to warrant legal protection of his “distinctive style”; but he Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed.  The quotes above about the bourbon and razor blade voice and commercial hucksterism are from that appellate opinion (which you can read here).

Ad agency folks seem slow to learn at times, and only a year later Levi’s used a version of Tom’s “Heartattack and Vine” in a commercial.  Again he sued.  The commercial was withdrawn and Levi’s publicly apologized in a full-page ad in Billboard.  In the 21st Century, Audi ran a commercial in Spain with music very similar to Waits’ “Innocent When You Dream” (after Tom had refused to participate or permit the use of his music), and he recovered another judgment in the Spanish courts.  In 2005, another car company, Opel, tried to persuade him to sing for their Scandinavian commercials, then hired a sound-alike singer when he refused.  Opel claimed the commercials used music composed by Brahms.  Hmmmm, it would be interesting to hear Tom sing Brahms.  Anyway, Opel did settle the resulting lawsuit for an undisclosed sum, which Waits reportedly donated to charity.

Tom Waits has been married to Kathleen Brennan for nearly 35 years, they have three children, he has not drunk alcohol for several decades and he lives close to my good friend Annette and her husband Mark DeBacker in the lovely and thoroughly middle class town of Santa Rosa, California.

Now for the good news:  next week is going to be another Break Week around here.  I won’t be posting anything new for a couple of weeks.  It seemed good to sail into Break Week with an old favorite.  Here is Tom Waits’ ” Shiver Me Timbers” from the 1974 album, The Heart of Saturday Night.  (For some reason this video goes on for a minute or so after the song ends, but it is just silent).

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SONG OF THE WEEK – IT’S A SHAME ABOUT HIM

“You sorry old soldier, go home
‘You sorry old bad girl, go home
Cause by now you’ve seen it all
Just relax now and recall
All your stories forever and ever.”
 -from “All Your Stories” by Jesse Winchester

Jesse Winchester seemed a gentle man with a quiet delivery and a low-key style of putting the stories of everyday life into song.  I was lucky to see him twice in the last three years before he lost his life to cancer just a month short of his 70th birthday.  During those two performances, the story he seemed to have the most fun singing was “It’s a Shame About Him.”

That song was included on Jesse’s 2009 album, Love Filling Station.  The album version is somewhat “slick” sounding for a Jesse Winchester song, with a fiddle featured almost as prominently as Jesse’s voice.  At least to my ears, that recording does not convey the true flavor of the song.  The version chosen for the Song of the Week is a live performance with just Jesse and his guitar.  The sound quality is not that great, but the performance is.

I could write on for pages about Jesse Winchester’s songs, but I will spare you that for the moment.  If anyone would like to really get a feel for Jesse’s story and his personality, I would recommend listening to the American Routes program that was presented by NPR on January 21, 2015.  On that show a full hour was devoted to an interview with Jesse and several of his songs were played.  You can hear it by clicking here.  You can also see a short piece I posted after Jesse’s passing by clicking here.

Just before his death, Jesse completed the recording of his last album, A Reasonable Amount of Trouble.  In the liner notes for that album, Jimmy Buffett wrote:

“In my way of thinking, Jesse may no longer reside in the world of matter, but his energy sure as hell does. It is timeless and eternal and will be with us always from Montreal to Memphis, to those red skies off toward New Orleans [this last phrase being a reference to Jesse’s song ‘Biloxi.’ -law]

I am grateful that we still do have that timeless and eternal energy with us.

Keeping in Mind that the songs on A Reasonable Amount of Trouble were written as Jesse’s life in this world were coming to an end, I think I will move this post toward the end by quoting a few lines from a song entitled “All That We Have Is Now”:

“Oh my my, look at the time fly
Sorry I really have to run
Oh I just love being with you
Really the whole thing was such fun

The sun is going down
There’s shadows all around
And I feel more than wine
We must do this again sometime
But I can’t tell you when
But what a joy it’s been
All that we have is now”

And now, “It’s a Shame About Him.”  If you had been at this performance, you would have probably been laughing.  Watching it now should at least bring a good smile to your face.

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YEAR OF THE SHEEP – 2015

Year of the Sheep – 2015

sheep

We are about to begin another year under the Chinese (and other Oriental cultures’) calendar. This will be the year of the Sheep or Goat or Ram. The first consideration, then, is which animal is the correct one for the year. There is no easy answer to that question, however.

As I understand it, in Chinese, symbol for this year’s animal is yangc, which is pronounced “yang.” It is used for either a sheep or goat as it literally means a ruminant animal with horns on its head. Within that category are several wild animals and two which are domesticated – the sheep (mianyang or “cotton yang”) and the goat (shanyang or “mountain yang”). A ram can be either one, so that term is sometimes used to refer to this year. In Japan, there are separate characters for “sheep” and “goat,” and this is clearly the Year of the Sheep in that country. There are also separate characters in Vietnam, where this is unmistakeably the Year of the Goat.

It is confusing for us Westerners. For this discussion, we will refer to the coming lunar year as a “Year of the Sheep.” Most people know that the years in the Chinese zodiac cycle through twelve different animals. Additionally, each of those animal years cycle through affinities to the five elements – fire, earth, metal, water and wood. This will be the Year of the Wood Sheep, which occurs every 60 years. In 2015, the new year begins with the full moon that occurs on the afternoon of February 18th in the United States, and the morning of February 19th in China.

In this post, I will be making some predictions as to what may occur during the next year. I am not holding myself out as having any extraordinary psychic powers. I am no more or no less psychic than you are – and that is true whether you are Suzy Skeptic who does not believe in the existence of anything “paranormal” or you are the world’s top psychic or astrologer (whomever that may be be at the moment).

The approach here is to assume that there are historical cycles such as those recognized by the Chinese zodiac, and then look at what has occurred in previous Sheep years. With that historical perspective, we should be able to extrapolate and predict what may occur during the next few months. That approach has been remarkably accurate in the past. I do admit that I was wrong in my prediction for the 2014 Super Bowl, but it was because I ignored the data. Anyway, since that game involved the Seattle Seahawks, I feel we can just “pass” on that here in 2015.

Sheep are docile animals which gather in herds and are basically friendly and trusting. They present a completely different kind of energy than the wild excitement of the horse during the past year. Accordingly, the world should be a little more peaceful and there should be at least a semblance of international cooperation in the months ahead. Sometimes, though, the herd instinct brings people or groups together that do not naturally belong together and problems can result.  Continue reading

SONG OF THE WEEK – THE DEVIL

“Jeremiah was a bullfrog.”  Of the hundreds of songs written by Hoyt Axton, those are the lyrics for which he is best known.  He was good singer and guitar player, but Hoyt is best remembered for the many great songs he wrote that became hits for others.  The “Jeremiah” lyrics are from “Joy to the World,” which was a huge number one hit for Three Dog Night, as was “Never Been to Spain.”  Way back in 1963, the Kingston Trio had a hit with Axton’s “Greenback Dollar.”  Steppenwolf’s versions of “Snow Blind Friend” and “The Pusher” were quite successful, the latter gaining popularity from its performance in the movie Easy Rider.  Former Beatle Ringo Starr popularized Axton’s “No-No Song.”  The list could, of course, go on and on.

Song writing came naturally to Hoyt.  His mother was Mae Boren Axton, who published over 200 songs, the most famous of which was Elvis Presley’s first big hit, “Heartbreak Hotel.”

Some of the worst parts of the rock star lifestyle (though I wouldn’t really call him a rock star) also came naturally to Hoyt.  He was married four times and for many years he had a serious problem with the abuse of alcohol and cocaine.  Some of his best known songs are overtly anti-drug and were written after he had overcome those habits.  Steve Fromholz, whose “Texas Trilogy” was the Song of the Week earlier this year, overcame a cocaine dependency at about the same time as Hoyt did, and the two were good friends,  The worked together to write and record some of the music for Peter Fonda’s film, Outlaw Blues.

Hoyt Axton was husky man with a cherubic face and a marvelous baritone-bass voice.  He appeared in several movies and television shows playing a good old boy or someone’s father or both.  Examples are The Black StallionGremlinsDukes of HazzardBonanza and even I Dream of Jeanie.

I don ‘t know much about Hoyt Axton’s religious beliefs.  Oftentimes when a person overcomes a drug or alcohol problem, they do “get religion”; and there is some evidence of that in Hoyt’s writing.  It has been suggested that Jeremiah the Bullfrog is a reference to the prophet Jeremiah – but it isn’t.*

Still, at about that time he released a single with “Old Time Religion” on one side and “Farther Along” on the other.  We will get to this week’s song in a moment, but while on this subject we should consider the song “Epistle” that was on Hoyt’s 1971 album Country Anthem, the album that also includes “The Devil.”  I believe that song may illustrate Hoyt’s views of organized religion as he says:

To an orphan child dyin’ of hunger,
God is just a half a loaf of bread.
Rise up from your hundred dollar table,
Make sure your paroquet is fed.

And don’t forget to save a dime for Jesus
Don’t forget to send ’em all to war.
…..
And just in case our fathers have forgotten,
Maybe we should help them understand.
And to the church in Baltimore a question:
What have you done to ease the pain of man?

He expressed a similar sentiment in a more lighthearted way a few years later with his song “Rusty Old Halo.”

The real reason that I chose “The Devil” for Song of the Week is because of the first two lines:  “It’s been raining in the mountains and the river’s on the rise/And we cannot hardly reach the other side.”  My wife and daughter and grandson are in Portland, Oregon this week, and I’ve been following the weather reports from out there.  It has been raining, so I thought of this song.

Most of the song, though, does not concern the rain.  It is mostly about the Devil.  It gives us a very black and white view of a life where there is an evil force that can either harm us or we can rise above it.  Hoyt’s eyes were opened by a lovely lady who loved the Lord.  There you have it – the good and the bad; losers and winners; the Devil and the Lord.

The other thing about this song is that it has a really great rhythm.  I often think it should be sung a capella while slapping your palm on your leg to the beat (and Hoyt doesn’t do much more than that).

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COLDS, FLU SHOTS, ETHICS AND THINGS

Colds, Flu Shots, Ethics and Things

I am in the process of recovering from “the crud that is going around” – which is also called the common cold. There is also a lot of flu this year, but the virus I have had is not the flu. I have been through the real, and potentially deadly flu, and I can remember what it feels like after all these years.1 Beyond that, I am protected because I have had the flu shot.

flu virusI didn’t have the shot this year, or last year. I received the vaccine in about 1985 or 1986. I have not felt the need for a flu shot since then; and I have not had the flu since then. Nevertheless, I have been thinking about colds and flu this week, and I am writing out some of those thoughts in a fairly summary fashion.

A. Can you catch a cold from being out in the cold? I have read from time to time over the years that doctors say that going outside in cold weather or with wet hair is NOT a cause of the common cold.2  Rather, the various cold viruses are said to be quite contagious, so we catch a cold through contact with someone else who already has it. My reaction has always been: Why do you think they call it a “cold,” then?

It seems those doctors have not been listening to the name “cold” and have not been paying attention to the research. Doctors have also told us for many years that most of the cold viruses (and there are many types) are not very contagious.3 We are exposed to them all the time, but do not become ill until the conditions within and around our bodies make us susceptible.

That is only partially true. The rhinovirus, which is the most common cold virus, is easily spread when an infected person coughs or sneezes, though it does not cause illness until it enters a body through the nose or the eyes and spreads from there to the lining of the nose and throat where new “baby” viruses are released or “shed” until overcome by the immune system. Infections occur in about 95% of the people who have the rhinovirus in their noses, though only some 75% develop cold symptoms.4 Those conditions arise frequently enough that adults normally suffer between two and five colds each year, while children may have as many as ten.5

In a very simple experiment, researchers at the Common Cold Centre in Cardiff, UK, had 90 students chill their feet in cold water for 20 minutes and found that those students had twice as many colds over the next five days as a control group whose feet were not chilled.6 Is anyone surprised? More recently, a team led by Akiko Iwasaki of Yale University infected mouse cells with a rhinovirus and determined that the host cells produced less interferon – which aids immune cells in fighting the virus – when they were colder.7 This would indicate that resistance to such viruses decreases as the weather turns colder. Again, is anyone surprised?

B. Can vegetarians use the homeopathic alternative to the flu shot? Since my experience is that a flu shot is effective for at least 30 years, I don’t see why anyone would avoid the shot. Of course, I wouldn’t take it every year, or even every ten years; but “one and done” seems satisfactory. There are people who avoid the shot, however. Instead, many of them resort to homeopathic remedies, the most popular of which is Oscillococcinum (“Oscillo” for short), manufactured by the French company, Boiron. It is sold in more than 60 countries, with more than $20 million in annual sales in the United States alone (and it is much more popular in Europe).8

Oscillo was created by a French military physician, Joseph Roy, after the Spanish Fluoscillo epidemic of 1917. He microscopically examined the blood of flu victims and thought that he saw a strange type of bacteria that consisted of two balls and seemed to vibrate and to increase and decrease in size. Because of that oscillation, he called the organism “oscillococcinum.” Roy had studied homeopathy so he tried to find some other source of that strange organism to use to treat the flu. Somehow he found it in the liver and heart of the Barbary or Muscovy Duck. In 1925 he began preparing a homeopathic remedy using duck liver and heart extract as its basis.9

Although Oscillo is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, there have been relatively few scientific studies of its effectiveness. At least some of the studies that have been conducted have found that Oscillo does work to reduce and shorten flu symptoms.10 Many people take a dose weekly during flu season to keep from catching the flu at all, but I am not aware of any studies as to whether that is effective.

Since I don’t eat meat, I have felt that Oscillo is not an appropriate remedy for me. That would seem a reasonable conclusion except that Oscillo is sold as what is called a “200C” homeopathic dosage. That means that each molecule of the duck extract is mixed with 10400 molecules of water, and then infused in sugar crystals. In other words, all that is really there is sugar.

Based on that information, Oscillo is probably as free of meat as any substance there is. One would be more likely to find a duck molecule by dipping a thimble into the middle of the Pacific Ocean. With that dilution, the extract from the first duck killed in 1925 should have been sufficient to supply every person on Earth at least until the Sun expands and destroys life as we know it in a few hundred million years. Nevertheless, it is my understanding that Boiron kills more ducks each year, so I will still avoid it.

There is a homeopathic cold and flu remedy called “Alpha CF,” manufactured by Boericke & Tafel that seems to be vegetarian from its inception, and which some people have found effective.

C. Can those who are opposed to abortion ethically receive a flu shot? A serious issue in contemporary medical ethics is that various vaccines, such as that for rubella, are manufactured from viruses that were cultivated using tissues produced through the cell line of aborted human fetuses. To anyone who is opposed to abortion, the moral repugnance to receiving such a vaccine is obvious.  Continue reading

SONG OF THE WEEK – BOB THE KELPIE

I was trying to think of a good Song of the Week when Darcy – Darcy is my dog – asked, “When are you going to do one of my people’s songs?”  I told her that if she meant “Darcy Farrow,” I had already written about that and anyone could read it here.  She said, “No, not ‘Darcy Farrow.’  The Bob Song.”  “Ah,” I said, “the Bob Song.  We could do that.”

The Bob Song is actually called “Bob the Kelpie” and was written and performed by Australian Don Spencer. Before getting  to the song, let me give you a little background.  We adopted Darcy Through a group called Rocky Mountain Puppy Rescue.  No one knew exactly what breed Darcy is, but we were told that she might be part Kelpie.

The Australian Kelpie is Australia’s most popular working dog.  It is great at herding, is extremely intelligent and is a great pet for anyone who wants an active, enthusiastic, loyal (but independent) companion.  Darcy has grown to be a bit smaller than a Kelpie and somewhat more elongated.  Still, she thinks she is a Kelpie, and as part of her evidence she offers these photos.  On the left is a picture of a Kelpie puppy she found on the internet, and on the right is Darcy as a puppy:

Kelpie PuppyDarcy puppy

 

Don Spencer seems to be an interesting guy.  He was an outstanding field hockey player in high school, but when he was 17 he left Australia to hitchhike around Africa. A few years later became a member of Kenya’s Olympic Hockey Team and also competed at high levels in rugby, cricket and table tennis.

While in Kenya he met Roger Whittaker.  Whittaker is known somewhat in the United States as a performer of easy-listening pop music, but is a much bigger star in other parts of the world, having over 250 silver, gold and platinum albums.  Don Spencer began touring and writing songs with Whittaker, who was born in Nairobi.  From Kenya, Spencer moved to London to pursue a musical career.  He had a hit record called “Fireball XL5,” which was the theme song of a TV series of the same name; and he toured and performed with groups such as the Rolling Stones, the Four Seasons and the Hollies.

Spencer extended his artistic work into broadcasting and was host of the popular children’s program, Playschool for 17 years in the UK and for 22 years in Australia.  In 2002 he founded the non-profit Australian Children’s Musical Foundation and in 2007 he received the prestigious Order of Australia Medal.  One of his children – daughter Danielle – is married to movie star Russell Crowe, though I read on Wikipedia that they are now “separated.”

Don Spencer has made hundreds of recordings and published more than 500 songs, one of which is “Bob the Kelpie”; and Darcy would like to let you listen to that one now.

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