American Fez

I Write the Songs (and the Self-Justifications)

The recording of Fanny's Song has been a very cathartic and rewarding experience for me. It is undoubtedly my most personal ballad, certainly my most intimate and deeply moving; perhaps even my greatest. It is a song of love and healing; of death and transfiguration; an elegy for doomed romance composed for solo, electric drums zillion-piece orchestra. I remember telling my songwriting team that my new album really needed a My Way, but one that was actually about somebody else's way, mixed with a sort of Bridge Over Troubled Water that turns into a Stairway to Heaven. They delivered in every respect and I know Fanny would have adored the song were she still alive to hear it.
Fanny and I had only been married for six months when I met Charlotte at a gig and fell in love, so Fanny's downward spiral into substance abuse, self-harm and eventual suicide was an extremely traumatic time for me. I think this comes across very well in the song, especially since I devote a unique verse to each of Fanny's dysfunctional behaviors, how they affected me and how I have come to terms with them. The lyric asks if I could have done more to help Fanny, and the answer, rendered in the penultimate verse as an enchanting duet between my powerful voice and a soaring violin, is a beautifully despairing "No!" recorded with a lot of echo. In fact, recording the entire song has been like an exorcism in which I star as both priest and possessed soul. I think even the Pope will probably tap his toes when he hears it.
Of course, Fanny's physical decline and eventual death weren't my fault in any way, despite what the media claim. I didn't even see her for the last four months of her life since I was spending all my time in the Bahamas with Charlotte at that point, so I can't be held responsible because I wasn't even there when she slit her wrists. I know Fanny's family will understand when they hear the song.
I have even offered to perform Fanny's Song live at Fanny's funeral while seated at a specially staged grave-side grand piano, but unfortunately her family have rejected this magnanimous gesture down via a statement issue by their spokesperson. It's too bad because I'm sure more mourners would have shown up if they knew I was playing, and I'm sure Fanny would have wanted such a glamorous, gala send off.
Ultimately, Fanny's Song has enabled me to confront one or two personal demons and to lay my own ghosts to rest, which is the important thing. Anyone hearing it will recognize the liberating sound of a humble and courageous man who has transformed tragedy into artistic triumph with the raw emotion of his vocal chords. I hope the song will help other superstars like me whose ex-wives kill themselves in a fit of drug-addled jealousy. Perhaps even average people with regular marital problems can learn something too. Fanny's Song appears on my new album, The World's Greatest Lover, and is available now in CD format and as a download. Give it a listen. I think you will like what you hear.

Witchy Woman Blues

The rag doll who lives above me has turned her apartment into what she calls a "sacred space," which as far as I can see is a sort of holistic romper room for crystal gazing, constructing indoor waterfalls and pretending that she's an Apache medicine person.
I should have known something was up when I observed her skipping in the stairwell without any pants on: "I've been teaching my vagina to dance with the moon," she explained. "What a coincidence," I told her. "I do the same thing with my penis when I get caught short coming back from O'Malley's Bar." But she just scowled and pushed past me, her bare feet and bells slapping and tinkling on the steps. I was only trying to be pleasant.
Last night I was forced to purify my own feet and get my forehead anointed when I knocked on her door to borrow a cup of sugar. She wouldn't allow me to cross the threshold into her dominion otherwise. This whole cleansing process took over an hour, and involved a good deal of strenuous tribal chanting, which was really infuriating because afterwards she told me that she didn't actually have any sugar. Apparently it's a forbidden substance in her sacred space these days. "I have a couple of organic figs," she said, "If they are sweet enough for you." But since I didn't fancy submerging figs in my coffee I left empty-handed, reeking of exotic potions.
This morning I noticed that she'd changed her name on the lobby mailboxes from Kim McAlpine to Isis Dandelion-of-the-Womb, which maybe more in tune with nature but will probably cause a great deal of confusion at the Post Office.
In fact, there was an article addressed to her bundled up with my mail. It was an over-sized postcard from Disneyland. The front featured a picture of the Little Mermaid dwarfing a little princess whose face was partially obscured by chocolate ice cream. Not an image, I thought, that would find acceptance with the idols of the Sacred Space. The back was a barely readable scrawl outlining details of the various theme park rides the writer had recently enjoyed.
Kim sighed and rolled her eyes when I gave it to her. "My sister's kid," she remarked resignedly, as if her sister's family were a notorious troupe of buffoons whose numbskull episodes were a long-standing source of embarrassment.
"Sounds like she's having a good time." I said, receiving a grunt in reply as the herb decorated door slowly shut in my face.
Walking back down to my apartment I reflected that there are supposedly three aspects of the Goddess: maiden, mother and crone, and despite their desperate efforts to impersonate the first of these, some new-agey women just can't seem to conceal their inner crone.

Contranym of the Week

"Dignitary" is a very ironic word. It sounds like a noun describing an important person of impeccable and irreproachable gravitas and dignity, but what it actually means is a lying, cheating scumbag involved in a sex scandal or fraudulent financial dealings, probably both.
The worst kind of dignitary is a so-called "visiting dignitary." The definition is the same as for a regular dignitary, except a visiting dignitary is also guilty of war crimes.
Dignitary-spotting is a fun activity for the whole family. Male dignitaries can usually be observed speaking into microphones when denying allegations. Female dignitaries almost always wear floppy-brimmed hats that obscure their eyes. Examples of good locations for dignitary-spotting are school sports days, political events of any kind, and the cover of Time magazine.

Time's Supersonic Chariot

It is my birthday today. I was going to construct a special secular nativity scene for myself, but unfortunately I sat on all the miniature plastic medical figurines while gluing the clinic room walls together. I suppose I could throw a couple of scale-model members of a T34 tank crew in there as a replacement, but they are more appropriate for delivering a crushing blow to the Panzer Grenadiers than delivering an overdue baby. And besides, I don't think anyone will buy the idea that I was born in a Soviet field hospital on the outskirts of Stalingrad, more's the pity. Never mind, you're only as old as you feel, as they say, and since I feel nothing I guess I shall make a diorama of the gleam in my father's eye instead. 

The Further Adventures of Sammy the Steamroller

Sammy the Steamroller Goes on Safari

Sammy the Steamroller is visiting Africa this week, but that silly Steamroller always forgets to look where he is going. Watch him careening out-of-control across the Serengeti. I hope all the endangered species can see him coming. Oh no! Nellie the Elephant is far too stupid, old and slow.

Phew, what a mess Sammy has made! Fortunately Uncle Stanley and the gang are on hand to clean up again. And after a quick trip to the Elephant's Graveyard to search for some souvenirs, it'll be Sammy's bedtime. Goodnight Sammy the Steamroller. Goodnight Uncle Stanley. Goodnight children.

Next week: Neddy the Pneaumatic Drill in Neverland

The Genius Excuse

As you probably know, I am one the world's foremost thinkers in the field of human bio-diversity. Unfortunately my revolutionary ideas have been much misunderstood by the scientific community, mostly because my academic papers are written in a language of my own devising that I call "Wobbly Words."
This is also a problem when I give symposiums, since completing a single Wobbly Word-ish sentence requires eight larynges (only three of them human) and an enormous echo chamber. Consequently the lecture hall begins to sound more like feeding time at the zoo rather than a forum for serious debate.
So why do I persist with such a bizarre mode of communication if it only serves to confuse and impede exposition of my important, pioneering work? Surely the answer to this question is self-evident.

Ratty, Mole and Me

This past weekend I embarked upon a canoeing expedition along the Ipswich river, enticed to that arcadian waterway by the melodious splish-splash of twirling paddles on dappled waters; the picturesque posturing of the balletic heron and the basking turtle; the salty promise of adventure on the high seas and a life on the ocean wave; "all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by." Oh yes, it's a pirate's life for me.
The river is almost three feet deep in some places.
As soon as we arrived at the water's edge I felled a tree with my power saw and began hollowing the trunk out. I was halfway through carving the sort of canoe that the Last of the Mohicans would've sold his last tomahawk for when someone told me that most day-trippers just rented ready-made fiberglass canoes by the hour from a trading post nearby. I was also informed that it was easier to simply bring a packed lunch rather than shoot one with my rifle. Apparently it is illegal to chop down trees and slaughter the local wildlife for some reason.
Frankly I thought that honing one's survival skills was what canoeing in the countryside was all about. What's the world coming to when you can't paddle down a lazy river in a recently timbered tree while skinning fresh kill? Since a load of bucolic busybodies seemed determined to spoil my fun, I decided it would be better for all concerned if I simply packed up all my weapons and tools and went back home. So that's what I did.

Next week: Extreme Ant Farming.

Gasferatu

Several pseudo-scientists have taken issue with my assertion that oil can and should be cloned since, according to their dreary calculations, it is not a living substance. But the truth is a lot more spine-chillingly complicated and horrifying than mere natural states of being such as life and death can illustrate. Perhaps you have heard of the Prince of Darkness? Well, like Dracula and his creatures of the night, oil is also undead.
Some may call me a madman and dismiss my theories are foolish peasant superstitions, but how else can we explain that the fact, like the vampire can change himself into a bat, oil can transform itself into gasoline and varieties of plastic. It ventures forth from its resting place in pipelines and tanks to feed upon the environment and to gain control over the minds of men.
The only thing that kill oil is a bullet fashioned from fragments of Al Gore's skull. 

Crudely Suggestive

If there is supposedly a shortage of oil, why can't we simply clone the bloody substance? If scientists can clone dinosaurs from miserable scraps of ancient DNA, then why can't we clone fossil fuels also? After all,  oil is merely black and drippy stuff from out of the ground, so it can hardly be more complex to copy than the genes of Dolly the sheep.
And even if such an operation is impossible, then why can't chemists just make a synthetic version that is extremely similarFrankly, I don't think it's an oil shortage we need to be worried about, but a shortage of thinking caps!

Economic Recession: Olde Worlde Style

One of Belgium's largest employers of peasants, the painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder, has announced the loss of two thousand peasant jobs from his latest painting, Netherlandish Proverbs.
This follows earlier peasant workforce reductions made by Dutch artist Hieronymous Bosch in his Garden of Earthly Delights.
Latest reports indicate that Bosch plans to reduce the number of peasants being eaten by bird-headed devils in his painting from four thousand to a mere thirty-five.
According to sources at the Castle, a summit meeting of feudal barons and earls has decided to start another war to ease unemployment concerns created by the Bruegal and Bosch setbacks.
In trading news, the bottom appears to have fallen out of the religious relics industry as shares in pieces of the true cross and the skull of Saint Anthony have fallen sharply due to unforeseen Enlightenment factors.
Consumer confidence in magical cures effected by weird potions concocted from the livers of fabulous beasts also remains low.
Alchemists in Prague have failed in their attempt to turn base metal into gold and conservative treasury analysts at court are demanding that all alchemical research grants be terminated and that Paracelsus is banished from the kingdom.
This just in: a witch has ridden a pregnant cow on the sabbath causing its milk to go sour, and consequently a significant milk shortage should be expected as early as cock crow tomorrow.
Finally, despite protests from leading Privy Councilors that there is no scientific evidence for Bubonic Plague, many villagers have developed terrible red sores on their bodies and dying in extreme agony.
We'll bring you further updates as they happen (about three weeks late if the news must travel by ocean going vessel, but only two if on horseback).

Web Punditry Through the Looking-Glass

"The time has come", the walrus once declared, "To talk of many things: of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings. Of why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings." 
Over a hundred years have passed since he made this important observation, and still absolutely nothing has been done to address these complex issues. The walrus' wise words have obviously fallen on deaf ears. How many little oysters must die before the problems inherent in sealing wax are finally solved? Pathetic excuses about being fat and out-of-breath made by appeasers such as the carpenter are completely unacceptable in a modern wonderland.
The fact that so many oysters have already been eaten is no excuse why crucial questions concerning shoes and ships should not be answered now. How much longer will this king's incompetent administration allow our cabbage patches to remain barren and unlpoughed while they funnel valuable resources into privately owned lettuce and cauliflower cultivation? How many vacationing bathers must be scalded by boiling seas before much needed action is taken to reduce ocean temperatures? And why must the public remain in the dark about flying pigs while powerful insect lobbies are allowed to divert so much valuable research money to study the effects of hookah smoking on caterpillars?
Are the authorities deaf? Do they need to be asked twice? It seems to me that someone's butter has been sreapd just a little too thick.

Read legendary columnist Lewis Carroll's original article here

Short Changed

I've recently acquired a pair of those new summer shorts that come down to your ankles. Mine are a little long, but the man in the store said that that's how the kids are wearing them these days.
They're great, I told him; they're just like regular length trousers only, well, I guess they're not really shorter, in fact I'd say they're actually longer than regular trousers ... but they're shorts, you say?
That's what I'm saying, the sales assistant said; these shorts cover the whole of the leg; they're very Victorian in that respect, and Victoriana is very in right now, especially in men's shorts. They're very Prince Albert, if you know what I mean; and Alfred Lord Tennyson would certainly have worn a pair of these.
What's an Alfred Lord Tennyson? I asked.
It's a tattoo of an albatross on your inner thigh, he replied.
There was a short and respectful pause in conversation while I digested this piece of information.
They're fantastic for evening wear, he then added, because your shins won't get cold at night like they do with conventional shorts; and even though they're shorts you won't have to change into normal length dress trousers for formal occasions because these are the same length, and what's more - here's the kicker - they're made out of wool, so nobody will be able to tell that they're really just casual shorts.
They do look remarkably like a pair of tuxedo pants, I admitted, except that they're bright orange.
Orange is actually a very breathable color, he explained, ideal for hot temperatures, that's why Hare Krishna monks dye their robes orange. In fact, if you are a very spiritual person, and it seems to me like you are, then these are the most numinous shorts on the market. They're very "intelligent design," which is very in right now. The orange color combined with the extra length and more room in the seat create a divine symmetry that expresses the essential unity of creation. And there's also a large cargo pocket that you can keep your prayer beads and what-not in.
Unfortunately I'm not a spiritual person, I said; I believe that human kind are merely irrelevant tubes of biological matter farting and belching on a worthless, insignificant rock that is aimlessly spinning through an endless void of meaningless space.
Oh, okay, in that case, you'll probably need two or three pairs, he said brightly.

Cat Stephenesque

Balancing my twin careers of Sufi mystic and international recording artiste is never an easy task. For instance, while making my latest album, I'm a Little Teapot, I was forced to banish absolutely everyone from the studio so that I could concentrate on transforming holy vibrations into aural experiences. I was completely alone, except for a hot groupie called Scheherazade, my twenty-five piece mambo backing band, several audio engineers, a reporter and photographer from Rolling Stone magazine, and the camera crew from Entertainment Tonight. Such deeply spiritual solitude is absolutely necessary if I am to capture the harmonic resonance of God's eternal oneness via the divine radiations that shine forth from my mind's eye.
The first track we laid down was my Darvish version of Begin the Beguine. This is a sacred number fraught with difficulties for both the seeker and adept alike. For instance, my conga player, Michael Finnegan, was already a third of the way through the beguine while I was still contemplating what vocal inflections would be pleasing to Allah, and so we had to scrap our first take of Begin the Beguine.
"Stop the beguine!" I cried. "Michael Finnegan, peace be upon him, is playing the first verse too up-tempo and it is not the will of God that Begin the Beguine should begin like that."
I indicated the holy metronome, and motioned for Michael to slow his beat count. "Okay. Now, are you ready to begin Begin the Beguine again Michael Finnegan?" I asked the infidel conga player. He nodded apprehensively  in reply.
"Begin the Beguine, take two," announced the chief engineer. But it was still too fast.
"Stop the beguine again!" I shouted immediately. Poor old Michael Finnegan. He just can't begin Begin the Beguine properly to save his life."

This memoir continues in a similar vein for another eighty thousand words. If you would like a full transcript of the post please send a stamped addressed envelope to:
Mr Ali Baba
Forty Thieves Records
Third Urn on the Right
Baghdad Market Place

Easy Listening: Fascist Anthems of Exclusion and Control

"Song sung blue, everybody knows one," crooned the lounge singer Randy Medallion as his audience swooned and clapped along. And I, too, was swaying and tapping my foot in time to the music ...
Until it slowly began to dawn on me that I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Songs sung blue? I didn't know one. I'd never heard of such a thing.
Suddenly seat 73Q (balcony) seemed a very lonely place indeed: an isolated musical wasteland of desolation and despair. I felt deeply excluded, like the friendless child in the schoolyard who doesn't know the words to the popular jump-rope rhyme. But worse was to come when Randy kicked into his next number.
Unlike my fellow concert-goers, apparently, I had not been informed that I was required to bring a strip of colored fabric with me to the show. Consequently, when Randy made his unreasonable demand that we tie a "yellow ribbon" around some imaginary "old oak tree," once again I found myself empty-handed and unable to join in with everybody else.
If sing-a-long entertainers like Randy are going to make such bold assumptions and assertions about their songs, and if they will require attendees to equip themselves with relevant theatrical props, then surely they should distribute a detailed memo before each concert outlining some of the subjects they will be singing about. Such a document would provide a useful point of reference for those of us who don't know anything about blue sung songs or that bits of material are needed for full enjoyment of these performances.
Frankly, I wanted to ask for my money back, but my wife became very vocal and insistent about not making a scene, so in the end we just went home.

Nostalgia Tourism

While sightseeing in someone else's cobwebbed attic, perfunctorily guided through the jumbled ruins of an aging suburban culture, I came across a Stonehenge of children's books built beside "her" old exercise bicycle. I picked one off the top, causing its two supporting tomes to immediately collapse in on themselves. "They're not mine, either." James, my guide, said. "I suppose she kept them, you know, just in case we ... whatever."
I casually flicked open the book I was holding. It was a pop-up featuring all the usual cherubic shopkeeping suspects grinning from the doorways of their high-street shops: the fishmonger doffing his straw hat; the baker cradling an armful of baguettes; the portly butcher in his spotless, stripy apron; and the post-mistress with her gray-hair tied neatly in a bun. I turned the page and colorful cardboard contents of a grocery store rose to greet me.
I could remember visiting these places when I traveled by mother-powered push-chair, but for today's kids in the age of the one-stop shop, I thought, such a quaintly commercial neighborhood scenario must seem as otherworldly as a fairytale castle or the deck of a pirate ship.
And I wondered, briefly, if modern publishers made shopping mall pop-up books, with dreary food courts, sullen chain-store staff and malfunctioning ATMs. Or supermarket versions containing pop-up 'five items or less' queues and shopping carts abandoned in the parking lot. It was hard to imagine anyone being enthralled by such things: "Daddy, read me the part about the man who stocks the frozen pizzas again."
I put the book back down, next to the others that had fallen over, and moved on. We wandered past a shelving unit stuffed with boxes of old papers, dusty ring binders, and an ancient Smith-Corona typewriter.
"I used to have that exact same model." I said.
"I think it is yours," James explained. "She borrowed it to write a letter to the editor of the Globe and never gave it back."
"Oh yeah. That's right. Well, you can keep it as far as I'm concerned. The ribbon always got jammed and the backspace key never worked properly. What a pain-in-the-ass it was to type with."
"Almost as much of a pain-in-the-ass as going to a load of different stores to do your grocery shopping, eh?" James replied ruefully.
Too true. The modern world may have lost its magic. But it's damned convenient.

Silver Nitrate In All Its Glory

Today's edition of Zeit Online reports that more lost reels of footage from Fritz Lang's magnificent 1927 film Metropolis have been found. The link takes you an English language version of the article, illustrated with a few fascinating stills from these newly discovered scenes.
I often wonder how it's possible that a masterpiece originally got butchered in this manner. But then I grimly remember that most humans are philistine bastards of the most tasteless and ignorant kind.
Never mind, here is a publicity photograph from the excellent (even though obviously incomplete) Kino DVD release, featuring the adorable actress Brigitte Helm's metallic costume being retouched with a hairdryer to make us all feel better about our sad artistic lot.

There is no doubt in my mind that Lang was one of the great artists of the twentieth century. Not only did he direct triumphs such as Metropolis and M, Lang also emigrated when Hitler offered him control of the German film industry, flying to Hollywood instead and making a film called Even Hangmen Die. He appears as himself - to charming effect - in Jean Luc Godard's film about film-making called Contempt, trying to make a movie about Homer's Odyssey.
Meanwhile, speaking of contempt, for some reason Typepad have recently decided to make their weblog software interface extremely annoying and frustrating for Mac/Firefox users like myself to work with. Consequently I am experiencing real difficulties when attempting to add links and other features to my posts, so please bear with me if images don't load and links fail to operate correctly. If nothing at all appears here, then you can assume that I've simply given up in despair.

Encyclopedia Germanicus

German Kung Fu is a variety of violent martial art very similar to England's more defensively-minded Tie Kwon Morris Do discipline. Famous practitioners of this mystical path include Attila the Hun, Beethoven, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Michael Ballack.
At seven years of age, young German students are taken to a rented studio above a lederhosen outfitters or used musical instrument shop in the local high street. Here he is taught to slap other children in the face as hard as he possibly can while an elderly sadist plays an accordion in the corner.
When, after years of rigorous training, after having received and dealt the required number of slaps, the ruddy cheeked student is considered to have achieved the exalted spiritual state known as "schadenfreude."
Now he is led to the summit of a sacred Alpine peak where he must undergo his final ordeal: having his picture taken by Leni Riefenstal while he is dressed in ludicrous national costume with bare knees.

Alas, German Kung Fu was outlawed by Adolf Hitler in the 1930's when he realised that getting slapped in the face very hard messed his carefully parted hairstyle up. And so, to fill the void he had created in German children's lives, Hitler decided to invade Czechoslovakia and Poland instead (this version of events in hotly disputed by the eminent Conservative wristorian* Patrick Buchanan).

*Wristorian is a term I have invented to describe historians who are prone to flights of polemical masturbatory fancy to create controversy for the sake of book sales. It seems to cover the work of most popular historians very well, if you ask me.

Sales Brouhaha

Connoisseurs of the Ceylonese pekoe leaf will be delighted to hear that I have recently developed an article of revolutionary tea-making apparatus: the Brew-Ha-Ha.
It is a kettle that laughs rather than whistles; producing an airy, tinkling titter not unlike the sound of a virginal wood nymph having an ogre's penis described to her. It took me absolutely ages to capture that.
Unfortunately, instead of the traditional relaxing beverage beloved of the English, Russians and Chinese, my Brew-Ha-Ha brews tea that causes extreme anxiety and intense nervous activity after a single sip. This is because the inside of the kettle is coated with lead paint.
This may be a design flaw but it also offers a selection of attractively vibrant colors you can choose from, such as morning red, scarlet secret, ultimate lipstick, and blood nouveau.
Brew-Ha-Ha's are roughly the size of an Olympic swimming pool, and they make a wonderful additions to whatever land you can encroach upon on your next-door neighbor's property.

(I was forced to change the title of this post because some people are apparently a little bit dense)