My oldest son Zack and I roadtripped from Ohio to Springfield, Illinois a few weeks back. I was invited to perform at the first annual One Man Band Bonanza, a festival of...well..uhh....one man bands.(What else?)
I performed on day two of the event at The Black Sheep Cafe along with Ghostwriter (San Antonio), Roboman (Madison, Wisconsin) and Springfield's own Evan Mitchell (who was also the organizer and promoter of the event).Folk, punk, surf and roots music were all well represented that night.
We also experienced the joy of driving through the beautiful late winter midwestern landscape which featured topography as flat as a pool table, yellow grass, leafless trees and lots of gas stations and fast food joints. (Along with a couple of Muffler Men)
Zack & Abe (Springfield, Illinois)
Lauterbach Tire Muffler Man (Springfield, Illinois)
(If you are are unfamiliar with the Muffler Man phenomenon, check out the Roadside America Website for details.)
The Colonel & Me
I also had the pleasure of running into the legendary Colonel Sanders at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Brownsburg, Indiana. Although he looked a bit immobile and pale, all and all, I'd say he is doing well for a man well over 120 years old. We only chatted for a moment, but he took the time to apologize for the toll his food has taken on my arteries and also to casually drop the secret ingredients in his famous recipe. (Sorry, I swore I would never tell.)
Thanks to Evan Mitchell and The Black Sheep Cafe for putting on the event. Looking forward to next year.
Mysterious Country blues musician from Big Sandy, Texas...Recorded for Vocalion Records in 1927 &1929...Was in his fifties during recording sessions making him (perhaps) the oldest blues musician ever recorded...hoboed all over Texas and the Midwest, picking up gigs in towns along the various railroad lines (checkout "Railroading Some", his musical account of his hobo days)...Accompanied himself on guitar and panpipes or quills ( that instrument that Greek god Pan and Zamfir play) giving his music a strange mystical quality..
Wrote a bunch of tunes later covered by Taj Mahal, The Lovin' Spoonful, Bob Dylan, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Canned Heat (the flute solo on "Up The Country" is a note for note copy of Thomas' panpipe solo on "Bulldoze Blues")...Disappeared not long after 1929 recording sessions...Many blues scholars believe he died in the 1930's although there are claims he was still hoboing and performing as late as the 1950's...
Sure, he's smiling but what's he doing with that axe!
(Washington) Authorities in countless communities across North America are reporting hundreds of sightings of what appears to be a benign race of Caucasian beaming fiberglass giants. The silent beings have been dubbed "Muffler Men" due to an apparent propensity to stand quietly in muffler, tire and auto shop parking lots.
Muffler Man in stone washed jeans...Eerie resemblance to the guy who played the dad in "Wonder Years".
The grinning Stepford like creatures seem to have a gentle and happy disposition and enjoy, uhh... holding things.
Alien Muffler Man?
Reaction to the twenty foot tall "master race" has been mixed. While some community leaders believe the giants will have a positive effect on the populous, real estate companies are horrified at the plummeting property values while many conservatives fear that the group's presence will erode traditional family values because...well, pretty much everything erodes traditional family values.
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Scientists from around the world have been brought in hoping to solve the mystery of where the creatures came from, what is their purpose and, perhaps most importantly, how do they go to the bathroom?!?
Things I learned about libraries from reading Dan Borchert's, "Free For All: Oddballs, Geeks And Gangstas In The Public Library":
~Librarians sometimes use the "F" word.
(Especially librarians who write books)
~ If you are looking for a sex toy, you can order one from an adult website, shop at
Waterbeds And Stuff or check your local
library's book drop.
~In addition to checking out books, using computers and doing research, the library is also a great place to stash your drugs.
~Some librarians have a sense of humor.
~This ain't your daddy's library.
When I was a kid, librarians were either older females or, shall we say, not very masculine men. Quite a few, male and female, wore glasses with a chain attached, were obsessed with silence and, so it seemed to the seven year old me, hated little kids.
I remember asking grown ups (ie. giant people who wore funny clothes, smelled weird and hated fun) why you had to be quiet in the library? "Because people are studying" was the impatient answer. I thought this odd because the only things my friends and I ever studied in the library were back copies of The National Geographic and it's hard to keep quite when your staring at some of those.
I don't think anybody is quiet in a library anymore. And according to Dan Borchert it's because the modern day library is part day care center, homeless shelter and halfway house. Checkout this book, you will never look at a librarian the same way again.
Bad Ronald was one of those made for tv movies of the early nineteen seventies. Yes, before Netfix, Showtime etc..broadcast television (ABC, NBC, CBS) would sometimes show original movies. They were much cheaper and far inferior to what the movie studios were making at the time, but when you only have three channels to choose from, you pretty much ingest whatever garbage they spoon feed you.
The movie tells the story of Ronald Quimbey, a weird socially outcast teenager, who lives with his equally weird spinster mother. While being ostracized by a bully (a little girl about half his size, no less) Ronald fights back in anger and accidentally kills her.
Instead of going to the police and explaining what happened, Ronald's crazy spinster mother decides to build a secret room inside the house and keep Ronald hidden until the coast is clear.(Apparently, when you are a crazy spinster mother, this seems like the most logical plan of action) Needless to say, the longer that Ronald lives in isolation the stranger he becomes.
Tragically, Ronald's mother dies during emergency gall bladder surgery (seriously!) and Ronald is left all alone in his secret lair. The house is sold and a family with two beautiful teenage daughters moves in and...well....things get weird(er). (Remember, it's always a good idea, when buying a home, to check the premises for a wild haired unhinged psychopath who may be hiding in a secret room, especially if you have teenage daughters.)
I was nine years old when this movie came out and it completely scared the ba jesus out of me. The thought of walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night and running into to some crazed teenage murderer (who, by the way, also happens to be living secretly inside the friggin' house!) completely paralyzed me with fear. Stupidly, I must have confessed my terror to my older siblings who preceded to torture me for years to come by yelling, "Ronald!", whenever I decended the basement steps to get a Pepsi.
Needless to say, like many movies of the seventies, Bad Ronald has not aged welI. And, I am happy to report, I no longer worry about running into Ronald in the middle of the night. (These days I am more worried about running into the neighbor kid who lives down the street.) But if you want to see what passed for entertainment prior to Netfix, Showtime etc..(and if you enjoy watching bad parental decision making) you may want to check this one out.
