Thursday, March 31, 2022

I Had Lunch With Adolph

Alolph Freda. We were in Newark, New Jersey. He shared that he was a teacher at a local community college.

Sunday, March 27, 2022

Inventory of the Overrated

Drum solos, Alpha Males, Children, Prayer, Strength, Acronyms, Bass solos, The Beach, The Color Blue, The Family, Swimming Pools, Dogs, Tans, Crowds, Daylight, The Bitch Slap, The Shaved head, Will Smith, Jack White, Criminal Defense Lawyers, Restaurants, California, Meat, Youth, College, Adoption, Marriage, Charles Manson, Wine, Homosexuality, Andrea Mitchell, Weed, Clothes, Prime Numbers, Birth, Bisexuality, Old men with ponytails, Travel, Heterosexuality, Blues Music, Shoes, Nudity, Billionaires, Funerals, Extended Electric Guitar Solos, Solitude, Mick Jagger, Pop County, Charlie Sheen, God, Sexual Intercourse, Lakes, Hair, The Olympics, Serial Killers, Vacations, Keith Richards, Eating with others, Showering, The Church, Football, Oral Sex, Whistling, Summer, Lyrics, Soccer, Weddings, Philosophy, Stare Decicis, Real Estate, The Death Penalty, Life in Prison, The word Special, Life itself.

Steely Dan - AJA / Live

Wednesday, March 23, 2022

The Smashing Pumpkins - Cherub Rock (Official Music Video)

Gang of Youths - in the wake of your leave (Official Video)

Caroline Polachek - Billions (Official Video)

Little Sterling and her Gargantuan Struggle

Listening to Deadwing by Porcupine Tree, aka Steven Wilson, et al., while watching a surreptitious muted video of a little girl who has been left with the stewardship of a glass jar of beautiful M and M's under strict instructions not to eat them until her mother returns. The child's name is Sterling. Sterling's struggle is my struggle. With sugar. I have to believe that this exercise has both utility and cruelty in store for the child and her baby brother.

Sunday, March 20, 2022

Stromae - Papaoutai (Official Music Video)

Billy Jack Hurley, the Letter A, and the Vernal Equinox - A Story About What Lies Below the Ink

One week prior to his felony criminal trial by jury, with yours truly at the antithesis end of the adversarial helm of the dialectical equation, my client, the "defendant," Billy Jack Hurley, decides he'd get himself a face tattoo, obvioulsy without consulting the undersigned. Right there above his now spectacularly prominent left cheekbone, for the world to see, twelve and two alternates at a time. Goddammit, Billy, what the hell is that?! He had showed up at the office, grinning, no upper eye teeth, as if proud of the logo. My criticizm continued until I opted to slowly withdraw the vicious critique in inverse unison with his evaporating, pre-critique grin, and, in its place, an emerging and violent grimace of a face that could forecast with dead accuracy the impending violent foray of an occasionally dangerous and very unpredictable man with a girthy criminal record. In short, you don't want to have to fight this dude. The biohazard alone is sufficient deterrence for the undersigned. So, the subect of the tattoo was over, at the time of his taciturn choosing. Until . . . . Fast foward to Sunday: After we worked his case out on Friday afternoon on objectively favorable terms, I called his mother, Barbara, to report the result. Five of six felony presentments dismissed. I had already decided to invest some time with her because the case was a six count heroin, meth, Xanax, weed, school zone presentment, plus I knew invariably that the discussion would lead to the subject of cultural aftercare (probation/parole), and medical aftercare: mental health/substance abuse countermeasures. A path I've travelled well. During the conversation with Barbara, the tattoo story came up. The frustration with my own client potentially fucking up my case with a face tattoo one week prior to jury selection had waned and had taken on a comedic yarn of its own. After I recounted it with Barbara as some kind of comic relief (deep down, Barbara knows her son is 90% unlikely to ever get sober, which will mean that his life will be primarily lived in custody), she started discussing, on a "granular" level, the tattoo itself. At that point I remembered that I had gotten a chance to get within a foot or so of it on Friday afternoon as I was representing Billy in court. I had noticed how intricate the ink was, as if from the provenance of some kind of Asian aesthetic symbol with very intricate lines. So, I interrupted to tell Barbara how attractive it actually is, and then asked her if it was prison issue. She told me, "no, Paul," that Billy had it done freeworld (on bond). "It's the initial of his son's first name. The letter A." Now to the point of the story. As it turns out, Billy got the tattoo, not as a "fuck you" to the Third Judicial District of Tennessee, as I immediately concluded one week prior to trial, and not even as the primary, otherwise noble way of honoring his son, but to cancel two institutionally inked teardrops, from an earlier time. I had totally forgotten that Billy had a double teardrop emerging from his left eye. I've seen so many of these that they just don't affect me anymore. And now that I recall it, and further recall telling Billy that he would need to consult with my associate, Maybelline, on the morning of trial for a proper redactyl, the ephipany is revealed: Billy had decided to cover the tear drops (with their mostly faux-deadly criptique message to other inmates), with, well, something simply better. And he created a duality of purpose by using the opportunity to literally overwrite his shortcomings, and thus pay a little more attention to his son, who is being raised in the elsewhere by someone else. As it turned out, there was much, much more to the story of the pretrial face tattoo. I'm so heartened that I had the time to just listen to it. Today is the vernal equinox. Symbolic of rebirth, sobriety. To you, Billy Jack Hurley (pseudonym), I utter the word, "Godspeed." Billy. You're going to need it. And here's to the letter, A, and the little boy who inspired it, whomever and wherever he may be.

Sunday, March 13, 2022

Morning Bell

Molly and the Red Blotch of Light: "The banjo sounds good to me." Steely Dan, Aja

I named my German banjo after Molly Nilsson, even though she's Swedish, and, so far as I know, doesn't play the intstrument in any of her performances. However, she lives a in Berlin. She credits solitude as her greatest creative inspirational catalyst. So, she lives in Berlin, and my bano is a Framous, which is made in Germany. She and I both love being alone. That's more than enough to justify naming my instrument, "Molly." Now, I've got to practice another ten thousand hours.
Before I got Molly, I had no idea that there were stretch banjos. Look at the difference.
As regards the red blotch of light, res ipsa loquitur. I crawls across the door jamb every afternoon, weather permitting. Like clockwork, but even more precisely, because it is directed from the royal sun itself.

Molly Nilsson - Philadelphia

The Travels - Molly Nilsson [FULL ALBUM]

Molly Nilsson - I'm Still Wearing His Jacket (2010)

Molly Nilsson - Zenith - (Full Album)

Follow the Light - Molly Nilsson [FULL ALBUM]

Molly Nilsson "The Only Planet"

Molly Nilsson- You always hurt the one you love

Clouds Theme by Brian Tyler (from the movie "Clouds")

My Proposed Anthem for the Ukrainian Resistance: Those Who Wish Me Dead (Scoring Session) by Brian Tyler

Saturday, March 12, 2022

Icycles: March 2022

One can exptrapolate from the size of these icycles much about the weather here. Sunny enough to melt part of the snow off the roof but cold enough to keep the melt from making it all the way down the icycle, which creates massive tapered cylinders that hang like parasites off the awnings. Soon, they'll be "gone from this earth."

Noorpool Orchestra - Everything In It's Right Place

The unexpected electric guitar is perfectly placed.

Radiohead in Jazz lossless 2020

The Noordpool Orchestra covering Weird Fishes

The Pixies — Newcastle (1991 Alt/Punk) FULL ALBUM

I listened to these masterpieces as I studed for the bar exam. Index cards were legion.