StinkFight.com

I’ve actually gotten a number of fan letters bemoaning me “shutting down” kittyfeet.com, the sprawling pop culture / Michael W. Dean ego site I’ve run since 1996.

The site actually has over 1400 pages and 6245 files on it now, most of them hand-crafted by me. Kittyfeet has no central navigation scheme, and no site map. The best description I’ve heard of it is some blogger who said “Kittyfeet.com is the Winchester Mystery House of the Internet.”

The passing of Kittyfeet.com isn’t a bad thing, it’s a natural thing, like tossing out a beloved T-shirt that has served you well. In fact, I tossed out my favorite red shirt (pictured in better times, above) today. I was a little sad to do so, but the shirt was nothing but holes, had served me well, and was beyond sewing any more. And unlike the shirt, Kittyfeet.com is archived. It’s all still there. I’ve just moved on to other things (like this blog, like my podcasts, like live appearances, and my books and films. And like whatever I come up with next. Stay tuned, kids.)

Below is an e-mail from a guy who got hooked on Kittyfeet.com when I was temping in the cubicle next to him in San Francisco in the Web 1.0 boom, around 1998. I’ve gotten a bunch of mail like this.

MWD

=======

Michael,

I’d be amazed if you remember me, but I wanted to drop you a quick note to say I am saddened to see kittyfeet.com go away. I realize we all must grow and change and evolve–and if this is what you choose do, it’s a great thing. As many people surely do, I’ve checked in on your life through the website from time to time—and always loved it–probably for no reason other than that it was unique, like you–and that gave me an occasional weird sense of comfort in all this life madness.

I hope you’re well. Good luck in you endeavors!!

Dave Bratton

(Worked with you a brief while many, many years ago while you temped at the SFCVB)

It’s that time again…….

So, kitties……More from our new series, “Dirty, filthy blues quote of the week.”

Each week around Sunday night (the longest period before more church, lol…) I’ll post a new quote from my friend Debra DeSalvo’s book, The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu.

I love this book.

The quotes won’t always be dirty and filthy (though sometimes they will), but they’ll always be great. And they’ll always be dirty and filthy in spirit, because it is, after all, the blues

Here’s this week’s quote:

—————-

Blues (part one, including “coolness”)

The most popular version of the musical structure known as “the blues” follows a twelve-bar, I-IV-V chord progression, and typically repeats a lyric line twice at the beginning of each verse. The blues form is described in European musical terms as based on a major scale with the third and dominant seventh notes flattened, or as a twelve-bar sequence of tonic, subdominant, and dominant seventh chords. “Such a definition,” LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) argued in Blues People, “is like putting the cart before the horse…. The fact is that [these] are attempts to explain one musical system in terms of another, to describe a nondiatonic music in diatonic terms.” The blues cannot be defined in strictly African terms either, however. The best way to define the blues may be to say that blues music is an American music that reflects African musical devices and aesthetics.

Even though their native languages and music were forcibly suppressed, African slaves in the American colonies managed to hold onto the aesthetic values of African music~~and these profoundly influenced the development of American popular music. Blues, jazz, and rock reflect not only African musical and vocal techniques, but also African principles regarding musical improvisation and such aesthetic values as “coolness.” In Yoruba culture, the ability to connect with one’s inner divinity is described as (itutu) or “coolness.” From this we get the American ideal of the cool or soulful musician. Interestingly, the color most often used to symbolize this quality in African art is blue.

“The blues” stems from the 17th-century English expression, “the blue devils,” which described the intense visual hallucinations of delirium tremens, the trembling and psychosis associated with alcohol withdrawal. Shortened over time to “the blues,” the phrase came to mean a state of emotional agitation or depression. Although there are happy, uptempo blues songs (sometimes called “jump blues”), most blues songs mine a melancholic vein, and express feelings of loss and emotional turmoil.
For white Americans, “blue” meant “drunk” as early as the 1800s. Among African Americans, an intimate couples dance called the slow drag that involved plastering as much of one’s torso to one’s partner’s as possible and grinding the hips together very slowly and sexily was also called “the blues.” A rural juke joint at the turn of the century would be jammed on a Saturday night with couples getting their drink on and doing the precoital shuffle to the accompaniment of a bluesman on guitar, stomping the beat out on the floor with his foot.

Although no one knows for sure, it seems probable that “blue,” meaning drunk, led to a dance called “the blues” that got hotter and sexier the drunker the dancers became. In turn, the slow sensual music that accompanied the dance became known as the blues.

The link between “blue” and drinking and dancing is also indicated by “blue laws” that still prohibit the sale of alcohol and the operating of saloons on Sundays in some states. The term “blue law” was first used by the English Reverend Samuel Peters in his 1781 book General History of Connecticut, which caused a stir when it appeared in London during the American Revolution. Peters described ludicrously punitive Sabbath observance laws purportedly enacted by the Puritan governors of Connecticut. Peters also convincingly described the “march of the frogs of Windham” and claimed that the Puritans were called “pumpkin-heads” in their new homeland. Peters’ work was eventually discredited as a hoax, and he is believed to have made up the blue laws to poke fun at the colonies, which he had been forced to leave during the Revolution. Nonetheless, laws on the books prohibiting certain business and entertainment activities on Sundays are still referred to as blue laws.

(Excerpted from The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu by Debra DeSalvo. Published 2006 by Billboard Books, an imprint of Watson-Guptill Publications, a division of VNU Business Media. Reprinted with permission. ISBN: 0823083896)

I’m on Ativan. I like it. Free high for medical reasons that does not count as a relapse.
It’s prescription, I’m headed in for periodontal work.

I’ve loaded some Pink Floyd on my pod.

–MWD

She drew this flower

the other night. I dig it. (click thumbnail for big image of it.)
–MWD

DOWNLOAD Episode 0053 (54 megs, 60 minutes)

Michael W. Dean and Debra Jean Dean have a chat with our new little friend, Becky Haycox. (Part 2 of 4) (And yes guys, she is cute and single!)

They all drive around Ventura, California, go have dinner together, talk about sexy sailors, polyamory with guys who look great in a skirt, drugs of the nasal variety, Kathy Griffin and the Catholic Church, meth-takin’ bike-ridin’ Christians, pinking up, Danny Plotnick, getting clean vs. dying, traveling Europe with your film, Miles Montalbano, commemorative tattoos for dead relatives, kinderwhore punklettes, dealing with a death in the family, make love not war, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, “Pants a gangsta day”,

Episode is from Michael W. Dean’s podcast that remembers when sex was safe and music was dangerous. (Free, and no iPod is needed to listen.)
http://www.clonethehomeless.com

Entire episode recorded on the Zoom H2 portable handy recorder.

Below. Photo by Becky of the “Give peace a chance” girls we encountered.

It’s that time again…….

So, kitties……More from our new series, “Dirty, filthy blues quote of the week.”

Each week around Sunday night (the longest period before more church, lol…) I’ll post a new quote from my friend Debra DeSalvo’s book, The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu.

I love this book.

The quotes won’t always be dirty and filthy (though sometimes they will), but they’ll always be great. And they’ll always be dirty and filthy in spirit, because it is, after all, the blues

Here’s this week’s quote:

—————-

balling the jack

When a conductor got a locomotive steaming at top speed, he was said to be balling the jack, as in “they were balling the jack at the time of the wreck.”[i]  The train was the jack~~short for “the jackass carrying the load.” To “ball” meant to go flat out, pedal to the metal, and came from the railman’s hand gesture signaling the crew to go faster.[ii]

By the 1920s, the expression “balling the jack” had leapt from the rail yards into the popular lexicon as an expression for any wild, all-out effort~~from dancing to sex to, for gamblers, risking everything on a single toss of the dice. Shortened to “balling,” it came to mean having a wild time in and out of bed.

The phrase was given a push by the Balling the Jack fad, which reportedly began as a sexy juke joint dance involving plenty of bumping and grinding. It evolved into a group dance “involving vigorous hand clapping and chanting or singing,” according to From Juba to Jive by Clarence Major. [iii]

A variation was performed in 1913 at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem in a play called The Darktown Follies. Theatrical producer Florence Ziegfeld caught the play and liked the dance so much that he bought the rights to it for his Follies of 1913. [iv]  Chris Smith (music) and James Henry Burris (lyrics) wrote “Balling the Jack” for the Follies based on the African American ragtime tune. The Balling the Jack craze swept white America, eventually getting mixed in with the Lindy Hop to become a popular swing step. 

Judy Garland and Gene Kelly performed the Smith/Burris version of “Balling the Jack” in the 1942 film Me and My Gal:

First you put your two knees close up tight, then you sway ’em to the left
Then you sway ’em to the right, step around the floor kind of nice and light
Then you twist around and twist around with all your might
Stretch your lovin’ arms straight out into space
Then you do the Eagle Rock with style and grace
Swing your foot way ’round then bring it back
Now that’s what I call Ballin’ the Jack

As Bessie Smith sang in “Baby Doll” in 1926, a man can make up for a lot by being a good dancer:

He can be ugly, he can be black

so long as he can eagle rock and ball the jack

Songs:

:“Baby Doll”~~Bessie Smith/H.Webman

“St. Louis Blues”~~W.C. Handy (William Christopher Handy)

“I Feel So Good”~~Big Bill Broonzy (Willie Lee Conley Broonzy)

[i]From Hobonickels.org.

[ii]From Streetswing.com, “Ballin The Jack.”

[iii]Major, p. 19.

[iv]Ibid.

(Excerpted from The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu by Debra DeSalvo. Published 2006 by Billboard Books, an imprint of Watson-Guptill Publications, a division of VNU Business Media. Reprinted with permission. ISBN: 0823083896)

And she makes me look SO good!

Debra Jean Dean took these two pix of me today at the Podcast expo. (With the new microphone I got her as an anniversary present, our anniversary is tomorrow!)

These pix are SO damn good. That’s what happens when the photos are taken by someone who sees ya through the eyes of love!

Yay. They’re gonna be my new promo pix.

Click photos for high rez. And feel free to use these two photos. Photo credit: www.DebraJeanDean.com

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Pix of DJ and me, just fur kicks!:

(Michael W. Dean with a Bock microphone)

Get episode 0052 of the Clone the Homeless podcast

Interview with DAVE BOCK OF BOCK AUDIO (part 1 of 2), recorded on Bock microphones. Recorded in the living room of Dave and Kirsten Bock.

Bock Microphones are becoming a name that people expect to see in the highest-end recording studios in the World.

(Dave Bock with a Bock microphone)

Dave Bock and Michael W. Dean yack, on two Bock microphones, about recording the Bomb first demo, recording the Bomb “To Elvis In Hell” record, 16-track two inch tape, Helios consoles, Trident consoles, Hyde Street Studios, iso rooms, PSW forum, Gear Sluts, Gear Slutz, Roy Thomas Baker, how to get a great guitar sound, Don’t Fear The Reaper, More Cowbell, Helios Creed, Sandy Pearlman on Bomb, the Chatterbox, reduced by Bill Laswell, Laswell vs. Ted Tepleman, Re-20 mics, Bock microphones, Bock audio, the mic that Garrison Keillor uses, the history of shock mounts, the history of pop filters, RCA, film booms, U-47s, U-49s, Frank Church, the history of microphones, the book “Recording the Beatles”, how to do great basic tracking, Wally Heider, Al Schmidt, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Hendrix, Flipper, Dead Kennedys, Michael Ward, recording over the Internet, and the history of Bock Audio.

ALL PHOTOS FROM THIS INTERVIEW

Part 2 of 2 of this interview.  

Clone The Homeless podcast site.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD the 38-meg high-encode rate 22-minute MP3 of the 1986 Bomb demo 17 Reasons Why. (Right-click to save.)

The four songs on this demo are:
1. Madness
2. I’m Not Restless
3. I Loved You, then I Died
4. Gigi

UPDATE: This was NOT engineered by Jay Crawford, we’re still looking for that tape (”17 Reasons Why.”)

I was confused in my memory of the recording (which is not too surprising, as I was pretty confused back then, AND it was a long time ago. D’oh!)

This tape was the unnamed demo recorded and engineered by Dave Bock at Hyde Street Studios. It was executive produced by Kirsten Bock.

This was a demo in preparation for the “Elvis In Hell” sessions.

DVD review: “The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story”. Review by Michael W. Dean

Quick description: If you love Pink Floyd or just love a good story with a lot of human heart and beauty, watch “The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story.”

(This film was originally the 2001 BBC Omnibus documentary called “Syd Barrett: Crazy Diamond.”) Omnibus is the BBC series that produced that “KLF burn a million pounds” movie I blogged about a few weeks ago.

“The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story” is a well-done documentary, directed by John Edginton, about legendary Pink Floyd co-founder, Syd Barrett. Syd started the band, was the heart of their vibe, even named the band. He did a few records with them, then went mad. He was institutionalized, got a tiny bit healthier, and dropped out of society. He moved in with his mother, got fat and bald (to the point that the rest of Pink Floyd did not know who he was when they ran into him seven years later). He refused to give interviews, and hibernated in his mom’s suburban cottage.

Syd died at age 60 last year, after this film was finished. He died of pancreatic cancer, as a complication from diabetes.

Syd Barrett’s story is kind of like “The Devil and Daniel Johnston”, or the Roky Erickson story (”You’re Gonna Miss Me”), except with someone who had a few number-one hits at one point and also started one of the most famous and long-running bands ever. This film even manages to get David Gilmore and Roger Waters on the same screen, when no one’s been able to get them into the same room, except a courtroom, in almost two decades.

(Yeah, I know Erickson had a hit once, but not one that blew my mind. And I met Roky one time; I wasn’t impressed. And he bummed a dollar off of me.)

Pink Floyd was my favorite band when I was a kid, and still are one of my favorites. I venerated them. I wanted to BE Syd Barrett when I grew up. I sort of met this goal, (without the ongoing madness)….I’m an artistic genius, I’m plump and I live in the suburbs. (Though he was cuter at 20 than I was, but I’m cuter now than he was at 43. Does that mean I win?)

I loved that photo of him in the empty room on the cover of his first solo album, “The Madcap Laughs.” I liked the back cover with the naked girl too. I thought, “When I grow up, I’ll have a room like that. (And the girl too!)”

I tried to kill myself when I was 20, and ended up in a mental institution for a spell….As dark as I was, I still dug that I was in the same kind of place that Syd had been. I wrote the contrapuntal middle part of “I Loved You then I Died” on a piano in the mental institution. (Short MP3 excerpt here). I felt I WAS Syd.

“The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story” is sweet, informative, heavy and even psychedelic. It’s edited with that common mix of talking heads, still photos and archive footage that so many documentaries (including the ones I direct) use, and that the BBC is so good at.

It’s a standard-style documentary. The very British version of the standard-style documentary, but hey, the BBC helped invent that standard. Love the foxy very English female narration too.

Standard-style documentary is fine, if you have a great story and interview the correct people who are part of the story, and edit it well; it works. And Syd’s rise, fall, and disappearance from society is a great story.

The archive footage is old TV shows, old interview, Super 8 footage of Pink Floyd gigs in front of 30 people, and somehow, home movies of Syd’s first acid trip.

There are good (and even loving) interviews with the rest of Pink Floyd, Syd’s old girlfriend. One of my favorite interviewees is Syd’s old landlord…a great guy with funny stories.

I like Bob Klose in this doc. I was amazed that I’ve never heard of this guy, because I have always been a huge Pink Floyd band, and Klose was apparently their first rhythm guitarist. Bob was the Pete Best of Pink Floyd…the guy who helped start the group but left before they did their first record. He’s funny…he basically says that “I had to leave for Pink Floyd to be what they were. To stop being a blues band.” He also says it’s as if Syd made a bargain with the Universe to “make his mark”, to be brilliant. So I suppose instead of dying young and having the devil get his soul, he got to grow fat and middle-aged and cranky, unable to deal with humans.

Syd wasn’t in the movie at all, and there’s no explanation of that fact. I would guess they probably asked him and he said no. He was fiercely private and turned down interviews ever since leaving the band.

This two-disc set is full of extras, including complete interviews with Pink Floyd about Syd, Robyn Hitchcock singing Syd songs in a garden, and a museum of early Floyd posters. That stuff AND the movie will be like tablets from Moses to hard-core Syd and Floyd freaks. But the movie is so well done that it will be enjoyable by people who don’t even like rock music. It’s that good.

You can get the film HERE.

And good for her…..

And thanks Howie Kafka for telling me, because I’m so out of touch with popular music that I missed that memo.

Becky is a winsome skinny pretty gal that I used to see around the coffee shop in Echo Park. Saw her play a few times. Absolutely mesmerizing. (Listen for yourself here on her band Lavender Diamond’s MySpace.) She’s getting very popular, has toured with The Decemberests, and is acting and singing in Tom Hanks’ new movie.

The first time I ever talked to her was very cool. Very weird and cool, actually. I was sitting in a coffee shop in Los Angeles and this girl I’d never seen kept watching me from her table across the room. She was dressed in a granny dress, no makeup, but very pretty and mesmerizing. Looked very sweet innocent, and a little crazy maybe. Big eyes, very intense, and very aware.

She stared at me for about ten minutes, as I hammered away at my laptop, writing “$30 Music School.”

Finally, this strange gal walked over to my table, dropped a napkin in front of me, smiled shyly, and quickly walked away and out of the door. The napkin said something like, “Michael, I really dig you and really like your art. You’re an inspiration, –Becky”

I kept that napkin for a long time, and later got her permission to use an image from her comic book (below) in “$30 Writing School.”

She’s an amazing talent and a wonderful spirit and deserves all the creamy goodness the world gives her.

(photos of Becky at top from this page.)

No, not “Skip Lunch is old.”

What I’m laying down is this: An old song from Skip Lunch, from when he lived in Jamestown, NY, which is where I met him. The song is called Lowdown. The MP3 is here.

I dig this. Not sure what kind of music it is. It’s sort of punk, but not generic.

Skip wrote it, played guitar and SANG! (he doesn’t do that much.) Bob-o-matic played drums on this. No one remembers the bass player’s name. Bass players can be like that.

Pass it on. All hail our favorite China corespondent, without whom, there would have never been a 10,000 Maniacs (Skip taught their bass player bass, and taught Natalie to come out of her shell, by giving her lots of LSD.)

But far far worse, I probably never would have been in a cool band without Skip.

…is a really nice show that I really dig. By a cool lady (with a great voice!) named Chris The Fixed Kitty.

This cast is about the joys of NOT having kids. Dig it. There’s too many people in the world already.

(and the current episode uses two of my nifty songs!)

http://gettingby.net/blog/nfblog/ 

Episode 52- 1 podoyear anniversary. Here’s the show! (direct MP3 link): http://www.gettingby.net/index_files/TASCF-052.mp3

Chris talks about a lot of fun stuff (especially about how cats and spouses are more fun than kids), and ends every show with “happy stuff.” Which I dig.

“The Adult Space Child Free Podcast” is NOT anti-kid, but rather it’s just a celebration of being fixed and child free rather than having kids by circumstances like a lot of people. It’s about making choices.  Oh…and she calls cats “carpet tigers.” I like that.

DJ and I love our fur children (cats), and are really digging the fact that we don’t have human ankle brats in the house. We’re very happy. And we love to listen to “The Adult Space Child Free Podcast”!

Michael W. Dean and Debra Jean Dean have a chat with our new little friend, Becky Haycox. (Part 1 of 4) (And yes guys, she is cute and single!)

They all drive around Ventura, California, go have dinner together, talk about the redneck hipsters they see, hipster street homeless junkies, art, the Men’s Movement, the H2 digital recorder, how to get writing jobs in Web 2.0, O’Reilly publishing, Danny Plotnick, Thai Coffee, Crackheads in famous bands, mother/daughter boob flashing, and more.

“Clone The Homeless” episode 0051 on Michael W. Dean’s podcast that remembers when sex was safe and music was dangerous. (Free, and no iPod is needed to listen.)
http://www.clonethehomeless.com

I was in Zanzibar a few years ago for work and met this wild cat. He was pretty cool. Here is an snippet from my book in the making “I put the freq in Africa”:

A wild cat has decided that he wants to be my friend. He is orange and looks like a little cheetah. He meows at me incessantly. I give him some beer and it calms him down. He won’t leave me alone and we talk for a little while. Wild cats are everywhere in Zanzibar. Everywhere. This is the first one that would let me pet him. I dig cats on beaches. Just something extra cool about them. I want to take pictures of him with the setting sun behind him but every time I pose him and back up for the pic he comes towards me. I tell him to stay but he doesn’t listen or he doesn’t understand English and my Swahili is rusty. I now have 20 pictures of his face right in the camera. I give him some more beer and sit down on the beach. He hops into my lap and starts grooming himself. Now I finally get some nice pics of us together. I am happy for the company and the chance to give and receive some affection. The sun is almost all the way down and it is time for us to get moving towards the hotel. I pick up my new friend who I am now calling “Kimba” and go back to my group. We sit at the table while everyone is finishing their drinks. Kimba realizes that we are leaving and that he is not going with us. He gives me a little nip and we dissolve our friendship. No more sitting on my lap. He didn’t draw blood but I realize that it is pretty stupid to be playing with wild animals in a third world country regardless of how bad I miss mine back home.

More pics can be seen here:

Kimba_02
Kimba_03
Kimba_04
Kimba_05
Kimba_06

Fever Dream Fever. Collaborative effort with Scott Ligon, myself and Debra Jean Dean.

FEVER DREAM THEATER is an animated series based on the bad dreams of Michael W. Dean. Staring Michael W. Dean and a whole bunch of monsters, human and otherwise.

Drawing, sound effects and editing: Scott Ligon.
Writing and voices: Michael W. Dean and Debra Jean Dean. Music: Michael W. Dean.

It’s that time again…….

So, kitties……More from our new series, “Dirty, filthy blues quote of the week.”

Each week around Sunday night (the longest period before more church, lol…) I’ll post a new quote from my friend Debra DeSalvo’s book, The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu.

I love this book.

The quotes won’t always be dirty and filthy (though sometimes they will), but they’ll always be great. And they’ll always be dirty and filthy in spirit, because it is, after all, the blues

Here’s this week’s quote:

—————-

back door man

A back door man is the secret lover of a married woman. He’s the one scooting out the back door just as the man of the house is turning his key in the front door.

According to Clarence Major, author of Juba to Jive: A Dictionary of African-American Slang, “The back door as an entrance/exit for blacks working in white homes during and after slavery perhaps gave the idea of the back door a great presence in the psyches of African Americans.”

The concept of the back door man as lover may also stem from the post-slavery phenomenon of the sweet back papas. These were men who dodged a lifetime of manual labor~~the fate of most African American men in the South at that time~~by becoming blues players and living off of women.

“These big-town blues players…” Big Bill Broonzy told William Ferris in Blues from the Delta, “They lived like a king because most of them had women cooking for some rich white man, and they lived in the servant’s house behind the white man’s house.” Blues musicians had the added allure of extra coins jingling in their pocket from playing house parties and juke joints.

The lyrics sung to musicologist Alan Lomax by David “Honeyboy” Edwards one sultry afternoon in Friars Point, Mississippi in 1942 spell out the story. “Here’s my toast,” Edwards said:

My back is made of whalebone

My belly is made of brass

I save my good stuff for the working women

And the rest can kiss my ass

“Two things a musician likes, that’s whisky and women,” Edwards told Lomax. “And the womens likes us better than they do the average working man.”

Willie Dixon immortalized the back door man in a song he wrote for Howlin’ Wolf, who drove “Back Door Man” home with the conviction of a man who had slipped out of more than his share of back doors. According to Wolf’s long-time guitarist Hubert Sumlin, “Wolf loved that song…’cause he was one! Know what I’m talking about? Someone who’s with a married woman. The song consist of he got caught in these folks house, in this mad man’s house. Hey, the man was gone! And so he got caught and like he says in the song ‘If you see me coming out the window, I ain’t got nothing to lose.’”

But what about Jim Morrison’s leering cover of “Back Door Man,” rumored to have more to do with a proclivity for anal than for married women? Were Dixon and Wolf also hinting at knocking on a different sort of back door?

“No, it’s not all a that,” Sumlin responded in his calm and courtly fashion~~at seventy-four still too much the Southern gentleman to bristle at a gauche question. “I imagine some people do think that, but if you listen real good at the whole song, you would get more out of it than that. It’s about being at the bottom, running from a bad situation. Wolf, he did all this stuff. He got caught in that house and had to break out.”

According to Major, “In black culture, it [the back door] rarely refers to the anus, as it does in popular American culture.” By virtue of being white and singing to a white audience, however, Morrison gave “Back Door Man” a sexual twist~~which must have given Morrison the poet and provocateur an extra dose of satisfaction.

Songs:

:“Back Door Friend”~~Lightnin’ Hopkins (Sam Hopkins)
“Back Door Man”~~Willie Dixon, performed by Howlin’ Wolf

“I Crave My Pigmeat”~~Blind Boy Fuller (Fulton Allen)

(Excerpted from The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu by Debra DeSalvo. Published 2006 by Billboard Books, an imprint of Watson-Guptill Publications, a division of VNU Business Media. Reprinted with permission. ISBN: 0823083896)

So, kitties……

This is part one of a new series, “Dirty, filthy blues quote of the week.”

Each week around Sunday night (the longest period before more church, lol…) I’ll post a new quote from my friend Debra DeSalvo’s book, The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu.

I love this book.

The quotes won’t always be dirty and filthy (though sometimes they will), but they’ll always be great. And they’ll always be dirty and filthy in spirit, because it is, after all, the blues

Here’s the first quote:

—————-

ashes hauled

When Sleepy John Estes sang, “I need to get my ashes hauled,” in “The Girl I Love, She Got Long Curly Hair” in 1929, he was expressing the less-than-romantic sentiment that he was feeling a bit backed up and needed to ejaculate. Getting one’s ashes hauled does not necessarily mean that one participated in sexual intercourse. Any sexual act that leads to the desired result will do.

The term originated with the perceived need to visit a prostitute in order to “empty the trash.” This justification reflected the notion, dating back to the Middle Ages, that semen must be “regularly vented to prevent a poisonous accumulation.” (From The Slanguage of Sex by Brigid McConville)

Songs:

“I Let My Daddy Do That”~~Hattie Hart

“Let Your Money Talk”~~Kokomo Arnold

“Tired As I Can Be”~~Lucille Bogan

—————-

(Excerpted from The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu by Debra DeSalvo. Published 2006 by Billboard Books, an imprint of Watson-Guptill Publications, a division of VNU Business Media. Reprinted with permission. ISBN: 0823083896)

Portland, Oregon is one of my favorite cities. First of all, it’s hipper than anywhere, and that includes San Francisco and Paris, France. Trust me, Portland is hipper than both. It’s got more cool anarcho-purple haired mellow stoner smash-the-state people running their own companies out of their bedrooms than any berg in the Universe. Sure, it can get a little self-righteous at times, but when people are right, they’re right. Even if they’re so right that they’re left. (Or something like that….)

I love Portland. The airport even has free high-speed wireless Internet access. FREE!

And Portland is very accepting of anyone who ain’t bothering anyone. It’s the place in the world you’re most likely to see hippies, punkers, lumberjacks, lesbians and businessmen in the same coffee shop, and they’re not at loggerheads.

I feel bittersweet about Portland. It was the last place I ever saw my daughter Amelia alive before she passed away.

I’ve been to Portland many times, and I’ll probably go there a lot again. I’d probably move there if it weren’t so damn damp. Stuff gets moldy quick in Portland. But even so, it’s a great place to visit.

Microcosm Publishing has released a great book for Portland visitors called The Zinester’s Guide To Portland. It’s kind of Fodor’s if Fodor’s didn’t suck. It’s like “Let’s Go (Riot in) Portland!”

The Zinester’s Guide To Portland, 4th edition, (written by, and credited to, Microcosm Publishing, rather than any one person) kicks butt on most travel guides. It’s all the truly hip places, not the places that square people think are “edgy.”

This pocket-sized book tells you where the good places to skate are, where to buy underground comix, where to get cheap cheap cheap computer access, buy vegan food, find a wonderful thrift store, and much more. And it explains how to not end up stuck on the side of the bridge that isn’t where you’re going. (I wish I’d known THAT ten years ago.) And of course it’s got the Clinton Street Theater, a great repertory / art house theater that showed my movie DIY or DIE.

My only complaint is that the book doesn’t include American Dream Pizza, which is my fave Pizza place in the US. And I practically live in a worn-out T-shirt from that yummy dive.

But all in all, I’d say The Zinester’s Guide is required reading if you’re gonna spend any time at all in Portland, the hippest place on earth.

…OR “Why You Should Move Here..pt 2″

Seems like this is a hot topic these days. China is exporting low-price
and low-quality goods like mad, and we love it, don’t we? Well, way down the
blog I wrote about “Why you should move to China”. Here are two more
magic letters : QC.

That’s right folks ..step right up and be a Quality Control Inspector!
(On-the-job training provided). Foreign companies don’t want to sell toxic
toys or poison pencils, so they are contracting other non-Chinese companies to check on stuff over here. These companies then hire expats like me, ‘cause I already live here in China. This saves them the trouble of flying all the way to China for every order.

I went to a factory, took some snapshots, filled out an Inspection report,
and I gotta say; that’s the easiest 800Y I’ve ever made. Oh, and over here, that’s a half-month’s rent! And before you start ranting about the working conditions
of the poor Chinese workers, you should know that if the foreign buyer has a conscience, I can report on that, too. I think that costs extra though.

FYI, this factory looked like the one my dad worked at in the 60’s, except
way more relaxed.

Stop complaining and be part of the solution for once, like me. I’m looking
into my Chinese crystal ball, and it says that many, many more positions
like this will soon be available. Again, I love living here since I am “In Demand”, whereas in the USA, I’m virtually unemployable! How about you?

So c’mon cyberpunks, ..join the party! (pun intended)

…On the other hand, hey, both me and MWD probably ate a lot of lead paint when we were kids, and just look at us now! (*:

~Skip Lunch, China correspondent

Ps: That cool-ass plane is a made-in-the USA Flying Tiger, when our pilots helped’em kick-ass on the Japanese. GO USA!

Hey….The wife and I made a fun 30-second commercial for StinkFight.com. Please feel free to put on your podcast, radio show, your band’s CD, etc.

Here it is as a CD quality WAV file (5 megs)

Here it is as an MP3 (1 meg)

(right click either to save)

Thanks, and let me know if you use it somewhere.

- Michael W. Dean

Because I was trying to help a sick cat the whole time I was there:

From my Fall 2003 tour diaries when I travlled around Europe showing my film “D.I.Y. OR DIE: How To Survive as an Independent Artist”:

This horribly codependent cat followed me all morning. I love her. Belongs to Wilam’s neighbor. The neighbor doesn’t care for the cat. The cat has bad mange to the point of her skin bleeding in patches. Wilam and I tried to catch the cat and take it to the vet. He and I were going to split the cost. We were going to have Wilam blow pot smoke on the cat to calm it down. That was my idea. I usually hate people that get cats stoned, but I felt it was medically indicated in this case. But we never got the chance. We tried everything, bribing the cat with sausage, setting a trap (she did go under it and eat the sausage, but just backed out of it when I pulled the string).

We tried just grabbing her, but pretty soon she knew what we had in mind and ran and hid by the river. I wish you could have seen me and Willam in leather gloves, holding sausage, running around saying “Here kitty!” in English and Dutch for two hours.

I didn’t get to see the city at all, but we thought trying to help the cat was more important. But the cat didn’t think so. I only ended up with cat scratches.

Check out ALL the pix and diaries from my 2003 European tour with DIY or DIE.

Real-video puppet short movie I made on my laptop while in Dublin.

Great computer wallpaper photo I took of a cup of coffee in Germany

A Bomb fan from Texas, a cool cat named Dave Braley, started a Bomb fan page on MySpace.

It’s here:
http://www.myspace.com/hitsofacid

Cool.

Good timing….I was feeling a little melpy today, and this cheered me up.

I love what Dave wrote on his MySpace (and he’s single, AND cute, ladies. Photo above.)

I love to be considered in the same company as barely legal barely dressed hotties:

Dave wrote:

“Who I’d like to meet:
People who like to have fun and are open minded and outgoing!! Just cool people!!! Also Michael W. Dean, Oh yeah and of course these HOTTIES below!!!”

OK, this one’s a few years old, but I don’t know that most of you have heard it.

Doug Hilsinger, one of the two guitarist extraordinaires from my band Bomb, and all around great guy, released an amazing record a few years back…A complete reworking of the Brian Eno record, Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy).

I loved the original Eno record from age 12, and still love it. It was one of my formative desert island discs my whole life. And I love Doug’s versions even more.

Doug arranged and recorded covers of the complete album. He plays drums, bass and guitar, and my buddy Caroline Beatty sang. I think it’s pretty amazing. And so does Brian Eno. Eno loves Doug’s record and even wrote the liner notes for the CD. Listen to an MP3 of Eno’s answering machine message to Doug here.

Listen to two minutes of one of the songs (”Burning Airlines Give You So Much More.)

Read about the CD and hear more samples.

Order the CD from Aquarius.

So, what do those spare components get on about when you’re not looking? What else?

While I do love the girl-on-girl piece (check out the adorable strap-on), my fav has to be the four-way - those filthy, filthy diodes!

Link

Michael Buck sent me photos of me playing bass at a party in Charlottesville, Virginia, 23 years ago, when I was 20.

I’m the skinny girly blond thang in the white turtleneck. (One is above, with me on the mic.)

John Beers (Mister Horribly Charred Infant from “The Happy Flowers“), my roommate at the time, is also here, far left, third row down, with the curly hair, singing into the microphone.

Current photos of me, for comparison, are here.

I used to play in a band called BOMB. We were pretty and heavy and wore slips in the mid-80s, and people from Nirvana and Jane’s Addiction and the Red Hot Chili Peppers owned and dug our records. We started in a garage, ended up being signed to (and dropped by) Warner Brothers, and one record was produced by Bill Laswell. But on top of all that, we were damn stellar.

We imploded in 1993 from my drug use. I later got clean, and started writing and making films. Now I only make music at home for fun or to put in my films. But strangers still write me and tell me how much Bomb meant to them. So I got the domain name HitsOfAcid.com (of course,…what else would it be??) and spent weeks digitizing and tagging all that stuff. It’s up there now. Go get it. Slut up your pod, good.

I recently ran across this bit from my first book “Starving in the Company of Beautiful Women“. I read it, and realized a lot of it is coming true for me these days. That rocks.

Also keep in mind I wrote this stuff about changing the world with computers, years before I ever touched my first computer. (I wrote this stuff on a typewriter in 1990 or so. Got my first computer in 1991, got online (in a web cafe) in 1995, got on line at home in 1996, had a website a few weeks later. (on dial up.)
====
“I have this feeling that rock ‘n’ roll is not all I am going to do with my life. I feel that it’s just a stepping stone to something bigger, something more along the importance of the invention of the electric light bulb. I want to be the next Thomas Edison. No, fuck that. . .I wanna be the next Nikola Tesla. That’s who Edison stole a lot of his ideas from.

“I don’t know what this next thing is, but I do know a few things about it: One is that I might not invent it, maybe I’ll just pioneer it, the same way that Ford didn’t invent the car, but he put one in every carriage house and barn. I also know that it will involve bringing people together. That is my strongest suit. . .far more important than rock ‘n’ roll. I have match-made a lot of folks. . .lovers, musicians and friends. I have an intuition about it; I don’t just randomly try one person with another, and try them with someone else if the first attempt fails. Naw, I just get these feelings that person X must meet person Y, and I will try very hard to get them together in the same room. If I do and the magic don’t take, I have done my part and usually don’t try with them again. But it often works. There are couples that have been together for years because of me, bands that wouldn’t have happened without my help and lifelong friends I’ve introduced. You could say I want to be a professional catalyst……”

Read the full post

Buy the out-of-print book used on Amazon

Download the PDF of the book (because that’s just how cool I am!)