spacemonk

soliciting suggestions

i have never snowboarded or skiied. which would be better for me to try first? all opinions appreciated: informed and otherwise.

vacation!

lyrics to the aforementioned ian dury chestnut which was the b-side (who knows what a b-side is these days!) to another classic "hit me with your rhythm stick"

Noel Coward was a charmer.
As a writer he was brahma.
Velvet, jackets and pyjamas,
had a gay divorce and other dramas.

There ain't half been some clever bastards
(Lucky bleeders, lucky bleeders)
There ain't half been some clever bas-tards.

Van Gough did some eyeball pleasers.
He must have been a pencil squeezer.
He didn't do the Mona Lisa,
That was an Italian geezer.

There ain't half been some clever bastards
(Lucky bleeders, lucky bleeders)
There ain't half been some clever bas-tards.

Einstein can't be classed as witless.
He claimed atoms were the littlest.
When you did a bit of splittingleness,
Frighten everybody shitless.

There ain't half been some clever bastards.
Probably got help from their mum
(who had help from her mum).
There ain't half been some clever bastards.
Now that we've had some,
let's hope that there's lots more to come.

There ain't half been some clever bastards
(Lucky bleeders, lucky bleeders)
There ain't half been some clever bas-tards.

Okey-dokey!
Oh!
Segovia.
Da-laa la-laa da-daa da-lee
De dump di dump de dump-dump-diddle li-lee.

There ain't half been some clever bastards
(Lucky bleeders, lucky bleeders)
There ain't half been some clever bastards
(Lucky bleeders, lucky bleeders)
There ain't half been some clever bastards
(Lucky bleeders, lucky bleeders)
There ain't half been some clever........
..................................bastards.

good lord.
now bbc6 is playing ian dury's classic there have been some clever b*stards (with the memorable chorus of "lucky bleeders, lucky bleeders")
his genius is missed.
just the song to lift the mood!
i will try to find and post the full lyrics.
you're welcome.

bbc6 playing van morrison into the mystic
beautiful song. poetic. singing brings the lyrics alive
to me, this is a song that if, you read the lyrics, they might seem trite - but when van the man sings them it's a whole 'nother story

because it's friday the 13th a local radio station had a psychic on (don't necessarily follow the logic)
i can believe anyone over, say 10, believes them. their routine is soooooo easy to see thru

newest link is to melanie. she has a cool site.

blogger acting all squirrelly today. when i checked my site a minute ago only the one post showed up - rest of page was cut off mid-html - republishing seemed to fix it...

i thought after this friday i would have a break from teaching, but i am subbing for my yoga teacher next week so she can go to her kid's christmas program. gee, better start doing the down dogs to prepare!!!

oh yeah, republicans seem to be in rare form lately. trent lott said something to the effect that all our problems sould have been gone had the nation followed his state's lead and voted for segregationist strom thurmond back in 1948. how completely ignorant and hateful. why do we let them get away with stuff like this?

oh yes, i recall. is anyone else scared by w's nuclear threats?

even during the cold war era i never feared an armageddon type war - thought there was too much money tied up in the world for this to be allowed to happen. now i am not so sure...

"life is a waterfall.
we're one in the river,
and one again after the fall."

went to lunch today at a chinese restauraunt. unlike most, this had virtually no vegetarian dishes. however, asked the waitress and said i could get an unlisted dish - vegetable lo mein. it was pretty good. this is rule 23 for vegetarians - engage in dialog with the restaurant staff if the menu doesn't have good options. most places want your business so will accomodate within reason. this one even was willing to spice up what is normally a bland dish...

i had something else to say, but i forgot.

ok - jen, it's called a lug wrench - and now i have a heavy duty 4-way one. the tire place didn't have the right lug nuts to attach my spare to the back of my tracker, so being a man of action, rather than hunting around for lug nuts, i went to the hardware store and got a lug wrench that'll fit both sizes (just like the cool guy that rescued - er - helped me out yesterday had - man, he must have changed the tire in about 2 min...) now i am about as comfortable in a hardware store as george bush must be at a linguist convention, but with a bit of help i found what i need. i looked impressive and manly taking it to the checkout. one of the other guys in line said, "whew, looks like you must have some work to do." i gave a knowing sniff and a resigned, "yup" - if he only knew...

so, oozing with machismo, and given the relative warmth of today, i decided to inline skate around the hood. i do it year round as long as it is dry - last year i think the longest i went without skating was a couple of weeks in winter. anyhow, felt great - cool and crisp - smell of someone burning wood. went a bit farther than i should (i see a "sore knee" post in my future - it's been hurting anyhow)

so...no more jewel for me - give me pantera (if my daughter will let me borrow her sponge bob soundtrack)

in the mall today waiting to get a new tire nmoticed many seemingly school aged kids there with their parents. now, no school system i know of is off this early - so i was curious. since there was nothing better to do, i had a mental dialog, proposing, then refuting any theories i could think of:

• playing hooky: accompanied by parents/grandparents? not likely


• field trip: although consumerism is probably the religion of the land, field trips to the mall? and besides, wouldn't there be a whole swarm of kids as opposed to pockets of one and two


• home-schooled kids: ok - then why aren't their butts home getting schooled?


• perhaps they were not yet school aged: maybe, but geesh - have they upped the rbgh in beef since i stopped eating meat?


• perhaps they were young looking midgets and my eyesight is failing: c'mon, be serious here

still don't have a clue

what are your thoughts?

driving home befopre my PM final, i caught a flat. no big whoop, right? i mean i'm not particularly handy, but in a pinch, i can change a flat (although, frankly, given the choice, i'd prefer someone else do it). welllll....the crowbar in my car did not fit the nuts on the spare. but, not to worry - a quick call to AAA and they were there in a half hour or so - and the guy even changed it for me! it was unnerving sitting at the side of the road with cars whizzing by 60+mph!!!

season finale of the sopranos was a yawner - imho. it seems to be a pattern that they are better setting up stories than bringing them home. this might not be as huge of an issue expect for the huge time gap between seasons. of my predictions - well, i nailed the "meadow storming up to her room" one. however, i make no claims of some kind of paranormal abilities given: she does this in virtually every episode in which she appears and i saw it in the previews...

a few months back i made a "confession": that i like abba. it seemed like a "confession" cause i typically listen to a lot of, hmmm - non-pop music - thought it might blow my credibility (as it were), but you know, you like what you like - and as andy warhol said, "nothing is more cool than to be unafraid to look uncool"

so my latest confession is: i like jewel. esp. her newest cd (the only one i own). in another forum, i had a brutal, knock down drag out debate reminiscent of the frazier/ali bouts of years gone by...my opponent in the debate, we'll call her cj, could have her position summarized pretty much by an equation:
jewel=antichrist
cj found jewel pretentious, her songwriting wretched, her poetry worse and pretty much an affront to poets and women everywhere.

i find jewel a talented singer/songwriter - perhaps nothing more, but certainly nothing less. if you read her lyrics, i will allow, they don't necessarily stand on their own as great poetry. but, know what - they aren't poems - they are part of a song - and as such - with the music and singing they are servicable. the preceeding statement, i believe is true for virtually all "rock" music - the lyrics don't stand on their own - but they don't need to - that's why they ARE part of a song. only perhaps, lou reed, at his best i would consider a poet.

jewel may be, at times, pretentious, but that charge can be levelled against any artists who is ambitious. as someone once said, i'd rather try something and fail than try nothing and succeed.

i haven't seen her books of poetry - i kind of suspect i'd agree with cj about these, but what the heck - again, this should not obscure her legitimate talent...

i know there are tons of obscure artists as good as jewel, but who cares. that's no reason to bash her music.

so, first abba, now jewel - hmmm - wonder what i'll cop to next???

my daughter read the first book in the lemony snicket "unfortunate series"¹ and liked it. so for christmas, went to the book store to see if i could find any more books in the series. there are 9 apparently. the book store had dozens of 1 and 3-9, but no book 2. i am not so paranoid to think the world is conspiring against me - on the other hand, when continually faced with evidence like this, you gotta wonder.

there is a happy ending though. went to amazon and even with shipping was cheaper. god bless the internet.

¹don't ask me. i have no clue.

i went sledding with my daughter and her friend. i don't remember sledding hurting this much when i was a kid. great fun, though!