Up and out this morning. The usual botheration en route; love those people who make a point of getting in front of you, then drive below the posted limit. Their entire purpose is to keep you from getting through a light ten blocks up ahead. They are . . . THE CONFOUNDERS. Their agents are everywhere. Song for the journey downtown: Everybody Have Fun Tonight. Realized with some sadness I would not be wang chunging tonight. Realized also how seizure-inducing the video was; a Godley-Creme special, I believe. Underrated group; the last ones you’d expect to score “To Live and Die in LA,” but they did a fine job. The Sirius/XM DJ – Mark Goodman, who still drips the hip with dollops of boardwalk grease in every phrase – said they would be part of an 80s reunion tour that included Berlin. Oh, we’ve waited for years to hear “Riding on the Metro” live, haven’t we.
At work I did the weather-sports-bright ‘n’ lite bit, then did an interview with the paper’s health reporter on the SWINE FLU CRISIS. She wasn’t hyping it, and I wasn’t going to hype it, either, although I’m fascinated by the way it’s unfolding on the old media, and the web. Google has maps with info about the various cases, and they all seem to be generated by the same Google account.
Who’s Niman? I’ve seen the Google map on many computers today, and it makes me wonder if people think Google is making the maps. The potential for mischief here seems large. What if you woke up tomorrow, clicked the map, and saw cases in every state? SELL STOCKS.
As @JBergsman said via twitter, “I think one can rule out this Niman.”
Turns out (h/t many twitterers) it’s a guy named Harry Niman, archenemy of Gary Sandfeld. You can click on individual google-markers (is there a word for those tapered balloons? Googlepins? Googeloons?) and get the details Niman provides. So we know this about a case in Indonesia:
01/04/2009 Great (25) and Firman (14 months), the Father and the child of the Village of the Village Stop of Cipatat RT01 RW04 of the resident’s uterus the Bandung Regency West be forced in treated in RSHS Bandung because susfect (was expected) Bird Flu.
Well, now I’m panicked. But that’s bird flu, not pig flu. What happened in Egypt? The googeloons are arrayed exactly as you’d expect, along the banks of the Nile. Egypt could edit itself down to a country that rivaled Chile for skinniness. Again, it’s all bird flu.
Closer to home, here’s a story:
12/04/2009 A woman aged 41 years with an autoimmune illness who resided in Imperial County developed fever, headache, sore throat, diarrhea, vomiting, and myalgias on April 12. She was hospitalized on April 15. She recovered and was discharged on April 22.
You may say: well, if it didn’t finish off someone with autoimmune disease, no prob. But I keep hearing that the healthy have it worse, since the virus turns your immune system against you, possibly by turning your white corpuscles into teenagers.
We’ll see. Won’t we. By the way, the French papers call it La Grippe Porcine. Such a lovely tongue.
My daughter changed the name of the story she’s writing. She’s gone through three: Bloodstrike, Fallen Kindness, Cursed Thunder – and now Red Ashes. She’ll kill me for this, but I have to share the opening. It’s about wolves.
Chapter One
Ashi leaned on the grass of the gray shadowy cave. Ice was hanging form the top of the cave. It wasn’t winter, but summer was on it’s way, and the sun had set upon the horizon before a dinner of berries and a small thrush. Their mother somehow found
honeycomb, and a tiny piece of moss she soaked in the near by stream. The water made her teeth feel weird and cold. She didn’t like the taste. She tried to recall the taste of the summer water.
This was her third winter so far. She would always remember her first winter, when she had her first lick of honeycomb - that’s not all, she fell in a stream. She remembered the icy touch of the water and shivered.
All that makes me proud. And she has a title, too – I’m still working on the Untitled Newspaper Novel. Speaking of which: time to write.
(Note: Music removed because it was hosing some browsers. Will fix later this afternoon.)
Squeeze! (Or “UK Squeeze”, as they were known in Australia). Great pop songs – thank you for putting them up.
The water made her teeth feel weird and cold. She didn’t like the taste. She tried to recall the taste of the summer water.
That’s pretty darn good…I’m honestly impressed. How old is this kid, again?
Hey, if Terri Nunn still looks anything like she did last time Berlin got back together, who cares what song they do. Rowrrrrr.
Although I beg to differ about Squeeze, it’s nice to hear someone else say what I think about Supertramp(at least, the first two albums–after that, they were just so overplayed I may never have an uncolored reaction to anything later). That guy(a Dutch businessman, IIRC) who did the old-fashioned patron of the arts thing was right to bankroll them.
Of course, we Milwaukeeans of a certain age generally have a soft spot for the group: they were part of long and impressive list of acts in the late 60s-mid 70s who insisted on starting their tours here in Milwaukee, both for the audiences and RTM Security(my sister’s husband split his working life back then between RTM gigs and radio–I heard and got to see some great stories). Chicago is “the third coast”, my ashcan.
And congratulations on Child adding weight to the “nature” side of the argument about artistic ability.
Oh, a quick word about The Confounders(starred Roger Moore & Tony Curtis, didn’t it?): they are a legit target to mock and fume about. What you described is part of a pervasive attitude on the road that suggests these people think driving is a video game. They act as if getting ahead of you earns them points, or something, even when they’re bucking the flow of traffic. That’s not just annoying–it causes accidents(at least as often as speeding). Friends & cousins who are deputy sheriffs assure me this is not just my imagination.
Supertramp! “Breakfast in America” is the greatest album cover of all time.
Squeeze is pretty much the best pop band out of the 80s. Everyone has the ‘Singles’ album.
Their best song (by their own and many of their fans) is “Some Fantastic Place” on the album of the same name.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNF5w4pP_Eo
The blog appears borked. Comments to the right of the entry, and the comment box below the entry, not the comments, and nowhere near the “Leave a Reply” headers.
That said…
I saw Supertramp on the “…Famous Last Words” tour at Merriweather Post Pavillion near Columbia MD. Great show. There was a thing for rock acts in the 70’s and early 80’s to have sax players. I think only the E Strteet Band still has a sax player.
The soundtrack to “To Live in Die in LA” is one of the best ever – it makes the movie.
Well, this is entertaining! Two column format selected inadvertently in the wordpress theme stuff? I too would relish a Berlin concert – saw them way back in ‘83 – opened for “The Thompson Twins”. The twins, I don’t miss much.
I nearly ran into some Oinkies carriers this morning on the way into work. I was merging over into a right-turn lane, and they were pulling out of a gas station. Thing was they were looking only at the traffic signal, and didn’t bother to look left before pulling out. I leaned on the horn, and managed to stop before running into them. They just looked at me as if to say “¿What’s your problem, señor?”
(G)Nat has a good story going there. The only issue I have is of course her misuse of “it’s/its”. The way she wrote the word, that’s supposed to be a contraction for “it is.” To show ownership, remove the apostrophe.
“The water made her teeth feel weird and cold. She didn’t like the taste. She tried to recall the taste of the summer water.”
Who can blame her? Cold water, especially icy cold water, is not welcome in Winter, or even when Spring tries to conquer Winter, and must subside for at least another month before finally being allowed to sail in announcing “mission accomplished.” Sometimes even that’s too soon.
As for Supertramp, I have their Anthology album, which has some of the best songs from a lot of their albums, including Breakfast in America. I think just about everyone had that album. Tucked away, in the back of the closet, along with their Abba and Dr. Hook albums. Am I right? I think I’m right. Bloody well right.
I think Squeeze is one of the best pop bands ever–great songwriters. (favorite’s still “cool for cats”.) Couldn’t get into the stuff after their initial breakup, though–like the Cars, all their best stuff was before they started doing videos.
You hit all my squeeze favorites except for “pulling muscles from a shell.” You are right about it being a band that toured too long. I saw them in the early 90s at a beat up college town venue and boy were they ready to retire. They played everything at top speed with very little interaction with either eachother or the audience. Like they just wanted it to be the hell over. A lot of 80s bands were better recorded than live. INXS, where Michael Hutchence was rarely sober and REM which had that sullen proto-emo vibe.
Weird! Went looking for the comment box–and it was the whole width of the “page”. I am amazed at how much of the music that I absolutely LOVED back in the day (’70s & ’80s) leaves me flat. I do think over-play has a lot to do with the more pop of my faves. I have whole albums on my ipod that were important to me and that I HAD to rip–but that I find myself skipping over consistently.
Wow. This is entry is like a diner. a bleat-diner…Bliner?
Still no first hand reports of any confirmed flu near me in Houston, although SWMBO complained of a sore throat and wondered if it was Swine flu.
I assured her it was definitely, most likely, probably not. Unless it was. If she comes home with a fever I guess we’ll decide otherwise.
I wonder. What’s the ability of the news media to induce sickness merely by hyping it constantly? Given the hypochondrical nature of many people it seems not implausible.
I was having a beer in Winnipeg in the mid-late seventies, relaxing after a record buying spree when some long-hair down the bar asked what sort of albums I’d picked up. “Jazz, Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, like that.”
“Huh” he said.
“You guys in a band?” I indicated his buddies.
“Yeah, Squeeze, here on tour.”
“Huh” I said.
I’ve been flying overseas quite a bit over the last 6 months and exploered the available music selections. The selection isn’t vast by internet standards but for Northwest/KLM not bad. They have a 2 CD compilation of Supertramp’s greatest hits and I heard “It’s Raining Again” for the first time in years. Beautiful song about loss but uptempo with a message of great hope. I really am a sentimental fool because the lyrics actually made me tear up a little. I guess it’s from being older and having lost wife, sister, father since I last heard it. If you haven’t listened to it for a while you should.
Dr. Niman appears to be a biochemist who’s turned into a flu geek, and makes his living doing consulting out of his house, and living off royalties and teaching gigs. According to google maps, he lives not far from my wifes cousin, in the north hils of Pittsburgh. I know a lot of people like him, academics all, and if he runs true to the type he lives and breaths his work, not unlike Mr. Lileks. Well, probably not literally breaths, it’s the flu after all, but you get my point. To his type making maps of the flu is like collecting matchbooks and writing about them.
You’d probably like him.
Just when I think I couldn’t like you any more, you profess your love for Squeeze. Amazing! Keep on squeezin’ and retweetin’, I love it all!
Ah Supertramp. First real rock show and “big date”. Breakfast in America had just come out a week or two before. In Milwaukee,too.
What a sweet memory. 8th grade and I wonder whatever happened to Janet Kozinski.(Yup, that’s Milwaukee alright.)
I’d actually like to see Berlin – it would have been better to see them in their heydey, but they wrote some great songs on “Pleasure Victim”. After that, not so much, but the fact that Terri Nunn was singing the songs made up for the weaker material. And she DOES still look nearly as good as she did 20 years ago, at least last time I saw her. I, too, had the Squeeze Singles album and enjoyed it, but they were never one of my favorite 80s bands – too fey or something, but very talented. I never “got” Supertramp – thought “School” was a neat song, but then that damn Breakfast in America album came out and I quickly grew sick of Roger Hodgson’s voice. Anyway…who asked me for all these opinions?
Some they will and some they won’t. And some it’s just as well. I like to play CDs for my daughter and dig out the albums to look at the art. Buying an album was like getting a magazine with the music. Breakfast in America, News of the World and I Robot are my favorites. You can pour over those covers forever. You can also read about the band members and find out who wrote and produced each title. I never bother to do that with the CD insert.
Listened to “Nail” here and popped over to YouTube to see if the video was as I remembered it. Turned out not to be the case. Remembered the guys at the bar, but thought the camera had tracked toward them as if down a long alleyway. Maybe I’m remembering another video?
Ah, well, those were good times, anyway. Thanks for bringing it back.
Looks like Groove Shark is jacking up Word Press.
It’s funny that 3 weeks ago while I was in the midsts of my life consuming fence repairs (a third of an acre contains way too many 1 X 4 dog eared redwood boards) I had my iPod nano and was playing Squeeze and Cheap Trick Exclusively. I always liked Squeeze, and while I welcomed the reformation efforts it has always seemed forced. My favorite Squeeze moment was when they appeared on Saturday Night Live (on the decline by then – both SNL & Squeeze) and it seemed that no one really knew who they were. And this was of course as they were fading.
While I enjoy Squeeze, I always though that they had to have gone through an obscene amount of heartbreak to craft so many songs of love lost (they were in their early 20s for most of those songs). And that guitar sound is distinctly British. So tinny, even when they play that surf style. Sounds like a less practiced Andy Summers – and he’s fantastic, but it’s a different instrument that he and Robert Fripp play.
Berlin / Squeeze tie in: Paul Carrack and Terri Nunn did that song Romance together.
IT must be the 70s style malaise we’re neck deep in (helllllo Hitler’s bathwater!) but Cheap Trick has been a touch stone for me recently. So simple, yet fun: Drums, Bass, Guitar, occasional keys, and a sense of the the insipid. Now I’m moving on to The Tubes – which would indicate that Malaise is fading and we’re looking to the 80s? Let’s hope!
Thank you, James. Now I’m gonna have to go pull the vinyl out of the closet and start up the turntable and sit on the floor and read album covers all morning, darnit! (Not really. I’m self-employed, so I could, but if I did, my boss would kill me. Still, I could probably build that ad I have to do while listening to Supertramp. WWBAGNFARB. Oh, right. Nevermind.
My wife called her sister yesterday to congratulate her on her birthday. She’s celebrating by going to a “Tower of Power” concert. Ha!
Indeed, some people never did get over Supertramp’s having the nerve to emerge from respectable AOR-stalwart status to have a couple of big hits (so vulgar!). I rather like their earlier, terribly British “Crime of the Century” stuff, but was fonder of the Breakfast in America era. Yes, “Logical Song” is fried, but “Goodbye Stranger” from that time is a wonderfully chilling picture of a certain type of very ’70s misogyny and machismo (that’s one of the many songs that would never have been a hit if more people paid attention to the words.) But I will say that “Raining Again,” in the video era, was kinda hard to forgive.
Squeeze? Meh. Squeeze is to The Kinks as Duran Duran is to Roxy Music.
I pretty much stopped listening to current pop music when the Beatles broke up. What’s a Supertramp?
10 years ago I was working part time counting money and lots of the usual top 40 music was played by the cashroom crew that were mostly 10 to 20 years younger than me. I would put Squeeze Singles in the CD player and everyone would stop and ask what that was and say those guys really rock.
O yeah, and my wife, more of a concert goer than I ever was, saw Squeeze live as well as The (English)Beat, Elvis Costello, 10,000 Maniacs and just about anyone else that made the 80s music scene.
Again (G)Nat – Bravo. Lileks, you should be proud. Keep sneaking out her chapters to share here. Girl had her Daddy’s way with words. Keep gong Nat. I’m first in line to buy your first book. Promise!
I have a seven year old daughter who is just beginning to write poems and stories. Keep up the good work, Natalie!
Bridey Says: “Squeeze is to The Kinks as Duran Duran is to Roxy Music.”
Apples to oranges my dear Bridey. I medium-love Duran Duran, and “Ordinary World” is a great song.
Natalie, you are a wonderful writer! What an exciting story!
>>She tried to recall the taste of the summer water.
The acorn has not fallen far from the tree in this family.
@Nancy — I love “Ordinary World” too, and there are other Duran Duran songs I like quite a bit.
But that doesn’t change that it was DD’s highest passion and ambition to do in the ’80s what Roxy Music had already done, covered, finished with, and moved on from by 1976. Indeed, I worked with a passionate Duranie (that’s how they spell it) for years, and even the most adoring fans acknowledge the band’s huge debt to RM — and love them just the same, which is great.
Roxy Music were not perfect, by a long stretch. They were held back by bone-deep pretentiousness, one of the most consistently wretched singers in rock history, and their inability to produce anything resembling a hook. But they were years ahead of their time and enormously influential, even though they only had one minor American hit in their prime.
Roxy Music’s amazing “Out of the Blue” says in its opening 40 seconds everything Duran Duran and the New Romantic brigade struggled to say for years.
Sorry for running on so — IMHO, YMMV, and all that!
The CONFOUNDERS, huh?
Down here in TX we have many splinter cells of the OBSTRUCTAHIDEEN. They’re everywhere and on a jihad against people who have better things to do than sitting in traffic.
Hmmm, James? Would Natalie let you post the whole story? I wouldn’t ask her until she is done though. It’s really not an easy thing to begin a story — and as with all good stories, I know that I am going to be hooked by the first paragraph.
Summer water to me is water tasting of rubber hose, but it’s the way I could visualize the sun setting “upon the horizon before a dinner of berries and a small thrush” that got me.
I want to know what happens next please.
A high school English teacher and voracious reader here, and just wanted to comment that I latched onto Natalie’s “She tried to recall the taste of the summer water” even before reading the comments and discovering the rest of us had, too. What a fine turn of phrase! Keep up the great work, kiddo!
Okay, since I can’t DM back to Twitter I’ll put it here.
Something that I think is still in this post is punching the Bleat page up big tme from where I sit in mac safari and firefox.
What’s happening here is that what ever is invisible here is causing the sidebar to slip under the post and the comments in both browsers even with the music foo removed. There might be some invisible code still left somewhere that’s doing this.
It doesn’t happen on any other Bleat posts when the permalink is clicked, but it does effect from Mac Safari and Firefox the look of Bleat Home (or “Bleat House” should you prefer the referential moment). Bleat home has the sidebar material tossed under the bus of the main bleat.
You might want to take the text of the post out of the wp edit screen and drop into text edit to see if any weird foo is lodged in the bleat gullet.
The Googleoons keep coming up as “bird flu” because that’s the term you’re indicating as a search. H5N1 is in fact bird flu.
The swine variant that has so many whities in a tight is H1N1.
It wasn’t my original search term; it got introduced into the viral mix somehow. Apt!
Wow!! Natalie’s story sounds great! How awesome everyone picked up on the “summer water” part. Reminds me of books I read when I was a kid. I’m sure she’ll be a bestselling author one day.
Natalie has her father’s knack for turning a phrase! She has really put some thought into her descriptions-way beyond her years. Wish I could get talent like this from my fifth graders–hope she keeps it going! I’d love to read more.
Re. your post the other day about “brogans”:
Every day likely has some know-it-all writing in, so today I’m it. Brogans were a basic , unglamorous poor man’s shoe. They were big fitting so that numerous widths were not necessary. Here’s the weird twist (to today’s mind): both shoes were identical, no right or left! This could come in handy! Kind of like buying all of one type and colour of sock and just recycling the survivors….
-Robin from BC
Bloodstrike! I wish Natalie would go back to that one,but hey,I don’t have the vision here,she does. Impressive. I like how it was high flying prose
one minute and crashes back to kidspeak the next. Charming..
You must be very proud. NONE of us will tell her if you keep sneaking
bits of the story out…