Whenever a famous artist dies, the price of their work goes up.
The obvious example is a painting at auction.
It also applies to famous musicians who die suddenly.
I’m not talking about some Best Of album or unreleased studio material that gets rushed out and released out after they die.
I’m talking about the existing albums out there on the iTunes and Amazon marketplaces.
As people rush to download their favorite tracks to remember them, the companies quietly bump the price up from 99 cents to a buck twenty-nine.
Thirty pieces of copper for the modern-age Judases of Music.
Tag: music
Bluesman
The story that Robert Johnson went down to the crossroads and sold his soul to The Devil to become the greatest guitarist in the world is totally bogus.
However, the story that Rabbi Hiram Goldberg sold his soul to God to become the greatest washboard player is absolutely true.
Why he wanted to become the greatest washboard player is a bit of a mystery, but when given the option to drag your fingers along a washboard with a hillbilly band and to stick your mouth on a disgusting ram’s horn every year, I’d choose the washboard, too.
Play, Rabbi! Play!
Why do birds
Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?
This is a trick question, right?
It’s because you’re covered with bird seed.
How do you do it? How is it sticking to your body?
Is it some kind of spray-on adhesive? Caramel? Office Depot gluestick?
Either way, it’s really kind of weird.
When the birds pick the seed off, does it hurt?
And do you scrape it all off at the end of the day, or do you wash it off?
I’m just curious, that’s all. And I’m sick of gluing dog biscuits to my body to attract dogs.
Pageant
When I was in school, a teacher thought it would look cool to have crepe paper ribbons tied to our wrists for the Thanksgiving Pageant.
As we moved our arms for the song, the ribbons crinkled and waved.
Some kids tripped over them. Others got behind other kids and tried to strangle them.
Because they were crepe paper, they’d snap, so no kids got hurt when they tripped, and no kids ended up strangled.
The teacher, on the other hand, was found hanging from their belt in the bathroom.
For Christmas Pageant, the substitute just had us sing Jingle Bells.
What A World
Long ago, while I was walking in Hoboken, Frank Sinatra came down the other way.
He walked up to a lamp post and tied a string to it.
Tugging on that string, he muttered “What a world!” before untying it and moving to the next post.
He did this for 30 minutes before a limousine caught up to him, and some guys in tuxedos helped him into the back.
When he died, I wondered if they tied that string to the inside of his coffin.
I dug up his grave, but it was empty.
(Perhaps he’s sitting on a rainbow?)
Fetch The Stick
The sign on the front door of Le Ho Kim says NO DOGS ALLOWED.
Under it: DELIVERIES IN BACK.
The band jokes about chow dogs being in the chow mein, puppies in the dumplings.
Benny’s been coming here since we were two years old, and he still can’t work chopsticks.
“Use a fork!” growls Damien. “I’m sick of watching you with those sticks.”
Benny’s the goddamned drummer, right? You’d think he could by now.
“Woof!” I say, holding up a dumpling, and everybody laughs.
“Fetch!” says Benny, tossing a chopstick.
I throw the dumpling after it, and everybody laughs harder.
Pulling Out The Stops
Second Evangelical’s roof collapsed in a heavy thunderstorm. They used the insurance money to get as much as they could repaired, but the policy didn’t cover their massive pipe organ, once an array of gleaming copper tubes and an magnificent console of keys, switches and stops, now a dripping, bent pile of ruin.
After several bake sales and poker nights, the funds were raised, and the church director found a match: a bankrupt church in Bulgaria.
They signed the contract, had the organ dismantled, shipped, and transplanted it into Second Evangelical.
Engage the pumps, and pull out all the stops!
Musicals
Before I ever read Dickens’ Oliver Twist, I saw a tape of the 1969 musical.
I find musicals stupid. People burst into song over the strangest shit. Everybody dances and spins and laughs and leaps.
Did something get in the water supply? A gas leak making everybody loony?
A little chasing, a little murder, and we find Fagin fumbling his wealth into the muck.
Poor guy. Oh well.
Later on, I read the book.
They hanged him?
Dude. Harsh.
I put the book back on the shelf, sigh, and load up the DVD.
Perhaps musicals aren’t so stupid after all.
Overcome
With the deepest, darkest skin
And the brightest, whitest robes
Flowing… billowing, like angel’s wings
The choir director raises a hand, his neck muscles tense as a bridge’s cables
And it drops…
“We… Shall… Overcome…”
Not just sung
But hurled
Like a hammer
Every blow pounding my heart, my soul
“We… Shall… Overcome…”
Over…
And over…
I close my eyes,
And I sing it too
A minute later, lost in the power, I am being shaken.
I open my eyes.
I am flat on my back
The choir director is waving a towel over me.
I guess I was overcome.
Swoosh
Long ago, an executive at the Coca-Cola Company came up with an plan to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.
All around the world, Coke bottles were distributed with fill lines on them, and when people drank the Coke to that level, they blew across the top of the bottle and get it to resonate with a soothing pitch.
People were supposed to sing at that pitch, but long before anyone got in tune, the resonance from the bottles caused the earth’s core to wobble and explode.
The remaining debris field left a trail like the trademark swoosh.