I just got back from a sojurn around the Napa Valley wine country where I tend to drink more beer than grape juice, and made a stop for Margaritas in Vallejo at an artist friend's pad whose now exiled from his former life in the Mission.
Upon returning, I saw that manic mascara matron Tammy Faye died, a woman you can either ignore, deride mercilessly, or empathize & adore...
and i suppose I'm guilty of all of the above...
She went from being married & in cahoots with preacher sleaze Jim Bakker, and then while he rotted in prison, she hooked up with his still solvent best friend...
Last time I saw her, it was in the same room as John Waters & Jello Biafra, and I guess that says something there...
This 30 second video obit can hardly tell a teensy bit of her tale...
Apparently poor lil Tammy faye had withered to just 65 lbs and was ravaged by the colon cancer that had been killing her for close to ten years. She shocked viewers with an appearance on Larry King just days before her passing.
R.I.P Tammy Faye, here's a tune that's sorta unrelated... but whatever...
Tammy Faye Starlite - Highway 69 ( from the album Used country Female )
It's been a week since I posted and i just thought I'd toss up some more tunes quickly, since it's late at night and in the morning I have to go to a wake/party in honor of...
a patron of the arts / a porn king / political rabble rouser/ redneck rebel / fratricidal white trash scrapper...
and last of a breed...
It's a long story, and I hope you'll understand if I don't have a ton of time to go into a million details...
While the media have their own spin to sell ya, let's just say this guy's life was twice as dramatic as Tammy Faye's, and hardly can be encapsulated as easily as this piece here attmpts to do...
Anyhow...
he always knew how to throw a helluva party, I've been to quite a few, and found we had similar taste in clothes...once we were both sporting the same shirt...
I can only wonder where that photo is...
Here's some tunes...
I'm generally not a big fan of Clapton, but this song captured to tape by the late Tom Dowd is such an overwhelming & passionate piece of work I'm gonna lead with it...
It's simply one of the greatest most frenetic recordings of the 70's, or any era...and really can't be stopped...it rips, it tears, wounds & heals...and is as fiercely rocky as life & love itself...
I dedicate it to our two late friends... who had seemingly little in common but actually felt some all too similar sensations of both joy & strife in their lives I'm sure...
All under the public eye... the nastiest gaze of all
Derek & The Dominos - Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad ( from Layla )
Another guy who I noticed died recently but received very little fanfare in the media was Boots Randolph. He was king of the sax in the 1960's, a regular on Hee-Haw and put out dozens of albums, as well as numerous stints as a studio session man in Nashville and elsewhere.
Here is Boots randolph with New Orleans legend Al Hirt goofing on a version of Dueling Banjos from the movie Deliverence... done well ... you guessed it... for saxophones.
Boots Randolph - Dueling Saxophones ( with Al Hirt from "Country Boots")
At least it seems these dead folks lived into their 60's... heck, Boots made it all the way to 80 before he caved in to the grim reaper.
I certainly seemed to know a lot of folks that didn't get all the way around the bend in life, many who died unnecessarily young it seemed...
Jim Carroll Band - People Who Died ( 1994 remix from Basketball Diaries OST)
The other night was my birthday, and other than a relatively quiet dinner at an Italian restaurant in North Beach, and a modicum of bar hopping, the latter portion of the evening into the wee hours was spent cavorting around the joint mentioned in this song by some old pals of mine I first met some 20 years ago...
Steelpole Bathtub - The 500 Club ( from "Scars from Falling Down")
I do believe the activity in question involved an attempt to become exactly what late great Specialty records recording artist Mr. Jimmy Liggins refers to in the tune below...
Jimmy Liggins - Drunk
Upon reflecting that I actually managed to survive through a lot of nonsense to get to this sort of anti climactic point in life, I'll toss in some songs that seem sorta appropo into this mini mix ...
Cheap Trick - I Never Had A Lot To Lose
( from "Lap Of Luxury")
Although the one precious thing we all have to lose .. is our loved ones...
Somebody pretty darn special to me is moving to New Orleans next month, and it's not necessarily their choice, or in their ultimate best interest as far as I can tell... and it's definitely a heartbreaker...
In a melancholy time such as this, an instrumental from Nawlins' own piano playing legend Allen Toussaint makes sense...
Allen Toussaint - Cast Your Fate To The Wind ( from "A Whisper to A Scream")
see y'all next time...
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