I have been writing songs since I was in high school, and as a result I now have a deep catalogue in a wide variety of idioms. So here’s the concept: I intend to release a trilogy of CDs in the coming months, the first of which is Pottymouth, a collection of a dozen dirty songs, the second will be Prettymouth, a collection of a dozen beautiful songs, the third will be Funnymouth, a collection of a dozen humorous songs.
Pottymouth is underway. I am working with a talented musician and recording engineer on the project, which should be complete by the end of September, at which point I plan an assault on the open mics in and around Portsmouth, Portland and Boston. With the vast revenue collected from Pottymouth CD and tee shirt sales, and possibly a little plastic toilet that emits curses when the handle is deployed if I can find a manufacturer, I will fund the Prettymouth and Funnymouth projects, unless of course, I can find an angel investor who recognizes the limitless financial bonanza that this concept will undoubtedly birth.
All 36 songs are complete, so the only thing in the way of this idea is money and my well-documented personal inertia. Stay tuned here to be kept abreast of my fatal flaw’s obliteration. Go Pottymouth!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Blogging and My Band
I am new to blogging per se, though I am not at all new to writing. They are indeed different disciplines. I once upon a time had a haughty attitude toward blogging, viewing it as a lesser form of written communication than writing op-ed for newspapers.
Before the stranglehold was placed on Seacoast Media Group, I had a weekly column under the auspices of seacoastonline.com, and when I would field a comment on my column in which the commenter would refer to me as a blogger, I would always take care to articulate the distinction that no, I was not a blogger, I was a columnist. I am slowly, kicking and screaming, embracing this new, or if you are young, old form of written communiqué. Now that I am one, I respect the blogger. It’s kind of like Mark Twain’s whitewash chapter in Tom Sawyer. Once you are doing it yourself, your tendency to recommend it goes from zero to sixty in a second.
So, blogs are legitimate, though let me say here, as a slave to nomenclature, the word blog should rather be articulated as ‘blog. It is an abbreviation of the word weblog. Just as don’t is an abbreviation of then expression do not, the omitted ‘o’ being substituted with an apostrophe. But I digress.
The tradition of blogging is real time communication of events and observations as they transpire. The aim of this blog is to participate in that tradition. Boy, I really am capitulating. So what did I do last night? I had a gig and it was fabulous. In 1980, the band The Substance was formed in York Beach, Maine. I was the front, singing and playing trumpet, with my brother on second guitar, the amazing George Mason on lead guitar, and Paul Chadwick on bass and harmony vocal. Our drummer was a jazz player named Dave Whittle who was amenable to the rock and roll we were stuffing down his throat. It was mostly original songs that I wrote with the assistance of one or more of my band mates.
We began playing together again this year with a different drummer, rehearsing once a week, learning new material and doing some fresh writing, but spreading the lead vocal duties around much more liberally. My brother has been fronting his own bands, George has been singing more, and Paul, the best singer out of all of us, has been living and playing with much more dedication and focus than he ever did back in the crazy old days. The gig was a block party on Plum Island, just off the coast of Newburyport, Massachusetts. It was pretty magical. We played two sets to an audience that ranged in age from three years old to eighty years old, including my mother who clocked in at 78.
We are playing and singing better than we ever have and I have to say I am really proud of this project. We have some gigs booked for later in the summer and the year, and I hope to develop this into a songwriting factory and a powerful thread in the vast tapestry of entertainment here on the New Hampshire seacoast.
Before the stranglehold was placed on Seacoast Media Group, I had a weekly column under the auspices of seacoastonline.com, and when I would field a comment on my column in which the commenter would refer to me as a blogger, I would always take care to articulate the distinction that no, I was not a blogger, I was a columnist. I am slowly, kicking and screaming, embracing this new, or if you are young, old form of written communiqué. Now that I am one, I respect the blogger. It’s kind of like Mark Twain’s whitewash chapter in Tom Sawyer. Once you are doing it yourself, your tendency to recommend it goes from zero to sixty in a second.
So, blogs are legitimate, though let me say here, as a slave to nomenclature, the word blog should rather be articulated as ‘blog. It is an abbreviation of the word weblog. Just as don’t is an abbreviation of then expression do not, the omitted ‘o’ being substituted with an apostrophe. But I digress.
The tradition of blogging is real time communication of events and observations as they transpire. The aim of this blog is to participate in that tradition. Boy, I really am capitulating. So what did I do last night? I had a gig and it was fabulous. In 1980, the band The Substance was formed in York Beach, Maine. I was the front, singing and playing trumpet, with my brother on second guitar, the amazing George Mason on lead guitar, and Paul Chadwick on bass and harmony vocal. Our drummer was a jazz player named Dave Whittle who was amenable to the rock and roll we were stuffing down his throat. It was mostly original songs that I wrote with the assistance of one or more of my band mates.
We began playing together again this year with a different drummer, rehearsing once a week, learning new material and doing some fresh writing, but spreading the lead vocal duties around much more liberally. My brother has been fronting his own bands, George has been singing more, and Paul, the best singer out of all of us, has been living and playing with much more dedication and focus than he ever did back in the crazy old days. The gig was a block party on Plum Island, just off the coast of Newburyport, Massachusetts. It was pretty magical. We played two sets to an audience that ranged in age from three years old to eighty years old, including my mother who clocked in at 78.
We are playing and singing better than we ever have and I have to say I am really proud of this project. We have some gigs booked for later in the summer and the year, and I hope to develop this into a songwriting factory and a powerful thread in the vast tapestry of entertainment here on the New Hampshire seacoast.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
The Gay Marriage Debate (continued)
Given the harmonic convergence of Elena Kagan’s confirmation as Supreme Court justice, Judge Vaughn Warner’s overturning of Proposition 8 in California, and the likelihood that the gay marriage kerfuffle will end up in the US Supreme Court, I thought it only appropriate that we continue our dialogue here in the blogosphere with a further discussion of all things gay. I am reminded of a highly publicized interview with the Associated Press on April 7, 2003 in which then Senator Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) said that while he has no problem with homosexuality, he does have a problem with homosexual acts.
This is a fascinating stance. It likens pedophilia, alcoholism, and other human compulsions that are widely agreed upon as negative to the innate and intractable personal orientation of millions of Americans. Be, but don’t do, said Senator Santorum.
"I have absolutely nothing against anyone who's homosexual," Santorum said. "If that's their orientation, I accept that. The question is, do you act upon those orientations?" Santorum went on to enumerate several of these actions that he found objectionable, including going to piano bars and singing Broadway show tunes. Santorum’s list continues.
"The third time some guy rents 'Funny Girl' it starts to become a problem for the American family," Santorum said. Earrings in the right lobe, lisps, and handbag ownership were among the various other homosexual acts Santorum found most opprobrious. Himself a collector, Santorum characterized antiquing as something that should be assessed on a case by case basis. Naturally, doing amyl nitrate poppers at night clubs and wearing buttless leather chaps fell well outside of the boundaries of acceptable behavior.
He also expressed the opinion that seeing "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" once or twice was plenty enough for anyone, and that persistent viewing of the film in his view constituted a gay act, especially if the person attending the showing saw fit to bring rice, toast, a newspaper and other various accouterments to enhance their viewing experience. Santorum admitted that he himself had seen the film twice, but once he found out that the hot chick who played Janet was Susan Sarandon, he vowed never to see it again.
Obsession with Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe and especially Liz Taylor, while heterosexually defensible, is also off limits according to Santorum. "Being a fan of any woman that socializes with Michael Jackson is a danger zone as far as I'm concerned," Santorum said. When asked for comment on how he views membership in the Liza Minelli fan club, Santorum just shook his head.
Other gay acts that Santorum listed as objectionable include planning the weddings of female friends and obsessive trimming of one's facial hair. As far as clothing is concerned, all cowboy fashions constitute "thin ice," according to Santorum, and of course leather motorcycle caps are, in his words, "out of the question." Santorum listed watching Mary Tyler Moore reruns as a warning sign of potential latency, as well as waiting on tables as an adult profession.
"It's like being an alcoholic," Santorum said. "It's fine to be an alcoholic, as long as you don't drink. I don't have a problem with people being homosexual, but once they start buying Cher tickets, then I think that as a society, we have a moral responsibility to object."
This is a fascinating stance. It likens pedophilia, alcoholism, and other human compulsions that are widely agreed upon as negative to the innate and intractable personal orientation of millions of Americans. Be, but don’t do, said Senator Santorum.
"I have absolutely nothing against anyone who's homosexual," Santorum said. "If that's their orientation, I accept that. The question is, do you act upon those orientations?" Santorum went on to enumerate several of these actions that he found objectionable, including going to piano bars and singing Broadway show tunes. Santorum’s list continues.
"The third time some guy rents 'Funny Girl' it starts to become a problem for the American family," Santorum said. Earrings in the right lobe, lisps, and handbag ownership were among the various other homosexual acts Santorum found most opprobrious. Himself a collector, Santorum characterized antiquing as something that should be assessed on a case by case basis. Naturally, doing amyl nitrate poppers at night clubs and wearing buttless leather chaps fell well outside of the boundaries of acceptable behavior.
He also expressed the opinion that seeing "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" once or twice was plenty enough for anyone, and that persistent viewing of the film in his view constituted a gay act, especially if the person attending the showing saw fit to bring rice, toast, a newspaper and other various accouterments to enhance their viewing experience. Santorum admitted that he himself had seen the film twice, but once he found out that the hot chick who played Janet was Susan Sarandon, he vowed never to see it again.
Obsession with Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe and especially Liz Taylor, while heterosexually defensible, is also off limits according to Santorum. "Being a fan of any woman that socializes with Michael Jackson is a danger zone as far as I'm concerned," Santorum said. When asked for comment on how he views membership in the Liza Minelli fan club, Santorum just shook his head.
Other gay acts that Santorum listed as objectionable include planning the weddings of female friends and obsessive trimming of one's facial hair. As far as clothing is concerned, all cowboy fashions constitute "thin ice," according to Santorum, and of course leather motorcycle caps are, in his words, "out of the question." Santorum listed watching Mary Tyler Moore reruns as a warning sign of potential latency, as well as waiting on tables as an adult profession.
"It's like being an alcoholic," Santorum said. "It's fine to be an alcoholic, as long as you don't drink. I don't have a problem with people being homosexual, but once they start buying Cher tickets, then I think that as a society, we have a moral responsibility to object."
My Take on the Same Sex Marriage Debate
I don't see what the big deal is with same sex marriage. I myself am in a same sex marriage. Same sex, every time. And I suspect that I'm not alone.
Quantity and quality standards are acceptable to both parties involved, but admittedly there isn't a great deal of innovation, and I want someone to explain to me what's wrong with that. She and I both know what works, so we continue to do it to one another.
I think that once a marriage is such that its constituents stop breaking out the riding crop and the vibrating plaid thermos, it elevates itself. It becomes a spiritual union that is expressed and shared in sex. People in same sex marriages should be proud of themselves. They have elevated human sexuality to its next level.
The social movement to ban same sex marriages puts pressure on guys like me to study the Kama Sutra, explore fetishism and purchase Viagra online, whereas a same sex marriage implies stability and a certain level of happiness with one another. In a same sex marriage, you don't have to buy those black leather head masks with a zipper at the mouth, or the orange tennis balls that you're supposed to duct tape into your spouse's jaw before you beat her with a rattan cane. And from what I've read, rattan is not cheap these days.
The fact that same sex marriage is under assault from the right puzzles me. They are generally my ideological enemies, but their social structure, at least as far as sex and marriage are concerned resemble mine in some imaginable way. Why would Republicans be protesting same sex marriages? I don't understand it
I think that same sex marriages should be afforded every constitutional protection that marriages with constantly changing sex enjoy. Why should hot couples get this really crazy sex life, and then have better marriage benefits as a result? Shouldn't the wild sex be its own reward?
Write your congressional representative and let him or her know that you don't have the time or energy to be the sexual dynamo that this movement against same sex marriage wants you to be, and that you won't stand for some watered down civil union jive either.
If you're good in bed, but the same in bed, it's good, and the sameness is no detriment; rather it is a badge of honor and an expression of love's constancy. If two people want to commit to each other, even if they continue to love one another the same way they've loved one another for years, that's fine by me.
I am actually not married, same or otherwise, but the funny in this one works a lot better from the perspective of one who is.
Quantity and quality standards are acceptable to both parties involved, but admittedly there isn't a great deal of innovation, and I want someone to explain to me what's wrong with that. She and I both know what works, so we continue to do it to one another.
I think that once a marriage is such that its constituents stop breaking out the riding crop and the vibrating plaid thermos, it elevates itself. It becomes a spiritual union that is expressed and shared in sex. People in same sex marriages should be proud of themselves. They have elevated human sexuality to its next level.
The social movement to ban same sex marriages puts pressure on guys like me to study the Kama Sutra, explore fetishism and purchase Viagra online, whereas a same sex marriage implies stability and a certain level of happiness with one another. In a same sex marriage, you don't have to buy those black leather head masks with a zipper at the mouth, or the orange tennis balls that you're supposed to duct tape into your spouse's jaw before you beat her with a rattan cane. And from what I've read, rattan is not cheap these days.
The fact that same sex marriage is under assault from the right puzzles me. They are generally my ideological enemies, but their social structure, at least as far as sex and marriage are concerned resemble mine in some imaginable way. Why would Republicans be protesting same sex marriages? I don't understand it
I think that same sex marriages should be afforded every constitutional protection that marriages with constantly changing sex enjoy. Why should hot couples get this really crazy sex life, and then have better marriage benefits as a result? Shouldn't the wild sex be its own reward?
Write your congressional representative and let him or her know that you don't have the time or energy to be the sexual dynamo that this movement against same sex marriage wants you to be, and that you won't stand for some watered down civil union jive either.
If you're good in bed, but the same in bed, it's good, and the sameness is no detriment; rather it is a badge of honor and an expression of love's constancy. If two people want to commit to each other, even if they continue to love one another the same way they've loved one another for years, that's fine by me.
I am actually not married, same or otherwise, but the funny in this one works a lot better from the perspective of one who is.
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