Bonus MVRT episode this week — a few highlights from the third presidential debate set to drums n keys. It’s a little number we like to call “You Be the Judge (Oh Yeah)” — now playing….
Blog
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trash
At every gas stop along the way, he pulls out trash with his wallet.
A scrunched up sheet of off-white paper
and a smaller one – a post-it.
Out, up for air and then he
bends over to close a hand on them
and pull them back up
off the shadow stained concrete where they fell.
He straightens himself out a bit.
He slaps his pants.
And then he pushes them back down.
Back down deep.
Into place. -
From out of the whispering past: Mac Davis
Back in high school I was lucky enough to have two excellent friends who were also great musicians — Heroic Imp and SKP. They’d jam, and I’d make up some words — insta-tunes, written and recorded in one night. And that right there was my introduction to the idear that writing and recording music is good for the brain.
Post-high school, sometime around 1987, Imp and I were at his Jersey City pad, most likely suffering an MSG hangover. He took out the 4-track, guitar, bass, and drum machine, and we wrote up a little homage to country-singing-legend-and-sometime-movie-star Mac Davis.
When we were done, musta been after midnight, we switched on the tube and there was the man — Mac himself — in North Dallas 40. Imp recorded a sample on the spot and then went back to his Tascam to work it into the tune.
The result has been on a cassette in various closets for 17 years or so. But this weekend I finally figgered out how to turn cassettes into MP3s — surprisingly easy once the plug is in place. Easy and kinda like magic.
Thus it is, that all these years later, Mac Davis rides again. Giddyap!
Press Play to play.
playtime: 2:07
file specs: a scant 1.9 MB -
x-post: and the Wetumpka. Sweet Wetumpka. Of it all.
It’s Monkey Vortex Monday. In today’s installment, Croatian malcontent Rodney K. puts our longstanding feud aside for one minute and 45 seconds — just barely enough time to bust it Poet-Makes-a-House-Call style with: Welcome to the City of Wetumpka — another all-new, all-free, all-MP3 MVRT experience, brought to you by the good people at BackMan. BackMan: equipping the backs of our Presidents with noticeable, rectangular objects for more than thirty years.
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x-post: pre-debate shpiel
Reality catches up with the President. Get the skizoop, here.
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x-post: door to door volunteering in the presidential campaign
In the next two weeks I’ll be making the (fairly freaky styling) leap to door-to-door political volunteering in my hometown and in a battleground state. If you’ve the itch your own self, and you’re curious how to look into that sort of thing, take a stroll over to edgewise, and read all about it.
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Doorway conversation
Talking with her about her brother's death years back now. And it's the first time we talked. She just had a kid first kid last month my son's almost four good guy big boy.
Their house looks the same even the table even the carpet and I tell her that. The house even smells the same. But you can't say the house smells the same. Or ask if the sofa's still covered in plastic.
I think of him often. I tell her that instead. I tell her he meant a lot to me, which is true. She says thanks. And then I use the word "maudlin." I say: "Sorry to be maudlin." But it's the wrong word. And that's what sticks with me later. It's not maudlin.
Her brother's dead.
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x-post: And the Shonny and the Wally and the sequence of it all
If it’s Monday, it must be Monkey Vortex Radio Theater — back with an all-new segment: The Sequence of Things. With script and music by yers truly and starring Bee Nisbet and M “‘n M” Smith. Plus: the MVRT debut of featured backup vocalist Shonny Vortex!
And there’s funk too. Oh yes, there’s funk. -
x-post: Debateshpiel
Some pithy debate shpiel, here. Quite literally. Packed with pith.
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x-post: And speaking of outrage…
Whatever you do, don’t read this. It’s…it’s horrible.