Late Boomer's Den

  • A couple of experimental gems

    This is still International Trans Day of Visibility, so I thought I would share some musical awesomeness by some trans performers.

    “Follow Sun Ra” is from the After the Flood 2 album, a really obscure project with experimental ambient and related music, although this one is a bit industrial. Scottish singer #CinderSharp from #Cindytalk is on vocals.

    “Burning the Old Home” is from Psychic TV, featuring singer Genesis P-Orridge, who sadly left us in 2020. This song is so good I’m going to have to check out their whole catalog – that guitar solo at the end!

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  • I remember you Avery, hope you got to wear that dress

    When I was around 7 or 8, there was a little kid I used to see in the nursery of our Southern Baptist church. I’ll call him Avery. Avery was about 4.

    This was the early 70s in a small Texas town, typical Baptist church. Avery’s parents were decent and very active. I think the father was a former preacher.

    When adults asked Avery what he wanted to be when he grew up, Avery would say, “I’m going to be a princess and have a pretty dress like Cinderella.”

    You could tell it bothered them. “No you’re not. You’re going to be a handsome young man and have beautiful children.”

    Avery would argue back. “No, I’m going to have a pretty dress like Cinderella.” As long as I knew Avery, the answer never changed.

    I’m not one of those people who calls himself an “ally.” What the hell do I know about trans issues? I’m old. I used to be on the “wrong” side of politics. I use the wrong pronouns half the time.

    But I know being transgender is not made-up, or sinister. I remember Avery and I know what I saw. I’ve since met other trans people – and they’re people, with hobbies and interests. They just want to live.

    When I see all the cruelty directed toward trans kids and their families, I think of Avery and wonder if they’ve had a happy life. I’ll never know, but I hope Avery got to wear that dress and feel like a princess if that’s what Avery wanted.

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  • Focusing on the absurd

    My wife just read me the New York Times article about Donald Trump getting indicted in New York. More dark clouds on the horizon it looks like. Maybe another street fight or two.

    But there was something about that article that hit me funny…

    How arresting the former Commander in Chief might work – he’d have Secret Service protection while he was being arrested.

    How he will probably be fingerprinted but might not have to wear handcuffs, and if he does, whether they would cuff him in front or in back.

    What a bind it would put primary opponent Ron DeSantis in if Trump defies the court and stays in Florida.

    It just struck me how absurd all this is. It’s like a satire, like something Kurt Vonnegut would write. As much as Cat’s Cradle freaked me out, I love Kurt Vonnegut. Galapagos is also amazing.

    It’s the way I deal, same way Vonnegut did when he wrote those two apocalypse stories. When shit goes bad, there’s almost always something funny about it too.

    Whatever happens, you have to admit it’s a gripping story. If it was a movie it would be a blockbuster. I’d damn sure watch it. I’m already on the edge of my seat.

    I bet Vonnegut is laughing bitterly at America right now, wherever he is. Not as funny as the ending of Galapagos, but pretty good.

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  • Eaten any bugs lately?

    My dad spent a lot of time outdoors and knew a lot about the wildlife of Texas, including the kind of critters most folks just step on or ignore.

    Each of those white spots on the lower pad are hiding cochineal bugs, source of an important red dye.

    Dad knew which ones were harmful, which ones were useful. He loved seeing ladybugs and praying mantises in the garden. He taught me to be curious.

    Once he scraped some white web-like stuff from the pad of a prickly pear cactus with a stick. “Inside each one of those spots is an insect called a cochineal bug. Indians used to get red dye from it.”

    Dad didn’t like to squish bugs willy-nilly and neither do I – I’m the kinda guy who rescues insects from scared ladies – but that was a pretty neat discovery.

    Sorry little bug. I promise I won’t do it again.

    Now when I see those white spots on the pads of a prickly pear, I know what they are. And they’re not just a curiosity. Cochineal bugs are still important.

    They’re the source of the natural dye carmine. You probably ate or drank some of it today.

    It’s been a source of income in Mexico for a long time apparently. It’s a tradition I hope they can keep alive. Apparently that’s up in the air at the moment.

    Interesting video about how cochineal bugs are cultivated in Mexico to produce the natural food dye known as carmine.

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  • When cultures find each other

    Two Indian uncles listen to psytrance music: Blastoyz – Mandala

    Had to pass this along. This really made me smile this morning. So much joy. I get that feeling when I hear their music too. I like the little bit at the end.

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  • Maybe I can paint over that

    Guy Clark – Maybe I Can Paint Over That (fan-made video)

    What I wouldn’t give for a proofreader some days. I’ve already made a few screw-ups on on this blog, though luckily you can fix those quickly now once you’re wife catches them.

    it was hard on the soul when I made a bad one in the paper business. Write enough articles and you’re going to make a tone of mistakes. Especially when you’re chief cook and bottle washer and have to proof my your own copy

    Word had a spell checker but there were so many other ways to mess up. Copy/paste mistakes really pissed me off cuz they were hard to explain. Lack of sleep was the best excuse I had.

    You had to walk around with your head hanging low for a whole week. It really stung when you messed up a story you were proud of. you were proud of.

    There were time4s when I was too exhausted to be embarrassed. I was like, oh well, I need to fill up a news hole on page 3. a correction will fill up this news hole on page 3. They’ll forgive me in a week. Maybe.

    The tech we have gtoday would’ve helped if I’d had it back then. But then again I probably would’ve been laid off with the proofreading staff instead of sticking around till I felt like the Omega Man.

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  • Deja vu all over again

    Sting – Russians (This one came out in ’85, one year after I didn’t get Raptured)

    A friend just texted me a story about something the Chinese government said and commented “scary.” I wasn’t scared. Not scared of getting nuked by China or Russia. If you’re my age, you’ve heard it all before.

    Those regimes don’t want to get Mutually Assured Destructioned any more than the US does. If it happens, it happens, but I’m not going to spend my time fretting over it.

    I did enough of that as a kid. Movies and TV shows were full of nuclear apocalypses. I used to have nightmares about seeing mushroom clouds outside my window.

    Being a Southern Baptist, those fears got mixed up with the other thing they taught us to fear and/or look forward to: The Rapture, followed by the Time of Tribulation (or the other way round, depending on who you asked).

    In any case, I tried to mentally prepare myself for both.

    Content warning: Upsetting imagery. The Christian Nightmares Tribulation Band covering the 1969 “classic” Rapture song I heard who knows how many times, “I Wish We’d All Been Ready.” (The films weren’t this bad, but I got a steady diet of this kind of messaging in the ’80s.)

    I would get Raptured if possible. If not, I’d go through the whole Left Behind thing (same plot, but this was before the book series). If it was nukes, I’d wonder about who might want to restart the human race with me and where I might find a good cave to hide in.

    It was an obsession when I was a teenager. I was like, can we get this over with so I can make the Rapture? I feel some sinning coming on and I can only hold it back for so long.

    But there came a point where I had quit dwelling on it and live. So I did. As traumatic as recent developments have been, I still have to live as long as I’m alive. Sing While You May.

    Strangely enough, I’m borderline obsessed with The Legendary Pink Dots and their singer Edward Ka Spel, who sing about all sorts of apocalypses. I find it cathartic. Exposure therapy I suppose.

    Edward Ka Spel – Dotzsong

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  • Which version gets to be me?

    David Bowie – Changes

    I’ve lost most of last night’s dream, which felt like quite an adventure. I was with a team of people and we were on a mission.

    Some were NPCs (learned that one recently from gamers) who were there for me to talk to, some were me, trying to make plans. Sometimes I forgot which was which – you know how you sometimes swap characters in dreams.

    Our mission was to stop whoever was manipulating our timelines, changing our consciousness, making us over. We all wanted the identities WE chose.

    Just before I woke up, someone who both was and wasn’t me said, “These aren’t the clothes I was wearing when I went to bed.”

    I’d changed, and no memory of that change. Which sounds rather like a message from my unconscious mind, doesn’t it? Seeing as how my unconscious mind in charge of which dream characters wear what.

    I’ve been some very different people over the course of my life. That’s why I believe in redemption and why I refuse to believe people can’t change. People don’t change all at once, but we DO change.

    Sometimes it makes my head swim, remembering some of the beliefs I once held. Like, how could that have been me? Yet he was. I have the memories to prove it.

    But just like in my dream, all those identities you used to be are in there somewhere, tugging at your sleeve, telling you what to do. But you’re in charge, not them. You get to pick which ones you listen to.

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  • Cannot get enough of the Oud

    “Repent you people repent half of the sins” with the Star of Tarab Kaddour Midoni – Alrashool. Relying on Google Translate again… I take it the performer’s name is Kaddour Midoni. Corrections from Arabic speakers welcome.

    Just found another gem from people who I believe are Berbers living in part of Morocco.

    I’m fascinated by the Nacer Records YouTube channel where I’ve been finding these treasures. I just know it’s full of culture and interesting music from that part of the world.

    Too bad I understand almost none of it. Always the frustrated wannabe world traveler…

    Tarab is apparently more than just a kind of music. It also involves a relationship with the audience. Definitely want to dig into that in the future. (How to stop going down new rabbit holes before I finish the first one?)

    Ever since a co-worker turned me onto Middle Eastern Ensemble music in the ’90s, I’ve been fascinated by the instruments from other cultures – some resembling those we Americans and Europeans know, some not so much.

    I love how they sound when tuned to non-Western scales. I love them all, but I can never resist the sound of the oud, the ancestor of the European lute, still in use all over North Africa and the Middle East. “Al oud” kinda sounds like “a lute,” doesn’t it?

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  • Music from waaay before my time

    Peter Pringle – Lament For Gilgamesh on the Gold Lyre of Ur

    A song about Gilgamesh sung in the original Sumerian on the Gold Lyre of Ur? That’s something I never expected to find. Fascinating stuff this man is doing.

    Peter Pringle started his career as a thereminist, but has recently begun performing on recreations of ancient instruments and songs. Some of it has to be guessed at, but they know how the instruments would have sounded.

    I’ve always been amazed at how long fragments of a culture can last. Apparently archeologists have uncovered more relics of Mesopotamian civilizations than I realized.

    Check out more of his material on YouTube. He has songs from other traditions as well.

    Here’s one in English. Old English, that is. He usually has the history of the song and instrument either in the video or in the description. I think this stuff is amazing. Take that, entropy!

    Peter Pringle – Caedman’s Hymn on the Anglo Saxon Lyre.

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