Unwinding Diversity

Mr. Romney campaigned to "take back the White House."  From whom, exactly? 

Why, from that 'Boon, of course, that 'Bun, that Jig, the Witch Doctor in Chief, that Kenyan Anticolonialist.  The strong subtext was: can't y'all see this?  The man is Black!!!

How'd that work out for him?  Eighty-eight percent of the people who voted for Mr. Romney were White people.  Didn't work out too well in the long run.  Not enough of them anymore. 

And those Red State/Blue State maps, very interesting, no?  The Red States, if I may be blunt, were mostly those states not famous for intellectual rigor, mostly intolerant of cultural diversity, intolerant, in truth, even of White people from Blue States, hostile to education in general and educated people in particular, not, indeed, noted for their cultural achievements at all, states that contribute mostly food items or natural resources to the nation's prosperity, if they contribute anything at all. 

President Obama's win was a small victory for diversity in America, and that is a good thing.  Not a clear victory though, with so many people voting for xenophobia.  Let's face it, if Mr. Obama had been a White man named Barry Wilson, and all else  being equal, Romney would have been lucky to win seven states. 

‘Sorcerer’ who believed his tattoos made him invincible arrested in Thailand | The Raw Story

‘Sorcerer’ who believed his tattoos made him invincible arrested in Thailand | The Raw Story


These guys failed to understand the instructions that come with the tat's.  These supernatural protections come with a book of rules.  Break the rules and you blow the deal.

I'm not an expert, but one rule I know for bullet-proof amulets is that if you ever defecate and urinate simultaneously the amulet is rendered useless.   It must show a lack of respect for the gods or something.  I don't own any special amulets, but I'm careful not to perform these actions together in any case.  If some supernatural entity finds it offensive, well, it's just not a good idea to take chances with the supernatural. 

So who knows?  Maybe these things would have worked fine if people had only followed the rules. 

Jimmy Scott: Born 1925

Alert the media!  Jimmy Scott still alive! 

To paraphrase the old Cary Grant telegram:  "how old Jimmy Scott?"  Answer: "Old Jimmy Scott fine." 

I'd be terrible at that "Dead or Alive" game.  More to it than mere mathematics, evidently. 

Really, if you're not familiar with the man, please go and spend a pleasant hour on the YouTube and check him out.  So far it does not appear that "Close Your Eyes" by JS is on there, you might want to mark that in your calendar for next year, look for it again.  It's all great though, Jimmy wrote the book.  Like most blues guitar players are doing T. Bone Walker, most jazz singers are doing Jimmy Scott. 

Try A Little Tenderness

I love the covers, you know I do, I love to compare versions of songs.  For me, the proof of a great song is that different people can sing it in different ways and still get to the good place; the proof of a good band/singer is that he can take a song that has been done to death by another band/singer and do it justice, or better.

(For an example of the former, check out "Billy Jean" by Caetano Veloso; of the later, check out "If I Needed Someone" by the Hollies.)  

Sometimes a song just gets so, so limitlessly, fabulously, wonderfully done to death by some singer that another singer could be forgiven for just giving up the field, uh uh, not going there, that song has been just taken over, that song has become the wholly owned subsidiary of somebody else, somebody that's not me, but it's not necessary really.  Songs aren't like that.

The below videos, two singers performing their own, very different versions of "Imagination," display, for me, the whole dynamic of sharing standard songs.  Here's the rule:  If you love the song, and you can bring the necessary sincerity and respect to it, go ahead on with your bad self, sing the motherfucker.  It's okay, don't worry about comparisons, the song loves you and it appreciates the attention. 

Little Jimmy Scott--Imagination

Okay, so Jimmy Scott, aka Little Jimmy Scott, aka Crying Jimmy Scott, owns this song, this is the version that kills, this song has "Jimmy Scott" tattooed on its ass, but what does that mean?  The rest of us should just go away, wearing embarrassed grins, mumbling apologies? 

Chet Baker- Imagination

Proving again that, when it comes to singing songs, there's more to life than news, weather and sports. 

Thai Language Is A Cute, Vicious Little Puzzle

Thai language is not an easy row to hoe.  It starts off with many features that are hard to get a hold of, like the tones, and the sixty-five odd letters to the alphabet, and the continuous spelling (no spaces between words).  As I progress, slowly, more levels of weirdness are uncovered.

One thing that makes it tough is that Thai people love to give things pet names, and these pet names vary from region to region.  The snack in the above picture, for instance.  What they are is young silk worms, fried up with some garlic and chilli.  They're very tasty, actually, and inoffensive to eat unless you want to think about it too much.  To find them on a menu though, you need to know the slang term for them.  Up north they call them "Express Trains" ("roht doowan"), because of the long, segmented appearance.  There's a different pet name in the Bangkok area.

So maybe you're not that interested in the bug end of the food spectrum.  But everybody loves fried chicken, and there's a great version of fried chicken available here.  Small dose, one meaty bone of a chicken wing, deep fried, it's prefect, not enough to feel guilty about.  Where I found them they are called "Broken Brakes" ("braek daek"), because when you start eating them, you can't stop.  To find them on a menu you need to be able to read "braek daek" and know what they are.


Further, Weirder Complications

I've been practicing my reading these days, and I've encountered a few complications.  I need the dictionary, you know, to buff up the old vocabulary, and looking things up is always tough.  Thai is monosyllabic,  so most words are either one syllable all together or made up of several one syllable words.  These compound words are tough to identify in a sentence with no spaces, and sometimes the two or three component words are hard to relate to the meaning assigned to the compound word.

Even tougher, it turns out that there is a difference between written Thai and spoken Thai, so a word that I know pretty well in spoken Thai may be a completely different word in print.  Even tougher than that, there's adult Thai and children's Thai.  There are different words for if a child is doing something or if the doer is an adult.

They say that language learning late in life is a good way to keep the brain active, fend off the old Alzheimer's.  So maybe I'll be holding out for cancer after all.  Cancer finally gets all of us.