Mexico City

http://twitpic.com/3ojg6 - In 1951, a doped to the gills Burroughs recklessly shot and killed his wife here behind this black door. 3:44 PM Apr 20th from TwitPic

Steve says I should make an Elmo, rather than Emo record—“it’s just one extra letter and there’s a built-in audience”.2:17 PM Apr 19th from web

.Listening to Ezra Furman and compiling my big fat 1979 new wave sack of sh*t mix tape for my journey. 5:15 PM Apr 20th from web

Chuck Prophet is in Mexico City. Three hours away by plane, but might as well be the other side of the moon. 10:43 PM Apr 22nd from web

.Staring out the window at the cars passing back and forth. I lose count of the VW Bugs. It’s an endless sea. 9:33 PM Apr 23rd from web

is talking to himself in the bathroom mirror. The recording gods are angry. What have I done to upset them? 10:23 PM Apr 24th from web

.Mexico City cancels all public events to fight flu. It’s a ghost town. Justin says: tell those interns to wash their hands twice(!) 6:28 AM Apr 26th from web

Deadly flu virus, power goes out mid-take, studio blows up two hard drives. All in all I’m a charmed SOB. 6:47 AM Apr 26th from web

Out here half past nowhere Mexico City. The “big shitty”. Used to think w/ tape rolling I was a desperate mother. I ain’t done yet. 6:54 PM Apr 26th from web

Can I have an outside line? http://tiny.cc/X0mbB 8:28 PM Apr 26th from web

Bordering on paranoia here. But I do my part and dutifully don the mask. Relax, Mexico introduced chocolate to the world! 7:12 PM Apr 27th from web

More power failures, and 6.4 earthquake mid take. Stellar day. Recording gods smiling down. Taco’s on a picnic table in the courtyard too. 7:24 PM Apr 27th from web

Last night lay sleepless. Swarm of bats flying out my brain like some Goya etching. Tonight smiling like an idiot. I’ll miss this place.10:46 PM Apr 28th from web

.Tight band. Great feel. Time: I’d like to find the dude that invented that, and see what he’s working on now. 8:29 AM Apr 30th from web

.Cutting the last song: “Leave the Window Open” right now. Please no more jokes about ‘avoiding Mexico like the plague’. 2:41 PM Apr 29th from web

.Pass the Colgate. This mask doesn’t smell so hot. Christ, what a guy has to do to fit in down here. 2:58 PM Apr 29th from web

.Chuck’s Excellent Adventure heads to the Airporto. We hear they’re screening folks, taking their temperatures. 6:38 AM Apr 30th from web

.Andy told Dan Penn I went to Mexico. Dan says: What for? An upholstery job? 7:19 AM Apr 30th from web

I’ll miss staff at Estudio 19: The humor, smiles, kindness, glasses of water, and perfectly timed coffee’s in the booth. Da whole enchilada .about 2 hours ago from web

Sick

Feeling a little off today. I leave you with this poem….

Enjoy,

CP

Sick

by Shel Silverstein

“I cannot go to school today,”

Said little Peggy Ann McKay.

“I have the measles and the mumps,

A gash, a rash and purple bumps.

My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,

I’m going blind in my right eye.

My tonsils are as big as rocks,

I’ve counted sixteen chicken pox

And there’s one more—that’s seventeen,

And don’t you think my face looks green?

My leg is cut—my eyes are blue—It might be instamatic flu.

I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,

I’m sure that my left leg is broke—

My hip hurts when I move my chin,

My belly button’s caving in,

My back is wrenched, my ankle’s sprained,

My ‘pendix pains each time it rains.

My nose is cold, my toes are numb.

I have a sliver in my thumb.

My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,

I hardly whisper when I speak.

My tongue is filling up my mouth,

I think my hair is falling out.

My elbow’s bent, my spine ain’t straight,

My temperature is one-o-eight.

My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,

There is a hole inside my ear.

I have a hangnail, and my heart is—what?

What’s that? What’s that you say?

You say today is. . .Saturday?

G’bye, I’m going out to play!”

Al Pacino In Leather

Went to see William Friedkin speak at the Castro the other night before a restored screening of Cruising. Friedkin talked about hanging out in the Gay clubs doing research and being forced to listen to Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder. For his soundtrack he put in the Germs, Mink DeViille, John Hiatt etc…. His defense in the Q and A? “Oh, it’s not accurate at all. It’s not a documentary, it’s a movie. I just never liked disco.” The gay community was outraged when it came out. Not everyone was ready got forgive and forget. It got heated during the Q and A. I dug it. The quais murder mystery fizzles out at the end. But Pacino is nothing less than a trip throughout.

Number One Rooftop Party

Number One Party.

Let’s hear it for Nashville; where the pickers do the picking and the singers do the singing and the writers do the writing. Friends in low places? I got em in high places. Literally, I’m on the roof of the BMI building overlooking the same Nashville skyline Bob Dylan studied.

Tell me ‘bout the good old days. Days like yesterday when the Judds sounded like fucking Creedence weren’t too bad, were they? John Anderson on the front porch just “a swinging”.

I’ll take it.

We’re at the BMI Number One Party for friends Hilary and Troy. They’re the writers on Carries number one smash “Wasted”. Hilary is trailer trash royalism. All Forever 21 and high heeled sandles. Writes and sings like falling off a log. Troy started off as coffee boy. Worked his way up to tape room copy boy to staff writer and beyond.

Met a lot of folks in a blur. Angelo pointed out biker dude in a cowboy hat. As a bad ass/the man who wrote: I’ve Got Friends in Low Places”. A Ford Country Tough looking mother fucker. I heard the song in the rental car the next day and I was like, wow this IS tough.

It’s a big Tennessee sized cheese salad! It’s not important. It’s very important! It’s romantic. It’s a turn off. Oh sure, you’d rather rub Velveeta all over your body… The little steak crackers were to die for so I helped myself. Whatever your pleasure, the honeysuckles are blooming, baby. Don’t you love this time of year? Come on!

Trashville: Don’t forget, it’s Elvis and Blonde On BLonde too. Really, what’s not to like?

I’ve always loved Country Music. Even before I watched in awe as Alejandro and the Kinman Brothers’ Rank and File had the punks square dancing to the Wabash Cannonball opening for DOA at the On Broadway.

Years ago I came to Nashville to dip my bucket into the world of Country Songwriting. I joked with my then manager: maybe next Hollywood, I’ll write a screenplay. It all seemed so obvious. Dan Penn was one of three people at my showcase at the Bluebird. Me, Dan, the soundman and the doorman ONLY. Why even plug in and sing in the mic? We wrote Got A Feeling the next day, Kelly Willis cut it a couple months later and I was hooked. I dug it.

Angelo was one of the diamond geezers who befriended me. His lineage equally wack. From Brooklyn. One time Arthur Baker side kick. Played Rhythm guitar on countless Arthur Baker sessions. He once changed Bob Dylan’s guit string (while the guitar remained around Bob’s neck) during the Empire Burlesque sessions in NYC. He came out and coach surfed and thumbed around with his Gigson LG. Right out of the box he caught a break with “Believe Me Baby I Lied” co writ with Kim Richey. Numero Uno for Trish Yearwood, it was.

No one is buying records. Yeah, I heard ya twice the first time. The apocalypse is in a tailspin. Only one artist is out there “defying gravity”. Carrie Underwood. Straight outta Nowheres-ville Oklahoma, singing like a ring in a silver bell, it’s Carrie “fucking” Underwood. Okay, okay, okay… you want real, right? Carrie never set foot on Melrose ave. She’s real even when she’s faking it. Oklahoma. Screen doors. Fly swatters. She’s College sports real. Bug spray real.

Nick Tosches said it: It’s hard to decide who are the most ridiculous, the sensitive assholes or the make-believe hard guys. Here’s Willie Nelson, starry-eyed in Judy Garland pigtails at the age of fifty-seven… We all know Willie’s a godhead and Waylon’s forgotten more about Rock and Roll than you’ll ever know. Ask Buddy Holly.

But Carrie Underwood? Damn, she stole me heart!

What was I doing there? Well, there was the food and I am a BMI writer. Pseudo tex mex cuisine (all you can eat). Only in Texas do they refer to Mexican food as “cuisine”. What would the French think? It was easy to park. The BMI parking lot looks like the kind of place I’d circle looking to syphon gas when I was Carrie’s age.

But damn, she’s fine. And nice too.

Do you think Carrie needs to be reminded to call her mother on mother’s day?

Doubt it.

I doubt Jack White does either. I see him every morning at my coffee place. Jack knows. They tell me he bought a pad right on Franklin. Same place Ol’ G Jones and Hank Sr. bought their colonial mansions whey they hit it.

The golden age. Someday, like the dolls said, we’ll even look back on this fondly. A long ways from yodeling blues singers. let’s just say it’s become increasingly less wreckless. It is what it is. And the sun is out bright.

Don’t know what it all means. Is Country really as pitiful as they’ll have ya believe? I was down in the front at the Mabuhay when Jello pulled down his pants and displayed his naked penis. Now THAT was pitiful. I mean Iggy had already put out cigs in his own eyes and “Dead Jim”? Well, there was that deal in Fla. So, it’s not like it was ground breaking. Give me the boom in the chicka boom any day. They didn’t call it No Depression back then. You just somehow knew that Johnny Cash was always gonna be a bad ass. John Doe, Mark E. Smith, and the Thompson Twins aside.

Look, its me with my old friend Kim Carnes.

More Junky Lifestyle

More junky lifestyle minus the dope. Lil Mike tipped us off, so Stephie and me rocked horticultural-like last weekend at SF’s Flower & Garden Show at the Cow Palace. The annual event is a who’s who for the bustling Bay Area botanical biz. Elvis took the stage here at the Cow Palace for one of his final show’s in 1976. No dope dealers but plenty “enthusiasts of eragrostis, admirer’s of amaryllis, lovers of lilys, and ooglers of orchids”.

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