OF DUCKS, AND MOBS, AND SUCH

It says a lot about me, I suppose, that I'm less irritated about the leftist college student anti-free speech phenomenon than I am about my music cloud app's insistence that saxophonist Red Prysock's name is actually Red Presoak. Or that New Orleans session veteran Herb Hardesty should really be named Herb Hardest. Why, why, why, this persistent overcorrection of non-mistakes? And why, why, why, am I about to pretend the two things are related? 

  The last question need not detain us, as I'm about to forge ahead as if I didn't just hear myself say that. 

WEASELLY MARKETING TECHNIQUES ARE EVIDENTLY A GREAT WAY TO GET PEOPLE TO ACTUALLY READ YOUR STUFF

WARNING-- I'M ABOUT TO START USING MARKETING TECHNIQUES

  Hello, all. I've spent the morning reading about ways to increase "traffic" to my "blog," with the eventual goal of "monetizing" it. You'll be happy to hear that I've ruled out ad click revenue, but perhaps not so psyched to find that I'm experimenting with not just headlines, but also subheads. According to the marketing guru i spent two minutes reading, subheads are a great way to keep people reading.

Y'ALL BROUGHT IT ON YOURSELVES

HOT PLATE EPISODE XIV, "THE CATERING OF THE REBELS' GETTING-TO-KNOW-YOU MEETING"

(For a free download, please email karlstraub@hotmail.com.)

Here's what you'll find on this episode.

Hot Plate Theme (©Karl Straub)

Desiree-2000, sexy robot, first Funding announcement.

News Crunch w/ Dagny Coleman (AD- Hunka Hunka Burnin' Fat Daily Mega Fat Buster Cardio Fat-destroying Workout for Busy Ladies, CRUNCH story- TontoCon)

Dave Nuttycombe interview about Danny Simon, Neil Simon's significantly less famous older brother.

FREE SKATE Johnny Thunders "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" (from "So Alone" album)

Nuttycombe chat cont.

APPLE VS. ORANGE fiddle drones from the mid 1960s
Velvet Underground, "Black Angel's Death Song," featuring John Cale, electric viola
Scotty Stoneman, "8th of January" traditional fiddle tune (from Mr. Country Fiddler album)

NEW STRAUBINICAL SONG, HOT PLATE EXCLUSIVE!
The mysterious Millicent Ratskiwatzki sings "Biggest Payday" (©Karl Straub 2017. Karl played guitars and toy piano and sang low backup, Jarrett Nicolay played bass and put together the drum loop, Rachel Carlson Burns sang high backup).

SWEET AND SOUR CHICKEN

Have you grown weary of the near-constant news reports reminding us that we've elected a guy who suffers from Frank Sinatra Personality Disorder? Here's a fun way to make your morning less grim. 

  Take a minute, as I did, and imagine what YOUR wife would say to you if you told her you were planning to sue the Hershey corporation for not putting enough candy in their boxes. 

GUTTER CLEANING DURING MONSOON-- NOT AS FUN AS IT LOOKS

Facebook dredges up these posts from years ago, and tosses them up on the beach, flopping like salmon.
(From 2015, Gutter Cleaning Season)

 REFERENCES TO VARIOUS POP CULTURE FIGURES AND MANIACS FOLLOW CRYPTICALLY

Today my son "helped" me clean out the gutters.
Even as I was getting soaked to the skin, and narrowly avoiding a broken neck, I was able to imagine various helpers who probably would have been worse.
1. The Three Stooges (inc. Shemp and Joe Besser)
2. Laurel and/or Hardy
3. Charles Manson
4. Paul Simon (acc. to Art Garfunkel)

ARSENIC AND OLD VOTERS

  My writing system is somewhat reminiscent of the cooking method I used to employ in my bachelor days, where I would throw things into my pot, or (if the pot was dirty) into my pan, and heat them up on the stove while adding other things and stirring. Eventually I would stop cooking and eat.   I often start a piece about something that catches my eye or ear, and then I'm reminded of some other aspect to it, and I mention some things that have been under my skin for a while, and finally I look at the time and I've written a huge long screed without mentioning the original theme at all.   Today I'm struck by a bunch of little things in the media.     

  TAILOR CONTACTS SATAN FOR VARIOUS REASONS

  On my phone, I get these little headlines in minuscule digest form so I can keep up between morning newspapers. I've tried to tailor this digest to my preferences, but it hasn't been an entirely successful tailoring. (On the old Thriller TV show, there was an episode where a tailor tried to bring his dead son back to life in a manner that wouldn't occur to most of us-- he made an evil suit using black magic; it involved evil thread, I think, and evil buttons, and so forth. That's the kind of tailoring I've been doing.)   Yesterday, I was about to click on a headline about the Ariana Grande bombing, when a headline about video of Melania slapping the President's hand away popped up. It took every ounce of self control I had to not click on that one. Then I looked at the two headlines, competing for my attention on my phone (or, as my mom used to call it, my "little machine") and thought about how fucked up we've become. 

THE FUNCTION OF ART

I heard an artist say that the function of art is to hold up a mirror to society. At my house, that's what mirrors are for. 

  A serious artist knows that "mirror to society" business is codswallop. The function of art is to relentlessly and ruthlessly apply a personal style to form and material. The material doesn't matter. Just pick something you won't get sick of. The form should be treated with respect, like an employee who's been working there since before your parents were born. If that employee can't do the job anymore, give him a gold watch and give his desk to a new guy. Ideally, a young go-getter who doesn't have a family because he's kind of a douchebag. 

  You need to work on your style. If you've ever seen a heist movie where a bunch of lowlifes spend weeks smoking endless cigarettes and poring over maps and timetables while planning a bank robbery, that's how hard you need to work on your style. 

PLUSH TOY JUSTICE

  When he was very young, my son put one of his stuffed animals on trial. 

  I can't recall the precise nature of the allegations against Mr. Bear, but I can tell you they were very serious. All of the other stuffed animals were on hand for the tense courtroom drama. Since he was just a little kid, the stage direction was occasionally primitive. It was difficult to tell where the jury left off and the audience began, for one thing. 

                SHORTPANTS STALINS 

There were other problems; I felt at the time that Mr. Bear's attorney, Pengy the Penguin, was pretty much phoning in the case for the defense. Early in the proceedings, the whole affair began to resemble a Moscow show trial. That shouldn't be too surprising, as children at play are like shortpants Stalins, holding the fate of their toys in their hands and demonstrating little remorse once their impulsive snap decisions are made. 

  Arguably the most disturbing aspect of "The People vs. Mr. Bear" was the blinding speed of it in its latter stages. Once the guilty verdict was read by the foreman (perhaps "foremonkey" would be the appropriate legal term), The State wasted no time in literally stringing the defendant up and hanging him from the nearby mantelpiece. None of us in the audience had realized until this moment that it was a death penalty situation, as the judge's instructions to the jury had been vague. 

SHORTEST KARL STRAUB COLUMN EVER

  This will be Twitter-pithy, for once. Last night, in an exasperated voice, my son said, "Dad, why do you always ask so many questions?" 

  I said, "Why do you always supply so few facts?" 

RELABEL, AND RESHELVE

  Is it possible for me to say something fresh about the health care vote, given my vast ignorance about the subject, and the acreage of words already planted by a host of demagogues, pundits, talk show hosts, and Facebook orators? Is it wise for me to spend my afternoon trying, given that I already ran out of time to cut guitar parts at today's Hot Plate recording session due to my excessive blathering? 

  Some of you have already surmised that I'm being rhetorical, and those of you surmising thusly are surmising wisely indeed. 

  
        TONSORIAL HOMOPHOBIA

I recently observed my son watching one of gangsta rapper Ice Cube's many Dean Jones-esque performances, in a sequel to the movie "Friday." I walked in as the final credits were rolling, and Max was saying, "Ohhhhhh, this isn't one of the Barber Shop sequels." Naturally, I hate to squander an opportunity to be an asshole, so I said, "Didn't it tip you off when there was no barber shop in the film?" In a comeback worthy of Curly Howard, he said he "just thought they'd moved." 

  I could see his point. If you watch Ice Cube (or, as the New York Times, the newspaper of record, refers to him, Mr. Cube) barbering in the movies where he barbers, it's firmly established in your mind that he's a guy who cuts hair. Were you to spot him between haircuts, you wouldn't necessarily forget about the whole hair cutting thing, even if he was engaged in a string of tragicomic set pieces, involving parties, homophobia and whatnot, none of which have much to do with the tonsorial world. The movie didn't just have  "barbershop" IN the name, it WAS the name. So you could perhaps be forgiven when Ice Cube appears, and your first thought isn't there's no way THAT guy could be a barber. 

  Likewise, you could be forgiven if a vestigial association of Congress with the word "government" is still lingering in your mind from the distant era when they used to get paid to govern.

THANK GOD I WAS LUCKY ENOUGH TO GO TO HIGH SCHOOL DURING THE BEST FOUR YEARS IN MUSIC HISTORY

This morning, I was conscripted to drive my son into school early, in order for him to get some extra help in a difficult class where note-taking and listening and thinking and so forth are required. This kind of class was always a bit of a bete noire for me, as well, so I chuckled indulgently before slapping him on the back and heading to the car. (This indulgent chuckling business is something I traffic in but rarely, as it usually results in the same kinds of questions people ask a boxer who's been knocked down.) 

  
  ALL EXISTING POP MUSIC IS PERFORMED BY DRAKE, AS FAR AS I CAN TELL

Due to a long and dull stretch of exposition, my car wasn't here, and we had to take Lisa's. To my son, who suffers from what might be termed middle school cynicism (meaning he has a sardonic and worldly response to literally everything except for the pop culture and products that target him), this is all to the good. Because of Radio. 

  My car doesn't have a working radio. Or, rather, it works, but I don't allow it to be turned on. I have a phone that has a quarter of a million tracks on it, and none of them are Drake. Drake has become my go-to modern pop artist, and in my mind, all modern pop music is written and performed by Drake. Sometimes when Drake wants to mix it up a bit, he invites a guest star or two to appear on a track, which means for me that occasionally a song has Drake with guest Drake. It all kind of runs together, and there's not more than a proton of difference between a Drake solo cut and a Drake and Drake duet. In fact, when I hear two Drakes in tandem, it's easy to picture a third Drake thumbing through a magazine in the waiting room, in case they need him to add a little more Drake to the thing. I imagine there are a couple more Drakes on standby, playing foosball and drinking whatever Drakes drink. 

    WARM, SOFT, AND SALTY

My colleague Matt Cook used to say that all fast food can be boiled down to three elements-- warm, soft, and salty. (He probably still says it, for all I know. I wouldn't put it past him.) Pop music and pop production in the All-Drake world can be summed up similarly: danceable and antiseptic. And since the All-Drake pop music system combines all the commercial elements, the three allowable song themes are all included in every song at the same time. 

1. I love you and we've certainly been through a lot. 

2. I'm a girl and I don't take any shit. 

3. If I go the club tonight, I have a sneaking suspicion that there will be big asses there.