Dan the Man

Lose My Hair & I Don't Care --- Samson Was a Wuss
That's my friend Daniel Bloomberg above.  Not only is he battling a second round of cancer with more courage than I can summon when faced with a hangnail, but he can look right into the camera in this video and sing his heart out, through vocal cords that got wrecked during treatment.

I talked to him a few days before the video was recorded and he was hoarse as a chain-smoking horse whisperer (he still is hoarse, and seeking a fix now).

I didn't pay much attention to the song, but his nerve is humbling.  And note the joy as, clearly hitting some notes, he can feel his voice breaking through the clouds.

[ Daniel Bloomberg's blog Handy Instrumental ]

My Music Profile

Miles Davis' Live Evil, cover art Mati Klarwein
Here's a list of old music that I digitized (mainly from tape, believe it or not) a few years ago.

I didn't rate them, but I wouldn't have gone to the trouble of digitizing them unless I thought I'd listen to them again, so figure they all rate at least 3 of 5 stars...

Too Short

Ink on paper, 14 x 17 inches, by Allan Reinke
The following is stuff from a failed "essay" of mine, hopefully improved by the music links...

"Here's my chance / to dance my way / out of my constriction" - Bootsy Collins

I think the world would be a better place if we could all plug in to the cosmic current and "let it flow."  Every bit of the universe throbs with rhythm, layered & syncopated, from the pulse in your wrist to the lighthouse strobe of a pulsar, and all we have to do – to feel at home – is find the beat.  (I blame the hippies for giving cosmic talk like that a bad name, and what with the drugs, light shows and bare feet, there was no way they could find the beat.)

[ Bootsy's Hollywood Squares remix at YouTube* ]

"I can drink a whole Hennessy fifth / some call it a problem / I call it a gift" - Xzibit (pronounced "exhibit"), rapper

Now that we have the technology to become gods we choose instead to become Fantastic Voyeurs, snorkeling through the dyed hair and dead brain cells of D-list celebrities, watching them sin and suffer in our place.

I just hope Xzibit sounds as clever now as he did when he spit out those fearless lyrics, and isn't drinking generic vodka at the back of a supermarket parking lot, listening to his brain cells burst like bubble wrap.

I've been a big hip hop fan since the mid '80s.  Though too much of it is brain-dead pop music, or vicious just to make a buck, there's a huge amount of beauty if you know where to listen: to the life-affirming intelligence of the layered soundscapes, the playful boasting and bittersweet yearning.  And that's what I love about the music beyond its sound: the recognition that life is a struggle, a bittersweet thing that's trying to kill you just as hard as you're trying to love it.

[ Rhyme Poetic Mafia's bittersweet lament G Life at YouTube ]

"Life is the only thing worth living for" - Flipper, a sometimes glue-sniffingly-slow punk band

[ Flipper's Sex Bomb at YouTube ]

That might be the deepest one yet, and a good way to close – but here's just one more, from Too Short, a rapper who turned a sparse sound and dirty mind into gold, at least for a while:

"Life is / ... / too short..."

[ Too Short's Life is Too Short at YouTube ]

* Warner Music Group (WMG) made YouTube remove the video I used to link to here, likely cheating Bootsy out of some money, and certainly some glory, because listeners unfamiliar with this tune will never hear it and become fans.

There's a difference between outright piracy for profit and low-key sharing on the web, but corporations like WMG, Sony and Disney are only interested in protecting their profits, not the culture they've been allowed to monopolize and suck dry.