Barkeep, I'll Have A Gin & Wrap-Up

What if I never mentioned gin ever again? Wouldn't that be WEIRD? What if I couldn't mention something I did a show about, like my show had this totally great power to wipe things from the earth once my show covered them? Wouldn't that be WEIRDER? Also, it'd be handy. Certain powerful people would no longer exist. & a couple of snotty businesses, too, I'll tell you.

I confess I did the gin show sober, but the folks who won the haiku contest were completely blitzed. Utterly stinko. The haikus reeked of quinine. & you know what that means - tonic. Here are the winners, from fourth to first:

FOURTH PLACE: Sue

She drinks her gin slow
Holds the glass up to the light
It looks full of tears

THIRD PLACE: Conrad

God you stink of gin
Like you passed out in the leaves
Of the forest floor

SECOND PLACE: Lawrence

A drink, a card game,
A machine to pick cotton,
A pretty girl’s name

FIRST PLACE: Lou

Passive-aggressive
This dry, bitter alcohol
Bottle of date-rape

& was there a limerick from the Mysterious Limericker? There was! It went like so:

There once was a world-renowned sinner
Who’d share his advice with beginners:
“Don’t help out your brothers -
To do unto others,
You must be a tonic & ginner!”

Or weren't you listening? For shame!

This week, I'll be continuing a series I started with Jennifer over on Ear Candy, but which I didn't follow up on for all of 2006. It'll be the infamous attempt to play Indiepop A To Z. This week I'll talk a little of my obsessive-compulsive desire to make these kinds of lists & all that. Maybe you could go listen to episodes 2 through 5 over here. I never digitized the first one for some weird reason. I should do that. If I can find it.

But it means that there isn't a specific theme for a haiku this week, so why not just write a haiku on anything? Here's some possible subjects: the war on sailing, earwax, confidentiality agreements, how you feel at 3:23 am when you're accidentally awakened by your cat crawling between you & your girlfriend under the covers, whatever happened to softcore porn, eating & running, Roy Lichtenstein, the last telephone booth you ever saw, the difference between Kentucky Fried Chicken & KFC, mannequins, Jack Kirby's OMAC series, what happened when you were thirteen, all the violence in that Blood Meridian book & how you still dream about it, ditto in HBO's "Rome," words like cantillation & how to use them more in everyday life, Gary Larson's "The Far Side" - funny or really fucking funny?, gin (in case you just thought of something), & possibly a haiku about haiku writing.

There are some ideas. Surely you have one or two of your own.

Today's "Song Of The Day" is by the strange, brilliant Moondog, from his sometimes too gorgeous 1969 record Moondog. I had been familiar with his more jazzy stuff, so this record took me completely by surprise. This is the piece called Symphonique #3 (Ode To Venus), & you may consider it a late Valentine's Day present. Click on the name, hear the gorgeous song. Listen to it every day until March 5, 2007, when I will replace it with a glass of gin haikus.