randulo’s non-blog

Many people come to France seeking asylum for many reasons. In about 1983, I moved to a new region and had to go register with the police. When I showed up for this, I was in a waiting room with at least 200 people of varied origins. There were people from southern Europe, people from North Africa, Asia and many did not speak the language. I will never forget this scene. Here were human beings, far from home, needing to register, afraid of the future and being treated like cattle. Voices of the public servants in the department were often raised, as if the person could understand better if you just shouted the question at them.

Ironically, and this is what struck me and is engraved in my memory today, when it came to be my turn, the way I was treated and the expression on the functionary's face basically said "Thank goodness you're white!". Although I had an easy time with that interview, I remain deeply embarassed for the human race because of the way others were treated.

When I listen to Buzz Out Loud these days I hear a mercifully short commercial for Yahoo. I can't figure out what demographic it's aimed at. The music is awful and sounds like a generic 20th century beat. I would have guessed it was a SNL parody, but now I've heard it every day for weeks. The script is so lame there must be a coded message in it, although I do get "Yahoo,... it's You". Maybe there's a hip video part I'm not seeing but this is the worst audio ad I've ever heard in my failry long life of listening to audio. Ok, the Microsoft Windows 7 Party TV ad was way off, too.  But what does it mean, these awful ads? Maybe it means that for some reason, both companies are trying to reach an AOL demographic of vanilla, "no bleeding edge for me", sheep-like customer base, perhaps one that just got broadband service in their area. What's next, "Please don't squeeze the Charmin?"

Started a new Remembering Paul site for people who'd like to contribute to his memorial

On the night of our 30th wedding anniversary I learn of the death of Paul Lagos, a man who had a tremendous influence on me musically since our first meeting in the early 70's. Paul and I were born on the same date, but different years.

Paul played with Kaleidoscope and recorded with Leo Kotke, did a lot of recording in L.A., played in the Johnny Otis Revue and then went on tour with John Mayall, John Klemmer, did a bunch of gigs in Los Angeles with jazz and blues players. We toured together in the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1972.

Yes it was a long time ago, when you got on stage with instruments; drums, guitars and a sound system and made music, sounds you heard in your imagination and then translated through your limbs to skins and guts.

Paul taught me about Miles and Coltrane and Joseph Schillinger, about Joe Henderson and Thelonius Monk. We were kids, Victor Conte and I, and we lived in his basement with his flea-infested Great Dane, "Gretta", and we were privileged to meet the likes of the brilliant saxophonist Richard Aplanaugh and Don 'Sugarcane' Harris - who, with Dewey Terry, wrote "I'm Leaving it All Up to You", one of the most played songs on the radio for years. Paul was a GIANT, I'll miss him.

The last time I saw Paul was on a tour for my own CD in about 1995 in France and Switzerland. Ironically, Paul and I played in Geneva in 1974 with a band called the Curtis Brothers. That gig was the inspiration for my song "Woman In White" which was linked to by a nurses' site but in fact the woman in white wasn't a nurse but a powder. Oh, the irony of the Internetz...

Paul, I didn't get to tell you that I loved you man, and now I can't even find out how to contact the woman you lived with to tell her how much your life and advice meant to me. Maybe someone will read it here.

We shared a short period of music nearly 40 years ago, I feel "we hardly knew ye". Thanks for Trane, Miles, Bird, Monk and yes, the blues I feel tonight in learning of your passing.

Please take a moment to listen to this song. It isn't Paul on drums, he would have played it a lot better, but he was there when this moment took place and we laughed about it many times - because we survived it.

The Woman in White

I had a dream
In the blue of the night
I was caught in the scheme
Of the Woman in White
Long ago
Through the mists of the past
She blackened my soul
It all happened so fast

Down Cadillac Valley
I copped me a dime
Did it in the alley
To save a lotta time
When I almost died...
As I slid to the ground
I heard kind of cry
Like a siren sound
And I remember
Moments of bliss
The scent of a smile
or the color of her kiss
But seeds of sorrow
Lay buried deep within
And I'm never going back 
Never goin' back there
Ever again
I woke with a scream
In a stone cold sweat
I know that means
That I'll never forget
That she got my money
Nearly took my life
It's time I stopped running
From the Woman In White
And I remember
Moments of bliss
The scent of a smile
or the color of her kiss
But seeds of sorrow
Lay buried deep within
Never going back 
Never goin' back there
Ever again

After doing the weekly conference for over 2 1/2 years, several regulars had a Chance to meet up at Astricon in Phoenix last week. I think everyone came away happy to have been there. Two of them had the courage to bring their wives, something I might do next time, depending on where it is held. Thanks to all who participated! http://VUC.me for video and more info on VUC, the largest live voip conference with an average of 35 callers and thousands of downloads. Sent from high above Chicago.

Edited from ORD

I'm looking at data from server logs from Jan 1, 2009 to Sept 22, 2009 and I was surprised to see these percentages:

So in this space, Apple seems to have come a long way from being "Apple Computers" to "Apple" the people who, love them or hate them, invented a very popular new mobile platform.

I can remember feeling the sun on my back at the start of summer in Minneapolis and the mud scraper on the back porch, the one you used before you could go in. And the smell of burning leaves in the fall. And waiting for the ice to thaw so I could open the garage door and get my bike out to ride it when the streets were no longer slippery. And putting playing cards or baloons in the tires in the spring, to make the motorcycle noises. And walking in snow plowed up on the edge of the sidewalk, over my head in winter.

I can remember making friends in suburban Seattle and liking the climate with its fog and dark rainy winter skies with mild temperatures. When they got an inch of snow, Boeing closed its doors for the day! In Minnesota schools sometimes closed down. We used to listen keenly to the radio in the morning and be cheered by the news of an occasional school closure. Too occasional.

I can remember much later when all the "adults" in the tour bus in Germany wanted to just get there and that I wanted to get out and roll around on the ground like a dog, and no drugs of any kind were involved. And I did get out and roll around!

The rest of my life will need to be spent trying to find a few of those intense good feelings.

Warmed by the out-of-this-world café and feeling like a seasoned world traveler now, it was easy to get on the right train since it was the first (and only) one in the station, a little before 6AM. How could it be that this train was the same train I was on a few hours ago. The guy who spoke Englsih wasn't there (there was a young woman who replaced him, very nice, smiling) but who can tell the difference between a dozen ladies in all black? And the extras, they all looked the same, too. Again, men were getting off at the little coastal towns. In about an hour, the conductor came and punched my ticket and asked me a question which I couldn't understand. After a few minutes, he lost patience and left. Puzzled, I turned to my sympathetica neighbor. The girl smiled and said,

"Oh, he just wanted to know why you are riding in third class when you have a first class ticket."

A final smile and she left, getting off at the next stop.

By the C (program)

The trip was to install and test a program my company had sold to a huge glass factory that made windshields. My destination was a town near Vasto or it was Vasto, I'm not sure. What I recall though is that there were two stations with the name "Vasto" in them. There was only one thing to do, ask the nearest lady in black, pointing first to the ticket, then to the name on the map in the train car. They had to assemble a committe of five ladies in black, but they assured me it was the second stop, not the first. Then they all got off. It was getting light, and the train was going along the coast, it was really beautiful and I was as high as a kite, drunk on the fatigue and the adventure of my first trip to Italy.

Taxi Driver: You Talkin' to Me?

Getting off at the destination, there was a one free taxi waiting and I let the driver take my bag and throw it in the trunk. Again the fellow didn't speak aq single word of either language I knew. Of course he said "where to?", I got that and I reached in my pocket for the scribbled note with the hotel name on it. It was then I realized that I had changed jackets before I left and the name of my hotel was in the other jacket pocket. I don't know how the next part happened, but somehow, with only gestures, the driver "said": "I take you past the hotels", "you remember maybe the name?".

Ok, Vasto or wherever it is, isn't Manhattan I grant you, but there was a whole long street of little hotels, at least 15, so it wouldn't be far from trivial to visit or call each one. The man's idea worked, I recognized the name and he took my bag in and up to the desk. The driver and the hotel clerck (or owner for all I knew) shook hands, and exchanged a few sentences. The man at reception greeted me in English and handed me a key with a large number carved on the wooden part. The driver then launched into rapid fire Italian that, if you went only by the sound of the accents, sounded like an operatic lyric "Death, why cometh you now, please let it not be so, show kindness and mercy in this time of need!" and the clerk still smiling nodded and took my key back and handed me a different one. I looked back at the taxi driver and he smiled and was about to leave, so I shook his hand and gave him what I hoped was a generous tip. The hotel man saw me puzzled again and explained: "He scolded me for not giving you a room with nice view, so I gave you a better one."

And so to work. I was scheduled for a test of the software that morning at the factory and before I was able to go up to my upgraded room, Luc showed up. Luc was a very cool guy, Belgian (francophone), living in this town with his wife who'd even agreed to have me for dinner a couple of times, and she was a great cook, by the way. I asked Luc if I could have an hour to get cleaned up before we go to the factory. He laughs and says, "Why? We installed and tested the software yesterday without you, it works fine. Go to the beach when you're ready. I'll be back at noon to take you to lunch. Tonight we'll go out for drinks and dinner. By the way, how did you manage to get the room with a view?"

Gimmie a ticket for an airplane

This is when I understood why people said "No one flies to Milan!". We landed in Milan and then the flight to Pescara was cancelled. I couldn't understand what was being said on the public address, so I found the Alitalia window and tried to find out. "Why was the flight cancelled?" I asked, and the woman there put her palm down and made a gesture like a plane flying, first climbing up and then tumbling rapidly down to crash. Then she somehow got the notion of fog to me, which if you think for a second, is not easy to convey without words. We found someone who spoke French or English, and then came the killer: "This ticket is expired, I can't help you." The "Not valid before..." was being understood as not valid after. Anyway, after a long argument and getting three or four other people to come and look, I was issued a train ticket and somehow got the bus to go to the train station and then somehow found the train. What ensued was Twilight Zone material.

Ain't got time to take a fast train

The train: very crowded in spite of the fact that we were leaving late at night. Although it wasn't chickens and goats in the cars, that is the image that I had then and that I retrieve now, total chaos, it looked like the 1920's with ethnic costumes the likes of which I'd never seen, someplace totally out of my time. Only one person spoke anything close to English or French. I had expected to find French speakers, since we aren't that far from France, but I never did in Italy. The English speaker and I exchanged a few words from time to time but he was tired and I didn't want to bother him. There were a lot of workers getting off at tiny hamlets here and there, and large women in all black. This was the Adriatic coast.

Lonely days are gone

I had to make a connection and the stop was at 3AM. I tripled checked and asked my guy and a conductor, yes: I was to sit in an empty station (I think this was Pescara) from 3AM to about 5:45 when my train came. I sat on my suitcase in the dark station. The lounge was closed and no one was around, there was almost no light. I needed to go to the restroom and saw two doors, but there were only words, no symbols to make the sexes clear. "What the hell, it's 4AM!" but I lucked out and got the one with urinals. While I was relieving myself, I heard a dull, rhythmic thumping. When I went outside, I couldn't hear anything. Since I had hours with nothing to do, at about 4:30, I went back near the rest rooms and heard the thumping. I follwed my ears around the corner and way down at the other end of the platform, there was a window all lit up, invisible from where I'd been sitting on my suitcase. I went over towards the light. "I'll be damned!" It was a café with probably 50 people in it, huge counters of pastries, meats, sandwiches, and everyone having a great time with their drinks, wine, beer, coffee and a jukebox playing "The Letter" by Joe Cocker. I stepped in, grabbed some food and went to the register to pay and order coffee. Not a single person looked at me or in my direction even. Now we're going from Rod Serling to Stephen King. I was given coffee, but for some reason, they wouldn't let me pay anything, and went over to lean on a post (no seats available) and look around.

to be continued

I'm a comin' home

It's an old slogan, I even recall a store in Minneapolis that used the name "Life Socks". The pessimistic ode reminds me of the story of 'D', a young woman I met years ago. D was probably less than 18 when she began hanging out with musicians. She was sexually active in a day when everyone was, but she never really had a relationship with one guy for the first few years of her adult life. She had a sweet disposition and got along with everyone. She didn't seem to mind being used and always acted like this was her role. Then she got into hard drugs. What was unique, was that her personality didn't change, she was still sweet, never put anyone or anything down and didn't resort to stealing to feed her habit, although she did widen her sexual network to include more users, in order to get off.

At one point, we were in different cities and exchanged letters for a while. One day she wrote me saying she had finally realized she had to clean up, she wanted to change her life, and she went to rehab. As is often the case, she met her soul mate in that program. This often is not a good thing, but they both turned their lives around to the point that they got married and had a child. They embarked on a "normal" life, jobs, raising the kid, etc. I never met D's husband or saw the child, but from what I heard, they were doing allright, until the day her husband died in a car crash. Not too long after I heard that news, another piece of news came in, D herself was also killed in an auto accident. I never heard what had happened to the child or whether he or she had even survived.

Somewhere on the planet, an orphan of these two extremely unfortunate people lives (I hope). You probably have no idea how hard it is to escape from heroin addiction, but these two people somehow managed to do it against enormous odds and they were headed for a (hopefully) full life. A life outside of what we used to call the merry-go-round, the cycle of addiction where you live to cop illegal drugs and will do absolutely anything to get them.

D made a lot of people "happy" in her short lifetime and that life, more than any other, makes me hope that somehow our essence (soul, if you will) is recycled in the cosmos somewhere.