Saturday night

In 1965 Roy Head’s song “Treat Her Right” was at the top of the charts.
While back-to-back Beatles hits kept Roy Head out of the number one spot, “Treat Her Right” was a worldwide hit.

Archie Bell’s “Tighten Up” topped both the pop and R&B charts in 1968.

On Sept 3rd, 2005 these two musical legends appeared at the Continental Club with The El Orbits as the opener followed by The Allen Oldies Band and then a mix of the members of both served as the house band for Archie Bell and Roy Head.

I didn’t get pics of the El Orbits but here is a great shot of Allen Hill getting goofy with The Allen Oldies Band. All those great 50’s rock and roll songs set the mood for the evening.

That’s Landis Armstrong on the far left, Mikey Trafton on the bass, Allen Hill on vocals, my good friend Jim Henkel playing the sax (that guy can play ANYTHING!), Joe Earthman also on sax and David Schoenbaum playing the Farfisa organ. Invisible behind Allen is the one and only David Bebee on the drums.

Guess what? Allen’s got a fever! And the only prescription..

You guessed it! MORE COWBELL

Before long the stage was reset and the band was in place for Archie Bell.

Notice the very talented Allen Hill has switched to the bass guitar.

He did not disappoint. This Houston native still had a ton of soul and put on a most memorable performance.

His set was followed immediately by Texas’ own Roy Head.

You will note that Jim has moved to the guitar, his primary instrument and it’s none other than the Dazzling Pete Gray playing the piano.

40 years later Roy Head still knows how to put on a show! Incredible energy!

The climax of the evening was when Roy Head and Archie Bell teamed up to sing “Got My Mojo Workin'”.

To top off all the great music there were some good friends in attendance who hung out, shared drinks, sang along, danced and just generally contributed to the good vibe of the evening’s festivities.

And now the obligatory picture of myself and the performers.
I look just a tad insane in this one. I’m just crazy for live music!

From Michael Moore dot com

Friday, September 2nd, 2005
Vacation is Over… an open letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush

Friday, September 2nd, 2005

Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It’s Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren’t there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn’t want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don’t like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don’t let people criticize you for this — after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don’t listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers’ budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn’t cut the money to fix those levees, there weren’t going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them — BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn’t stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It’s not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C’mon, they’re black! I mean, it’s not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don’t make me laugh! Race has nothing — NOTHING — to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.MichaelMoore.com

P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.

Blogging from NOLA

What do you do when you live in New Orleans, have a sattelite link to the Internet and a generator?
Blog it live!

Livejournal user interdictor has been keeping up a web cam and some streaming video (which seem to be down at the time of this writing) and is also posting pictures of the area outside his office window which you can see here.

He is reporting the looting and capturing some of it on video and still cameras. It’s an interesting look inside this tragedy.

Puppets? Or evil on a stick?

Ren Faire rapidly approaches.
My band is playing again this year.
Four shows a day for 8 weekends!

Over the last few years Cynthia has taken to replicating the band in puppet form and putting on shows while we play. Each puppet character is hand made with a hand sewn costume.

This is her from last year with a puppet of herself holding a miniature puppet of me.

This year she has added to her puppet arsenal many supporting characters including members of Istanpitta. EJ the Piper, a devil, an angel and many more on their way. Sometimes, late at night, I can hear them skittering across the hardwood floors laughing and laughing…

Road Trip!

There are maybe 5 or so artists on my “must see at any cost” list.
Right up there at the top is Adrian Belew.

Adrain Belew is a phenomenal guitar player. He has performed with some of my favorite bands and musicians; Frank Zappa, David Bowie, The Talking Heads, King Crimson, The Tom Tom Club, Jean-Michel Jarre, Laurie Anderson and Paul Simon.

I’ve seen him play with King Crimson and with Zappa on the Sheik Yerbouti tour. The last time I saw him was with The Bears at Rockefellers many years ago.

When my band mate and friend Joe told me Adrian had formed the Adrian Belew Trio with Mike Gallaher on bass and Mike Hodges on drums I was quite excited. When we found out he was touring plans were set in motion.

At the time we checked his tour schedule his only date in Texas was at The Granada Theater in Dallas.

Granada Theater

This meant one thing…ROAD TRIP!

Tickets were purchased on line and we got second row center seats. On Sunday Morning Joe and I took off for the show.

The Granada is a great place to see a live show. It’s small, cozy and intimate. Our seats were spectacular.

There was an opening act called Bagg. A local Dallas jam band similar to Moses Guest and Drop Trio here in Houston.

Bagg

They were good. I know they must have been very excited to share that particular stage this night.

But the main attraction was what we were all here to see. It was worth the drive and the wait. Adrian Belew did not disappoint. He played some of his new and older solo work as well as a few very choice King Crimson songs including Three of a Perfect Pair and Thela Hun Ginjeet.

Adrian Belew

After the show Adrian signed autographs, talked to his fans and mugged for the cameras.

Adrian Belew and me

What a great night!

The Five Stages of Properly Pissed

By Bok Tukalo

Stage 1. Cheers!: This is the initial stage where you are out to have a bit of fun and maybe a little mischief. You are enjoying yourself and the world is a plaything; aren’t you the luckiest guy ever, or what? Time to socialize, check out the girls, and laugh at your friends’ wit.

The Knack is probably playing or maybe Beck.

Stage 2. Professor Buzzed: The good cheer is waning and now it is time to stretch your limited intellect and engage in (for you, anyway) deep conversations about things … and stuff. Usually, it is things and stuff you know nothing about or just enough about to sound like a complete ass but does that stop you? No. Not you. You have an opinion and you are going to express it at the very time when you have purposely impared your reasoning capabilities. Odd that alcohol would simultaneously dull your wit and boost your confidence. Perhaps the two are related in some way.

REM or old Dire Straits (Sultans of Swing or Making Movies; not that “Money for Nothing” shit) is playing.

Stage 3. I Love You, Man: You are now unusually fond of everyone. Even those individuals you normally consider to be pricks. You hang on them and incoherently list all the reasons that they are so special to you. If your friends are at any other stage in the properly pissed process, this is when you really start to annoy them; especially Professor Buzzed who is trying to make a point about collective bargaining in a monopolized industry while you have your arm around his neck telling him how cool it was that he didn’t get mad when you fucked his sister. This is also the stage when the designated driver starts thinking that giving up drinking alltogether might not be such a bad idea.

Hank Williams and Marty Robbins are playing and you are looking for the Patsy Cline CD.

Stage 4. Old Yeller: This is when all that fear, anger, jealousy, hurt, humiliation, loss, sadness, loneliness, regret, and all those other emotions real men keep bottled up realizes that the guard took the night off around Stage 3 and bursts out of its jail and grabs the brain reigns. Some exhibit this differently. Alot become destructive and violent. Mindless rage and accusation and frustration. Personally, I get melancholy and sit in a corner, tears in my eyes, telling anyone that will listen about a sweet, innocent little girl I knew in kindergarten that I would hold hands with under the reading table, who by high school had turned to drugs and booze and promiscuity and died in a car crash on the way home from the prom when her drunken boyfriend tried to beat a train to the crossing.

Doesn’t matter what is playing. It means something to you.

Stage 5. Last Call: The Beast has been released. He has done his damage and crawled back into his cell again, spent, and Apathy has taken over. You are incapable of carrying on a conversation now. You understand the words and can form a cogent response, but really, what’s the point? You couldn’t give a rat’s ass if the president of the United States walked up and told you the future of the nation depended on you giving a rat’s ass and pleaded with you to turn over to the proper authorities all your rats’ asses. You see the four aspirin and the bottle of Deja Blue on the nightstand you placed there to blunt the inevitable hangover but cannot muster the concern for your own comfort beyond head-meets-pillow.

Nothing is playing but there is a ringing in your ears and the hated heartbeat is laying down a base line.

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