I woke up today in a funky kind of mood. Funky in a good way. It's my Tuesday and about the LAST thing I want to do today is spend the night at work, but I gotta do what I gotta do. So....I'll kick my day off with a way cool tune done by one of the most talented tenor sax men I've had the pleasure of hearing. Eddie Harris does a lot of cool, funky stuff and he's at his best when he's jammin' with his old friend Les McCann on keyboards. This tune was recorded a few years back in a funky jazz club somewhere in NYC. My friend Lucy, from Try'n Not To Come Undone could probably tell me which club it is, at least approximately. Me, I'm not sure. But I do love the tune and it fits perfectly with how I feel today. Enjoy!

Meatball Pizza

Unusual and uncompromising. You're usually the first to discover a new trend. You appreciate a good meal and good company. You're an interesting blend of traditional and modern.

    I'm not quite sure why, but for some inexplainable reason my thoughts have drifted back to years passed when I was playing my music with my blues brother Jerry. I suspect he's most likely moved on to his next lifetime. Usually when someone visits me in my dreams in the way he did today I have to assume it's meant as a "see ya on down the line" kind of thing.
    I'm not really sad. I'll see him again one day on the Hitchcock Railway and maybe, just maybe, we'll play some tunes together once again. Until then I'm left with the fascinating realization that magic and music share many wondrous qualities and that magicians and musicians function much the same.
    Those who saw us play would often comment on how incredibly sad Jerry seemed to be when he played. And how angry I seemed to be when I played. At first the comments puzzled me. Whatever emotions I felt when I played, it surely wasn't anger, any more than Jerry felt sad. We were, I think, simply lost somewhere in the music. Swept up in a giant wave of sight and sound and magic, we were like like servants freed from indenture.
    Over time I began to realize we weren't alone in this amazing discovery deep in our souls. I feel the magic in the music of many. And I'm sure one day I'll board the Hitchcock Railway and find my old friend seated in the coach car quietly strumming his Strat, wearing his Foster Grants and smiling. . . . . a sad smile to be sure.

It's been a long, hard night in the foundry and I'm too tired to sleep, so I've been surfing around the Stream catching up with all my friends. Chanda's post about "missing limbs" (as in body parts, not trees) brought back memories of my time working on the road. Those of you who read my blog in the past might remember me telling about the wacky and weird pranks me and my old friend, Oklahoma Earl used to delight in perpetrating on whatever unsuspecting soul we came across.
One of those lucky individuals was a project superintendent named Dan Ireland. Dan was, I swear to the gods, born with absolutely NO sense of humor. I don't think I ever saw the poor bastard so much as crack a smile the entire time we worked for him.
He was in charge of a machine installation we were doing in a meat processing plant in the midwest. I wasn't real fond of the work environment. Being surrounded by dead animals in various stages of disassembly is downright depressing. Despite that, Earl and I couldn't help letting our collective imagination run a bit rampant.
One hot summer afternoon as we were preparing to start up the machine we'd just finished installing, Earl gave me a nudge. "Hey Capt'n! Look what I found down on the cutting floor!" I turned around to see him holding a bull penis in his hands. Now I'm not one who's easily shocked but I've gotta tell ya that damn near blew my mind. "Jeez Earl! What in the hell are you DOIN?"
About that time Dan, the humorless superintendent appeared in the doorway across from where we were working. Earl turned around, stuffed the penis in his coveralls with a good portion of it protruding out in plain view. The expression on Dan's face was TRULY priceless. "Put that damn thing back in your pants!" He screamed.
Earl looked him right in the face and without a hint of a grin responded. "Well piss on you, Dan! If I can't wave it around I'll just cut it off!" With that he reached down, opened his buck knife and sliced the end off the penis.
Dan NEVER admitted it, but if I were a betting man, I'd bet next month's mortgage payment he shit his pants.