OLDPAGES 26

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2004

"In October drink new wine and eat minnows and cobblers. Let your diet be rich in fresh meat and wholesome vegetables."

-- Book of Days

Use iron to ward off the Dancing People: iron nails in the cradle will protect the skypilot from substitution for a changeling; a smoothing iron under the bed and a sickle in the window is a sensible precaution for all.

-- Book of SPC lore


MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2004

It's quarter to ten
Ten-four, I said
No, quarter to ten, said she
Ten four oh four,
I said to her
Oh for heaven's sake sighed she
Ten months four days four years
Already this century
Her eyes brilliant October leaves
Changing in her graceful tree

-Airy Ace


Skypilot Ryan Forester is out on the concert trail this summer with friends taking on the job of getting people registered. They are patrolling the parking lots, signing people up. Here's a writeup that's on their website:

DO YOUR PART AND VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Human spirit has been greatly subdued. The American people, for the most part, have become slaves with luxury. At this moment the current administration is doing everything they can to ensure this for the duration of time. People like yourself, parents, and grandparents are so overworked they have no time to take notice or do anything about it. Mainly out of exhaustion and being overwhelmed by Corporate America shoving crap down their throat at every turn. Life being reduced to McMinutes.
I spent the day at an amusement park yesterday. Trying to block out the sad realization that for many of those people, that park may be the highlight of their lives.
People deserve better.

Ironically John Cougars " Ain't that America" played in the background. In my mind the words "I'd rather be a free man in my grave, then living as a puppet or a slave" rang over and over. I looked up and saw an American flag for the enigmatic glorious thing that it is, and not the golden arches it has become.
We have been fortunate to know different in our lives. Now it is time to give back. We can start by voting in this election and getting everyone we know to do so. Many of us are a type of hometown hero, people respecting and looking up to us for what we have done. We need to do something positive with that and reach out for them to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

-- Ryan Forester

To read more about Ryan and his friends
click on:

KIDTOMFOOLERY


WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2004

The Autumnal Equinox in the northern hemisphere, where we go from summer into fall, all aboard, sailing ships leaving port.

The Vernal Equinox in the southern hemisphere, where they go from winter into spring and the waters swirl clockwise down the drain.

We be cutting the wood now. We be getting ready. Temperature be dropping soon. Dig out dem longjohns and mittens. Le's go.


CAJUN BLUES

Somewhere in New Orleans
A bar is shutting down
Dixieland is treading ragtops
Swinging out of town
A bunch of them decided
It's better not to drown
Cause someone's got to live
So they can write it down
The saddest day in history
When Ivan came to town.

New Orleans will get picked up by
the spirit of Satchmo
and drained like spit from a trumpet
for music tells us there is no death
just transition, man, just new songs
emerging from the old ones
carrying the human spirit to new heights

- Airy Ace

 

IVAN THE TERRIBLE
HAS ARRIVED

Pensacola, Florida takes a direct hit. But no word on what happened to the Naval Air Station where I went through flight school. While I was there a hurricane threatened and they flew all the planes, hundreds and hundreds of trainers, to Memphis and everyone had a blast staying there drinking and carousing before they flew the planes back again

 

SKYPILOTS, ARM THYSELVES!

The AirZooka is a fun gun
that shoots a harmless
ball of air up to 40 feet.
The AirZooka operates
simply by pulling back
and releasing a built-in
plastic air launcher. Best
of all, the AirZooka uses
no batteries, so you'll
never run out of ammo.
Imagine blasting the hair
or ruffling the shirt of
someone up to 40 feet
away. Teach the science
of an air vortex to your
class and literally have a
blast doing it.

TO OBTAIN YOUR VERY OWN AIRZOOKA CLICK ON

AIRZOOKA


IVAN THE TERRIBLE

There is some hope:

Ivan's son is a simpleton

Nevertheless,

Ivan: unbelievable disorder and trouble. Seething peasant revolts, mass movements toward evangelical religion, despotic and innovative, sinister and arresting, boundless suspicion, insatiable cruelty and extreme depravity, monastic vows, a broom and a dog's head, destruction of the landed aristocracy, new bureaucracy and new state army, undisciplined exuberance and prodigious drinking bouts, temperance and virtuous living, hopeless confusion.


SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2004

"Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Any More" by John
Prine

While digesting Reader's Digest
In the back of a dirty book store,
A plastic flag, with gum on the back,
Fell out on the floor.
Well, I picked it up and I ran outside
Slapped it on my window shield,
And if I could see old Betsy Ross
I'd tell her how good I feel.

Chorus:
But your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.
They're already overcrowded
From your dirty little war.
Now Jesus don't like killin'
No matter what the reason's for,
And your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.

Well, I went to the bank this morning
And the cashier he said to me,
"If you join the Christmas club
We'll give you ten of them flags for free."
Well, I didn't mess around a bit
I took him up on what he said.
And I stuck them stickers all over my car
And one on my wife's forehead.

Repeat Chorus:

Well, I got my window shield so filled
With flags I couldn't see.
So, I ran the car upside a curb
And right into a tree.
By the time they got a doctor down
I was already dead.
And I'll never understand why the man
Standing in the Pearly Gates said...

"But your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.
We're already overcrowded
From your dirty little war.
Now Jesus don't like killin'
No matter what the reason's for,
And your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more."

 

This song is on the 1971 LP by John Prine, titled "John Prine". Apparently Reader's Digest magazine included the flag decals in their publication back in the late sixties. That's the story, I was too young to read that sort of stuff back then. Actually I read Dr. Seuss and watched Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, and Huckleberry Hound cartoons. And of course Rocky and Bullwinkle.

later
gh

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

While playing Folk clubs in Chicago in the late 1960s, John Prine was discovered by Kris Kristofferson, who helped the singer-songwriter secure his first recording contract. John's debut album electrified the music world in 1971 with such startling songs as "Hello In There," "Sam Stone" and "Illegal Smile." Throughout the 1970s, he became known as a "songwriter's songwriter" with "Dear Abby," "Please Don't Bury Me" and "Christmas In Prison." He has the distinction of creating two genre "standards." In the repertoire of most every Bluegrass band is his strip-mining ballad "Paradise." In the Folk/Blues field, "Angel From Montgomery" is almost as widely known. After moving to Nashville in 1980, John broke ground the following year as the first Music City artist to succeed with his own record label, Oh Boy Records. He earned a Grammy for 1991's Missing Years and was nominated for another with 1999's In Spite of Ourselves.

(from a Nashville website)


WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2004

Back to school, kiddies, back to work, oldfolks, fall is in the air, footballs are flying all over the place, you got your wars, you got your many deaths, you got your apples and plums and tomatos and corn, you got your storms, your floods, your downed trees, you got to get busy and get ready for the next humungous event, if the leaves start to turn then frost cannot be far off, and for the ol' Capn it means knuckling down on this yere novel he's been procrastinating over, it means cutting up all the dead and downed trees for winter firewood, it means making plum jelly and grape juice, it means fixing those leaks in the roof, and it means worst of all I gotta crawl under the house and repair the heating ducts the critturs been tearing open to bask in the hot furnace air while we shiver in our timbers, scratch in our woolies and untangle the knots in our hair.

-- Capn Skyp


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