You were quite right about the photo--I was particularly riveted/revolted by the way his HAND looks. And there, of course, but for the grace of God and the vagaries of brain biochemistry go we.

And, of course, I was equally chagrined by the Danny Kalb interview. Finally, I thought, I'll be able to divine the actual origins of the Blues Project--Kooper, of course, doesn't address any of that in his book, since he wasn't there yet. So I read this thing with great interest. Danny gets together with his neighbor Roy from Mount Vernon. Roy brings along his friend Andy from school. They meet Tommy Flanders. Tom Wilson brings in Al Kooper. Wait a minute--what's missing here? Did Danny forget someone???? (And I don't mean Emmaretta Marks. By the way--shouldn't her name have been Emmaretta Markowitz? Well, I'm just asking.)

So now I have to find the previous issue of Relix to read more about my favorite wacky guy (less prolific than Wilson or Barrett but more interesting.)

Vacation update: Saturday I worked all day and that night played a gig with that band I joined. In Berkeley Heights, New Jersey--which is almost in Ohio apparently. I made $75, and I hope you're not too jealous. We're playing at that same place again on 10/29. It's really pretty embarrassing.

Got home at about 3 AM. Next morning (Sunday) went to visit our friends John & Debbie in Bethlehem PA. (John was the one on the video forgetting the words to Tape From California.) Spent the afternoon at a Hallowe'en parade in which their eldest daughter was marching with a flute. Parades in Eastern Pennsylvania are weird to the point of surreality. They begin with the requisite phalanx of fire engines and ambulances, just like here in the real world--except they trundle down the road at 3 MPH BLARING THEIR HORNS AND SIRENS AT FULL F***ING TILT NONSTOP AND RELENTLESSLY HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF SUCH A THING AND ME HAVING BLASTED MY EARS TO CHOWDER THE NIGHT BEFORE????? Truly unbelievable. Then--little Kate was in the fourth of four marching bands, and apparently the marching bands were all playing songs of similar length and all starting at the same point in the walk and therefore when they got to us NONE OF THEM WERE PLAYING, just marking time on the stupid drums. We never heard a note of music from any of the four bands. OK since I was deaf anyway. But the REALLY interesting part came with the troop of Brownies:

John and Debbie have bristled for quite some time at my characterization of the people that live in their fine state. "Nazis." Really tight-lipped, fascist, clannish, and of course they all look like the f***ing Katzenjammer Kids. (English translation of that name would seem to have something to do with doing damage to someone named Katz--I could be wrong but it fits pretty good.) I've dealt with the people in that corner of the world for almost 20 years now--ever since my sister went to college at a girls-only academy in Allentown, where I used to routinely spend weekends TROLLING FOR THE SMELL OF FEMALE and met nothing but wealthy Nazi-ettes. Yeah, anyway--so here comes the Brownie troop in this parade, and carrying their little banner are two people. One of them a Brownie, no surprise there, and the other a little boy IN A GERMAN ARMY UNIFORM REPLETE WITH JACKBOOTS--was I really seeing this????--the only tasteful omission being the non-appearance of the swastika armband. You would've loved it. I did.

Turns out to have been a real neat place--it took the whole day to shop it. Spent about $200 on a boxful of stuff. Nothing I was actually LOOKING FOR, of course. I have a want list several pages long, and was only able to cross off about three items.

They had extensive "Folk" and "Comedy" sections, unlike most stores of their ilk, and I was certain that I was going to be able to complete my Mort Sahl collection and maybe even finally find the EVEN DOZEN JUG BAND, but nope. I did, however, get a Buddy Hackett LP I'd never even heard of, and several other potential neatnesses: Milt Kamen, London Lee, Jodo "Guts" and Elektra #110: When Dalliance Was In Flower And Maidens Lost Their Heads, by Ed McCurdy, Erik Darling, and Alan Arkin. From the number it seems to be one of the first Elektra releases--in fact they give their address as 116 West 14th Street. No date though. I'll guess about 1956.

Well, no Even Dozen Jug Band, but I did note that the entire sum total of your personal recorded output was there EXCEPT FOR THAT ONE, the only one I don't have.

On the way home we listened to the Peanut Butter Conspiracy, a tape I had serendipitously brought along--I say serendipitously because I had located both their Columbia LPs in the store that afternoon and forced Wayne to purchase them, and he was naturally curious to hear what he had just spent $18 on. Luckily he was not disappointed.

Oh yeah--Princeton is real pretty. Especially in October, apparently.