"I Washed My Hands in the Muddy Water"

Jerry Garcia: August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995

Just Twenty Years Ago -- and Seems Like Forever: The First Website Created

Amazing, given that DITHOB has been hacking away since 2007, roughly 4 years, and the first web page was only established 20 years ago, in 1991, by Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, The Man Who Invented the

World-Wide Web and Created the First Website

And here is what the first website looked like

More here

If Your Memory Serves You Well: HAZMAT MODINE @ The Jewish Museum

Been looking forward to seeing these Bad Boys, Hazmat Modine, and last night, we did, at the closing performance of the Jewish Museum's SummerNights series. Hazmat Modine draws from American music of the 1920s and 30s through the 50s and early 60s, blending elements of early blues, hokum jugband, swing, klezmer, New Orleans R & B and Jamaican rocksteady.

Wade Schuman got things off to a raucous start with his solo blues harmonica. (Bill Barrett, Mr. Schuman's partner in crime on harmonica was not at this show.)  He was shortly joined onstage by the band (Peter Smith, Michael Gomez, guitar, vocals), Steve Elson (saxes, piccolo, Armenian wind instrument), Pamela Fleming (trumpet), Joseph Daley (sousaphone), and Richard Livingston Huntley (drums), and it was a rollicking ride through American roots from there.  Mr. Schuman observed that the band is often tagged as a Jewish/Klezmer group. This was highlighted when an audience member shouted out "What region are you from?" Mr. Schuman replied "New York!" The band worked its way through a number of tunes from the group's second album, Cicada, including "Mocking Bird", "I've Been Lonely for So Long", Irving Berlin's "Walking Stick", among others. While each of the band members contribute to the tight rhythm and blues syncopation, they each had a chance to shine with marvelous solos. There were some great moments, as when Mr. Daley, on sousaphone, who provides a horn bass for the group, there being no string bass player, had a chance to wail, and duet with Mr. Schuman on harmonica. Mr. Gomez and Mr. Smith each had the opportuunity to cut loose on guitar, and there was a marvelous face off between Mr. Smith and Ms. Fleming on trumpet. Mr. Huntley kicked out the jams to a, frankly, wildly receptive audience at the Jewish Museum. It was delightful.

Wade Schuman on harmonica @ Jewish Museum

Left to right:

Peter Smith, Michael Gomez, Joseph Daley (rear: Richard Livingston Huntley),

Wade Schuman (rear: Pamela Fleming) and Steve Elson

Photos by Anthony M. Napoli 2011

We had a chance to say hello to Mr. Smith after the show, (and buy a copy of CICADA)  and he seemed as delighted as we in the audience were with this concluding show of Hazmat Modine's summer tour. It occurred to this listener that, in the category of American roots bands, you have, say "The Band" with that lighter, more country and perhaps more Canadian-influenced vibe, say more of the wolf. And then there is Hamzat Modine which is a tad darker, perhaps more of an Eastern European thread, more of the bear, and a broader, world music palette, which may be the source of the group's "klezmerish" association.  But that same darkness offers a very rich and complex tonality, American blues and roots music, forged at midnight, say, at the  crossroads.
--Anthony Napoli @ Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

Cicada, their new CD

"One of New York’s most original bands, HAZMAT MODINE delivers a rustic, deliriously Dionysian blend of whorehouse Blues, Reggae, Klezmer, Country and Gypsy-tinged music. ” ~ Alan Young, Trifecta, NYC"

Hazmat Modine's website here

The Jewish Museum here

Info on the group's CDs here

+972: Independent Voices and Images

+972mag.com is an Internet magazine providing "independent reporting from Israel and the Palestinian territories." Lots of interesting, ennobling, troubling, complex and penetrating reporting from an independent perspectives n what it's like in Israel Now.

In today's NY Times, an interesting OP-ED article on the economic protests in Israel, "In Israel, the Rent is Too Damn High" by Dimi Reider, an Israeli journalist and photographer, and Aziz Abu Sarah, a Palestinian columnist with the newspaper Al Quds, who are both contributors to +972mag.com . Many interesting articles, soul searching, discussion and debate (as well as rants from all sides in the comments section of various posted articles.)

As just one example, an interesting item, which demonstrates how Everything is Political, an article by Ami Kauffman that concerns Paul Simon's recent concert in Israel. The article is very warm and appreciative. However, in the comments following the article, an explosion of debate, mostly it seems from non-Israeli leftists. It includes a bit of video of Paul Simon, from the conclusion of the concert.

Remember Fukushima? Still There, Still Leakin'

Let's see, it's tough getting our Crises straight these days. Oh, yeah, remember the Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan earlier this year? And the triple play nuclear-plant accident that followed?

Well, officials at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, severely damaged by March's earthquake and tsunami, are now reporting the most dangerous conditions ever recorded at the facility. Pockets of extremely high radiation were discovered near a ventilation chimney between two of the plant's nuclear reactors. Officials with the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) believe the culprit is debris left behind from emergency venting procedures that were followed after the March 11 disaster.

More here

Pro Publica: The US Economy Keeps Slip Slidin' Away

Investigative journalism site Pro Publica's Braden Goyette dares to look at the car wreck that is the American economy at the moment, and you just can't look away:

•Growth in number of unemployed people  since March 2011: 545,000


•Number of long-term unemployed people  in June 2011: 6.3 million, or 44.4 percent of the unemployed

•Pace at which jobs were added throughout the late 1990s : 350,00 per month

•Jobs that were added in June : 18,000

•Jobs the U.S. needs to create to 5 percent unemployment rate : 6.8 million, as of January 2011

•Years it will take to get back to an unemployment rate of 5 percent :four years if we're adding jobs at 350,000 per month; 11 years if we're adding jobs at the 2005 rate of 210,000 per month

More details here

DITHOB: OK, so businesses, despite the money cushion provided by the bailout, don't want to hire, because "consumers" aren't spending money, and consumers aren't spending money because the economy is bad; and corporations want the government to cut taxes, so the dwindling number of people who are worknig can theoretically pay less taxes (although the richest folks don't pay taxes at all) and at the same time, the government should reduce budgets and not spend more money for social welfare, health benefits, unemployment, social security, etc., but then those folks won't have any money to spend either, and then the folks who are working, become extremely; cautions with their money and don't spend it either, and the economy doesn't expand, so businesses don't want to hire....around and around and around we go.

Safety net? Social Contract? Civil unrest?

-DITHOB

Blues for a Summer Monday, Post-Debt Crisis Edition (Sort of)

Eric Clapton in Montreaux 1986

On the Writing of Badge: "George Harrison remembered the story differently: "I helped Eric write 'Badge' you know. Each of them had to come up with a song for that Goodbye Cream album and Eric didn't have his written. We were working across from each other and I was writing the lyrics down and we came to the middle part so I wrote 'Bridge.' Eric read it upside down and cracked up laughing-- 'What's BADGE?' he said. After that, Ringo walked in drunk and gave us that line about the swans living in the park."

"A common legend or misconception is that the name came about because its chord progression is B-A-D-G-E (it is not), or simply because an anagram of a guitar's standard tuning (E-A-D-G-B-E) can be arranged to spell "Badge"."  More here:"BADGE"

The Shoemaker with Danny Aiello: The "Heeling" Arts

The Shoemaker, a play in two acts by Susan Charlotte at the Cause Celebre in the Acorn Theater on Theater Row, stars Danny Aiello and is an ambitious and extremely striving piece of theater art, seeking to mine and intertwine deep emotions and powerful threads of history and contemporary memory. It may fall a little short in its reach but it certainly can't be faulted for trying.Theater needs more original works and especially those that feature actors not regularly appearing in the NY theater scene. And when that actor is Danny Aiello, full of authentic passion and gruff personality, who has the courage as an actor to reach out, even at the risk of not quite grasping the gold ring,  it is even more rewarding. The fact that Mr. Aiello,at  78, gives a strong performance, all storms and shouts and whispers and tears,  through Ms. Charlotte's play (which itself attempts to weave, perhaps a little too preciously,  9/11 and the  Holocaust into a complicated tale), is amazing inasmuch as Mr. Aiello's authenticity and sincere Italian-American soul seems to cast just the right magical spell needed to untangle the play's gordian knot. When you get down to the heart of the matter, it is Giuseppi, the Italian Jewish shoemaker in Hell's Kitchen ,who strives to "heal" as he heels, ministering to the needs, both in terms of footwear and life's mysteries and conundrums, of his family and customers, while never quite finding solace in his own life.

In the end, I kept thinking of that line from Bob Dylan's "I and I" from the album INFIDELS: "I make shoes, for everyone, even you, and I still go barefoot." The Shoemaker, directed by Antony Marsellis, with Lucy DeVito and Alma Cuevo, and starring Mr. Aiello, is in an extremely limited engagement through August 14.  

-- Tony Napoli - Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

Signs of Life? Congress Switchboard Flooded by Calls

The Washington Post reports that the main switchboard in Congress is close to crashing due to the volume of calls following the Presdient and Speaker of the House's statements to the American people on the budget impasse last night. Details here

The individual switchboards of numerous members of Congress did in fact crash last night followign the President's speech. Details here

A Leadership Crisis or an Unsolvable Economic Crisis? Either Way, New Poll Shows 44 Base Crumbling

The political impasse in Washington, DC was never more clear than in the back to back statements by President Obama and Speaker of the House Boehner. It may well be that more centrist Democrats and Republicans could find common ground except for the GOP's Tea Party-elected candidates who have drawn the line at any tax increases. While it may be an economic crisis that is ungovernable, or a perfect storm of economic and political crises, the perception continues that their is a leadership crisis and that President Obama is unable to get  plus political  Now Andrew Malcolm in the LA Times reports that the President's Democratic Liberal base has crumbled. It would appear this has resulted from disaffection over the administration's failure to create jobs and the hundreds of billions given to corporations as part of the financial bail out that haven't delivered any results except for executives at the highest levels. More from Malcolm and the Pew Research Poll here  Left stalwarts such as Sen. Bernie Sanders from Vermont are calling for the President to stand for a primary challenge: "I think it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition."


"This is political treason 469 days before a presidential election. Yes, yes, this is just a crusty old New England independent for now, albeit one who caucuses loyally with Harry Reid's Democratic posse.

"But while most of the media focuses on Republican Boehner and the tea party pressures on him to raise the debt limit not one Liberty dime, Sanders' mumblings are a useful reminder that hidden in the shadows of this left-handed presidency are militant progressives like Sanders who don't want to cut one Liberty dime of non-Pentagon spending.

Closely read the transcript of Obama's Monday statement on the debt talks stalemate. The full transcript is right here. And the full transcript of Boehner's response is right here.

And then there is the lament of many New Yorkers, who supported their Senator, and then remained loyal to the party in the general election. There is still Hope for Change and that 44, working behind the scenes, will yet pull a rabbit out of the hat, but still, some New Yorkers wonder on what coulda been:

SummerNights at the Jewish Museum Rolls On: Slavic Soul Party!, and This Week, Michael WinogradTrio

Slavic Soul Party! at SummerNights at the Jewish Museum

Photo by Tony Napoli

The SummerNights music festival at The Jewish Museum continued to roll along with the Slavic Soul Party! last Thursday. Balkan Funk n Roll, Romany melodies and soulful Eastern European threnodies for lost worlds, Slavic Soul Party! stands its ground against the tyranny of the modernity, and delves back into the Macedonian and Carpathian past and then explores how those tunes have evolved in the context of the original cultures that created them. We picked up their excellent CD, TAKETRON, and look forward to seeing the guys again at their "Tuesday night forever" gig at Barbes on 9th street and 5th avenue in Brooklyn.

More on Slavic Soul Party! here

Next up -- Thursday, July 28, the Michael Winograd Trio, exploring Yidish music with new compositions. SummeNights is never a disappointment and some tickets are still avaialble for the Trio's performance this Thursday. More info here

A sidebar: More an observation than a comment. Although the performers tend to be exciting and extraordinarily talented younger artists re-examining Eastern European roots music in all its forms, variations and possibilities, the audiences at SummerNights, while very appreciative and receptive, appear to be Jewish Museum members who are predominently middle-aged and older. The performers seem a tad disappointed that the audiences don't get up and shake a leg during the shows. Since it is a proscenium theater-type venue, short of adding a mosh pit and inviting standees, the audience will continue to tap and headshake and groove from a seated position. It might be up to the Jewish Museum to attempt to attract a younger crowd or have the show less like a formal concert than an event with music (say the way that the Brooklyn Museum features music on First Saturday, where there is an opportunity to both sit and listen or stand/dance/groove). Otherwise, since form dictates function, it is likely that SummerNights audiences will continue to love the music, but do so seated, polite, and formal. But for music fans of all ages, this is a series worth checking out!

Wild Man Fischer: November 6, 1944 - June 16, 2011 ("Boop-boop-boop-boop")

Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn belatedly acknowledges and notes the passing of Larry Wayne "Wild Man" Fischer, a protege of Frank Zappa, who pioneered an "Outsider" muscial realm. Fischer died last month in Los Angeles of heart problems. A street musician in the literal term, he would wander LA singing his unique, self-penned tunes for a dime, until he was discovered and recorded by Frank Zappa for Bizarre Records.

"Merry Go Round" remains an impossible to forget favorite. More on Mr, Fischer here

Variety obit  here

Chillin; - Flatbush, January 2011

photos by Tony Napoli

New York Media Ephemera: Inside City Hall and the Political Rundown

We live in South Brooklyn, of course, so we get Cablevision, which means that NY1, Time Warner's flagship 24 hour local news station, is on Channel 8 (there is no Channel 1 on Cablevision.)  Anyway, one of the more delightful aspects of NY1 is the evening Inside City Hall program (aka Road to City Hall during election season) with Errol Louis, who has added a lot of style, panache and critical analysis to New Yorkers' evening news habits. If you are a New Yorker, despite its occasional foible and stumbles, NY1 remains a major part of your TV viewing diet in keeping up with the 24 hour news cycle.

And, of course, Inside City Hall, every Wednesday night, features the Political Rundown where "two very opinionated people" give their take on the news of the day in one minute segments. Gerson Borrero of El Diario, also a news analyst for NY1, and Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels, who also co-hosts with Borrero,  a daily radio program, mix it up, with a lot of camp and theater, roughly, but not always, adhering to a liberal versus conservative stance. Last night, in one sequence commenting on the Rupert Murdoch testimony in the UK on the phone hacking story, Sliwa hit himself with a cream pie. In reviewing the clip on the NY1 website, in viewing it to the end, there is an outtake which took me by surprise (thank you,Johnny Thunders, for the headsup).. You can see the clip here, the outtake is at the end.

Haven't re-watched the whole clip, but when Sliwa threw the pie during the earlier broadcast, host Louis, in surprise, exclaimed "Jesus Christ!" A decision may have been made to replace a portion of the tape with the outtake to clean up the language for the otherwise unflappable host. Hard to tell -- it sounds like the exclamation, at the very least, was toned down in the edit. That's not the most interesting point, though --  What was most notable for this viewer was to realize,  in the outtake, how produced the show actually is, although it presents the versimilitude of being a live, unreheased program. New York and our media - ya gotta love it.

Tom Morrow's This Modern World: Debt Crisis on Planet Glox

Link here