my mental collection of 18-wheeler mudflaps, all dogs, crumbling and rusted industrial vistas, dirt, drinking in cruddy bars in the daytime, Noxema, sleeping pills, Pocky, nickels, alley-picking, dumpster-diving, salt, pepper, snow
Music
Blue Shadows, The Cowsills, Mitty Collier, Mary Margaret O'Hara, that sexy old boullion cube Will Oldham, Fleet Foxes, Tammy Wynette, Ivie Anderson, The Spaniels, Johnny Adams, Charlie and Margaret Ann Rich, The Band, Edgar Meyer, Oscar Brown Jr., Bobby Darin, Lowell George, Ronnie Tutt, Vic Chesnutt, Duke Ellington, Venom, Dave Frishberg, The Platters, Scott and Chris Ligon, Fran Landesman, Georgie Fame, Rose Murphy the Chee-Chee Girl, Jackie Wilson, Scott Walker, The Minutemen, Andy Bey and the Bey Sisters, Stuff Smith, Blossom Dearie, The Everly Brothers, Sam Cooke, Bob Dorough, Walter Jackson, Lonnie Mack's Memphis Wham, Johnny Frigo, Sheila Jordan, Vernon Oxford, Nick Lowe, Harry Nilsson, The Chowder Shouters, Randy Newman, Peter "Snake Hips" Dean, Hazel Dickens, Johnny Costa, Annie Ross, Glyn Styler, Spanky and Our Gang -- that's right, I said Spanky and Our Gang.
Movies
anything with Edgar Kennedy or William Powell, or Alfred Molina for that matter, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Miller's Crossing, Fat City, The Thin Man, Paper Moon, The (original) In-Laws, The (original) Bad News Bears, Smokey and The Bandit or Overboard or Little Darlings when I'm hungover, Rushmore, Bubble, Naked, God of Cookery, Tomorrow, Harold and Maude, Diva, Broadcast News, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, The Killing, The (original) Haunting, Elvis: That's the Way It Is, Plague Dogs, Coal Miner's Daughter, Auntie Mame, Titticut Follies, Beyond the Sea, The (original) Vanishing, Carnival of Souls, Off the Charts, Lipstick and Dynamite: the First Ladies of Wrestling, Wattstax, Freeway, Gone With the Wind, A Woman Under the Influence, Raising Arizona, Old Yeller, Small Town Gay Bar, Harlan County USA, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Television
that Craig Ferguson, documentaries about hot dogs, King of the Hill, Project Runway, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Freaks and Geeks, Match Game, Squidbillies, Deadwood, Supernanny, ANTM, Flight of the Conchords, and that late-night law-enforcement training commercial where the guy is practicing saying "YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT!!!" in the shower.
Books
George Saunders, Jack Pendarvis, Lynda Barry, Dorothy Parker, Fran Lebowitz, Louise Bogan, Charles Portis, Stevie Smith, Joseph Mitchell, Barbara Holland, Mike Royko, Nelson Algren, Damon Runyon, Robert Benchley, Edna Ferber, Shirley Jackson, Jim Harrison, Pete Dexter, John Irving, Barry Hannah, E.L. Doctorow, Jane and Michael Stern, Ruth Reichl, Richard Scarry, Peg Bracken Hates to Cook, Marilynne Robinson, Rivethead, CANNERY ROW xoxoxo
Heroes
Augie also beautiful Bill Hicks, Edith Bunker, Arthur Ganson, Stymie, Mom
Photos from Sunday nights excellent gig at Sage Gateshead (UK); featuring Neko Case, Kelly Hogan and Jon Rauhouse are available on my website www.harra.fotopic.net hi-vis versions available too
hi kelly! i got a chance to see you and neko in philly, july 29th, at the kimmel center. you guys were awesome!! hope to see you again soon!!! have fun touring!
Death is nothing at all I have only slipped away into the next room I am I and you are you Whatever we were to each other That we are still Call me by my old familiar name Speak to me in the easy way you always used Put no difference into your tone Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow Play, smile, think of me Let my name be ever the household word that it always was Let it be spoken without effort Without the ghost of a shadow in it Life means all that it ever meant It is the same as it ever was There is absolute unbroken continuity What is death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind Because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you for an interval Somewhere very near Just around the corner All is well. --------- Terribly sorry to hear of this, Hogie. You have my deepest, you know that.
I just loved Mrs. Augie so much as did everyone who came in contact with her.I will smile all day and on just thinking about her strong independant spirit. You were so lucky to be her familiar. I will be thinking of you too. Always do.
God turns clouds inside out to make fluffy beds for the dogs in Dog Heaven, and when they are tired from running and barking and eating ham-sandwich biscuits, the dogs find a cloud bed for sleeping. God watches over each one of them. And there are no bad dreams.
I'm so sorry about Augie. Neko announced from the Winnipeg stage that you had a death in the family and, from the past couple times I saw him on stage with you, I was afraid that was it. I fondly remember his "performance" of the dog on the Schubas stage during the Love Hall Tryst tour.
As a general rule I'm not partial to dogs, but THAT dog . . . I liked. Augie had a crazy charisma thang that charmed a roomful of people at the Turf Club several moons ago. I'm really sorry for your loss.
Ah, ARS...my very first concert ever was an ARS show, way, waaaaaaaay back, in another universe (the universe called "the late seventies"). It was at the old Pensacola Bayfront Auditorium, actually, which sadly no longer exists. Hank Williams Sr. played there once. And yet they tore it down. I tell ya, there oughta be a law (and someone should be shot, ta boot).
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