Clowns . . .

)(from http://www.ranker.com/list/list-of-famous-clowns/reference?var=4&utm_expid=16418821-179.vk2gM_coRrOMcxn9T2riGQ.3&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F)
Emmett Kelly
Emmett Leo Kelly was an American circus performer, who created the memorable clown figure "Weary Willie", based on the hobos of the Depression era. . .
Age: Died at 81 (1898-1979)
Birthplace: USA, Sedan, Kansas
Profession: Actor, Clown
Credits: The Greatest Show on Earth, Wind Across the Everglades

Red Skelton
Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton was an American entertainer best known for his national radio and television acts between 1937 and 1971 and as host of the television program The Red Skelton Show. Skelton, who has stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in radio and television . . .
Age: Died at 84 (1913-1997)
Birthplace: Vincennes, Indiana, United States of America
Profession: Comedian, Television producer, Screenwriter, Radio personality, Actor + 2 more
Credits: Rudolph's Shiny New Year, Around the World in 80 Days, The Red Skelton Show, Ocean's 11, Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines + 36 more

Soupy Sales
Soupy Sales was an American comedian, actor, radio-TV personality and host, and jazz aficionado. He was best known for his local and network children's television show, Lunch with Soupy Sales; a series of comedy sketches frequently ending with Sales receiving a pie in the face, which became his trademark . . .
Age: Died at 83 (1926-2009)
Birthplace: USA, North Carolina, Franklinton
Profession: Comedian, Actor, Presenter
Credits: Holy Man, The Making of '...And God Spoke', Angels with Angles, Black Scorpion Returns, Birds Do It

Grock
Grock, born Charles Adrien Wettach, was a Swiss clown, composer and musician. Called "the king of clowns" and "the greatest of Europe's clowns", Grock was once the most highly paid entertainer in the world. . .
ABOUT
Age: Died at 79 (1880-1959)
Birthplace: Loveresse, Switzerland
Profession: Clown
Credits: Goodbye Mr. Grock

Bob Keeshan
Robert James "Bob" Keeshan was an American television producer and actor. He is most notable as the title character of the children's television program Captain Kangaroo, which became an icon for millions of people during its 30-year run from 1955 to 1984. Keeshan also played the original "Clarabell the clown . . .
Age: Died at 77 (1927-2004)
Birthplace: USA, New York, Lynbrook
Profession: Television producer, Actor
Credits: Captain Kangaroo, The Stupids, Howdy Doody, CBS Storybreak

--------------------------- and ------------------------
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump, Sr. is an American businessman, politician, television personality, and candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 2016 election.  Funniest and best known show . . . running for the Presidency of the United States of American in 2016
Born: June 14, 1946 (age 69), Queens, New York City, NY
Spouse: Melania Trump (m. 2005), Marla Maples (m. 1993–1999), Ivana Trump (m. 1977–1992)
Children: Ivanka Trump, Tiffany Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Barron Trump
Education: Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (1968), More
TV shows: The Apprentice, The Ultimate Merger, More

(source:  Wikipedia)

Clown
solo piano idea for further development (by Ray Jozwiak)




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http://www.ohomusic.com 

Get your copy of OHO's  Where Words Do Not Reach now!

The Ocean City Ditty Video is now on YouTube

My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak

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No Pain . . .

 . . . please. . .

Like a rousing, intellectually stimulating conversation, thoughts (like mine right now) shift from one topic to another, not always related, and many times without any logical connecting thread.

Suffice to say, I have suffered some back pain and have recently learned of back pain being suffered by friends and relations, some relieved and some not.

But 'Pain' is also a word in the title 'Pain and Gain' which is a movie released in 2013 based upon a series of articles and, now I have learned is also a book written by one victim (not related to the making other motion picture) of the horrible crimes portrayed in the movie which by the ways features one of my favorite actors Tony Shaloub. This film, like others I have viewed, is somewhat disturbing, especially when you consider it is based (loosely, some say) upon fact and makes me well appreciate that I live a relatively mundane life when compared and well intend to keep it that way.

Following this?  The  gain part (see, I told you many times without any logical connecting thread) is what I get from making music. As discussed recently with Oho band-mates, the gain realized from making original music is not necessarily monetary but is very personal and very . . . spiritual (for present lack of a better description).

Which leads me to tell you what's going on-

Monday, June 23, 2014
at 7:15PM Ray Jozwiak-Gonzo Piano Opens This Week's Brewer's Alley Songwriters' Showcase, Monday @ Brewer's Alley Restaurant
124 North Market Street, Frederick, MD 21701 (United States) -
(301) 631-0089


Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Jay Graboski of OHO Live at Johnny's Pizza & Pub in Ocean City, MD @ Johnny's Pizza & Pub
5601 Coastal Highway, Ocean City, MD 21842 (United States) -
410-524-7499     Set: 10:00 PM


Saturday, July 26, 2014
Warrens Park Annual Block Party @ Warrens Park
5101 Coastal Highway, Ocean City, MD 21842 (United States) -
    Set: 4:00 PM

   
Friday, August 15, 2014
OHO Live at Johnny's Pizza & Pub in Ocean City, MD @ Johnny's Pizza & Pub
5601 Coastal Highway, Ocean City, MD 21842 (United States) -
410-524-7499     Set: 10:00 PM
   

Saturday, September 13, 2014
OHO Live at Johnny's Pizza & Pub in Ocean City, MD @ Johnny's Pizza & Pub
5601 Coastal Highway, Ocean City, MD 21842 (United States) -
410-524-7499     Set: 10:00 PM


Sunday, September 21, 2014
Sippin' Sunday at Elk Run Vineyard with OHO @ Elk Run Vineyard
15113 Liberty Road, Mt. Airy, MD 21771 (United States) -
410-775-2513     Set: 3:00 PM

What do you think?
Tell me at
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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD)

My latest solo release, '2014', can be downloaded digitally at:

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Never Pleasant . . .

. . . to hear of an untimely death. . .

(from wikipedia.com)
The New York Times described (Philip Seymour) Hoffman as "a stocky, often sleepy-looking man with blond, generally uncombed hair who favored the rumpled clothes more associated with an out-of-work actor than a star." Hoffman "frequently dyed his hair and lost or gained weight for parts" and "was known for a sometimes painful dedication to his craft." In a 2006 interview with 60 Minutes, Hoffman revealed that he had suffered from drug and alcohol abuse after graduating from college, and went to rehab for drug and alcohol addiction, recovering at age 22. He said he had abused "anything I could get my hands on. I liked it all." Hoffman relapsed over 20 years later, checking into a rehabilitation program for about 10 days in May 2013 because of problems with prescription pills and heroin.

On February 2, 2014, Hoffman was found dead by his friend, playwright David Bar Katz, in the bathroom of Hoffman's West Village, Manhattan office apartment. According to the New York City Police Department, the death appeared to be drug-related.

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My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
can be downloaded digitally at:

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your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak3)

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More. . .

. . . or LESS than meets the eye. . .

(more from Christopher Hitchens circa 1998 http://www.american-buddha.com/material.high.htm)
". . .The Dalai Lama has come out in support of the thermonuclear tests recently conducted by the Indian state, and has done so in the very language of the chauvinist parties who now control that state's affairs. The "developed" countries, he says, must realize that India is a major contender and should not concern themselves with its internal affairs. This is a perfectly realpolitik statement, so crass and banal and opportunist that it would not deserve any comment if it came from another source.

"Think different," says the ungrammatical Apple Computer advertisement that features the serene visage of His Holiness. Among the untested assumptions of this billboard campaign is the widely and lazily held belief that "Oriental" religion is different from other faiths: less dogmatic, more contemplative, more ... transcendental. This blissful, thoughtless exceptionalism has been conveyed to the West through a succession of mediums and narratives, ranging from the pulp novel "Lost Horizon," by James Hilton (creator of Mr. Chips as well as Shangri-La), to the memoir "Seven Years in Tibet," by SS veteran Heinrich Harrer, prettified for the screen by Brad Pitt. China's foul conduct in an occupied land, combined with a Hollywood cult that almost exceeds the power of Scientology, has fused with weightless Maharishi and Bhagwan-type babble to create an image of an idealized Tibet and of a saintly god-king. So perhaps the Apple injunction to think differently is worth heeding.

The greatest triumph that modern PR can offer is the transcendent success of having your words and actions judged by your reputation, rather than the other way about. The "spiritual leader" of Tibet has enjoyed this unassailable status for some time now, becoming a byword and synonym for saintly and ethereal values. Why this doesn't put people on their guard I'll never know. But here are some other facts about the serene leader that, dwarfed as they are by his endorsement of nuclear weapons, are still worth knowing and still generally unknown.

Shoko Asahara, leader of the Supreme Truth cult in Japan and spreader of sarin nerve gas on the Tokyo subway, donated 45 million rupees, or about 170 million yen (about $1.2 million), to the Dalai Lama and was rewarded for his efforts by several high-level meetings with the divine one.

Steven Seagal, the robotic and moronic "actor" who gave us "Hard to Kill" and "Under Siege," has been proclaimed a reincarnated lama and a sacred vessel or "tulku" of Tibetan Buddhism. This decision, ratified by Penor Rinpoche, supreme head of the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, was initially received with incredulity by Richard Gere, who had hitherto believed himself to be the superstar most favored. "If someone's a tulku, that's great," he was quoted as saying. "But no one knows if that's true." How insightful, if only accidentally. At a subsequent Los Angeles appearance by the Dalai Lama, Seagal was seated in the front row and Gere two rows back, thus giving the latter's humility and submissiveness a day at the races. Suggestions that Seagal's fortune helped elevate him to the Himalayan status of tulku are not completely discounted even by some adepts and initiates.

Supporters of the Dorge Shugden deity -- a "Dharma protector" and an ancient object of worship and propitiation in Tibet -- have been threatened with violence and ostracism and even death following the Dalai Lama's abrupt prohibition of this once-venerated godhead. A Swiss television documentary graphically intercuts footage of His Holiness, denying all knowledge of menace and intimidation, with scenes of his followers' enthusiastically promulgating "Wanted" posters and other paraphernalia of excommunication and persecution.

While he denies being a Buddhist "Pope," the Dalai Lama is never happier than when brooding in a celibate manner on the sex lives of people he has never met. "Sexual misconduct for men and women consists of oral and anal sex," he has repeatedly said in promoting his book on these matters. "Using one's hand, that is sexual misconduct." But, as ever with religious stipulations, there is a nutty escape clause. "To have sexual relations with a prostitute paid by you and not by a third person does not constitute improper behavior." Not all of this can have been said just to placate Richard Gere, or to attract the royalties from "Pretty Woman."

I have talked to a few Dorge Shugden adherents, who seem sincere enough and who certainly seem frightened enough, but I can't go along with their insistence on the "irony" of all this. Buddhism can be as hysterical and sanguinary as any other system that relies on faith and tribe. Lon Nol's Cambodian army was Buddhist at least in name. Solomon Bandaranaike, first elected leader of independent Sri Lanka, was assassinated by a Buddhist militant. It was Buddhist-led pogroms against the Tamils that opened the long and disastrous communal war that ruins Sri Lanka to this day. The gorgeously named SLORC, the military fascism that runs Burma, does so nominally as a Buddhist junta. I have even heard it whispered that in old Tibet, that pristine and contemplative land, the lamas were the allies of feudalism and unsmilingly inflicted medieval punishments such as blinding and flogging unto death.

Yet the entire Western mass media is uncritically at the service of a mere mortal who, at the very least, proclaims the utter nonsense of reincarnation and who affirms the sinister if not indeed crazy belief that death is but a stage in a grand cycle of what appears to be futility and subjection. What need, then, to worry about nuclear weaponry, or sectarian frenzy, or the sale of indulgences to men of the stamp of Steven Seagal? "Harmony" will doubtless kick in. During his visit to Beijing, our sentimental Baptist hypocrite of a president turned to his dictator host, recommended that he meet with the Dalai Lama and assured him that the two of them would get on well. That might easily turn out to be the case. Both are very much creatures of the material world. . . "

What do you think?
Tell me at  
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak3)

Also, be sure to visit:
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Holy. . .

. . . cow. . . 

(from wikipedia.com)
". . . Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner (generally known as Marjoe Gortner; born 14 January 1944 in Long Beach, California) is a former revivalist and actor who first gained attention during the late 1940s when, aged four, he became the youngest-known ordained preacher. He then gained notoriety in the 1970s when he starred in Marjoe, an Oscar-winning behind-the-scenes documentary about the lucrative business of Pentecostal preaching. The name "Marjoe" is a portmanteau of the biblical names "Mary" and "Joseph".

When Gortner was five, his father, Vernon, a third-generation[clarification needed] minister, noticed his son's talent for mimicry and his fearlessness of strangers and public settings. His parents claimed he had received a vision from God during a bath, but this was later conceded by Marjoe to be a lie his parents forced him to repeat. He claimed they enforced this by mock-drowning him because they could not beat him which would leave bruises which might be noticed during his many public appearances. They began training him to deliver sermons, complete with dramatic gestures and emphatic lunges. By the time he was four, his parents arranged for him to perform a marriage ceremony for a film crew from Paramount studios and referred to him as "the youngest ordained minister in history". It is not clear, however, who ordained him or if he was even ordained at all.

Until his teenage years, Gortner and his parents traveled the United States holding revival meetings. As well as teaching him scriptural passages, his parents also taught him several money-making tactics involving the sale of supposedly "holy" articles at revivals which promised to heal the sick and dying. By the time he was sixteen, his family had amassed what he later estimated to be three million dollars. Shortly after Gortner's sixteenth birthday, his father absconded with the money and a disillusioned Marjoe left his mother for San Francisco.[citation needed] He spent the remainder of his teenage years as an itinerant hippie until his early twenties, when, hard-pressed for money, he decided to put his old skills to work and re-emerged on the preaching circuit with a charismatic stage-show modeled after those of contemporary rockers, most notably Mick Jagger. He made enough to take six months off every year, during which he returned to California and lived off the previous six months' earnings.

In the late 1960s, Gortner suffered a crisis of conscience about his double life and felt his performing talents might be put to better use as an actor or singer. . . "

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newest release:
AMBIENCE & WINE

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Yesterday. . .

. . . my fingers were faster than the eye
never left my hands

but, nevertheless, pushed 'go' a little before I actually intended.

Great video though. Funny how many comments posted against this video on YouTube were by folks who had no idea that the clip came from a talk show parody called FERNDALE TONIGHT and the co-hosts (Mull & Willard) were INTENTIONALLY acting like idiots. Furthermore, the laughs were more a result of Martin Mull's facial expressions in reaction to the lyrics. And I'll go a step further, although Waits lived the life to write the songs, the act was still THE ACT, and he well knew why they were laughing and he played his part briliantly. (Of course he is an actor as well.)

Do you suppose the reactions posted on YouTube are, as an indication of the sophistication level of the general public, a direct correlation to the quality of popular entertainment today?

(Hear my music at http://www.rayjozwiak.com)