Little Gnats . . .

About the time of pre-adolescence, Benjamin acquired a habit of visiting his parents' bedroom before he went to sleep, milking the opportunity to put off retiring as long as possible.  It was always a light-hearted endeavor with the child purposely being as outrageous as possible by making frivolous conversation from suggestion of a 'sleepover' in his parents' bed to identifying some imaginary insect in some hidden corner of the room.  The parents, as a result of these nightly encounters, took to good-naturedly calling little Benjamin "the gnat", implying the persistence of the tiny flying annoyance.  "Time for bed, little gnat," they would say.

Years later, Benjamin now a fine, strapping young man, developed a not-unusual love of the game of baseball and enjoyed few things more than watching the games of the local professional franchise on television when unable to enjoy them out with friends or up-clos-and-personal-at-the-ballpark.  His mother, who no one is really certain whether she is a real fan or if she is exacting a form of revenge, has also taken to enjoying baseball games on television, likewise for lack of alternative viewing opportunities.  When the two are strategically positioned beside one another on a couch, Ben's Mom has a greater tendency to express an emotional reaction to a successful, as well as a disastrous one, play during the games.  Benjamin, on the other hand reserves his enthusiasm for only select positive or negative developments, and frequently offers a SHUSHHHHHH or some other reprimand to his mother during or after her not infrequent outbursts.

During a recent plea to his father to otherwise occupy his mother in hopes of securing an opportunity to enjoy his baseball game alone, found himself referring to his Mom as a . . .

GNAT!!

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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
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My latest solo release, '2014', can be downloaded digitally at:

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If You've Got the Time . . .

My early education in Zappa took a great leap the first time I heard this song (and the LP Just Another Band from LA).  Yes, it resembles in some ways what could be a high schooler's vulgar musical project and as Frank says himself in this version, many of the jokes are strictly from LA local culture of the period.  But now (and maybe for different reasons than in 1972 and those sentimental as well as musical) it still has much musical, lyrical and humorous merit.

Well anyway. . .  if you have 40 minutes to spare, our good friends at YouTube bring you this performance of Billy the Mountain . . .

[And yes, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (aka Flo and Eddie) and aka The Turtles perform the lion's share of this piece.]



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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
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My latest solo release, '2014', can be downloaded digitally at:

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Learn . . .

". . . He went on, “Do you and dad ever do it for that reason?”

“Most of the time we’ve done it or do it, it’s for pleasure, honey.” He looked a combination of fascinated and chagrined. “You know you were no accident. Before that, I went off birth control to get pregnant, and we were so happy when you came into our lives.”. . .

. . . He hemmed and hawed next, and I got the sense he wanted to know what I meant when I said it feels good. I asked him if he had that question. He said yes. So I said it was kind of like having someone scratch your back in a place that itched, and having them scratch it just right. I said that, after puberty, he’d know what the special itch felt like. He nodded. . .

. . . Our son asked why they didn’t tell him this stuff at school. The mate explained that adults stupidly think that if you [don't] keep the truth about sex from children, they’ll have sex earlier than they really should. He added that the evidence indicates otherwise. . . "
(excerpts from a blog by Alice Dreger [a breath of fresh air on the topic of sex education] - see http://www.alicedreger.com/home.html)

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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:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)

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Fairytales . . .

 After (ABC reporter Jonathan) Karl asked Marco Rubio a pretty straightforward question about climate– "Do you agree with science on this?"

He responded with, ". . . what they have chosen to do is take a handful of decades of research and say that this is now evidence of a longer-term trend that's directly and almost solely attributable to man-made activity. I do not agree with that. . ."

He added that "natural disasters have always existed" and that he doesn't "believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it." And besides, their solutions will only serve to "destroy our economy."

How would a responsible journalist, committed to objectivity and truth conclude an interview that included such statements?  Might he mention that Rubio's take on the issue is dramatically at odds with science?

Hopefully.  But Karl decided instead to summarize with- "It's talk like that that Rubio hopes will appeal to the conservatives he would need to win the Republican nomination."

Truth?  Objectivity?  Not here. . .
(Thanks to Peter Hart at http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/05/12/the-wrong-response-to-rubios-climate-nonsense/)

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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
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My latest solo release, '2014', can be downloaded digitally at:

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The Lab . . .

". . . Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste,
Pound at thy powder, -- I am not in haste!
Better sit thus, and observe thy strange things,
Than go where men wait me and dance at the King's.

That in the mortar -- you call it a gum?
Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come!
And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue,
Sure to taste sweetly, -- is that poison too?

Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures,
What a wild crowd of invisible pleasures!
To carry pure death in an earring,at a ball a casket,
A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree-basket! . . ."
(from The Laboratory by Robert Browning)


Out Of Thin Air
(from the laboratory at Graboski West)



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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
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My latest solo release, '2014', can be downloaded digitally at:

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Ho . . .

. . . bo?. . .

.

(from wikipedia.com)
". . . The origin of the term is unknown. According to etymologist Anatoly Liberman, the only certain detail about its origin is the word was first noticed in American English circa 1890. Liberman points out that many folk etymologies fail to answer the question: "Why did the word become widely known in California (just there) by the early Nineties (just then)?"Author Todd DePastino has suggested it may derive from the term hoe-boy meaning "farmhand", or a greeting such as Ho, boy!Bill Bryson suggests in Made in America (1998) that it could either come from the railroad greeting, "Ho, beau!" or a syllabic abbreviation of "homeward bound".[4] It could also come from the words "homeless boy". H. L. Mencken, in his The American Language (4th ed., 1937), wrote:

    Tramps and hobos are commonly lumped together, but see themselves as sharply differentiated. A hobo or bo is simply a migratory laborer; he may take some longish holidays, but sooner or later he returns to work. A tramp never works if it can be avoided; he simply travels. Apart from either is the bum, who neither works nor travels, save when propelled to motion by the police. . ."







. . . or "Homeless Brother"?

What do you think?
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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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your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)

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Spooks. . .

. . . come in all shapes, sizes and degrees of 'scariness'.  But this Monday
at the Brewer’s Alley Songwriters’, one Spook is appearing that you'll be glad you came to hear:   SPOOK HANDY

Show opens 7:15 with
Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano opening the January 13th show @ 7:30PM

Also on the bill, 3 songs each from Patrick Post, Tim Kirkner and Mary Shapiro w/Jeff Wolf with poetry by  Rod Deacey

Brewer's Alley Restaurant & Brewery
124 North Market Street Frederick, MD 21701
Telephone: 301-631-0089 Fax: 301-631-1874
  http://www.brewers-alley.com/

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

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:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)

Also, be sure to visit:
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

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