I've been included in a Minnesota anthology "Under Purple Skies", now available on Amazon!

My second chapbook, "The Second Book of Pearl: The Cats" is now available as either a paper chapbook or as a downloadable item. See below for the Pay Pal link or click on its cover just to the right of the newest blog post to download to your Kindle, iPad, or Nook. Just $3.99 for inspired tales of gin, gambling addiction and inter-feline betrayal.

My first chapbook, I Was Raised to be A Lert is in its third printing and is available both via the PayPal link below and on smashwords! Order one? Download one? It's all for you, baby!

Friday, May 1, 2009

Well, Sure I Know What It Looks Like; But What Is It, Really?

Disseminated by Soul Coughing
Electric Feel by MGMT
Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine by The White Stripes
Insister by Tapes and Tapes
I Got A Woman by Ray Charles
Got to Get You Into My Life by The Beatles
Super Sex by Morphine
Universal Mind Control by Common

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, I am all worked up over my own iPod list, confident in its prescience. What’s that? What’s that, O Magic iPod? An electric feel? Getting into someone’s life? Mind control?

Super sex?

Well good golly, Miss Molly, as my mother used to say.

After a difficult week of decidedly too many economic uncertainties and simply not enough beer, we’ve come to Friday, and you know what that means!

That’s right, kids! Time for another story!

As has been well documented by, well, me, I played in an Old Tyme Band (yes, the “y” is necessary, but no one knows why) in high school. The leader of the band, a 60-something-year-old man by the name of Aloysius, could play anything – anything – on the accordion and would gleefully shout the chord changes to us over his shoulder in a German accent.

Sure I know “Autumn Leaves”! Just shout the chord changes to me, Al!

The drummer, a 17-year-old who pledged his love and who-knows-what-else to me in Polish often yelled (in Polish, of course) obscene directions to the dancers, encouraging the women to lift their legs a little higher.

The trumpet player and I, also 17, had known each other since 14 and spent our breaks (one 10-minute break every two hours, whether we needed it or not) chasing each other around dirt parking lots…

There was an array of players of course, and the band could go from four to a dozen players easily, dependent on how much the ballroom was willing to pay. Sax, trumpet, and tuba players from the U of M drifted in and out, bringing coolers of beer and weed with them. We even had Eddie Berger, a jazz great in Minneapolis, join us for a bit, shortly after rehab.

So one summer, we played a parade. A polka band – accordion, clarinet, trumpet, and drums – in a parade. On a float.

Behind the goats.

Nervous, pooping goats.

At some point, I believe I began to joke – as is my wont – about being stuck behind the business end of a herd of goats and continually having our float pulled through mounds of pellet-shaped shit.

Aloysius beamed a sweaty, Teutonic smile at me from behind his accordion. “Ach,” he sputtered, “Das ist gut for you! Tink of dem as smart pills!”

Smart pills.

Even today, that makes me smile.

That load of crap in front of you? Looked at in the right light, it’s only going to make you smarter.

I hope your weekend is full of shit that makes you smarter.




Come on back any time. I’ll be here tomorrow, too…

13 comments:

darsden said...

I am here...lol

MJenks said...

I threw up in my mouth when I read "U of M", and then I realized it was Minnesota, not Michigan, so I swallowed it back down.

♥ Braja said...

I'm possibly gonna learn a lotta crappy things this weekend, yeah. But at least I can say NONE OF THEM WAS POLKA!!
lol

ha!!
xxx

erin said...

I got to get you into my life Dun nuh nuh nuh nuh nuuhhhhh Dun nuh nuh nuh nuh nuhhhhhhhh I was all I looked around....Something like that. I like the Oooohhh Then I suddenly see youuu Ooohh Did I tell you I need you? part.

We were always doing the polka in German club and Herr Kenderes would always yell at us "Schnell schnell! Macht Schnell Kindels!"...Your band would have been a great addition to our Saturday morning meetings.

Anonymous said...

Just checked out Morphine for the first time. Fecking fantastic! Now I'm going back to get some more. Thank you kind Pearl!

anon said...

Oh Pearl ! Thank-you!! You saved my ASS with that post!!
For the last 3 days I've had 'I've got a brand new pair of roller-skates' as an ear worm. I don't know why, I don't have any roller skates at all.
Thanks for eradicating that sticky-sweet little bugger and replacing it with the Beatles.
Excellent pest control skills ma'am!

Prunella Jones said...

I'm going to be beaten to a pulp this weekend so I'm not looking forward to it. Hope you have a good one though.

Chris said...

As a former trumpet player myself, I have loads of parade-related disasters in my background. Yes, including the poopage.

Aria said...

I love that... I hope I actually DO do something that makes me smarter this weekend!

Joanie said...

Boy, the fun I missed, growing up in the boring old Philadelphia suburbs!

Pearl said...

Dar, glad to see ya babe!

iNDefatigable, I actually went to Jazz Camp :-D at Michigan Tech. Still have very fond memories of Houghton-Hancock!

Braja, ass! Won’t you polka with me?

Erin, German Klub! If only I’d been there, I could’ve thrown out my one German sentence: Ich habe Keinen Hut! (I don’t have a hat!)

Greenfingers, ooooh. I’m very happy for you, actually. Morphine was an excellent band. Mark Sandman died, on stage, in Rome a while back. Check out their album “Good”.

Powdergirl, I do it for the people. :-D

Eskimo Bob, I hope so!

Prunella, beaten to a pulp?! I have to get to your blog…

Chris, I knew there was something I liked about you! It’s the trumpet!!!

Aria, and when you do, be sure to tell us about it. I need all the help I can get…

Joanie, actually, I thought Philadelphia had a pretty rockin’ polka scene. Is that not true?!
p.s. Went to Philadelphia about six years ago and had a GREAT time. I have an excellent story (in a scary sort of way) of sleepwalking throughout the hotel we stayed at that I really should write up...

Cygnus MacLlyr said...

Back at ya, Pearlie-cue!
Slainte, and happy Beal-fires...

Pearl said...

Braja, hey, just looking at this and I have NO IDEA why the word "ass" is in my response to you!! How weird is that? I don't know what it even means... What can I say? I've had an adverse reaction to my new asthma medication and feel really crappy.