that bass riff makes break out ... in a coooooold ... sweat!

background music: "Cold Sweat." by James Brown and Alfred Ellis
Dynatone Publishing Co. (BMI) admin by Unichappell Music Inc.
King single, released 1967

I've been listening to a lot of James Brown lately.

His music had always gripped me in the past, but you rarely heard a real variety of his repertoire on the radio.

Now, I have probably mentioned in the past that I usually listen to NPR alone on my radio; for the past three years, exclusively. Before that, it was a gradually increasing percentage of my radio time.

I found PBS first. I've been watching Nova, on and off, since its premiere episode.

Seminal Events in Music History
Trivia tidbit: Earliest recorded usage of "wit' cho' bad self"
Observed by: me, Jay DeKing, research adjunct at large for False Hopes and Dashed Dreams International (FHDDI), an unfunded, non-profit, non-existent, unorganized organization dedicated to the selfless promotion of the various species referred as "Lemurs" and other causes as we see fit at any given moment. It's all good, to a point, as long as nobody's askin fer money. Gotta 9 mil waitin for ya if yer a beggar. (Arrr! We do what we do fer th' good 'a all! Back off, eh? Don't ask us for donations, offer 'em!)

Oops, sorry, "Talk like a Sailor Day" was Sept. 19th, though anyone who knows me is aware that I could burst out with such lingo at any time (which probably is why I'm not invited to very many of those "meetings" wherein one quarter to one half of the participants aren't even located within your own state.)

Since we are unfunded as well as non-profit, we feel that the lack of any income combined with the lack of profit sort of takes the onus off of us (me, we, them, it as you choose to name what we call "us") for at least a few paragraphs. If not, well f#&* you if you can't take a joke! What a dingus. Now that that unpleasant infiltrator is gone, we can move on to the important issues at hand:

1. James Brown, "Say It Loud - I'm Black And I'm Proud,"

The first recorded instance of the phrase,"Wit' cho' bad self! was noticed entirely by accident: 1968, song: "Say It Loud - I'm Black And I'm Proud," very first line of the song:

Huuuhh! Wit' cho' bad self!

2. Lemurs

How can you say "no" to a face like that? I mean come on, people.

I'm not saying that I don't eat meat; far from it. I don't eat as much beef as I used to, though. This has less to do with health concerns than it does with what my personal protein cravings are at this time. Sometimes I have to have a burger, or Spam, or corned beef, or sometimes I just must have a chicken parmagiana , with a side of spaghetti, thank you; the gravy? Ah yes ... I like a spaghetti sauce (aka "gravy") that is a cross between marinara and your standard smoother sauce.

The first time I ordered an Italian dish with marinara sauce (I wanted to see what the difference was from the "regular" sauce), when it was delivered to me I said, "hey! This is what I've been making at home for all these years, and I thought it was just tomato sauce!".

Fortunately, I knew everybody at that restaurant, so the chef wasn't offended ("Mongol !! No! Never ... kill ... a customer!"). They gave me a chance to explain my chunky-partially-cooked-down "homegrown spaghetti sauce" with my own special commercially available herbs and spices. But I never knew that marinara sauce was something I had been making for years just because I worked for me.

I guess I should get some cookware - or see how much of my old stuff my folks have left. Why spend a few hundred bucks for a bunch of cookware you already own?

The lemurs! Yeah, I drifted off the point.

Which reminds me of this! Saw the following two headlines on CNN.com, right next to each other:

"Study: Toddlers eat too much junk food" and "Separated twins see each other."

Off the point again, but eerie that they were posted next to each other. Back to the lemurs.

Lemurs exist only on the island of Madagascar, off the southeast coast of Africa (just off Mozambique and Tanzania) and on the Comora Islands, which lie near the northern tip of Madagascar.

They (the lemurs) are Prosimians, i.e. primitive primates - much like homo sapiens.

Me prosimian ... you Jane?

Oops, sorry ... just popped Rossini's Barber of Seville into the DVD box. Gotta go, no way to maintain focus. A man must have his priorities.

Fiiiiiiiigarrro!