"You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant"

(In which we conclude the song and if there's any leftover turkey still lying around your house, you might think about moving it on.)

I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug." He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprints off to Washington."

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.". And walk out.

You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar.

With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here and sing it when it does. Here it comes.

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant

That was horrible.

If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud.

I've been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it
for another twenty five minutes. I'm not proud... or tired.

So we'll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part
harmony and feeling.

We're just waitin' for it to come around is what we're doing.

All right now.

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Excepting Alice
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant

Da da da da da da da dum
At Alice's Restaurant


-----


There was Thanksgiving 2005, of course, which saw me back at the family table and mumbling through a prayer vague enough to exasperate a Unitarian. Or Thanksgiving 2003, when President Bush got on a plane of his own and presented a plastic turkey to the (vetted if not yet veteraned) troops in Baghdad. Which reminds me yet again that every single holiday under his watch has been a wartime holiday. There was Thanksgiving 2001, where the collective determination of the nation could have pulled every balloon in the Macy's parade by willpower alone and the commercial for the USPS featuring Carly Simon's "Let the River Run" and a montage of the ordinary postal workers of the nation had me crying through three balloon characters and a marching band. That year is now bookended with this year's Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans.

There was this Thanksgiving, which saw me cooking pies and making the turkey gravy from scratch over at my brother-in-law's where we all played host to the three members of Josh Lederman y Los Diablos, the visiting Boston band on its first-ever west coast tour. Over turkey, I discussed the latest project offered to me by Culann's Hounds. "They want to do some Bay Area Celtic Music showcase," I said. Non-committal grunts from the boys reaching for seconds. "But I've been thinking." Indeed, I was thinking right there out loud, "I've been thinking more like a whole American roots thing. Inclusive. You could get a number of the Bay Area scenes going with that." Rick, the drummer, brightened. "Oh YEAH, that's a good idea!" And full-mouthed but still quite enthusiastic agreement from the table. So that concluded the market research on the feasibility of a Bay Area Folk Punk-Roots Festival and the more I think about it the more I like it. It can also be a benefit for the National Veterans Foundation, which Culann's Hounds has already done some community work for as well. There could be a whole day of ukulele jamming, some of the bluegrass, some klezmer. And who knows what the kids are up to on Grant Street?

I also sent around the bit of Alice's Restaurant quoted above to my lit-group list. One of them wrote back:

I'm sure you know there really was an Alice's restaurant, a coffee shop in Stockbridge, Mass., which is a beautiful town next to the one I grew up in in the Berkshires. The basement bar in the Red Lion Inn, a 200 year old big, wonderful inn, is still there, but no longer features Arlo singing, as it did when I hung out there in the 60s. Alice's was right around the corner, in what is a very small, picturesque New England town. Because of the number of colleges, prep schools, writers, poets and estates, the Vietnam War was heavily protested way out there in the woods, as the Bostonians refer to it and the hippie movement hit it in full force far quicker than the Boston area, which eventually came around.

Stockbridge looks like a movie set to this day, although Norman Rockwell's small house gallery has moved to a large estate overlooks a large pond and includes a barn workshop for artists, a house for fundraisers and a museum designed to feature all of his work in perfect style. Most of those covers for Post were 6 ft. x 6 ft. paintings. Some of them are breathtaking - such as the Thanksgiving one, the moon walk, the brotherhood faces - some are heartwarming and some are quite humorous.

Thank you for this message. Obviously it hit a cord with me, a jog down memory lane, knowing that we need this sentiment today. My son and I were talking about this yesterday. His generation didn't do it (35 yrs. old), his sister's didn't (30 yrs.), but it's time for another 60s type thing to happen to slow down everyone's march for things bigger and better. Much as they seem like babies now that I'm over 50, I realize it does take energy and idealism of the very young, the 20 -25, those of college age, to start a movement, then the older join in. While the anti-war started the 60s movement, it was carried out via changes in education, psychology, workplaces, whole communities - a slow down and smell the flowers. 'Course, once the pendulum starts to swing, it seems to go way too far, and needs to head back a bit, but heads back too far also. Will we ever get it right?!

"there on the other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on the other side"

(Still finishing up our meal at Alice's Restaurant)

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice's Restaurant Massacre, with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that and all the phenome... - and he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, did you ever go to court?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, I want you to go and sit down on that bench that says Group W .... NOW kid!!"

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly 'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?" And I said, Littering." And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the Sargeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it up and said:

"Kids-this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-
wanna-know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-
kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-
want-to-know-arresting-officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-
you-gotta-say", and talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the following words:

"KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?"


----


But Thanksgiving 2002 was a work-related absence and excusable and as has been told: an effort was made to observe the ritual pieties. Thanksgiving 2004 was a flat-out refusal to do any such thing, with the actual meal of Thursday being whatever the airline choose to serve to the handful of us passengers on the flight. The formal meal on Friday was at Milano's, an Italian restaurant in Dublin, and a fine, upscale swanky joint it was too. Too excited to do anything as mundane as eat, I think I managed a few bites of an artichoke and pesto pizza for one. At Milano's I was joined by a few of the other Horslips fans that I had befriended online in the course of the last two years. Some of them had traveled as far as from Cork and from Ballymena. Others were from Dublin. A few sent text messages in. To lend a certain weight to the thing -- to show the husband that my earlier boasts of a 'launch party' had some basis -- there was even a delegation from Horslips themselves. The evening unfolding with one of the community meeting us at the Baggot Street hotel where we were staying. I was given a bottle of Baileys, a package of Barry's Tea and, most prized and soon to hit the seasonal turntable, a copy of Happy Surfin' Santa, the story behind which has been related in this blog previously. Then we walked to the nearby pub where the rest of the party was gathering for pre-dinner drinks. And so with the rush of introductions and explanations, my husband and I were quickly embraced by a general mood of warm hospitality tempered, perhaps, with more than a little touch of curiosity from our hosts.

Then one of the band arrived and delivered an opening line that still reverberates in household travel lore: "This place stinks of businessmen's farts!"

Indeed, it did seem that the interiors of Irish pubs had changed subtly since one of my earlier visits and I became aware that the now banned cigarette smoke had performed its one forlorn beneficial function as a mask of other smells usually encountered where the monied and well-fed gather. My husband shot me a quizzical look. I smiled back in brave re-assurance. Still, as it stands, the remark was the closest thing to a Thanksgiving prayer we could come by on that year.

"I wanted to look like the all-American kid from New York City"

(Continues the saga of Alice's Restaurant)

They got a building down New York City, it's called Whitehall Street, where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. `Cause I wanted to look like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wanted to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York, and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds o' mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said, "Kid, see the psychiatrist, room 604."

And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL." And I started jumpin up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL," and he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL." And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy."

Didn't feel too good about it.

Proceeded on down the hall gettin more injections, inspections, detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they was doin' to me at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four hours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty ugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they was inspecting, injecting every single part of me, and they was leaving no part untouched. Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see the last man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a whole big thing there, and I walked up and said, "What do you want?"

He said, "Kid, we only got one question. Have you ever been arrested?"



---------




Thanksgiving 2004 wasn't my first time astraying from the amber waves of grain. In 2002, I spent most of November in Chichester, England working on a major transatlantic software project for my company. It was a great month. I quickly became a regular at the local Boots (that Botanica line rocks!) and adapted well to the custom of a pint at the pub right after work. Had one serious bout of homesickness, which was an actual physical reaction with nausea and insomnia and loss of appetite. Cured it by going to the local Chinese restaurant and pretending it was Grant Street and then going back to the flat and watching Full Metal Jacket on TV, reveling in the accents. Meanwhile, through the news, I stayed up to date with the Hans Blix and his UN team of weapons inspectors on their way to Iraq.

But the IT team -- Kevin, Dennis, Neville, Andy, Saroj, Malcolm, Sarah, Ian and Gwenda-- were mindful that I was missing out on the traditional four-day bacchanal of food and shopping, so they organized an ad hoc substitute for Thursday's lunch. A local pub had a carvery and confirmed a supply of turkey for sandwiches. The cranberry sauce was a little closer to chutney, but present and accounted for. The 'mash' half of a bangers and mash regular lunch supplied the potatoes and I think they even managed stuffing. Brussel sprouts were apparently the available greens, but an anti-sprout cabal made sure they never made it to the table. No doubt, for the best.

We had a great lunch. All that was missing was the televised roar of a stadium of American football fans and the rapid East Coast patter of a sports announcer in the background. Malcolm even tried for an obligatory heated family discussion when he took me to task for the undeniably poor track record the American settlers left in their dealings with the Native American tribes. Which was another one of those strange moments of zen that life likes to throw at me now and then.

In the evening after work, the town rounded the day off with a Christmas tree lighting and street fair marking the beginning of the longer shopping hours of the season. A local charity had a table selling small mince pies, so I was happily covered on that issue as well. It was on this visit, probably even on this evening, that I found my second Horslips CD - the Best Of double CD set on the Edsel label -- in the MVC music store on South Street.

"But thats not what I came to tell you about"

We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down. Man came in said, "All rise." We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he sat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog. And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry, 'cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. And we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but thats not what I came to tell you about.

Came to talk about the draft.


------


Sometime during the summer of 2004, Maurice Linnane made an announcement in the Official Horslips Guestbook that the footage shot at the Derry Exhibition had become the genesis of a full documentary on the band, with archival footage, interviews past and present, and much more. Then as summer drifted along into autumn rumors flew about that the members of Horslips were gathering at Grouse Lodge and recording a new album. That was confirmed as Roll Back. Rumors then flew about a launch party in late November, conveniently timed for Thanksgiving. At the Halloween office party (a potent place of mojo for me) I hatched a scheme in the Horslips chatroom that I would get myself over for this album launch. There was some discussion back at the house on the subject of traveling on a day usually held sacrosanct for America, Flag and Family. And not just traveling. Traveling to Europe. For a rock album release party. And even after tickets were tentatively purchased, there was a further bit of anxiety when another session in the chatroom revealed that there was no launch party really and the album release had been delayed by artwork issues. But by this point, the November elections had passed and Bush was relected and I would have dissed Thanksgiving that year for a Westlife autograph session at the Patrick Street branch of HMV in Cork. What I managed to tell my husband I really can't remember, but we packed our bags and headed for the airport.

"And we went back to the church, had a another thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat..."

After speaking to Obie for about forty-five minutes on the telephone we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the police officer's station. So we got in the red VW microbus with the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the police officer's station.

Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at the police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and we didn't expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out and told us never to be see driving garbage around the vicinity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer's station there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said "Obie, I don't think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on." He said, "Shut up, kid.
Get in the back of the patrol car."

And that's what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to the quote Scene of the Crime unquote. I want tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusets, where this happened here, they got three stop signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the Scene of the Crime there was five police officers and three police cars, being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it. And they was using up all kinds of cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officer's station.

They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and they took twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that's not to mention the aerial photography.

After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was going to put us in the cell. Said, "Kid, I'm going to put you in the cell, I want your wallet and your belt." And I said, "Obie, I can understand you wanting my wallet so I don't have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you want my belt for?" And he said, "Kid, we don't want any hangings." I said, "Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?" Obie said he was making sure, and friends Obie was, cause he took out the toilet seat so I couldn't hit myself over the head and drown, and he took out the toilet paper so I couldn't bend the bars roll out the - roll the toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. Obie was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice (remember Alice? It's a song about Alice), Alice came by and with a few nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back to the church, had a another thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, and didn't get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court.

_____



Officer Obie and Arlo Guthrie have little to do with Horslips or the year 2004, but 2004 had been a milestone year for the Horslips fan community. It began that March with the first History of Horslips Exhibition in Derry. Organized by three of the band's most dedicated fans (Jim Nelis, Stephen Ferris, and Paul Callaghan), the Exhibition gathered together Horslips albums, posters, tickets, instruments and other memorabilia from all over the world. The Exhibition travelled on to Drogheda in October 2005 and Belfast in February 2006. The Derry installation, being first, also had Maurice Linnane on hand to film the evening as it unfolded. All of this made the Official Horslips Guestbook chat and even a relatively new fan of the music (I have only recently seen them perform live) could tell it was important.

"And we had never heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before..."

This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's about Alice, and the restaurant, but Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, that's just the name of the song, and that's why I called the song Alice's Restaurant.

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin' all that room, seein' as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage for a long time.

We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it'd be a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. So we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the city dump.

Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the dump saying, "Closed on Thanksgiving." And we had never heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.

We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw our's down.

That's what we did, and drove back to the church, had a thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie. He said, "Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And I said, "Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope under that garbage."


Yes indeed, this is gonna be a multi-part post dedicated to Arlo Guthrie as the mood hits me. Gotta beat the tribute to Wednesday Addams's Thanksgiving what we did post in this very blog last year.

It might also be noted that I used Thanksgiving Weekend 2004 to get myself on a jet plane as it taxied down the runway leaving these great United States and to fly on over to Dublin to attend the launch party of Roll Back, the new CD from Horslips.

"Is it true this was a place of sin?"

In the office, I am to Horslips what Roger H is to The Beatles.

And so it was that Sunday evening I was on my way to the City with Roger to see Sean Lennon at the Great American Music Hall. Now I went mostly to have a good time and to see if the kids are alright (they seem okay) and how Lennon Og grappled with the family legacy.

And, interestingly, even though his own music was squarely in the style of today's sophisticated, dense, neo-psychedelic, alt-indy what-you-will, there were undeniable traces of a paternal influence. "It's the chord progressions!" I said to Roger after a song or two. "The key changes and whatever is going on in the tonal structure."

But it struck me that this still did not separate his music from his contemporaries or stigmatize it as derivative, but rather that they ALL have absorbed something from a primal source. Indeed, one album in particular.* So on the turntable today: Magical Mystery Tour.

Another surprise was Sean's easy-going relationship with the audience. "Great album!" someone shouted. "Whose album? Houses of the Holy by Led Zepplin?" he batted back. "That's a great album." This led to a few quick runs of signature Led Zepplin riffs to cheers and hoots. "Yeah, that shit's rad." he concluded. Another extended discussion with the front of the room on the subject of Maxon Crumb, holy madman and street sufi of the City. Then a shout-out to sister Kyoko in the house. Finally, the obligatory honoring of the locale. "Is it true this was a place of sin?" Sean asked, hand sweeping out to indicate pillars, balconies, bars, and dancefloor. Indeed. Cat house, opium den, rat-gambling pit, Shanghai floor saloon, or church: there isn't a nineteenth century structure in San Francisco without sin. The audience affirmed Sean's question.

"Well I'll tell you," he said. "It's a beautiful place to get a blow-job in."

And from the back of the house, male voice, booming: "Where isn't?"






*I already had an inkling of this when I went to see The Decemberists two years ago (at the very same venue) and one of their opening bands did a trance-electronica take on Blue Jay Way. It was pretty cool, actually.

My Love is in America

(Ash Wednesday, 2002. Photographer: Miss Templeton)

A New York Second

If the sky that we look upon...

Ghosts of the Faithful Departed

Selections from the Exhibition

"There were thousands of poor people didn't have no place to go"

Jazz funeral for pets lost to Katrina
JANET McCONNAUGHEY, Associated Press

Madona, an offshore cook, and Smith, a house painter, took turns wearing the big brown head, which bore resemblance to Scooby-Doo. Smith said they inherited it from friends who didn't return to the city after Katrina.

Madona said the costume piece looked like his Doberman, Phideaux (pronounced "Fido"). The flat-nosed blue stuffed animal represented his red-nose pit bull, Blue, while a small black stuffed dog was for Smith's Chihuahua, Baby, which died before the hurricane.

Madona said he had to leave by bus for Houston, and couldn't take his pets. Smith stayed through the storm. She said she rescued her neighbors' dogs, covering their paws with duct tape to keep their claws from breaking the rubber raft a neighbor had left. She kept one of the dogs.

John Clark of Arabi and friend Mary Horaist of Kenner carried small sunflower bouquets and photographs of their 15-year-old dogs. They took both of them out of New Orleans, but both died afterward.

Clark, personnel director for St. Bernard Parish, had to have Katie-Raz euthanized after the power went out in Bogalusa and she went into respiratory failure.

"I promised Katie that when she would die, she would die looking into my eyes," he said.

Horaist had been nursing Fred through kidney failure with subcutaneous fluids even before the storm. Power outages, downed trees and phone failures left her unable to reach a veterinarian from the blueberry farm in Poplarville, Miss., where she had taken refuge.

Before the march began Sunday, the Rev. Bill Terry of St. Anna's Episcopal Church spoke briefly with members of the Treme Brass Band. "You know what to do," he told them. "You've done it a million times before."

Later, he told the crowd: "We're New Orleans. This is how we mourn."

Jazz funeral marches traditionally start with a dirge for the mourners' sorrow, then move into an uptempo celebration of the loved one's life and salvation.

This time, the march stepped off to a slow rendition of "Just a Closer Walk With Thee."

There was a bit of silence. The drums rattled briskly, and the band swung into "Just a Little While to Stay Here."

Whole article at the link.

Here's the official page for the current White House pet.

"I'm ready for my close-up now, Mr Farren!"

I'm hot. You're hot. He's hot. She's hot.

Mick Farren is hot! My friends in Omagh are hot!

And Europe? Europe is le Haute!

Europe cooler but deadly heatwave set to return with a vengeance.

But the good news is: President Bush rejected the Kyoto Treaty way back there in March 2001...because Global Warming really isn't scientifically proven yet. And President Bush must know what he's talking about, or New York City wouldn't have hosted the 2004 Republican Convention! New York City! And If you can't make the presidential nomination there, you can't make it anywhere...!

Husband: Name the Top Ten Movies about heatwaves...
Me: Ah...okay. Cujo.
Husband: Predator. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Lawrence of Arabia.
Me: Do the Right Thing.
Husband: Cool Hand Luke...
Me: I'm too hot to think of anything else.

But whatever. The thing is: I'm back. Got me a copy of Give the Anarchist a Cigarette and I'm ready to talk.

"Let's do the Time Warp again..."

(A Slice of Fine from the Doctor Who entry at wikipedia)

When I first met Mr. T, he had a rather extensive collection of home-taped videocassettes all bearing the hand-scrawled legend "Doctor Who." Then, too, our proximity to Silicon Valley and its legions of gnomic obsessives ensured that our PBS station carried the series (and Red Dwarf and Blake's Seven and Black Adder and the venerable Monty Python and Nova and Stephen Hawking and shows about robots) endlessly. It was the Tom Baker-era Doctor, and I gamely gave the thing a go.

Now, let only she who did not watch the rubber-mask monster and suspiciously flat-floored cave era of original series Star Trek cast the first stone. (And what about all those Class-M planets, huh? What were the odds there?) But I just couldn't summon up enough suspension of disbelief when the Doctor called on our house. "These Daleks," I said. "They don't seem to be able to step up on surfaces, do they? So...perhaps you climb a set of stairs? Problem solved?"

Eventually, as with his similar mission on behalf of the Three Stooges, my husband gave up the prosthetizing effort to convert me. But that was a long time ago. And now, reading that David Tennant has finally reached his childhood goal of playing The Doctor, I find that I might be of an entirely different opinion on the matter after all.

"Ain't Got A Home"

From the recent Fourth of July weekend:

Steve: Katrina Fatigue? Bullsh*t. Anyone in the media using the phrase "Katrina Fatigue" can kiss my ass.
Me: Did they ever find your next-door neighbor?
Steve: No.

Program aims to keep musicians in Big Easy

NEW ORLEANS - Dan Oestreicher is a 23-year-old saxophone player, not long out of college, who has lived with friends since Hurricane Katrina's floodwater drove him from his apartment. A new housing program aims to turn him into a homeowner.

Oestreicher is one of dozens of New Orleans residents who have signed up to help build the so-called Musicians' Village, a collection of houses in a section of the Ninth Ward flooded after the storm, in exchange for a bargain price on a brand new house.

He said he liked the idea of living near fellow musicians. He also likes the idea of paying $500 a month to own a brand new, three-bedroom house worth about $90,000.

More at the link.

Well, I got a voice
And I love to sing
I can sing like a bird
And I can sing like a frog
I'm a lonely boy
I ain't got a home

I ain't got a girl
I ain't got a son
I ain't got no kin
I ain't got no one
I'm a lonely frog
I ain't got a home

Jeremy Harding on Syd Barrett

Last Thursday, I searched the LRB archives in vain for this article. It is clear that the editors have since made a decision to put it online, and -- even more to the point -- have made it available for free without subscription. Full article at link.

Afternoonishness

...Barrett's afternoonishness was far more supple and engaging. It superimposed the hippie cult of eternal solstice on the pre-teatime daydreams of one's childhood, occasioned by a slick of sunlight on a chest-of-drawers or a snatch of plainsong in the radiator - a daydream that quickly filled with gaudy archetypes and very private, custom-built creations. Barrett's songs are full of both: bog-standard gnomes on the one hand, homeless mice called 'Gerald' on the other. His afternoonishness is lit by an importunate adult intelligence that can't quite get back to the place it longs to be.

Remarkably, Barrett created the same, precocious longing in adolescents who heard his music at the time. I remember 'See Emily Play' drifting across a school corridor in 1967 - I was 15 then - and I remember the powerful wish to stay suspended indefinitely in that music, just as I wanted to hang about for ever in another, much darker song of the same period, 'My Eyes Have Seen You', by the Doors. I also remember the quasi-adult intimation that this wasn't possible. Which may have been why the first strains of 'Emily', even then, marked the onset of sulkiness and regret; the thing you adored was eluding you even as you heard it. Roll on teatime...

"So me and a hundred more, To Americay sailed o'er."

But I digress. The thunder of our two brave cannon announced the Fourth of July, at daylight, to all who were awake. But many of us got our information at a later hour, from the almanac. All the flags were sent aloft, except half a dozen that were needed to decorate portions of the ship below, and in a short time the vessel assumed a holiday appearance. During the morning, meetings were held and all manner of committees set to work on the celebration ceremonies. In the afternoon, the ship’s company assemble aft, on deck, under the awnings; the flute, the asthmatic melodeon, and the consumptive clarinet crippled the Star Spangled Banner, and the choir chased it to cover, and George came in with a peculiarly lacerating screech on the final note and slaughtered it. Nobody mourned.

We carried out the corpse on three cheers (that joke was not intentional and I do not endorse it) and then the President, throned behind a cable-locker, with a national flag spread over it, announced the “Reader,” who rose up and read that same old Declaration of Independence which we have all listened to so often without paying any attention to what it said: and after that the President piped the Orator of the Day to quarters and he made that same old speech about our national greatness which we so religiously believe and so fervently applaud. Now came the choir into court again, with the complaining instruments and assaulted Hail Columbia; and when victory hung wavering in the scale, George returned with his dreadful wild-goose step turned on and the choir won of course. A minister pronounced the benediction, and the patriotic little gathering disbanded. The Fourth of July was safe, as far as the Mediterranean was concerned.

from The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain, cub-reporter, Alta California, San Francisco, 1867.



To my various email correspondents of late: it is a great honor to me to be called a “Yank,” in whatever spirit you intended, as I share this title with Mark Twain, an author whose collected works inspired not only the post-modernist masterpiece Finnegans Wake, but also the general spirit and vein of the collected works of Flann O’Brien. I only hope that I can live up to the legacy that your deep respect for my online scribbling entails.



Another perspective on the Fourth of July from Samuel Clemons.



From Flann O'Brien's Third Policeman:

'Is it about a bicycle?' he asked.

'Not that' said the Sergeant. 'This is a private visitor who says he did not arrive in the townland upon a bicycle. He has no personal name at all. His dadda is in far Amurikey.'

'Which of the two Amurikeys?' asked MacCruiskeen.

'The Unified Stations,' said the Sergeant.

'Likely he is rich by now if he is in that quarter,' said MacCruiskeen, 'because there's dollars there, dollars and bucks and nuggets in the ground and any amount of rackets and golf games and musical instruments. It is a free country too by all accounts.'

And finally:


God prosper the bold hearts on both land and ocean,
Who go in defiance of danger and scars,
And send them safe home to their wives and their sweethearts,
With the Harp of old Erin and Banner of Stars

Bless me Blogger for I have sinned...

It's been nearly two weeks since my last blogging (that Whitby greeting doesn't really count, does it?). I've committed YouTube several times. (It's just so easy to cut and paste those things!) And I've been remiss in visiting Generic Mugwump, Doc40 and many others. It's almost the Fourth of July and I don't even have a theme post planned.

But I do have news on Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono:

Vegas Very Much in "Love" with the Beatles

Ringo Starr walked the red carpet Friday night with Yoko Ono and George Harrison's widow, Olivia, at the Friday premiere of Love, a new Cirque du Soleil extravaganza set entirely to Beatles music handpicked by the Fab Four's main producer, George Martin.

Paul McCartney was also expected to attend the show, which has moved into a $130 million, 2,013-seat theater at the Mirage Hotel that took two years to build. Every seat is equipped with three speakers, to better immerse the audience in the magical, mysterious world populated by "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," "Eleanor Rigby" and "Lady Madonna."

More at link.

And news from Hot Press:


PACO PENA AND FRIENDS PLAY VICAR STREET AS PART OF WALTON'S GUITAR FESTIVAL OF IRELAND

If the five-string is your thing, here's some useful info for you: Ireland's "biggest and best" guitar festival is preparing for a hive of activity next week, with the lion's share of its events taking place between 4-9 July.

In addition to workshops, special events and seminars, the festival has attracted respected acts such as the Niall Toner Band, Clive Barnes and John Williams & John Etheridge.

A highlight will be Paco Peña & Friends, who play Vicar Street on Friday 7 July.

Tickets are available via Ticketmaster for E35.

More information on this event, and the festival, is available from www.gfi.ie

www.gfi.ie

Okay. Off to Generic Mugwump for a while!

The Man Who Built America: Thomas Aloysius Dorgan

While spiffing up one of my MySpace profiles, I was skimming through some color plates in my copy of The Big Book of American Irish Culture, Bob Callahan, editor* and read up on the source of the plate I was turning into website wallpaper. And what do I find? The cartoonist of the panel I really admired is from San Francisco, baby!

Thomas A. Dorgan

(April 29, 1877 [citation needed] - May 2, 1929[1])("Thomas Aloysius Dorgan," "Tad Dorgan", "TAD") was an American cartoonist who signed his drawings as TAD. He is credited with coining more popular words and expressions than anyone else.

He was born in San Francisco. When he was thirteen years old, he lost the last three fingers of his right hand in an accident with a factory machine. He took up drawing for therapy. A year later at the age of 14 he joined the art staff of the San Francisco Bulletin. By 1902 he was not only the top sports cartoonist for the New York Journal, but also a reporter and sportswriter. Jack Dempsey described him as "the greatest authority on boxing".

Dorgan is generally credited with either creating or popularizing such words and expressions as "dumbbell" (a stupid person); "for crying out loud" (an exclamation of astonishment); "cat's meow" and "cat's pajamas" (as superlatives); "applesauce" (nonsense); "cheaters" (eyeglasses); "skimmer" (a hat); "hard-boiled" (a tough person); "drugstore cowboy" (loafers or ladies' men); "nickel-nurser" (a miser); "as busy as a one-armed paperhanger" (overworked); and "Yes, we have no bananas," which was turned into a popular song.

His New York Times obituary brackets him with George Ade and Ring Lardner as popularizers of "a new slang vernacular," and also credits him as originator of "Twenty-three, Skidoo," "solid ivory," "Dumb Dora," "finale hopper," "Benny" for hat and "dogs'" for shoes.[1]

(A sample of TADs style found on www.lambiek.net)

From that site:

When he was thirteen years old, Thomas Aloysius Dorgan lost the last three fingers of his right hand in an accident with a factory machine. While recuperating, he drew a lot of cartoons as manual therapy. A year later, he found himself a job as staff artist on the San Francisco Bulletin. In 1902, he was employed by the prestigious San Francisco Chronicle, where he created his first weekly comic strip, 'Johnny Wise'. He was hired away by newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst and put to work at the New York Journal as a sports cartoonist.

(More of TAD at an Ohio State University collection.)



*The mere fact that this book is in my personal library, along with the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture and the indispensable Encyclopedia of Bad Taste, is really all you need to know about me.

"From Brixton's lovely boulevards To Hammersmith's sightly shores"

Ah...me.

From what I can tell, The Duke de Mondo is in the throes of another romantic entanglement, and he has done the very sensible thing of listening to Rum, Sodomy and the Lash while he figures things out:

...Aye, I tell her. These gloriously wretched tableau's and episodes, I been catching glimpses of them e'er since that momentous afternoon when first I hit play on Rum, Sodomy & The Lash.

But the other London Shane talks about, the London of "long-gone songs from day's gone by" carried along the swell o' the Thames, the London of "Rainy Night In Soho," I been pining for that, y'unnerstann.

"Rainy Night In Soho," I remind her, is maybe the most beautiful song ever written, certainly the most beautiful ever written about Soho.

Was goin to be the first song at the wedding I almost stumbled into, by the by. We used to dance drunkenly round the kitchen in time to the sway o' yon strings.

"I took shelter from a shower
And I stepped into your arms
On a rainy night in Soho
The wind was whistling all its charms"

But beyond all that is the startling development that The Duke has made a decision regarding his literary future:

I got a burning in the belly reeks o' a craving for to be heard and read, I say. I point out that the longer I sit here in this back room with the fag in the maw and the fags in the brains, with the fringe getting blacker and the eyes getting redder, with the stacks o' Chapter One Paragraph One getting closer to the roof-slates with each tick o' the time-tock, the longer this goes on, I say, the closer the factory gets.

Fore a fella knows what's happened he's stood in yonder production line checking pharmaceutical paraphernalia for anything out of the ordinary, yacking all about how he's gonna get a novel out one day, soon as my agent gets back to me. Soon as the publisher's ready. Soon as this leg gets fixed. Soon as the doctors let me go. Soon as I get this black from out my lung.

What I say is don't get me wrong, not for a second. The factory, it's a place humming with strong and beautiful and soulful and special and dedicated human beings. But I'd be lying, I say, if I pretended yon grinding and sparking and thumping didn't scare the yellow out my pish.

So aye. I'm going to London. I'm taking a couple bags fulla personality, a guitar tuned to Blue and a case filled wi' y-fronts on account of I wore boxers once in 1999 and my knackers ended up moored off Arran for a fortnight.

Ever the one to encourage and enthuse, I'm reminded of George Orwell's delightfully brilliant Keep the Aspidistra Flying:

Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over
The bending poplars, newly bare.

As a matter of fact, though, there was not a breath of wind that afternoon. It was almost as mild as spring. Gordon repeated to himself the poem he had begun yesterday, in a cadenced whisper, simply for the pleasure of the sound of it. He was pleased with the poem at this moment. It was a good poem--or would be when it was finished, anyway. He had forgotten that last night it had almost made him sick.

The plane trees brooded motionless, dimmed by faint wreaths of mist. A tram boomed in the valley far below. Gordon walked up Malkin Hill, rustling instep-deep through the dry, drifted leaves. All down the pavement they were strewn, crinkly and golden, like the rustling flakes of some American breakfast cereal; as though the queen of Brobdingnag had upset her packet of Truweet Breakfast Crisps down the hillside.

Jolly, the windless winter days! Best time of all the year--or so Gordon thought at this moment. He was as happy as you can be when you haven't smoked all day and have only three-halfpence and a Joey in the world. This was Thursday, early-closing day and Gordon's afternoon off. He was going to the house of Paul Doring, the critic, who lived in Coleridge Grove and gave literary tea-parties.

It had taken him an hour or more to get himself ready. Social life is so complicated when your income is two quid a week. He had had a painful shave in cold water immediately after dinner. He had put on his best suit--three years old but just passable when he remembered to press the trousers under his mattress. He had turned
his collar inside out and tied his tie so that the torn place didn't show. With the point of a match he had scraped enough blacking from the tin to polish his shoes. He had even borrowed a needle from Lorenheim and darned his socks--a tedious job, but better than inking the places where your ankle shows through. Also he had procured an empty Gold Flake packet and put into it a single cigarette extracted from the penny-in-the-slot-machine. That was just for the look of the thing. You can't, of course, go to other people's houses with NO cigarettes. But if you have even one it's all right, because when people see one cigarette in a packet they assume that the packet has been full. It is fairly easy to pass the thing off as an accident.

'Have a cigarette?' you say casually to someone.

'Oh--thanks.'

You push the packet open and then register surprise. 'Hell! I'm down to my last. And I could have sworn I had a full packet.'

'Oh, I won't take your last. Have one of MINE,' says the other.

'Oh--thanks.'

And after that, of course, your host and hostess press cigarettes upon you. But you must have ONE cigarette, just for honour's sake.

Hmmm...on second thought, perhaps the Duke should avoid that particular read until he's on his own second or third publication.

I will be following the Duke's September adventures in the City of Dickens and Wilde with great interest.

The Things You Find in Google

Was doing the classically egotistical thing of googling on my name (coupled with Horslips, so as to eliminate the Franklin-Templeton* Fund hits) and found this!

Aaron McMullan Reviews.

Which guilts us into a visit to Mondo Irelando to see what might be new.

Skirting the temptation to read The Duke's opinions on Anne Coulter (and goodness! What is he going to say that Mick Farren doesn't already say with pictures of leather and bondage!) I find that the Duke has gone and seen Brokeback Mountain:

"Hells fire, mean did you ever find yourself all touchy-feely round about a man o' your self-same sex?"

What I say is no, what I say is what kinda mania you hopped on, anyroad?

Behind the eyes, you'll be aware, s'all sortsa flashback.

"D'You Know What I Mean" by Oasis, I'll be damned, s'just gone Number One, this record, sayin, this record's gonna be amazing.

Fella sat beside me way back then, he's sayin aye, I'd wager it'll be tight as a vicar's arse, you can be damn sure ain't gon' be no songs longer than three minutes, ain't gon' be no outlandish production, gon' be focused, oh aye.

Be Here Now, they're calling it. S'gonna be amazing, don't you know?

(And it was, dammit, and I'll defend it to the slight discomfort, best believe it.)

High on the rugged throat o' Gallagher, we set off for to find a tavern might accept a couple moments gruntin' and a cigarette in the yap as answer enough to the question "You got any ID?"

On receipt of a barman sympathetic to our plight, we settled 'side a jukebox stuck on H17, bein "Revolution 9" by The Beatles, that discordant cut/paste symphony spinning close to two dozen times afore someone in the midst of a beered-up brain-wank tore the plug out the wall and trampled the fucker to chards o' mangled mush.

Soon enough, talk took a dive t'wards the mysteries o' the bollocks.

"See", he gets to yackin, "I fancy her, but I can't stand her. Mean to say, I love her, I think, but she curdles the pish in me guts."

Me all nodding. I understand, I'm saying, s'like that lad I asked out, and yet, hetero to the back a the nuts, I am.

"Aye, for sure." And then; "What?"

Sometimes a fella just stumbles into these things, just opens the yap without thinking and next thing anyone knows there he is, flailing in the hedgerows o' hell with those words round about slinging sulphur 'gainst his jowels for all eternity.

Well, like, y'know, that fella. I kinda, y'know.

"And did he?"

Well not then. Later on, like.

Later on round back the club, with the snow to the ankles and the mumbled beats all crashing from beyond the walls. Nothing X-rated, I'm telling him. Just. Y'know.

He studies the end o' his cigarette for a time. "This is some momentous fuckin shit you're flingin on me here."

A silence, aye, thick as the man-slush o' Zeus. Then it's all come on, for fucks sakes, the hell kinda tosser are you, anyroad, a big ol' tosser likes o' which I never once laid eyes on, that's what kind, if'n you accept that sorta banter as Gospel. Fuckin wi' your mentals like there's no tomorrow, that's what I'm doin' here an now.

Couple pints later it's forgotten.

On the kerb by the KFC, the lass is asking me, "So what, then?"

What what?

"Well, did you?"

A shrug from yours truly. Who's to say, in this day and age?

More at the link. And always worth the read.













*Me (to husband who is downstairs): Honey?
Husband: WHAT!!!
Me: Are we related to the Franklin-Templeton people?
Husband: NO!!!
Me: (sotta voice) F*ck.
Husband: I HEARD THAT!!!

"Where the Seats Have No Name"

Ancient Gaelic on the walls and perfume in the ladies’ room
Dark wood tables, each brought over
Piece by piece from Boru’s tomb
Bridgid brings a round of Smithwick’s plus a Power’s on the rocks
Raven tresses though her sister sports the wild fiery locks

(chorus):
Pints in glasses, raise a din
They never shoulda let us in
We’re all wicked liquored up at the upscale downtown Irish pub



Shortly after New Year’s Eve, I was walking around O’Farrell and Cyril Magnin and happened to notice that Johnny Foley’s was closed for seismic retro-fitting. A quick count of weeks to mid-March told me this would either be [a] the fastest seismic retrofitting in town which means someone had an inside track with the Building Permit Department – not a far stretch, really - and dust would fly or [b] Johnny Foley’s was perhaps not to return.

But Johnny Foley’s returned to great fanfare in the California Irish Herald and the local grapevine. And in time for the big day.

A week or so after the last green plastic cup was carted off to the local landfill, I stopped by to say 'hello' to the good folks I used to see on a regular basis until the hamburgers jumped to $9.95 and they started charging extra for the bleu cheese.

Marie met me at the door and showed off the remodel with proprietorial pride. She made me list all the improvements I could see, without telling me first.

Me: New wallpaper, I see that right off, and it’s beautiful. I love that color. New art nouveau sconces, nice! And new taps…that’s a lot of brass there! Okay, what else? Those stairs to the cellar, that’s a whole partition now. And the bookcase over there, well that’s gone. And – hey! -- the ‘Hippies Use the Side Door’ sign, that’s gone too!
Marie: And so’s the side door.
Me: I can see that! But I liked that sign!
Marie: It’s over here, by the bathrooms. And we’ve got new pictures up by there too.
Me: Fidel Castro with a bottle of Powers. Cool.
Marie: What else do you see?
Me: The whole bathroom layout is different, obviously, no more payphones here and the coat rack is gone. And…oh my god!
Marie: What?
Me: That’s a stunning portrait of Bono you got there!

One week later, I had Mssrs Pachinko & Hoover down to see this. Their reaction was near to mine. We hadn’t planned on staying for a meal, but the new waitress mistook our interest and seated us right at this most august of tables.



(Joe Pachinko, San Francisco poet. Photographer: Miss Templeton)

I tried to convince my friends of the significance of this addition to the time-honored, tradition bound iconography of the joints I had known most of my life. "Look," I said. "This puts the man in a whole new realm. This is beyond lunch with the President of the United States or meeting the Pope or being in a video with Sting. Love him or don’t, we now have to give Bono the respect of someone who is Up on the Wall of a Pub."

Although my lunch mates were dubious, I warmed to the theme. "First of all, almost everyone else in a gilded frame in this room is dead. And not of old age either. And with Bono, we are clearly beyond the categories of politics, literature, and sport."

"Maybe he fits under 'literature' as a writer. A songwriter." Hoover offered.

We gave that some thought as we ordered another round.

"Perhaps," I said. "But it is still new ground. Songwriting as poetry? It’s a pretty bold step forward! Why, next there will be women on the wall!"

My companions hugged their glasses close and inched away, cringing against the lightening sure to strike me at this blasphemy.* But the moment of danger passed.

"No," I said. "This is historic. This is the dawn of a new era in pub décor."



It’s a new phenomenon, one for a new millennium
Sippin’ in a classy joint and not a dive just like some bum
This is grand, we’re well-behaved with voices at a decent pitch
Mind your language and the doorman, he’s a big son of a bitch!

Pints in glasses, raise a din
They never shoulda let us in
We’re all wicked liquored up at the upscale downtown Irish pub




*EXTRACT from DO THE RIGHT FECKIN’ THING, Draft of Spike Lee’s 1989 film with Jennifer Connolly as Buggin’ Out, Aidan Quinn as Brian, and Martin Sheen as Mike. Script was subsequently re-written for a different cast.

ANGLE--PUB
________________________________BUGGIN' OUT
-------------------------Mike, how come you ain't got no
-------------------------sisters up on the wall here?

_________________________ ______MIKE
-------------------------You want sisters up on the Wall
-------------------------of Fame, you open up your own
-------------------------business, then you can do what you wanna
-------------------------do. My Irish bar, men up on the wall.
____________________________________________________________________15.

_______________________________BRIAN
-------------------------Take it easy, Mike.

_______________________________MIKE
-------------------------Don't start on me today.

_______________________________BUGGIN' OUT
-------------------------Mike, that might be fine, you own
-------------------------this, but not only do I see men
-------------------------eating in here, I see women.
-------------------------So since we spend much money
.........................here, we do have some say.

_______________________________MIKE
-------------------- You a troublemaker?

Brian walks over to Buggin' Out.

_______________________________BRIAN
--------------------You making trouble.

_______________________________BUGGIN' OUT
--------------------Put some sisters up on this Wall
------------------______-of Fame. We want Mother Jones,
-----------------_____---Maureen O’Sullivan, Rosie O’Donnell
-------------------------tomorrow.