Mango Pudding Blues 3.0

HOW WILL WE KNOW?

At Mango Pudding Blues, our long-term goals included sniffing cocaine off the nipples of a 21-year-old movie starlet in the bathroom of the Concorde on the way to Barbados. Alas, we hear now that the famous planes are to be retired. We are sadly compelled to scratch that one off the list

But how now will we know when we’ve arrived?

* * *

Friday, April 11, 2003

A WHIFF OF JINGOISM

We at Mango Pudding Blues are not, even in these dark days, against Americans. Although many of our Canadian brothers and sisters like to verbally abuse our neighbours to the south, no doubt out of a collective sense of insecurity, we ourselves have always liked Americans, and we’ve never had anything less than a fine time in America. Heck, our favorite city in the world, New York City, is right smack dab in America.

Also, we at Mango Pudding Blues do not, as you all know, tend to comment on politics. However, this bugged us all day yesterday, and so we have to get it off of our chest; yesterday, the newspapers pretty much universally declared the war in Iraq to have been won. Not only that, but they did so in what we felt was an unseemly tone of breathless excitement. Our own beloved Globe and Mail was thin on new facts yesterday; was vague about what advances had been actually made by the American and British forces, but virtually gushed about the symbolic toppling of a Saddam statue. Story after story, headline after headline, even the cartoon, carried hints, subtle and unsubtle, that war was over and that the West had won. We were disturbed.

A visit to our newsagent revealed that all the other papers were doing the same. As though a massive Noam-Chomsky-ish conspiracy were afoot. As though the government of the United States owned the newspapers of Canada. As though there were strings being pulled behind the scenes and our media were dancing, shamefully, like puppets.

We at Mango Puddin’ Blues believe that the war in Iraq is a tragic and disturbing reality and should be reported as such in our Canadian newspapers. It should be reported with the utmost attempt to avoid bias and jingoism. It should be seen and reported as a horrific event, even by those who support it.

To our Canadian print media, we say shame on you. Had we wanted that kind of panting, flag-waving, awestruck propaganda, we would have tuned in to CNN.

* * *

Thursday, April 10, 2003

MY NEW ITALIAN SHOES

Sharp. Sharper than a serpent’s tooth! Sharp as a slick set of six silver Sabatier steak knives. Black of course, but with red soles. Soles redder’n the asses of badboy baboons on a steamy day. The toes, alone among the toes of today’s shoes, are somehow both pointy and angular. Needle-sharp but squared off. And the shoes are flat. And long. Flatter than flapjacks and longer than the day. One hair longer and they’d look like I took ’em offa clown. One hair sharper and I’d cut the concrete when I walk down the street and the stricken city would send me a bill. Girls shake, men cry and kids run screamin’ when I amble down the street. Neat. Cats and dogs pull their tails down over their anuses, instinctively afraid they might brush the tips of my razor shiv soles.

* * *

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

FIGHTING THE FORCES OF DARKNESS

We at Mango Pudding Blues are fighting the forces of darkness today by contemplating a black and white photograph of Rahsaan Roland Kirk in a top hat and tuxedo playing a large saxophone in the middle of a New York City street.

* * *

Monday, April 07, 2003

A DARING DAYTIME RAID ON THE CALGARY PUBLIC LIBRARY

We flew into the city under the cover of darkness and bunked down in a secret erie set up by our local accomplice. The next day, in civilian clothes, we walked into the central branch like we owned the place, found what we wanted and took it. Used our accomplice’s library card. Of course Killer was a rock, but I almost broke down weeping when I saw the place again. I came of age among those stacks. No time for sentiment, though. We got the payload and got out. Apologies to the many Calgarians who know me and whom I didn’t call, but loose lips sink ships. I was back in the air before word of my arrival even got around. I watched Calgary spin away below me, gleaming like a crystalline outgrowth in the prairie sunset, my foot idly tapping the black bag stowed under the seat. And now I’m back home.

The item? A four-CD set called The Erteguns’ New York Cabaret Music. Four discs of brilliant small-combo club jazz recorded by Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, mostly in the 50s. I must have taken it out 100 times when I lived in Calgary. Probably started listening to it when I was 22 years old. Beautiful. You can’t buy it now, unless you’re lucky on e-bay. The Ottawa Public Library, which could maybe polish the Calgary library’s shoes if it tried hard on its best day, doesn’t carry it. Doesn’t carry anything like it in its sagging, dowdy shelves.

Tonight I’m going to burn this bitch. And am I stealing? Am I taking money from the pockets of Ahmet and of Joe Moony and of Billy Taylor and of Mel Torme and of the fabulous Bobby Short? Maybe. But to Ahmet Ertegun I say this; put it out again. Put it out again, and then I’ll buy it.

And to the lucky readers in Calgary, it’ll be back in three weeks. Why don’t you go take a crack at it?

And just to show you that I’m not only about taking the music, I have a little something to give back. I finally figured out how to record on my little old Yamaha PSR-225GM, and today I further figured out how to crank that pig into the computer and churn out an mp3. And so to you my little lovelies I present tonight a brief version of my latest hit single, Kurt Vonnegut. It’s short and kooky, freshly recorded, and yes, the tempo pitches and yaws like a drunken sailor. But I bet Kurt Vonnegut would like it anyway. Okay.

* * *