Sunday, April 5, 2009

And while we are still on the subject of playing the saw...

It is a little known fact (which some people still don't believe, or choose not to believe, or blindly deny outright) that Itzhak Perlman got his start playing the saw on weekends in roadhouses along highway 90 on the Gulf Coast and in southern Louisiana during the late 1960s, complete with chicken wire to protect him from thrown beer bottles, and over the years, through dedication and determination, improved and perfected his craft (and suffered through an instrument change) until finally he was invited, along with fellow roadhouse veteran Yo-Yo Ma (originally a washboard and table spoon player by the name of Titan Uppe), to play at Obama's inauguration earlier this year. Believe it or don't.

May god strike Bush down if I am not telling the truth.

35 comments:

  1. Okay, you lying little pervert, I get the picture is from Cuckoo's Nest but what the hell is the connection to your lame post?

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  2. Max - I had no idea! There's a Ph.D. in here somewhere...maybe. If not that, then definitely a musical saw.

    And you know people will be mystified by this if they don't (a) read my post from today and (b) read your comment on (a), don't you? I'm sure you do, come to think of it.. :)

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  3. Nice, crisp, high-quality run-on sentence, Max. I have been selected to come here and officially notify you that it far surpasses your previous record for a run-on sentence, the one about British rail food, which you set on January 2 of this year. While the quality of the present post is not even close to the January 2 post on BritishSpeak, the sentence itself is a personal best and deserves public mention. We are all amazed that you still have a few people actually reading your crud.

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  4. Yes, Lidian. I was sitting here trying to think of some way to work in a plug for your post on KitchenRetro, and, like magic, you appear. Ta-dah!

    Although the true answer is really in my comment to that post, admittedly. :)

    PhD indeed. Meh.

    Thank you. Your stern-ness regarding David Letterman's monolog in my background is hereby forgiven. :)

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  5. Can anyone join in? Blog posts consisting of a conversation between two people are very off-putting. FlooZ and Tal E Wacker notwithstanding, it makes one feel like an intruder.

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  6. I don't think I could join in if I wanted too! The British Rail food post is an outstanding example of total clarity in comparison with this.... um.... this post Best not attempted first thing in the morning. I dare say it makes perfect sense after a few. A few what? I leave that up to you.

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  7. Damn it! I wanted to see what you were going to say about the movie. WTF? Another running commentary?

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  8. Running something, that's for sure.

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  9. Max - I am seldom stern, you know. Sarcastic, ironic, didactic, academic - sure, why not. All the 'ic' (or ick, eprhaps) words. I aim for a (Groucho) Marxian sensibility! :)

    And I do actually like Letterman.

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  10. 'Perhaps,' not 'eprhaps'...Example in a sentence: Perhaps I need to proofread my comments a little bit more.

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  11. Ma once got her string terribly tangled and totally twisted, during a performance of her spiffy sparkly spinning toy. This is of course a dreadful disaster, the very epitome of egg-on-the-face, a one-way only Yo-Yo, or, as it has since been called, a Yo.
    Still, no Ma is ever stuck for long, and her rescuer was a guy from the audience, a jeweller, called Itzhak, the pearl-man. He came to the rescue by stripping all the pearls off a sample necklace, and plaiting up a new string, for Ma. Just a twitch, a hook, a bounce, and a whirl, and the yo went out, and the yo returned, and the crowd roared, for Yo-Yo!, Ma girl!

    p.s. "A good whine needs no bush."

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  12. @Soubriquet - I think I will just hope A. responds to that. I'm a bit in over my head here. No match. :)

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  13. Shee-it. That'll be the day Maxie is in over his head, bullshit-wise.

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  14. Dear children of God,

    As official chaplain of the long-neglected Slap and Tickle (for which Max is two months behind on both the lease and my salary) let me please appeal to you to stop this bickering amongst yourselves. In truth, NEITHER post was understandable, and neither had any real purpose for being in the first place. Such is the the uncaring attitude of Relax Max.

    I extend to you all my sincere blessings, except to the infidel Tally Wacker, and ask that you please restrain yourselves a bit more in a public forum such as this.

    Special cautions to the resident hick Ettarose, who, due to her dialup, will probably not receive this until Saturday, and to the always-disruptive A.

    Go with God.

    Vicar Ezra, Chaplain
    The Slap & Tickle house of corruption and illicit den of iniquity

    PS-Tell Sheila I want my Bible returned, and I mean RIGHT NOW!

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  15. I guess you know what you can do with your advice old man. Last I saw you you were giving special dispensation to Candy Girl down in the wine cellar at the Slap & Tickle.

    But as for that useless clueless perverted escapee from the Detroit dog pound, Relax Max, let's just SEE if he has the guts to show up at the pub again. Ha! Loser. Hoser. Misfit. Boring blogger. Filthy limerick poet. Canucklehead lover.

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  16. Um, if those are my choices, I'll take "don't".

    Now, I'll anxiously await the results.

    (By the way, despite not knowing the provenance, I had no trouble understanding this. Should I check myself into a mental institution proactively?)

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  17. So you're lying? Cool.

    I don't understand what the picture has to do with the lie unless you've flown over the cuckoo's nest yourself, dear.

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  18. @Sheila - Sure you can join in. Don’t feel like an intruder. Go ahead and contribute to the conversation. Or was that your contibution already? :)

    @A.- The BRF post is over. We’ve all moved on. Keep up. :)

    @Ettarose - Hi backwoods babe. Yeah, that movie probably seems new to you. Espeically with your dial up. Probably the page is not even loaded yet, huh? Have you got to the part about the ax murderer yet? :)

    @A. - Yes. Running something. Running Bear. Running water. Running... ummm... roundabout. :)

    @Lidian - Then why were you so stern about my second comment on your blog? A person with feelings might have had his feelings hurt. More to the point, why are you taking two comments to explain why I can’t have two comments? And if you think I am going to look up the word didactic, you lose your bet because I don’t even care. Much. And, while we are on the subject of saw playing, where do you get off using those uppity words with me anyway? You’re not British. You’re only Canadian, and not even full-blooded Canadian at that. There. I’ve finally got THAT off my chest after weeks of holding it in. :)

    ---------

    I’ve got your hoser right here Tally Wacker. Come get it.

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  19. @Stephanie B - You understood this? :)

    (Yes, check yourself in. Today.)

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  20. @Angelika --

    "How do I know when a man is lying? His lips start moving."

    Marsha Mason as Paula
    "The Goodbye Girl"

    Angelika, how could you doubt? You are such a cynic. :)
    ---------
    Ok, well, since you don't seem to really care what the picture has to do with the post, I'll tell you.

    On my travels last night to make comments on blogs (suck up to people so they will come read my stuff, you know?) I came across this post which had an old advertisement from an old magazine that the blogger was making fun of (I won't embarrass her by telling you who the blogger was but her initials are L.I.D.I.A.N.

    And that old ad was about learning to play the saw for fun and profit. Well, I don't know about the profit, exactly. Nor could it really be that much fun holding a saw between your legs and sawing on it with a violin bow. Anyway, several of the comments indicated skepticism that one could play a hand saw, like you cut wood with, with a violin bow. Even the blog owner, this unnamed L.I.D.I.A.N person, had never heard of it. (Later she claimed she had, but, you know, pffft on that, right?)

    But I not only knew it could be done, I had heard it done in my yoot (see "My Cousin Vinny" for that one), felt the excruciating pain in my eardrums and had even helped catch the scared cats afterwards.

    Jumping ahead, although Stephanie will be disappointed that I left parts out, the music at the end of the movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", after the Chief tears out the water fountain station and crashes through the second story barred window to freedom (as you no doubt recall vividly) has music under the closing credits which consisted of a saw being played.

    Sigh.CaffCaff.

    [I meant that in a didactic way of course.]

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  21. Hey, Maxie. Some of us were wondering where you were hiding out these days. But I just Googled "Bullshit" and this blog was in the top slot. Sooo.... did the IRS ever catch up with you? Or are we still not supposed to talk about that?

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  22. Speaking of things that are hard to explain.

    I have changed locations, by the way.

    Rocket Scientist is now at http://Rockets-r-Us.blogspot.com
    Ask Me Anything is now at http://askthers.blogspot.com

    Feel free to update your bloglist if you'd like. I'll be checking back whatever you decide.

    Take care.

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  23. @Stephanie - I will update my list. Welcome to the non-Today world of blogging. Now all you have to do is dump Entrecard and you'll be up to speed. :)

    Kidding about Entrecard. You are very welcome to stay on that, I'm sure.

    Updating bloglist.

    I was wondering why your blog today wouldn't take my comments. But my Haiku sucked anyway:

    XP sighed and left
    Vista promised to save us
    Tiger I still use

    Thank you for your support. I promise to write better stuff now. :)

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  24. Relax Max, and Vicar Ezra. You both deserve each other. One thing you forget my funny little liar, I use something different at different times. I am not always on dial up. As far as the movie, please keep your biased bullshit to yourself. I not only "saw" the movie I knew about the "saw" in the movie. So dear boys, (and I use the term loosely) BITE ME!!!!!!

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  25. I read this yesterday, and I would have bet money (like maybe 72 cents, which is what I have at the moment) that I had commented.
    Primarily in relation to the last line, which I loved loved loved.
    But I seem to have lost myself along the way. Or perhaps I left the comment on someone else's blog, where hopefully it was only senseless and not actively offensive.

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  26. Do your lips move when you type? Interesting...

    I don't remember the credits from movies. I rarely watch the credits.

    But I have seen (on TV) and heard the lovely hand saw music.

    Thank you for the reference to "My Cousin Vinny". I would not have know what "yoot" was otherwise, LOL.

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  27. When I was a kid, we had a neighbour whose hobby was making violins. He worked for a timber importer, and seemed to know everything about woodworking, his garage was full of musical instruments of all sorts, african finger-pianos, australian potwood xylophone, stringed instruments...
    Then one day, he said. "You ever heard a saw being played?" I said "no", he said "Have you ever watched Star Trek? Then you've heard a saw being played."
    And he proceeded to play a saw, an ordinary long rip-saw. The sound was other-worldly, like an electronic instrument, more moog than moog... The nearest sound I can think of is a theremin. The Bonzo Dog Doo-dah Band had a theremin. It was set into a shapely plaster leg. On their album "Keynsham" there's a track called "Noises for the Leg". I prefer saw music.
    Sandvik make a musical saw, the Sandvik Stradivarius. So do several other companies.
    There's a classical saw player in or near New York, she's solo'd at Carnegie Hall and at Madison Square gardens. I think she's on Youtube somewhere, her site is http://www.sawlady.com/
    Zubin Mehta speaks highly of her.

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  28. Sadly, I didn't even try a haiku.

    Vista's my system
    I reboot with a hammer.
    There, I feel better.

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  29. @Ettarose - Thank you for the kind words. I will pass them on to the vicar. And don't pretend you have access to DSL. You are lucky to even have electricity. Bite me noted for future attack.

    @Janet - I'm sure you would never be actively offensive, unlike Ettarose.

    @Angelika - You don't have to watch the credits. Just sit there with your eyes closed and listen to the music. :) :) Yo.

    @Soubriquet - Interesting story about your neighbor. ::stifles yawn:: A couple little known facts that he may not have told you about Star Trek was that the saw in the theme song was played by Leonard Nimoy's wife (though Roddenberry** refused, in the end, to pay her); and that the sound of the saw in the theme song induced epileptic seizures in Bill Shatner. Or so they thought - it was hard to tell with Bill. If this is not true, may God cause me to hit the Powerball numbers this Saturday night.

    **Upon perusing Google for a picture of Gene Roddenberry (not remembering that it wouldn't display here in the comments anyway) I came to see an uncanny resemblance between Gene and my troll friend who lives in Walmart's baby department. Uncanny. So... did Gene REALLY die or not? But perhaps I drift off topic, and I know how much that disturbs Janet and Stephanie, who are used to regular blogs and haven't yet realized that the real meat of this blog (and all my blogs, except for WayHarsh, which has no meat) lies in the comments and that the posts are quite incidental -- new posts being made only when the comments section gets too long.

    This tidbit alone, I'm thinking, should be enough to milk this sorry post for yet another 2 days, or even up to the weekend. Maybe not.

    @Soubriquet - sorry to not comment on the lady saw player who performed both at wee Andra Carnegie's Hall and at the unfathomably-named "Garden" located off Madison Square, but I dozed off and stopped reading your comment right after the Star Trek part. So.

    @Stephanie - I liked your Haiku a lot. Better than mine, that's for sure. :)

    (And you got the part about posts on my blogs not really being needed, that they are just a front for the conversations down here in the basement, right?)

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  30. Jesus Joseph and Mary! Even an idiot heathen as Relax Max should know better than to talk on a blog about someone having fits!

    And for your information, runt dog, hound of the devil, I do NOT have seizures when I am preaching. You KNOW I am speaking in tongues, as I am given utterance, and that is NOT IN ANY WAY related to having a fit on TV as you have so often intimated!

    I am still praying for you little dog.

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  31. Long silences from A. do not bode well. Waiting for the other shoe to fall.

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  32. Don't tempt me. You should know better.....

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  33. @A - No, I was just waiting for you to honor my request to answer Soubriquet's poetic comment that was over my head. :) A little help from someone wiser than me is needed.

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  34. The light is beginning to dawn . . . I'm a bit slow sometimes.

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  35. @Janet - You are hardly slow. This was just a stupid post to try and get people to talk to me. I worked. :)

    That's odd...

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