Rosenbush Cafe

Kara Mia Pia

Cats love to get into all manner of mischief, even if to us it doesn’t seem so, but we do love when our human friends record our funny or embarrassing moments. We especially like to be in drag, i.e. dressed in Halloween costumes, Christmas garb, football stuff - you do know I’m being catcastic, right? Meow.

We wanted to end the month with a smile for our carbon-based upright life partners with this collection. Remember to get photo release forms signed by your felines, cats, birds, snakes, hampsters, etc. You can find them at most pet stores, vet offices, animal shelters or camera shops! Purr, mew, mew, purrrrr, meow, hiss, hiss, meoooooooooow. (Have a safe and careful ‘ween and watch out for the animals!) - Love, Kara Mia Pia

Clock is ticking, less than two days for the moment of truth. Leonard Cohen in concert and somehow I’ll be there with Tala on Sunday night for 3 hours of x-t-c. Profound and wonderful, this song is dedicated to my muse and dear friend, Kalliope Amorphous, with love and great respect.

By Henry B. Rosenbush

Some profanity, but nothing you haven’t already heard or said today!

Edited to add more after the original edit at 752p-

Forty years ago, I was almost sixteen and had no idea all years later I would be a blogger on the internet, that world wild web, or as I prefer to describe it, the ether, saying so that was where we were headed technologically. Indeed.

What did we do before we had computers and a link to the world?

Computers came into the Journalism School at Southern Miss the quarter before I graduated in 1977 so I didn’t get to do anything but sit in front of one, Benson and Hedges dangling from my lips, and say something stupid like, “So this is a computer, eh? I’ll never own one of these!”

It would be a newspaper career without using computers until my last job assignment in the hellhole of New Smyrna Beach, Florida, sitting in a bureau for the Daytona Beach News, typing on a Texas Instrument Computer, where you could only see the line you were typing and if you made an error, even the slightest misplaced comma or syntax, you were screwed until you’d finished filing the entire story. What a pisser. I had been a copy editor for a daily newspaper and was using a manual typewriter catching others’ mistakes for hours and now I had to wait a half hour until the copy editor, thirty five miles away, would send me a note - not exactly like a text message of chat but similar in concept - to ask what the hell does this mean?

At the end of the council meeting, member Sstn npbp m said ….

I see.

Well, no I couldn’t see. Too bad that on a manual I typed about 65 words a minute with 4 fingers and on the TI it would take me an hour to do what could in 3/4 less.

Of course before this cretin has called I have a print out, on Dot Matrix, that took twenty minutes but at least I am already typing an edit or add one to the original.

She calls back to say, “Are you finished?” An hour later. Hmmm, I guess she hasn’t learned that –30– means, “The End.”

After I returned to Alabama, to reassess my life in the Fourth Estate, I took a typing class at the local community college and then a computer class where I sat before an Apple, knowing I would never learn how to make a spreadsheet and was destined to be, “that guy at the end who doesn’t get it!”

In the end, other students sat next to me to learn how to use a computer. “Henry is no longer that GUY who doesn’t GET IT.”

WTF?

Me, a possible Luddite? Shows how little we know at age 24 and again at 33. Besides, I spent an entire, albeit entirely brief, newspaper career typing with between two and four fingers on each hand. I knew it was time to learn typing for real when I started including my thumbs where it turns out they always belong..on the space bar!

My teacher was a brunette “older lady,” well not that much older, but I was eager to learn and actually typed as one of my first exercises my fantasy:

We sat at the bar, laughing and pointing at the sign over the Crown Royale section that promised ‘All Mixed Drinks Contain 15 liters of Alcohol’.

My Type: “Can you believe they misplaced the period? 15!!!”
Stud ent: “There isn’t even 1.5 in this Old Fashioned!”
My Type: “Who typed that?”
Bartender: “My boss! We left it there so people would know that the ‘boss isn’t always right’ and more often an asshole who can’t type, add or…”
My Type: “We’ll have another.”
Stud ent: “You’re so hot for a typist! Your place of mine?”
My Type: “How about right here? Bartender, clear the bar…no wait, there’s a booth in the corner…”

Well, I never did get her to the bar but I finished with an A.

So an Amstrad Word Processer from Sears for $150! No connection to the Internet in 1985 so I starting writing bad poetry, worse fiction and a whole lotta non sequiturs.

In 1991, I had a computer geek living here at the Henri Villas who was into all these violent video games. Blood-splattering everywhere, first person shooters, gory, sexist, and misogynist-driven and I sucked at Ms. Pac Man. “Look at the colors and the realism. You can kill anything or anyone from the privacy of your home. And I do.”

“Uh, yeah, I just came for the rent.”

After meeting Natalia in 1992, she and I used her brothers’ 1987 HP PB 500. Word Perfect anyone?

Compaq Presario in 1998 was my first desktop. Still have it, and yeah the PB 500 and piece of a Sony Vaio Notebook. I have three 8-Track players, a Hi-Fi, thousands of vinyl, 45s, 78s, 33 1/3rds, a Victrola….obviously Luddite was a passing phase.

So now I’m working with an external keyboard because Shygirl slept on my HP Laptop and decided I didn’t need the 2/@, S, 8/* or DELETE.

A long way from 1994 when another tenant, who actually helped me start my webpage 12 years later, showed me the weather in the UK, and said one day anyone could connect to anyone anywhere at any time and all night!

“Gosh, gee willikers,” I said. “Give me another hit of whatever you’re smoking!

They say that as of today there are so many sites and people on the ‘net if you sat down to click on them all it would take 32,000 years.

Guess they didn’t think about tomorrow.

–30–

or as AP did it in 1980

-hbr-10/30/09-728p-

add one

did i mention that this week the Widnows Vista crashed?

Never had that problem on my 1948 Royal.

eXisTenTiaLNihLisT

Edited near the witching hour…

ye all be forewarned the following tribute to the last day of October - hey it used to come on May 15th but you can thank a Pope for moving it up a few months - trick or treat leans more towards trickery; at the end your swag bag will not be filled with sweeties - bad for your teeth anyway - but there will be profanity, like in the fourth sentence! My last Halloween was while my mother was still alive and I was chastized by a father because I wore a Satan mask and answered my front door with a “Trick” to his smug little boy’s “Trick or Treat?” He cried. He was dressed as a ghost and he was afraid of the Devil? Besides, he asked the questioned, I merely answered. After that, I gave the next little girl dozens of candies, said good night and let the others leave my yard in the dark. Let the spirits guide them to the next house…

Do nilhists celebrate Halloween?

Not this one.

The existentialist says, “Aw, c’mon, it’s for the children…”

The nilhist replies, “Fuck the Children and fuck those who get rich off a holiday that had nothing to do with free candy and kiddies dressed like, if can believe this one, Bernie Madoff? I can accept movie serial killers like Michael Myers and Jason or even little cowboys or princesses (top seller this year, again) but the greatest swindling drug-crazed monster of the past year gets a mask? Fuck me. So you are someone who lost your life savings, while Madoff, is smoking primo pot, snorting coke and diddling with high priced escorts, and you open the fucking front door, armed with candy corn - which was all you afford this year, but hey, at least you had something to give the little ones - and you come face to face with BERNIE FUCKING MADOFF’s FACE, arms outstretched with a swag bag!!!!

Justifiably homicide wouldn’t cover this crime. “You muthafuka, there better be a 401K in that god damn grocery bag!”

The makers of this outfit deserve a special corner of the Crab Nebula, nearest a black hole so they can be stretched into infinity while still alive, and wearing, of course the MAD-OFF costume.

Surely, they are going to do the humane thing and give all proceeds to the victims.

Uh-huh. Got to change my pants.

So here I am in the eye, ear, nose and throat doctor this morning, trying to get well in case Leonard Cohen calls someone from the audience to do a sing-a-long.

Uh-huh. Damn, got to change again.

Anyway, the office is doctored by men, but staffed by women, and just about everyone was dressed up for Halloween. The nurses were particularly intricate, “The Wizard of Oz” a specific leitmotif: Tin Lady, Wicked Witch, and Cowardly Lioness. I complimented them as I walked to my room:

“Will Dr. Loftin be dressed as a doctor?” I asked the girl, dressed like a feline - black tail included, but tucked into her pant’s waist; perhaps too many tugs from wayward children?

“Actually, the other day he was the Wizard!”

The doctor was dressed as, well, a doctor, with all the medical accouterments and a script for meds and some free samples which is better than stale candy that was put on the shelves in late August.

Obviously, there are places where costumes are not welcomed: banks, courtrooms, funeral parlors or hospitals for the criminally insane.

Courtrooms could benefit from a bit of dressing up: the judge, who we all know is dressed in women’s lingerie, like the great Monty Python routine, can strip off the robes and come to court in the lacy bra, panties and garter and silk stockings; he has always longed to wear in front of the stenographer who comes in her dominatrix garb. The black bailiff enjoys a KKK white robe so he can stare menacingly at all the clannish yokels in court on drug and drunk driving charges.

So let’s sit in the courtroom tomorrow and watch as the prosecutor, dressed like Mother Goose, questioning the witness of a mob hit, dressed like a carnary, or if you’re past seventy, a pigeon, and asks if he can point out the killer.

“Y-yes s-s-sir,” he stammers pointing towards Dracula, sitted at the defendants table, but alas, that is the defense attorney and the hitman is dressed as a zombie.

The jurors are dressed as sheep, lemmings, lambs and bats are none to thrilled to see their foreman dressed as a hangman giving the “thumb’s up” sign to the zombie. The press? Dressed as jackels, snakes, buzzards and God.

Just a thought but will there ever come a time when all these useless holidays are retired? Hidden egg hunts, yeah that works for the kiddies who don’t understand there may be some more profound reasons for Easter Sunday. Only April Fool’s Day is courageous enough to celebrate fools even if has nothing to do with them. Leap Year? Leap the Grand Canyon, you greedy bastards. Another excuse for calendar misprints. Will families come together out of love and caring again rather than to feed the multi-million dollar industries that thrive on marketing?

The answer is in the ledger so for as long as Butterball makes money from slaughtering turkeys people will buy, cook and eat them. Until the run out of holidays (co-workers, mothers-in-law, secretary’s day) Hallmark will keep writing stupid greeting cards. Greetings my ass.

Thanksgiving?

Thanking…?

The mistreated and murdered AMERICAN INDIANS? The bravery after Plymouth Rock makes me ashamed to be an American. Luckily, my grand parents came from other locations: Germany, Hungary, the Planet Neptune.

Christmas?

Don’t get me started, Scrooge McDuck, I’ll save that one for later this year. Forget black coal in your stockings, how about an entire mine?

AAAAH, the fun of nihlism after existentialism…one can ponder the hollow promises of all things while shredding them, throwing into the fireplace and watch as the flames consume them.

Anyone for a stale Hershey’s Kiss?

“I love the country but hate the scene.”

One of the nicest aspects of the interlocking web of world wide is that, along with all the torrents of stuff you do not ask for, need or want, there are moments when useful or important information streams across the screen and brings a smile to an otherwise brooding face.

Granted, I asked for the “Event Reminder” from Ticketmaster and they sent an email which read , Your event is happening soon! I was getting a 5-day alert to Leonard Cohen, Sunday, November 01, 2009 8 p.m. at the Asheville Civic Center. A benefactor to the Cafe sent Natalia and I tickets to this concert, Mr. Cohen’s first in 15 years, which started last summer in Canada, and has thrilled audiences throughout the world. Last week, it was reported that his concert at the famous Fox Theater, in Atlanta, was a 3-hour affair! This will be our first live performance of the decade; our last live performance was to see George Carlin, in October, 2001.

The anonymous doner said “Tala and you deserve a day off together.” We are both off in different directions with varying degrees of agendas keeping us on the move and so when I received the tickets and the note I was surprised and giddy with excitement. In a few days, we’ll enjoy a performer who we were both aware of, separately, when we met in 1992. There was the lengthy drive to DC in the mid-1990s to visit her daughter and husband and how we must have listened to Cohen and Eartha Kitt so much we could have sang along with a duet.

I first listened to Leonard Cohen, like his large older fan base, in the seventies, when his music reminded me of Joe Cocker, without the sore throat; a male raspy voice like Marianne Faithful and with a story-telling style likely to echo everyone from Shel Silverstein to Bob Dylan. Cohen’s music has always been visual; his lyrics are likely to take one away from the song and transport them elsewhere it is so profound.

“I’ve seen the future, brother: it is murder.”

As he got older, performing less but still writing, his songs began finding their way into movie scores. His release, “The Future” in 1992 (Anthem, full lyrics included at end) Leonard attracted another audience. The graphic nature of the songs and his prose, always spot on, revealed more subtext than a dozen Beatles albums and with each of the nine songs, there was a story about everything, including a much needed swipe at America in “Democracy;” it was coming to the USA whether or not it was wanted. Several tracks ended up on the soundtrack for Oliver Stone’s twisted serial killer black comedy, “Natural Born Killers,” even if included with disturbing imagery that may have been lost on the unfamiliar Cohen fan. Fan or not, the addition of his songs added immensely to the mixed bag that was NBK.

For “The Future,” each tracks was an encapsulent story in itself. Even the titles alone can immediately bring the melodies forward, at least for me, without starting the CD, they were all brave, funny, evoking pathos and political diatribes delivered smoother than Vermont sryup: 1. Future, 2. Waiting for the Miracle, 3. Be for Real, 4. Closing Time, 5. Anthem, 6. Democracy, 7. Light as the Breeze, 8. Always and 9. Tacoma Trailer

Who wouldn’t want to be with Leonard when the bartender makes his last call in “Closing Time.”

When you listen to rock legend Lou Reed read lyrics from Cohen’s songs in the introduction of Leonard’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, March 10, 2008, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York City, it is easy to see why he successful: poetically beautiful and simple language mixed with profound and deeper meanings that make the listener have to repeat the song, once for just the music and again for just the message. Reed, not walking on the wild side so much as in his Velet Underground days, has aged well (I have a few of his LPs) is quietly effective in his reading of lyrics, sans the music, so we can hear the words of love, freedom and strength that are often lost in guitars and background vocalists. “Joan of Arc,” sounds as if he was channeling Lou Reed when he sang it!

I know this weekend will be a mixture of many songs, some I’ll recognize immediately while others will be new, for the first time, but what I look forward to the most will be the opportunity to sit next to Tala while we enjoy these moments together. We have both endured few triumphants and plenty of failures in recent years and lost loved ones as well, my father, mother and aunt, her father, earlier this year, and now we can take off one day to think not about ourselves; we can become lost in the music and fanciful once again and dance until the end of love.

Anthem

The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be

The wars they will
Be fought again
The holy dove
Be caught again
Bought and sold
And bought again
The dove is never free

Chorus
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in

We asked for signs
The signs were sent
The birth betrayed
The marriage spent
The widowhood
Of every government
Signs for all to see

Can’t run no more
With the lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud
But they’ve summoned up
A thundercloud
And they’re going to hear from me

Chorus

You can add up the parts
But you won’t have the sum
You can strike up the march
There is no drum
Every heart
To love will come
But like a refugee

Chorus

With saxophone legend Sonny Rollins