UNTITLED

I’ve written a poem with true vigor

It’s small and I can’t seem to do bigger

For all I can find

To rhyme the last line

Is mentioning actor Clu Gulager

L'chaim Van Morrison! CLOTHES MAKE THE VAN

What? You didn't know VAN MORRISON was Jewish?

His original group was THEM. Who do you think are always called THEM people?

Here's Van, now 71, joyously dancing with members of the tribe.

What? You think there's something phony here?

Well, yes. That's what I thought when I saw the original picture.

Surly Van's publicists and make-up people and fashion designers gussied him up and persuaded him to pose in order to promote a BLUES gig. The idea: he's not an OLDIES act, just because "Moondance" and "Gloria" were some 40 or 50 years ago. Nope. He's an authentic BLUES BROTHER, like, oh, Jim Belushi.

So they had him dressed up in a Blues Brother hat and jacket, a scarf, shades...striking a pose with his fists thumbs up, and a sullen pout. That's how a white guy seems black.

Oh those white people!

Then, make sure the band is full of blacks (especially on bass and drum, rhythm you know). Definitely avoid Hasids! Which is why I surrounded Van with them.

My late colleague Peter Dvrackas, who worked with me on the rock mag ROCKET, used to point out how much a Bonnie Tyler or a David Bowie owed to fashion and make-up. I've never forgotten it.

Without the ultra cool hat and the shades, Van Morrison is just a squinty bald guy.

Without the cool hat matching the jacket, and without the scarf, he's kind of a squat old nerd.

Without the pouty lips and the hipster clenched fists, he doesn't have that rockin' blues vibe. (Nevermind that this guy probably can't move his legs any better than your Uncle Max...the one that died 8 years ago).

The idea is that this honky who always sounded like a honking goose, is actually much blacker, much bluesier, than Muddy Waters or Blind Willie McTell or Robert Johnson or any of the other African-Americans that Van's fans never listen to and would never go see.

In fact, if you just transport Mr. Morrison to a Jewish setting, call him MR. MORRIS if you will, you see just how BLUESY he really is. Not much.

What's the phrase? Schmuck and Mirrors. It's hype. It's hair and make-up. It's creating an image.

In truth, Van Morrison and Paul Simon look pretty much alike, don't they? Two slightly pudgy, sullen little guys who want everyone to think they are hip.

Of course Paul surrounds himself with Africans in costume, as if, by osmosis, he can magically reflect some mojo. Yes, he can. If Van was posed with blacks on drum and bass (most definitely, rhythm you now) and there was some guy in a dashiki on guitar, he'd look truly BLUESY. Here, he just looks truly JEWSY, and, too bad, that's not a good image. And when was the last time anyone noted that Klezmer music is pretty jazzy stuff?? "We're all dressed up for a Moandance..."

HA HA HALLOWEEN - trick or tracks! Full Songs and Samples

Google: Enforce the law and END THE YOUTUBE COVER SONG PLAGUE

You've noticed an annoyance on Copyright Violation Tube.

Er, make that Bootleg Tube. OK: YOUTUBE.

You're surfing (flexing, schmoozing, burglarizing) to find a favorite song you're too cheap to buy. But ten or twenty precious seconds are lost as you rummage through rubbish.

There's blurry cover versions done by dubious amateurs in their own homes. For some reason, they sit at a keyboard or strum a guitar, obviously STARING AT THE LYRICS, singing badly, playing badly, but they think YOU would like to watch.

Some are psycho.

Most of these YouTube mice could scare roaches.

A few, though, have been told they're PRETTY ENOUGH TO BE THE NEXT TAYLOR SWIFT.

Oops. Yeah, maybe the girl isn't bad looking, but after she starts singing, you hit MUTE.

And that's not all you want to HIT.

I mean that in a friendly, pushy, trollish, Trumpish way, of course. Since she's attractive and clueless, you figure you can hit on her by leaving a "nice" comment. Chicks dig a compliment, like: "you sing SOOOOOOOO beautifully. Really. I'm on Facebook and Twitter. I am rich, have connections in the music industry, and I'm not too old for you."

If you have a pointed head, just point the camcorder down a bit.

If you don't know how to work a camcorder too well and can't get the lighting right, well, maybe that's a good thing. See the unsightly guy below.

Something about YouTube draws the dregs of the world. This is their soap box. Or their toilet. They want to be discovered, and they should be; by the men in the white jackets.

Some people are just delusional egomaniacs.

WHY would they think YOU have nothing better to do than hear them plod their sticky, gecko-like fingers along the keys, barely hitting the right notes and singing in a thin, off-key voice? Especially when it's some song that you absolutely HATE?

The answer? It's obvious enough. Hey, Google Nazis, how about ENFORCING THE LAW?

Make sure your idiots sign up with a valid credit card. Make sure that if somebody RED FLAGS the video, you tell the idiot, "This will be taken down unless you can show us PROOF UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY that this is YOUR ORIGINAL WORK."

"If it's a cover version, SHOW US PROOF IT IS AUTHORIZED."

I just released my new album, HA HA HALLOWEEN and it's all originals. I discovered that my record label and all the suspects distributing my album (iTunes, Spotify, etc. etc.) required AUTHORIZATION for cover versions.

No problem about covering anybody's song, BUT the songwriter and publisher MUST KNOW. That's just a courtesy, even if the royalties are gonna be a very small hill of beans.

I was told, "You will have to go to the Harry Fox Agency and fill out forms, and let them know you are using the work, and submit records annually to show how many copies were sold and what their royalty is..." Huh?

YEAH. There's even such a thing as performance fees. Play a song in public, even free, and the writer and publisher STILL get paid.

On GooTube, it would be a good idea to enforce this law, if only to cut down on the amount of clutter on the site. It's pathetic enough that most every artist now is willing to settle for chump change on GooTube. In fact, they don't even GET chump change until a certain amount of "hits" are reached. You ain't seeing a nickel, literally, if your fantastic song only gets a thousand plays. Or is it five thousand.

Just as I can't do a cover version on an album unless I jump through a lot of hoops, GooTube singers should NOT be covering songs and torturing people (most of this stuff is barely worth one "so bad it's good" chuckle). If somebody is out of work and has nothing better to do than cover a song EVERY DAY, even if almost none of them are viewed beyond a very, very SMALL circle of friends, THAT person should do something else.

GooTube would be doing a public service in telling some of these people, "Nope, you can't cover peoples' songs without payment. Go work in a soup kitchen. Read to the blind. Or just go F- yourself."

As Bob Dylan sang it (and I can quote him as long as I'm only using a phrase), "Too much of nothing" is NOT a good idea.

This is TOO MUCH OF NOTHING

The DRAMA of upgrading from EL CAPITAN to SIERRA

Strange Thing about GLORIA ALLRED and PAT SAJAK

Praying to God to STOP being God

People are throwing MEMES all over Twitter and Facebook. Like THIS:

The trending hashtag of the day: #PrayforFlorida.

NOT pray that Florida gets rid of the meth addicts, the rednecks or the psychos with automatic weapons. Pray to God that Florida survives an act of God.

Most of the time, I'm told not to question God, but this time, damn, I'm being told to do just that.

Pray. In other words, whine. If not an outright, "God, do NOT let the hurricane strike like you planned," then maybe some wheedling: "God, if you spare everyone, I promise not to download more slutty Jennifer Lawrence pictures off 4Chan."

Why am I being TOLD to PRAY by people I don't even know?

It's because it's not enough that religious fanatics are praying. They want EVERYONE to pray.

That's how religious fanatics are.

They want you to believe what they believe. In Islam, everyone's supposed to shoot Rushdie if they get a chance. The Ayatollah said so decades ago, and it still goes.

What, it's against your religion to kill a writer? Shame on you! Go ahead!

Yusuf Cat Stevens, Mr. Sensitive, was asked if he'd burn Rushdie in effigy. He said no, he'd rather burn the actual man. (Ewww, baby baby it's a wild world). One religion tells you to kill somebody who writes something or draws a cartoon.

Another religion says to question God and talk him out of a hurricane. Or rather, a BIG hurricane.

We've had hurricanes A through L so far this season, but M? M is massive, so let's call in all favors, and pester people on Facebook and Twitter: "PRAY FOR THOSE IN THE PATH OF HURRICANE MATTHEW!!!!!"

Trending on Twitter, and right alongside "If I had a Pet Dragon," too!

The phrase is "PRAY FOR FLORIDA." That's all. Everybody be religious. It's the 21st Century, but act like Druids. Pray. Don't look in on relatives, offer a spare room to somebody fleeing the hurricane, or donate to the Red Cross. No. Get on your knees and PRAY. Don't just do it yourself, order everyone to do it.

Hurricanes are horribly destructive. It's sad to see the news broadcasts about it. But WHY do sanctimonious assholes decide to pester total strangers with "PRAY!" memes? They really think that enough people PRAY, it will influence their basically soft-hearted God to get off that sudden destructive kick? And what caused it in the first place? God was mad Vanilla Ice got booted off "Dancing with the Stars?"

OK, I decided to help out. We're talking about HURRICANE MATTHEW, so that's a NEW TESTAMENT hurricane.

Rather than go to a mosque or a temple, I went to a church.

I looked up and said:

God, about this HURRICANE MATTHEW that you created. You work in mysterious ways. In your infinite wisdom you created a hurricane that is going to destroy property and kill random people.

I pray that you tone it down.

Scale it back.

If you were planning on doing TEN MILLION in damages, make it FIVE.

That kind of thing. Are you OK with that?

I hate to mention it, but I got the idea that you're a drama queen. The more awful things are, the more you like it, because you can call attention to yourself.

In other words, you're a lot like Piers Morgan.

Or are you? Prove it. Give me a sign.

Let the Muslims keep blowing shit up, but take this hurricane out to the Atlantic and let it whip up some sharks like a Waring blender. If you want to kill things, kill sharks.

Leave Florida alone! It's such a classy state. It's where telemarketers have their offices. It's got great Cuban sandwiches. People like to run over manatees with motor boats and shoot gators. Trump has a mansion there. And don't forget, it's got Disney World.

Have some CHRISTIAN CHARITY, for Chrissake.