Re: PURPLE SHROUDS...

I've had a few miscues while trying to "reply to" the "Purple Shrouds" thread at the jbc-list, but here are more sentiments--pardon their tardiness.

Lee.Crumrine@UMICO wrote:

> Date: Friday, 28 March 1997 2:21pm ET
> To: IBMMAIL.I2431277@USADVH00.IBMMAIL.SNADS
> From: Lee.Crumrine@UMICO
> Subject: PURPLE SHROUDS...
>
> at lunch today one of my compadres began to sing a song in remembrance which
> certainly ought to come to the mind of anyone over 30..."this is major tom
> to ground control...tell my wife i love her very much...she knows, etc." yes
> virginia, there is a "space oddity". just don't forget the follow up track...
> "ashes to ashes"..."the shrieking of nothing is killing me, etc"
> or how about a more obscure track in keeping w/ the holiday...the catchers
> tune "jesus spaceman" ...."been to roswell been to mars...got a home among
the
> stars..." actually any number of love and rockets songs somehow want to come
> to mind..."god and mr smith", "ball of confusion" (albeit a cover),"7th dream
> of teenage heaven", "an american dream" and quite a few tracks from "earth,
> sun, moon"..eg "everybody wants to go to heaven", "youth". it's really quite
> intriguing. what was it about those guys. i highly recommend all the solo
> work of late. a song from daniel ash's last cd also comes to mind both the
> album and track title i am having a hard time w/ just now...think the track
> may be called "the void" (title track? how embarrassing]). at any rate, the
> line goes something like "deep in the void today...the land of the lost not
> found". never have been to good w/ names/lyrics, etc. in conclusion i would
> say that the answer to the problem is well put in david j's track from "songs
> from another season" titled "take a closer look". or how about u2's "mofo"
> re looking for "someone to save my soul...something to fill that god shaped
> hole". what else can explain such stuff. we live in a lost world as the
> moodies sang so many years ago. as 10 years after put it..."i'd love to
> change the world, but i don't know what to do". we threw out our old answers
> and assumed science and technology had properly replaced religion. now we
> question progress and purely "rational thought". in u2's "wakeup dead man"
> bono asks if we can rewind the tape. you have to hope it's not like the
> buggles sang in "video killed the radio star", ie that "we can't rewind we've
> gone to far". happy easter. he is risen. jlc
> --------------------------

U2? Love & Rockets? Bowie? Get real! Lefty Frizzell nailed this whole mystique
from his jail cell in Roswell, MN in '47, whilst waiting to make bail on a statutory rape violation. The saucer crashed and Lefty had a vision, not unlike
the moonie Internet programmers except his epiphany had nothing to do with castration and everything to do with his jailbait Lolita:

"We'll travel far
To some shining star
Just you and my guitar
I want to be with you always."

from "I Want To Be With You Always." Trust me, it will make you want to burn
your rock records--especially ones from foppish Brits.

>
> Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 07:38:36 -0800
> To: jbc-list@ecn.purdue.edu
> From: tfrazer@sonic.net (Thomas Frazer)
> Subject: purple shrouds...
>
> Is it just me being a bit twisted or am I the only one who keeps
> thinking of Kundalini Express by L&R as the events in Rancho Santa Fe keep
> being hyped. Maybe NPR could use it as a bridge on All Things Considered.
>
> Our beloved Pat's Come Friendly Spacemen was ahead of the curve on this
count!
>
> dreading another trip to Bakersfield,
>
> Tom Frazer
>

Dreading a trip to Bakersfield? Are you kidding me? This is one of the few pleasure left on this planet! (I can't speak for the other ones, although I do
fancy myself as an inspired amateur web designer...) The joint is an absolute
shrine and sanctuary for purity of tone (particularly vis-a-vis its history of
drag racing).

Pardon my indulgence, but if I can quote--liberally--from "No Sleep 'till Bakersfield." Here goes, QUOTE:

It was e-a-r-l-y Saturday morning and I could feel a pinch deep in my solar
plexus as I crested the Grapevine, heading north on I-5, just a few clicks shy
of the Highway 99 junction. This tugging was the sense of anticipation that
accompanies any road hound who is prodigiously eating white line en route that a
place that speaks to a race fan's psyche, id, and spirit. For in the basin below, the wide expanse of the San Joaquin Valley, lay the nostalgia drag racing
community's Garden of Euphony, Famoso Raceway, home of the March Meet (nee the
Smokers Meet, nee the U.S. Fuel & Gas Championships) and its corollaries: Bakersfield. Milt's Coffee Shop. Lefty Frizzell on the local AM radio sation
owned by Buck Owens. Oxtail soup at the The Wool Growers. Too many tall ones at
the Grizzly Bar. Famoso. Nitro. Front-engine fuelers. Friggin' Nirvana.

"A drag racer must live by the light in his soul," I said to myself, blazing
past the "Rain for Rent" billboard that graces the east side of the 99 in Oildale. I knew I'd soon be at that castle in the middle of Kern County's farmland, orchards and manure piles, the chunk of asphalt that it more than a
mere drag strip. It is a mecca.

Apparently I wasn't alone in my pilgrimage: A bottleneck of hot rods, economy
cars and motor homes crimped the negotiating of the Famoso/Wasco exit off of 99. This
was a phenomenon I had never experienced in my travels to the mecca and was a
telltale sign that the exodus was in full effect. After judiciously weaving my
way past folks more inclined to acknowledge the posted speed limits on highway
46 (aka Famoso Rd), I noticed a glorious spectacle up ahead. There was smoke on
the horizon as we headed east, the plume of smoke emanating from the burnout box
way up yonder. This was a portent and a promise of some seriously high-octane
hot rod action, and on this weekend the CH32O, methanol and petrol gods delivered...

So yeah, with traffic backed up off of Highway 99 at the Famoso exit and the
techdaddies running out of forms after they handed out 400, it would not be an
exaggeration to say this was one of the biggest March Meets since its Golden Age
over 30 years ago when the money-takers ran out of stubs and began printing
tickets on toilet paper...ENDQUOTE

Hey, you got your comet, I got mine.

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