Map:
--Kalamazoo

Me:
--M.S.Wedel

Email:
--

Paper:
--Kalamazoo Gazette

Radio:
--WIDR-FM

Music:
--Blues
--Folk
--Rock
--The State Theatre --Kraftbrau

Movies:
--Kalamazoo Film Society
--Western Film Society

Message Boards:
--Jeffrey Allan Messer's Kalamazoo Michigan Message Board
--Mlive's Kalamazoo Town Talk

Paranoia!

Over to your left you'll find an icon with the blue globe. That's the free hits and whatnot tracking thingamabob by eXTReMe Tracking (side note: the marketing world needs less creative uses of capitol letters) which gives me an idea of who's looking at this page and where they're coming from.

So I see today a hit for yesterday: 11 Dec, Wed, 11:42:52 - wdcsun022.usdoj.gov - Netscape 4 - Windows NT. How'd they get here? They Googled "pun plamondon. See way down below for the March 23 post on Plamondon.

I should say that that was my only contact with Plamondon, that there is no reason to think that he is active in the type of activities he may or may not have took part in during the late '60s - early '70s, and that my interest in him is that of a professional journalist and as someone interested in the history of the Nixon era.

And another thing -- It's not that unusual to think that the US Dept. of Justice wouldn't use Microsoft's Internet Explorer, but why are they using Netscape 4? Why not something that might work better on the web of 2002, like Netscape 6 or Mozilla? And don't they know of anyway to cover their tracks when they're snooping around?

She didn't grow up around here. She asked me, "Don't you think that Santa's a little creepy? Scary?"

I never thought about it that way. It had always glared out over the city every Christmas season, since I was a kid. Yes, it is a bit creepy.

Coin enthusiasts revolt over Michigan's dull quarter. Maybe a profile of President Ford's head would be more exciting.

Say it isn't so! Thanks to Jeffrey Alan Messer's keen and somewhat obsessive eye on our local media, we learn that Channel 41 Wild Weatherman Jeff Tanchak might be leaving us.

Who else is going to put enthusiasm into, and distort the audio of, our weather forcasts? The mild-mannered Mark Pellerito? I don't think so.

A couple years ago the missus and I went to the local Cracker Barrel out of... curiosity, I guess. We were stunned and kind of scared at the forced, in-your-face, rustic old-timeyness, and the amount of big-haired women and guys in cowboy hats who, we were sure, were second-rate country and western stars.

In that and all of its 461 outlets are around 1,000 old-timey rural implements and knicknacks on its walls. I read here that the Cracker Barrel empire is soaking up old rural/Americana items at an alarming rate. And that's why you have to settle for a cheap Asian rip-off of a metal Nehi soda sign for the rumpus room.

Looks like I better get those old bottle rockets out of the trunk of my car.

"Federal agents will begin randomly stopping traffic today in Michigan, looking for illegal immigrants, terrorists and drug or weapon smugglers."

Don't forget to vote today. Remember, citizens of other countr--er, states and cities, are harrased and misguided when they attempt to vote.

Got home Saturday afternoon, just a few hours shy of two weeks since I had a cop, a firefighter and an ambulance worker hovering over me as I twitched in pain in my bed (you see, you can't call 911 and ask for just an ambulance -- they send everybody).

I'm feeling fine except for the big gash that zigzags around my belly button and the feeling that I'd been punched in the gut daily for the past two weeks.

Thanks to everybody who sent their support.

They say I get to go home in the morning.

Yes, I'm still in Borgess. I just love the morphine too much.

No, kidding.

Tried to eat over the weekend, but food caused some of the worst pain I've had during this jolly fun experience. Did a CAT scan on Monday, found that part of my small intestine had gone on strike, sick of management's mistreatment. Food goes down, stops, builds up gas and fluids, which also don't escape until the pressure causes everything to go backwards... and then I'm asking for mmore morphine.

So we're going slow now. Went on the "clear fluids" diet (jell-o, broth, etc.) It runs right through me, but that's a good thing. I'm now lobbying for solid. Once I can eat, I can leave.

Today, my body's defences go into battle.

Still alive. Gettintg better. Pain a newfound experience. morrrrrphhhenneeee..................

Well, guess where I'm writing this from. That's right, the hospital. Borgess.

Just a lil' ol' perferated apendix. Jules think apendix has two p's. I don't kare, I;m on morphine. Morphine -- wipes the hellish pain away!

So, the thing about crohn's is thatb it's often diagnosd as appendicitiis. the pain of it can be in teh apendix's spot.

So could it work the other way around, where you know you have crohn's so you just KNOW that that pain is crohn'sa and if you take a bit more prednisone it will all go away and you can go to the WIDR Alumni Homecoming Banquet. And so the pressure of talking loudliy over Brad Miller'swierd music causes that sneaky appendix to go PoP!

More on the problems of foreign artists in getting here to perform.

So, the Afro-Cuban All Stars had to be checked out because, being Cuban, they could've been a terrorist threat?

New restrictions signed by President George W. Bush in May have been making it impossible for many foreign artists to get into the country in time for their scheduled appearances. You might expect delays for performers from Iraq and Libya, but why Cuba, Russia and Northern Ireland? From the Afro-Cuban All Stars, a popular Buena Vista Social Club spinoff that was just forced to cancel a five-week U.S. tour, to Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, who missed the premiere of his new film "Ten" at the New York Film Festival a week ago, scores of performers have found just how narrow the United States' open doors have become post-9-11. Hardest hit have been those from seven nations designated in the new U.S. Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act as "state sponsors of terrorism": Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Cuba. Anyone from those countries, artist or not, must now submit to lengthy background checks by the FBI. In addition, the U.S. government now requires a 20-day wait on applications from citizens of 26 countries (the State Department declines to identify them, but they are believed to be mostly Islamic nations in Asia and North Africa). Add to this brew backups at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and you have a recipe for creative constipation.

There's been little info on the new visa rules given to performers. This was the case last July at the Blues Festival. Dawn Tyler, from Canada, was all set to play, assuming that her visa had gone through. But she had to cancell just days before.

I don't know... Canadian blues singers... we can't be too careful.

Finally, I got to realize my childhood dream: I saw Alice Cooper last night.

Or was it... a nightmare?

I remember, growing up in Galesburg in the '70s, hearing the other kids describe Alice's shows at Wings Stadium. The kids at G-A Elementary didn't hold back the embellishments. A 10-year-old can have a peculiar morbid streak, so I won't even repeat what I remember of the little Cooper fans' rantings. But the mental images they gave me stuck in my head, and disturbed me probably more than actually seeing Alice in concert would have.

So I faced that demon last night. Whoa! Dude, they cut his head clean off, and then he came back to life as a Frankenstein!!!

Barking Tuna Fest this Saturday. WIDR homecoming next Saturday. All wrapped together in this story.

Well, this sucks. I was to write about these guys. I was looking forward to seeing these guys, since I saw them when they were at KVCC in 2000 (or was that 1999?). I was to write about them last year when they had to cancel due to 9/11.

From the State Theatre:

The State Theatre and The Fontana Chamber Arts regret to announce the cancellation of the performance by the Afro-Cuban Allstars that was scheduled for Thursday, November 7.

The group received approval from the INS on September 3, 2002 to tour the US, but the US Interests Section in Havana refused to accept the group's application for processing, forcing a cancellation of the tour.

This cancellation is due to a change in procedural policy on FBI security clearances, put in place in late August under the Homeland Security Act. This action now requires that a visa application must be received twelve weeks prior to departure to the US. An unprecedented backlog of clearances at the FBI has resulted in a change in policy.

We are deeply troubled and apologetic for this situation. Unfortunately, the change in the processing period took place after the application had been submitted, and neither the band nor their agency/management was at fault. We will attempt to reschedule, but at this point it looks like it will be sometime in the Winter of 2004.

If you are holding tickets for this show, you may obtain a full refund at the point of purchase. Once again, we are deeply sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

This just in from Coldwater: The sheriff department has been investigating complaints of possible telemarketing fraud. They found a chilling fact: "In the course of this investigation, it was learned that this is going on throughout the United States and some of these telemarketing programs are believed to be operated by Al-Qaeda. The CIA has announced that they acquired a videotape showing Al-Qaeda members making phone solicitations for vacation home rentals, long distance telephone service, magazine subscriptions and other products."

They found the Al-Qaeda link on the respected online news journal The Onion.

Vanished Kalamazoo, for all those who remember what used to be here. Missia's, Harvey's, I knew it well. But, The Playgirl Lounge?!? Oh, but if I had a time machine so I could see The Flying Chicken.

By the way, for those into the Kalamazoo past, more stuff keeps showing up at the WIDR Alumni site. Cheech and Chong showed up at WIDR studios in the '70s? Somehow, I'm not surprised.

More from The Stupid Summer.

I hate blogs that are all me, me, me. But here's a page I just ran into that features a few productions I did for WIDR way back around 1991. And that's me with the pirate flag and the Hank Williams t-shirt.

Listen to "WIDR Junkie #6." I put that on the air?!? It was Hall's script, honest. Except for "If the dog gowls, turn it up louder."

Great page of WIDR history by that guy who I wrote about in the last post, Jason Y. Hall. That's my voice in 1991 introducing the "Valley Girl" clip. This was part of an inspired (at the Knollwood Tavern) promotion called WIDR's Stupid Summer. "It's summer, it's time to be stupid."

Okay, since I haven't put much of anything on this page lately, here's a little something I whipped up after thinking of those darned college punks, and then thinking of the past. Enjoy...

I found myself this past year yelling at the top of my lungs at those who I assumed were college students. First, one was breaking beer bottles against a car in the parking lot next to my yard at 1 a.m. Second, one was wandering the neighborhood, shooting bottle rockets one after the other at the houses he passed at 3 a.m.

Earlier this year my wife encountered one using the facilities against our garage, except we don't have facilities anywhere except inside the house, in that room we call the "bathroom." Apparently, the bathroom in the house where the loud, drunken party was going on behind ours was all booked up. My wife insisted the young man use our hose to clean up his mark.

I'm 35. I live in a neighborhood with a mix of townies and college students. With some shock I see I'm on the verge of becoming a cranky old guy - justifiably, righteously cranky - of the type who writes letters to the local paper.

I compose these letters in my mind. The mass of drunken loud beasts must be contained, I go on like Kurtz at the end of "Heart of Darkness" (or "Apocalypse Now" for you non-English majors), locked up in bunkers within WMU or, at least, banished from the city at the first complaint to the police about their nightly hootings.

I was a student, and I never set things on fire in the middle of the street, I never whoop-whooped at early morning hours when decent working folks were trying to sleep, I never…

Uh, sure, I drank too much on a few occasions. I shot off fireworks. And burned things. But this was a different situation, see. I did all this in my early college years while living with my parents out on a farm in the boonies near Galesburg. My friends and I would have little safe bonfires way out back in the near-wilderness, far from neighbors. Sometimes a little too much gas would be used to start the fire, and some of us weren't that careful about the sport we called "fire walking." But nobody got hurt, much.

I eventually moved with friends into your typical off-campus housing. We weren't freshmen any longer. We were mature and studious.

After a year the social order in the house kind of disintegrated as different people moved in. There are images I really don't want to think about, smells I don't want to smell about, from that time. Screams in the middle of the night.

I realized that I had to find a quiet environment in which to live, so I could work on actually graduating from WMU.

I found Jason Hall, a guy in the same situation. I had my suspicions about him when I went to the ghetto house he was living in and found the keg-fridge -- a refrigerator designed to hold a keg, with the spigot sticking out of the door -- but he said it was time for him to cool it and get a degree.

We moved into a quiet neighborhood near a cemetery with another guy who didn't say much and who lived entirely on ground meat. Aside from a grease fire, our time there was quiet. We graduated.

Now I still wonder, thinking about last March and September's riots and these inconsiderate students that live around me, were we as bad as they are?

I called Hall. He's now married, a new father, and is on sabbatical from teaching Web design and Photoshop at Kellogg Community College.

He's "a responsible father," he'd like the world to know. He's no longer living anywhere near the student ghettos. "We live by the booze store and the head shop and the porno shop. We live in the good neighborhood."

Hall lived in the Knollwood neighborhood when he was a sophomore in 1989. In September and October, riots broke out..

"I still have my little security clearance pass to get into the Knollwood neighborhood..... I don't remember that night of rioting, so it must've been a great night."

He remembers there being a game with Central that weekend, and the police had issued passes for those who lived in the area.

The police were there in force. "It was like living in a war zone, it was like living in a concentration camp, it was like living in the Warsaw ghetto," Hall said with some sarcasm. "Come on, it couldn't have been that bad. No. It was like living in college."

But, "The Man kept me down," he said. "I was arrested, of course, during part of the crackdown.... We were having a small party. We canceled the big party because Knollwood was cracking down on us. But we had loud music on and we got arrested."

There was some dispute over who had the loudest music, Hall's house or the neighbors'. "I represented my roommates and myself in court, and we won."

Eventually, Hall learned that you can have a good time as a responsible adult, "but I don't need to burn anyone's sofa."

Eventually. There were fireworks, but he kept them from disturbing the neighbors. "We kept the fireworks inside the house where they belonged. That was a great year. Lighting bottle rockets in the house from the living room, through the dining room into the bathroom. That was a great time."

And there was the keg, thrown through a window. "I'm three floors up, and hear the distinct sound of keg hitting cement and rolling in the empty street. I just kind of shook my head and go, 'Oh, man, what have they done now?'"

That was in a house with 10 guys. They were playing indoor baseball, Hall said, and broke the window with a broom-stick bat, so they came up with a story -- "This is the tequila talking" -- of an intruder who went crazy and threw the keg through window.

"In our junior year, senior year, we were still doing stupid stuff. like hitting golf balls off the roof over towards South St. and idiotic things like that that I just wouldn't do now. Golf balls are expensive," Hall said.

And there's the topic of public urination. Hall said he saves that for wilderness areas now.

But, as he held his infant son, he got an idea -- diapers marketed toward college students. "What could possibly be more fulfilling than standing there, hittin' on a girl, and.... You've got a smile from ear-to-ear, she thinks it's because you're fascinated with her conversation, when really..."

Then he realized that he is a father with a four-month old boy. All he could say was "Oh, man," about his son's future.

My Guide to Being a Good Citizen, for the start of the WMU fall semester.

Alternate title, YOU DAMN PUNKS SHUT THE HELL UP!

Excuse me... You see, I live downtown, and the sleeplessness and stress can build up... <

Smoked the Hookah, But Not a Hippie

Music/Restraunt Review #2

Saw in the paper Friday that Boogie's Cyber Cafe is now Ali Baba's Hookah Lounge. So me and the missus went over. A couple bikers, Moose and Porkchop, joined us.

The building -- where I bought my first albums of unusual music in 1984 way back when it was Boogie Records -- is perfect for the Middle Eastern motif. The little upstairs perch has been turned into a smoking den with pillows to lie on. Silks and beads hang here and there.

You might think "hippie," but with the hard-core Middle Eastern music playing, thoughts don't turn to Dancing Bears. And that's tobacco they're smoking in those pipes... whoa...

That's right, you can rent and smoke a hookah. But first, you must eat!

It was their first day, and service was a bit slow, but what I had -- shish tawook and a plate of rice -- was perfect. That and a couple cups of coffe and the smoke from the hookahs and the music and the people talking in Arabic and the promise of ...

Belly dancers? Yes, they will have belly dancers. In fact, they had one there that night. We were too early.

The more adventurous of us -- Porkchop -- got a hookah for the table. It's for the pipe, a disk of tobacco (various flavors, all sweet like pipe tobacco) and what you could call coal service. A guy from the kitchen brings out a red-hot coal which is put on top of a foil screen, under which is the tobacco.

So we were hittin' the pipe. I don't "smoke" (or inhale... yeah, I've tried a few cigars, but you don't inhale those), but this was so smooth, so cool, so minty... after a few gurgling puffs I was about to melt under the table.

The music was loud, but if you'd been in Boogie's and had to hear Tori Amos at the same volume, you might welcome the change. The weaving, waving, interwoven melodies and percusion patterens go well with the hookah...

"What if they put opium in this?" someone asked. "Just for new coustomers, to get them to come back?"

We laughed and laughed. And laughed. They can't do that!

We plan to get fezes and go back. Hookahs and bellydancers in Kalamazoo. This is just what we need.

Yeah, yeah, Elvis lives in Kalamazoo. We see him here every day.

Elvis was here. Here's proof: "Memories From Kalamazoo".

Area Elvis goes to Graceland.

Do you really want to hear Elvis sing"England's Rose"?

Met Narada Michael Walden. He's a swell guy. He's a big time producer. Produced "The Bodygaurd."

I did not sing to him, "AND IIIIIEEEEEIIIII, WILL ALWAYS LOVE" breath "YOU--OOOOOO, OOOOOO..." But you know I thought about it.

Talked to The Impaler, who's metal/goth/S&M show will be at the Club Soda this Saturday.

Fred Upton stands tall in protecting our children: HIV-Positive TV Muppet Worries U.S. Lawmakers.

Upton is one of five Republicans on the House committee on energy and commerce to investigate this grave threat to ... energy and commerce? They are looking into finding answers to "questions as the amount of money PBS dedicates to 'Sesame Street,' how much is being earmarked for the new Muppet, whether she will be introduced to the United States and whether corporate underwriters might participate in the decision-making process."

Don't ask me what this means:

Google! DayPop! This is my blogchalk: English, United States, Kalamazoo, South St., Michigan, Mark, Male, 31-35!

It's all a part of Blogchalking, and since this is localized blog, then why not stick it in here. If you have a fairly new browser, mouse over that little spiky haired icon over to your lower left.

Kalamazoo Blues Festival happening this Thursday-Saturday.

The North Mississippi Allstars will close. I talked to Luther Dickinson about eating goat and the juke-joint scene: "You have this juke-joint, out in the middle of the country. And then you'd have, like, 17-year-old girls from Old Miss College coming in and grinding on these old gnarly farmers. I mean, this is beautiful. And then you throw in the corn liquor, and it gets downright primitive."

Here's the whole line-up.

Alert reader J.J. Hall let us know that the link above, in "if you can't spell it, you can't come here," was broken. Now it's fixed.

I'm sad that the city hasn't taken up my motto as the replacement for "Kalamazoo: Sounds Like Fun!" I would be willing to shorten it to "You Can't Come Here!" Or maybe, "If You Aren't Hep To the Miller Song About Us, We Don't Want You!" Tell them they aren't allowed to come here. That will make them want to come, just like telling WMU students not to drink makes them want to drink and burn things and riot.

That all makes much more sense than "Sounds Like Fun!" Sounds like a desperate marketing phrase from a dying Midwestern city. We aren't, but it's hard to think of a reason for tourists to come here. We have a butt-load of festivals every summer. The Kalamazoo Blues Fest is coming up -- that's always a fun time. You've got to find fun in anything that brings in bikers, yuppies and drunk college students to share the joy of the Mississippi Foot Stomp.

It looks like our new motto is Discover Kalamazoo. Look for our hidden excitement, the freakishly modern library, the statue of the Indian and conqueror who appear to be hugging in a disturbing manner in Bronson Park, the country's first pedestrian mall you can drive down, etc.

The in-laws are coming out from Pennsylvania soon. We have to think of something to take them to around here, because if we have to go to Kellogg's Cereal City in BC, I'll slit my wrists. Better yet, I'll slit Tony the Tiger's wrists.

So I'm not crazy.

Around 1:37 today, as I was updating WIDR's site, I felt everthing swaying slightly for a few seconds. Me, my chair, the building, everything just rocking about a centemeter, gently back and forth.

Either I'm having one of my spells again (see below in early April posts) or this is an earthquake, I thought.

I forget about it, until I saw on Fark that there was a big quake -- big for the Midwest -- in southern Indiana right at that time.

Detroit firefighter smuggles "crotched" octopus into an arena in a certain southern state. Goalie startled by stinking sea delicacy, firefighter beaten, Wings win.

Seven "Democrats" pulled from primary ballot.

This Sunday at the Club Soda it's the new Dead Kennedys.

All I've got to say is that its a sad day when the punk rock of one's youth turns into a bunch of middle aged men suing each other.

And here's the latest report on the Elephants in Donkey's Clothing.

This really does smell bad.

From the story:

Randall Smith, a 42-year-old car mechanic, has never had an interest in politics, but as a favor to a friend he agreed to run for the Michigan Senate as a Democratic candidate against former state Rep. Ed LaForge.

"I was called first, and then I met with them," said Smith, a Comstock Township resident. "It was a friend to begin with, saying 'Would you do us a favor and run for senator? We're putting your name on the ballot. That's all we're doing.' "

"He never really did explain it to me fully what I would be doing."

Smith said it's apparent to him now he is pawn in political scheme engineered by Republicans to hurt Democratic candidates in the Michigan primary. He won't say who asked him to run, but he's angry at the people who are now "hanging (him) out to dry" and bewildered by accusations from Democrats that he is guilty of election fraud....

Smith said he wrote a 0 check to cover the filing fee. Asked if he was reimbursed for the money, he said, "I don't want to get into the other part of it."

Muskegon County 18 year-old gets invited to become Democratic candidate -- by Republican party.

From the story: Visger, who has volunteered for local Republican campaigns, said he was led to believe he would be running as a Republican. He said the people took his forms and filed them in Lansing on his behalf.

He said he was stunned when he later opened a newspaper and found his name listed as a Democratic candidate. He said he contacted state officials immediately and withdrew his name from the ballot.

Citizens must be 21 to serve in the legislature, so Visger wouldn't have qualified anyway.

This is turning up nationally, or at least on major sites like Plastic, which has a discussion going on the topic.

AP story on the fake Democrats.

Election fraud is not just for Florida anymore.

"Democrats" are apearing out of nowhere to run for state senate seats, forcing primaries against incumbent and/or well-known Democrats that take up the time and money of the real guys running. They all just happened to have their Affidavits of Identity (stating that they're Democrats and that they're runnin') notarized by Republican party staffers. There's also no indication that they've ever been registered as Democrats or voted Democrat in their lives.

From WWMT:

Michigan's Democratic Party accused eight state Senate candidates of being "fake" and lying under oath in order to undermine front-running Democratic candidates for office. Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer on Tuesday filed a formal complaint of election fraud and perjury with the state Board of Canvassers. Brewer alleges some candidates lied about their party affiliation and then used Republican notaries to submit Affidavits of Identity to the Secretary of State. The democratic challengers have forced primaries in contested races, such as the 19th and 20th Senate District races in West Michigan.

Randall S. Smith, 42, is challenging former State Rep. Ed LaForge in the Democratic primary for the 20th Senate District. Smith told a News 3 Reporter Tuesday night by phone that he does not plan to campaign. He says he was not present when his affidavit was notorized by state Republican staffer Michael J. Gallagher. LaForge said he is "outraged" and "disappointed." "It's unethical, it borders on being illegal, and increases the cynicism of voters out there that the system is corrupt," LaForge said.

See "Tongues and Taxis," one of the winners at last weekend's Kalamazoo Animation Festival International.

Scanned this into the Wedel's Nursery, florist and Garden Center site. That's going up the hill on Westnedge around 1955. Just a reminder that you could go to a big chain store that would send your money far from the city to some corporate headquarters, or you could go to a store that's been family-run in the Kalamazoo area for ages. I'm just sayin'.

Put an unpaid ad on the page for a local nursery and garden center that happens to have a familiar last name. That's right -- I'm working for them trying to get their Web site in shape, and wrestling with FrontPage. Once upon a time I remember pulling weeds and wrestling with ball-'n'-burlapped trees... Now I weed HTML.

Now let's take a look over to Battle Creek's most beloved historical figure and champion of bowel health, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg.

A Raw Interview...

To all those out there who're looking to get some free publicity in the news for your entertainment act, remember, deadlines are important. You'll have to set aside the skatin' and human blood drinkin' for just a moment and answer some questions in a clear, sane manner.

After spending time tracking down one of the Johnny's, not sure which one, of the band The Coachwhips, he said he could only do an email interview. So I sent him questions, and the answers came in today, four days too late to be put in the paper. So, to get some use out of all this, here is the raw, unedited interview.

Me: So, tell us about:

Me: Your music.

Johnny: THE MUSIC IS LOUD...IT;'S RAW... WE MOVE... YOU SHOULD TOO!!! I AM SHOUTING BECAUSE I HAVE TO...

Me: Why you play the music you do.

Johnny: IT'S RAW; IT;S LOUD; LET;S NOT FORGET THE MOVING; WE LIKE TO HANG OUT AND YOU SHOULD HANG OUT WITH US!!!

Me: The CD (is it your first? ...

Johnny: YES!

Me: ...I can't remember the name... lable I have here somewhere... scratch and sniff?)

Johnny: BLACK APPLE RECORDS PUT OUT THE CD AND SHOW AND TELL PUT OUT THE RECORD (SECOND ALBUM) ON VINYL!!!

Me: Where are you at? For some reason I'm thinking Bay Area, Cal.

Johnny: YOU ARE CORRECT!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!! YOU WIN A DATE WITH JOHN HARLOW OUR DRUMMER!!! HE'S UBER SEXY!!! WE ALL SLEEP WITH HIM!!@!

Me: Who's in the band, what do they play? How long together?

Johnny: JOHNNY COACH ON DRUMS ; MARY WHIP ON KEYS ; JOHNNY WHIP TARGET ON GUITAR!!! WE PLAY AND WE'VE PLAYED SINCE NINETTEEEN OH MY!!!!

Me: What happens at a Coachwhips show?

Johnny: ALL OF THE ABOVE AND THEN SOME... WE ADORE CROWD SURFERS!!! MAD DANCIN AND ASS WHIPPIN' AND THEN MARY ANN TAKES OFF ALL THA LADIES CLOTHES AND HITS ME WITH THEM IN A SACK

Me: Any S&M? (sorry, it's the name of the band... suggests things (just did a google, found this...

Johnny: DESCRIBED ABOVE

Me: ... http://www.herpo.com/trans-pecos/snakes/mflagel.html -- the coachwhip is a Texas snake...))

Me: What is the state of rock and roll in America, 2002?

Johnny: ROCK AND ROLL IS A FUNNY THING FIRST YOU ARE GAY THEN YOU ARE "THE MAN" THEN YOU FORGET WHO YOU ARE AND YOU JUST START HAVING SEX WITH JUST ABY ONE THEN YOU WAKE UP ONE DAY AND YOU ARE JOHN HARLOW AND YOU DRUM FOR THE COACHWHIPS

Me: Do you have any digital photos (200 dpi, or just high res) you can email me of the band?

Johnny: WE DONT REALLY APPEAR ON FILM BUT THEN AGAIN YOU COULD LOOK ON THE INTERNET I HAVE HEARD OF THEM THERE BEFORE

Me: Could you answer what you can by Monday, noon Eastern?

Johnny didn't answer that one. But that's okay. The opening of the email gave us the answer: DEAR MARK I HOPE THESE SUFFICE WE HAVE JUSTY PLAYED A SHOW AT A SKATE PARKA DN THEN WE DRANK AND SKATED IN LINCOLN NEBRASKA AND WE HAD A GOOD TIME AND WE DRANK HUMAN BLOOD..OK THEN BYE...JOHN D

This is sure to be an obnoxiously fun show at The Space this Tuesday. Find all the info at Blackjack.

Now is the time to kill the alien garlic mustard, before it goes to seed at the end of the month.

Sorry. But it is invading our area. It ruins native environments. And I'm just now realizing that it's all over my lawn, now after working on updating the Web site of a local nursery and garden center.

Just a timely tip from Over the Garden Fence.

Pardon me for a moment while I get into my personal stuff again. As you might know from earlier posts, I have Crohn's, a fun little bowel disease. There's some exciting things happening in Crohn's research. But "stem cells" and "cloning" are involved, so Luddites in office are going to try and block medical science again.

Crohn's is just one in a long line of ailments that could be treated and cured eventually through stem cell research. Maybe in Europe, someday. But here, as we turn the clocks back to 1899, maybe some tincture or tonic will be found to placate my dispepsia.

Ragtime rocked. Am now wishing I had called Bob Milne "The Professor" in the review.

The wedding was fine. However, tragedy struck when David Hasselhoff's head vanished.

But a confession just came in. "I ATE DAVID HASSSELHOFF'S HEAD!" Linc tells us. No word on who ate Gary Coleman's body. I suspect this man might be a suspect.

If you're wondering what this is about, see the link to the wedding photos in the post below. Clues as to what kind of person would cut David Hasselhoff's head from the center of a wedding cake can be found here in the form of his comedic art.

Got married.

It's almost summer, and I'm thinking of the one amusement park Kalamazooans went to ("it's too far to Disneyworld" -- parents), Cedar Point.

Remember the Upside Down Funhouse? That freaked me out as a kid. Weird, scary, fun and back to weird. The creepy old lady rocking on the ceiling. The giant spider. The revolving, strobe-lit, op-art tunnel. It closed in '81. A shame.

Chucho review. Sometimes it's hard to get beyond "wow" when doing a review.

Ragtime rocks.

I'll be reviewing the ragtime Gilmore concert Sunday, and the Chucho Valdes concert Wednesday. I saw Chucho the fall of '00, he was like a Cuban Thelonious Monk -- it was amazing.

Frank Zappa sings of Kalamazoo.

Just looking around for the lyrics to an Oblivians' song "Mary Lou," which has the line "she left me stranded in Kalamazoo," find that it's really a slightly re-worked version of a Zappa song.

But what the Oblivians did doesn't sound like Zappa. Further illumination illuminates here: "It is two songs. The second ("jumped in my kitty..") was done by Ronnie Hawkins and the Nighthawks (and, I think, these guys later became The Band)."

Narrow that Google search down, and find this, a song which, if any of you garage rock type bands in this town learn to play, will make you instantly cool.

I'm getting married.

This is scary:

It looks like the Michigan Legislature is blatantly ignoring a bit of the constitution. That's the U.S. constitution and its fourth amendment.

They just passed public act 112, which makes 'all search warrants, affidavits and tabulations in any court file or record retention system nonpublic,' and public act 128, which 'provides for suppression of a search warrant affidavit upon a showing that it is necessary to protect an ongoing investigation or the privacy or the safety of a victim or witness.'

Protecting the safty of witnesses and victims is fine, but note the words "all" and "any," and think about what it might be like if the cops come to your door to search your house and won't even tell you, the press, the public, the voters of our free and democratic land why.

I knew that, sooner or later, Jeffrey Alan Messer would find this page.

He's probably the most active Kalamazoo area, locally-focused webster here. I've seen his name pop up on the web as far back as 1997, I think.

Anyway, he wants us to know about his Kalamazoo message board, which today has such info as an alleged scam being pulled off by a current or maybe former Wayside employee (just a reminder, don't give your credit card number to anybody who calls to let you know you've won some dream vacation), and a post on "Does Jeffrey just exist in life to annoy people?" a rant from someone who'd like to silence Messer, though I'm not sure why. Messer does the honorable thing and allows such rants to stay on his board. That's just the price one has to pay when one is a one-man news source.

Also, for more Kalamazoo blab, go to Kalamazoo Town Talk on Mlive.com. There are good things there, and a lot of gripes and bitchings and moanings, as well as the usual cowardly cheap shots by those who never have the guts back up their posts with their real names. Hmmm, that's one of the main reasons I avoid such things. As a journalist, I know that there's a reason why my name is attached to my words.

Ken Knott, mild-mannered madman who leads The Monokulators, sent us this note. I was going to post a review of their show at The Space last Saturday, but this also kind of fits as an explanation. Think of early Black Flag (old-fashioned punk rock) when reading the following. In other words, the show was rockin', funny and also kind of scary.

ken

I reviewed Robert Schimmel Saturday night.

It's great to see a dirty filthy comedian talk about "Golytely" and colonoscopies just a week after having gone through it myself. But he had cancer, so if he could laugh at what he went through, I'd better be able to laugh at my wimpy stuff.

Reviewed "The Sum of Us" and lived. I'd link to it, but it's not on the Gazette/Mlive site. (But here's a story on some freaks who used to live in Kalamazoo, but are now in bands that are going to play here tonight.)

In the end of the play there's one of those big out-of-the-blue dad-has-a-stroke endings, where it looked like the playwright didn't know how to end the thing. But then, I wrote in the review, these things do happen in real life.

I'll return to the scene of my little trouble this Thursday night. I'll review that play, even if it kills me.

I've been laughing to myself (a side-effect of the steroid they put me on) about how a play could be so bad as to cause a reviewer to pass out and shoot blood out of himself. Trust me, I won't write that in the review. I won't even mention what happened. And the play -- the first half, anyway -- was pretty okay. I laughed, I cried, I passed out and ... Okay, I'll stop that now.

Trust me, it's funny. Go on, laugh.

Yup. Still alive. Out of the hospital. I even had my first fairly-normal bo... Well, that's a little bit too much info.

There were a few "C" words that were floating through my mind over the weekend. Cancer, colostomy. But I got the best out of the bunch, aside from cooties -- Crohn's disease.

I had had symptoms of this come and go since I was 19. In the past five years I felt fairly normal. But when it was happening a lot -- during stressful college years and when I had some sleep-killing radio jobs -- I went with conventional wisdom that always told me that if you're having bowel problems you need lots of fiber, you need raw or slightly cooked vegetables, you need to eat "healthy".

WRONG!

Well, in the case of Crohn's, that's not the way to go. My diet is going to be lots of white bread and processed food. No fiber. No nuts. No beans. No raw fruits or vegetables. Thank the stars and AMA that coffee is on the okay list.

I had a nice raw spinich salad Friday night before the play. That's going to have to be the last one I'll ever have for the rest of my life.

It could be worse.

Stress is also something that I should avoid. Thanks to the hospital bill and cost of coming treatments and all the pills, that's going to be hard. Oh well.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Okay, did the tube down the throat test. No blood or damage there. I could've-in fact I did -- tell the doctors that that wasn't the end that was having the problems. But they had to make sure. Thanks to the "amnesia" drug they gave me, I don't remember a thing. But I worry that now I'll have reoccuring nightmares about being probed by aliens.

Well, you'll never guess where I'm writing this from. That's right, a hospitqal bed

Please forgive any typeos, uncorrected.

I'd like to thank and apologize to the Whole Art Theatre. It really wasn't their play that made me pass out, honest. Though it is probably quite intimidating for an actor to notice that the local paper's rviewr has to be caried out during the third act.

What's wrong with me? I don't know yet. We'll be getting some sort of device shoved up an orrfice to check things out soon.

I was just sitting there, reviewing "Sum of Us," an Australian comedy about a gay son and his dad, when my stomach started gurglin' and bubblin'. I ignored it. Then I went on a slow but sure slide into unconsciousness. Came to 30 seconds later on the floor of the lobby. A fireman or ex-paramedic or something was there, and I thank him, whoever that masked man was, for assessing the situation and keeping me from crashing to the floor. Jules was there too. She's been an incredable help. I'd be dead without her.

I'll spare you the gory details... oh, what the hell. Blood, and lots ofit, coming from my bowels. It has stopped, but, hey -- scary.

Doc was just here, said I'm stable. But they're going to stick something up me and loook around. Joy.

But this is great, the hospital has WebTV. It's hard to read what I'm writing, but htats the way it is. I'm just proving to the world I'm alive.

IT'S ALIVE!!! IT'S ALIVE!!!

Ray Charles played at the State Theatre last night. Wow.

Here's a picture of my kitty. As I've said before, it's not really mine, it belongs to my neighbor. I don't know why it always ends up at our place at least three times a day.

I post this to illustrate a blog characteristic -- the personal and pointless posted in public by the unpaied.

And I do this for a few reasons. I had a friend of mine ask, "What the hell is a blog? Is it some disease?" And there's been a bit of sniping at blogs from the "real" press, and some more-thoughtful stories on blogs. And because I can't think of anything to say about current Kalamazoo events.

I wonder how many people really know what a blog is yet, and/or why blogging is something that could warp/revolutionize mainstream journalism. So, here's a story that takes a kind look at it, and seems to make some important connections. And here's the cranky view from a newpaper guy.

To summarize both: When unpaid journal-ist wannabies write news and commentary, you get what you pay for. But when thousands of bloggers act in hive-form, then interesting things happen.

Local writer Bonnie Jo Campbell has a novel based in the Comstock/Galesburg area.

It's strange to read fiction capturing your old stomping grounds. But she nailed it. I should suggest to her that she use somewhere in her stories the line, "Beware the painted ladies of Comstock," that the mother of a Galesburg friend of mine had once told him. You know the ones, those who hang out at the ice cream shop down by the river.

Here's Campbell's web site. Donkeys, gun shows, pickup truck--no, she's no poser.

I covered the reading and talk by Bill Ayers Friday (see below). There I met Pun Plamondon after my ears perked up by hearing Ayers and him talk about the good old days of radical rock group The MC5 and the White Panthers in Ann Arbor.

Plamondon formed the White Panthers with Jon Sinclair in 1968; it was to be sort of a version of the Black Panthers focusing on an "assult on the culture" with "rock 'n' roll, dope and f---ing in the streets." All the freaky history surrounding The MC5 can be found here.

That history includs this: "8 Wednesday (Oct. 1969) / the Grand Federal Jury of Detroit accuses J.Sinclair, P.Plamondon and J.Forrest of having plotted" the destruction of the head office of the CIA in Ann Arbor and shows Plamondon to have carried out the plan one year before..."

So I, mainly interested in the music aspect of this, talked to Plamondon after the reading, and he casually drops this whole bomb/CIA thing.

(Tangent: As I'm writing this post, I'm also Googling Plamondon's name, coming up with things like this 1970 Mitch Ryder Interview. "Mitch: Yeah, I know Skip and I know Pun (Plamondon, fugitive) and I know Pun's old lady, Jean. Al: He's the guy that took off... Mitch: All of them took off. Skip's in jail now... ")

Anyway, Plamondon told me how his case ended up at the Supreme Court (details here), where it was found that he had been bugged illegaly. Justice William Rehnquist didn't participate in the case, because he had a past history approving bugs for the government. The case happened in 1972, and resulted in an overall halt in bugging operations. ("Is that on?" he said to me suddenly when he noticed my tape recorder. No, it wasn't.) It went into effect the day after the Watergate break in happened, Plamondon told me, so he's sure that Nixon's men were there to remove bugs from the Democratic HQ....

And here I was, hearing this story, knowing that I had to speed to my computer to get the story on Ayers to the paper, wondering what kind of excuse I could use to do a story on Plamondon, who, yes, lives in this area of what we think of as sleepy little Kalamazoo ... As Sinclair rants at the opening of the MC5's live album, "It takes five seconds, five seconds of decision, five seconds to realize your purpose here on the planet, five second to realize that you've got to move, brother!"

So I took his card and left. File that under "story ideas."

(Note: This story's a little "hot" in these times, so let me just say that I don't think it's good to do violence for political reasons. This is just, historically, a very interesting story. My excitement for it should not be seen as a sign that I think it's groovy to bomb anybody.)

Yesterday was my idea of what being a freelance journalist was all about: Take the hot-potato of a story about a former member of the Weather Underground, track him down, hear him out about how he really wasn't a terrorist when he put a little bomb in the Pentagon, and write it up, all in the space of under four hours. This is the edited form of what came out.

Bill Ayers will be at WMU tonight and at Rollins Friday at 5 p.m.

Here's my question for Kalamazoo: Is there anyone out there who had ties with, or knew anyone who had ties with, the Weather Underground? I've heard some things, and this is a convenient stop-over between Ann Arbor and Chicago. Don't worry, I'm not making a list for Ashcroft.

WMU student Jim Cousineau provides a spark of rage for Gazette editorial.

A source tells me that Cousineau is from Illinois, Evanston, I think, after doing a bit of Googling. A nice upper-middle class bedroom community north of Chicago. Any cars set on fire there, often?

More on WMU riot.

President Elson Floyd is a brave man. He walked out in the middle of it and was nearly showered with beer bottles: "Floyd told WKZO-AM radio this morning that a bottle missed hitting his leg by inches."

Think about it: Floyd could've gone back to bed, or he could've gone to his office and set up a crisis HQ away from the ruckus. But he walked right into it.

WMU students riot again. This time it wasn't as big as Sept. 9, but tell that to whoever's car got set on fire and to whoever owns the Saturn that got flipped on its roof.

Why'd they do it? Well, because they're idiots, or to be more specific, drunken idiots. I know, I'm being harsh. But have a few take a leak in your yard, you'll begin to understand.

Or take a look at what Jim Cousineau had to say about the fun:

Jim Cousineau, a business marketing major, said he thought the scene was great.

"There should be more riots," he said. "They bring out the best in Western."

Riots, he said, are "a great way to relieve stress."

Our first reader submission: Mr. Pobble sends us this shot of WWF's Christian taking in the Wings crowds' negative energy and turning it into something positive. Mr. Pobble was there only because his 14-year-old brother wanted to go, he swears.

To sit four rows from big, sweaty, wrestling men is ... something. Here's the story of my first WWF experience at Wings Saturday n ight.

I went a little long, so here's a chunk from the cutting room floor, showing a perfect set-up which ran to the perfect conclusion, which is evidence in itself that this stuff is planned long before the match:

... Whenever some blow-hard wrestler picked up the microphone to brag, the audience mocked in unison, chanting a taunting "WHAT???" after each sentence.

Before his match at the night's mid-point, the wrestler Christian told the crowd that "I don't throw tantrums any more."

"LOSER! LOSER!" the crowd chanted.

Christian has been taking some motivation therapy, he told the crowd with a forced smile, and now has a positive self-image. "You can't call me 'loser' any more, because I know I'm a winner!"

"WHAT???" the crowd responded.

He w ent up against Spike Dudley, the underdog who, with muscles that did not look inhumanly large and wearing baggy pants and t-shirt, was the most normal-looking guy out of all of the WWF's line-up. Christian brutalized him in the round, but Dudley was crafty and cunning. Still, Christian got him down in an unfair manner, then when the female ref got in his face, he shoved her into the ropes.

But with a little help from a now-biased ref, Dudley beat Christian. The triumphant Dudley strutted out of the ring like a rooster, leaving Christian to face the taunts of over 6,000 alone. Christian's self image crumbled, and he threw himself on the mat to throw a tantrum as if he were four-years-old.

Here's a story for all you big supporters of the Marshall Redskins: Native American students at the University of Northern Colorado have started a basketball team called "The Fighting Whities."

Kalamazoo Blog has just done a mass e-mailing, spamming just about everybody the editor of this blog knows.

If you came here because of that, go down to the bottom of the page to start at the beginning.

This is all very formless yet, but the general idea is that this is a Kalamazoo Blog. You knew that, yes, I know. You got the idea by the title of this page. But I'd like to invite all of Kalamazoo to throw their Kalamazoo-related stuff at me. Look over there to the left at "Me," you'll find the proper e-mail address through that.

Restaurant/Music Review #1:

Why would a "London Grill" which serves food inspired by the former British empire (some Asian and much Indian stuff), play nothing but Celtic music?

This thought pops into my mind every time I go into Aries. When they first opened the background music was about 80% Beatles, 20% Celtic-Lite. The Beatles, sure, they're British, but I had to resist the urge to ask the waitress if she could have them mix it up with some Rolling Stones, Kinks, or maybe The Sex Pistols.

Then it became 100% Celtic-Lite, that airy fairie stuff that suggests a wee bit o' the old green hills of a place far from the homeland of the free pompadons and chutney they serve (sometimes free -- so many times I and my companion have been disapointed in NOT getting our free pompadons...). I'm not saying the music is inappropriate, but if they take on the eclectic attitude with the food, then we should hear some Bollywood soundtrack music now and then instead of the Riverdance stuff that inspires me to comment to my companion, "I am Thee Lord of My Pants."

So the other night we went down there. We had to wait for a table for how long? "For about a beer," the hostess answered. It's hard to argue with that.

It was a nursed beer, though. On an empty stomach. The result being I put fraudulant contest entries into WQSN's contest box. But just as I finished the Newcastle, a table opened.

We got the usual. My companion, the potato pea curry; me, the Hyderabadi Burger. I also got another beer. I can't explain it, but that Hyderabadi makes me swoon during the consumption of the second Newcastle.

Then the band showed up. Yes, a Celtic band, setting up a foot behind my companion. She became concerned.

We were close to getting the bill. So very close. My companion began to hint that I should finnish the beer. "I don't see a bagpipe," I said to comfort her.

Then an eerie wail came from out on the sidewalk, where, yes, a band member was warming up his pipes. He came in and, with a lady banging on the bodhran, began honking a reedy reel with surprisingly jazzy improvs.

The bagpipes were used to terrorize the enemies of the Celts of Scotland and Ireland, I told my companion, but she couldn't hear me. It is indeed a frightening and stirring thing to behold in the confines of a small, crowded restaurant -- it pierces the spirit as well as the ear. I was getting into it, had an inch of beer to finish, my companion was glaring at me. This was stuff that transended the liteness of the music the restaruant played all other times...

I got the psychic impulses from my companion... "LET'S... GO... NOW!" So we left.

It's a vague hypothetical plan now, but there's some talk of putting a 21-story apartment building, crammed with students in downtown Kalamazoo, just about a block from where I live.

NIMBY! NIMBY! Well... that would bring a lot of parents' bucks into town. And there should be more cheap housing in the area period. But to market it to students, to have the seething hoards in one 21-story mass, that's frightening. It was just last September when a gang of drunken Chachies and Joanies rioted for no aparent reason.

Once upon a time I was a WMU student who liked the ale now and then. But I never screamed my head off at 4 a.m., never took a leak in a urban neighbor's lawn, never set a stranger's car on fire. Damn kids.

Kalamazoo bluesman Doug Beckman just got himself a Lowe-Bow. What the heck is a Lowe-Bow? Well, if you were at the Thusday night opening of the Kalamazoo Blues Festival last July, you saw Richard Johnston tear it up with one.

It's a guitar made from a cigar box, broom stick and some wire, made by John Lowe in Memphis. It's primitive, and it rocks. Beckman will be playing his when he opens for Coco Montoya at the State Theatre this Friday. You can read the whole story Friday when it comes out you-know-where.

Another Buddy Holly comes to Kalamazoo.

This is my second Holly. Including my review of this coming show, I will have done four stories on Buddy Hollies.

Hmmm... would the Hollies ever have a reunion tour? If so, I'm there!

Ask me any Buddy Holly trivia question. The Rolling Stones? They did Holly's "Not Fade Away." Glasses. Holly wore 'em. I know it all.

So, why do a blog about a town, why not do one about yourself?

Well, if you want me, click over there where it says M.S.Wedel. There you will find various details. You will find pictures of my cat. The sad thing is, that it's not my cat, it was borrowed just so I can say "you can see pictures of my cat on the web." I've also got a resume, clippings of stuff I write, links to sites I've built.

My point? The web is stuffed full of personal details. It's choking on them.

I want to write about this place, Kalamazoo.

The most you'll hear about me is when I drop in links to what I write in the world of print. Like this. Or, one of my recent favorites, this.

This town is riddled with cute nicknames that have all been snatched up and over used. So, no, this is not K'zoo Blog, Zoo Blog or Kazoo Blog. Therefore, "if you can't spell it, you can't come here."

Hey, there's no blog about the city of Kalamazoo, Mich., USA.

Well, now there is.

Tune in later for more.