(May 2017? and August 25, 2017)
This is a mostly comprised of an old blog that I wrote in August and never published.
**I recently had lunch with a fellow prof, and she told me an interesting story that could not have happened 20 years ago. She said her son went through a rough year in high school. Her fifteen-year-old son was dating a girl the same age (his first serious relationship.) Her son’s friends informed him that she sent nude photos to all of them but she did not send them to the son. When the son confronted her, she kept denying it, but he eventually found it was true and broke up with her. She did not seem remorseful at all and even had the nerve to ask him to fix her up with one of his friends.
I just had lunch with her again yesterday but this time I did most of the talking. I had a lot to say, since the last time I saw her I almost died, lost over 40 pounds and lost all of my summer classes. In addition, my trip to Italy had to be cancelled because of my help. I can no longer eat almost anything that gives me pleasure and I stopped drinking wine. I would like to say that I could not have a worse summer but the fates may surprise me that I do not want to tempt providence.
***Recently, I had a long discussion with Bob Koester who runs Bob’s Jazz and Blues Mart (formerly the Jazz Mart) and he is the owner of Delmark Records. He said that many music celebrities used to come in to his old store including Steve Winwood, Ron Wood, Jimmy Page, and various Rolling Stones whenever they came to town. Apparently, Iggy Pop (often called the godfather of punk) showed up before he was famous, and Bob mentored him a bit. Then Iggy and his girl took off all their clothes and started dancing, and Iggy even urinated in a glass. Bob got mad, threw the glass at him, and yelled that he never wanted to see him or his stooges again. This was how Iggy’s notorious band might have been named. Apparently, a few versions of this story are included in various Iggy and Stooges bio books.
I reminded Bob that I had given him a copy of my poetry book, A Passion for Apathy (still available at Quimby’s in Wicker Park and The Book Table in Oak Park) which does contain a few jazz inspired poems (My next book Looking Forward to the Past will include a poetic Ken Vandermark tribute). Bob told me “I still have it in my washroom at home; maybe I will read it sometime when I have a great bowel movement”. Upon hearing this, I was weirdly flattered. I want to interview him someday for this website and I want to attend one of his legendary movie screenings (he once wanted to be a filmmaker and he owns countless films.)
Here is a link to an article about the city’s top music people, and he is number 43 in the ranking. https://music.newcity.com/2017
** The robots are coming! The robots are coming! I recently read that they opened a hotel in Japan that is almost completely run by robots. There is even a dinosaur robot who takes down info on people checking in. Here is the link. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/16/japans-robot-hotel-a-dinosaur-at-reception-a-machine-for-room-service. There was also a famous robot at a house near my condominium who used to walk a dog and get the mail. The robot bears the face of its inventor, Ben Sokar and Mr. Scora thought he was good at technology because he might the skill might have been left over from a previous life. The robot (Named AROK) was recently donated to Moraine Valley Community College. One of the schools I teach at (not Moraine) is going to focus on robot construction probably so the students can build their replacements in the work place. I do not want to sound like a Luddite but they are going to build a completely new building, which will feature robot arms doing different tasks to impress the students on the main floor. For this, they are going to get rid of the teacher parking lot so instructors will probably have to walk several blocks in the dead of winter with their books in their hands the middle of the night. Hooray hooray! To finish off the robot section of this blog there was recently a traffic jam in Russia because (get this) a robot tried to run away and he was blocking traffic. This is the third time he ran away and scientists cannot figure out why he does it but they might dismantle him soon. This reminds me of a Night Stalker episode in which an intelligent robot escaped his captors and tried to impersonate a human by wearing a mask. At the end, he is destroyed and we are left to wonder if this was the moral thing to do. Here is a link.
This episode reminded me of I Robot, which was adapted into a classic Outer Limits episode. Perhaps the world of Blade Runner as unlikely as we thought.
Well that’s all for today folks.
