June 2004 Archives

As a follow up to our smash hit "Bye Bye, Blackbird, here's the second in a continuing series of occasional piano/vocal jazz standards plucked from bygone days. This time, we're headed all the way back to 1921 for "Second Hand Rose," written by Grant Clarke and James F. "the F stands for foot pedal, sonny, and don't you forget it" Hanley.

This track features lead vocals by eb (of "Clowney" fame) and and lead German-style vocals by Eileen Dahl (of "Love" fame).

playtime:1:07
file specs: roughly 1MB mp3

Thanks for listening...

She slept in the bed
while he slept on the couch
so he could hear their sick daughter
and her three-day-old cough.

And in the morning
while she moved around the kitchen
and the kids watched too-loud TV
and coughed a little more,

he crept back into the bed,
curled up in the body warmth
she'd left behind

and they slept together
separated
only by time.

A new episode is now available for easy-downloading good times, over at MVRT. Clowney marks a bit of a milestone in two ways:

It's our 10th segment, so to all those doubters who said "they'll never have 10 segments," I say: hah! look! 10 segments!

It's also our shortest piece yet, clocking in at just around one minute/one meg, offering bite-sized audio entertainment, just right for today's on-the-go monkey. This one's written by someone claiming to be named "Cecil Vortex" and it stars the redoubtable EB. Belly up to the bar, here.

Yes.
Yes I am on a cell phone.
You're right about that.
And I'm driving. Yes I am. I'm driving at the same time.
I'm on a cell phone right now. And I'm driving. Yes. At the same time. Yes.
And screw you too.

Scanning the site's traffic log tonight I learned two incredible facts:

(1) Because of a pair of lines in a pair of poems... if you search "exotic bird parks" and "Utah" in Google, not only is cecilvortex.com the first choice you get, cecilvortex.com is the only choice you get.

Amazing!

(2) Somebody -- some actual human being -- appears to have actually searched for "exotic bird parks" and "Utah" on Google and then clicked through to this site.

And!: Not only is all this true, but it's a genuine double-true fact that my writing about this whole thing -- right now! will only reinforce cecilvortex.com's dominant position in this space.

Now I have to say, it's not like this is anything I ever really aspired to. I mean, it wasn't part of my master plan when cecilvortex.com started up or anything. But of course, now that I'm here, now that I've arrived, I plan to hold on like grim death.

So for this magical moment and for the foreseeable future, also magical, if you've come here in search of information regarding exotic bird parks in Utah, let me just say:

Welcome home.

In somewhat related news, and I know pretty soon it's gonna start to sound like I'm bragging but... it appears that cecilvortex.com is also the number two (and perhaps soon, number one...?) Google result for "he peed in me." Triple-true that. Check for yourself, if you dare.

All in all, I feel like I finally have a small feel for what it must be like to be Spider Man. The challenge now, if I can loosely paraphrase Ben Parker, is to find a way to use this awesome power for good.

New episode up on today's MVRT Marriage is part of a continuing series from writer, illustrator, publisher, and dimensional contortionist Tony Jonick. Take yourself a two-minute 29 second journey to the icy border between East and West here.

He had a Mickey Mouse hat
and a Donald Duck shirt
and a nose that was just

and a nose that was just

and a nose that was just
plain goofy.

Just because you turn
slowly slowly
to check her out
slowly
as she walks past

doesn't mean

that she don't notice.

A brand-new episode is now up on ye olde Monkey Vortex Radio Theater: Everybody Loves Money. This four-minute phantastical was first written in Ubby-Dubby and then meticulously translated over to English by Bill "Mr." Cassel. It features the voice talents of Christian "Mr." Crumlish, Jeff "Mr." Green, Bee "Ms." Nisbet, Jolene "Mr." Phelps, and Eric "eeeeee-rock!" Stone. But don't take my word for it -- hear for yourself at MVRT.

So my 3-and-a-half-year-old son is busting kung fu moves in the living room yesterday. And his godfather asks him: "Did you learn that from Jackie Chan?" And my son replies: "No, I learned it from Chuck E. Cheese."

"Snow!" he shouted
tossing clouds of
thin, white sand at the beach
making snowmen
out of sand
with their heads
lying down
and their arms are wet planks
and their toes knotted kelp
and they never melt
until the sun explodes.

It was a hard laugh. A cold laugh.
The kind of laugh that savages the funny. 

It pulls the funny outside.
Stuffs it into the trunk of a
   '79 Chevy Impala.

Takes the funny for a ride.

It was a hard, joyless laugh.
And it kept on coming.

I must be someone very different to him 
  than I am to me.

Maybe I'm some fast-talking jack-ass
  some know-it all jerkweed
  some high-maintenance poindexter.

If he saw me in a bar
  he would hate me in that bar.

I hope god doesn't see me through his eyes.

2 minutes and 17 seconds of all-new audio-fun adventure await you up on MVRT: Stack of Mitts, scripted by Cecil V. and starring Rodney K., M. Smith., and Lisa Bush.

Stack of Mitts, now playing on Monkey Vortex Radio Theater.