FBO: 'Calling All Failed Bands'

FBO READY TO UP THE ANTE, FOLLOWING KANSAN ATTACKS

After Kansan failed bands' guerilla attacks to undermine this site -- evident in the Rolling Stone magazine cut-and-paste jobs following the justified Byrds post (see below) -- it's time for a about-face, self-survey of FBO. And it's clear: we are not doing enough. This gut-check prompts the FBO to call out for all failed bands -- with the exception of Kansan failed bands -- to come together on Boxing Day to record a song 'We're the Failed Bands of Oklahoma' in Oklahoma, which will be mixed, made into a video and sent to Kansas as a challenge.

--> Please post here if there is a day just before or after Christmas -- roughly between December 23 and December 27 -- that you could spend an evening with pizza to lend your bass, vocal or drum stick to the first collective FBO anthem.

Note the Stupid Shape:












Note the Shape of Excellence:













By the way the BEST SONG OF THE WEEK goes to the re-release of the opening track of Pearls Before Swine's hilarious Balaklava, a lightly psychedelic, anti-Vietnam War album from 1969 with heavily reverbed, brittle melodies and creepy whispered messages ('all is silent,' 'waiting,' 'Jeezuzz'). The opening song, 'Trumpeter Landfrey,' is an actual recording from the 1880s of a survivor of the 'charge of the light brigade' from the 1854 Crimean War. Trumpeter Landfrey says:

'I am Trumpeter Landfrey, one of the surviving trumpeters from the charge of the light brigade in Balaklava. I'm now going to sound the bugle...'


Shaken and stirred,

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Furious with Byrds'

The worst band in the history of rock music is the Byrds. Making a career out of covering other people's songs with flat harmonies and 12-string guitars, the Byrds never really had a moment until they gave up the reigns of their band -- in a career crisis moment after psychedlic's fire simmered out -- and let Graham Parsons sing lead, direct the songs and make their best album 'Sweetheart of the Rodeo' in 1968.

With David Crosby (of lame CSN&Y fame) and Parsons gone, the smug Roger 'I have a 12-string! I have a 12-string!' McGuinn -- never much of a force in the band -- took over, finding new Dylan songs to cover. (They re-did Dylan's biggest song 'Lay Lady Lay' the same year Dylan released it, for example.)

Eventually we -- the children of the '80s -- believed what we were told: the Byrds were an important 1960s band and the uncharismatic, poor singer McGuinn was its pioneer. We clapped politely as they were awarded status to the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. And we nodded our heads in time to the 10-second soundbyte of 'Turn Turn Turn' as it accompanied a Time-Life Book commercial in 1989. None of us have ever listened to any of their non-Parsons albums, nor should.

Take a look at this:

* first 'hit' was 'Mr Tambourine Man' (written by Dylan)
* follow-up single 'All I Really Want to Do' (written by Dylan)
* follow-up single 'Turn Turn Turn' (traditional folk song by Pete Seeger)
* two years later they actually wrote a song ('So You Wanna Be a Rock'n'Roll Star') to make a dig at the manufactured Monkees' overnight success, forgetting they had formed in a similar fashion a few years earlier
* fired (admittedly overrated) David Crosby who had been principal songwriter in psychedlic era
* in 1972, following success of rival Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Byrds released 'Byrds' album under name 'Gene Clark, Chris Hillman, David Crosby, Roger McGuinn & Michael Clarke)

The FBO calls for Roger McGuinn, as the official Byrds spokesperson:

--> to apologize
--> to post all material free online (none of their music should make money from this point on)
--> return the 'Hall of Fame' inductee ribbon
--> stop talking about the Byrds on nostalgic radio/TV shows


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Considers Google Ban'

THE SUCCESSFUL BEGINS BLOCKADE AGAINST THE FAILED
Google is trying to punish the Failed Bands of Oklahoma. Previously a search of 'Failed Bands of Oklahoma' linked directly to this site. Now the FBO official site doesn't make it in the first 20 pages of Google links. What went wrong?

The FBO's recent challenge for failed bands of Iowa and North Dakota struck a chord with Google, as did the now-suspended ban against New Jersey.

While sorrowful that the Internet search engine is upset with the FBO, the FBO cannot retract its missives and dicta. That Google is so unnerved by FBO's actions suggests that collectives of the failed are causing alarm in the ranks of the successful.

The FBO is considering a full ban on Google.


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Tips for New Bands'

Surprisingly, bands have yet to seize a few ideas waiting for glory:

ALT-ROCK BOY BAND Somewhere in the warehouse rehearsal spaces of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, there must be some scruffly-haired 25-year-olds practicing dance moves and putting payments down on cordless head mics. Alt-rock needs a 'boy band' -- with dance routines and line-up of five with varying personalities.

CO-OPT SOME JOEL Yes, the US Office TV show finally made a crack at 'William Joel,' but so far no one has yet to realize the misplaced snarl and tuff guy of the Bronx's least intimidating homie of all time, Billy Joel, could easily translate into some fine cover material: it's catchy, it's funny, it's misguided and it has a message.

HOCKEY PLAYERS A good name for a band.

BAND ATTACKED BY GOPHERS With ample fake blood and fake amputated limbs on-hand, rent gophers for a show and set-up a band-under-attack in the last song.


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Defining Stacy'

Surely less than 1% of the earth's inhabitants are named 'Stacy,' but the FBO subscribes to the belief that -- regardless of their chosen or adopted names -- the nearly one in 10 people, regardless of sex, is a 'Stacy.' Loosely 'Stacy' is a name for someone with a slight stammer or deformity, an uneccessary cheery disposition, or a significant under- or over-bite.

Stay tuned for more on the definition of a Stacy.

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Singapore Airport

FBO: 'Induced Project Garners 10/10 Review'

The FBO is happy to learn it has a new fan. FBO's first-induced project -- Tall Tales' 'LIVE in Oklahoma' (posted at Audiostreet.com -- click here to see it) -- got a perfect review from FBO Top Fan (knocking Rich Trott to Number Two Top Fan), Brian Adad. Mr Adad wrote:

"This music makes my life worth living. Last month I was about ready to
kill myself, but then I heard "Dicks" and now I'm going to wait and
kill myself later."

You are not alone when you're a part of the FBO Family. And you are part of the FBO Family, Mr Adad.


FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Ha Tien, Vietnam

FBO: 'Liking'

Presently FBO is LIKING

AT LEAST HALF OF THE NEW BECK ALBUM 99-cent downloads and miniaturised album cover art that appears stamp-sized on your iPod has changed 'the album' forever. It's no longer necessary to keep a listener's attention for a full 45 or 60 minutes -- albums are dying. So for me I only need about five songs that electrify that inner cord from cerebellum to rectum to back a 'record.' The new Beck album, The Information has at least six worthy songs that make the album as good as any since his best, Odelay, from a decade ago. Songs are heavily percussed, with reverbed guitars and keyboards that give a spacey feel to his usual 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' three-word wordplays. He's trying harder than on Guero and the album comes with head-shot videos for each.

RIVERS The Burmese like to say you connect with earth by walking barefoot, but I find more power by drifting in a shallow canoe in rivers -- like the sediment-rich, chocolate milk-colored Mekong in Vietnam. Tiny canals shoot all directions, under arched bridges you have to duck for or get decapitated by. Bikes and motorcycles ride over them and onto sidewalk-wide roads meaning expanses of the rice-growing and fruit-growing Mekong Delta can't be reached by cars. We wouldn't exist without rivers -- no other body of water combines a place to transport people and things, bathe in, fish from, wash clothes and dirty saucers in, and send your defocate off with. A tip of the hat to rivers.

RUTGERS SCARLET KNIGHTS NCAA football's oldest Division I team, New Jersey's state school Rutgers, is undefeated and ranked for the first time in nearly three decades. Despite its history, Rutgers has struggled with personality. In the 90s, the put 'NJ' on their helmets to plug their connection with the country's most easily criticized state. Now they've switched to winning. Because of the Scarlet Knights' success -- and what exactly is a Scarlet Knight, something a kin to the Lavendar Gnomes? -- NEW JERSEY has been DE-LISTED from the 'watch list' for its curious urinal policy on turnpike rest-stops.

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Cantho, Vietnam

FBO: 'Revisiting Failed Film Setting'

For the time being, nothing spells 'F.A.I.L.U.R.E' for Americans better than Vietnam. The decade-plus conflict cost untold millions of local lives and tens of thousands of Americans, for a cost that most here either opposed or didn't really care about. FBO has had representatives in Vietnam before -- as part of the failed film project Holding Ground Just Beyond the Limits where actors impersonated Quebecois Olympic 'recruiters' looking for French-speaking athletes to come to Quebec and play for a national team after Quebecois reaches independence. The project, held with a faulty videocamera in 1997, failed.

A key seen involved a District One sports club in Saigon, where 'ping pong serves' were 'clocked' and interviews held in a steamy room with Coca-Cola banners on the walls. This week FBO returned, for a ping pong lesson and to see how that setting of a pivotal scene in the failed project had fared.

Ms Lung was a ping-pong champion in 1983 and has been teaching children since. She volunteered a quick class in the same steamy room. The Coca Cola banners are gone now, replaced by a banner of a cheerful Ho Chi Minh lifting weights. Apparently we at FBO had been striking the ball wrong all these years. The elbow of you striking hand should be against your side, wrists holding the paddle loosely, and striking the ball lightly with a circular motion -- the paddle stopping (if you're right handed) near your left temple. Backhands are even funner. The paddle is held roughly parallel with the table facing to the left (for right handeders) around your stomach, then swiping lightly the ball with a motion similar to tossing a frisbee.

The sports club will be demolished later this year, so that a new one can be built. Hopefully FBO's testament to failure can carry over to the new grounds.

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Saigon, Vietnam

PS-- For those intersted, Robert Reid is keeping a nearly daily blog of his Vietnam exploits while updating a free online guidebook to Vietnam for himself.

FBO: 'Recap: The Watchlist & Suggested Bans'

Some cynical posters have suggested FBO is 'all about itself,' that it 'only toots its horn,' but it's not so. In the FBO's efforts to garner press for failed bands everywhere, the FBO has fulfilled its civic duty by signaling things gone haywire -- suggested ways to improve the situations -- and called for 'bans' to prompt positive change. Here are some of the things that's triggered POSITIVE FBO ACTION: bans against the following, sought apologies or multi-point plans for recovery. Note that, after careful consideration, cussing has not been added to the watchlist of ban list. It's OK to cuss if you should choose to.

--> SEEKING APOLOGY FROM ROLLING STONES FOR DECADES OF MEDIOCRITY
--> BAN HOLLYWOOD'S ENDLESS SEQUELS & REMAKES
--> HOW WORLD CUP 2006's MISSED OPP CAN REBOUND IN 2010
--> BAN NEW JERSEY UNTIL PROPER URINALS ARE INSTALLED
--> BAN NORTH CAROLINA UNTIL QUARTER IS RE-DESIGNED

The FBO is always welcome to your suggestions for civic re-think. The more antennae, the more the FBO can do.

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Saigon, Vietnam

FBO: 'Answers the Big Three'

Should I cuss?
It's a personal decision, but FBO is noticing an increasingly free use of profanity in commericials and TV shows. Jon Stewart bleeps '****ing' all over his show, and we're invited to laugh at the so-called shocker -- but it's just not as funny anymore. Several ad campaigns do things like have a cellphone stutter as a bloke's furied cussing begins, others cut off someone in revelation saying 'holy ****' or, for Burger King, make a stretched effort to use 'Sit Happens' as a campaign by suggesting their burgers make you want to sit. Cussing when you hurt your toe isone thing. But, comically speaking, perhaps stronger gestures can be made by saying something that actually says something than going for the cheap joke. That may have ran its course by 2002.

Who is the Best Rock Singer/Band Over 50?
Bob Dylan. His new album Modern Times follows a string of studio albums that make blues sound remarkably original while trivializing anything the Stones have done in 25 years.

What is the Meaning of Life?
To procreate, further the species' existence.



FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Saigon, Vietnam

FBO: 'Revisits Positives of 2006'

In 2006 the following have been adopted:


THE OKLAHOMA PANHANDLE
SZEKELYUDVARHELY
ROMANIA'S COP SINGER
THE TRABANT
INJURED SQUIRRELS
THE FLESHTONES

And the following have been applauded in a momentary or long-lasting way:

SHAKIRA
SWEDEN'S AMBASSADOR TO ROMANIA
WILCO
TRAVEL
FAVORITE FAILED SPORTS LEAGUE
THE BAND THAT REFUSES TO FAIL/QUIT
WOMEN POP SONGS
AN FBO FAN


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Tributes Failed San Franciscan Civic Interventionists'

BEFORE THE FBO, THERE WAS SUPERPUBLICO
At least one FBO member partook in a San Francisco collective in 1998 that eyed excessive pricing in minor-minor sports leagues -- and intervened, as a positive gesture.

One of the most exciting sports stories of the 1990s is of the San Francisco Bay Seals, a 'division three,' 'professional' soccer team in San Francisco. In 1997, the Bay Seals knocked off TWO division one soccer teams in the US Open Cup, prompting the USA Today to call them the 'sports team of the year' and the New York Times to applaud their 'David and Goliath' effort. Remarkable endorsements from far-reaching sports pages. A year later they became the first US sports organization to play in communist Vietnam (they played the Ho Chi Minh City Police Department).

SuperPublico, interested, checked out a 1998 game, but found unrealistic skyscraper-high prices ($12) keeping them out of the stadium. If $12 doesn't seem like a lot, consider that it was higher than the cheap seats to watch the Golden State Warriors or Oakland A's play (thus meaning it was cheaper to go watch Derek Jeter, Shaq or Allen Iverson play than semi-pro ball players who keep the day job). Attendance was terrible -- ranking 26th of 27 teams, and charging nearly double the league average. The sports story of 1997 brought in only 375 people per game in 1998.





Knowing the history-making Seals could not survive with this flawed business method, SuperPublico's two members returned to the next SF Bay Seals soccer game in desperation and handed out these salmon-colored leaflets, suggesting to fans (most of which were on the free list) that if they were worried about the team's extortionate prices that they say something BEFORE THE TEAM FAILS. The next day a current FBO member recieved a beligerent call from Bay Seals coach Tom Simpson, furious, about the leaflet that correctly showed the damning BS' attendance and ticket prices in comparison with the league. 'Where did you get such junk?,' Mr Simpson demanded. Superpublico responded, 'Actually we contacted all 27 teams directly -- these averages are 100% accurate. We can show you the Excel documents.' The phone conversation ended after that, as did Superpublico's relationship with this unthankful organization.

Shortly thereafter SuperPublico attended a book reading of Doors' keyboardist Ran Manzarek, asking him, 'Ray, what do you think of [minor-minor soccer league] ticket prices?' An enraged Ray immediately responded, 'They're too high.'*


What ever happened to the Seals? New ownership took over the team a couple years later (unfortunately we don't know what happened with ticket prices) and changed the name to the pitifully optimistic 'Bay Area Seals,' as if soccer fans from Berkeley or San Jose would make the drive to Kezar for low-grade soccer at high prices. The team folded after the 2000 season.

The FBO hopes to pick up this sort of positive interaction with failed enterprises and art collectives.


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

* This is true, as is the whole story

FBO: 'Celebrates State-to-State Tension'

DETEST THY NEIGHBOR
FBO's yet-to-be-publicized pet project of late is a mass campaign to expand the state of Delaware to include presently Maryland's Eastern Shore, which -- by all accounts, looking at a map or talking with a handful of Delawareans -- is 'Rightful Delaware.' Delaware actually was once part of Pennsylvania, and seceded while Lord Baltimore and Mr Penn bickered about where the state line between the two states were. Eventually, a couple British blokes -- a Mason and a Dixon -- were employed to draw the line (aka the Mason-Dixon line), which cut directly south along Delaware's western border, making our nation's first state Delaware the only one to reside EAST of the Mason-Dixon line.

--> What's to be noted here is that two states' tensions and sour relationships, in a way, led to a state in itself. The FBO sees such tension as analogous to failed bands' ongoing plights amidst the predictable derision, sarcasm and negativity from sideline watchers or non-failed bands.

While FBO Admin continues to work on the ploy for 'Rightful Delaware,' it's worth nothing the FIVE MOST INTRIGUING STATE/STATE RELATIONSHIPS:

North Dakota & South Dakota We love this one. Republican party in 1889 sliced this territory into north and south halves to gain extra representation in congress. Over the years, however, rivalry and distrust developed. Roads usually linked the states east and west, not toward each other. North Dakota feels more tied with Minnesota, South Dakota with Iowa. Occasionally North Dakota floats the idea of changing its name to just 'Dakota' -- 'for fun' one governor said -- outraging South Dakota with the tenacity. FBO formerly applauds the state of North Dakota and sides with North Dakota's punkish attitude towards its southerly neighbor, something Oklahoma knows something about.

Maryland & West Virgina, Maryland & Delaware, Maryland & Pennsylvania
Maryland gets the FBO award for craftiest-devil state. Take a look at it, and note how its western extremities nearly end around the Cumberland Gap, then re-emerge to steal some of former Virginia, and now West Virginia. Meanwhile, there's the aforementioned Mason-Dixon tensions with Pennsylania, and the absolute robbery of Rightful Delaware. The FBO puts Maryland on a 'watchlist' with potentional banning being considered.

Vermont & New Hampshire Like stalagmites and stalactites, no one remembers which one of these small, pointy states in New England is which (Vermont is to the left, in more ways than one). One votes Republican, the other is a BYOB (bring your own bong) bastion of liberal America.

Michigan & Wisconsin No! We are not amused by Michigan's violation -- that severed, irrational 'UP' upper peninsula thing. It's clearly Wisconsin and the FBO wants you to give it back.

Oklahoma & Texas Oklahoma's panhandle exists because Texas wanted slaves. Following the Compromise of 1850 (which prohibited slavery north of the panhandle's present southern border), Texas just sliced the liberated patch of land, which eventually became the least-heralded part of Oklahoma.

The FBO welcomes your votes for most intriguing state-to-state relationships.


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Postpones Panhandle Concert'

CONCERT POSTPONED
Despite fevered anxiety on part of FBO's members and FBO's fans, the first-ever Failed Bands of Oklahoma 'Tribute to Failure' concert/event, scheduled for next month in the Oklahoma Panhandle, is -- with reluctance -- being postponed to May 2007. 'Willingness is not a problem,' explains FBO 001's Robert Reid. 'We just need a little more time to get everything in place...'

Listen to the official announcement:

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Adopts the Fleshtones'

Most bands can easily highlight a few events -- a CD, a show, an on-stage vomitting -- as the stand-out highlights of a band's life past or in progress. For FBO #001 Tall Tales, usual candidates include an unlikely road trip to play two remarkable shows in Greencastle, Indiana; and opening for the Fleshtones on March 21, 1989 at Oklahoma City's Blue Note.

Last Sunday in Brooklyn was the 'Atlantic Antic,' New York's best of an endless list of street festivals, when a mile of the big boulevard gets filled with food stands, stages, stands promoting politics or selling ironic t-shirts. Last weekend is typical. At one area the Museum of Transit set out a dozen old buses -- some 80 years old -- for people to walk through; nearby a Brazilian drum group played. Up the street was a belly dancer playing to old guys playing Middle Eastern music, a John Lennon-lookalike fronted a loud garage band, with two go-go dancers standing on speakers, a zany marching band played an Eastern European-styled song with much stop and shouting, and Tall Tales' old boss, the Fleshtones, blared through a 50-minute set next to a Spanish food stand.

The Fleshtones, in their 50s, are playing better, more inspired, more fun that practically any one, certainly classic bands like the Rolling Stones (whom the FBO have asked for an apology). Throughout, FT singer Peter Zaremba -- still with a flop cut and a goofy grin as if he's getting away with something -- spun around between phrasings, while the bass and guitar players did kicks in the air. During the last song, 'Push Up Man' (from their 2005 record Beachhead) those three jumped off stage onto the street, handing out the bass and guitar to whomever would take them.

As the drum beat continued, the three Tones cleared a pit and picked people to do push-ups. At one point, they locked with five fans in a wall and 'pushed' their way through the crowd. Then jumped back on stage to finish the furious stream of joy.

--> The FBO officially adopts the Fleshtones.



FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Adopts Temporary Mascot: Injured Squirrels'

The FBO is not shy to adopt places temporary headquarters (eg Istanbul, Los Angeles, Székelyudvarhely) or regions as pet venues (Oklahoma panhandle), but now -- following a poorly argued response from FBO's top fan Rich Trott to a recent post that put him in the FBO penalty box for the second time -- the FBO has found a temporary mascot: the injured squirrel.

Find out more about injured squirrels here.

-->The FBO accepts suggested names for its injured squirrel mascot.

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Terry Waska Gets One Get-Out-Of-Penalty-Box Card'

The FBO's ongoing efforts to recruit new failed bands to add to its steady membership of four recently got a boost, with thought-out, time-consuming research -- MySpace links of a few failed bands from Oklahoma -- from Terry Waska, member of FBO's Asylum. For his efforts Terry receives on free 'Get-Out-Of-Penalty-Box' card to be used at a future mishap of his choosing.

Thanks Terry.

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Ban Against North Carolina'

FBO Admin recently purchased a small cup of Starbucks coffee from the first Starbucks ever, in Pike Place Market in Seattle, WA. Outside, three haggardly guys with Neil Young 1971 hairstyles played Neil's 'Heartless' -- the spoon player throwing down his spoons in faux angst at the end of the unexplosive tune. Inside teams of tourists eyed Starbucks merchandise. Receiving coin change from the overly friendly cash attendant, FBO Admin noticed a 'North Carolina quarter' -- branded 'FIRST IN FLIGHT' and showing bald Ohioan Wilbur Wright (shown below) watching his Ohioan brother fly the Ohio-made aircraft on December 17, 1903.

Enough already, Carolina! One wonders, who exactly is 'first in flight' here? An Ohioan made and flew an Ohio-material aircraft. Either way, for North Carolina to emblazen their one-shot at coin immortality with Ohioans is a missed opportunity. It's like having the Rolling Stones putting George Harrison's 'Bangladish concert' set on the cover of their '40 Licks' greatest-hits package, and a photo of a bong Steve Stevens, of Billy Idol's band, made in 'shop' in 12th grade. C'mon!

FBO, thus, recommends, banning travel or commercial trade with North Carolina until they come up with a more creative and apt slogan for their beautiful state. To distance itself from its northerly cousin (who tries to lump the states together with the poorly uniformed 'Carolina' Panthers, based in Charlotte, NC), the FBO recommends that South Carolina change its name.

--> Please give us your suggestions for South Carolina's new name, which will be forwarded to South Carolinian authorities.

It is worth pointing out that Mack Brown, coach of the Texas Longhorns, once coached at North Carolina. His #2 team hosts #1 Ohio State this Saturday. You can be sure Wright descendants and Kitty Hawk's chamber of commerce will be watching this game CLOSELY.

Prediction: Texas 27, tOSU 20. There is no justice on the gridiron pitch.


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Did Lou Reed Punch a Squirrel?'

The best lyrics are lyrics that mystify. In Lou Reed's immortal, and unknown, 'Bottoming Out' from his Legendary Hearts album from 1983, the singing character has problems. Rather than beating up a significant other, he takes off to punish the asphalt with his motorcycle tread. At one curve, drunk, disaster strikes.

Lou sings:

'I'm cruising fast on a motorcycle down this winding country road... And I pass the gravel on the foot of the hill where last week I fell off... There's still some oil by the old elm tree, and a dead squirrel that I hit... But if I hadn't left, I would've struck you dead, so I took a ride instead'


Lou/character confides that he hit 'a dead squirrel,' which prompts questioning and reflection by careful listeners. The lyrics suggest that Lou/character hit an already dead squirrel with his motorcycle, not an alive one. He may have 'hit' it with his tires, or -- more likely -- he wrecked (thus the 'oil by the old elm tree') THEN noticed a dead squirrel which he, in a state of angst, punched with his fist.

Bob Dylan's album, just out, contains another great morsel of confusion. The lead-off 'Thunder on the Mountain' features the following in its second verse:

'I was thinkin' 'bout Alicia Keys, couldn't keep from crying... When she was born in Hell's Kitchen, I was living down the line.
I'm wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be... I been looking for her even clear through Tennessee'

It's humorous, inventive and misguided. Ms Keys actually was born in Harlem, but raised in Hell's Kitchen. She's never lived in Tennessee. Bob did the math and noted he was living downtown when Ms Keys was born way uptown. But why bring it up in the second stanza of your first studio album since 9/11? The inclusion of Ms Keys, paired with Tennessee, in lyric deserves something. So the FBO awards Bob Dylan a 'Ribbon for Confusion Lyrical Merit'.

POLL QUESTION: Do you think Lou Reed punched a dead squirrel, ran over a dead squirrel or ran over a live squirrel that died shortly thereafter?


FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Seattle, WA

FBO: 'Entertainment Planner for Late Summer'

WRITE A MYSTERY NOVEL

New York City's Black Orchid (tel 212-734-5980, 303 E 81st St), for 12 years and running, has put love and know-how behind the mystery and crime books, old and new, in its skinny two-floor shop in a less luxe pocket of the Upper East Side. FBO Admin stopped in to talk about a potential 'Entertainment Planner' substitute to movie bio-pics, sequels and TV remakes, and chatted with Bonnie, one of the store's owners.

She said, 'It's hard being a small store. It's not enough to be good when you're small. It's not enough to make the best coffee or have the nicest store. You have to be big to survive.' The owners had memorized the nominations (and winners of course) of a recent mystery novel contest.

I asked about Oklahoma.

'Ohh! Books about Oklahoma? That would be excellent for us... People love series novels based on destinations, where authors really know the place... People are interested in Oklahoma because no one knows about it much, and it has the lore of the Native Americans. If you write one, just make sure not to kill your main character. Readers like to know a character is going to survive, so they can follow it.'

She clearly wants books about Oklahoma. You should write it.

Re-cap:

--> Writing about Oklahoma is good
--> Don't kill your lead characters

Please post your suggestions for the lead character (not to be killed).


FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Upper East Side, New York City