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Kene at Large
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2/23/2015

Tuesday, Feb. 17 2015

Kenne Barelegs MTA closed down, sci-fi marathon wasnt meant to be, though they started 4 pm sunday; Gee Julie, like the Kinks, went "Drivin'" on monday holiday, traffic sucked, i said "fuck this! let's go see Bugs Bunny review at Brattle!" My Spencer ancestors (now a Citizen bank two blocks from Groupie Towers!) were with me, since there was space at university road garage AND you get discount parking at the Brattle (support the brattle!) I'm a member and Groucho's Marx Brothers marathon "WANTS to be in my gang...oh yeah..." (Gary Glitter-cum-Brownsville station!). ok, so the ole Bugs Bunny's were from '40s'-'50s, there's classic Facebook pages for CARTOON FANATICS! (influences: george jones/tom jones/grace jones and chuck jones and JIM JONES!!!! electric koolaid acid test in Guyana, man!). there WAS a Bugs Bunny in Scotland "what's up, MacDoc?" and an american revolution one where a defeated yosemite sam sez "I'm a Hessian without any aggression"; also one of Nero fiddling as the lions about to devour his ass (hey, I even know his famb'ly tree to Caligula! a midnight brattle movie about '86, i hung in au bon pain with the Chessmaster and killed tyme readin' a book: LESBIAN NUNS!)...Gee Julie "Laffed out Loud" at ole Bugs, but there was no TAZ?!?!?!?! $8.50 lunch special at Dado's Tea = dinner and a movie for my "Best Bette" "on the planet", Happy Valentyne Day (Tyne Daly?) a couple days late after being "Snowbound" with Sabbath Drums cuzzin"....

But wait there's more! 0100 monday holiday, "this is George Knapp on Coast to Coast and our very special guest tonight is Miriam Linna"...yes! (heard Lil Steven give Greg Prevost/Chesterfield Kings a shoutout once also!) AWESOME intro, mentioned Kicks, husband Billy Miller (wicked nice guy!) AND Norton Records, a true labour of love, that label, BUY STUFF!!!! Miriam's book I Fought the Law was about the truth behind Bobby Fuller's death (looked like a suicide, but she talked to his brother; and "Miriam has been writing about music and crime since 1975"); all told in her 'exotic" Finland-cum-Canada-cum Ohio accent! A bright spot on a shitty winter day! Gonna write her now and tell her about it! (Billy Joel; the Hassles, Hour of the Wolf, 87 cents each in 1969, Daw's drug store, Brockport NY! instead i bought Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs on tour, but DIDNT buy all the Standells albums there! Any kind of fish Miguel d'Amour likes that got away".....

Paul Cook Ped-Orthic, comm. ave., Brighton Rocks (Queen!), new orthopedic shoes ($95!); ok, so bad enuff the dude has a plaster cast of my size 13 feets (yes! Bigfoot sightings in Massachusetts!!!!) then the dude measurin' me feets too big (covered by the Beatles!) sez "are you from the islands? you look like you're from the islands"....ok, I'm ready for a Highland Chieftain, like Magnus Barelegs per'aps, doppelganger....no, i get "you look like David Gilmour; guitarist for Pink Floyd..you guys look related...you could pass for doubles...he's a good-lookin' guy!" (and are YOU a Regular Dude? hope my feet aint bein' misconstrued!) a wee bit of wiki and Gilmour is from Cambridge, UK, in east anglia, where Ma's Puritan Blodgett ancestors hailed from (I actually googlated a VERY close distance, ironically to Syd Barrett's 'hood and stowmarket-on-hadley, where ye Bloggets 'ad an inn)...also, truth be told, Music to Kill By already recorded, guarding the NSA, Ft. Meade, Md., WWDC on a Saturday midnight would play an entire album, man (the Georgetown college station would mention/play me and slickee boys etc.) and i did rather like the guitar on this gilmour '78 solo lp, which i AINT google-ated yet but am SURE it outsold Music to Kill By! mine (and Ed, my middle name AND last anglo-saxon king of england) only redeeming quality; John Lydon may have painted on t-shirt "I hate pink floyd" (it was actually Paul Cook his drummer-Ed) but maybe he woulda liked Gizmos/Afrika Korps? and we DID have same influences/covers! merely a thought and dude, i aint even got a "Mouthful of Grass"! (flip side to "all right now"!!)"....

Wednesday Feb. 18, 2015

so i'm sittin' there readin' The Godfather lissenin' to the Braveheart soundtrack (BOTH thrift scores from jamaica plain goodwill!) and it were buggin' me, seein' Ian (Scottish for John) Underwood listed as playing on soundtrack. God bless Texas AND wikipedia, "Yes it is" , THE same Ian Robertson (SO scottish) Underwood (prolly english; he can fight agin himself at Stirling Bridge like i do! expecting wiseass Ken Kaiser komments!) that played on the Mothers' we're only in it for the shekels, which I bought late '69, zappa's satire a Gizmos influence ("amerika first ep sounds like frank zappa recorded in a tin can"; bluidy hell! th' Brits GOT it!). Ian also played on my FAVOURITE (almost) Beefheart album, Trout Mask Replica!! ok, so he paid his dues, did some "art"; why not make REAL money and do movie soundtracks? (discography in wikipedia! He played synth on The Warriors soundtrack! Such a GREAT movie!-Ed)

Other 21st century schizoid fact; I could play Ma the Braveheart soundtrack and she'd dig it, but Zappa/Beefheart...

CircusAND in '71 Circus magazine I WAS looking for penfriends into zappa/beefheart/kinks/small faces/velvet underground...led zep is on cover, think it's november '71, signed "Ken Highland, Brockport NY" got a letter that came to 15 year old ken highland (lower case like e.e. cummings, no relation to Burton "it's my pride" cummings!) from fucken POLAND, a zappa/floyd/prog-rock.behind the iron curtain music fan! reasons i never wrote back...'twas cheaper to write to tom taber/solomon gruberger/frank lima and not pay airmail! hoots mon! leadin' back to....BRAVEHIGHLAND!....("what's up, MacDoc?")"......

addictive personality/"My Obsession" (GREAT Chesterfield Stones song!)...ok, my great-great, Charles "Hiland" (1900 census) looks to never left Mee-che-gan; BUT 1841 UK census has his folks in Sheppey, Kent, "agriculutral labourer" and his uncle Charles Grant as a "constable", listed TWICE;'is 'ome AND whoever was on duty in barracks that date in 1841 was listed as police station "Chatham, kent, docks". being interested in naval stuff WHILE ON LAND (I HATE water!) , plenty of Facebook/Wikipedia sights about ye olde Chatham naval docks; tryin' to go to 1841, prolly = salem's whale fleet, which i also love to visit, in NICE weather! (Newport too). ok, so my great-great-grandaddy's uncle had a wee brush with a bit o' 'istory; there's even a website on the 'ist-tree of constables/Kent UK police force or sumpin' or 'o'her. ALSO Dickens Pickwick Papers (he also from Kent!) based on the area my Grant Highland ancestors 'ailed frum; reasons for Highlands to sail from London to Dee-troit in the 1840s: the Motor City music scene! (well, that's Back to the Future; no Grande Ballroom yet!) and also 'istorically, readin' 'bout tymes in Dickens tyme; so if you think life sux, "come over baby, step into my tyme machine"...(b/w "High on a horse";Grand Funk and Charles Dickens in that overload of information i spew out like a KENputer and ye ken bluidy well, till a MACIntosh, MacDoc!".....

Grant Highlands and Dickens: 1841 census has my Grant Highlands in Kent; by then Dickens was well-known, up to Old Curiosity Shoppe (wikipedia LIST of novels and YEAR released; love it!) He was also 4 years younger than Thomas Highland, who sailed London-Detroit (Dickens first sailed to America 1842; need to find LIST on ye shippe!); 4 years older than Constable/Uncle Charles Grant. So, did my family read Dickens? Thomas Highland married sometyme oct/nov/dec, kent, 1839! (Ken Kaiser please note:'39!) but signed x on marriage certificate, learnt to read and rite from his governess wife Elizabeth Grant; maybe SHE paid a ha' penny for a Dickens novel!".....

Mirium Linia re-reading Miriam Linna's autobiographical blog Kicksville, chapter one; we were both equally bored in midwest; Kent, Ohio/I.U./Bloomington, Indiana, both moved to NYC/Boston to "be in a band" DRUMMING! (Cramps/O.Rex). LOTSA dates SO Miriam LAST Cramps gig was a month before Africa Korps live at Cantone's! and Africa Korps DID see them open for Ramones (Solomon Gruberger to me "you would have loved the drummer!"; double-fisted Mo Tucker school!) But best of all "we shoulda had Reg Presley (TROGGS) on coast to coast"! Reg (RIP) was into crop circles and all...gud readin'!"......

Thomas Highland and Jane Austen; ok, my immigrant Highland forbearer born February 1808 (a year before Honest Abe, whose Lincoln roots from England START in Hingham, Mass.!);so "old" Tom Highland (vs. my brother "Herbie" of "Cavewoman" Gizmos fame!) was five year old when Pride and Prejudice came out and 11 when she died AND his wife wasnt born yet! (Elizabeth Grant 13 years younger! which, tymes 3, Herr Kaiser IS 39, so i found it!)...i only mention Jane Austen coz my great-great-great Elizabeth Grant was a governess, according to my grandmother's first cuzzin in '75, so before the Grant Highlands sailed to Dee-troit, Dickens and Jane Austen were the "rage' AND I still dig their books AND BBC remakes with costume dramas of course!".....

well, hittin' paydirt here on "Incestry.com", since it's gittin' close to dad's death day, Grant Highlands ARE communicating to me! ole Tom Highland actually hails from an Ashford, Kent family and looks like his dad Peter, born 1784 in KENNINGTON! love it! especially the "ken" part plus all that rural ashford stuff on wiki sez "town has four pubs"...."we want the finest wine known to humanity!"

the Grants seem to be hangin' 'round all those isle of sheppey lil towns (if you read a wiki article, "unexploded bombs found on nudist beach"; OF COURSE my ancestor lived there! so i think i found my great-great-great elizabeth grant, the governess, family, so she's a farmer wife, emigrated to salem, michigan (very rural), another brother constable at chatham docks but yet another brother, as Frank Lima cues up Arthur, goes daown to aus-tra-lia! yep, I AM akin to some grants in Oz, looks from an obit one was in charge of a mine...good reason for you to kickstarter 2015 Gizmos world tour!!!! Oz HAS been callin' me, always got on well with them blokes, oi got bluidy cuzzins there! now i gotta sort out the hylands in TAZMANIA".......

Thursday Feb. 19, 2015

Mercy Brown Coast to Coast wrko 680 am 0100-0500 was HOT last night; murder conspiracies on both Marilyn Monroe and princess Di, BOTH distant cuzzins! traveled a lot to rhode island after discovering my great-grandmother Highland's great grandfather was Sweet Gardner b. 1773 Exeter RI, died Delaware, Ontario (lissen to what wave dave in London Ontario!) Marilyn has some Rhode island roots on her probable father (I Remember ALL ala the last scene of Farenheit 451 where all the books are burnt but dudes on outskirts of town could recite entire books!) speaking of horror and Rhode Island, seems my great-grandmother Highland, though born canada IS distant kin to Lizzie Borden AND Mercy Brown, the Exeter RI vampire! as for princess Di, Gee Julie was JUST claiming she coulda been/was murdered and there's plenty of SPENCER websites runnin' down how us Yanks is kin; she's my 13th cuzzin goin' back to Sir Henry Spencer, google-ate it! Gee Julie DID wonder what the hell i meant though, when she pointed out Charles and camellia had THEIR affair, why not Di, I quipped: "yes BUT, did Charles ever want to be Di's tampon?" had a cassette once of Oz comedienne Wendy Harmer, NO relation to my grandmother Blodgett whose Harmer grandparents hail from Wantage, near Reading in "Boxshir" (Berkshire) and "dropped the h'ach in the h'ocean", thus becoming ARMER; she did a routine with blasting the Royals for what they are....as Ken Kaiser agrees: "One if by land...America First!""......

seems my great-great-great Thomas Highland born Kent, his father-in-law, also born Kent was PETER GRANT. these are Men of Kent; zeppelin's manager was an east end cockney BUT GREAT reading is Peter Grant-the Man who Led Zeppelin by chris welch, a BRILLIANT writer. This book is SO Carl Biancucci with history of Yardbirds and UK music pre-Zep; AND it's on google books!"....

Facts aboot Kent! ok, so incestry.com sez my Dad (Byron) had Grant Highland kinfolk in Chatham, Kent UK (vs. Chatham, Ontario or Chatham, Mass.). and 'o's a Man o' Kent? Billy Childish!!!!! th' bloke wot played on Gemini on a Full Moon Bruce "Plonk" 'Amel turnt me onto 'im: "he's like you!" one song (Thee Milkshakes maybe) out-Kinked "Everything She Sez is Cryptic (I Need You)"!!! 'e (Billy) even more blatantly steals than me! SO, to differentiate with the River Medway (a bloke sez "come over me flat";t'other sez "why the bleedin' 'ell should oi?";next: "to get a glass o' water!" and: "are you daft? oi kin git bleedin' water at my place!"); my Kent ancestors and Billy Childish are Men of Kent (we fought the Normans longer); Mick and Keef from Dartford are Kentish Men (surrendered more quicker)...actually, Mick in a dress at 'yde Park summer '69 in a bleedin' dress= a Kentish Maid! and i looked at Jagger bio wot sez e's a Yorkshire family as is....All Critters Great and Small AND Sylvia Plath!!!!!!"......

Friday Feb. 20, 2015

D Birds a couple of reading facts which I SHALL recite like Farenheit 451 (Mark Giroux liked Alphaville...)...reading my 1970 edition of the Godfather, Michael Corleone's sicilian wife tryin' to drive an Alfa Romeo (great Dangerous Byrds toon!) and "she would put her foot on the gas instead of the brake'...been there, done that, Marine Barracks, Ft.Meade, Md. 1978! SO...a list! (watch the record collector film High Fidelity and my facts ARE from some rock bios): BAD DRIVERS/GREAT GUITARISTS: Highland/Hendrix/Richards!!! two of my idols and their bios talked about their notoriously bad driving (Jimi wouldnt wear his glasses; AND he was left-handed! a psychedelic Gizmo!). other fact, latest rolling stone issue, saturday night live coverage and many a saturday night guarding our country 1979 marine barracks, Charleston SC OR my off-base trailer, laffin' and diggin' it...anyhow, page 15: Ray Davies, 15 toons that made me. VERY worthwhile stories for Kinks fans of some of my favourite toons; tell Frank Lima the news!"....

Saturday Feb. 21, 2015

stopping into the Boomerang in JP and what a great selection for Thrift Store! season two of the UK Office is there; SHOULD I buy it? season one had a good George Michael joke: "what'd 'e say? wank me off before you Go-Go?" ONLY in the ole country! cds, VINYL (lps AND 45s!), VHS, books; do i never buy clothes? so, lover of cheap paperbacks; Ghoul by Michael Slade with a Steppenwolf the Second type 3-D kinda cover of a skull...sure, a cheap read on the aggravating MTA...total cost: Fiddy-Three cent! AND 'tis for a gud cause! THAT and lissenin' to the BBC is the height of MY day!".....

Sunday Feb. 22, 2015

a-fore i head to New Netherlands to catch vanilla fudge at bb king's friday (and uriah heep saturday! $30 per! WORTH it! THIS is what happened to the "Teenage Dream"); lemme toss in some Odds/Sods whilst SnowBound with Sabbath Drums cuzzin, Gee Julie ("Snowblind!"): WHRB's selector saturday morn had a great Robert Johnson-playin' blues set, then "this is my first show since i got back from junior year abroad"...me: "you go to Harvard, what the GRAND FUNK you got da blooze aboot!!!????" (Ken: Coffee: I'm a BEAR!!!!) then Hillbilly at Harvard had a Roy Sludge soundin' toon about taxes and i started dancin' (coffee!!!); Gee Julie:"you look like your scraping shit off your shoes; it's the manure Mambo!" had jest got dun talkin' with Ma (age 84) about fhe Blodgett farm and auctionin' off critters after my grandfather/cuzzin SPENCER BLODGETT died in '42..though the dance was actually "Over at Grampy's House" from a Betty Boop cartoon! which leads into the BBC and reasearching agricultural labourer strikes in Kent,UK (when my great-great-great Thomas Highland lived there; found an 1818 marriage in saint mary's church, ashford Kent of his dad Peter Highland, widower marryin' Mary Heritage, SPINSTER! love them ole terms!) so 5 pm was BBC and 'istory, so check this: febraury '78 saturday night fever was released! the month previous the Korps had recorded "we are the only winner by nobody's gurl goin' nutz" and I was tryin' to turn Ken Kaiser onto the Iron Butterfly evolution album ("let's play heavy, man!")...Hello World vs. saturday night fever; and i'll let YOU decide!

WRCA 1330 AM has Boston Praise Radio BUT there's now a black owned FM transmitter and the kickstarter was STARTED "by brothers who are incarcerated from their canteen" and I DO miss WILD-AM! Bob Bittner's country oldies WJIB 740 AM had WANDA JACKSON singin' a 1964 toon (forgot to take note,maybe was a Hank toon?) anyway: Bob goes "and this is a RECORD! I love it!" and SURFACE NOISE on my AM radio! lastly, got WSM, nashville cued into Sunday down south, southern gospel: "satan is real" by the Louvin Brothers! I THINK Wierdo Records has that cd; GET IT! coz satan IS real!

lastly,WSM had david alan coe doin' "you never call me by my name", which i performed at a party in Canton, NC with a biker who knew EVERY word! before i see the Fudge friday: Johnny Cash on WSM "I walk the line", a lil "yaller Sun record" (to quote lovin' spoonful's "nashville Katz"; that was Zal Yankofksy's law foim partner!!! ghosts of Grubergers past".....


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