I know what let’s do! For old times’ sake...

...let’s watch that video of Susan Boyle auditioning for Britain’s Got Talent (5:50) one more time....

It wasn’t all that long ago, actually. Her audition took place on April 11, 2009. So a little over four years ago, no one had ever heard of that little collection of villages in Scotland.

But since then, a lot of water has gone over the dam/under the bridge (pick one).

To take just one example, the phrase “Boston massacre” now has an entirely new meaning that has absolutely nothing to do with March 5, 1770.

To take another example, we have (and by “we have” I mean that David Letterman has) unearthed, finally, one of those dreaded Banjos of Mass Destruction (BMD) (4:24) and that starts with B and that rhymes with P and that stands for (let’s say it together, class):

POOL (4:58).

The common thread running through these videos should be obvious by now: Ways to make one’s parents proud.

Is the world in a downward spiral, or what?

To clear your head of that depressing prospect, why don’t you take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity and watch this video of a great deal of falling water that involves neither a dam nor a bridge, while (British, whilst) simultaneously brushing up on your French, listening to the strains of Richard Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries (some of that classical music that Hilltophomesteader hates so much), and ending with a lovely orchestral rendition of “Over the Rainbow” that includes an actual rainbow (4:09)?

Putz would have loved this post. Blogland misses him.

Albert Ross (and the Otters)

Many of you know that I travel occasionally to Georgia’s neighbor to the west, the great state of Alabama, to (a) visit my daughter’s family and (b) continue my search for banjos of mass destruction. It turns out that I have been looking in the wrong place. I should have been looking in Leeds, Yorkshire.

Here is some lovely folk music by Albert Ross and the Otters (5:39) that includes the long-sought-for but elusive banjo.

Albert’s Myspace page reveals the following:

“Albert Ross was raised in the dwindling limelight of the Working Mens’ Clubs of the North of England. One third of a trio comprising of his father and his drunken uncle, he earned his fish and chips and a tenner a show knocking out the standard club fare of classic sixties and seventies sing a longs. In-between sets, whilst the punters would feast on bingo and pork scratchings, the teenage Albert could be found in the dressing room, with the eyes of bygone clubland heroes staring down at him from their faded publicity shots plastered around the walls. Cradling his guitar and swigging from a bottle of Newcastle Brown he sat and began to breathe life into the songs that filled his head.

“What followed was a blur of excitement. A decade of rock and roll shows and drunken shenanigans. Festivals and third world holidays. Dead end day jobs and never ending nights of wild abandon. Short-term, long distance love affairs. Streets packed tight with people bursting full of life. Shooting stars. Whirling dervishes. Blinding lights. Bands came and bands went. Bands re-formed and shifted shape. Players lived and died and told tales of dreams that came true and dreams that didn’t. It was a time of only good intention. A time to gather.

“Albert knew full well that if he’d learned anything from those wilderness years then that was how to write songs that reached out and hit people on a personal level. Songs that left the listener convinced they’d been written just for them. Songs that ached. Songs of love and loneliness. Songs that begged to be written. He knew too that to breathe life into such songs would require something out of the ordinary. A band of players both graceful and mighty. And so the Otters were born. Where, when and how remains a mystery but what was immediately clear from the very first gathering of tribe was that forces beyond our understanding were at work. Something new was in the air.

“They found a home and searched their souls for bigger and better ways to evolve. They took to the road and found many friends, but most importantly of all they put the songs at the heart of their quest. Now, as the days go by Albert Ross and the Otters continue to gather pace and are indeed in full swing. Wooing audiences across the country and winning fans the world wide.”

For more information, Albert Ross can be contacted at albertrossandtheotters@yahoo.co.uk

Any similarity between this post and a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is purely coincidental.

I finally found a banjo of mass destruction (BMD)!

But not in Alabamistan.

At the movies.

Specifically, in the film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? that we talked about yesterday.

Your Honor, I enter into the record Exhibit A (4:03).

I mean, what else would you call it but a banjo of mass destruction, given how the Hudson sisters, Blanche and Jane, turned out (2:20)?

Uh-oh. On closer inspection, Exhibit A might be said to contain a piano of mass destruction (PMD) as well. That hits a little too close to home. The jury will disregard this paragraph.

But most importantly, Your Honor -- and it should serve as a warning to all parents everywhere -- we intend to show that Exhibit A reveals a man who undoubtedly meant well, a man with talent, a man with a great deal of ambition, but -- when all is said and done -- a man who was actually a Daddy of mass destruction (DMD).

One other thing, Your Honor.

Any similarity between the Daddy in Exhibit A and yours truly is purely coincidental.

East is east, and west is west, and the wrong one I have chose.**

Did you know that in most -- okay, many -- cities the north and west sides are more affluent than the south and east sides? I’m given to understand that the root cause is related to the fact that the prevailing winds on our planet flow from west to east and from north to south, a phenomenon due primarily to the rotation of the earth and the tilt of its axis. So by building their homes north of the smokestacks, the factories, the stock yards, the lumber mills, whatever, the industrial barons of old avoided having their nostrils and the nostrils of their families offended by the smells and odors of what put money in their pockets in the first place. And their skies were clearer and less polluted as well. Think Dallas. Think Philadelphia. Think Chicago. Think Houston (well, maybe not Houston; Houston stinks in all directions). I rest my case.

In Birmingham, Alabama, though, it’s just the opposite. The Magic City is built in a shallow basin, and everyone who can afford it lives “over the mountain” south of the city in the affluent suburbs of Hoover, Homewood, Mountain Brook, and Vestavia, to name just a few places. Topped by a statue of Vulcan, god of the fire and forge (who is supposed to remind observers of Birmingham’s history as an iron and steel center), Red Mountain south of the city serves as a barrier for suburbanites with delicate sensibilities. Locally it is a geographical feature that separates them that have from them that have not.

I’m kidding, sort of. But sort of not.

Having returned recently from a visit to our daughter in Birmingham, I want to make you aware of a blog Mrs. RWP discovered a while back called Birmingham, Alabama Daily Photo. It is presided over by a nice lady named Virginia who lives in one of the aforementioned suburbs of Birmingham and who spends her days dutifully recording for the rest of us the faces and places of her world. An excellent photographer, Virginia also spends a great deal of time in her beloved Paris, France, so we are often the beneficiaries of her photographic expertise there as well.

Watching this may help take your mind off slag heaps and industrial waste.

But in secret places all over Alabama, far from the prying eyes of the Department of Homeland Security, the less affluent and less fashion-conscious express themselves this way.

**[Editor’s note. This line from a song called “Buttons and Bows” is meant as a little joke. The rhymeswithplague household is located north of Atlanta. --RWP]

Speaking of speaking in tongues...

Once again Mrs. RWP and I find ourselves in Alabamistan for a few days visiting our daughter’s family. So far we have found no BMDs (Banjos of Mass Destruction), but we are keeping our eyes open.

Natives here are divided into two colorful flocks with two distinct calls. One group say “Roll, Tide!” for no apparent reason and the other group say “War Eagle!” almost constantly.

Aside from those fascinating characteristics, Alabamian is not an easy language to understand at times. One must be alert always to the possibility that the natives are speaking in a secret code to mislead the outsider about the very real threat BMDs pose to our way of life.

Example 1: Ah had a raht nahss tahm last Frahdy naht.

Example 2: Chick at awl?**

Example 3: She kayn’t cookda save her lahf. Wah, she don't eebm know howda bawl wawda.

In this respect, Alabamians are similar to the inhabitants of Richmond, Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina, who go into raptures over "the buds that wobble in the sprang."

Travel is so broadening.

**Hint: Heard only at full-service gasoline stations.

Unfortunately, they’re always there.

My friend jinksy in England wrote a post a couple of weeks ago entitled “Spaces In Between” that reminded me (okay, my mind works in odd ways) of one of my all-time favorite stories:

During the Great Exhibition of 1851, places to stay were scarce in London because of the great crowds who came there to see the exhibits. Many Londoners began to advertise that rooms in their homes were available to rent. One woman, hoping to influence a potential client to rent her space, showed him a large window and said, “You could see the Crystal Palace if it were not for the houses in between.”

“Yes,” replied her visitor, “perhaps you could. But unfortunately, they’re always there -- the houses in between.”

Dr. William C. Finch, president of the university I attended, told that story in an Orientation Week speech welcoming us first-year students and exhorting us to strive for excellence in our studies during our stay. At several places in his speech, after having pointed out our own personal Crystal Palaces and reviewing several possible houses that might come in between, he repeated the exchange between the landlady and the potential lodger. It made such an impression on me that I still remember it after 52 years.

As I read jinksy’s post (which was really on another topic altogether), I thought again how “the houses in between” in our lives can turn into seemingly insurmountable obstacles that too often prevent us from achieving our goals and deter us from reaching our desired destination.

Unfortunately, they’re always there -- the houses in between.

That photo up there is not London in 1851. It is New York City in 2010 and it was taken by Micah Sloan, the son of a school friend of mine. Micah, who has lived in Manhattan for seven years, recently posted this photo on his Facebook page because he is proud of the view from the roof of his apartment building. I asked for and received his permission to use his photo in my post because it illustrates perfectly my point about the houses in between. Micah’s rooftop view includes the Empire State Building. See that big building with the shiny gold top in the center of the photo? That’s not it. I will let Micah tell you in his own words: “You see that needle sticking up on the right side of the building with the gold top? That’s the very tip of the Empire State Building.”

Your honor, I rest my case.

Now, to end this post with a marvelous example of how even the most unlikely person can overcome formidable obstacles, Lord Yorkshire Pudding of Pudding Towers, Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, has kindly consented to entertain us with a lovely little song, accompanying himself on none other than a long-sought Banjo of Mass Destruction that was smuggled out of Alabamistan by his daughter Frances, who is pretending to be studying there.

I’m so pleased that Pudding is finding ways to stay active in his retirement.

Banjos of Mass Destruction?

Once again Mrs. Rhymeswithplague and I find ourselves in the dreaded and dangerous Alabamistan (northern sector), where we must come when we want to visit our daughter, her husband, and our two grandsons.

As on our numerous previous incursions, we determined to continue our search for the banjos of mass destruction about which so much is written but very little seems to be known. Of necessity, our intelligence gathering has had to be done surreptitiously. You can imagine our shock to learn today that our own grandsons are involved in some very questionable activities.

We discovered that under our very noses the next generation is being systematically trained in the operation of terroristic devices. Our own grandsons have attained a remarkable level of proficiency in a new weapon system known as Band Hero, which, it can now be reported with a high level of certainty, combines the previously discovered weapon Guitar Hero II (GH-II) with the even more fearsome Electronic Drums Plus Microphone (EDPM).

This evening we were also forced to listen briefly to a cacophanous display of discordant sounds on Alabamistan Public Television that would not be tolerated in our own more civilized environs. Afterward, as we tried to recover from the unexpected assault on our ears by such odious “music” (so called), the likes of which we have never before heard, the announcer said, “I’m sure you enjoyed that inspiring performance of Rhapsody in Blue”! Only one adjective applies to what we heard, and it is not inspiring. It is unrecognizable.

Oh, the humanity!

We are not deterred by the fact that we have yet to discover any actual banjo on anybody’s knee.

Our only regret is that we have but one set of ears -- well, okay, two sets, actually -- to give for our country.

Here are our two Alabamistan grandchildren when they were two and three, respectively. Now they are nine and nearly eleven.


Don’t they look dangerous?

Birmingham Diary

Currently embedded deep behind enemy lines in a remote part of Alabamistan, your correspondent must report that thus far he has encountered no banjos of mass destruction (BMD). There is always the possibility, of course, that his unit was dropped into a BMD-free zone, but that seems highly unlikely. Nevertheless, life here appears to the untrained eye to be unfolding at a more or less normal pace. The most important word in the previous sentence is "appears." The local citizenry have been successful in concealing their undoubtedly frenzied covert activity by making everything seem ordinary.

Small differences constantly remind one that home is far away. The good people of Georgia, for example, who tease one another good-naturedly about bulldogs and yellow jackets, would be appalled at the Alabamistani populace who, divided into two factions called UA and AU, daily threaten to unleash war eagles and an ominous-sounding crimson tide (which may be a euphemism for the dreaded Red Menace of an earlier era) on one another.

Neither the red and black of our beloved University of Georgia nor the gold, black, and white of Atlanta's own Georgia Tech can be found anywhere. Instead, only the aforementioned UA crimson and a hideous combination of AU orange and blue are seen hereabouts.

One continues attempting as one can to gather intelligence, but that commodity is in rare supply here. As every schoolchild in Georgia knows, the only good thing coming out of Alabamistan is I-20. Your correspondent is eager to return to God's country from Alabamistan with a banjo on his knee. Here, the search for BMDs continues.

This report has been certified as fair and balanced by representatives of the mainstream media in Atlanta.