Notes About Books

-->

Tomaso Egan,

On September 22, 2012 I wrote a short blog about this Sheridan Civil War book that I had read about in a Boston Sunday Globe, Terrible Swift Sword. I am very sure that I mailed the article to you. Maybe this is what sparked your idea for a Christmas gift for me. I am not sure.

I knew that this would be a great book to read, but for some reason I never moved on it. I have 66 books ready to be ordered from my $5-$6 Connecticut bookstore. Then, during our visit to your Wildwood Crest home in October, you told me your take on using a Kindle and buying books. Later a visit to our travel agent’s house on the Cape further confirmed that it was a really good idea. Janis said I could buy a Kindle for cost at Amazon, and that the books only cost $1.00 or so. She said she has never paid more than that. The deal was sealed and Sandy ordered two Kindles for us for Christmas.

I am planning on taking Sheridan to Mexico this February. You always get me the perfect book.

Thank you very much, Bird On the Head.                    

-Tocino

Chris got me the Lincoln Team of Rivals book for Christmas. The Boston Globe has it as #1 in non-fiction right now -- because of the new movie, I am sure. Chris's face dropped to my reaction when he gave it to me. He said, "Is it not a good book?”  I said, “On the contrary it is a fabulous book, but I already own it, and devoured it one summer in the casita. I am definitely saving it for Abel to read.”

Tomorrow I will go to Barnes & Noble and hopefully exchange it for some Kindle books for vacation. Kindle & Bacon. Somehow the words don't go together, do they?

Side note # 43    

Today Kezia's Daedalus Books catalog came. I needed something to read so I grabbed it. Years ago my friend Charles from New Mexico talked me into reading his favorite book of all time, One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I read it on the playa on Isla Mujeres and hated it. Mea culpa (my fault). Well it is FICTION. I gave it a second try, years later on Isla also. It was just lying there for the taking in reception at Maria del Mar "Cabanas." YCMTSU. Many, many people had read and handled this particular book. I loved it. Well not the story as much as the writing and the words.

Years later in a rented house in the Bahamas one very hot night I checked out the vacation house library and found another book by him called Living To Tell The Tale and it just blew me away.

Today in Kezia's Daedalus I came upon yet another by him that I have been searching for called, believe it or not, Memories Of My Melancholy Whores. But it is going to cost me $2.95. I read somewhere that he is still alive and living in Cartagena, Columbia.

This could be the longest thank you that I have ever written. Did I even say thank you?

Liner Notes: Bob’s World 11

-->

Nobody follows the rules. The rule on Bob CDs is that you sit and listen to the music not knowing what is coming next. I have learned that no one does this. I hand you the gift, you turn it over and read the playlist. It is your gift. I give up. I asked Kezia not to include a playlist with the CD this year. She said, “That would be annoying." So we included a playlist.

The photos:    

The front, with Sandy and I, was taken in Madrid (mad - drid) New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Santa Fe on the Turquoise Trail Highway. The Elk sign was near Pie Town in southern New Mexico. R.F.T. serving the pies is of course the same town and YES that is the real name of the town.

Now I am sending you the liner notes. I could not believe how interesting they turned out to be. If you are not too busy perhaps you will read them. Maybe. Maybe not. You never seem to follow my rules.

#1  - My favorite on my 11th CD is "Oh Mamacita" by Keith Frank.  Mamacita means little mother. He plays Zydeco and is from Louisiana. But this is border music, only the border is not Mexico, it is Texas. We saw him again in Connecticut this past June. First he sings in Spanish, then he sings the same line in English. It is really fun and easy to dance to: Mr. Keith Frank and his Soil Eau Zydeco Band.

#2  - "Catch a Wave" is actually one that six-year-old Abel picked. He was hooked on the Beatles, then the Stones, and now the Beach Boys. They released this tune in 1963. Mike Love sang it with a heavy head cold. When Jimmy Clanton sang "Just A Dream," he also had a bad cold. Listen to the cleaned up one. It is not as good in my opinion. I came very close to graduating from high School that same year.

#3  - William Royce Scaggs from Plano Texas. Started with the Steve Miller Band. We love Boz Scaggs.

#4  - "Back in the USA." - It was written by Chuck Berry. Linda Ronstadt had a Mexican great grandmother. She was raised in Tucson. It is in Arizona. We saw her All Mexican show in Great Woods years ago. But the time we saw her up close was at South Shore Music Circus. She did all her oldies and then most of her blues tunes, which she really prefers. Did you ever see a photo of her when she was with the Stone Ponies? Wow! She was born in 1946.

#5  - "Lola" - Pretty interesting. One night when the Kinks were playing, their manager got involved with a transvestite and danced with him/her all night in SoHo. Coca Cola was changed to cherry cola because of the BBC regulations. Where were you in June of 1970?

#6 - "Deportees" - Probably the last real hit of Woody Guthrie. The story of the plane crash over Los Gatos Canyon is 100 % true. "Good bye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita. Adios mi amigos, Jesus & Maria." We named one of our cats Rosalita because of this song. We think a Marshfield coyote shortened her life. The other one’s name was Arlo.

#7 - “Sister Golden Hair.” - 1975. Three of America’s band members’ Moms were blondes.

#8 - "Como Ayer" - We paid good money early to catch them at the big white tent near Pier 4 one summer, and had next to the last row seats. I complained with a big smile. At the start of the second half, we were escorted to Don Law's empty box seats. Originally from Spain, the families left in the 1930s because of the Spanish Civil War and ended up in France. They sing with an Andalusian accent.

#9  - "You Belong to Me" - It seems Sandy and I raised our girls during all her music. Carly Simon wrote it with Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers. Years ago, Sandy's friend waited on James Taylor and Carly Simon at a restaurant near the Marshfield Fair and didn't recognize them. Carly also wrote "Anticipation" while waiting for Cat Stevens to visit her in her NYC apartment. Give me extra points for that one, por favor. It was in her book. The famous ketchup commercial ... remember?

# 10 - "I Just Want To Dance With You." - Early results show that this was one of Tom Donovan's favorites on this CD. The Cerris will be so excited to hear one by John Prine again. Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan thought he was, and is, a terrific writer.

# 11 -  "Cherry Bomb" has almost made the list the last five times. "That’s when a smoke was a smoke." It was the late 70's with Johnny Cougar Mellencamp.

# 12 - "Chatter Box." - It is a restaurant in Eunice Louisiana on East Laurel Avenue. It is also a great tune to dance to by Mr. Steve Riley, whose real first name is John by the way. It is on their most recent album.

# 13 – “One More Cup of Coffee" is to me a Mexican song by Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris. Wrong, Kimo Sabe. It turns out he wrote it in Provence, France in 1976. Long, long songs on that album. Flaco & Carlos you are welcome. There again, Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick in Pittsfield, and Truman Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s in Duxbury Harbor on Clarks Island. William Clark was First Mate on the ship Mayflower. But you knew that.

# 14  - "That’s Why I’m Here" – 1985.  JT's 11th album. "Pay good money to hear Fire & Rain again and again and again."

# 15 -  "So Far Away" by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. He is one of my favorites but I have yet to see him. He just played with Bob Dylan at the Boston Garden.

# 16 - "Verlaine" - This was a reach, but I first heard it in the movie "French Kiss." Have you ever been French kissed? I mean REALLY French kissed. Louis Charles Auguste Claude Trenet was born in 1913. He had a very interesting life that lasted for eighty eight years.

# 17 - "Cafe Waltz" - By David Greely from Mamou Playboys. That particular cafe is in Red Stick -- I mean Baton Rouge. Isn't that fun to say, "I am from Baton Rouge." David is 57 years old. He met Steve Riley when Steve was 18 years old at Mark Savoy's store in Louisiana. The album is called Sud de Sud.

# 18 - "Cisco Kid " - From 1950 – 1956, the Cisco Kid show was on TV. His real name was Duncan Rinaldo. Pancho was his sidekick. Pancho is short for Francis or Francisco. Weird. YCMTSU. Eric Burdon of the Animals wrote it, along with "Spill the Wine" and "Low Rider."

# 19 -  “This City Never Sleeps.” -  NYC right ? Well, Tel Aviv and Barcelona are also called that. Singing is Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics. It was one of the tunes in the movie "9 ½ Weeks." In 1986, it starred Mickey Rourke and Kim Bassinger. It is an erotic film that cost $ 17 million to make and only made $7 million. Sandy and I love the movie.

Quiz on Monday.

Sleep tight.

“Sleep tight” came from when you had no mattress and slept on rope webbing in a wooden frame that worked better if it wasn't sagging. So to get a good sleep, you would tighten the ropes. Never mind, it is late.

Roberto Francisco Tocino

Quick notes: J.W. Schultz

-->

J.W. Schultz, also known by his Blackfoot name Apikuni, was a noted author, explorer, Glacier National Park guide, fur trader and historian of the Blackfeet Indians.

The first book he wrote I am reading now, in 2012:  "My Life as an Indian." This is a really easy book to read, and you feel as though you were there. It is full of fascinating stories of the Blackfeet, Arickaree and Crow Indians. I am halfway through the book.

He wrote his first book at age 48. It was first published in parts in Field and Stream magazine.

He wrote 32 books altogether.

He married a Piegan Blackfoot named Natahki, and is buried in his Indian wives’ family cemetery in Browning Montana. They had a son.

One of the features named by him is Going to the Sun Mountain in Glacier National Park.

Features named for him are: Apikuni Creek, Apikuni Flat, Apikuni Falls, and Apikuni Mountain.

He was born in the Adirondacks, in Booneville New York, to a wealthy family in 1859. The house still stands and has a historical plaque on it.

James Willard Shultz died in 1947 at age 88.

You can purchase the first book at Amazon. Or I will lend it to you.

I am saving my favorite books for Abel in my casita. Inside each book I write when I read it and -- if it was a gift -- who it was from. This one easily makes the list.

Bob "Medicine Weasel" Bachan