No, I didn't forget, and my apologies, the large collection of Mingus youtubes I've archived on the blog to be posted on his birthday - those I've found, those suggested by Hamster and Greyhoos and others - are all dead, removed by demand of some right's holder. Send me working Mingus youtubes and I'll add them.
My standard Mingus birthday paragraphs:
I don't know as much about jazz as I wish - there are only so many hours - but I was turned onto Mingus by an English professor at Anne Arundel Community College (there's a story) about the time Earthgirl and I first lived together in a marina house in Deale MD (google map 6064 Drumpoint Road, Deale MD and you can see it), and while true that Mingus' music strikes pleasure tines in my brain most jazz - most music - doesn't, I also associate Mingus with wonderful times sitting in the backyard listening to Mingus, watching the sailboats come and go while steaming the blue crabs we pulled from our pots we threw off the docks and BBQing fresh bluefish friendly fisherman gave us, and awful times too, sitting in the backyard listening to Mingus with my friend Henry, a black man, and his white wife Donna, and being called over in private by two boat owners who demanded I get the fucking nigger and his white whore off the property, waking up in the morning after I told them to fuck off to find my car tires slashed. The local cops taking the police report thought it was funny.
There was a big gun control vote in Maryland during POTUS 88 when we were living in Deale, I had a bumpersticker on my car advocating whatever the liberal position was (I don't remember the details), I woke up one morning to find my tires slashed and my car encased in pro-gun bumperstickers. The local cops taking the police report thought it was funny.
We never intended to live for long in Deale - the marina house belonged to a family friend from Earthgirl's side, he rented it to us to give us a place to see if we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, but we both worked in DC/MOCO, the commute was hell, we would have moved back sooner or later, the incidents with the locals just made it sooner.
Yes, that story is related to my incipient ismlessism, both its necessity and its futility.
