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WAS THERE LIFE BEFORE THE INTERNET?

Nashville, TN, May 17, 2003 - - Well, all I gotta say
is Thank You, Al Gore, for inventing the Internet. I'm
pretty sure I had a life before the Internet, it's just
that I don't seem to be able to remember it all that
well.

Right now I'm typing this philippic on my laptop that I
e-bought on eBay. It is a venerable machine, one of the
last models made by Wilbur and Orville Wright, back in
that bike shop in Dayton.

The thing that I love about the Internet, or inet, or net,
or worldwideweb, is that I have been able to find an
audience for the various fascinations I have that, until
its existence, I couldn't PAY anyone to hold still and
listen to.

Like for instance: philippic. I'd always thought that
philippic had something to do with the letters of St Paul
to the Faithful living in Phillipi, or something, but, no,
"philippic" has to do with Demosthenes' denunciations of
Philip II of Macedon.

And you'd think that, having read "A History of Western
Philosophy" by what's his name, that English guy, I'd know
that. Especially since Demosthenes is my second-favorite
Greek philosopher. My favorite, somehow not even
mentioned in Bertrand Russell's book, is of course the guy
who gets kicked around far too much, especially by
Nietsche: the gentle and sensitive Testicles. He had a
brother, Obstacles, who was of course a Cynic.

But back to our subject: Really, before the web, I had
zipadeedoodah chance of selling a CD, much less getting a
booking, and now it turns out that there are at least a
dozen people out there willing to get up off their wallet
and give me money for stuff I'd probably be driven to
doing anyway.

New Entry added Thu, 26 Sep 2002 00:11:06 +0000
Name: micky solo weiss
Email:
Comments:
hey panama, I relly enjoy what I've been reading about
you and look forward to hearing Homegrown. By the way, did
you know that someone else is using your domain name
"Panamaredmusic" as a screen name on AOL?

ME:
you are using the name of a registered website holder,
panamaredmusic.com as a screen-name. while i have
generally tolerated web usage of my alias, a persona
established over a period of nearly forty years, i'm not
sure your employment of the name panamaredmusic is
either in your best interests or mine.
please employ another screen-name.

thanks
panama red

THEM:
I'm sorry but I am not familiar with you or your website
and while I can appreciate your having had the name for
40 years and your attachment to it, it holds great
significance to me as well, not to mention it is the
name of my husband's and my business.

If it presents a problem, we'll talk again.

Panama and Red.

ME:
It's not the panama red part that presents the problem,
really. It's the association of the word "music" with the name.
In what musical activity is PanamaRedMusic@aol.com
engaged, please?
Thanks
Panama

THEM:
Who are you to ask me these questions? the association
of the word music is what troubles you? besides the
fact that it's none of your buiness, we are musicians,
creative jazz recording artists, from Colon, Panama and
New York City respectively.

red

ME:
*sigh*

I can just hear "red" now: We play jassss!!! and salllsa!!!

I hope I'm not as big a pain in the side for the massively
talented Mister Rowan as his song has been for me.

Oh, well. Where were we?

Oh, yeah. We were talking about broccoli.

Broccoli, many of you may not care to know, is a hybrid
plant, developed back in the day by an Italian Luther
Burbank kind of guy, Signore Broccoli. It started out as
the humble cauliflower. But Italians loved the little
trees, and Signore Broccoli became very wealthy from it
somehow, to the extent that his descendents were able to
go into the movie business and produce James Bond (and
other) movies. Now you know why Cubby Broccoli had that
funny last name.
It's true. You could look it up. On the Internet, of course.

I've been having an e-conversation with my old friend Irma
back in St Pete Florida for a few months now. She and I
go back a good ways to good days every once in a while. I
was telling her about a bar just down the street from my
mother's house wherein I used to go and drink with Jack
Kerouac. By that I mean that Jack and I used to drink
there, though not necessarily together. I was, then as
ever, somewhat astounded by Fame, and he was of course
Famous, being Jack Kerouac and all. We spoke once or
twice, even hoisted a few together, but as nobody else in
the bar seemed to know that he was Famous and as I did not
want to blow his cover, I took great care not to tell him
who he was. ("Hey, man!! You're Jack KEROUAC!!")
So I was trying to remember the name of the joint and Irma
comes back with this word:

"My elf tells me it was Peter and Lil's Tavern @ 1668 28th St N."

It is this kind of stuff that makes the internet
invaluable. Not the transmission of chemical formulas or
stock market fluctuations or state secrets, or even the
hawking of CDs, but the passing on of crucial information
that would otherwise be soon lost in the rapidly dimming
annals of time: philippics, broccoli, and bars Kerouac
drank in in St Pete.

As usual, I have no idea where I'm going with this stuff,
but along with the internet comes a delightful feature,
called "Delete", which I suggest you use right now.
Thanks.

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