My Secret Career 18: Turf Farm Kings’ “Plaid Mumbo Tango” 1993? 1992?

This song is a minor miracle. 

We used to routinely play something we creatively titled “The Poetry Game”. Everyone should play it.

Whoever is there at the time writes a title on a scrap of paper. A short phrase, an image, a single word…chef’s choice.

Substances were always involved, either of the liquid or flammable variety. The scraps of paper would be put in a bowl or hat and then one by one you would pull a scrap out.

Whatever was on that paper was the title of a poem that you had to write. After an unspecified amount of time, each scrap of paper would be pulled and each person present would have a pile of poems. All unique but sharing titles. Then you take turns reading your poems aloud.

This particular session was out at Justin’s family home. Nestled between a turf farm and the Queen’s River, this homestead is impossibly bucolic and inspirational. Magic oozes from the place.

A good friend Jim came along for a day hang. We altered our perspectives and then started “The Poetry Game”. All but one of those poems are lost to history. One survived.

Justin had written the phrase “Plaid Mumbo Tango” on his scrap of paper. I don’t often believe in telepathy but the proof is in the pudding.

We each read our respective “Plaid Mumbo Tango” stanzas. Normally I would leave to fate whether you listened or not, but since this is such a wonderful example of groupthink I am going to lay out the lyrics…then you can listen to the finished product if you are still on board.

Stanza One (Justin’s poem-Justin on vocals, Justin on electric guitar, drum programming, 4-track mastery)

Plaid mumbo tango/plaid mumbo tango/plaid mumbo tango/And I’m shakin’ my baby

She say “Plaid Mumbo Tango”/She say “Plaid Mumbo Tango”

I had a sip and now I’m feelin’ fine/plaid mumbo tango/she say “Plaid Mumbo Tango”

“When you get up why don’t you drop me a line?”/Plaid mumbo tango/She say “Plaid Mumbo Tango”

I asked “Do you speak-a my lingo?/plaid mumbo tango/She say “Plaid Mumbo Tango”

Stanza Two (Brendan’s poem Pt. 1-me on vocals)

Hoo cha cha ya hoo/Hoo cha cha ya hoo

Here comes that famous man/Here come that only son/Here come that roller coaster/Here come Dress Shoe Gumshoe Private Eye/Hoo cha cha ya hoo

Don’t cross that famous dick/No double-crossin’ slick/If  Dress Shoe Gumshoe is on the track/You better watch your back

Stance Three or Chorus (Jim’s Poem-Brace yourself, this is genius-still me on vocals)

The girl from Ipanema met me in the cabana/She slipped me the film/It was straight from Havana

She slithered out of the leather and ordered a Pina Colada/Her girlfriend joined the table and performed on the Lady Madonna

Smoke I inhaled was racing my heart/A spy code relayed: Iguana/The night heat overwhelmed me/I awoke to Lola Falana

Stanza Four (Brendan’s poem Part Two-me on vocals some more)

Hoo cha cha ya hoo/Hoo cha cha ya hoo

Oh, he could find your short and curly in the comb of that barstool girlie/He’s not just a dick/He’s a walking, talking magic trick/That Dress Shoe Gumshoe really know his trade/Hoo cha cha ya hoo

Here come that dashing man/Here come that prodigal one/Here come that Sherlock Brain/Here come Dress Shoe Gumshoe/Hoo cha cha hoo cha cha ya hoo

If you mess with Dress Shoe Gumshoe/you will wind up in the can/‘coz Dress Shoe Gumshoe always gets his man

In some alternate universe where even my side projects got attention, this song would have had a goofy video and gone into late-night rotation on MTV.

Turf Farm Kings was extra secret, though, and forever lived on, singing against the backdrop of a little patch of green tucked behind a Colonial home and an ancient river.

Only three of us knew about it until today. Welcome to the club.

Here is “Plaid Mumbo Tango” by Turf Farm Kings.

My Secret Career 16: New Killer Of America

The drum track on this song makes no sense. But I made it and love it. 

I tried to follow Pimp Fu’s instructions with the drum machine but no matter how hard I tried the sequence would always start on the two instead of the one. So what I heard when I listened in headphones was NOT what came out when I attempted to transfer it to the 4-track. Imagine a drummer waking up mid song and still starting from the beginning.

After a thousand “fuck yous”, a million “you son of a bitches”, and a billion hands-thrown-up-in-frustration, I just recorded it anyway and tucked it in my growing collection of “almost” tracks. Listening to it made me dizzy.

Then one day a harmonica crossed my path.

Forty five minutes later, this monstrosity existed. Every sound you hear I made. Beware the Sisqo reference that perfectly dates this track.

Please try to enjoy “New Killer Of America” from Bomer-B’s 2000 classic, “Out Of Charactor: Act I: Id City”.

My Secret Career 17: Sadaharu Oh, 1998

1998.

I was apartment sitting. This temporary transplant left me shaken somehow, as if the removal of everything familiar to me had left an actual hole in my life, a week long cliff I had come upon so suddenly I couldn’t avoid falling over the edge.

My other careers were roaring. I was churning out weekly tongue-in-cheek investigative articles about urban legends on this newfangled thing called the internet. I would get off the phone with the head of the New York City sewer system, having asked if albino alligators were really down there, pop out of the ping pong table/bean bag chair office, hit two commercial auditions and two tv/film ones, then write the copy promoting my latest AOL Urban Legends scoop on the subway ride back to the office.

Someone’s cat needed to be fed though so I was going to be living in Manhattan for a brief spell. Alone. I packed my 4-track and my acoustic guitar up and trekked over. 

And the void that opened up in front of me resulted in the following song.

Named after Japanese great Sadaharu Oh who played his whole career with the Yomiuri Giants. Oh hit 868 home runs, still by far the most home runs by any professional baseball player in any league ever.

But over here, all we knew was Babe Ruth. Hank Aaron. Willie Mays. Ted Williams. This guy outdid them all but viewed from a certain perspective it didn’t even count because it wasn’t in the Major Leagues.

The name popped into my head and it seemed the perfect way to describe where I was at in my life. I should have been on top of the world. By any metric I was a success. I should have been resting on my laurels. Instead I was sweating on a white leather couch and wrestling demons that had won a long time ago.

There in that strange apartment, mimicking a life that wasn’t mine, I wrote and recorded this song at three in the New York morning. If you listen all the way to the end, and you might be the first other than me to do so, you will hear a yell from way below, out on the street, a faint intrusive voice that perfectly reflected how far away from myself I had gotten.

This song was about me and a couple of people but I could barely look myself in the mirror because my soul was out roaming empty desolate streets. 

Proud of the song itself but listening to it is like stepping off into the void over and over and over and o-

Sadaharu Oh. 

My Secret Career, Chapter Thirteen: Good Bye New York

I flew to Los Angeles for good (or so I thought) on September 11th, 2003. The ticket was dirt cheap, for obvious reasons. I had no idea what lay in store for me out West but I was determined to mark the occasion. 

So I decided to write a song on that flight. By the time I landed I had the lyrics and melody to "Good Bye New York". It is all I have to say about that day.

It took me six years to record it properly. 

Produced by John Would, drums by Mitch Kink, guitars John Would, bass and piano Jonathan Leahy. 2009 Santa Monica.

To commemorate the release, I played a concert on September 11th of 2009 at The Bootleg Theater as The Congress Of American Musicologists. 

Backed by the incredible Elemenopy, joined by Jen DM of Hi Fashion, Pimp Fu, and Shark of The Wild Colonials. It is a beautiful memory.

Here is “Good Bye New York” by The Congress Of American Musicologists. This one is an anthem. It’s also for my Dad.

Good Bye New York

Soon I will be taking my last train/It's mainly in the evening that it can all seem in vain

When the pain is rainin' canes on ya but you don't have your legs no more

You've got to make your Exit before slippin' out the Backstage door

So floor it, Honey

Unpop that effin' cork

Let's celebrate

Good Bye New York

They may have made mountains of your buildings/They made you walk the bridges home

They made you grieve in tiny boxes/They made you wanna hide your Cadillac chrome

They blackmailed you with severed heads/They made unreasonable demands

Too much tension

Too much torque

Uncelebrate

Good Bye New York

From Grand Army Plaza up to Harlem

Flies a scarred and angry Stork

He cries, "It is Today! They are Forgiven!

Here's a New America Baby, say hello!

Good Bye New York!"

I could close my heart off to Them/Write 'em off or back 'em down

I could hate all of their Brethren/But that's not how we do it in this town

They have to wait 'til Paradise/We exalt our Virgins now

Or were they really after raisins?

Either way I'd have shown them how

This road must fork

Good Bye New York

So floor it, Honey

Unpop that 'effin cork

Let's celebrate!

Good Bye New York!

My Secret Career (Zero): Mission Statement

I have a confession to make. To make it, I have to go back to the beginning. The beginning of my other careers.

I have been a professional actor since 1989 and an amateur much longer. I have worked in children’s theater, college theater, educational theater, musical theater, regional theater, Off-Off-Off Broadway theater, in commercials, and on film and television. 

I’ve also written professionally all along the way, first as a playwright for the children’s theater I acted with, next as a tongue-in-cheek investigative journalist on the fledgling internet, then years as a freelance copywriter, and finally as an actual screenwriter.

Amongst all the paying gigs were countless unpaid gigs that furthered both endeavors.

If I were a baseball player, I could hang my hat on the fact that I made it to the major leagues. Was I Big Papi? Was I Pedro Martinez? Was I Ted Williams? No. But I did what I set out to do and I am very proud of the body of work that I continue to achieve. I am by no means done with those careers.

However, running alongside these other careers is a different career. A secret one. One I always considered to be as integral to who I am, as deep a wish, in fact even deeper. 

Music. 

The fact that I have to announce this to the world instead of it being evident is proof that I haven’t done myself justice in this regard. In some alternate universe, my actions would have been all the explanation needed. The music I have created over the past forty years (!!!) would be widely available for public consumption.

But this just simply isn’t the case. Now, to my credit I did regularly perform live music over the years but it was always very informal, an obvious sideline activity. However music is not my sideline. It is my lifeline, my timeline, my bloodline.

These tracks, with a few notable exceptions, were recorded at home in ramshackle fashion. They are not professional affairs. I think of them as audio diary entries. But crude as they are, they were always intended to be HEARD. So I am humbly asking you to lend me your ear.

I only wish I had done this sooner. I’m tired of keeping this secret. So without further ado, welcome to My Secret Career. 

Music to follow…

My Secret Career 12: Generation Ex-Wife

This is the closest thing to a Stones riff that I will ever write.

Early on in my time in LA, tossed off, but still one of my favorites. Helped by Jon Leary who programmed the drums and played the bass. Mean-spirited but fun, a nasty romp, not a difficult one to decipher.

I guess I needed to vent a bit. Really the title didn’t even refer to my ACTUAL ex-wife.

Here is “Generation Ex-Wife” by High School Hero.

My Secret Career 14: My First ALBUM, Bull Cancer…Meets The Brown Recluse Of Hwy. 54

Rough but ready.

I wrote my first album in 1999. I started it in North Carolina, expanded it in Santa Fe, and finished it in Brooklyn.

Although I had been writing songs at the rate of more than an album per year for almost ten years, I hadn’t actually written a group of songs that were an ALBUM.

But Bull Cancer was different. IS different. If you take the time to listen to this whole album, and I truly hope you do, you will find that it is, in the truest sense of the word. A CONCEPT album.

The order of the songs is specific, they fit like puzzle pieces one after another. The entire thing is a message. When I finished “Go To LA”, I knew that was it, that what had been a growing collection had just gotten an exclamation point. It is sequenced with purpose, written with purpose, and performed with every ounce of my skill and emotion.

I have often considered the idea of re-recording these songs, to flesh them out, to give them the full studio treatment. Involve drums. Keyboards. Amplifiers. And maybe I will some day. But more often than not I listen and I can’t imagine changing a single sound.

Here is Bull Cancer…Meets The Brown Recluse of Hwy. 54. Three cities, twelve songs, one sound.

For Melody Dawn Garren

My Secret Career 13: 70’s Futureman

All of a sudden I am a cartoon character. I have a rap alias. I have abs. 

2000. All kinds of cousin energy associated with this one. As a joke, I decided to grow a mustache before my cousin Mike’s wedding. I would show up to the rehearsal dinner and he would be horrified that his wedding photos would be marred by my crazy facial hair. Then I planned to shave the morning of the wedding! Mission accomplished, joke landed. 

I also had recently bought an infamous short sleeve tight black shirt with bright red flames on the shoulders. When my cousin Josh (aka Spazz Pu, the trumpet player for the Army Jazz Band) saw me with my shirt and mustache, he exclaimed, “Who are you, 70’s Futureman?”

Little did he know what that comment would bring into the world.

Now, it was during this time that Timothy (Pimp Fu, Spazz Pu’s older brother) and I were living together in Brooklyn, hitting the gym every morning at 5 and being maniacal about physical fitness. To this day I have never been in such good shape. We were already in our own hermetically sealed world.

By the time we got back to Brooklyn from the wedding, we had somehow concocted an entire cartoon universe inspired by “70’s Futureman”.

Here is the synopsis:

70’s Futureman is our superhero. His El Camino allows him to time travel. But only one way. Back to the 1970’s. His trusty sidekick Warp Speed-O can run at light speed but has trouble slowing down, so he often overruns his targets.

They protect Id City from Master Mindgame and his henchman Hench. Master Mindgame has invented an Infantizer-Ray which will allow him to turn everyone in Id City into a baby.

70’s Futureman is, of course, his true identity. But like all super heroes he has an alter ego. Lee Minors, billionaire playboy gambling addict Coke-fiend. Warp Speed-O by day is known as Jack Chassis, Lee Minors’ trusted scientific right-hand man.

Throw in Id City Mayor Sid Itty-Bitty, Beelzebubblicious the gorgeous super-heroine who joins 70’s Futureman in his quest to clean up the city, the stalwart Id City Eagle Newspaper which chronicles his exploits, and, well, you get the idea.

Id City became a catch-all for us, the repository of all our burgeoning creativity and energy. In a fever (after lifting weights and downing coffee) we recorded a suite of songs that existed in this made up world.

Alter-ego inside alter-ego inside alter-ego.

It must be said that Timothy is responsible for all of this. He had the nerve to rap?!? To dedicate his talent to hip hop?!? A white kid from Maine?!? He created the insane musical backdrop for our imaginary Id City.

From Bomer-B’s 2000’s double album Out Of  Charactor, please enjoy!

1. 70’s Futureman

2. Lee Minors

3. Master Mindgame

Thanks to Bomer-B and Pimp Fu, Id City is forever safe.