Show & Tell

I was behind a shiny new jeep today at a red light. I noticed the driver fidgeting, endlessly. As I continued to watch him (how could I not - he was in front of me), I was getting more & more pissed, like what is your problem, just sit still. It was like he dropped a french fry between his legs, or lost the hot ash off his cigarette or something. Anyway, then I noticed the tell-tale verification that he was an asshole:

Backwards baseball cap

Ooohh, I hate that look almost as much as the askew tilted sideways baseball cap. Who was this jeepster - Vanilla Ice? K-Fed? Doug from King Of Queens? I don't know, but I now wanted to ram his jeep. Then I saw, just before he took off from the light, a "Survivor" sticker on his back window. I know you can probably get these anywhere. Maybe he belongs to a fantasy survivor tribe, I don't know. Anyway, I swear the sticker said "Road To Nana". Maybe it was some other word, but I think it was "nana". This added to my agitation with this guy. Did he survive a Thanksgiving day road trip to Grandma's house? Over the river & through the woods, only to find Jeff Probst there to tell him he was voted off the dinner table.

Well, OK, on to something else.

I was informed by reader fat'n'sassy that Al Wilson died. He sang "Show & Tell" - an r&b slow-boiler from the early 70's. He also sang "The Snake", about a woman who digs a snake so much, because he's so beautiful etc, etc, that she takes him home with her but is shocked when he bites her. His reply "You knew I was a snake when you agreed to take me in". Let that be a lesson to you, ladies. Show & tell indeed!

Another Al Wilson has been dead for decades. He nickname was "Blind Owl" and he played guitar & harmonica for Canned Heat, a 60's west coast blues combo. He was unique in that his compositions and interpretations of blues classics were always like blues from Mars. F'rinstance, take the perennial chestnut "On The Road Again". He put a droning tabla just under the melody all through the thing. More Delhi than Delta, if you get my meaning. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. He toyed with time signatures and unusual chords and keys, but his music was always informed by the blues, usually from the 30's or 40's rather than the electric big city type. Most of his stuff went unnoticed due to its non-commercial nature. Some of it did filter through, like his other hit contribution "Going Up The Country". which featured flutes in the hook.

So now The Snake & The Blind Owl will be face-to-face. Can both survive in harmony?

Or will one be voted off on the road to Nana?