I consider this a public service. For year, I have wanted to find “Solomon” by Cole Porter somewhere on the Internet. I had this song on a much-loved Cole Porter album when I was a kid and I remembered “Solomon” distinctly, mostly because of the catchy way the singer (who turns out to be Gertrude Lawrence*) sashays through the word “Sooooooooo-lo-mon.”

As a kid, I remember standing in my bedroom trying to sing along with this song, but not knowing what any of the things in the song were. I understood the basic plot, however. Solomon has a thousand wives like in the Bible, but they cheat on him with gigolos, so he brutally murders them. In retrospect, this seems very odd. Thus as an adult, I wanted to hear this song again.

However, because Cole Porter went on to write many superior songs later in his career, “Solomon” seems almost forgotten, at least on the Internet. The closest thing I could find was the other song by Gertrude Lawrence that was on the record, The Physician, about a woman lamenting how a doctor loves all her body parts but not her. (Wink wink.)

I found out that “Solomon” was from a forgotten musical called Nymph Errant, which ran once in 1933. I tried to find a free Mp3 of the song, then a YouTube video of it, and then the CD version of the record I had as a child, which seems to be out of print. Finally, I found a CD with the song and I purchased the Mp3 for $.89.

At an adult listen, I was slightly turned off by how much Gertrude Lawrence’s voice strains at the end. She gets somewhat shrill. I also found that I *still* didn’t know what some of the vocabulary words are. I didn’t know what a Hispano was–it’s a car–or what a dais is–I think it’s a throne?–so I looked up the lyrics. I was impressed. First of all, I love when people mix old and new together. Using what would have been cutting edge things like a microphone or a term like “jazzing” with an ancient concept of Solomon and his wives seems fresh and strange even today, 76 years later. I also liked the rhyming. Today, we have “My Humps” with Fergie rhyming “my humps” with “my lumps” over and over like a drugged-out eighth grader. Cole Porter slant-rhymes “Hispano” and “piano” with “kimono” all within two lines of the song. Wow I wish we were as smart today as we were back then.

Of course, we were also more racist back then, and there’s this whole issue in the song with the eunuch Rastas Brown who Solomon tells him to call “massa,” evoking an image of a castrated African American slave. It doesn’t sound like “massa” in the song. It sounds like “mother.” However, all the lyrics of the song that I have read, including The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter edited by Robert Kimball, lists “massa.” And then there’s the fact that the punishment for adultery is murdering your wives brutally, because hey, you’re king, right? Still, I can totally see why I loved this song as a kid. Gigolos? Jigsaw puzzles? Mass murder of a thousand people? Yes.

Anyway, take a listen to “Solomon” if you are curious. And sing along:

Solomon
by Cole Porter

Solomon had a thousand wives
And being mighty good he wanted all of them
To lead contented lives.
So he bought each Mama a platinum piano
A gold-lined kimono and a diamond-studded Hispano.
Solomon had a thousand wives

In spite of all he gave them, the wives of Solomon
Found their papa slow.
And for her jazzing
Every wife of Solomon
Took on a gigolo. [Ed. note: I love this word]
And while they pampered those high-brow heroes
By bunching them and lunching them and supping them at Ciro’s,
Solomon had no place to go

Soon Solomon began to miss those baby dolls of his
And got his favorite eunuch, Rastas Brown.
And when he heard the lowdown on those molls of his
He said, “Go out and hunt the whole darn town
Until you’ve found your massa a thousand knives.
I’m tired of doing the treating for a thousand cheating wives.
Solomon is going to cut the whole crop down.”

So Solomon summoned his thousand wives
Then Solomon pulled out a thousand knives
And he slashed their gizzards and gashed their muzzles
‘Til all that was left of them was a lot of jigsaw puzzles.
Then slowly mounting his royal dais,
He took out his microphone and said,
“All I got to say, is
Solomon no longer has a thousand wives.”

* ETA: I have since learned that it is Elisabeth Welch singing here, not Gertrude Lawrence. How I got to that incorrect conclusion is a long story, so let’s skip it and just go with a correction instead.

I got around to using the sausage attachment for my KitchenAid Mixer this weekend and made my own sausage. It was astoundingly easy. All you do is cut up the meat, add herbs, and run it through the attachment. I didn’t bother with casing since nine times out of ten I cut it off. I ended up with a mild Italian sausage that tasted awesome on this pizza:

I have forthcoming articles in The Writer, Entrepreneur, Pacific Sun, and others. I keep forgetting to mention them on here.

Writing-wise I am in great spirits. I’m on draft 23 of my novel. That number is misleading, however, because Word keeps fighting with my Linux operating system, forcing me to continually save new drafts of my novel to keep it from disappearing. In reality I’m probably on draft 10 or so.

I am reading four books right now. I don’t know how that happened. I’m reading The Suicide Club by Robert Louis Stevenson, A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, and Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence. I’ll probably finish The Suicide Club first because it is the shortest, then A Poetry Handbook because it is the most interesting, then David Copperfield because it is making me feel guilty. (I did get a long way into that one–I’m on chapter 35. It would be a shame not to soldier on through.)

Other than that, I’m polishing some short fiction to send out and pitching new article ideas. I spend a tremendous amount of time on this computer, as those who follow my Facebook account can attest. I really should figure out some viable form of exercise …

I didn’t get to go snowmobiling because the weather didn’t cooperate, but that didn’t stop us from visiting Troy and Krista in Sacramento this weekend. We walked around downtown, ate good food, and visited the Crocker Art Museum.

The Crocker is in an old mansion. Half the pleasure of being in it is walking around the building itself. I took many pictures of tile and woodwork like this one:

They had an exhibit of art from original Warner Bros cartoons. It was interesting to see the evolution of characters like Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny. I never really thought about how many man hours went into one of those cartoons before. It made me respect animation in a new way. My favorite part was the backgrounds of the cartoons, which were tiny, brightly colored paintings. Unfortunately, the security guard wouldn’t let me take pictures of the Warner Bros’ exhibit. Who knows why. However, the contemporary art section had a bunch of Peep-like bunnies in a canoe. Here is a picture of that:

The other thing I liked at the Crocker was this old cigarette machine that had been converted so that you could buy cigarette-carton-sized art with $5 tokens. You buy the tokens in the museum store, put them in the machine, and pull the knob:

Krista and Kyle got their art just fine. Krista got an olive key chain and Kyle got a little painting. But when we tried to buy my art, the knob got stuck and we had to get a museum guy to help us while all these snotty art people looked on. It turned out that the slot my art had been in was empty, but you couldn’t tell because they had put a multi-colored weight in the slot that looked just like the art. The guy got mad at me and told me to pick something, so I pointed to another slot. He gave me a block of wood with brown and green splotches on it. It looked like 1970s kitsch you would find in a thrift store.

I tried to not show how disappointed I was by the lame art and mean people, but Troy and Krista could tell so they gave me their other token. (!) This time, the knob worked and I got a cool painting of safety pins. They are good friends. [ETA: Troy and Krista, not the safety pins.]

Krista and Troy

Kyle in front of a giant piece of aluminum

Me in a house of mirrors

I can’t believe I lived near Sacramento all that time and never went to the Crocker Art Museum. Now I want to go back to Sacramento and see the California History Museum, which I also ignored while I lived there. Another time, I guess.

On Saturday, Marcia and I took advantage of the amazing weather and went for a hike by Lake Sonoma near Geyserville.

The trail we hiked was called Boar Scat Trail. There were several warnings about wild boars on the sign for the park, so we were hoping to see one. Mostly we saw flowering bushes–nature seems to think it is springtime–and pityings of doves. Finally though, we did get to see a wild boar. Unfortunately, it was dead. We ran into some hunters who had just killed one and were carrying it on a stick between them ala Lord of the Flies. I took a picture:

Afterwards, we found place on top of a hillside and had a picnic. The views from up there were neato.

Lake Sonoma

Some other hikers

I really liked this hike. It’s challenging enough to break a sweat but you are rewarded for your work with lots of gorgeous views. I recommend it.

Before

After

New everything: new sink, floor, walls, toilet, light fixture. It was a lot of work! Luckily, my parents helped. I’m pretty happy with the results. I learned that I don’t like tiling.

On Sunday, Kyle and I decided to check out the mission in San Juan Bautista. It’s the Spanish mission that was featured in Hitchcock’s film Vertigo. It is the largest mission in California and still an operating church. I’ve been wanting to visit it for awhile now.

San Juan Bautista is a cute town full of adobe buildings, cacti, and chickens. The first thing we did was eat lunch at the surprisingly good Mission Cafe:

Kyle about to order

Then it was up to see the mission. Along the way, we saw a chicken:

Actually, there were chickens everywhere. I like chickens. We also saw a lot of people, including these boys, who were walking along a fence ala Huckleberry Finn:

When we got to the church I was surprised to see that it didn’t have the bell tower that’s in Vertigo. In fact, the original bell tower was taken down because of dry rot in the period between when Hitchcock decided to film the movie there and when he actually began filming. As such, he had to add in the tower in with sets and effects. In real life, the only bell tower is this one:

We took a tour of the church’s museum. I liked seeing the original walls and choir books. Then we went into the sanctuary itself.

Mass was about to begin, so we didn’t take long in there. People were praying to and paying this doll some money:

Then we wandered around the grounds, which are quaint and lovely. There’s an old graveyard, lots of plants, a carriage house, and statues everywhere:

There’s also part of the original El Camino Real and the San Andreas Fault.

Afterwards, we explored the town and then went to The Garlic Shoppe in Gilroy. That place offended my deep and abiding love of garlic. Garlic blue cheese butter? Garlic ice cream? Pickled garlic? Can I get an ew from choir?

Kyle and I on New Year’s Eve 2008.

I had a great New Year’s Eve. We went to a 1933 Prohibition Party in Valley Ford. We dressed up like the 30s and danced to the musical styling of the Bluebellies. Then we stayed up until 4 a.m. talking and the next day went to McNears for lunch. Having a good New Year’s is such a relief. I hate downer New Year’s.

Just for the record, I thought 2008 was a great year. I’m a little tired of people complaining about it. Very few people I know had bad things happen to them in 2008, so I don’t get all the good riddance stuff and the hiding from New Year’s Eve.

I don’t feel like writing a long survey like I’ve done the last few years, but here are some highlight from 2008:

Kyle and I spent the first year in our own house and did a lot of remodeling. It wasn’t as hard to adjust to the financial burden as I had anticipated, although we did cut back on some of our usual indulgences. Still, I had a lot of fun. I saw art and science. I went canoeing and snow shoeing and camping. At home, I planted a huge garden and read over 70 books. We got a free trip to Las Vegas and went on a couple of road trips. In September, we went to Kentucky to visit friends and family. While there, I went to a writer’s conference and saw Joyce Carol Oates speak. We also had parties throughout the year, the most fun of which was an impromptu election party to watch Barack Obama take the presidency.

Our silhouettes at an art exhibit in Kentucky

Professionally, both of us did well this year. I wrote a lot of articles, including ones for magazines like Entrepreneur and The Writer. I got to interview writers and artists such as Anne Lamott and Nellie McKay. On top of that, I published short stories, judged a book contest, and held a literary reading. Kyle got a book deal with Pearson Publishing, became a columnist for Linux Journal, and gave a lot of speeches, including one at LinuxWorld. He also got a promotion—he’s now Systems Architect at QuinStreet.

Squash from the garden

The year wasn’t perfect, of course. Obviously, there’s the economy, which is depressing. There were some projects that didn’t work out and some minor disappointments here and there. And some things were just lame. Still, a good year.

I will answer one question from the survey: What are some things you would like to do in 2009?

I’d like both of us to finish our larger writing projects before April. I’d like to go to Puerto Rico, be more active, and save some money. I’d like to be more involved in the art community as a whole, whether that means supporting other artists or just playing around with art myself. And I’d like to emotionally win over the onslaught of negativity and fear the news is throwing at me every time I turn on the TV. That last one is a challenge indeed.

Redwood tree from my Humboldt County road trip.