The Blues "how to" guide

[Mouse]

Well, it made me smile

Getting started

Most blues begin with you waking up this morning. After that, it is
permissible to pass comment on your woman.

"I got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the blues. If you got a
good woman why the hell you singing the blues? The only way around
this is to stick something nasty in the next line.

For instance: "I got a good woman / With the meanest face in town /
Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher / And she weigh 500 pound."

Then you repeat it. We don't know why. You just do.


Getting around

The first thing to remember about the blues is not about choice. Your
car stuck in a ditch today, your car stuck in a ditch tomorrow - ain't
no way out.

Chevys, Cadillacs and broken down trucks are the blues. Volvo estates,
Ford Mondeos and anything made in Japan are not. When John Lee Hooker
wrote Cool Little Car he sure weren't thinking of no damn Nissan
Sunny. If you got no car, other permissible transportation includes a
Greyhound bus or southbound train, preferably in the company of
hobos. EasyJet or Virgin Express ain't doing it.

Walkin' plays a major part in blues. As does fixin' to die and meeting
the devil at the crossroads. Getting stuck in a 5 hour traffic jam on
the M5 is not the blues. Just unfortunate.


Locations

Blues can take place in New York City, but not in Hawaii or anywhere
in Canada. Hard times in Oklahoma is plain depressing, but hard times
in Chicago, St Louis or Kansas City is the blues. Losing all your
American Express travellers cheques on vacation in Acapulco is just a
pain in the butt. You cannot have the blues any place that don't get
rain.

Good places for the blues: highway, jailhouse, empty bed, bottom of
whisky glass.


Who can sing the blues?

Teenagers and schoolchildren cannot sing the blues. They ain't fixin'
to die yet. Blues is for adults and adulthood means being old enough
to get the chair if you shoot a man in Memphis. Blues is not a colour
thing. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Colin Montgomerie probably
could. A man with male pattern baldness ain't the blues. A woman with
male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg while skiing in Val
d'Isere is not the blues. Losing your leg to an alligator in a
Louisiana swamp is. You cannot wear a suit and sing the blues unless
you happen to be an 80 year old ethnic person and you slept in it.

Also, no matter how tragic your life, if you own a laptop computer you
cannot sing the blues. Maybe your big ol' mean woman done sit down on
it. We don't care. You ain't going nowhere with blues like that.


Do you have the right to sing the blues?

Yes if: you're older than dirt / you're blind / you shot a man in
Memphis / you can't be satisfied.

No if: you have all your own teeth / you were once blind but now can
see / it turned out to be a flesh wound / you have a retirement plan,
company pension or trust fund.


Lifestyle

If you asked for water and baby done give you gasoline, it's the
blues. Other acceptable beverages are: Thunderbird wine, whisky or
bourbon, muddy water, black coffee. On no account ask for gin and
tonic, a Bacardi Breezer, Snapple, Tokay-Pinot Gris Grand Cru
furstentum 1998 or camomile tea.


Fixin' to die

If it occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a blues death.
Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another blues way to die. So
is the chair, substance abuse, or lonely on a broken down cot.

A heart attack playing squash, bizarre liposuction mishaps or being
electrocuted while strimming the lawn is not the blues.


Your name

Some blues names for women: Sadie, Bessie, Big Mama, Fat River
Dumpling.

Some blues names for men: Willie, Big Willie, Little Willie, Blind
Willie.

Persons with names like Sierra, Sequoia, Auburn, Rainbow and Kevin
cannot sing the blues if they take a machine gun to the men of
Memphis.


Make your own blues name

A. Name of physical infirmity (Blind, Leadbelly, Lame etc. size of
person (Big, Little, Tall, Shorty) or special ability (Howlin',
Screamin', Mumblin').

B. First name (as above) or name of fruit (Lemon, Lime)

C. Last name of president (Jefferson, Johnson, Washington etc.)


Important note: This system is not entirely foolproof as, while Blind
Lemon Jefferson is considered a perfect name for a bluesman, Big
Strawberry Bush, while using the same procedure, sounds somewhat
unsavoury and is very likely to get you banned in exactly the sort of
states that that would appreciate your music best.

Hope this helps
Lame Mango Washington
Professor of Blues, Memphis, Tennessee


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Regards



Mouse



[This message has been edited by Mouse (edited 07-14-2001).]

[Grand-Ranger]

LOL!

How true and how funny

[Fljotsdale]

Laughin' like a hyena!! Boy, I wuz feelin' bad - but now I feel reaaaal good - all them blues gone flyin' away!
Now if I can just get rid of this indigestion...

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[kiwidoc]

How to guide for the blues [b]I[b] sing:-


Never sing fast when you can sing slow and sensual

Your husband is never your man and vice versa

A car is never a car - its a euphamism pull up to my bumber baby, in your long black limousine

Cooking is never cooking, its a euphamism - gonna boil my cabbage pot ... whip it to a jelly, stir it in a bowl...my mans he's a butcher, gonna put the bacon in my pot...

Furniture is not euphamism - Well if you want it you gotta pay me , else I'm gonna sit on it all night, if you want it you gotta pay me , else I'm gonna sit on it all night, well to take my stool without paying, you know it just aint right

Face it everythings euphamism - put a little sugar in my bowl .... gonna do the jelly roll blues .... my husband is so nice, but my man brings me the meat



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There is only one kiwidoc, accept no substitutes

STANDARD OPERATING PROCEEDURE
www.judyhope.co.uk

[Cloudbringer]

Mouse, that was highly amusing! So now are you going to sing us the blues? LOL


Yowlin' Lemon Taft or maybe Screamin' Passionfruit Cleveland ?

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Raindancer of the Laughing Hyenas Clan
Storm-Queen
StormCloud of the Black Knight: Heart Mind Soul Forever
"To sleep, perchance to dream..."

[Moridin]

ROTFLMAO that was hilarious! Really needed something like that to brighten these otherwise dull days

Yowlin' Lemon Taft--->Is this another nickname Cloudy

[Bahamut]

HAHAHAHA!!!! that was fuN!!!

i can be in the blues!!
I have no woman, and picture me, walking in outside a bar, where it is all quiet and silent, starry night. A perfect place for a romantic or whatever conversation, and yet you have no one but yourself, But the scene is you imagine talking with someone you love... holding hands or something... it can be really depressing...

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Yukishiro Tomoe

[Qrt]

Awesome..

But my favorite blues is Tom Waits: 'Tom Traubert's Blues' ... this is so good I can't hear it too often it's so powerful. It... well, it just hurts bad as well as beeing so wonderful. A true 'Blues'. For me at least.

[Reeka]

Too funny, Mouse! It reminds me of the essentials elements for a country song: rain, a pickup truck, cheatin' woman or man, jail, booze, and a honky-tonk. Inclusiong of all the above elements in a country song will guarantee a hit.



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Order of the Holy Flame
Member of Clan HADB

[Psychedelic Buttafly]

LOL, *PB bangs his head of the keyboard in laughter knocking himself out*

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