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COLUMN NINETY-FOUR, JULY 1, 2003
(Copyright © 2003 The Blacklisted Journalist)

LETTER FROM NASHVILLE:
WAS THERE LIFE BEFORE THE INTERNET?
OR
WHO STOLE MY NAME?

Nashville---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

Looking for
the REAL Panama Red? Try http://panamaredmusic.com 

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 business, 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.
panama red  ##

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