This is the weekly dispatch from Bizarro Studios North, where I have been writing and drawing the Monday through Saturday Bizarro comics since 2018. My partner and friend Dan Piraro created Bizarro in the late twentieth century and continues to do the Sunday comic from Rancho Bizarro in Mexico.
Wayno
I sincerely think that humor will help save humanity from the swamp into which it is sinking. Today we can’t afford to be pessimistic, so let’s try to keep a sense of humor bolted on to our hearts, soul, and spirit!
Jean-Jacques Perrey
(1929-2016)
(1929-2016)
Jean-Jacques Perrey was a composer, performer, and producer specializing in electronic pop music. With his partner Gershon Kingsley, he was among the first performers to release commercial recordings featuring the Moog synthesizer.
Earlier this week, my friend Dana Countryman, who edited and published Cool & Strange Music! magazine from 1996 through 2003, sent me a 1998 photo of JJP wearing a t-shirt I designed for the magazine.
The design includes caricatures of many of the artists profiled in the magazine. The very bottom is out of frame, but the faces are mostly visible. Clockwise from top left, they are Art Ferrante, Bettie Page, Monsieur Perrey, Lou Teicher (Ferrante's musical partner), Yma Sumac, Tiny Tim, Mrs. Miller, Christian puppet Little Marcy, Dean Martin, and Dolores Erickson (the model who appeared on Herb Alpert's Whipped Cream album.
All twenty-eight issues of Cool & Strange Music! have been collected in a set of four books. They're packed with interviews, profiles, reviews, and photos, and I highly recommend them.
The good will Perrey expressed in the quote at the top of this post was evident in his music, and the sentiment remains relevant today.
Today's pipe picture appeared on the Book of Farce last December in a post by Bizarro reader John Z.
John commented:
I'm watching a Kirk Douglas/Lana Turner picture called "The Bad and The Beautiful"...there's a shot of Dick Powell in front of a bookstore window, his character looking at his own books on display.
Powell certainly looks happy with the window display, and we're pleased to credit John Z. for the screen capture.
Let's see if we managed to bolt some humor onto the latest Bizarro gags.
The term "planned obsolescence" might easily be replaced with "scheduled mortality."
We all know people who take idiomatic expressions litter-ally.
Next season's hot designs will include mustard in yellow or brown.
Sasquatch embodies the familiar phrase "too big to file."
If it's an emergency, rap on the tabletop three times.
The patient's advance directive included a Do Not Scramble order.
Bonus Track
Dean Martin and Line Renaud: "Relax-Ay-Voo"
Capitol Records, 1955
One of my favorite Dean Martin numbers is this duet with the French singer, actress, and AIDS activist Line Renaud. As of this writing, Madame Renaud is still with us at age 98.
A Variety of Bizarro Verbiage
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A million thanks for turning me on to Jean-Jacques Perrey. I _love_ classic Moog music and his is about as Moog-y as it gets. I’m not sure, but you may also be the reason I know about Moog Cookbook. Have you mentioned them in a post?
ReplyDeleteI don't believe I've mentioned Moog Cookbook, but I was aware of them. They had a great idea to update the old "commercial" Moog albums!
ReplyDelete