Will is Homeless in Portland

RIP Ray Manzarek. Manzarek was co-founder and keyboardist of The Doors. Along with Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and a few others, The Doors was one of the top acts of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

In his student days, Will is Homeless in Portland used to drink Coors, smoke cheap Mexican weed and lay around the pool listening to The Doors on a 1970 vintage AM radio. Will didn’t have all the fancy electronics you kids have nowadays.

Since then, everything has changed. Will now drinks the best micro-brewed ales, smokes locally grown chronic bubonic and lays around the pool listening to The Doors on a 1970 vintage FM radio. Will still doesn’t own fancy electronics.

It could have been Manzarek’s keyboard virtuosity that eventually drove Will to seek a position as bass in a local choir, so that he could stand  twelve feet in front of a multi-million dollar pipe organ and boom out Haydn masses in Latin. That’s way cooler than saying it was E Power Biggs playing Bach.

The first year of college was stressful for Will is Homeless in Portland. The stress was made bearable by good music. But sometimes the music lacked the “soul” that the times demanded. I mean, if you were a stoner living in England and you knew that nothing you would do in your entire life would ever matter, then the Beatles version of Here Comes the Sun would have been entirely adequate.

But, if you were a stoner living in the US and you knew that nothing you would do in your entire life would ever matter, but you were also facing the draft lottery and taking Calculus 2 and you knew that if you screwed up on either, you might find yourself up to your armpits in leeches, packing a rifle through an Indochinese swamp, then you needed the heavy duty version courtesy of soul man Richie Havens. Mr Havens died today. Will is sorry that we all lost that cool cat. Rest in Peace, Mr Havens.

If you’re like Will is Homeless in Portland—and you’re not—then you like choir music. And what is the best choir music? Church music, that is what. And who, Will, sings church music best? Sopranos, that is who. But not just any kind of soprano. Boy sopranos sing it best. And you will agree once you’ve listened to this piece, called Nunc dimittis by Geoffrey Burgon. It’s a canticle from the second chapter of Luke, used in the closing credits of the 1979 TV production of John le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. The video notes include that the artist is Paul Phoenix and the Choir of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

RIP Van Cliburn. Great pianist dies at age of 78. Back in ‘72, Will is Homeless in Portland made an impulse purchase from the LP bargain bin at the only music store in Phoenix, Arizona that carried quality classical recordings.

On the cover, beneath a layer of dust, sat a disheveled, sweat-streaked Van Cliburn before the keyboard. There were two pieces: Grieg’s Opus 16 and Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Readers will remember that the Rachmaninov number was done as a keyboard improvisation toward the end of the film Groundhog Day.

Will paid about $1.50 for that platter, an RCA recording, back when LP’s were going for $4.50 a pop and even more if you wanted Deutsche Grammophon. It was Will’s first classical LP. Best music investment he ever made.

RIP

W. Watts Biggers, the co-creator of the 1960s cartoon Underdog and co-writer of its brilliant theme song died recently at his home in Manomet, MA at the age of 85. Here’s an a capella version of the theme taken from the popular TV show Scrubs.

People are curious about Will is Homeless in Portland and his vast publishing empire.  This is only natural.  “Tell us a little about yourself,” they plead.  Careful readers know that Will traces his origins to Celtic Britain. Reading the works of Tacitus and The Venerable Bede, he learned of his relation to Queen Boudicea, the original bodacious babe, slayer of Romans and her unlikely lover, a Roman scribe in charge of tallying the Wessex sugar beet harvest.

As modern Britons seek to honor Will is Homeless in Portland they often choose to celebrate Boudicea as well. In this video, recently given the official Okey-Dokey of Will is Homeless in Portland Enterprises, sole heir and trustee of the Boudicea estate, several thoughtful young Britons re-enact the life of Boudicea in a little over two minutes. Please excuse their mispronunciation of the Queen’s name. Two nations separated by a common language and all that. Tally-ho!