This is a song about an old friend of mine - Lucifer. Whut it wuz is his daddy was an ornery old cus and as was the custom among the people then it was considered bad form to be overly proud full and to pre-rectify that happenstance the gave their child humble names, names like big jackass, sorefoot, and even blinded five eyes. So Lucifer's daddy said, I mean he said this but I doubt it was true, that he named Lucifer that on account of if he come out a girl he'd be Lucy and if he be a boy he'd be Lucifer, and that's what he was and how he got his name.

Now Lucifer was the most beautiful boy child ever bawn on this earth. He got his looks from his mother,I suppose. This led, as you could imagine, to much jealousy and overall bad vibrations frum the udder boys but it didn't bother him because, well because, to tell the truth, nothing bothered him. Legend was in later life he had a game leg but that was just lies and I know because he could run almost as fast as me, and I can run pretty fast; being a coward as I am, I've had plenty of esperience at that.

Lucifer got all the girls, unlike me, who being species- challenged fall in love all the time and then get my heart broken .Lucifer got 'em all. He got all the old ladies, he got all the girls , he got all the boys, the priests, the doctors, bus drivers and eben the gardeners and farmers. He was funny that way. I'd kid him about it. But he'd reply, "ALF, you don't know what it's like being irresistible, because having everyone means I have no one." I unnerstood and let the matter rest.

But the time come when a man come along and said "Lucifer, since you's now so handsome every one figure you have no need to lie to git whut you want I'm gonna make you kang of the whirled, prince of my domain, lawd muckety muck such and such of the universe and etc."

Lucifer thought for a moment and then said, "Nope, don't want the job. I'd rather be "He who sets the kangs of the world on dey thrones"

Ho boy, this changed the man. He stud up and begun to twirl around. The man, who had been all gentleness and sweetness, took on a dark aspect and growed a hundred arms and a thousand eyes and dere was smoke and fire all about him who had become a whirlwind, and from the whirlwind come a voice saying

Then the man became kind and gentle again and in a voice as sweet as the honeysuckle vine said "We'll meet again my brother"

That's a true story, more or less, cept the names have been changed to protect the innocent, because that man that offered him the job was his daddy, death, destroyer of worlds. From then on the two of them shared a secret - one that can never be told. More I cannot say. Wudn't do no good anyway.

Well, my big day is coming up and this year, for the first time since my childhood it looks like I'll be facing the witches alone.

For those who don't know my story here's a late medieval rendition of it which also happened to be the very first page ever composed for the Tamlinmediaco online.

The celts were a wandering people although that's not generally known. They began in northern greece in the area now called by archeologists the home of the "La Tene" culture. As I've noted before many a myth has a germ of truth to it and so too the myth then that the Irish were at one time comprised of the survivors of the Trojan war is not entirely unbelievable.

The exodus of the celts lead them north, which explains some Russian celtic artwork and then when they hit the cold they went west through what is now Poland, Germany, Denmark, Britain and finally to Ireland where the travels ended at the great western sea. I've covered all this in depth in the past so I won't go into detail, but rather explain that there were two major holidays, Beltane, which we call May day, the celebration of the summer, and SamHain which we call all saints day, or Holloween, the celebration of the winter.

Both were associated with fire. On Beltane animals were walked through the remnants of bonfires in the hope of keeping them free from disease, and on Samhain bonfires were lit to be drunk and danced around, and what is more it was the day of the fire on the mountain, where a chain of fires would be lit on mountain tops for the length of whatever tribal territories one lived in.

It helps to have some imagination and recognize that these were ways, in preliterate societies to keep continuity. in the same way dawn and dusk are noted because the boundaries between this world and the spirit world were thinnest so too at the moment of sunset on Oct 31 the boundary of the two worlds was at it's absolute point of least resistance and hence the popular belief that it is on that day, at that moment that various beings pass over from the other side.

It is our job, the poets, or bards or whatever you want to call us, to remind people that their present life is not the whole deal. One must live well and one must die well and to forget this is to invite all kinds of problems. The everyday man must keep and cherish his dignity. He must not cheat people. He must not harm the harmless but help the poor in whatever way he can. He must beware the sin of pride and a sense of superiority to others, which is his particular fault.

The Tamlin story is not that different from one told of Finn McCool as a youth and in turn has echoes in the Huck Finn and Finnegans Wake stories. On Samhain one of the gods named Aillen the burner would put everyone to sleep and burn their villages and towns but Finn managed to stay awake, to slay Aillen and thus save the people. Huck Finn refused to fall asleep to the injustice of slavery and Tim Finnegan is mistakingly thought to be dead, mourned and about to be buried when he "wakes up." You need not know these things.

Tamlin is a lesser tale and we may say from a psychoanalytic perspective that his sexuality was prematurely awakened. He spies some beautiful women bathing, but they see him and then he has to make a mad dash for the Bridge of Doon, or Brigo'Doon- since witches cannot cross flowing water. The crossing of water, is an ancient symbol for the passing over to the underworld (See Dante)

There are dozens of variations - the one I first learned was sung by Sandy Denny with Fairport Convention. She had a great voice and the playing was good but even more there a conviction there that even were that not the case the story must be told. In it Janet visits a strange rose garden and plucks a flower which calls the owner, me, to demand payment. So she becomes pregnant and her father want's her to marry a old man, but she refuses.

(As an aside this tale was particularly relevent in recent years because the good fortune was so unevenly dispersed that many women in effect traded themselves off entirely based on the wealth of the man and then were dissappointed when the marriage broke up as the rich man moved on to the next wife in the practice of sequential polygamy.)

Both Tamlin and Janet have problems with being attractive to older people. Then Tamlin is trapped in his garden by witches and they are about to ride to hell and take Tamlin with them but he convinces Janet to drag him off the passing horse he rides and cover him in a mantle. Then Tamlin, as the spell wears off, undergoes several transformations into different animals but if her belief in love is strong he at last attains his true form and thus the spell is broken.

Unfortunately, for me, such women are rare. I used to get sick alot but now the chills and fevers aren't so bad.

From the Further reaches of the Universe
Across vast domains of time and Space
It has Come

Gifted with strange Powers of
Precognition and Trans-Sensory awareness
It is The Tamlinmediaco
Available now for a limited time only
On your computer
Direct to your innermost being

Well it's fashion week here at the Tamlinmediaco and everyone is excited and jumping for joy! Not only that but Mr. Dictionary has delivered a carton load of exclamation points! Which we are using sparingly! Almost!

The basic black attack that everyone thought would be the hit of the season seems to be petering out. They're in the racks everywhere, heavily discounted and likewise the browns are only just making their money back, same with plaid, which is too bad.

On the other hand green is holding it's own given a surprise boost from pale blue and it's magnificent appearance in that VISA commercial that has everybody talking. It's already had it's effect. The catch phrase "Actually you can have anything you want," has already shown up in the knock offs. And you know, thats the great thing about credit, you *can* have anything and be anyone you want - even President - all you need is a wink, a smile and a twinkle in your eye!

A little birdie told me that each of the 10 scenes in the minute long commercial, carefully coordinated in pale grey and blue cost as much as the education budget for Nicaragua - Wow! That's magic if you ask me. And I can't say enough about that pale bluish cashmere sweater the girl wears, but then, you know me -I've always been a fool for cashmere -pure titillation. Oh, Happy glorious New Year!

Ah, but fashion is like an Ocean Liner, by the time you have the line ready to go there's something new on the horizon!

The shopkeepers are furious. For the past ten years they've been told "Go upscale!, Go upscale" Whole shopping centers have been built with only the finest products for ladies and gentlemen of discriminating taste - but alas. upscale seems no longer chic. But not to worry, an other little birdie told me that any-day now things will hit bottom and return to the normal things and ways - so remember "WE love you and Know you love We two!"

Sell your children - just for fun
Nobody knows the things you done
You sold your pride, you sold your past
Now there's not much left to sell at last
You sold your mind you sold your sense
An there's not much left of the insurance
You don't need them, you don't need nobody
So sell you children and be free

and so we weave our way
wandering the willow path
songbirds chuckle and laugh
and they also mourn
They mourn for the willow tree
And why does the willow weep?
Silly child, It mourns for thee

Come with us Friends and Lovers!

Join us as we set sail into the beautiful near Atlantic
For a Moonlight Cruise to to nowhere!

Eat, Drink and be merry, all to the scintillating tones
of the Alien Celebrity Orchestra

on a voyage where dancing is not only permitted
but positively encouraged!

The chandeliers glitter with hundreds
of crystalline glittering lights

The Champagne is on ice
The roulette wheels spin
The dancing girls are ready
The show is about to begin

No ordinary show bring we you
The countess fingers her jewels
The Captain whispers his commands
Tonight we set sail

On a Ship of Fools

For the record the economy is fluctuating wildly. It's savings and loan redux, only on a much larger scale. The genesis however is the same people with capital, and even somewithout, were able to utilize vast sums of currency with the constraint of the risk of paying them back. They are like teenagers who max out credit cards knowing dad will bail them out. Galbraith used to often remind us that on the whole it is better to go bankrupt after having made a few million then not to after having made nothing.

Other then that the powers that be labor under a basic misconception. "If we could only prime the pump" they say, not daring to think the well may be dry. Most investors however are not so sanquine and thus they hesistate, with damn good reason, to place more of their money in others hands. The Tamlinmediaco however will take it in stride. We've lost so much money due to negligence and malfeasance over the years that we don't have much left to lose. The one consolation is that we never "took" anybody or betrayed their confidence and we still know the difference between right and wrong, which is something the corporations never even learned.

To further elaborate on comments I made regarding George Soros in the London Times ("Nature is self correcting" and "Beware the system that works too well") It is comforting to consider the possibility that although mankind may not have it in itself to fix things - they will be fixed anyway.

I joke that the laissez-faire political ideology was deemed so perfect in fulfilling the needs of the people that efforts were made to assure that no voices in contradiction to it were heard. This effected even us in the usually inconsequential field of entertainment.

The system, in that it gives a disproportionate amount of reward to a small minority is both immoral and unjust, but that had no effect on it's continuation. Likewise there was no evidence of internal mechanisms operating to optimize the efficiency of the various processes.

I like to suggest that such systems work too well. That, being in effect, the only game in town, they are swamped by people wanting a piece of the pie.

What is more the conclusion we came to, after literally years in the trenches, is that fighting for a better system made no difference to our material well being. It's a counter intuitive understanding, like the discovery that saturation bombing in WW-II actually increased the enemies ability to mount effective warfare.

It's an understanding that comes in two stages. First the people in the music business are not our friends. They could give a damn about our suggestions. In fact most of them are not even musicians - they are lawyers, MBA's, dope addicts and people's relatives and even if they had the notion to respond to our offers of help they are mentally incapable of doing so. The notion that they would work for entertainers and singers and the like is repellant to them. They are too cool for that. This also convienently masks the fat that they don't know what the hell they are doing. Secondly, on a deeper level, each attack we make on fortress cartel, not only is rebuffed, but provides the enemy with valuable information as to where their perceived weaknesses lie. As well, it feeds their paranoia about being constantly under attack from the legal system, the tax system and the net pirates.

There's a common saying among psychoanalysts to the effect that even paranoids have enemies. This is because many patients are saner then the people around them. Yet, in much the same way neurosis can have positive survival value, paranoia often benefits a person by 1) eliciting short term sympathy for the paranoic and 2) providing a rational' for non-operative, or even hostile behavior towards others on the part of the paranoic.

I don't mean to imply there's no need for lawyers and MBA's,etc. There's a place in the world for everyone, even those wicked stockbrokers that everyone loves to hate! I have no problem with that, but you have to allow for the idea that there's a place in the world for us.

And I feel increasingly confident that the world is on our side. When a limited group of people, with limited interests, seize control of a system then their days are numbered because by virtue of their limitations they have incredible difficulties finding capable people to fill the needs of that system, plus, to some extent we all have to work together and in a world decided by criterea other then ability that is not possible.

wurries and fearz not because pretty soon he'ze a comin' to town and everybody gonna be hoppy!

We be jumpin up and down like they do in hop hawg.

We be setting the mile record at a quarter to three

and dere's more

da little children dey whisper fo a long long time

they speak in secret tones and voices about the one -

the one they call the kangfish

Like cranes only diffunt
Like snow white with just a little patch of red here and dere
deys the kings men all da kings men and they dressed in the kings costume
beautiful blue and gold silk, and black boots and trumpets made uh silber.

dey march inna town shoutin and kickin they legs

"Whoa boy," they shout, "We done it before and we'll do it again."

Actually they ain't never done it before but the people inna the town don't know it.

Then the kang stand uppity and he say, serious like,,,,

"My people, brothers and sisters, you ban abused, refused and cornfused, but dat all 'bout to end now. You been made to pay taxes and thats wrong. You don't gotta pay no goddamned taxes - yuh jus gotta do whut comes naturally.

I mean all of yuz should lib in big white houses, like me, and drink iced tea, and screw the po peoples wimmin - like god wants it to be. And I'm gonna hep you. I'm gonna show you da way. I'm gonna set the faucets of freedom free!

I bring ta you a new way of life, a modern way of life - the natural way.
No more sweatin and saving because cotton gonna set you free - and that's me = King Cotton!

Then he said "See all the stuff I done. Behold my werks ye mighty of the earth and tremble and despair!"

When I heard this I knows I sure trembled because King Cotton had another side. He could be a bastard. No jive. He could put a million in jail and not think twice and sleep easy at night. Because he was a good man, a moral man,& a man of god, (but whoze god I never could tell.)

Well, maybe he fudged a few things here and there but he was mostly good, and when he was surrounded by a hundred gun toting rich boys I'ze more then willing to agree he was the bestest person I ever knowed.

That's why I got the hell out of there on the next train. Because I am a weak and frail reed and so much good in one place 'bout to make me sicken and die.

The Lord of the Manor
Loves the upstairs maid
And I tend the garden
of the seeds he has laid.

Upstairs in the bedroom
where the sheets are all torn
I wish that the flowers
would turn into thorns
(Everly Bros.)

I have a funny feeling there may be change in the air. Like I can feel the tectonic plates shifting. Bucky Fuller claimed that when he stood on the cliffs overlookin the ocean in Nova Scotia he could feel the movement of the earth. Who knows?

Dr Jessen used to say "When all is said and done all that can be said is "something happened" He of course would always warn of the dangers of thinking we have a handle on anything.

So the ALF is to the KLF as the beatles were to the crickets. The KLF is also the Keltic Liberation Front, also known as the Kings of the Low Frequency, also known as the justified agents of Mu MU.

Also there's the Animal Liberation front, which I honestly did not know about till long after ALF came on the scene. And a group that only existed for a few months called the Allied Liberation Force. They stand in my mind as examples of courage. When you're poor, ugly and stupid you still can find some dignity in courage, as in the case of D-Day. Whenever I have a bad day I think of those guys lookin out on Omaha Beach and don't feel quite so bad. It could be worse.

And ALF was JohnLennon's fathers name, an ALF in Australian slang is a fool, Alfred the great was ninth century English "King by default" , the Danes having killed his father and older brothers and everyone else of consequence. He stressed literacy and is known as the father of the British navy, unlike the fifth century Dux Bellorum, Arturius, who by virtue of his alleged introduction of cavalry can be thought of as the father of British mobile military forces.

Alfie was a fictional character in a movie who couldn't keep his hand's off the ladies.

None of these have anything to do with our ALF, the lovable, and very cute, Alien Life Form

Herman was a friend to me
One side he thought was a she
On the land or in the sea
Fish or fowl he'd either be

Oh but life was most unfair
Neither this nor that nor here nor there
Dweller of deep pools and dragons lair
Yet a creature of the air

Till at last it's mate was found
but to the ground she was bound
There's many you know like them around
Who speak so loud yet make no sound

So let first be last and last be first
Praise be to they who are cursed!
Where all are better and none are worst
In the all that be all are immersed

Where all are better and none are best
That is the heaven of the blessed

- Glenn Schaefer

Tales from the

Tinkertoon
Forest!

Genuwine 'Mericanna

Tales of Death and Desperation

Men who murder for greed and
the women who love them!

Ghosts that haunt the innocent!

Hellhounds at the Crossroads
and the lost souls of the dispossessed

all brought together in a frightening story
of the temptations of sin
and the glories of salvation
for your moral edification, enlightenment
and edutainment

by

The Alien Life Form

And here's the Lyric to The Moonshiner's Daughter

And here's the Lyric to Rinky Tink Town

Tinkertoon Forest is 20 minutes long and is comprised of three sections. (192 kbs//28 meg)

Merry Christmas, folks

tamlin

Aw reet Frenz, In the undying words

of the semi-immortal Little Richard

Let's Rip it up!

The Rant '

Ride on Riders!
Ride on to Freedom!

Tinkertoon
Forest!

The Alien Life Form

Merry Christmas, folks

tamlin

Aw reet Frenz, In the undying words of the semi-immortal Little Richard

Let's Rip it up!

The Rant '

Ride on Riders! Ride on to Freedom!

Tinkertoon Forest!

The Alien Life Form

Aw reet Frenz, In the undying words

of the semi-immortal Little Richard

Ride on Riders!
Ride on to Freedom!

Tinkertoon
Forest!