RAVE - Accidental treasures on the Web

I used to work for a software company in Denver. I won't mention the name, because the a-hole who ran the company doesn't deserve the mention, but one of the sales guys used to describe our software as having a "serendipity factor", meaning that users would find hidden gems in there. Now, spare the silk-purse-out-of-a-sow's-ear gasps, he was only trying to make a living. What is serendipitous however, is bumbling around on the web and finding wonderful facts or stories you weren't looking for in the first place.

For example, while waiting for the Liverpool versus Manchester Scum game to start this morning, I caught the end of Burn After Reading, where during the credits it featured CIA Man, by The Fugs. Now, I'd never heard of The Fugs before (I'm sure Roger Espley still has one of their 8-track cartridges in his car), so I strolled on over to YouTube and found the song.

In the right-hand frame - at least when I dallied there - were links to some treasures by The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. These included rarities like Terry Keeps His Clips On, about an uber conservative gardener who doesn't want bugs to get up his trouser legs.

Incidentally, young music combo (as Private Eye magazine would introduce them) Death Cab For Cutie got its name from the title of a song written by Neil Innes and Vivian Stanshall (pictured above), founders of the Bonzos.

Wondering whether Stanshall was still alive led me to Wikipedia, which informed that he isn't - sadly he died in a fire in his flat in 1995. Our Viv was a true eccentric, and a funny one. In one of his Rawlinson End tales, he wrote about enjoying a new Jewish musical, Oklahymie. This story however, was the real accidental treasure I found:

"In particular, his exploits with close friend Keith Moon are legendary, perhaps the most notorious involving Stanshall going into an unsuspecting tailor's shop and admiring a pair of trousers; Moon then came in, posing as another customer, admired the same trousers and demanded to buy them. When Stanshall protested the two men fought over them, splitting them in two so they ended up with one leg each. The tailor was by now beside himself but right then a one-legged actor, who had been hired by Stanshall and Moon, came in, saw the trousers and proclaimed "Ah! Just what I was looking for."

Sans prix.

One postscript to this story is that Roger (the 8-track cartridge sporter) tells me he and I luxuriated in front row seats at Vivian Stanshall's Stinkfoot comic opera in London many years ago. Now, I don't remember luxuriating in much of anything with Roger, except maybe a pint of Bols at an Austrian ski resort, but that's for another blog post.