Good thing this box is little cause my life ain't much to tell.

I see there are a lot of mudcat johns. Down the Mississippi they call me John. They don't call me much though - mostly just yell. So I rock and sing my made up blues:

It's hard for a fat little old white guy to exploit the blues It's hard for a fat little old white guy to exploit the blues Singing all day don't buy you a half a pair of shoes

But you mudcat women respect men who sing and clean toilets. I sing the blues and clean toilets so you can call me Mississipi John Cleaner.

I may rock my chair on delta porches these days but you ain't raised much money for that old folk music manglers home yet, now have ya? I been in the industry. Back in 42, maybe the year that Bill Lowndes disappeared, walked off into the mountains with a flask of Slippery Shenandoah and never returned, well back then I was told by Mississouri Tarpaper Roll Thomas to 'get into the industry man, take a janitorial job, take anything, just get in man.'

So I got me a job as janitor at Moon Studio. Moon started me off cleaning toilets - I had no janitorial senority ya know. I cleaned well. The bowls were so shinny you could eat out of em. Maybe I cleaned too well. No one signed me a recording contract and a lot of clubs wouldn't let me sing.

Started having trouble with women back then. They were ok until I sang, then they grew cold and distant, very distant. I would find myself with only toilet bowls to sing to. Each day I would make up new blues songs, like Leadbelly's, and sing to my toilets about the women I lost:

you never like the brush I use to brush you hair you never like the brush I use to brush you hair but the toilet she don't even care if the brush I use on her bowl has a bit of your brunette hair

Sometimes a tear would splash into the bowl. But don't you be sad for me. I did ok. I had my art, my songs, my blues. You be surprised how wonderful a big old sparkling toilet can sound. Better than Carnegie Hall. Try those big ol toilet with seats built for comfort, not those tiny new ones. Sometimes the toilets sang back or at least hummed harmonies. They sounded so sweet that I would often throw my arms around their smooth white basins and give them big long hugs. And sometimes the toilet seats would tape me on the head to let me know they enjoyed my songs.

Before long I was the best toilet bowl cleaner in the record industry. Has its rewards. Like the time I looked up Josephine Baker's dess until she took off all her clothes and ruined it. But you probably want to hear about folk music. Besides Josephine was getting old when she came back across the Atlantic for that tour. And I can't write everything in this one little web box.

Paul Simon was just a kid when I first cleaned his antique toilet - a pudgy young songwriter with talent and energy and that other felow with Einstein's hair. Paul burst in while I was cleaning his tank - he couldn't hold it any longer. I told Paul, I said, 'Paul, leave the top off the tank, let the morning sun shine through the window on the red rubber ball that floats on the water in the tank. This toilet's a genuine work of art.' He beamed and said, 'Great idea. Thanks man.'

As he left the room doing up his fly I started singing a new blues: Let the morning sun come shining on you red rubber ball. Let the morning sun come shining on you red rubber ball. After all it a great toilet Paul.'

I didn't see Paul for many years after that. I cleaned lots of toilets in a lot of different studios. I cleaned toilets for some of the best voices in the music business. One day I was scrubbing away singing, 'What's my line, cleaning toilets,' when Van Morrison runs in holding himself. Those Irish guys know what to with a beer or what to do with cases of beer. The urinal I was working on was almost clean enough to relieve a star of Van's caliber. I kept singing, rushing to finish the job when he yells, 'Get out of the way, I got to piss man.' I was troubled but I kept singing as I moved aside. A moment later he let out a sigh of relief and asked me what tune I was singing. As I replied, 'Cleaning Toilets,' the receptionists pushed open the bathroom door. Van mistook her for a fan, a BB, or a brunette bimbo as we like to say in the recording industry, as opposed to a BB, one of those blond bimbos. Van yells at the receptionist, 'No autographs please! Can't you see I've got something in my hand and I can't write with it.'

Well, the recptionist wasn't looking for him, she had Paul Simon on the phone, for me, after so many years. Paul was worried. The sun looked great on the rubber ball in his antique toilet but the light destroyed the rubber. Antique tiolets parts are hard to find. To calm him, I said in soft singing tones, 'Don't worry Paul. There's fifty way to fix your rubber.' I told him softy, 'Use a rubber band man. Try rubber cemment gent.' After a few more ideas like this, he calmed down, thanked me and hung up. Haven't heard from him lately. Wonder how he's doing with his music.

I could tell you about a Bitish blue singer's toilet - it wasn't exactly Londonderry Air in there ya know. But enough of these toilet tales. If this box keeps expanding it's going to get stretch marks. So let me tell you an old folk remedy - when they start singing, shove nutmeg in your ears - whole nutmegs, unground. And, you with your pot after pot of mint tea, always dirtying toilet bowls, shame, shame, shame, shame of fools.

But I can be adaptable too? You don't want none of this silent scowling stuff over the breakfast bacon. I can come right out and tell you, 'You fat ugly bitch. Why you don't wear the black underwear I bought you for Valentines? Your tits too big? Your ass too big? Do you need a slap on your big ass? Should I call Al Capone? He'll send you a Valentine.'

Is that better, honey? Is that the song you wanted to hear babe? Drop me a line when you got the time.

Rocking on the front porch but don't push me in the river again, Mississipi John Cleaner