Willie Nelson turns 79 today and he’s still going strong, dropping his new CD “Heroes” next month, featuring Merle Haggard, Snoop Dogg, Kris Kristofferson, Billy Joe Shaver,
and Sheryl Crow, among others. Who would have predicted that back in 1961, when Willie was just an itinerant song-plugger trying to sell “Crazy” to Patsy Cline, that one day he would be singing for presidents?
Here’s a Willie Nelson jukebox:
There are two events of import on this day in history: President Richard Nixon released transcripts of the so-called Watergate Tapes; the Rodney King verdict was announced.and Los Angeles explodes in indignation.
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| Video created by author from still photographs |
DATELINE 1992 – A jury in Simi Valley, California acquitted police officers of using excessive force in the beating of Rodney King, caught on tape and played in the media multiple times. Despite that mostly White jurors voted “Not Guilty” and Los Angeles exploded in an orgy of anger, which turned to 3 days of looting and hooliganism.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has declared today Duke Ellington Day, on what would have been the 110th birthday of the musical legend. Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington died in 1974 at the age of 75, but his music will never die. According to UPI:
To commemorate the musician’s life, The Islands of the Bahamas said
they are sponsoring a special run of New York’s last surviving 1939 A
Train, made famous in Ellington’s signature tune “Take the A Train.”
“Take the A Train,” written by Billy Strayhorn while he was taking the A Train to rehearsal, I have dozens of recordings of “Take the A Train,” by Ellington because he recorded it so many times. Some live. Some solo. Some with a small group. Some with a full orchestra. Every single one holds new surprises, no matter how familiar I am with the tune. Here are three great versions of Ellington’s signature tune. The first is Duke with a rockin’ trio, followed by an early version with his orchestra, and finally, one with Ella Fitzgerald on vocals.
With thousands of compositions, and so many interpretations of Duke Ellington tunes, it was hard to pick a stand-out performance until I remembered Dr. John’s tribute CD “Duke Elegant.” Boogie now!!!
This is such a great video. The SMiLE Sessions is hours and hours of tape from the never-released masterpiece SMiLE by The Beach Boys, who are celebrating their 50th Anniversary this year.
This is how Brian Wilson always wanted Heroes and Villains to play.
Time Magazine held its annual 100 Most Influential chicken dinner. As usual Stephen Colbert was the most influential, delivering some hard truthinesswith his bon mots.
“Of course, all of us should be honored to be listed on the TIME 100
alongside the two men who will be slugging it out in the fall:
President Obama, and the man who would defeat him, David Koch.
Give it up everybody. David Koch.
Little known fact — David, nice to see you again, sir.
Little known fact, David’s brother Charles Koch is actually even more
influential. Charles pledged $40 million to defeat President Obama,
David only $20 million. That’s kind of cheap, Dave.
Sure, he’s all for buying the elections, but when the bill for
democracy comes up, Dave’s always in the men’s room. I’m sorry, I must
have left Wisconsin in my other coat.
I was particularly excited to meet David Koch earlier tonight because
I have a Super PAC, Colbert Super PAC, and I am — thank you, thank you
— and I am happy to announce Mr. Koch has pledged $5 million to my
Super PAC. And the great thing is, thanks to federal election law,
there’s no way for you to ever know whether that’s a joke.
By the way, if David Koch likes his waiter tonight, he will be your next congressman.”
The writers at the Daily Show have a way of taking rather a complex story and boiling it down to its essence and humorous possibilities. This week I watched the hearings live on CSPAN2. I could have saved myself all those hours by just watching this:
“Don’t shit on my chest and say it’s Vegemite.”
UPDATE: I’m having trouble getting the video to load.
This is the first in a continuing series about Detroit, Michigan, my home town. I believe Detroit is emblematic of everything wrong with ‘Merka. At one time Detroit was the 5th largest city in these here United States. Overnight in the ’40s, Motown became the Arsenal of Democracy, building the machines that saved Truth, Justice, and the ‘Merkin way for trash such as Rush, Fox “News” and Johnny Dollar.
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| Click to enlarge |
Yesterday, while doing some research, I came across the following map of when the various parts of Detroit were annexed. The diagonal line starting at the upper left (and which is really on a due east-west orientation) is the infamous 8 Mile, which was the dividing line between Detroit and the suburbs in 1926…and still is. [Coincidentally, 1926 is the year of Pops’ birth, elsewhere.] The oldest parts of Detroit, are at the bottom of the map, on the river where settlement naturally started. Look further down to Canada, my adopted country. Windsor, Ontario [not labeled], Canada is the only Canadian city where one drives due north to get to ‘Merka. As a teen I often took the shuttle bus to Windsor to be able to say I spent the day in another country.
I grew up in the orange shape in the upper-left hand corner, which was annexed in 1926. The line that extends south from the eastern edge of that block is Greenfield Road. My house was 0.5 miles from that intersection, which is right where Hard Core Pawn takes place. That building used to be the bowling alley where my mother played in her Wednesday afternoon league. I spent so many hours there as a kid.
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| The Little House I Used To Live In |
The area where I grew up was developed after the war and it had the designation “Madison Park” although that was apparently something only on a map because no one ever referred to it as such. Apparently the entire neighbourhood went up virtually overnight to help serve all those GIs coming back from the war. This area, and many other parts of Detroit, were redlined, a practice begun by the Feds in the ’30s that continues in various forms today. Redlining, in one of its forms, restricted Blacks and Jews from purchasing in certain neighbourhoods. This was just one factor that led to Detroit’s eventually decline. This series will explore all the various ways in which Detroiters, Michiganders, and ‘Merkins systematically destroyed the city that helped save ‘Merka.
If you would like to share your stories or impressions of Detroit, please do.
Other entries in this series:
Henry Ford’s First Ford ► Unpacking My Detroit ► Part Three
The Music of Detroit ► Unpacking My Detroit ► Part Four
The Detroit Riots ► Unpacking My Detroit ► Part Five
Unpacking My Detroit ► Part 5.1 ► The 1943 Riot
Another Dispatch From Detroit, ‘Merka’s First Throwaway City
A: Bob!!!
Let’s parse, shall we?
Steve Doocy made a correction, but will this guy?nationalreview.com/corner/296892/…
— johnny dollar (@johnnydollar01) April 25, 2012
By “this guy” Mark Koldys is referring to the President of the United States of ‘Merka. As if that’s not bad enough, he’s setting up a false equivalency between the POTUS and Steve Doocy, one of The Three Stooges on the Curvy Couch on Fox and Friends. Third, he never really made a correction.