All posts by Headly Westerfield

About Headly Westerfield

Calling himself “A liberally progressive, sarcastically cynical, iconoclastic polymath,” Headly Westerfield has been a professional writer all his adult life.

Intense Intents in Tents ► Unpacking Grand Avenue

CLICK HERE for a full gallery of Housing for All protest pics

Two gatherings in Coconut Grove on Saturday morning were as different as Black and White. 

On Grand Avenue Thaddeus Scott and William Wallace were waking up in tents. This to protest a lack of affordable housing and the deplorable living conditions in West Grove. Less than 3 miles away, Grove 2030 was sponsoring a charrette on the practicality of Coconut Grove seceding from the City of Miami.

There was no breakfast waiting for Scott and Wallace in their empty lot on Grand Avenue, but Grove 2030 put out a great spread in the back of Vizcaya Garage: buckets of coffee, choice of juice, donuts, muffins, bagels and the obligatory cream cheese.

The evening prior this reporter arrived to sit on his customary bench on Grand Avenue and watch Housing for All Miami set up their meager Tent City, a show of Civil Disobedience that, theoretically, could lead to arrests. I had been hearing rumblings of this protest for a couple of weeks, but always on the downlow. I was never able to get someone on the record about it. I had less than a day’s notice when I was finally told the protest was a go. From HfA’s Facebook page:

Why Housing for All?

Some very basic facts about #coconutgrove:
There is a housing crisis. Developers buy up single family homes and apartments – some in disrepair, some not – level them, and sit on the land.

Landlords also sell their apartment buildings by the block. They refuse to sign leases with their tenants so when the buildings sell, they evict with 15 days notice. Another common practice is to let the buildings run down to unsafe and uninhabitable, at which point the city steps in and condemns them, forcing the tenants to move out with little-to-no warning. Fifteen days to find housing in one of the nations toughest housing markets.

We are talking about HUNDREDS of people. Kids, parents, grandparents whose families have lived in this neighborhood for generations. They built these houses. Many of them built this city.

This is not ok @cityofmiami @cityofmiamifl @cityofmiamigov

I turned my attention to the slow motion humanitarian crisis on Grand Avenue a little more than a month ago — soon after I gave up on the E.W.F. Stirrup House. As one of my last acts for that story I was able to score an interview with developer Peter Gardner, of Pointe Group, now called Sabal Hill. He had recently signed on — or invested in — the Stirrup House Bed & Breakfast.

By then I had already started researching Grand Avenue. During our interview on the Stirrup House, I pulled a Bait & Switch on Gardner. I whipped out a hand-drawn map of Grand Avenue on which I had the current owner of every property mapped out and colour-coded. The names of Gardner’s companies were featured predominately on many of those properties. I started quizzing him on the plans for Grand Avenue, which have been stuck in limbo for well more than a decade.

The famed model of Grand Avenue

SYNCHRONICITY ALERT: Two years ago — almost to the day — I was invited to the first Grove 2030 charrette. I went as a journalist, but I was cajoled into participating and forced to join one of the brainstorming teams. At one point (no pun intended) someone on our team brought up the upcoming development promised for Grand Avenue by Pointe Group. Having done some perfunctory research on Grand even back then, I blurted out, “That will never happen.”

Little did I know that I was talking to Margaret Nee of Pointe Group. We had a mini-argument in which she invited me to come see the architectural model any time, because it was definitely going to happen. I never went to look at the model because I wasn’t covering Grand Avenue. However, in the interest of FULL DISCLOSURE I told Peter Gardner this story at the beginning of our interview. Who knows whether Margaret had and she was the person who had facilitated this meeting.

In the last few weeks I have left more than a dozen phone messages with Margaret Nee to get Peter Gardner to confirm or deny a rumour I had been hearing about the E.W.F. Stirrup House.

However, this came at the same exact time that many of the properties along Grand Avenue were about to be flipped again, this time to Terra Group. As well, Commissioner Ken Russell had convinced the city to launch a million dollar lawsuit against several of the slumlords along Grand Avenue because of the deplorable conditions in their buildings. This lawsuit has delayed the sale of the properties until all the parties involved figure out who’s going to pay to settle this lawsuit, or whether it will be defended by lawyers for the developers, who are already suing each other.

TO BE FAIR: If I were Peter Gardner, I wouldn’t take my calls either. Not only did I change topics on him, but pretty much warned him that I was now watching Grand Avenue [and 2 lots he had acquired on Charles Avenue]. However, Margaret Nee has not even had the good manners to call me back and say, “We will have no comment.” That would be better than dodging my phone calls, but I expect no less from rapacious developers who say they want to build something wonderful for the neighbourhood, but have no empathy whatsoever for the people currently living in the slum they own.

Yesterday morning I listened to the Grove 2030 people complain about how their lily White neighbourhoods are changing in ways they cannot control. However, my mind was really on Wallace and Scott sleeping in tents on an empty lot on Grand Avenue to bring attention to gentrification in the heart of the historically Black neighbourhood in ways they cannot control. I grew so bored with the Grove 2030 meeting, I sketched out an opening paragraph (now discarded) lovingly describing all the various food and drink options at Grove 2030, wondering what Scott and Wallace had for breakfast.

IRONY ALERT: There was so much food at Grove 2030 that it was all packed up and sent to the Housing for All protest when the charrette was over. While there was something beautiful and magnanimous about the gesture, it also gave off the faint odour of more White colonialism and paternalism. To use an analogy from Canada: Bread and cheese day.

It would have been much better if the Grove 2030 people had shown up, picked up a sign, and joined the protest.

How long will the Housing for All protest continue? William Wallace says they are prepared to camp out indefinitely, or until the slumlord owner shows up and orders the police to clear the lot. Miami police would have no choice but to comply. In that eventuality, there are several contingency plans, which I won’t reveal.

However, what’s really needed is more people, more tents, more noise, and more publicity. As far as I know I have been the only media to show up and cover this story.

Where is the Miami Herald? Asleep again, me thinks. However, it did have the time to write about the Woman arrested in luxury condo protest: City and cops violated my rights. The only time the Miami Herald comes to West Grove is to cover crime.

Where are the local tee vee stations? They’ll put news choppers in the air over Douglas Road and Grand Avenue when police put the local schools and neighbourhood on lockdown. Why haven’t they covered this protest?

Where is the Coconut Grove Grapevine? Tom Falco only seems to concern himself with the West Grove to cover the opening of a new art installation at the Kroma Gallery, the opening of a new fresh fish store, or a new product at the mattress store. However, nothing about the people of West Grove.

Oh, that’s right. This is the poor Black neighbourhood. Never mind.

Henry Morgan Stanley ► Throwback Thursday

“Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” was first spoken on this day in 1871 and repeated millions of times in the last 145 years.

Henry Morgan Stanley, born John Rowlands, spoke those words to David Livingstone, who was thought to be lost in Africa while searching for the source of the Nile River during the great White Colonization of that great continent.

Stanley’s early life is almost unbelievable. He was a bastard whose mother turned him over to his grandfather. When the old man died while the boy was 6, he was sent to a workhouse where, despite the reputation of workhouses, managed to get a good education.

He reinvented himself at the age of 17. First he took a job as a cabin boy on an American freighter. When he landed in New Orleans he took the name of a local cotton merchant, even claiming to have been adopted.

Stanley also fought on both sides in the Civil War. First he joined the Confederacy, fighting at the Battle of Shiloh. After his capture, he switched sides and joined the Union. However, he apparently deserted the Union Army to join the Federal Navy, before he eventually jumped ship. Freelancing as a journalist, he toured the American West covering the conquest of the Native Americans.

In 1869 the New York Herald sent him on assignment to find Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone, who was thought to be lost or dead in Africa.

Livingstone hoped his African trips would make him world-renown, which they did. That popularity allowed him to speak out against the East African Arab-Swahili slave trade. “The Nile sources,” he told a friend, “are valuable only as a means of opening my mouth with power among men. It is this power which I hope to remedy an immense evil.”

Ironically his, and Stanley’s, trips began what became called the “Scramble for Africa,” in which the colonial powers took over the continent.

According to the BBC’s Historic Figures:

Livingstone became convinced of his mission to reach new peoples in the interior of Africa and introduce them to Christianity, as well as freeing them from slavery. It was this which inspired his explorations. In 1849 and 1851, he travelled across the Kalahari, on the second trip sighting the upper Zambezi River. In 1852, he began a four year expedition to find a route from the upper Zambezi to the coast. This filled huge gaps in western knowledge of central and southern Africa. In 1855, Livingstone discovered a spectacular waterfall which he named ‘Victoria Falls’. He reached the mouth of the Zambezi on the Indian Ocean in May 1856, becoming the first European to cross the width of southern Africa.

Returning to Britain, where he was now a national hero, Livingstone did many speaking tours and published his best-selling ‘Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa’ (1857). He left for Africa again in 1858, and for the next five years carried out official explorations of eastern and central Africa for the British government. His wife died of malaria in 1862, a bitter blow and in 1864 he was ordered home by a government unimpressed with the results of his travels.

At home, Livingstone publicised the horrors of the slave trade, securing private support for another expedition to central Africa, searching for the Nile’s source and reporting further on slavery.

And, this is where Stanley comes in. On this final trip Livingstone had not been heard  from in a while and the New York Herald hired the freelance writer to find him and report back. But first Stanley stopped off in Egypt to cover the opening of the Suez Canal.

The Wiki picks up the story:

Stanley travelled [sic] to Zanzibar in March 1871, later claiming that he outfitted an expedition with 192 porters.[17]:68 In his first dispatch to the New York Herald, however, he stated that his expedition numbered only 111. This was in line with figures in his diaries.[18]:13 Bennett, publisher of the New York Herald and funder of the expedition, had delayed sending to Stanley the money he had promised, so Stanley borrowed money from the United States Consul.[5]:93–94

During the 700-mile (1,100 km) expedition through the tropical forest, his thoroughbred stallion died within a few days after a bite from a tsetse fly, many of his porters deserted, and the rest were decimated by tropical diseases.

Stanley found Livingstone on 10 November 1871 in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika in present-day Tanzania. He may have greeted him with the now-famous line, “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” It may also have been a fabrication, as Stanley tore out of his diary the pages relating to the encounter. Neither man mentioned it in any of the letters they wrote at this time.[5] Livingstone’s account of the encounter does not mention these words. The phrase is first quoted in a summary of Stanley’s letters published by The New York Times on 2 July 1872.[19] Stanley biographer Tim Jeal argued that the explorer invented it afterwards to help raise his standing because of “insecurity about his background”.[5]:117

The Herald‘s own first account of the meeting, published 1[20] July 1872, reports:

Preserving a calmness of exterior before the Arabs which was hard to simulate as he reached the group, Mr. Stanley said: – “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” A smile lit up the features of the pale white man as he answered: “Yes, and I feel thankful that I am here to welcome you.”[21]

Livingstone died 2 years later from the malaria and dysentery. Stanley and Livingstone became known around the world due to Stanley’s dispatches and book. The ironically their gripping adventures only hastened the colonization of Africa.

Learn more from a documentary narrated by James Mason and the fictional 1939 Stanley and Livingstone, starring Spencer Tracy and Cedricc Hardwicke.

https://www.gofundme.com/NotNowSilly
If you’ve liked anything you’ve read at the Not Now Silly Newsroom,  please consider donating to my Go Fund Me campaign to Support Investigative Journalism. My Freedom of Information requests from the City of Miami are beginning to add up, not to mention all the other costs of researching systemic racism and corruption in Coconut Grove.

The Flintstones ► Saturday Morning Cartoons

Strictly speaking the modern stone-age family was not a Saturday morning cartoon.

The Flintstones has the distiction of being the very first cartoon to run in prime time. It last 6 years. It moved to Saturday mornings thereafter in constant syndication and reruns. Yet, The Flintstones was never intended for children, as the WikiWackyWoo reveals:  

Despite the animation and fantasy setting, the series was initially aimed at adult audiences, which was reflected in the comedy writing, which, as noted, resembled the average primetime sitcoms of the era, with the usual family issues resolved with a laugh at the end of each episode, as well as the inclusion of a laugh track. Hanna and Barbera hired many writers from the world of live action, including two of Jackie Gleason’s writers, Herbert Finn and Sydney Zelinka, as well as relative newcomer Joanna Lee while still using traditional animation story men such as Warren Foster and Michael Maltese.

Here’s a Theme Song Sing-A-Long:

It’s interesting the show used some of Jackie Gleason’s writers. Again, I’m going to let the Wiki tell you all about it:

The show imitated and spoofed The Honeymooners, although the early voice characterization for Barney was that of Lou Costello.[22] William Hanna admitted that “At that time, The Honeymooners was the most popular show on the air, and for my bill, it was the funniest show on the air. The characters, I thought, were terrific. Now, that influenced greatly what we did with The Flintstones … The Honeymooners was there, and we used that as a kind of basis for the concept.”[citation needed] However, Joseph Barbera disavowed these claims in a separate interview, stating that, “I don’t remember mentioning The Honeymooners when I sold the show. But if people want to compare The Flintstones to The Honeymooners, then great. It’s a total compliment. The Honeymooners was one of the greatest shows ever written.”[23] Jackie Gleason, creator of The Honeymooners, considered suing Hanna-Barbera Productions, but decided that he did not want to be known as “the guy who yanked Fred Flintstone off the air”.[24][25]

However, at 8 years old, none of that mattered to me. I just loved all the rock jokes and anachronisms, even if I didn’t know what that word meant back then.

Here’s another Sing-A-Long:

One surprise I had in adulthood was the cigarette commercials embedded in the shows. I hadn’t noticed them when I was a kid. It would be another 10 years (the beginning of 1971) before cigarette commercials were banned on television altogether.

The following edit includes the original theme song (which I also don’t remember) used for the first 2 seasons but changed to the familiar one above because it was the same tune as the Bugs Bunny “Overture, hit the lights” theme song.

Something else I didn’t learn until I was old enough for it to matter: The famed Mel Blanc voiced Barney Rubble. He also voiced (according to the Wiki): Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Pepé Le Pew, Speedy Gonzales, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, the Tasmanian Devil, and many of the other characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoons during the golden age of American animation. He was, in fact, the voice for all of the major male Warner Bros. cartoon characters except for Elmer Fudd, whose voice was provided by radio actor Arthur Q. Bryan (although Blanc later voiced Fudd, as well, after Bryan’s death).[1]

Playing Trixie to his Norton was Bea Benadaret, as his wife Betty. These days you can see Bea Benaderet early Saturday (and Sunday) mornings on Antenna TV on the George Burns and Gracie Allen Show. However, I first became aware of her, and fell in love with her, as Kate Bradley, the owner of the Shady Rest Hotel in both Petticoat Junction and Green Acres. She also played Cousin Pearl Bodine on The Beverly Hillbillies, giving her the Corn Pone Hat Trick.

Enough analysis. Let’s just go to the game films:

10 Movies You Should Have Seen ► Throwback Thursday

The innertubes are full of movie lists. Here’s another one.

What makes this list different is that no understanding of the Not Now Silly Newsroom is complete without studying the following flicks.

The idea of this column came to me on Halloween when I was dial-flipping. On one channel was The Big Valley, a Western series that went on 4 seasons too long past the pilot episode. This wooden pot-boiler starred Barbara Stanwyk, trying to prove she was no longer past her prime after a very successful movie career; Lee Majors, years before he was worth 6 million dollars; Linda Evans before she became a 10 to John Dereck, who dumped her for Bo Derick; Peter Breck, an actor as boring as his name; and Richard Long, who would never, ever, ever bill himself as Dick Long.

Then I flipped to another channel. I went from watching Richard Long in a Western to watching him in a Horror flick and my love of that flick came rushing back to me:

10. House on Haunted Hill (1959)

This is the first Horror flick I can remember. I was 7 years old and, for the life of me, can’t remember who thought it was a good idea to take me to see this one. However, it scared the crap out of me and turned me into a Horror fan. Horror is a separate genre from Monster movies. But a subset of Horror might be Suspense, which naturally led to a love of Alfred Hitchcock.

NB: Stay away from the  1999 remake.

9. The Ladykillers (1955)

Likewise this classic was remade, but the 2004 flick directed by the Coen brothers starring Tom Hanks, is awful, a misfire for all involved. Ignore it, but seek out the original Ealing Studios version. It starred a pre-Obi-Wan Kenobi Alec Guiness; a pre-Inspecter Clousseau Peter Sellers; and a pre-Inspecter Clousseau nemesis Herbert Lom, among others.

It’s a dark comedy that must be enjoyed.

8. The President’s Analyst (1967)

This is a movie that should be watched not as a a satire on the Cold War, but as a realistic Documentary that predicted the Putin hacking scandal.

7. The 7 Face of Dr. Lao (1964)

Another Documentary — err — Fantasy along the lines of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, but much better. Tony Randall, long before The Odd Couple, stars as the titular Dr. Lao, but also the other 6 faces referenced in the title: The Abominable Snowman, Merlin the Magician, Appollonius of Tyana, Pan, The Giant Serpent, and Medusa.

It sounds complicated but it’s as simple as this: A traveling circus, run by the mysterious Dr. Lao, arrives in a small western town in the late 1800s, and nothing was ever the same again.

These days the movie is criticized for its cultural appropriation and the fact that Randall plays an Asian character with a sing-song accent. However, if you can get past that, a delight is waiting for you.

[It’s a sheer coincidence this ended up as #7 on this list.]

6.  Vinyl (2000)

This is the only actual Documentary on this list.It’s not on the list because I know the filmmaker and went to the movie’s premier. It’s on the list because the movie spoke to me deeply. I saw it very soon after I had liquidated my entire collection of vinyl.

I had a eclectic collections of rare, out of print, and/or highly collectible LPs and singles. Selling them one by one on eBay turned out to be: 1). A monumental task; 2). Highly lucrative.

One record, that I bought for 25 cents Canadian at a lawn sale, went for $585 US. What was it? It was Tennessee Williams reading Tennessee Williams, with a cover by illustrator Andy Warhol before he became the famous Pop Artist Andy Warhol.

At any rate I was still mourning the loss of my record collection when I saw Alan Zwieg‘s terrific doc. I identified with the obsessive record collectors Zweig interviewed, while he also dug deep within himself to understand why he is just like them.

I have since seen several of his other documentaries and each one explores a dimension of my personality I never realized was there before. You’ll have to see them to understand.

[This is not to be confused with the terrible tee vee series which debuted and was cancelled earlier this year.]

5. The Bed Sitting Room (1969)

This is another dark British comedy, which was directed by Richard Lester, who also directed The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film, a favourite of The Beatles, which is why they approved his hiring to direct their first feature film A Hard Day’s Night.

As we learn from the WikiWackyWoo:

The Bed-Sitting Room is a 1969 British comedy film directed by Richard Lester, starring an ensemble cast of British comic actors, and based on the play of the same name. It was entered into the 19th Berlin International Film Festival.[1] The film is an absurdist, post-apocalyptic, satirical black comedy.

It also starred a Who’s Who of British comedy. How can you possible go wrong?

4. Zachariah (1971)

Here’s all you need to know: A Rock and Roll Western, written by The Firesign Theatre, based on Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, with Country Joe and the Fish, Elvin Bishop, The James Gang, The New York Rock Ensemble, and Don Johnson before he moved to Miami and became Vice.

3. Elvis Meets Nixon (1997)

This movie is a fictional look at a real event. Elvis Presley really did show up at the White House without an appointment demanding to see President Nixon so that the POTUS could give the drug-addled King of Rock and Roll a law enforecement badge so he could help fight drugs.

No. That really happened. But, this movie plays it up for comedy and invents some things, like this piece of dialogue, flagged by the IMDB:

Richard M. Nixon: By the way, Elvis, did you ever, ah, mess around with Marilyn Monroe?
Elvis Presley: No, sir.
Richard M. Nixon: Well, the Kennedys did, you know. Hoover played me the tape.
Elvis Presley: Well, gee, Mr. President, I kinda wish I had a tape of this meetin’, so I could play it for muh wife and muh little daughter.
Richard M. Nixon: Tape-record meetings.
[suddenly intrigued]
Richard M. Nixon: Hmm… 

Making Elvis responsible for Watergate.

For bonus points this movie has among its cast Curtis Armstrong, the world’s foremost authority on Harry Nilsson.

2. The Boy Friend (1971)

The Boy Friend started as a 1954 musical written by Sandy Wilson. It ran in London for over 2,000 performances and became Julie Andrew’s debut on Broadway, or any ‘Merkin stage for that matter. When it was finally made into a movie it was directed by the King of Excess, Ken Russell (not to be confused with the current Miami District 2 Commissioner).

Russell re-imagined the story as a play within a play. The movie follows the backstage shenanigans and love affairs of the cast of a down and out theatrical troupe about to mount that old chestnut The Boy Friend in a seedy theater somewhere in the south of England. Into the mix comes A Big Deal Hollywood director, scouting the production for his next cinematic extravaganza.

As backstage assistant manager Polly, played by Twiggy in one of her few movie roles, falls in love with the male lead Tommy, played by Tommy Tune, she suddenly has to step into the lead role when Rita falls down and breaks her leg.

What makes this such a spectacular movie is that members of that ragtag cast imagine themselves in a all singing, all dancing, all talking extravaganza. It’s during these reveries is where Russell shines. The dream sequences are directed in his patented excess, capturing perfectly the musicals of the ’30s and ’40s by directors like Busby Berkely.

Russell went on to direct Tommy and Listomania.

1. Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (1969)

Another musical, which someone on the IMDB can tell you about:

Hieronymus Merkin has recently turned 40, and is in the midst of preparing a film that details his life’s history and development. Portraying himself as a marionette being controlled by an unseen puppet master, young Merkin is led away from the innocence of youth and into the waiting arms of one woman after another by Goodtime Eddie Filth. With Filth’s guidance, Merkin steadily transforms into a self-centered womanizer, save only for the longing he feels for his one lost love, Mercy Humppe. As the producers of his life story scream for him to come up with an ending, Merkin must look back and decide what, if anything, he’s learned from his experiences. Written by Jean-Marc Rocher <rocher@fiberbit.net>

 

This was one of the first movies I ever saw that made me think about the process of making movies, something I eventually went to college to do. And, in a great wallop of synchronicity, Alan Zweig also went to Sheridan College a few years after me, to learn his craft.

While it’s easy to find some of the songs from the soundtrack LP, I’ve been unable to find my favourite tune “On The Boards,” sung by Bruce Forsyth as Uncle Limelight. Here it is recreated by singer Anthony Newley, who not only wrote all the songs in the movie, but directed it as well.

Take it from me. You’ll be a better person once you’ve watched all of these movies.

Good Mourning G.O.P. ► An Aunty Em Editorial

The worst thing to have happened this election cycle is not the ascendancy of Demagogue Donald Trump, but the premature death of the G.O.P. We should all be concerned.

Let’s be clear: The destruction of the Grand Old Party of Lincoln didn’t start with Trump. As a cancer on the nation’s body politic, The Child Named The Donald delivered the coup de grâce. However, the Republican Party has been sick for a long time; weakened enough that Trump could put it on life-support.

The Not Now Silly Newsroom has identified Patient Zero. The original infection, the moment this debilitating disease began, was the day John McCain brought Sarah Palin out of the deep freeze of the Alaskan tundra to be his vice presidential pick. For the same reasons that hospitals like to keep it really cold, the chill up there kept her from infecting too many. Once she arrived in the hot house of national politics, she was able to use incomprehensible word salads to infect multitudes of people already weak with fright that the ‘Merka they knew was changing.

Remember when Sarah Palin placed
cross hairs on Democratic targets?

Remember when one was shot in the head?

The McCain-Palin ticket lost spectacularly, but by then Palin had won, invading the host in a way no one noticed at the time.

Like any new disease just being discovered, it needed a name. It finally got one the following year — February 19, 2009, to be exact. Microbiologist Rick Santelli, who was slumming as a commentator on CNBC from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, looked into his electron microscope and then gave his best diagnosis of the problem that ailed the country. Watch:

Remember what caused that rant?

Newly-inaugurated President Obama had the audacity to suggest the country should bail out Main Street (homeowners in foreclosure), as opposed to Wall Street and Wall Street went bonkers. Oddly enough, so did a lot of other people who thought that they were getting a raw deal because they struggled with their mortgages and no one ever bailed them out for making all the right decisions. Better to give the money to the Too Big To Fail banks. Right?

So the disease coursing through the nations veins was named the Tea Party, which already had a ‘Merkin Mascot: A mouth-shootin’, gun-totin’, Obama-hatin’, G droppin’ know-nothing to rally ’round. After Pain quit her day job as the duly elected governor of Alaska, the Tea Party had their whack job.

TO BE FAIR: To McCain’s credit, he did try and shut down the more extreme voices at his rallies, but he’s the last republican to do so. The die was cast, to mix metaphors.

Soon Tea Party Loyalists — wearing tri-cornered hats with tea bags hanging from them, fer fuck’s sake — started interrupting Democratic Town Halls. Republicans either condoned it, or never said a word against it. Then whacked-out Tea Party candidates started running fpr office and the Republicans either played nice with them, or just tried to ignore them, until some of those crazy MoFos got elected.

The Tea Party ran on platforms that were simply unrealistic. They were based upon Manichean ideals, which could never survive a democracy like the 3 branches of government the Founding Fathers had the foresight to create, anticipating this exact scenario. Another way the Founding Fathers made it hard for ideologues to gain control was requiting reelection every 2 years for Congress and 6 years for the Senate.

So, every 2 years for the entire President Obama administration Tea Party candidates made more and more outlandish promises. And, these crazy MoFos kept getting elected, or reelected, to the point that were challenging the natural order of the party under whose banner they had run. [See: Boehner, John]

And then came Donald Trump. He fed into this entire disaffected group of people, whether they had considered themselves Tea Party Stalwarts, or just pert of the working poor. He spoke to their fears. He fanned the flames. He ran for President. He won the Republican nomination.

The Republican leadership allowed Donald Trump to happen.

Almost none spoke against the racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and bullying of Trump. Many of them ended up supporting him, even among those he bullied. Donald Trump will now, and forever, be the face of the Republican Party.

And, that’s the biggest reason that the GOP must die. It would take — at the very least — a generation to wash off the Trump stink. Better to euthanize the party and be done with it. Start anew.

However, and this is the most important part of my Aunty Em Editorial (or rant, take your pick): It is Seriously Bad Mojo that the Republican Party is, effectively, dead. Death by suicide, but dead all the same.

While the Founding Fathers were against political parties, it didn’t take long for partisan politics to form. I’ll let the Wiki fill in the blanks:

The United States Constitution has never formally addressed the issue of political parties. The Founding Fathers did not originally intend for American politics to be partisan. In Federalist Papers No. 9 and No. 10, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, respectively, wrote specifically about the dangers of domestic political factions. In addition, the first President of the United States, George Washington, was not a member of any political party at the time of his election or throughout his tenure as president. Furthermore, he hoped that political parties would not be formed, fearing conflict and stagnation, as outlined in his Farewell Address.[6] Nevertheless, the beginnings of the American two-party system emerged from his immediate circle of advisers. Hamilton and Madison, who wrote the aforementioned Federalist Papers against political factions, ended up being the core leaders in this emerging party system. It was the split camps of Federalists, given rise with Hamilton as a leader, and Democratic-Republicans, with Madison and Thomas Jefferson helming this political faction, that created the environment in which partisanship, once distasteful, came to being.[7][8]

And, that’s how it’s been ever since. The 2 party system eventually stabilized into Democrats and Republicans, battling it out of the direction of the nation. The two part system (with occasional, feeble challenges by 3rd or 4th party candidates) is far healthier for ‘Merka than a one party system. [See: Russia, Cuba] That’s what could happen after the GOP does its post-election postmortem.

The best results of the 2016 election could be the formation of several parties from the various factions running this election cycle. Of course there’s the Libertarian and Green Parties, which never really seem to get enough support during the primaries to even make it to the debates. However, this year you also have the Bernie Democrats, who could be looking for a new home after this election. The Anybody But Hillary Democrats might come home. Or, they could start something new as things shake out over the next 4 years of a Clinton presidency.

On the other side of the aisle: The Anybody But Trump faction could stick with the bones o the GOP, which needs rebranding to have any viability. Then there are Conservatives, who are voting Trump because it’s all they’ve got, but may want to establish their own party that sticks to Conservative principles.

Then you have the Trump supporters, which are not small in numbers. Once the finger-pointing begins, they’ll be at each other’s throats. There will be a great splintering into several different groups, just as Fox “News” is facing the same divisions in its audience.

I predict that things will eventually settle into the Rage Party, or the Breitbart/alt-right racialists who now feel a freedom to voice their Inner Ugly in ways they have not since the ’50s.

Another faction will be the disaffected poor, who liked some of Trump’s message, if not the ugly rhetoric. Then comes the evangelicals who will eventually realize that they backed a conman, especially as court judgements against him start to pile up.

Then, finally, there is The Tea Party, which has been marginalized this election as one Tea Party darling after another was vanquished by Cheetos Jesus. If they play their cards right, they may be able to pick up some of these groups, but I don’t think they’ll ever have the same influence as they once had. [See: Cruz, Ted]

A political system with several political parties is how it often works — or doesn’t — in countries that have parliaments. If no party has a clear majority in the House, they are forced to find was to form a coalition to get anything passed. This requires hard bargaining and compromise, the exact thing that’s been missing during the Obama Administration.

Bring on more political parties, but please don’t celebrate the demise of the Grand Old Party. It’s been a sad thing to witness.

The Monster Mash ► Monday Musical Appreciation

On this day in 1962, Monster Mash was #1 on the Hit Parade, the first and last time a Halloween tune made the top of the charts.

The song was written by Lenny Capizzi and Robert George Pickett, who was known as Bobby “Boris” Pickett ever after. They were members of a Doo Wop band called the Cordials. One night lead singer, and aspiring actor, Bobby performed the tune “Little Darlin'” in the voice of Boris Karloff and the audience went wild.

Lightening struck, animating the song like Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory animated the Monster. The Monster Mash was written in May and shopped around to, and rejected by, several record companies until Gary S. Paxton agreed to produce and release the single on his GarPax label. GarPax had success with the previous novelty tune “Alley Oop,” by the Hollywood Argyles, of which Paxton was a member.

The tune was credited to Bobby “Boris” Pickett & the Crypt-Kickers who get name-checked in the tune as the Crypt-Kickers Five. One of those 5 Crypt-Kickers was a young, 20-year old Leon Russell, already considered one of the hottest studio session piano players in L.A.

Over the years Pickett mined the Spooky theme for song after song, but none ever achieved the status of The Monster Mash, although when I had the LP in the ’60s I much preferred The Blood Bank Blues.

Elmer, Bugs, Daffy, & Friends ► Saturday Morning Cartoons

Let’s turn our attention to the various antagonists in the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melody cartoons from by Warner Bros.

The Warner brothers were Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack, whose parents left a repressive regime in Poland before the turn of the last century.

First locating in Baltimore, then London, Ontario, Canada, before settling back in Baltimore. Then, a few years later, the family moved to Youngstown, Ohio. That’s where the brothers Warner first entered Show Business near the bottom rung of the ladder in the early 1900s.

Sam and Albert got their hands on a movie projector, paid $150 for prints of Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery, and took their show on the road. They started in the small towns of western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. These were mining towns starved for entertainment. As it turned out showing movies to rapt audiences was like printing cash. As the other brothers joined, it wasn’t long before they bought their first movie theater, and then another. Then they moved into film distribution, until they eventually branched out into producing movies at their own studio in Hollywood before the first World War.

By 1930 Warner Bros. was a powerhouse in the movie biz and decided to branch out into cartoons, by buying them from Leon Schlesinger, who got them from Harman and Ising Studios. The Looney Toons and Merrie Melodies cartoons became shorts for movie theaters playing between Warner Bros. movie double bills.

These cartoons eventually made it to Saturday morning tee vee, which was starved for content in the late ’50s and ’60s. That where those of my generation watched them endlessly.

Enough history. Here are some cartoons to Make ‘Merka Laugh Again, especially the last one with a wascally wabbit teaching a Donald Trump wannabe what’s what:

Waking Up in the Grove ► Unpacking Grand Avenue

Looking east along Grand Avenue with the sun rising over Biscayne Bay
This is Part Two of a series about Grand Avenue in Coconut Grove.

The car creeps west very slowly along Grand Avenue at well below the posted speed limit. It’s 5 in the morning. There are no cars to impede at this hour.

Very few people are even awake at this hour. In the Center Grove, those moving along Grand seem to be working folk. They’re either headed to work, or finishing an overnight shift. In several of the restaurants along this stretch, people are washing the floors, making them spick and span for the next seating at the next meal. At restaurants that serve breakfast the prep cooks are just starting to arrive.

Thirty, or so, bicyclists in tight spandex gather on McFarlane Road, just across from the narrow end of the triangle where it meets Grand and Main Highway at CocoWalk. Their flashing red tail lights make the scene other worldly at this time of the morning until, silently, they’re gone. At 5:30 the Starbucks in CocoWalk opens, which increases foot traffic as working people slowly trickle in for their ridiculously expensive lattes.

West of Margaret Street you’d be hard pressed to find a single place to buy a coffee — let alone a ridiculously expensive one — at any time of the day or night. That’s because after Margaret things change drastically. Grand Avenue goes from high end businesses and ritzy restaurants to a slum. The dividing line is the CVS Pharmacy.

CVS is the demarcation between East and West Grove

This is not a gradual transition, as it often is in other cities, where a boarded up building leads to a few more on the next block, then more on the next block, until you reach the epicenter of the blight.

Rather, the transition on Grand Avenue is instantaneous. Immediate. Sudden. The difference is so stark that it is noticeable and remarked upon by visitors who have never seen it before. Crossing Margaret is crossing Coconut Grove’s invisible Colour Line, from White Grove to Black Grove; from prosperous Grove to West Grove.

Beyond Margaret is what was once the prosperous main drag of the Black business district of Coconut Grove. Now it is one of the worst slums in all of Miami.

There is another noticeable difference, especially at 5:30 in the morning. The few people on the sidewalks along this stretch of Grand are, for the most part, down-and-out street folks like in all cities: some just homeless, some are addicts, and some are dealers.

Making an illegal U-turn at Douglas Road, the driver makes eye contact with as many of those solitary souls moving along Grand as possible. Sliding into the same parking space near Hibiscus Street week after week, the driver locks the car. Then he sits on a bench near a bus stop making notes, taking pictures, and talking to anyone who will talk back.

This has been my routine for the last many weeks running: observing how this part of Coconut Grove comes alive in the mornings. The advantage to sitting on the same bench week after week is that people get to know me. More of them are willing to talk to me, while others now call to me by name to join their conversations, to introduce me as a writer researching Coconut Grove.

People are starved to talk to anyone who will listen.

The life story I know best (because I’ve spent the most time with them) belongs to Rhonda and Nelson (all names in this story have been changed). Married, with 4 children and a dog, they are living in a building that was recently condemned. The evictions were put on hold while the city sues the owners, but many people have already left. Nelson says that there are only 7 families left in their building.

Rhonda and Nelson have been trying to leave for quite a while, but they have been unable to afford anything even close to the price they’re paying. What’s more is they have no reserve funds, living paycheque to paycheque like so many families in this country. Furthermore, just when it appears they have a small amout of money put aside, they’re hit with another unexpected bill. Just yesterday I heard how their car broke down and they had to put money they couldn’t spare into it.

Click to enlarge
I’ve written about that red line in Where the Sidewalk Ends, Racism Begins

One recent morning I watched as a neighbour walked her little boy across Grand to their place. They take him to school, along with their own kids, while she heads off to work.

I ride with Nelson as he drops one child off at the designated school bus stop. As we talk, he tells me about the complex we are parked next to. It’s called The Kingway Apartments. Despite the fancy name it’s nothing more than a huge grouping of squat, one story cinder block duplexes. It was still dark, so it took me a while to realize we were parked at the west end of Charles Terrace. This is directly in front of The Colour Line witten about in Where the Sidewalk Ends, Racism Begins.

The Kingsway is where Nelson and Rhonda are hoping to move. Every day they check with the landlord to see if a unit is coming open. For some reason there doesn’t appear to be a waiting list on which one can sign up. While The Kingsway is more than they’re paying now, it is almost just within their budget if they scrimp every single penny. However, it’s the only place around that’s remotely affordable.

When we return to his apartment, I let him attend to the rest of the family’s morning routine of getting the little ones dressed and off to school. I go back to sit on my bench and watch. Soon the sidewalks are coming alive with children carrying book bags and knapsacks. They come out of the concrete block buildings along Grand Avenue, and from houses along the residential streets running parallel, north and south of Grand. Some are accompanied by parents, Others travel in groups of two or more.

Morning peacocks on Franklin Avenue

I walk south on Hibiscus. There are a lot of kids walking to school now. When I get down to Franklin, just a few blocks south of Grand, I’m shocked.

Franklin at this time of day is a slow- moving, bumper-to-bumper, eastbound traffic jam from Plaza all the way to Main Highway. The small traffic circles — installed as a traffic calming device — are difficult to navigate with cars filling them.

These are also children going to school, but their rich White parents are taking them to Ransom Everglades School on Main Highway, not the public schools in the area. Each SUV seems to have a single parent and a single child inside. They are only using Franklin, which is still predominately Black owned, as a shunt to get from A to B. Otherwise they wouldn’t be caught dead in this part of West Grove, especially at night.

I walk back to Grand Avenue, the main street where — ironically — there is far less traffic, to get away from the car fumes. I’m back on my bench reviewing my notes about other people who also call this neighbourhood home.

There’s Bill. He was riding a bicycle as I slid into my usual parking spot at 5:30 AM. I nodded as he slowly rode past. When I got out of the car he said, “You okay?” This is street slang for “Would you like to buy some drugs?” Once again I have been racially profiled. The sad truth is that most of the White folk who show up on this end of Grand tend to be looking for drugs.

I told him I didn’t need anything, explained I was a writer, and asked if he’d sit and talk to me for a while. It was as simple as that. Bill and I sat there 25 minutes. I asked him intrusive questions about his business, his family, his home, life on Grand Avenue, and — most importantly — systemic racism in West Grove, where he has lived his entire life.

Bill was nervous every time a police car passed, as several did, and kept saying he should go. He admitted that he carried no drugs. Had we made a deal, it was something he had to retrieve. So I asked him why he was so nervous. A Black guy, known to the police, sitting with a White guy? That will attract undue attention. I kept telling him that we were just 2 men talking on a bench. I know my rights and would love a cop to show up and start asking questions.

Bill, who has been Black longer than I’ve been White (and older than the other bike salesmen in this part of town), was horrified at the thought that I might challenge a police officer. I explained to him how my White Privilege allows me to get away with stuff like that. That’s when Bill brought me up short. “But I’ll still be here tomorrow. Will you?”

Patrice is another of my early morning friends along Grand. She now introduces me to people as “Mr. Headly”, even though I have asked her not to call me Mister. The first time I met her she was with her friend Mary. At first I thought they were trying to hustle me and, maybe, they were. However, I made it clear pretty quickly that I was writing about Coconut Grove history. When they heard I was wrote about the E.W.F. Stirrup House, they were an open book. We went for a long walk along the residential streets where they showed me where there were hidden cameras in the trees in a vacant lot. There weren’t, but their drug paranoia was strong.

Mary is jonesing. She needs a pick me up. She needs to make money. She needs to pack because she’s being thrown out of her place today. She needs to go and take care of business. But she walked with us for another 15 minutes before she finally left, Patrice trying to convince her to stay the whole time.

Patrice and I walked further south to Marler Avenue, where I showed her another segment of the Miami-mandated and still visible Colour Line Wall, built to keep Black Grave and White Grove separate — and, incidentally, still doing a pretty good job of it. [Read Part Two of Where The Sidewak Ends, Racism Begins.]

As I explained to her why Marler is land-locked, I have rarely had a more attentive student on one of my walking history tours. However, while describing the chain link fence that went up across the footpath that connects Marler to Loquat Avenue, a friend of hers rode up on a bicycle. He said something to her that I didn’t hear. Patrice gave me a cute little shrug and went off with him.

The next time I see Patrice she’s sitting behind the wheel of a shiny brand new Mercedes. I don’t know it’s her at first. I was sitting on my customary bench a block away. Even at 5:30 in the morning it was hard not to miss that something was going on over there because the driver’s door was open and people kept walking over to the car to talk to the driver.

After an hour of note-taking, I got up and walked east. As I passed the car, I hear her calling, “Mr. Headly. Mr. Headly.”

She had 2 other people in the car with her. It started to drizzle when I left my bench, but suddenly the skies opened and it rained hard. I quickly ducked under the awning of a nearby store that hasn’t been open for years, but I’m soaked by the time I get there. It’s a brief shower, less than 5 minutes. I go back to the car to help Patrice because they needed to use my phone. Something had gone wrong with the Mercedes keyless ignition and it wouldn’t start. Her phone was out of juice and they needed to call the dealership.

At 6:30 in the morning no one is answering at the dealership and won’t until 9, according to the recording. Plan B is to use their AARP card. However, all AARP will do is arrange to have the car towed and no one wants that. It’s in a legal, free parking space. [Free because it’s west of Margaret, as are all parking spaces.]

The interior of the car looks like a closet exploded. Clothes and garbage bags filled with clothes are on the backseat. An elderly woman is nestled into all of this like it was a beanbag chair. Then I notice she’s smoking something out of a pipe. The car’s owner is in the passenger seat. She doesn’t look like she could afford a beater, let alone this luxury car that won’t start. She can barely communicate, which is why I am making these phone calls.

The woman in the back seat keeps nodding off during the time I’m on the phone. Suddenly she comes awake and decides it’s time to go. It becomes a scene from a situation comedy: an elderly woman trying to extricate herself from a beanbag chair. I offer my hand and help her out, but she loses her sandals in the process, one skittering under the car. As everybody starts looking for her sandals, I say goodbye to Patrice and head back to Center Grove to meet a source who explains to me the difference between affordable housing, sustainable housing, and workforce housing.

Because he’s using numbers — building costs per square foot, lot sizes, basic incomes, financing costs, percentages, and margins — it all goes over my head. [Numbers are my natural enemy.]

But what of the people who live along Grand Avenue? 

Bottom line? The people living along Grand in the cheap, but blighted, apartments are screwed. There will never be any affordable housing built for them. It’s best to think of all new West Grove construction as sustainable housing and/or workforce housing and/or luxury condos. West Grove will eventually look exactly like East Grove and will, no doubt, have the same racial demographic: White.

The basic problem is that these properties have been bought and sold by speculators and developers so many times over the last decade, that the price of the land alone has become astronomical. My real estate source says the land is now trading for far more than the real value should be. But, let’s face it, the actual value is whatever people will pay pay for it. As one developer after another ponied up, the price increased every time. By the time the developers are finished, Grand Avenue will be a concrete canyon 5 stories tall filled with condos, more restaurants, businesses, and not a single affordable unit among them. Anything less would not allow them to recoup their investment.

Along Frow Avenue (1 block north of Grand) and Thomas Avenue (1 block south), the neighbours will be forced to accept the back-ends of these buildings. What is currently two quiet residential streets of 1 story Conch and shotgun houses, will be replaced by 3 story buildings, as the Grand Avenue frontage is ‘stepped back’.  They’ll also have to deal with increased traffic, parking lots, and service entrances to these buildings.

This same inflation has come to the entire area north and south of Grand, the traditional Bahamian neighbourhood that’s older than Miami itself. Property values are such that homes that have been in the same family for generations are being sold by folks who find themselves land rich, but cash poor. As land values rise, it gets harder and harder for some people to keep up with the taxes. I hear anecdotal stories of speculators coming in with low ball offers for the deed and they’ll take over the tax arrears. More gossip is of people who reversed mortgaged their homes in order to stay.

Furthermore, the Coconut Grove Collaborative had a long-term plan for the infilling of inexpensive homes on the empty lots in this area. However, the price of the land has now made that a pipe dream.

Slowly the racial demographic of this historic and unique neighbourhood is being changed after remaining fairly cohesive and predominately Black-owned for close to 130 years.

Walking back to West Grove I watch the City of Miami Parks & Rec guy unlock Billie Rolle Domino Park, which is posted closed from sunset to sunrise. However, the sun rose quite a while ago. This is one of the parks that had to be closed due to toxic soil back in 2013. It was also one of the first parks remediated.

Because the park just opened, I’m the first person to use the washroom. It’s clean. I’ve used it much later in the day when it doesn’t look so nice. People have stashed stuff all around this pocket park under the benches. There’s a suitcase under one seat. A duffle bag under another. Under one bench there is a what appears to be an entire camping tent in it’s nylon carrying case. People stored these things here because the park is locked at night and they don’t have to lug this stuff.

Patrice and friends are still waiting for help to arrive. It’s surprising they’re being so conspicuous because the entire neighbourhood has been on edge because of heightened police activity recently.

Just 2 weeks ago I looked up from my computer to turn my attention to the local news on my tee vee. Police and media helicopters were flying over the intersection of Douglas Road and Grand Avenue. It was a weird bit of synchronicity that gave me goosebumps because I was working on Part One of this series, The Grand Avenue 2002 Vision Plan, at that exact moment.

All the local schools were on lockdown as dozens of police cars flooded the area. As I watched these events live at home, 35 miles away, I was texting my sources in The Grove to alert them what was happening in their neighbourhood in real time.

The official story is that police were looking for a robbery suspect who allegedly broke into 3 cars in the area. However, no one I’ve spoken to believes that. They believe police were looking for a suspect in a recent murder, who had been reported in the area because his ex-girlfriend claimed he had just stolen $10 from her and was still in the area.

Whatever brought this mighty show of force down upon West Grove, it served a greater purpose, keeping the folks in line. I have already spoken to several men who were detained that day. None were arrested. All were just harassed, insulted, and held for a while, for no reason at all. Each one (and I am only talking about 3, hardly a representative sample) told me they know the police and the police know them. Being detained was just part of the game being played that day.

From my bench at the western end of Grand Avenue I see the locals start to stir. Car traffic increases by the minute. Out of the side streets, from the residential part of West Grove, come drivers on their way to work. Most of them appear to be Black. They turn either east of west onto Grand and head off to work. However, I also notice that there are a lot of cars that are just using Grand as a shunt — just like Franklin — to get from one place to another. These are, for the most part, White folk.

They don’t/won’t stop in West Grove, long rumoured to be a dangerous neighbourhood. However, in the 7 years I’ve been researching Coconut Grove, wandering these streets at all hours of the day and night, I have never felt unsafe at all. In fact, as I am sitting on a bench getting another resident’s story, a guy walked by and said, “Welcome to the neighbourhood, buddy.” I guess now I’m considered a fixture.

This look at Grand Avenue is based on many visits and interviews over a period of time, although parts read like a single day.

 

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The Rolling Stones ► Monday Musical Appreciation

This is an important week in The Rolling Stones‘ history, with 4 separate events to write about — 3 of them from today alone.

The year 2016 brings them full-circle.

Formed in 1962, The Rolling Stones started as a Blues band, imitating the music they heard on “race records” coming out of the United States, before they started writing their own Rock and Roll tunes in imitation of their friends and rivals The Beatles. In December the Stones will return to their roots with “Blue and Lonesome” — their first studio CD in over a decade — a brand new album of old Blues. Here’s a 60 second sample:

So, why is this day so special for The Rolling Stones?

It was on this day in 1936 that future (and former) Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman was born as William George Perks in South London, England. That makes him 80 years old today. Wyman stepped off The Rolling Stones’ train in 1993 and has been touring as Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings since 1997.

However, on Wyman’s 23rd birthday in 1959 — before he had even bought his first bass guitar — he married his first wife, 18-year-old Diane Corey. She stepped off the Wyman train in 1967, the divorce becoming final in 1969.

Today also represents the denouement of an event that could have spelled the end of The Rolling Stones. More than a year earlier, on February 27, 1977, Keith Richards was busted for possession of heroin in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The Stones had been in Toronto to play a surprise show — at the famed El Mocambo on Spadina Avenue — that later became the 2-LP release Love You Live. This was also the show that saw them partying with Margaret Trudeau, the wife of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.


• The full El Mocambo release, one tune at a time •

According to KSHE-95:

[Richards] was awakened by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who found five grams of cocaine and 22 grams of heroin in his room, among other substances. Richards was charged with “possession of cocaine and heroin with intent to traffic.”

Richards recalled being awoken by the officers smacking him conscious so that they could formally arrest him: “That took them about two hours to drag me out — pow, pow. I woke up with, like, rosy cheeks. ‘Oh, he’s awake: You are under arrest!’ (Laughs) ‘Oh, great!’ I looked at the old lady and I said, ‘I’ll see you in about seven years, babe.'”

Although Richards was eventually released on $25,000 bail, due to the trafficking charge, he faced a minimum seven-year prison term if found guilty. Richards, who due to his growing and public drug use had been on the wrong side of the law since 1967, was now facing the most serious criminal charge of his life.

A 7 year prison term — any prison term — could have spelled the end of the Stones. However, on this date in 1978, in a plea deal that gave him a Suspended Sentence, Richards pleaded guilty to heroin possession. He was also ordered to play a charity concert for the Canadian Institute for the Blind.

Later this week we also remember event number 4, which was recorded and released as a movie.

From the WikiWackyWoo:

T.A.M.I. Show is a 1964 concert film released by American International Pictures. It includes performances by numerous popular rock and roll and R&B musicians from the United States and England. The concert was held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on October 28 and 29, 1964. Free tickets were distributed to local high school students. The acronym “T.A.M.I.” was used inconsistently in the show’s publicity to mean both “Teenage Awards Music International” and “Teen Age Music International”.

The best footage from the two concert dates was combined into the film, which was released on December 29, 1964. Jan and Dean emceed the event and performed its theme song, “Here They Come (From All Over the World)”, written by Los Angeles composers P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri. Jack Nitzsche was the show’s music director.

The film was shot by director Steve Binder and his crew from The Steve Allen Show, using a precursor to high-definition television, called “Electronovision“, invented by the self-taught “electronics whiz,” Bill Sargent (H.W. Sargent, Jr). The film was the second of a small number of productions that used the system.[1] By capturing more than 800 lines of resolution at 25 frame/s, the video could be converted to film via kinescope recording with sufficiently enhanced resolution to allow big-screen enlargement. It is considered one of the seminal events in the pioneering of music films, and more importantly, the later concept of music videos.

Among the other performers at The T.A.M.I. Show were: The Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Lesley Gore, Jan and Dean, Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, and The Supremes. The house band were those musicians known to us as The Wrecking Crew, and included such veteran studio musicians as Hal Blaine (drums), Jimmy Bond (electric bass), Lyle Ritz (upright bass), Plas Johnson (sax), and Leon Russell (piano). Handling guitars was the triple threat of Tommy Tedesco, Bill Aken, and Glen Campbell.

The songs The Rolling Stones played at The T.A.M.I Show were “Around and Around”, “Off the Hook”, “Time Is on My Side”, “It’s All Over Now”, “I’m Alright”, and “Let’s Get Together”. The Stones closed the movie in dramatic fashion. Check out the smoking ending where The Wrecking Crew begins to play, the Stones drop out, and the entire stage is filled with performers and dancers:

Still going strong, The Rolling Stones played “Oldchella” just last week, covering The Beatles’s “Come Together,” which was available on the innertubes briefly.

Popeye The Sailor ► Saturday Morning Cartoons

An early Thimble Theatre starring an early Popeye

Popeye the Sailor Man is, according to the Wiki, a “cartoon fictional character,” in case any of you were confused.

He began his fictional life in the comic strips, which were a very big thing in the early years of the last century. Elzie Crisler Segar was the cartoonist who midwifed Popeye, adding him to his Thimble Theatre strip in 1929, 10 years after he began drawing it for King Features Syndicate.

Right from the start the strip featured the adventures of Olive Oyl, her older and shorter brother Castor Oyl, and her fiancé Harold Hamgravy. Ten years into the strip Ham Gravy (his name got shortened) hired a new character named Popeye to captain his treasure hunting ship. Little did he know that Popeye would become so popular that he’d become a regular and would eventually push him aside in Olive’s heart.

However, it was not love at first sight.

Olive and Popeye actually hated each other when they first met (her first words to him were “Take your hooks offa me or I’ll lay ya in a scupper”); they fought bitterly—and hilariously—for weeks until finally realizing that they had feelings for each other.

Popeye didn’t become animated until 1933, when Max Fleischer obtained the rights to make the original cartoons for Paramount Pictures. In his cinematic debut (above), Popeye appeared under the rubric of a Betty Boop cartoon, which the Fleischers were already producing, the only time that would happen.
The WikiWackyWoo picks up the story:

In every Popeye cartoon, the sailor is invariably put into what seems like a hopeless situation, upon which (usually after a beating), a can of spinach which he apparently regularly carries with him falls out from inside his shirt. Popeye immediately pops the can open and gulps the entire contents of it into his mouth, or sometimes sucks in the spinach through his corncob pipe. Upon swallowing the spinach, Popeye’s physical strength immediately becomes superhuman, and he is easily able to save the day (and very often rescue Olive Oyl from a dire situation). It did not stop there, as spinach could also give Popeye the skills and powers he needed, as in The Man on the Flying Trapeze, where it gave him acrobatic skills. (When the antagonist is the Sea Hag, it is Olive who eats the spinach; Popeye can’t hit a lady.)

In 1941 Paramount took over control of Fleischer Studios and they fired Dave and Max Fleischer, renaming the company Famous Studios. The quality of the Popeye cartoons began going downhill until the ’60s, when 220 cartoons were produced exclusively for television. These are the worst of the lot.

In 1980 Robert Altman directed a Popeye live-action musical comedy starring Robin Williams as Popeye and Shelly Duvall as Olive Oyl, with songs written by Harry Nilsson, except this one, of course:

The movie bombed at the box office, but has become a cult classic. Robin Williams was not a fan. He said that if you play it backwards, there’s a plot.

“Some people say” Nilsson’s songs were the best part of the movie. In fact, Harry recorded each of the songs as demos to be given to the actors, so they could earn the tunes. Luckily for Nilsson fans, some of these demos have escaped from the recording studio. What’s impressive about these songs is how they do not need the actor’s voice to stand up on their own. Each tune embodies the character within the music and lyrics. Listen:

However, the classic Popeyes are the original Fleischer cartoons. There are 109 of them. Here are just 10 for your viewing pleasure.