Tag Archives: Throwback Thursday

McCarthyism Redux ► Throwback Thursday

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It was 62 years ago today when Senator Joseph McCarthy was famously rebuked by Joseph Welch, chief counsel for the United States Army, which was under attack by “Tailgunner” Joe during the height of the Red Scare of the ’50s:

“You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

McCarthyism led to many good people being blacklisted in their chosen professions, including the most well-known, the Hollywood 10. The WikiWackyWoo has a list of the Victims of McCarthy, which is still not exhaustive. You may not know many of the names on that list, but it includes such notables as Lucille Ball, Elmer Bernstein, Leonard Bernstein, Bertolt Brecht, Luis Buñuel, Charlie Chaplin, Aaron Copland, Howard Da Silva, Dolores del Río, W.E.B. Du Bois, Albert Einstein, John Garfield, Jack Gilford, Allen Ginsberg, Ruth Gordon, Lee Grant, Dashiell Hammett, Lillian Hellman, Lena Horne, Langston Hughes, Sam Jaffe, Danny Kaye, Gypsy Rose Lee, Burgess Meredith, Arthur Miller, Zero Mostel, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Dorothy Parker, Linus Pauling, Paul Robeson, Edward G. Robinson, Pete Seeger, Artie Shaw, and Orson Welles.

Speaking of no sense of decency: In 2016 we have entered a new era of
McCarthyism, with GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump lashing out
indiscriminately at Mexicans and Muslims. George Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

As a public service the Not Now Silly Newsroom wants to remind everyone of that ugly era in ‘Merkin history in an effort to wake people up to the evils of Trumpism.

Everything old is new again!!!


More Trumpism at the Not Now Silly Newsroom:

The Officials’ Story ► Throwback Thursday

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Officials’ 4 song EP with artwork by Barbara Klunder

This Thursday we’re going to throw it all the way back to 1989, when I was managing Officials, a Worldbeat band in Toronto that had a lot of promise. 

It was my 3rd — and my very last — time managing a band, a thankless task if there ever was one. However, I was a fan of every band I managed. It was never about making money, although it was hoped that that would be the eventual outcome.

The first band I ever managed was Ishan People, Toronto’s first Roots Reggae band. I tell that story in greater detail in You Made Me So Very Happy ► My Days With David Clayton-Thomas. However, Ishan People (later Ishan Band) recorded 2 LPs before Canadian Immigration discovered that not everyone in the band had all their documents. The band broke up as some members were deported. Too bad. They were great.

The second band I managed was Drastic Measures. They should have done much better. However, DM was performing Art/Pop Rock when all anyone wanted to hear was Punk. Clever music was simply not breaking through the noise back then.



An unironic cover of the classic Bing Crosby
tune with Nash the Slash on overdubbed violins.

How is that going to break through The Angry Punk Scene? It was all uphill.

The band fired me after their record producer convinced them they no longer needed a manager because they had a album release. No. Really. I always suspected that he had hoped to manage the band himself, but that never happened. Managerless, Drastic Measures never did break through the noise.

Then in ’89 it was Officials. I originally met leader/drummer Roy Garrick when we both worked as waiters in the same restaurant. Somehow he learned that I had managed bands previously and asked me to listen to Officials to see if I wanted to manage them.

The band set up in a small, sweltering basement near Bathurst and Vaughan. The room was so small it barely contained the band and their equipment. There was nowhere to move. Under these static conditions Officials performed an entire, blistering set for me as the only audience member.

I was blown away. They were easily better than any of the bands I was seeing in Toronto clubs at the time. Officials blended various musical genres. The band members were from many different parts of the globe, making them a true World Beat band. I couldn’t wait to offer my services as manager.

For bonus points, on guitar and vocals was Del Richardson from Osibisa, whose LPs I had promoted years earlier when I worked for Island Records Canada.

So, we set about putting together a master plan. Aside from gigging as often as humanly possible for as much, or little, money as I could squeeze out of the club owners, that included rolling all profits into recording a 4 song 12″ EP as a demo record to use to get signed to a bigger label.

We were grateful to get all these column inches in The Star

One of the jobs of Manager is stroking the media, trying to get them out to gigs or to review the EP. Or, in this case, both.

Yesterday, while going through my analog file cabinet, I came across a letter I sent to The Toronto Star’s Craig MacInnes, promoting the hell out of the band. [SYNCHRONICITY ALERT: Recently MacInnes and I became facefriends through a mutual face-to-face-friend.]

This came at a transitional period for the band because there had been a recent change in personnel. Consequently, the band bio that I had spent several weeks writing was no longer operative. MacInnes was asking me for biographical info on the new band members in anticipation of an upcoming interview with Garrick.

My reply began:

Firstly, I’d like to thank you for your continued interest and support of OFFICIALS. Secondly, I’d like to apologize for the rushed nature of this information. We were in the process of preparing a new biography. This request just made me do it all the sooner.

Every review was a feather in my cap

After describing the new members, I ended the letter with as many strokes as I thought I could give MacInnes — without him thinking I was trying to kiss his ass for a good review — ending with one last plug for my clients:

Well, Craig, that’s about it. 

Nobody knows how hard it is for new independent bands starting out like you do. You must hear hundreds of stories like this. It’s good to know you are out there supporting the up and coming bands.

I’ve been working with OFFICIALS for a year now. I managed ISHAN PEOPLE (Canada’s first Reggae band) as well as DRASTIC MEASURES (an early Queen Street W. Art/Rock band). Neither had the staying power and the chance to make it that OFFICIALS do. Unlike other bands working in town now, OFFICIALS are truly a WorldBeat band honestly synthesizing many different rhythms into what we call OFFICIALS’ Style. Conventions are unimportant; what’s important is what works and what sounds good and positive lyrics and a dancable [sic] beat. Nothing else enters into it. But, don’t take my word for it. Come down to the Diamond Club and hear us. I know you’ll like the band. 

Thank you for all your time and trouble on our behalf.

The letter led to a phone interview published 3 days later (see above), so I guess it did the trick.

What I find highly amusing in retrospect is that MacInnes begins with his amazement that Roy Garrick has a car phone at a time when The Brick was the new cell phone technology. Now, 27 years later, most of us carry a phone in our pocket.

All good things must come to an end. My tenure with Officials ended spectacularly: I quit after the band held back money owed to me following an extremely well-paying 2-week gig in the Caribbean.

The agreement we had was not the standard manager/band contract. As opposed to a percentage, we split the proceeds equally (after expenses), which gave me a smaller percentage than I would have as a manager. However, it gave us all equal incentive to take it all to the next level.

When I quit I naturally had all of the band’s files, including distribution contracts, band bios, glossies, and all the promo material, in my analog file cabinet. I became THAT asshole: I refused to turn it over to the band unless they paid the money owed to me from previous gigs. We settled on $2500 and the band signed a promissory note for the money. It has never been paid. It was also one of the documents I discovered yesterday.

A few years back I created a video from one of Officials’ songs. I hope you like it, but I guess I don’t really care all that much.

Writing News With A Union Label ► Throwback Thursday

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Gather ’round, kiddies, and I’ll tell you the story of when I was a News Writer for Citytv’s BreakfastTelevision [sic] and wrote the perfect news script.

I worked at CityPulse for just over a decade. During my time there I cycled through every newscast they had: CityPulse at 6, CityPulse at 11, the weekend Pulses, and the short-lived LunchTelevision. However, most of my time was on BreakfastTelevision, some 8 years. I was with the show the day it was launched. While the station had an idea of what the show would be, it was up to us to give it shape and flesh it out.

I enjoyed the hell out of my job, but everything changed for me the day I wrote the perfect script.

The News Segment Producer, the person who gave the News Writers, Editors, Control Room their marching orders, had a soft spot for animal stories. I knew that whenever there was an animal story, either local or off the feeds, she would make sure to devote precious air time to it. On this particular morning she handed me some wire copy, told me there was VID on the overnight satellite feed, and tasked me with writing the script for it. It was a simple, but heartwarming, story of a university in the east closing en entire parking lot because an endangered bird chose to build a nest and lay eggs in it.

Kevin Frankish was one of the nicest people I wrote
for. “Choose alternate routes” is an homage to him.

Because it wouldn’t come up until later in the show — the last News Pack at 8:30 — I pushed it aside. In the meantime there were stories to write for earlier packs. As I handled those first, it came to me in a flash how I should treat this purple plover story. I quickly banged it off, polished it, and then sheepishly took it to Kevin Frankish, which was not the normal chain of command. However, let’s face facts: If Kevin refused to read it, there was little point in giving it to the producer for approval. I handed him the script and asked what he thought.

Kevin took one look at it, laughed, and said, “I love it!”

With his approval under my belt I took it to the News Producer who said, “Kevin will never read this.”

“I just showed it to him. He loves it,” I replied.

She yells across the room to the Assignment Desk, “ABOUT THIS SCRIPT OF HEADLY’S?!?!”

Kevin yells back, “I LOVE IT!!!”

That’s exact moment my fate was sealed. Here’s how it opened:

In Pembroke a pair of purple plovers picked a patch of parking lot to procreate.

The rest of the script was just a quick rewrite of the wire copy to match the footage. I printed out the obligatory 12 copies of the script and hand delivered Kevin’s to him, leaving the rest for the intern to distribute as usual.

The Purple Plover

For the next 2 hours, whenever he wasn’t on camera, I could see Kevin practicing the script. I couldn’t wait to hear this jewel delivered. However, the minute my script hit the TelePrompTer, it all fell apart. Kevin started sputtering like Porky Pig, tripping his entire way through the opening line.

Finally he broke and said, “See the things they get me to read here? Headly, what are you doing to me?”

I was always thrilled when my name was mentioned On Air, because it was so infrequent. However, that was one of the last thrills I ever had at Citytv.

When my boss arrived there was steam coming out of his ears. As he passed through the newsroom, he screamed at me to get into his office, where he yelled at me and swore at me for a good 15 minutes. “WE DO NOT GIVE OUR ANCHORS TONGUE TWISTERS!!!”

“But it was approved up and down the line.”

“I DON’T FUCKING CARE!!! WE DO NOT GIVE OUR ANCHORS TONGUE TWISTERS!!!”

“But we’re told to make our scripts cheeky and interesting.”

“I DON’T GIVE A FUCK!!! WE DO NOT GIVE OUR FUCKING ANCHORS FUCKING TONGUE TWISTERS!!! WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING???”

“I was thinking that it would have been great had Kevin not flubbed it.”

“HE FLUBBED IT BECAUSE IT WAS A FUCKING TONGUE TWISTER. WE DO NOT GIVE OUR ANCHORS FUCKING TONGUE TWISTERS!!!”

Here’s my takeaway from that meeting:

  1. We do not give our anchors tongue twisters;
  2. That day was the first of a non-stop campaign of harassment that continued until I finally left Citytv.

That was the day I became the office goat.

I had seen it happen to others before. Newsroom management would tag someone as the goat either overtly — “Get the fuck in my office right now!” — or it might be a covert whisper campaign that one could watch trickle down from up high — “They’re not our kind of people.” It could be someone new. Or, it could be someone that was there for years and had never been disciplined before, like me.

However, the newsroom staff quickly learned who was the Goat Du Jour. Everyone up and down the chain of command fell into line, treating that employee as toxic. Over the years I saw one goat after another. Eventually the goat would quit or a newer goat would be chosen. Or both.

When I became the goat the harassment was relentless. My newsroom mentor — someone in the know, who attended the management meetings with The Big Boys — told me they wanted me to quit. Because I loved my job, I decided to tough it out convinced they’d eventually find a new goat. I was mistaken.

They started finding every little thing wrong with my performance. I took too long to write some scripts. I didn’t spend enough time writing others. Because writing is subjective, and there’s no sentence that can’t be improved with enough editing, they kept finding individual sentences, out of context, that didn’t meet their suddenly high standards. Keep in mind I had never been tagged for any of this in the previous 8 years.

Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada

Eventually management scheduled a weekly meeting with me and my union rep to rake me over the coals in a discipline hearing. Every fucking week.

It only made management madder at me when I first refused to even meet with them for these punching bag sessions unless they allowed my union rep to attend. Insisting on my union rights just became an invisible black mark, because they couldn’t write it down. But, it sure pissed them off.

In the end I grieved the entire deal. It went to arbitration, which was a mistake. Arbitration is another word for compromise. I was off work for an entire year. At first I was off on a [possibly-related] Medical leave. When I was deemed well, they refused to allow me to come back to work. However, because I had started the grievance process, I couldn’t look for work, otherwise Citytv could say I had quit and abandoned my job. I had to borrow money from family and friends to stay alive and my union advanced me some money as well.

In the end I was sent packing with a lump sum that felt inadequate, but my union told me it was the best I was going to get. Oddly enough, I was never asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement with Citytv, but they agreed to give me a letter of recommendation and promised not to bad-mouth me to prospective employers. That promise was broken when I had someone in the industry call to say they were thinking of hiring me.

After a lawyer told me I would have trouble suing for that, I stopped using Citytv on my resume. The decade I spent there mattered for nothing in the job market.

Post script: In the end all of those people who yelled and screamed and belittled and harrassed their underlings were fired in a purge when ultimate boss Moses Znaimer found out how they were really treating the people below them, including the on air talent.

If I had it all to do over again, I wouldn’t write the perfect script.

George Carlin, Johnny Carson, and Comedy ► Throwback Thursday

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George Carlin, the man who challenged both censors and the institution of Stand Up Comedy, would have celebrated his 79th birthday today, had he not been so foolish to die in 2008. 

Carlin started his career in radio while he was still in the USAF. While it only lasted a few months, it gave him that first taste of Show Biz. Soon he teamed up with Jack Burns as a comedy duo, and the two of them went on to some success, appearing on tee vee and recording an album. After 2 years they went their separate ways. As his official biography tells us:

After splitting with Burns, Carlin spent about a year working in
nightclubs without much success and with no television exposure. In
1963, he branched out into folk clubs and coffee houses where the
audiences were more progressive, and where he could develop both styles
of material he felt capable of. He balanced mainstream material with the
more outspoken, irreverent routines that were closer to his heart. In
1963 in he found the Café au Go Go in Greenwich Village and spent the
better part of two years developing his comic style. Ironically, it was
in this folk/jazz setting that he developed the first bits which got him
on television, the ultimate establishment medium. The Indian Sergeant,
Wonderful Wino, and the Hippy Dippy Weatherman were all born during this
period. So was George and Brenda’s only daughter, Kelly.

At the time Carlin was still a straight comedian, with short hair, no facial hair, and wearing a suit and tie — a far cry from the way he looked later in his career.

However, he was already moving away from conformity. As the WikiWackyWoo tells us:

Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce‘s
arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members
of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his
identification. Telling the police he did not believe in
government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in
the same vehicle.[21]

Starting in the mid ’60s Carlin started to appear regularly on television. But . . .

During the late 1960’s, because of the influence television was
having on his career, Carlin’s new material grew bland and safe. The
rebellious, anti-establishment tone of some of his earlier routines had
disappeared, and increasingly he felt bored and dissatisfied with his
material and the places he was working. By 1970, his self-imposed
restrictions no longer applied; his acting and career had been put on
hold, and the country was changing. The people who had inhabited the
folk clubs and coffee houses of the early ’60s were now the
“counterculture,” a large ready-made audience which shared many of
Carlin’s out-of-step attitudes and opinions. He began to drift in their
direction.

During 1970 the irreverent tone returned to his material, he grew a
beard, and began to dress more casually. However, the “new” George
Carlin didn’t sit well with his middleclass audiences nor with nightclub
owners. A series of incidents with audiences and owners that year
culminated in his being fired from the Frontier Hotel in September for
saying “shit.” In December he worked his last “establishment” job: The
San Francisco Playboy Club. From then on, his comedic identity became
more and more associated with the counterculture.

Then came his most famous routine, Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television, which itself was subject to an obscenity trial when he was arrested in 1972 for performing it. Eventually, the case was dismissed. While the judge agreed the words were indecent, he affirmed Carlin’s First Amendment Right to say them.

Along the way Carlin took up acting, appearing in a number of movies, including the cult favourite Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

Carlin died of a heart attack on June 22, 2008. Just 4 days earlier he was announced as the latest recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He was the first to given the award posthumously at a star-studded affair in November.

Back in January Antenna TV, one of a several nostalgia stations that have cropped up in the last few years, started running entire episodes of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, renamed Johnny Carson for these rebroadcasts at 11PM every night. As often as I am able — because it’s past my bedtime — I try and tune into the beginning of the show to catch who the guests are, and to watch the opening monologue. Tuesday night Carlin was Johnny’s guest and I forced myself to stay up and watch him performing a very funny routine of non sequiturs, small jokes that had no linkage.

Comedy has sure changed a lot since George Carlin started in the ’50s and he is one of the main agents of that change.

On Tuesday night, the same night he was being rerun on Carson’s show, his daughter Kelly announced at a private event that she was donating the Carlin’s archives to the newly formed National Comedy Center. According to NPR:

“Everybody’s gotta have a little place for their stuff. That’s all life is about. Trying to find a place for your stuff.” — George Carlin

It’s one of his most famous routines and, like all great comedy, contains more than a grain of truth.
Since
he died eight years ago, the keeper of George Carlin’s “stuff” has been
his daughter, writer and performer Kelly Carlin. She says he kept
everything: Scrapbooks. Arrest records. The pink slip to his first car, a
Dodge Dart. VHS tapes.

From “handwritten notes of his actual working on comedy ideas to
his kind of OCD-esque way of making lists of things, like every routine
he ever did on a late night show,” she says. “When comedians would come
over to my house and I would say, ‘Do you want to take a glance at my
dad’s stuff?’ Their eyes would light up. I knew how to get to their
hearts immediately,” she says, laughing.

While he was alive George Carlin entered the pantheon of Great Comedians. His fame has only increased in the years since his death.

Here are a few laughs courtesy of George Carlin:








The Zero Factor ► Throwback Thursday

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William Henry Harrison (1773 – 1841) was the
first president to run afoul of The Zero Factor.

The Zero Factor is a spooky superstition which insisted that all Presidents elected in a year ending in zero — which happens every 20 years — will die in office. The Zero Factor was blamed for an uninterrupted chain of presidential deaths that didn’t end until President Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980.

The first inkling I had concerning Presidential Deaths and the Zero Factor was back in grade school when I had to do an essay on William Henry Harrison, a presidential name drawn from a hat.

William Henry Harrison was the 9th president, elected in 1840 running on the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler too.” Tippecanoe was his nickname and referred to his military victory in the Battle of Tippecanoe, when his troops repulsed a Native American confederacy that was opposed to the illegal European aliens’ continued expansion west. As the Wiki puts it simply, “The defeat was a setback for Tecumseh‘s confederacy from which it never fully recovered.”

Harrison was the oldest president until Ronald Reagan and the first to die in office, a mere 32 days after taking the oath. He was his own worst enemy. As we learn from the WikiWackyWoo:

He took the oath of office on March 4, 1841, a cold and wet day.[62]
He wore neither an overcoat nor hat, rode on horseback to the ceremony
rather than in the closed carriage that had been offered him, and
delivered the longest inaugural address in American history.[62] At 8,445 words, it took him nearly two hours to read, although his friend and fellow Whig Daniel Webster had edited it for length. Harrison then rode through the streets in the inaugural parade,[63] and that evening attended three inaugural balls,[64]
including one at Carusi’s Saloon entitled the “Tippecanoe” ball, which
at a price of US$10 per person (equal to $229 today) attracted 1000
guests.

Three weeks later he caught a cold, which developed into pneumonia and pleurisy. He died on April 4, 1841, the first victim of the Zero Factor, which also became known as Curse of Tippecanoe, blamed on a curse that Tecumseh was supposed to have uttered before his death during the War of 1812.

The next victim of The Zero Factor was Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States. We all know what happened to him.

James A. Garfield was elected POTUS in 1880 and assassinated by deranged office seeker Charles J. Guiteau in 1881. Garfield might have lived had he been shot just a few years later when all doctors accepted the practices of Joseph Lister concerning infection. Again from the Wiki:

According to some historians and medical experts, Garfield might have
survived his wounds had the doctors attending him had at their disposal
today’s medical research, techniques, and equipment.[187]
Standard medical practice at the time dictated that priority be given
to locating the path of the bullet. Several of his doctors inserted
their unsterilized fingers into the wound to probe for the bullet, a common practice in the 1880s.[187] Historians agree that massive infection was a significant factor in President Garfield’s demise.[187]
Biographer Peskin stated that medical malpractice did not contribute to
Garfield’s death; the inevitable infection and blood poisoning that
would ensue from a deep bullet wound resulted in damage to multiple
organs and spinal bone fragmentation.[188] Rutkow, a professor of surgery at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey,
has argued that starvation also played a role. Rutkow suggests that
“Garfield had such a nonlethal wound. In today’s world, he would have
gone home in a matter of two or three days.”[187]

Next up? That would be President William McKinley, elected in 1900 and assassinated by a crazed anarchist Leon Czolgosz in Buffalo, New York on September 6, 1901. It happened inside the Temple of Music during the Pan-American Exposition. On the 14th he died of the gangrene that had infected his body. The Zero Factor takes another life.

Twenty years later it was Warren Harding‘s turn to run up against The Zero Factor. Elected in 1920, he died on August 2, 1923, of a cerebral hemorrhage in San Francisco while on a swing through the west.

Also dying of a cerebral hemorrhage was the next victim of The Zero Factor, our longest-serving president, Franklin Roosevelt. Originally elected in 1932, Roosevelt was re-elected for an unprecedented (and no longer possible) 3rd term in 1940. Re-elected again in 1944, during World War II, Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945. His last words were reportedly, “I have a terrific pain in the back of my head.”

John F. Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States and the last to be assassinated.

The next president to be elected in a year ending in Zero was Ronald Reagan. When, on March 30, 1981, John Hinckley, Jr., slipped out of a crowd at the Washington Hilton and attempted to assassinate him, I was convinced it was The Zero Factor at work again. However, Reagan survived his wounds and eventually went back to work.

It wasn’t until years later the public learned how close to death Reagan had been and how much the assassination attempt took out of him.

In 2000 George W. Bush was elected president and, except for starting wars against countries that didn’t attack the United States, there were no incidents even remotely resembling The Zero Factor.

In 2000 Arianne R. Cohen of The Harvard Crimson wrote of George W. Bush and The Zero Factor:

According to legend, our new president has an extremely high chance of
dying while in office–an 87.5 percent chance, in fact, based on the
seven of eight eligible presidents who have died by the legend. Many
voters–45 percent, to be exact–would probably find this statistic to
be the only positive thing about Election 2000, although I personally
would prefer to have a president too incompetent to do damage in office
over one who voted against the Clean Water Act (our new Vice
President-elect Richard B. Cheney). However, a legend’s a legend, and a
legend doesn’t care about personal opinions.

[…]The only other president to die in office was President Zachary Taylor,
elected in 1848. However, President Taylor allegedly spent July 4, 1850,
eating cherries and milk at a ceremony at the Washington Monument. He
got sick from the heat and died five days later, the second president to
die in office. Frankly, he should have known better–that cherries and
milk combination is always a killer.

What’s amusing about this curious slice of history is how for more than a century this silly superstition was considered to have been a Native curse against the White interlopers. Guilt much?

Official Stamp of Approval ► Throwback Thursday

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Further reading elsewhere:

The First 5 African-Americans to be Featured on U.S. Stamps
African-Americans on Stamps (to 2004)
Black Heritage (1978-present)

On this day in 1940 the United States Postal Service issued a stamp featuring Booker T. Washington, the first Black person to be so honoured on a U.S. stamp.

Booker Taliaferro Washington was born into slavery in April 5, 1856, and became one of the most respected men in the entire world. During the earliest years of the Jim Crow Era, when just looking at someone the wrong way was enough to get a Black man lynched, Washington was one of the leading voices against the treatment of Black folk in the country.

History channel has more highlights:

Born a slave on a Virginia farm, Washington (1856-1915) rose to become one of the most influential African-American intellectuals of the late 19th century. In 1881, he founded the Tuskegee Institute, a black school in Alabama devoted to training teachers. Washington was also behind the formation of the National Negro Business League 20 years later, and he served as an adviser to Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Although Washington clashed with other black leaders such as W. E. B. Du Bois and drew ire for his seeming acceptance of segregation, he is recognized for his educational advancements and attempts to promote economic self-reliance among African Americans.

The Famous American
stamp series of 1940:

The Washington stamp, coming 2 days after his birthday and 35 years after his death, was issued as part of the Famous American Series of stamps that included 34 other people in various categories. (See full list below the picture to the right.) As we learn from Wikipedia:

In 1940, the U.S. Post Office issued a set of 35 stamps, issued over the
course of approximately ten months, commemorating America’s famous
Authors, Poets, Educators, Scientists, Composers, Artists and Inventors.
The Educators included Booker T. Washington, who now became the first
African-American to be honored on a U.S. stamp. This series of Postage
issues was printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
These stamps were larger in size than normal definitive issues, with
only 280 stamp images contained on the printing plate (400 images was
standard for the Presidential series). Notable also is the red-violet
color chosen for the 3¢ stamps, a brighter hue than the traditional
purple.

This was not Washington’s only honour. According to the WikiWackyWoo:

For his contributions to American society, Washington was granted an honorary master’s degree from Harvard University in 1896 and an honorary doctorate from Dartmouth College in 1901.
At the end of the 2008 presidential election, the defeated Republican candidate, Senator John McCain, referred to Booker Washington’s visit to Theodore Roosevelt’s White House, a century before, as the seed that blossomed into Barack Obama as the first African American to be elected President of the United States.[citation needed]

In 1934 Robert Russa Moton,
Washington’s successor as president of Tuskegee University, arranged an
air tour for two African-American aviators. Afterward he had the plane
named the Booker T. Washington.[citation needed]

On April 7, 1940, Washington became the first African American to be
depicted on a United States postage stamp. Several years later, he was
honored on the first coin to feature an African American, the Booker T. Washington Memorial Half Dollar, which was minted by the United States from 1946 to 1951. He was also depicted on a U.S. Half Dollar from 1951–1954.[47]

In 1942, the liberty ship Booker T. Washington was named in his honor, the first major oceangoing vessel to be named after an African American. The ship was christened by Marian Anderson.[48]

On April 5, 1956, the hundredth anniversary of Washington’s birth, the house where he was born in Franklin County, Virginia, was designated as the Booker T. Washington National Monument.

A state park in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was named in his honor, as was a bridge spanning the Hampton River adjacent to his alma mater, Hampton University.

In 1984 Hampton University dedicated a Booker T. Washington Memorial on campus near the historic Emancipation Oak,
establishing, in the words of the University, “a relationship between
one of America’s great educators and social activists, and the symbol of
Black achievement in education.”[49]

Numerous high schools, middle schools and elementary schools[50] across the United States have been named after Booker T. Washington.

At the center of the campus at Tuskegee University, the Booker T. Washington Monument, called Lifting the Veil, was dedicated in 1922. The inscription at its base reads:

He lifted the veil of ignorance from his people and pointed the way to progress through education and industry.

In 2000, West Virginia State University
(WVSU; then West Va. State College), in cooperation with other
organizations including the Booker T. Washington Association,
established the Booker T. Washington Institute, to honor Washington’s boyhood home, the old town of Malden, and the ideals Booker Washington stood for.[51]

On October 19, 2009, WVSU dedicated a monument to the memory of noted African American educator and statesman Booker T. Washington. The event took place at West Virginia State University’s Booker T. Washington Park in Malden, West Virginia.
The monument also honors the families of African ancestry who lived in
Old Malden in the early 20th century and who knew and encouraged Booker
T. Washington. Special guest speakers at the event included West
Virginia Governor Joe Manchin III, Malden attorney Larry L. Rowe, and the president of WVSU. Musical selections were provided by the WVSU “Marching Swarm.”[52]

Bill O’Reilly and Flavor Flav ► Throwback Thursday

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Happy birthday to Flavor Flav, born and named William Jonathan Drayton, Jr., 57 years ago today.

There’s a strange nexus between Flavor Flav and the Fox “News” Channel which requires further explanation.

When I first started writing for NewsHounds — under the nom de blog Aunty Em Ericann — one of the bizarre rumours I heard concerned Flavor Flav and Bill O’Reilly, who would prefer to DO IT LIVE!!!

The crazy rumour was this: That before Maureen E. McPhilmy married Bill O’Reilly — aka Loofah Lad — she once dated Flavor Flav. I know! Right?

This was the kind of job the Not Now Silly Newsroom was made for and I set out to get this wacky story confirmed or denied.

It took a while, but I finally got Flavor Flav ON THE RECORD concerning this rumour. He denied wholeheartedly that he ever dated the ex-wife of the Falafel King, but it certainly made him laugh. It made me laugh, too. Still does.

Florida Joined the Union ► Throwback Thursday

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It was probably inevitable — Manifest Destiny, and all that — but on this date in 1845, Florida became the 27th state in the Union.

The first Europeans to set foot in Florida were the Conquistadors, led by Juan Ponce de León in 1513. It is a myth that he was looking for the famed Fountain of Youth.

Of course, long before the Spanish got to Florida, there were aboriginal peoples living all along the peninsula. According to the WikiWackyWoo:

By the 16th century, the earliest time for which there is a historical record, major Native American groups included the Apalachee (of the Florida Panhandle), the Timucua (of northern and central Florida), the Ais (of the central Atlantic coast), the Tocobaga (of the Tampa Bay area), the Calusa (of southwest Florida) and the Tequesta (of the southeastern coast).

The Spanish founded St. Augustine in 1565, making it the oldest continually inhabited city in the U.S. But, St. Augustine has another distinction, so says the Wiki:

Florida attracted numerous Africans and African Americans from adjacent
British colonies in North America who sought freedom from slavery. The
Spanish Crown gave them freedom, and those freedmen settled north of St. Augustine in Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, the first free black settlement of its kind in what became the United States.[citation needed]

In 1763, Spain traded Florida to the Kingdom of Great Britain for control of Havana, Cuba, which had been captured by the British during the Seven Years’ War. It was part of a large expansion of British territory following the country’s victory in the Seven Years’ War. Almost the entire Spanish population left, taking along most of the remaining indigenous population to Cuba.[14] The British soon constructed the King’s Road connecting St. Augustine to Georgia. The road crossed the St. Johns River at a narrow point, which the Seminole called Wacca Pilatka and the British named “Cow Ford”, both names ostensibly reflecting the fact that cattle were brought across the river there.[15][16][17]

However, England lost Florida back to the Spanish after they lost the Revolutionary War to the insurgent ‘Merkins. 

In 1810, parts of West Florida were annexed by proclamation of President James Madison, who claimed the region as part of the Louisiana Purchase. These parts were incorporated into the newly formed Territory of Orleans. The U.S. annexed the Mobile District of West Florida to the Mississippi Territory in 1812. Spain continued to dispute the area, though the United States gradually increased the area it occupied. 

Seminole Indians based in East Florida began raiding Georgia settlements, and offering havens for runaway slaves. The United States Army led increasingly frequent incursions into Spanish territory, including the 1817–1818 campaign against the Seminole Indians by Andrew Jackson that became known as the First Seminole War. The United States now effectively controlled East Florida. Control was necessary according to Secretary of State John Quincy Adams
because Florida had become “a derelict open to the occupancy of every
enemy, civilized or savage, of the United States, and serving no other
earthly purpose than as a post of annoyance to them.”.[23]

Florida had become a burden to Spain, which could not afford to send
settlers or garrisons. Madrid therefore decided to cede the territory to
the United States through the Adams-Onís Treaty, which took effect in 1821.[24] President James Monroe was authorized on March 3, 1821 to take possession of East Florida and West Florida for the United States and provide for initial governance.[25] Andrew Jackson
served as military governor of the newly acquired territory, but only
for a brief period. On March 30, 1822, the United States merged East Florida and part of West Florida into the Florida Territory.[26]

Florida was admitted to the Union as a Slave State on this day in 1845.

I’ve lived in Florida for the past 10.5 years and, to be perfectly honest, I don’t like it all that much. 

South Florida is hundreds of miles of continuous suburbia; single family homes and gated communities, between strip malls and gas stations, only interrupted by larger malls, condo complexes, and man-made drainage canals to keep The Everglades at bay. Not to mention Florida Man. And, the never-ending corruption. And, the stifling heat and oppresive humidity.

I agree with Bugs Bunny:

It hardly matters. Florida will be under water soon anyway.

Peter Townshend, Meher Baba, and Me ► Throwback Thursday

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Kathy Hahn took this pic around the time I met Pete Townshend

When I first started my writing career, some 40+ years ago, it was to write about the music industry.

A college friend and I started up a small music publication called Zoundz (with a backwards zedd on the end). It was the first music rag of its kind in Toronto, a FREE publication that coud be scored at the cash register of every record store in Toronto, including the big 2: Sam The Record Man and A&A Records, located next door to Sam’s.

Later I started writing for Cheap Thrills, the house organ of Concert Productions International (CPI). It was the biggest concert promoter in the city because it had a lock on Maple Leaf Gardens, the biggest venue in the city.

For both publications I wrote album reviews, critiqued Rock and Roll concerts, and was able to hobnob backstage with some of the greats of the industry. It’s all about reputation, of course. Once I had developed some respectability, promoters and record company reps would call me up to offer interviews with some of their celebrities, which is how I came to interview Peter Townshend, of The Who.

Townshend was a follower of Meher Baba, a spiritual leader who claimed to be the Avatar, defined by the Wiki as: 

In Hinduism, an avatar (/ˈævəˌtɑːr, ˌævəˈtɑːr/;[1] Hindustani: [əʋˈt̪aːr] from Sanskrit अवतार avatāra “descent”) is a deliberate descent of a deity to Earth, or a descent of the Supreme Being (e.g., Vishnu for Vaishnavites), and is mostly translated into English as “incarnation“, but more accurately as “appearance” or “manifestation”.[2][3] 

The phenomenon of an avatar is observed in Hinduism,[4] Ayyavazhi, and Sikhism[citation needed]. Avatar is regarded as one of the core principles of Hinduism.[5]

I remember so very little about the interview with Townshend because I was nervous and — after all — it was 40 years ago. I don’t even remember which publication bought this interview (and can’t seem to find it in my archives. Maybe it was a radio interview instead). However, I will never forget the secret code I had to use to get past the front desk at the hotel and the doorkeeper at Townshend’s hotel room:

“Temple, eel, and ocean: Baba rules them all.”

I was already somewhat familiar with the teachings of Meher Baba because my dear friend Kathy Hahn, who I worked with at Island Records Canada, was also a devoté of Baba’s. We were both delighted that Townshend was using a Baba quote as his secret password. 

While you may have not heard of Meher Baba before, you are certainly familiar with his most famous quote:

“Don’t worry. Be happy.”
Today is Meher Baba’s 122nd birthday. He died in 1969, but still has tens of thousands of followers around the world. You can find out more about Meher Baba at these websites:

 …and his many words of wisdom can
be found at Maher Baba Wikiquotes.

Remembering the Challenger Crew 30 Years Later ► Throwback Thursday

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►►► R.I.P. ◄◄◄

Mission Specialist Ellison S. Onizuka
Teacher Sharon Christa McAuliffe
Payload Specialist Greg Jarvis
Mission Specialist Judy Resnick
Pilot Mike Smith
Commander Dick Scobee
Mission Specialist Ron McNair