Falling by the wayside

March? I haven't posted since March? Jeepers (mentally adds, singing, 'creepers, where'd ya get those peepers...'). Makes me wonder just what the hell I've been up to all this time. I'd write a bit of it out if I could remember any of it. Actually, I do, but much of it isn't that interesting, and a large part of the rest would be stressful ranting and raving about the political situation in my country. There have been a number of wonderful movies I've watched, or watched again. And there has been the garden, of course. As for the movies I've screened, there have been so many it would be a minor miracle if I could still name them all. The idea was to write them down here, making notes about each, but that project fell by the wayside.

A page from the Tyndale Bible.

Now there's a phrase I haven't used for awhile, "fell by the wayside". While it's meaning is readily apparent, the origin of the phrase may not be. It goes back to a 1526 translation of the Bible by William Tyndale. It was the first bible in English to be translated from Greek and Hebrew sources, and the first to hit the printing press. There had been an earlier version (the Wycliffe Bible) in Middle English in the late 1300's, but due to its use in a pre-Reformation movement, it was banned in 1409. By the late 1400's, owning one could bring the death penalty. But that's another story. The Tyndale translation, by the way, became a principal source for the King James version of the early 1600's. The "fell by the wayside" reference is from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 8, verses 5 thru 8. It occurs just after a mention of unclean spirits being cast out of Mary Magdalene and two other women, and concerns a farmer who went out to sow his seed. The sower was a bit sloppy, and some seed 'fell by the wayside'. In fact, a lot of it seemed to fall by the wayside. Only that seed which fell upon the 'good ground' was productive. Just after the teaching of this parable, the Teacher walked upon the waters, a pretty nifty act.

Now that I've wandered off onto this tangent, I'm no longer sure of where the heck I was headed. Was it to post a few pics from the garden? Or the chance to write mildly amusing commentary on making my own tomato paste, or the adventures of putting up copious amounts of fresh homemade pesto against the depravations of winter? (I used up the very last of last year's pesto a few days before starting this year's batches.) Or were the seeds a reference to all the movies I've watched lately? Or haven't watched?

A part of the larger garden at Solar Hill (which I help maintain) where my garden is located.
At the top of the photo is a bit of the playground for the Neighborhood Schoolhouse

More of the Solar Hill garden. Just off to the left are a large number of peonies, one of which can be seen here.
The Japanese dogwood was kind of spectacular this year; it demanded a photo.

A portion of my garden this past June.

Another part of my garden in mid to late Spring.
There's lots more, including other seasons. I'm considering starting a garden blog.

That last bit in the text above (the 'haven't watched' part) refers to an attempt to screen the RKO 'Hitler's Children' for one of my younger friends. While he's knowledgeable about independent movies from the late 1980's or so up to today, he's somewhat less aware of earlier movies. At any rate, my younger friend is going to be a first time daddy soon. He made his announcement via a Facebook post whose only content was a sound file that mystified a number of folks. It was the sound of the baby's heartbeat in the womb. Now, he's never seen any of the Nancy Drew movies, and thus has no associations what-so-ever for Bonita Granville, or, for that matter, with cowboy star Tim Holt, both of whom have the lead roles in the movie. So one night not long after the incidents in Charlottesville with tiki torch bearing American Nazis, white supremacists, and the follow up ravings of Donald Trump in the role of President of the United States, we settled in to watch this bit of lurid potboiler propaganda history.

The film starts out with a Nazi rally (above), and proceeds, via flashback narration, to a 1933 confrontation between American students in Germany, and a group of teenage male Nazis in training. A fight breaks out, during which wholesome Nazi Tim Holt holds onto the American's baseball bat, refusing to give it back. Plucky Bonita Granville looks him in the eye and suddenly exclaims, "Heil Hitler". When Holt's arm rises in automatic salute, she punches him in the stomach. When the German headmaster refuses to stop his charges from fighting, the American teacher (Kent Smith, giving a performance only slightly more lively than a cigar store Indian) simply yells out, "Achtung!", which causes the German boys to fall into line. If only it were that easy in real life. We then see a little bit of the school room education of the day:

Just after Tim Holt's praise for Hitler in the clip above, my young friend asked me to stop the movie. Under the current political climate, and being an expectant father, it was too much. His heart had started racing, and he was beginning to have a bit of a panic attack. We were only about 10 minutes into the film. Thinking back on it, it was probably a good thing we changed the picture. I'd have freaked out if I was an expectant parent, too. And I'm not just thinking of the scene in which a young mother to be hopes her birth is painful as a tribute to the Führer. This picture gets far more lurid and serious.

Of course, the reverberations of movies like 'Hitler's Children' into our own time should give us pause. We currently have an administration in power which excuses the outrages of the far right, pretending there were good people amongst them, condemning those on the left for their part in the violence (even though every report I saw or read stated that the 'antifa' crowd only resorted to violence when the Nazi types began charging at women, children, the clergy, and people with brown skin). Pictures that came out of the event were startling.

Is it live, or is it Memorex?

Today I turned 67 years old. My parents divorced when I was quite little; my mother was gone by the time I was 6 months old. My father, my brother, and I lived with my Aunt and Uncle in what had been my Grandfather's house. My Uncle had fought in WWII. When television came in, I wasn't allowed to have it on much after 5pm, when my Uncle got home. The noise and cacophony of tv shows with children's laughter, and especially sudden loud sounds, unnerved him and he would fly into rages. I won't dwell on it, or on what would now be easily recognizable as PTSD, except to say that I often felt terrorized as a child. The experiences I had in those years would come back to affect me later in life. As it turns out, I was diagnosed as having PTSD too. The stresses and coping mechanisms from those days got me through my first years on my own in the late 1960's, the Vietnam war protests, getting beat up because I had long hair, being beaten up and/or threatened for being perceived as gay, being shot in the head (not as serious as it sounds, except for the psyche - it was delivered via a pellet rifle after I was seen returning a European kiss on the cheek to a male friend returning to Germany. Still, the bullet lodged in my skull and they thought I might have some damage.) During my years managing bookstores in NYC, my assistant was from Pakistan. When the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran, my assistant became agitated and predicted the rise of ultra conservative Islam. He was in New York studying to become an architect so he could build decent homes for the poor of his country. He told me flat out that with the rise of conservative Islam, he was concerned about returning home; he might be killed for becoming educated, and going to the United States. The best cashier I had was a gorgeous black woman from the Caribbean, with a lilt in her voice which would make most people smile. My warehouse manager, who was the guy I trained to run the science fiction section, was from Cuba. You get the idea; I had a lot of friends and co-workers who, if they were around today, might face deportation. The sad fact of the matter is that my country is rounding people up. Some have been deported, some are being held. Many on trumped up charges, or minor traffic style violations. Now a  movement is on to deport those who were brought here as children, who grew up here, and became part of the fabric of life here. Legal protections for transgender folk are being removed. Repealing the right of marriage for gay folks won't be far behind. The Trump Department of Justice has already insisted that gay folks are not entitled to job protections under federal anti-discrimination laws. Confrontations in the culture wars continue, and will, until decent normal everyday people start to riot. And what then? Well, perhaps that's why the Trump administration has 1.2 Billion dollars in the Federal budget for 'detainee beds'. I have been accused of having a decidedly liberal paranoia about this, but I could spend several hours writing out the reasons for such suspicions, and pointing out the similarities between the US today and Europe in the early 1930's. You're free to laugh at me if you want, I won't mind. But I will remind you that Nazis are on the march. In America. They may be carrying mass market torches, but that doesn't change the fact that they are there, marching, provoking, waiting. Their own leaders will tell you that an army is being built. We have a President who threatened violence from his supporters if he wasn't elected. His supporters threaten violence if he is removed from office. Go ahead and laugh some more. But remember the following image when the 'arrests' start. It was painted on a fence in California a few days after the Charlottesville events. And you'd better hope to hell everyone in your family is straight, and white. A lot of the seeds being sown aren't for flowers.

Paying for the Fiddler

This morning, as I was perusing the New York Times online, I stumbled upon a mention of the current Broadway revival of the musical "Fiddler on the Roof". The mention was in the headline of an article about the lifestyle of one of the show's performers. As I checked to see if I was interested in the article, I noticed a link to the show's review, from which I surmised that the revival started its run a few months ago. That review contained a link to the original production's review from 1964, which I also read.

from the 1964 review
 

I must mention that I subscribe to the New York Times online. Personally, I still I prefer the old fashioned experience of holding a newspaper, folding and turning the pages (and the sound that made), and getting my fingers smudged with rubbed off ink. I liked seeing the ads for products in which I had no interest; graphic concoctions of art and commerce that helped pay the paper's operating expenses. I liked seeing articles that piqued my curiosity, I liked reading opinions that differed from my own. I do not wish to be party to the slow and painful death of newspapers and objective reporting, but the fact of the matter is that the Times is unaffordable for me to purchase on a daily basis. My online fee, acquired during a special promotion, runs $15.00 a month and includes the paper's historical files. I would not be able to afford one month of the paper's Sunday edition for that price. These promotional deals are often set for a number of months, and bear constant watching, as the monthly fee is deducted automatically from my bank account. When the deal expires, one will find one's account charged at a much higher rate without warning. A month isn't really a month - the date on which my subscription fee is deducted from my bank account is a moving target, forever edging forward. At the beginning of this past autumn, the deduction was made during the third week of the month. It is now made within the first few days of the month. This maneuver, of course, is not unique to the Times. My cable/phone/internet bill does the same thing. As that one is a much larger amount, I can't let it be set to automatically deduct lest I be caught short. But the date for that bill still changes, a month is not a month, and the 'due by' date seems to move forward as well. But I digress. 

When I lived in New York City, or within a hour or two of it, I greatly enjoyed going to shows. Reading the original review of 'Fiddler', I started to wonder how much it cost back in 1964 when it debuted. As the review was in a .pdf scan of the paper, I went to the next page to check the theatre listings for the price. In 1964, an orchestra seat for that brand new musical cost $9.40 on a Friday or Saturday night when prices were highest.

As cost is relative, I looked up the minimum wage in 1964. The Federally set minimum in those days was $1.25 an hour. Which means, that forgetting taxes, deductions, and etc. someone earning the minimum wage would have to work for 8 hours to afford one ticket.

The top price for an orchestra seat for the current revival, which is far less than the price of a new show, is $167.00 for a Friday or Saturday night. Someone working at the Federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour would have to work over 23 hours to afford one ticket.

The Broadway Theatre, one of the few theatres whose entrance is actually on Broadway. It was built as a movie palace with a stage. Mickey Mouse made his debut here before it switched to live shows. It returned to movies for the premiere of Disney's 'Fantasia', and once again for the premiere of Cinerama. When I was seeing shows there, the exterior looked quite different. (The first show I saw there was 'Cabaret', back in 1968.) The current façade and marquee are from work done when the neighboring skyscraper was built a few years ago.

My curiosity got the better of me, and I looked to see how much an average orchestra seat for the current hot ticket, the hip-hop infused musical 'Hamilton' would cost. Finding ticket prices is somewhat difficult if one isn't ordering, and for 'Hamilton', tickets are hard to get. I found someone who complained in a letter written last June that the mid-orchestra seats they had just acquired for that November cost $327.00 each. I decided to check the show's website, which claimed that a few seats were indeed available. The cost for next Friday night was well over $1,000.00. I think it was close to $1,200 something, but my eyes and mind boggled. I had to look away.

Well, that was fun.

"It's been how long since I posted?", he thought to himself. (Take that rules of punctuation.) Uh, oh. He's feeling a little surly today. Ah, yes, it's 'talk about yourself in the third person day'. Actually, I've no idea if such a day exists, but why shouldn't it? After a quick Google search, it turns out it does exist - every Third of March. Should'da known. As I look up I see that it is snowing to beat the band, although why anyone, or for that matter the snow, wants to beat the band is beyond me. (ba-dum dumb)

You'll have to excuse me, I've been cooped up a bit too long. (Internal struggle - overcoming urge to add picture of Gary Cooper.) That freakin' cold I had since just before Thanksgiving to about Christmas either came back again, or I got another one. Only this time, I went down for the count. I'm not the kind of guy who can lay in bed when I'm not feeling well. Usually, I get up, clean myself, up, read, watch tv, listen to music, etc. and keep things fairly quiet. This time I ended up in bed for three and a half days. And it wasn't like I was just lyin' there staring at the uneven place on the textured plaster ceiling - nope, I slept. Last Saturday (Jan, 23rd) I didn't even do my radio show.

Speaking of my radio show, I've got a couple of them to catch up on posting here. So, let's get the first one out of the way right now with the show from Saturday January 9th, 2016. That program began with a tribute to Kitty Kallen, songbird with the bands of Jan Savitt, Jack Teagarden, Jimmy Dorsey, and Harry James. Ms. Kallen shuffled off the mortal coil on January the 7th. Then it was off to January 1945 as the Philco tuned in The Kraft Music Hall with Bing Crosby (and guests Spike Jones and His City Slickers!).



Between being constantly sick (all chest and up, thankfully), trying to keep the radio station going, trying to shop for food while in a muddle-daze, trying to find enough energy to cook a decent meal, you know - the usual suspects - I have to admit that I'm not getting a heck of a lot done. I have watched a couple of movies I had on the cable box DVR. The other night I watched the 1936 "Things to Come", with a script by H.G. Wells based on his own book. I last saw it in the early to mid 1970's. Made in England in 1936, the story starts with an all out world war in 1940, which more or less ends in the late 1960's with a new dark age and a plague; salvation arriving in the 1970's with the intervention of scientists and their "Wings Over the World" organization. By 2036, the populace begin to rebel against the more or less totalitarian technocracy that replaced the totalitarian society before it. It's the triumph of the luddites that gives rise to philosophical debate. That's a heck of a lot of oversimplification, but the subject is worth noting - let's face it, there just haven't been all that many movies that ruminate on the nature of war, good versus evil, the future of civilization, the nature of progress, and humankind's place in the universe. Besides, I find it wonderfully reassuring the cities of the future will be of art deco designs.

I have to make an admission here. It's been many years since I really gave myself anything much for Christmas. From my childhood years into my late 40's, I was an active film collector. I miss movies shown at a proper size. I like movies on tv well enough, but at the modern standard (?) of 32" or so they are still tv images. Certainly I watched many years of movies on a 19" screen growing up. But most movies are meant to be bigger than life, or at least bigger than a tv screen. So this past holiday, after scrimping and saving for quite awhile, I gave myself a cheap little video projector. It was one of those momentary "oh, hell, just do it" moments. And I'm very happy I did it. It's a tad awkward to use, as the method of projecting I prefer, down the length of my space, will give my own viewing a large and wonderful picture, but won't work very well for inviting guests over - due to the arraignment of the furniture they'll be far too close to the screen. My old motorized 5' screen is perfect for older movies with a more or less square shape (a ratio of 1.33:1). But it isn't big enough for the tv version of widescreen (16:9, which isn't the size of any widescreen process ever used). My 10 foot screen would be perfect for this, but at the moment it is in storage in a friend's barn. It will need a bit of sprucing up and possibly bleaching of the surface to make it useable, and even then that designation may be somewhat questionable. At the moment, I'm simply using a wall that is a light beige color, projected across the room so friends can sit and watch as well. Here's a pic of the widescreen image, shown in snowy day daylight (thin drapes closed, but still light enough to read a book or newspaper)(sorry about getting the fan blade in the picture). The image is roughly 6 feet long by 4 feet in height.

A scene from 'Jason and the Argonauts' in the tv version of widescreen.

Of course, this jump in technology will come with added costs. A standard DVD is of about the quality of older tv images. Over the last few years, I've grown quite accustomed to high def images. The projector isn't full high def (which would be 1080 pixels); that would have cost far more than I could afford. But it is the lower form of high def (720 pixels) and is pretty darn good, especially considering that it was priced quite a bit under $200.00. To be honest, I'm still surprised I spent that much money on myself. The problem is that movies recorded in 1080p high def via my cable box DVR are of excellent quality when projected - much better than DVD. Now I'm possessed of the idea that its time to go Blue Ray DVD, which is 1080p Hi Def. (I'm so old fashioned I prefer to own a copy of a favorite movie instead of paying per view.) That changeover is not likely to happen, and so far my DVDs look just fine. But the obsession has started.

Now that the images are of a decent size, I find I'm watching movies again. It's not like watching half heartedly on tv while I play solitaire on the computer, and etc. I mean fully engaged watching. This has happened just in time. The political commercials on the television are depressingly overwrought. My sanity needs to avoid them. The Republican party is out of control. All of their advertising (one can't forget these are infomericals selling a packaged product) is set in an alternate world America as they sell fear - where there are nasty terrorists among us plotting their daily bombings and destruction of our homes. Look - is that one? Report them now. An America where affordable healthcare has caused a majority of the populace to lose their jobs and live in dire poverty. An America in which the President of the United States has betrayed the country, and where those running for the nomination in the opposing party aren't fit for office. This isn't a distillation of what's behind their ideas - they say these things. Boldly. They talk about carpet bombing, they talk about rebuilding our military (which is still the largest and best trained in the world) and going after the terrorists of ISIS, capturing those they can, and carting them off to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp for the rest of time, where we -will- learn what they know. The implication of torture is pretty hard to miss. Oh, yeah, they are all for constant electronic monitoring of the populace. Give up that freedom in order to save it.

This political situation was going to be the focus of today's post, but I find it overwhelming to even think about today, as this is the first day I am really starting to feel better and I have a lot of other stuff to catch up on. The sad thing is these candidate 'contenders' don't even realize that they will not really be in control. They rail against Vladmir Putin, as though he has any real power left. When he was rattling the sabers, friends of mine were quite concerned that he was going to start a war. Russia, like China, is now part of the world economy. The interdependencies of trade and commerce have moved the actuality of power to the corporations just as predicted. At present, they can't afford war. There is too much to lose, and not enough to gain. When war comes in the future, it will be over economic spheres of influence, over who controls what products, what information, what data. Wars over who controls what geographic areas are passe, they are old school. That world is rapidly fading away.  It's part of what makes the immigration debate in this country so ridiculous. Forget building walls on our borders. Forget "figuring out who they are before we let them in" - that is already being done. If these people manage to get one of themselves elected, I've no doubt that the walls will go up. The real question is whether they are there to keep the infidels out, or the unwashed populace in.

There's a lot more that's been bouncing back and forth, but I need to get doing other things.

My radio show of Saturday January 16th took note of the birthdays of Sophie Tucker (the Last of the Red Hot Mamas), trumpeter and bandleader Billy Butterfield, drummer and bandleader Gene Krupa, and promoter, lyricist, and music publisher Irving Mills.



As always, I hope anyone who listens in enjoys the show(s).

Thanksgiving 2015

Today is Thanksgiving Day here in America. It's an old tradition, one which goes back to at least the time of Henry the VIII. Here in the US, its origin is traced to the 1620's at Plymouth, Massachusetts. The Puritans and Pilgrims would have been familiar with the ideas of fasting and feasting in Thanks for all that God had given them. (The Canadian Thanksgiving goes back even further.) The story has it that the refugees from England shared a bountiful harvest with the Wampanoag Indians, without whose help they might not have survived.

These days, many people take great delight in skewering the story, labeling the arrival of people of white European ancestry as the purveyors of genocide against the native Americans.  Whenever a holiday rolls around, these folks can be counted upon to proclaim what they see as the truthful history behind the myth. Much of their revisionist history is as "full of it" as the stories they seek to debunk.

The myth of America was created over a long period of time. It was once a myth of hope, a light in the darkness. It's long been apparent that these tales weren't literal truth. The greatness of my country lay in the willingness of good people to go out and try to correct the wrongs in our land, to bring the dreams of equality, the chance to better one's self and family through education and hard work, to life for everyone.

These days, we are presented with candidates for the Presidency who talk about making America great again. The current frontrunner for the Republican nomination has advocated everything from requiring registration of all Muslims, to stating that we should use methods of torture such as waterboarding to defeat terrorists. After all, he noted, "they deserve it anyway". He has ridiculed the press who fact checked him (even mocking one respected reporter's disability), and urged the crowds at his events to beat up and eject those who disagree with him - although he has also mentioned protestor's actions as part of the attraction for his rallies - its entertainment value, after all.

It makes me wonder if he pays the protestors to be there.

Personally, I'll hang onto stories like the origin of the U.S. Thanksgiving - stories of cooperation between different races, breaking bread together, freedom and equality. They might not be true, but they are one hell of a goal. I can only hope that we can honor them, and work towards them before those of us who don't fit in are forced to have registration cards, or are taken off to the camps.

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Last Saturday's radio show played a couple of songs for Thanksgiving before the juke box got loaded up with nickels to celebrate the birthdays of Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael.



 

 

"You can't help that said the cat, we're all mad here..."

The world has gone mad again.

When I was young, I realized that we shouldn't think of evolution as something in the past. It seems clear that the human species is still evolving. Back then, I believed that we were on an upward progression. I no longer have any such certainty.

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The above was the start of a post I doubt will be finished. (It will join the pile of discards, where it will find much company.) Partly because I'm not feeling my best (nasty-ish cold running through the system), partly due to time constraints, partly because the writing of it is likely to make me scream at nothing in particular in order to vent building frustration and anger. To resume writing what I had in mind, I'd have to go back to Facebook or some other form of 'social media' to collect images and information. Blogs are social media, but they are different; one can take a little bit of word time to actually express (or attempt to express) one's thoughts or observations. Blogs also have to be sought out, or one has to click on a link. They aren't part of a scrolling feed.

The problem started with the terrorist attacks on Paris. People on Facebook immediately used a program which superimposed the French flag over their personal image icons. Other people immediately responded with links to blogs, mostly think pieces which declared why they wouldn't comment on the terrorist attack on Paris; where were the cries of outrage for the week's other terror attacks, they demanded to know? - those victims were passed by, not mentioned - not worthy - as Paris is a White city, not a place of brown skin people. Now, those posts had a bit of a point, but to post someone else's article about the terrorist attacks on Paris to demonstrate why one isn't posting about Paris is a kind of internet passive aggressive statement of extremely annoying and cloying condescending superiority - and some odd attempt to prove that the poster's heart bleeds for the world more than their ill-informed reader's.

Those posts began to get a response. The me-me posts proliferated. The news media and the video clip posters ran the same footage constantly. The news media did scrabble to send their top anchors or writers to Paris to find the woman who was standing three blocks away from the stadium who heard the bang of the bombs and grew fearful. (Okay, I made that up but the exaggeration isn't that big.)

Then the politicians began chiming in. As most folks who read this blog probably know, I live in Vermont. Our local tv and video news sources originate in one upstate minor city, or from Boston. Both cover the New Hampshire market, where the first primaries in our upcoming (one year away) Presidential contest will be held. We have been inundated with political advertising for months already. Most of the advertising has been for the Republican side, which seems intent on reversing any possible upward trend evolution might provide. They, and a seemingly large segment of the population, have centered on stopping any influx of Syrian refugees into the country (but they're okay if they are Christians). The issue has become a social media war. The images proliferate, with commentary which exposes the sad state of American language skills, the sad state of American education, media, news - oh, hell, the responses below (from people I know to be kind, decent folks) are as frightening as the terror attacks.

 

 

 

 

 

  

It's been a sorry, disgusting spectacle.

 

 

 

This doesn't seem to be particularly appropriate, but it makes as much sense as anything else this past week: Here's last Saturday's radio show. The show did start off with a comment, albeit musical, on the current events before paying birthday tributes to musician-conductor-composer Billy May, singer Jo Stafford, crooner Johnny Desmond (the "G.I. Sinatra"), one of the sadly forgotten early jazz men Eddie Condon, and the 'Father of the Blues' W. C. Handy. Handy was the subject of, and guest on, the show's featured broadcast - 'The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street' of June the 14th, 1940.

 

 

 

As always, I hope any listeners enjoy the show. 

Red Cup mania

Rembrandt tulips
 

Back when I ran bookstores for a living, there was a very successful paperback reprint of Charles Mackay's 1841 opus, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds". One of the chapters examined the tulip mania of the 1640's. Basically, a plant virus struck the Netherlands and caused breaks in the colors of tulips. The desire to possess the affected bulbs built into a frenzy. Fortunes were quickly amassed, and spent, investing in their acquisition. Prices for just one bulb reached to such heights that a well off merchant's lifetime earnings could not afford the purchase of one single bulb. Although the term would not come into use for a number of years, the "economic bubble" burst, destroying both fortunes and lives. The descendants of these tulips still exist: they are usually sold under the name "Rembrandt".



Just one portion of the Solar Hill gardens last June. The entire space,
including my garden, would comprise about eight squares of this size,
including all of the area around the tree center left.

When I last posted, I had just finished planting the tulips. I'm in the process of shutting the gardens down for the winter.  It is a large task (I've also been tending Solar Hill's gardens.) As plants go into their dormancy,  it's a good time for many of them to be transplanted. Several peonies, asters, a daylily, etc. were either being overgrown by their neighbors, or were getting less sunlight due to tree growth, etc. For good garden culture, plants should be cut back, leaves cut off and disposed of to prevent overwintering of diseases, and so on and so forth. I've accomplished most of it, but am still in the final stages of getting it all done.

Generally, I've been in the garden four to five days a week recently. Today was going to be a long garden day, as there weren't a lot of other things which couldn't be put off - I want to finish putting the garden to bed this week. Now, last night there was a meeting of our all volunteer community radio station's Board. This was our first meeting after our annual bash, so yearly Board elections had to be held. I've been returned to the position of Board President/Station Manager. This morning, about 7am or so, I sat down to fire off a few emails based on discussions from last night. Then the phone rang with a DJ's questions. The man calling is learning disabled, and calls several times a week, often asking the same question he asked the day before. He hasn't finished his training, but wants to fill in time slots which other DJs have posted that they won't be able to make. He has a case of radio fever, which often affects new DJs. I've repeatedly told him he has to finish his training, and must have the person who helps him present when he does a show. But he still calls and tries to get me to say something different. There is a DJ doing her last show today, so there needed to be posts to the station's email list, the station's Facebook page, etc. The upshot is that I finally stopped working on station business at 3pm. (By the way, an 8 year old, who has been doing a show with her mother since she was old enough to talk, just did her first 'by herself' show at 2pm. She put many of our adult DJs to shame. There were almost no children's songs that would have been heard on the show she does with her mother. Nope, this kid is into Spearhead, and jam bands.)
The station is another sort of garden.

I did spend about a half an hour of personal time on Facebook, checking responses to posts for my radio show, what a few of my friends and family were up to, etc. There were several Facebook sessions, sending messages to people about station business and etc. It was therefore impossible to escape the issue/outrage of the moment: the Red Cup. It would seem that all of Facebookland is obsessed with the red cup. Folks are posting impassioned diatribes about the issue. Memes, images with a slogan which are easy to repost allowing the poster to avoid having to think through what one might say, are spreading like soft butter on a hot skillet. There is a veritable red cup mania.

What happened is this: some church (or church official) that no one ever heard of called for a boycott of the Starbucks coffee chain. The problem started when Starbucks began using their holiday themed coffee cup. It is red, with a Starbucks logo in green and white. The church was offended, nay, outraged, that there was no "Merry Christmas!" scrawled across the cup. No "Season's Greetings" (which would have caused more of a "War on Christmas" fervor). No pictures of Santa Claus, the Christ child in the manger, nothing. Why, it is another example of the persecution of Christians! This little bit of idiocy has become a target for everyone who wants to outdo their friends by posting an ever more incisive meme (which I still unintentionally read as 'me me') in a frenzy of self righteousness equaled only by the original call for the boycott.

Warning: this being the year 2015, and social media being what it is, one of the examples of the red cup memes contains expressions of common vulgarity.

" ...whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first."
                                                                       - Charles Mackay, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds"

Of course, my own cynicism leads me to wonder if the church and its representative actually exist. The large coffee corporation could have hired someone to start all of this just to get themselves a lot of free publicity.
                                                        
Another object of mass intoxication is the once wonderful holiday of Halloween, which has been built into a merchandising bonanza. The madness now begins in August when "pumpkin spice" English muffins hit the shelves of the supermarkets. Of course, there are no pumpkin spice muffins to be had anywhere near Halloween itself. This past September, in a Halloween products commercial I saw on television, the Halloween goods were displayed in front of a group of fir trees, which were decorated with colored lights. Holiday creep is upon us. At any rate, I never got my radio show of October 31st, Halloween,  posted - so here's that show, mostly big band Halloween songs. I know it seems odd to be posting it over a week late, but I'd like all my shows to be here for friends and family from away who might have some crazy interest in just what I've been up to these last few years.



Well, I thought I might go on about nothing in particular (there a whole 'nother mess o' memes being posted about a Republican Presidential candidate who has been playing fast and loose with the truth, and expressing somewhat surprising opinions such as his belief that the pyramids were built by the Jewish patriarch Joseph to store grain. He is the current Republican frontrunner in the reality show contest for the Presidency of the United States. Instead of continuing in this vein (by the way, I swear I'm not making this stuff up), I think I'll go sample the pumpkin bread I baked while composing this missive.

Herewith, my radio show from this past Saturday, November the 7th, in which we listen to excerpts from the radio, as well as a few of the songs on the jukebox, around early November, 1944. The featured broadcast at the end of the show is one of the Eddie Condon Jazz Concerts, with guest stars Lee Wiley and Red McKenzie.



As always, I hope any listeners enjoy the show(s).

Swimming uphill in a sea of angst

Oh, good God(dess) (of your choice)(not that you have to make a choice or have a God or Goddess), I have been remiss in posting again. I never got last week's radio show posted here, and now I'm going to have to have a twofer again.

There is a rational explanation.

Well, perhaps 'rational' isn't quite  the best choice of words. Was it rational to upgrade my computer during Mercury Retrograde? To Windows 10?

While I often have a little but of fun with the idea and concept of blaming electronic communication oriented debacles on this particular planetary singalong, experience does seem to bolster the validity of the concept.

And this week has taught me that Experience may not be the best teacher. When I clicked on the "update" button to replace Windows 7 with Windows 10, did I consult my mental diary of upgrade experiences? Nooooooooooo. Of course not. Instead, I bought into the "all your programs and settings will be there" assertion of obfuscating advertising-copy novelists. That claim had about as much validity and relationship to the concept of truth as a Republican Presidential candidate approaching primary season. (Sorry - I suppose that last bit is from a deep-seated need to vent a buildup of spleen. The state in which I reside is geographically located next to the sate of New Hampshire, which is often in a state about something or other, and has the 'first in the nation' primary. The general area is currently lousy with Republican candidates pushing a worldview which has little resemblance to the world as it exists. Lest anyone think I exaggerate, please remember that there is ample record proving that many of the Republican candidates either deny, or shillyshally around, the basic truths of evolution, and global warming. I don't know why I find this so undefensively reprehensible; after all, these folks have yet to accept that Regan era  "trickle down" economics didn't work to lift the masses into financial nirvana, and aren't going to do so. (Speaking as the possessor of an XY chromosome set, I would share my knowledge of 'trickle down', but I don't wish to be vulgar.) As the New Hampshire primary is in February, and as the tv stations hereabouts (from Vermont and Massachusetts) cover New Hampshire, the profusion of political advertising makes it unsafe for those who value either their sanity, or an even temperament (or both), to turn the damn thing on. It's akin to advertisements for Christmas goods blaring at one in June.

But I digress. And I shall do so for another minute - I saw not just Christmas advertising, but Christmas themed tv movies on cable channels at the end of May. People have been joking for a few years now about the mixing of Halloween and Christmas items at the stores. A few weeks ago, I saw an advertisement for Halloween costumes or candy or something. The backdrop against which the live action was displayed was of evergreen trees with lights in them. There is no escape.

The writing of this entry in the blog has been interrupted several times. I had an unexpected ride to my garden (normally a 40- 45 minute walk) where I worked on the sad task of shutting some of it down for the season. I also got to enjoy the new addition to the garden this year - the Chinese Asters. I'd never grown them before, and thought they would be a little taller. The seed was only available as mixed colors, which I usually don't like. But these are just wonderful. I don't know if they will seed in, but I will definitely be putting these end of season bloomers in the garden again next year.

I haven't yet started in on Windows 10. For now, I am going to assume that Microsoft is in league with the bureaucrats who designed the current Medicare system.  It's either that, or they are in league with Satan. I've run out of time to try to expound upon their attempt to drive me insane.

So, here's the radio show from two Saturdays ago which, after a slight nod to the (then upcoming) change of seasons visited September 1938 as the Latchis Memorial Theatre was about to have its grand opening, which was thwarted by the Hurricane of 1938. I don't have the time now to post any of the newspaper articles or pictures - there are a several over three posts on the radio show's Facebook page. Use this link to check those out - you'll be able to click through each post,  but you won't be able to "like", or comment, etc.
 https://www.facebook.com/Recycled-Radio-621059471269529/timeline/
The show's finale is a half hour "Camel Caravan" with Benny Goodman originally broadcast September 20th, 1938.



Last night's show (September 26th) fell on George Gershwin's birthday. It seemed fitting that the show be devoted to his music.



As always, I hope anyone who is kind enough to listen to my little efforts enjoys the shows.

Once more unto the breech, dear friends...

There still seems to be little to no time to write. Or arrange and caption photos. I think of Springsteen's line, "The poets down here don't do nothin' at all, they sit back and let it all be." But I'm not in Jungleland , and all  the use of the quote does is prove that I'm good with a quote or two.

Life has taken on its old familiar satirical nightmarish absurd quality again. I will turn 65 soon. The Federal government insists that my excellent state health insurance program, which uses funds from the Federal program Medicaid, is no longer adequate as I'm now officially a "senior". Therefore, I am being removed from my current insurance and placed on Medicare. Specifically Medicare Parts I and II. They didn't ask, I had no choice. For this service, my Social Security check will have a deduction  of over a hundred dollars taken from it, beginning with this month (August), even though I won't be on Medicare until September. Parts I and II do not include a prescription plan, so I have had to sign up with another insurance company for coverage of some of my prescriptions. For another $26 or so dollars a month, two of my prescriptions which would otherwise cost me over $300 dollars a month each, will suddenly and magically be available without a co-pay. But wait - this new coverage won't cover all of my prescriptions. The answer? Re-apply for my state's Medicaid program (as in the one I'm already on). If I'm lucky enough to be accepted, then those last remaining uncovered prescriptions will be covered. For now. Until the next change. If I'm accepted. Plus, there are various programs that will help me afford to live by assisting with the amount Social Security is automatically deducting from my paycheck. If I'm lucky enough to get back on them - that's right - they are the program I'm on until the end of the month. If I'm fortunate enough to get back on the program, they will send the over $100.00 a month charge to Social Security, which will then issue me a refund. I will then send a check for that amount to the state to repay them. I'm not making this up.

There is a Federal program for help in affording the Medicare, but my Social Security income is $5.00 or so a month over the limit. If I keep all of my receipts from my co-pays, I might get the Federal program to help me afford the Federal Program.

I had help in figuring all of this out by following the recommendations of the State Medicaid representatives, and consulted with the Council on the Aging. Except that the Council on the Aging no longer exists. It is now called Senior Solutions, thank you very much. That took another 10 minutes to figure out that I had indeed called the right number. All of these organizations seem to have several different names - it's like a Russian novel.

The State Medicaid program, meanwhile, which has changed its name every couple of years, offered to send me various necessary paperwork to get back on the program I'm already on. I accepted and waited. And waited. Over two and a half weeks later, I got an envelope from another organization, which I thought was associated with the insurance I used to have at my last job. I didn't open it for several days as I was fairly busy. Turns out, it was the long awaited paperwork. Now, for the old state program I was on, all the forms can be filled out and submitted online. Not these. One of them can be filled out online, but then it must be printed out and mailed.

It's a system that seems designed to drive one mad. I suppose they are hoping I will become so confused I won't look crossing the street, or will simply end my life out of confusion and despair. The paperwork, as life slows down, speeds up and increases. And the best part? The annual  "window" for decisions on healthcare companies will open again in October. According to these folks, at that point, I'll get to do all of this over again! I can hardly wait.

Here's my show from last Saturday.
It is not designed to drive one mad.
After playing a couple for Count Basie's birthday, the old Philco tuned in August the 18th, 1942.
I hope any listeners enjoy the show.

May the 30th...

When I was young, May 30th was Memorial Day. It was a special day; businesses closed, children visited local cemeteries to decorate with flowers the graves of family members and folks who had given their lives in service to their country. It was a time to reflect on the meaning of sacrifice, and give thanks. The U.S. Congress decided to float the day to the last Monday of the month, providing workers a three day weekend. The extra day was immediately coopted by retail "white sales" of sheets, towels, and blankets. The extra shopping day quickly grew in size to the point that retail stores stayed open, as did food emporiums. Those on the lower rungs of the economic scale did not get the day off. These days, the three day weekend is the marker for the official start of the summer season, celebrated with barbeques, the latest sci-fi special effects mutant hero spectacular, and other sundry commercial extravaganzas. There is usually a playing of terrible anthemic "glad to be an American" songs composed in corporate aligned country western pop; folks on social media attempt to outdo each other showing their support for our troops. Needless to say, this annoys me to no end.

Memorial Day is not veterans day, not 'show your pride in the military' day. There are people who died in the service of their fellow men and women in this country who deserve ot be remembered - including many who did not lose their lives in military excursions who, in my opinion, should also be remembered and honored; people like the Haymarket martyrs, hung for organizing a demonstration for the 40 hour workday; or Joe Hill, executed on trumped up charges for organizing dock workers and writing union songs. I'm no nationalist - every country has its honored dead, not just victors. No one should owe years of their lives, or their very lives, to the government of the real estate upon which they were born. In our world, a military is necessary; if a country doesn't have conscription where everyone serves, volunteers fill the bill. In our day, this has led to military families, some serving out of patriotism, but many, from lower economic classes, because it's a way to a decent living and leg up in the world - if you don't get killed, the benefits are good. Unless you need healthcare. Every time I think of professional soldiering as a job, I think of Rome or other such empires. Nowadays, we not only have professional military families, but special insurance, special retail programs, special homeowners programs, and etc. for military families and their descendants  - except, of course, proper care for the wounded of body and spirit. Hmmm, I think this this little diatribe has gone on longer than the couple of songs I played for the real Memorial Day.

 

The rest of the program is given to a celebration of Benny Goodman's birthday, also May 30th. Goodman was a poor 10 year old kid in Chicago when his father enrolled him in music classes at a local synagogue. By the age of 12, he was playing professionally. By this mid teens, he was playing with some of the best musicians in the country. At 18,he was recording with a band under his own name. He moved to New York and played as a session musician and in orchestras for a couple of Gershwin Brothers shows (also in the pit - Glenn Miller, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, and Gene Krupa. It was a band put together by Goodman that played on Billie Holiday's first two recordings.

Goodman put his first big band together to audition for a Billy Rose show. They got hired. When the show closed, they successfully auditioned for the "Let's Dance' radio program. Benny's outfit was one of three bands on the show - their segment started at 12:30am. Most of what they played were arrangements in the new "swing" style of jazz, done by Fletcher Henderson, and African American whose own band hadn't been able to stay financially afloat. Benny even hired members of Henderson's band to teach his guys how to play swing. After 6 months, the sponsor pulled the plug on the radio show due to a strike at their plant. Goodman went on tour. It was a disaster. No one wanted to hear this 'new' music.

 

The last stop on the tour was a three week engagement at the Palomar, the largest ballroom on the West Coast, capable of holding 4,000 dancing couples. The first set was so poorly received that word went out that the rest of the engagement would be cancelled. It was August, 1935 and Benny was ready to call it quits. The band's drummer, Gene Krupa, spoke up. If the band was going to go out of business, at least they could go out playing the music they liked. Benny called for the Henderson arrangements. 8,000 kids went berserk. What no one had realized was that while their radio segment was on at 12:30am on the East Coast, it was only 9:30pm on the West Coast. The kids knew Goodman's band, they knew his music. It's regarded as the night that put swing over, the start of an era. And it was a lesson in the power of radio.

 

 

I hope listeners enjoy the show.

Another Copyright claim...

Dear Friends,

I usually post my radio shows (broadcast on Saturday nights) on Sunday mornings, posting here as well as both my radio show's Facebook page, and on my personal Facebook page.  I'm afraid I can't post last night's show at this time - a copyright claim has been made, and access to my file has been blocked by Soundcloud, the service I pay to make my shows available for web streaming.

The claim is for a track I did not use. I did use a short (about 2 minutes?) excerpt from a 1938 broadcast with the same artist, which to the best of my knowledge is in the public domain. (Broadcasts from that era were not usually copyrighted, the few that were have copyrights that have expired.)

The radio station pays all of it's royalty fees for using recorded music to ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC.

I have decided to file a protest, which required my agreeing to indemnify Soundcloud against legal fees. I realize that they are only trying to protect themselves, but that's required in order to dispute the claim. Soundcloud can terminate my account, and I can now be sued by the company making the claim, and Soundcloud if the claimant decides to bring suit against them.

Needless to say, I am not passing anyone else's work off as my own.

I have no idea how this will turn out, nor any idea how long this process may take. In the last 7 days, of all of the various shows I have made available online, my files have been played a total of 8 times.

Just think, I could become a convicted felon for excerpting 2 minutes or so of a 1938 radio broadcast. What a wonderful world we live in. 

Pax Vobisum.

 

Time to change your underwear

As I write, it is April the 1st. March and its winds of folklorish legend have theoretically passed. The weather report suggests that by the end of the week, the temperature could rise to 60 degrees fahreneight. Much of the winter's snow has already melted, exposing  patches of ground large enough to easily spot this morning's frost. It was really a delight to have a good old fashioned snowy winter again. There have been some years recently in which I was already photographing daffodils and jonquils by this date. As it happens, I'm old enough to remember when such warmth was unexpected and a fairly rare event, as it was in Ticino in 1959 in this report from the venerable Beeb.



When I prepare one of my radio shows, I spend as much time as possible listening to old radio shows from which I might take an excerpt. Such clips are intended to illuminate the times from which the featured big band broadcast originates. Last Saturday's show centered on March 31st, 1946, and a broadcast from the New Meadowbrook in Los Angeles by Gene Krupa and His Orchestra.

From the time I was a baby until a month before my 9th birthday, we shared what had been my grandfather's house with my uncle and aunt. My uncle had fought in the Second World War. He never talked about it. It seems to me that most folks of that era didn't talk about it. The war was a job they had to do, a sacrifice that had to be made. It was over, and time to get back to the everyday business of living and dying.

The men and women who had gone overseas returned to find that the home they had fought for had changed. They returned to a world of shortages, which was to be expected. But there was also great unrest. The Labor Unions were calling strike after strike, and it could be difficult to find work. There was an acute shortage of housing, and what was available was overpriced. When England withdrew its troops form Iran as specified in the terms of a treaty, Russia did not. The War had not brought peace. In many of the March and early April 1946 radio shows I listened to, a recurring theme centered on the world spinning out of control - again. Thanks to the presence in every home of a radio, news stories were everywhere. The lead characters in both the comedies and the dramas all felt overwhelmed by the all too present world. All people really wanted was to be left alone. In peace.

I am a news junkie, always have been. I like to keep up on what's happening, what's going on, what's new, what's old, what's in, what's out, what.... and there's the rub. These days, it's just "what?". In capitals  "WHAT?".

There was one segment I prepared for last Saturday's show that I ended up not using for various reasons, including its length. It was an excerpt from a 'Songs by Sinatra' broadcast. In it, there was a recreation of a scene from a short subject which had just won an Academy Award. There were boys fighting, picking on one fellow who was 'different'. Sinatra broke up the fight, and noted that it was Un-American.  We had just fought a war - did you care about who dropped the bomb on the Japs, he asked? Or that we won? He noted that as a nation, we had come together, all races working together. Discrimination didn't have a place here in America, no sir-ee. The lesson was followed by the song, "The House I Live In".



Along with all the other news, local, national, and international which I wish I hadn't heard this past week, was the curious case of a law to protect religious rights in one of our states. Many states have instituted such laws or are in the process of adopting them. Religious liberties are being threatened, they say. People should not be required to do things which violate the precepts of their religion, they say. The particular legislation which hit the fan this time was signed into law by the governor of a state in a private closed door ceremony. In the photograph of the signing, several prominent anti-gay rights advocates can be clearly seen. The bill was quite clearly passed to allow businesses and corporations (which are defined as 'people') the right to refuse their services to others based on a religious objection. When the backlash started, as events planned in that state began being cancelled, the governor went on a media offensive tour, proclaiming that we all simply misunderstood the nature of the bill. You know, governor, I think we get it.

In California, a 'citizen's initiative' by a lawyer will make to the ballot. It will allow citizens to shoot and kill gay people on sight if the state doesn't put them to death first. Now, we all know this kind of nonsense doesn't have a chance of happening, said the people of Germany on November 8th, 1938. The question I have is why these stories are getting so much coverage. Is the intent to ferret out prejudice and bring us all together in the house we live in? To shock and get ratings? To distract us from something else that is going on? To reinforce the beliefs of the similar minded? Yeah, I understand the desire to be left alone, to putter around doing my own thing, to get back to the ordinary process of living and dying.

As always, I hope anyone who listens enjoys the show.