Ground Control To Major Tom

Although we were contemporaries, and shared many of the same musical roots, I was never particularly affected by David Bowie's music, even though I understand the major impact he had within the rock and roll universe, and within the culture at large.

But I have been quite moved today at how deeply his death yesterday at 69 has affected so many of my friends.

So in order to show respect in my own way, I'm sending out this portion of David's "Space Oddity" to Tom Brady of the New England Patriots, ahead of next Saturday's NFL Divisional Playoff game against Kansas City:

Ground Control to Major Tom

Ground Control to Major Tom

Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom (Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six)
Commencing countdown, engines on (Five, Four, Three)
Check ignition and may God's love be with you (Two, One, Liftoff)

This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear

I wish for TB12 a better outcome than Major Tom experienced. 

And RIP, David Bowie.

What's Old Is New Again

Lately, I've been looking back at media coverage of previous Presidential elections, and I recently came across an article by Eleanor Roosevelt about the standards that should be applied when we elect a Preseident, in the August 1960 issue of Esquire Magazine.

While the article was interesting in the context of the choice faced by the American electorate that Fall, between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy, the magazine's cover photo really caught my attention.

This was 1960, nearly sixty years ago, but the woman in the photo looks like she might have been photographed in 2016 - no Sixties hairdo, or wardrobe. The photo was from an article in the magazine about Hong Kong, and how different it was from the Hong Kong portrayed in the very popular Hollywood film that was running at the time - "The World Of Suzie Wong". 

The President On Gun Rights

I found it encouraging that at last night's televised "Gun Town Hall" President Obama re-affirmed Americans' right to buy guns, and even said his wife, Michelle Obama, turned to him while the two drove through Iowa during the 2008 campaign and said that if she lived in a farm house with a sheriff's office far away, "I'd want to have a shotgun or a rifle to make sure I was protected and my family was protected."

 "And she's absolutely right," he said.

It is certainly an interesting image to conjure with. 

B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber Over The Rose Bowl On New Year's Day

Paul And Joanne

Rest In Peace, Natalie Cole.

Unforgettable. 

2016

Happy New Year 2016!

Peyton Manning: PSI Or HGH?

You decide. 

PSI or HGH? 

"HGH, You Taste So Good!"

Watch as the NFL and their media lackeys circle the wagons around Peyton Manning. At least he's not accused of deflating footballs. 

Charles Laquidara, WBCN, and me.

Not us. But it could have been. 

Soon after we decamped from Amherst and academia to Boston and a Phillips Street apartment on the back of Beacon Hill in June 1968, Bobby Kennedy was assasinated. That year had been on a bad trajectory from the start, with Martin Luther King's assasination and street protests against the intensifying Vietnam War. All the good intentions and vibrations of the early 1960s had begun to wash away, replaced with a general uneasiness. It was not uncommon to hear the word "revolution" in casual conversations at work and elsewhere. Not that anyone we knew had a plan for revolution, but rather that it felt like something was going to blow, something big and scary. As John Lennon would say "Don't you know that you can count me out...in".

We were all trying to maintain order in our lives - getting up in the morning, getting dressed, going to work, and generally getting on with life, trying to establish some semblance of normalcy. It was even possible then to keep negative information somewhat at bay from our everyday lives, or at least to compartmentalize it. There was no constant parade of information and distraction from the Internet, no instant communication. Drugs were cheap and available, and the amazing new music that was coming more and more frequently numbed us all in mostly pleasant ways. We looked for something to grab hold of, to steady us, to help us ride out the storm, and maybe figure out where that storm was coming from.

One of the things that many of us grabbed on to was the new phenomenon (to us) of FM Radio. And, in Boston, WBCN-FM. This was back when WBCN was referred to as "Underground Radio" and young disc jockeys who sounded like us couldn't wait to play the new album by Quicksilver, or Moby Grape, or some other group that sounded and felt just right for that moment. These DJs played what they liked, without regard to the length of the album cut, or any need for commercial breaks. There were no corporate playlists yet. We looked forward to what new album Mississippi would play for us that night.

From this small-scale, subversive radio station would emerge the WBCN of the 1970s and 1980s that most people remember, which was mainstream, but which very much retained its subversive origins with DJs like Charles Laquidara.    

Last week, I attended a screening of "I Am What I Play" and had a chance to hear Charles reflect on the sorry state of corporate FM Radio these days. Charles is featured in this very fine documentary about four pioneers of DJ-curated FM radio. I recommend that you see it if you have the opportunity. It acknowledges that times change, and that people have to change with them. Music will always be important to each new generation, and the ways in which they discover and consume it will always remain in flux.

I also discovered that there is a neat, well-written book, "Radio Free Boston" by Carter Alan, which traces end-to-end the fascinating history of WBCN, from its very first show, which opened with Cream's "I Feel Free", to its last, which closed with "Video Killed The Radio Star".

Football Sunday

Hey - It's Sunday Morning

Headless Body In Topless Bar

As 2015 winds down, it is customary and right that we take a moment to remember all those who died this year, and I wanted to be sure that Vincent Musetto, longtime news editor and film critic at the New York Post, was not forgotten. He wrote, on deadline, the finest headline ever.

Here's Looking At You, Kid

Ronnie Spector At 72

The Girl Groups of the 1960s helped cement themes in American pop that have stuck to this day: glamour, adolescence, scandal, and the tension between capturing old, universal sentiments and instituting new ones. Ronnie Spector, of the pivotal group the Ronettes, was, and still is, an easy choice for poster girl. At seventy-two, she remains sinuous and spritely; sharpened by adversity, she is emblematic of those volatile sixties, which look more familiar with each turbulent, new headline. These days, Spector sits between songs, but her exuberant performances are a lesson in pop history. She promises the “Best Christmas Party Ever” at City Winery, Dec. 22-23; with standards like “Be My Baby” and classic renditions of “Sleigh Ride” and “Frosty the Snowman,” it’s a hard holiday evening to beat. [The New Yorker]

Country Music Royalty: The Carter Family

Janis: Little Girl Blue

Janis Joplin

There was a weekend during the Summer of 1968, walking along one of the streets on the back side of Beacon Hill, when it seemed like everybody was playing the new Big Brother And The Holding Company album.  You couldn't go more than twenty feet without hearing "Piece Of My Heart" or "Ball And Chain" coming from an open apartment window. The summer before, you would have been hearing the Red Sox game during their "Impossible Dream" season, but this summer, back in the time when nobody on that part of The Hill had an air conditioner in the window, it just seemed like everyone discovered Janis Joplin at the same time.

The West Coast had discovered Janis the year before at the Monterey Pop Music Festival, but it took a year for the word to spread, and for a major record label like Columbia to put their advertising support behind the group, creating a national audience and making it possible for them to tour behind the release of the album. All of a sudden, it was in the Summer air, everywhere. 

So I bought my copy of the album for $2.79 at The Harvard Coop on Saturday, and immediately put it into constant rotation on our KLH stereo all weekend long.

Janis' story has become so trite and cliche over the years - the Jack Daniels, the outrageous outfits - that those generations who never had the opportunity to see her live in concert have no idea what they missed. Before her depression and substance abuse killed her, she was totally in control of her music and her performances.

Here she is at her peak. Mama Cass' reaction perfectly captures the moment. 

 http://youtu.be/Bld_-7gzJ-o 

Nun And Cabbie

A cabbie picks up a Nun. She gets into the cab, and notices that the VERY handsome cab driver won’t stop staring at her. She asks him why he is staring.

He replies: “I have a question to ask, but I don’t want to offend you.”

She answers, “My son, you cannot offend me. When you’re as old as I am and have been a nun as long as I have, you get a chance to see and hear just about everything. I’m sure that there’s nothing you could say or ask that I would find offensive.”

“Well, I’ve always had a fantasy to have a nun kiss me.”

She responds, “Well, let’s see what we can do about that…

1) You have to be single and

2) You must be Catholic.”

The cab driver is very excited and says, “Yes, I’m single and Catholic!”

“OK” the nun says. “Pull into the next alley.”

The nun fulfills his fantasy with a kiss that would make a hooker blush. But when they get back on the road, the cab driver starts crying.

“My dear child,” said the nun, “why are you crying?”

“Forgive me, but I’ve sinned. I lied and I must confess, I’m married and I’m Jewish.”

The nun says, “That’s OK. My name is Kevin and I’m going to a Halloween party!”