In the summer of 1976 I had signed up to take a summer college course in general American history...the young instructor in his opening lecture told the students that he wasn't that concerned about facts per se, but rather that we picked up on the trends being taught in the course. I promptly dropped the class and switched to the same course but by a different instructor, a crotchety old man who taught from a scrapbook of different newspaper and magazine clippings he had assembled over the years. And he covered facts, boy did he ever...as well as laying out his own admittedly biased worldview. But I liked Mr. Theriault's way of teaching anyway...if you're not solidly based in historical facts then you're susceptible to any cockamamie idea floating around...and there are quite a few a these nowadays. I say all this because James A. Michener's 1974 historical novel Centennial, set in a fictional Colorado county on the Wyoming border north of Denver, mixes the two approaches in a disconcerting way. After reading it I feel I understand the trends and eras leading up to the present (the author's 1974, that is) while at the same time I became very uncomfortable with all of the "facts": the characters, locales, and events, while very similar to real historical people, locations, and events, are nonetheless fictional. So now I have this very-well researched and described fictional mental picture that is in all likelihood a very faithful representation of what the area around Centennial, a made-up town along the real Platte River, was really like. But that's the way it is with historical fiction, and I have to admit to greatly admiring Michener's attention to detail as well as his compassion and discernment in presenting all sides, good and bad, of his characters and the way societies and movements developed and declined there over the years...
Centennial is in essence a fictional history researcher's account of his commissioned area in northern Colorado, and he goes all the way back to the Earth's formation and the area's geological origins...then on to presenting life from the viewpoints of different animals populating the same region, including the dinosaur diplodocus, an early horse, a bison named "Rufus", a mother beaver, and a battle between a rattlesnake and eagle. How this fictional researcher came across these experiences strikes me as being a bit dubious, but he presents them all as fact...as well as the stories of a Clovis spear-maker from nearly 10,000 BC and Lame Beaver, an Arapaho Indian warrior. Don't get me wrong: I loved all of these little stories...and the book itself is by and large a collection of short stories bound in chronological order by the narrative connecting them all to the same geography. I already greatly admired Michener's writing after reading his 1982 novel Space, which I recently reviewed. I intend to embark on another Michener book in the near future, but I don't know which of his 40 novels it will be. So if you're interested in getting a good sense of what it was like in the American west...more specifically northern Colorado just east of the Rockies, you'll get a lot of input from Centennial about geology, dinosaurs, mammoths, horses, beavers, rattlesnakes, eagles, Arapaho-Shoshone-Pawnee-Cheyenne-Comanche Indians, French traders, the Army out west, outlaws and the gun culture, the gold and silver rushes, white prejudice against Indians and Mexicans, German, Russian, and Japanese settlers, the Mexicans and their revolution, cattle drives, ranching, religious attitudes of the time, the tactics of land acquisition and control, farming beets and then wheat, the Dust Bowl, and the effects of urban development on the environment...just to name a few items...then I say go for it!
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Weekly Short Stories: 1953 Science Fiction, Part 1
When I recently picked up my own copy of Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 15 (1953), it struck me that I've owned that particular book in the series longer than most of the others, having read several of its stories a number of times. Today I'm covering the first three of the selected science fiction short stories from 1953: all three are set off in the future on other planets, the first two of which happen to be Mars...
THE BIG HOLIDAY by Fritz Leiber
This story reads like something that Ray Bradbury would have written about the good ol' days growing up in a small midwestern town, but the people here are living on a future terraformed Mars...and seem to have gotten their priorities straight, celebrating the "Big Holiday" by laying down their work and engaging in good-natured community games, feasts and parties...along with the rest of the now-enlightened collective population of Earth and Mars. It's a story of hope, that somewhere along the line the things that should really matter to us will finally become the determining priorities for humanity's future instead of destructive warfare, fear, and hate...
CRUCIFIXUS ETIAM by William M. Miller, Jr.
A young man from Peru, enticed by the good pay for laboring on Mars, signs up for a five-year stint there. He is fully aware that eventually he will probably lose his ability to breathe on his own and become permanently dependent on oxygen directly supplied by a machine to his bloodstream, but he struggles in vain against what increasingly seems inevitable. And why are all of them working so hard anyway to dig up the strange substance from deep under the planet's surface? Another Mars tale with an ultimately optimistic ending...but in this case to get to heaven you must first go through hell...
FOUR IN ONE by Damon Knight
One of my all-time favorite sci-fi stories, Four In One takes place far into a future when the entire human-settled galaxy is locked in the throes of a civil war between two implacable factions. On a hasty project to claim an previously unexplored-but-strategic planet for one side in the conflict, a biologist and three others in his team accidently fall into a mass of strange protoplasm...which proceeds to digest their bodies, leaving only their brains, eyes, and nervous systems intact within the mottled mass. How protagonist George Meister assesses and adapts to his unique situation and how he deals with the others sharing his predicament form the flow of this fascinating and singular tale. And the ending definitely provides food for thought...
Next week: more reviews of good 1953 sci-fi short stories...
THE BIG HOLIDAY by Fritz Leiber
This story reads like something that Ray Bradbury would have written about the good ol' days growing up in a small midwestern town, but the people here are living on a future terraformed Mars...and seem to have gotten their priorities straight, celebrating the "Big Holiday" by laying down their work and engaging in good-natured community games, feasts and parties...along with the rest of the now-enlightened collective population of Earth and Mars. It's a story of hope, that somewhere along the line the things that should really matter to us will finally become the determining priorities for humanity's future instead of destructive warfare, fear, and hate...
CRUCIFIXUS ETIAM by William M. Miller, Jr.
A young man from Peru, enticed by the good pay for laboring on Mars, signs up for a five-year stint there. He is fully aware that eventually he will probably lose his ability to breathe on his own and become permanently dependent on oxygen directly supplied by a machine to his bloodstream, but he struggles in vain against what increasingly seems inevitable. And why are all of them working so hard anyway to dig up the strange substance from deep under the planet's surface? Another Mars tale with an ultimately optimistic ending...but in this case to get to heaven you must first go through hell...
FOUR IN ONE by Damon Knight
One of my all-time favorite sci-fi stories, Four In One takes place far into a future when the entire human-settled galaxy is locked in the throes of a civil war between two implacable factions. On a hasty project to claim an previously unexplored-but-strategic planet for one side in the conflict, a biologist and three others in his team accidently fall into a mass of strange protoplasm...which proceeds to digest their bodies, leaving only their brains, eyes, and nervous systems intact within the mottled mass. How protagonist George Meister assesses and adapts to his unique situation and how he deals with the others sharing his predicament form the flow of this fascinating and singular tale. And the ending definitely provides food for thought...
Next week: more reviews of good 1953 sci-fi short stories...
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
A Little Rant About Introverts and Extroverts
I have more than once heard it stated that people more oriented to introverted personalities are fundamentally different from their extroverted counterparts in one very significant way: while an extrovert will feel emotionally and spiritually energized from social interactions and deliberately seek them out...the more people and the louder the better...it is precisely this type of situation that drains introverts, who relish solitude to replenish themselves. Being such an introvert, I really don't need around me any extroverts who think it is part of their mission in life to change me into a more "social" creature and impose their view of social interaction on me: I've seen extroverts in action and oftentimes it isn't very pretty, what with all of the backbiting, gossip, grandstanding, verbal aggression and manipulation I hear...
Speaking from my own experience...and not necessarily yours...it is complicated enough for my feeble mind to figure out where someone else is coming from in simple one-on-one conversations, much less to sit at a table or in a room where most of the people there are simultaneously assessing and judging each other while in conversation and spewing out stuff about others who are not present. I remember even back to the first grade when the teacher would simply walk out of the classroom for a couple of minutes and the entire class would erupt into spontaneous, loud chatter...I would just sit there overcome and immobilized by it all. But school is where extroverts get the automatic upper hand over introverts and the latter are often psychologically beaten down over the years to the point where...well, it all seems pointless. Introverts are not incomplete or insecure people who need to be brought out of their "shells"...Lord knows, I've encountered some extroverts who have to rank among the most insulated and insecure I've experienced...
Most of us are mixes of introverted and extroverted personalities, seeking a kind of balance whenever we're either too isolated or too crowded. Although without a doubt pretty far down the introverted scale, I still enjoy my family and associating with others, as well as being interested in what goes on around me...I just don't want to be swept off into oblivion by the masses...or even a small group...
Speaking from my own experience...and not necessarily yours...it is complicated enough for my feeble mind to figure out where someone else is coming from in simple one-on-one conversations, much less to sit at a table or in a room where most of the people there are simultaneously assessing and judging each other while in conversation and spewing out stuff about others who are not present. I remember even back to the first grade when the teacher would simply walk out of the classroom for a couple of minutes and the entire class would erupt into spontaneous, loud chatter...I would just sit there overcome and immobilized by it all. But school is where extroverts get the automatic upper hand over introverts and the latter are often psychologically beaten down over the years to the point where...well, it all seems pointless. Introverts are not incomplete or insecure people who need to be brought out of their "shells"...Lord knows, I've encountered some extroverts who have to rank among the most insulated and insecure I've experienced...
Most of us are mixes of introverted and extroverted personalities, seeking a kind of balance whenever we're either too isolated or too crowded. Although without a doubt pretty far down the introverted scale, I still enjoy my family and associating with others, as well as being interested in what goes on around me...I just don't want to be swept off into oblivion by the masses...or even a small group...
Monday, October 28, 2019
My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #410-401
Here we go with my reactions to ten more songs on my 500 all-time favorites list. And with it go the first hundred songs...after this only 400 to go...
410 SIMPLE LIFE...Elton John
I liked of lot of Elton John's songs from the early-to-mid 1970s...and then suddenly just when it seemed he was at his peak stardom, I didn't like his output. Since then he came out with some four songs that I really like, among them this long 1992 single that got a lot of airplay on adult contemporary radio. Although Elton is more of a piano man, it is the harmonica on Simple Life that makes it special...
409 LORDS OF THE BOARDS...Guano Apes
A German rock band singing about snowboarding? An unlikely combination to make the airwaves, yet Rock 104 in Gainesville played this song in their regular rotation during 2000. Female lead vocal, heavy guitar riffs, and over-the-top screaming made this one ultimately my favorite song of the year...and no, I never snowboarded and probably never will...
408 TICKET TO RIDE...the Beatles
Before he bought the band's Help! album containing Ticket to Ride, my father, in 1965 decidedly a Beatles fan, recorded this song off the radio on his big tape deck and then played it and replayed it over and over. I thought...and still do...that it was one of their very best songs, but I heard it so much back then that I tired of it, not recovering until relatively recently...
407 SOMETHING IN THE AIR...Thunderclap Newman
This is a late sixties song marked by a high-pitched male lead singer, lush accompanying strings, and a unique ragtime piano instrumental break in its middle..."we've got to get together sooner or later, because the revolution's here and you know it's right." A piece that sounds like it was promoting itself as the anthem of those counterculture times. The Who's Pete Townshend was the creative force in both forming the band and intricately producing the record...
406 ORINOCO FLOW...Enya
Orinoco Flow, referring to a long South American river, gives that place a sense of mystery and anticipation, and Enya's singing is wonderful. Plus, I think the video she made for it will greatly enhance your enjoyment of this 1988 hit as it did for me. Very dreamy, just let it all go and fall back into this musical and lyrical adventure...
405 WICHITA LINEMAN...Glen Campbell
I used to hear this a lot on the radio during my DXing hobby phase in the late 1960s: this consisted of trying to pick up as many different AM radio stations from across the country as I could...I ended up with a little more than 500 from 31 different states plus several other countries using an ordinary cheap radio we picked up from Walgreens. The song is what I call "thoughtful country", an introspective look from a man missing his love and whose job at times makes him feel a bit alienated and cut off...
404 POLICY OF TRUTH...Depeche Mode
Michael Corleone would definitely dig the lyrics of this song off Depeche Mode's 1989 Violator album, which in my opinion was easily their finest work. Great dance tune and wicked synthesizer licks, along with lines like "Things could be so different now, it used to be so civilized, you will always wonder how it would have been if you'd only lied". There's a cynical kind of wisdom here that I find lacking elsewhere, which makes Policy of Truth stand out to me...
403 ONE WAY OR ANOTHER...Blondie
Back in the early 1980s, New York-based Blondie was the premier New Wave band with a female lead singer...followed closely by Missing Persons from Los Angeles. Deborah Harry sang so expressively and put a lot of humor into her craft...this song is a case in point. Such personality and presence...too bad they didn't last longer than they did after one of their founding members fell chronically ill and Harry left the business to care for him...
402 RASPBERRY BERET...Prince
Prince was one of those confounding musical artists who was so talented and creative, but tended to choose musical styles that steered me away from him instead of following him. In 1985, though, he seemed to be turning in a different, more listenable direction...but didn't go there in the end. Still, I always have his singles hit Raspberry Beret, in a style more reminiscent of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper era than of his own catalogue of recordings...
401 MAKE ME BAD...Korn
This is a peculiar example of a wild and crazy hard/metal rock song packaged in such a slick way that at moments it seems like a lounge act. I heard it for a couple of years around the turn of the century on the radio until they finally told me who did it...of course, it had to be Korn, with Jonathan Davis screeching his demented heart out...one of the catchiest songs of that time while hard-hitting and not a little bit bizarre...
Next week: #400-391...
410 SIMPLE LIFE...Elton John
I liked of lot of Elton John's songs from the early-to-mid 1970s...and then suddenly just when it seemed he was at his peak stardom, I didn't like his output. Since then he came out with some four songs that I really like, among them this long 1992 single that got a lot of airplay on adult contemporary radio. Although Elton is more of a piano man, it is the harmonica on Simple Life that makes it special...
409 LORDS OF THE BOARDS...Guano Apes
A German rock band singing about snowboarding? An unlikely combination to make the airwaves, yet Rock 104 in Gainesville played this song in their regular rotation during 2000. Female lead vocal, heavy guitar riffs, and over-the-top screaming made this one ultimately my favorite song of the year...and no, I never snowboarded and probably never will...
408 TICKET TO RIDE...the Beatles
Before he bought the band's Help! album containing Ticket to Ride, my father, in 1965 decidedly a Beatles fan, recorded this song off the radio on his big tape deck and then played it and replayed it over and over. I thought...and still do...that it was one of their very best songs, but I heard it so much back then that I tired of it, not recovering until relatively recently...
407 SOMETHING IN THE AIR...Thunderclap Newman
This is a late sixties song marked by a high-pitched male lead singer, lush accompanying strings, and a unique ragtime piano instrumental break in its middle..."we've got to get together sooner or later, because the revolution's here and you know it's right." A piece that sounds like it was promoting itself as the anthem of those counterculture times. The Who's Pete Townshend was the creative force in both forming the band and intricately producing the record...
406 ORINOCO FLOW...Enya
Orinoco Flow, referring to a long South American river, gives that place a sense of mystery and anticipation, and Enya's singing is wonderful. Plus, I think the video she made for it will greatly enhance your enjoyment of this 1988 hit as it did for me. Very dreamy, just let it all go and fall back into this musical and lyrical adventure...
405 WICHITA LINEMAN...Glen Campbell
I used to hear this a lot on the radio during my DXing hobby phase in the late 1960s: this consisted of trying to pick up as many different AM radio stations from across the country as I could...I ended up with a little more than 500 from 31 different states plus several other countries using an ordinary cheap radio we picked up from Walgreens. The song is what I call "thoughtful country", an introspective look from a man missing his love and whose job at times makes him feel a bit alienated and cut off...
404 POLICY OF TRUTH...Depeche Mode
Michael Corleone would definitely dig the lyrics of this song off Depeche Mode's 1989 Violator album, which in my opinion was easily their finest work. Great dance tune and wicked synthesizer licks, along with lines like "Things could be so different now, it used to be so civilized, you will always wonder how it would have been if you'd only lied". There's a cynical kind of wisdom here that I find lacking elsewhere, which makes Policy of Truth stand out to me...
403 ONE WAY OR ANOTHER...Blondie
Back in the early 1980s, New York-based Blondie was the premier New Wave band with a female lead singer...followed closely by Missing Persons from Los Angeles. Deborah Harry sang so expressively and put a lot of humor into her craft...this song is a case in point. Such personality and presence...too bad they didn't last longer than they did after one of their founding members fell chronically ill and Harry left the business to care for him...
402 RASPBERRY BERET...Prince
Prince was one of those confounding musical artists who was so talented and creative, but tended to choose musical styles that steered me away from him instead of following him. In 1985, though, he seemed to be turning in a different, more listenable direction...but didn't go there in the end. Still, I always have his singles hit Raspberry Beret, in a style more reminiscent of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper era than of his own catalogue of recordings...
401 MAKE ME BAD...Korn
This is a peculiar example of a wild and crazy hard/metal rock song packaged in such a slick way that at moments it seems like a lounge act. I heard it for a couple of years around the turn of the century on the radio until they finally told me who did it...of course, it had to be Korn, with Jonathan Davis screeching his demented heart out...one of the catchiest songs of that time while hard-hitting and not a little bit bizarre...
Next week: #400-391...
Sunday, October 27, 2019
Trump's Idolizers and Haters
The phenomenon-turned-president known as Donald Trump has certainly by far been the headline news item going on now for more than four years, with most of the country's voting-age population pitted against each other, steeped either in irrational adulation or hatred for the man. No doubt Trump himself has greatly instigated this stoked-up passion about himself since he has to be one of the most narcissistic egomaniacs I've ever seen...no matter what the story, it always has to be about him, in his private Trump-centered universe. I never did like him ever since the role he played as a big-spending team owner in the demise of the United States Football League, a pro league in the mid-eighties I then had high hopes for. Then, after Obama was elected president, Trump latched on to the birther movement claiming that this president wasn't really born in the U.S. and as such wasn't legally the president after all. I watched live on TV when he declared his own candidacy for the high office and was impressed with his oratorical skills...and apparently so did a lot of others since the Republicans made him their nominee in 2016 and he ultimately won the general election later that year...
So right up front I'll state it...I dislike Donald Trump, yet he still has some positive aspects to his personality...including his lifelong personal example against drug abuse...and takes positions on some issues that I support. I thought the Republicans made a mistake in 2016 rejecting stalwart conservative candidate Ted Cruz, one of the smartest senators in my opinion, and that Cruz could have also beaten Hillary Clinton in the election. But whereas I found many of Trump's comments and Tweets to be offensive and insulting...especially the name-calling and derision he heaped on any perceived opponent or critic, including "Lyin' Ted"...I noticed that his haters were often calling him racist on a number of things that were clearly taken out of context and distorted. And through all these years and up to the present, I find myself taken aback at some of Trump's actions and words while at the same time rejecting a lot of the criticism coming from the never-Trumpers...I could list specific examples but I don't really need anyone from either camp barraging me with links and emotion-laden reactions...
I tend to form my judgments about the politicians I see and hear on TV and radio from my own impressions, and not from the highly-spun interpretations that pass for news analysis these days. But for those irrational folks who either think Trump can do no right or no wrong, they tend to insulate themselves within their own feedback loop bubbles of TV channels, radio talk shows, and Internet sites that promote and reinforce their own preconceptions and do not entertain the notion that you can support (or oppose) someone while at times finding things about them that you disagree (or agree) with. That Donald Trump never admits to making a mistake and is always doubling down against any criticism of him doesn't mean that you or I have to engage in the same intellectually dishonest folly. After all, we the people are supposed to be the bosses, aren't we...not the politicians and not the often biased and lazy media talking heads trying to convince us that up is down, war is peace, liberty is bigotry, prosperity is privilege, compromise is betrayal, and so on. In discussing politics with others I've gotten into the habit, once I discover someone supports a particular politician, of asking them to share with me something...anything...that they dislike about the politician or his or her stance on some issue. And if they can't find even one thing, then I tend to suspect that they are idolizers, not independent thinkers...and it's fruitless trying to discuss anything with such types. In every presidential election I voted in since 1976 I saw good and bad in both major candidates and had to thoughtfully weigh which one would make a better president before I made my decision...and that includes the last election. Why not join me and do the same this time around and leave the idolizers and haters to wallow in their own comfortable self-imposed bubbles...
So right up front I'll state it...I dislike Donald Trump, yet he still has some positive aspects to his personality...including his lifelong personal example against drug abuse...and takes positions on some issues that I support. I thought the Republicans made a mistake in 2016 rejecting stalwart conservative candidate Ted Cruz, one of the smartest senators in my opinion, and that Cruz could have also beaten Hillary Clinton in the election. But whereas I found many of Trump's comments and Tweets to be offensive and insulting...especially the name-calling and derision he heaped on any perceived opponent or critic, including "Lyin' Ted"...I noticed that his haters were often calling him racist on a number of things that were clearly taken out of context and distorted. And through all these years and up to the present, I find myself taken aback at some of Trump's actions and words while at the same time rejecting a lot of the criticism coming from the never-Trumpers...I could list specific examples but I don't really need anyone from either camp barraging me with links and emotion-laden reactions...
I tend to form my judgments about the politicians I see and hear on TV and radio from my own impressions, and not from the highly-spun interpretations that pass for news analysis these days. But for those irrational folks who either think Trump can do no right or no wrong, they tend to insulate themselves within their own feedback loop bubbles of TV channels, radio talk shows, and Internet sites that promote and reinforce their own preconceptions and do not entertain the notion that you can support (or oppose) someone while at times finding things about them that you disagree (or agree) with. That Donald Trump never admits to making a mistake and is always doubling down against any criticism of him doesn't mean that you or I have to engage in the same intellectually dishonest folly. After all, we the people are supposed to be the bosses, aren't we...not the politicians and not the often biased and lazy media talking heads trying to convince us that up is down, war is peace, liberty is bigotry, prosperity is privilege, compromise is betrayal, and so on. In discussing politics with others I've gotten into the habit, once I discover someone supports a particular politician, of asking them to share with me something...anything...that they dislike about the politician or his or her stance on some issue. And if they can't find even one thing, then I tend to suspect that they are idolizers, not independent thinkers...and it's fruitless trying to discuss anything with such types. In every presidential election I voted in since 1976 I saw good and bad in both major candidates and had to thoughtfully weigh which one would make a better president before I made my decision...and that includes the last election. Why not join me and do the same this time around and leave the idolizers and haters to wallow in their own comfortable self-imposed bubbles...
Saturday, October 26, 2019
Our Visit to Pine Mountain, Georgia
In Warm Springs we ate at the Bulloch House, a famous restaurant where Roosevelt ate and which showed many historic pictures, one of the President smilingly about to cut into a large roast turkey and my favorite showing him actually standing up, on the rear car of a train at the Warm Springs station. They still have a railway there...albeit probably now just freight...while in Pine Mountain to the west they got rid of theirs in favor of a walking-biking trail. We shopped and ate in Warm Springs on Thursday, supping at Mac's Barbeque behind Bulloch and did the same the next day in Pine Mountain, breakfasting at Eddie Mae's Country Kitchen and trying out UniquExpressions Coffee Shop...Melissa's in Picture #5 in front on one of their Main Street shops. Then we headed on back homeward. I recommend this part of Georgia to those, especially from Florida, who just want to get away for a little while but don't feel like having to navigate through and past Atlanta to get to the northern Georgia mountains...that last picture was taken off the side of SR 190 where they offered a place to pull off the road to see the scenic view. There wasn't a person we met anywhere there who wasn't overly friendly and helpful...can't beat that! I'd like to return someday and extensively check out the Little White House and the nearby Callaway Gardens. Still, it's good to be back home again...
Friday, October 25, 2019
Quote of the Week...from William Arthur Ward
Three enemies of personal peace: regret over yesterday's mistakes, anxiety over tomorrow's problems, and ingratitude for today's blessings. ---William Arthur Ward
William Arthur Ward was a Christian Wesleyan/Methodist leader in the last century who wrote many philosophical maxims about how one can live the most effectively. I picked the above quote to discuss because its wisdom is so self-evident...yet how many of us ignore its clear message? For all of us, our lives take place in the "now", not the past or future, yet how much do we spend in terms of time and energy focusing our attention on anything but what's actually going on around us? Sure, like just about everyone else I can harbor all kinds of second-guessing and resentment about things I should have (or not) done in the past or the way other people treated me...but while all that is going on in my head I'm letting my real life...happening right now...go by the wayside. And about tomorrow...what I do while focused on what is going on now will take care of that abstraction of time as it slips into the present "today". And Ward's last part, about the need to take notice of the many blessings in my present life, is the solution to the problem of dwelling too much in the past or future: after all, if my temporal home in the present is so attractive with its many blessings, then why direct my attention "anytime" else?
William Arthur Ward was a Christian Wesleyan/Methodist leader in the last century who wrote many philosophical maxims about how one can live the most effectively. I picked the above quote to discuss because its wisdom is so self-evident...yet how many of us ignore its clear message? For all of us, our lives take place in the "now", not the past or future, yet how much do we spend in terms of time and energy focusing our attention on anything but what's actually going on around us? Sure, like just about everyone else I can harbor all kinds of second-guessing and resentment about things I should have (or not) done in the past or the way other people treated me...but while all that is going on in my head I'm letting my real life...happening right now...go by the wayside. And about tomorrow...what I do while focused on what is going on now will take care of that abstraction of time as it slips into the present "today". And Ward's last part, about the need to take notice of the many blessings in my present life, is the solution to the problem of dwelling too much in the past or future: after all, if my temporal home in the present is so attractive with its many blessings, then why direct my attention "anytime" else?
Thursday, October 24, 2019
John "Maddog" Wallace, Marathon Runner
When I was just getting into my middle-age fascination with distance running early in 2010, I happened across an interesting ongoing blog titled Maddog Marathon...click on the title link to access it. It featured very detailed accounts of John "Maddog" Wallace, twelve years my senior, who had run hundreds of marathons and held the world record for most countries run in a marathon. I always got a kick out of his often blunt and colorful writing, including his critiques of the events he ran in Gainesville and Ocala...especially describing those BAHs (bad-ass hills) on my hometown's stretch of NW16th Avenue between 34th and 13th Streets. I might have even unknowingly seen him at the Ocala event, which I was also running that year but at the half-marathon distance. Sadly, right after I began to follow Maddog's exploits he began to come down with one health problem after another and his running...along with his enjoyment of it...drastically suffered. Two years ago he ran probably his final marathon, in the tiny Pacific country of Palau: Wallace ran a total of 383 marathons in 132 different countries. After his retirement from marathons, he wrote a book about his experiences, titled Global Runner...here's a link to his webpage where you can read further [John Wallace]…
I suspect that John Wallace had more than just running marathons as a goal: it was a context in which he could extensively travel...and I'm sure that unlike most of us he had at his disposal deep financial resources that he could draw upon. My goals are much more modest than Maddog's...but I like to think that some more running and traveling adventures are in store for me as well, albeit on a smaller scale, to be sure...
I suspect that John Wallace had more than just running marathons as a goal: it was a context in which he could extensively travel...and I'm sure that unlike most of us he had at his disposal deep financial resources that he could draw upon. My goals are much more modest than Maddog's...but I like to think that some more running and traveling adventures are in store for me as well, albeit on a smaller scale, to be sure...
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Weekly Short Stories: 1952 Science Fiction, Part 4
I conclude my look back at the year in quality science fiction short stories with my reactions to the final five entries from the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SG Stories 14 (1952). Here they are...
THE MARTIAN WAY by Isaac Asimov
Mars in in the early years of becoming settled and a demagogic politician on Earth uses its consumption of water to scapegoat it and rise in political prominence...Asimov meant the story as an analogy to Senator McCarthy's then-red baiting tactics against others to enhance his own national political stature. The settlers come up with their own solution to Earth's embargo on water, and it involves a bold adventure...
THE IMPACTED MAN by Robert Sheckley
Super-entities are responsible...by working on awarded contracts...for designing the various elements of the cosmos, including our own galaxy. Its designer accidentally leaves a glitch on one of its planets...naturally Earth...in which a man finds himself slipping into the past or future depending on whether he walks down or up. This is a satirical look at how our government does its own business handing out contracts to various companies..
WHAT'S IT LIKE OUT THERE? by Edmond Hamilton
Whereas the first story in this group painted an optimistic picture of settling Mars, this one goes in the other direction describing the various horrors inflicted on the second expedition there, as a survivor finds himself back on Earth wearily visiting the bereaved families of his buddies who didn't make it and trying to comfort them without fully explaining what really happened there...
SAIL ON! SAIL ON! by Philip José Farmer
It seems like the 1492 Columbus expedition to the Americas, but the priest on board communicates by radio in code to his counterpart on the Canaries...and soon it becomes clear that this is an alternate universe where certain historical events went different ways than in our own, creating interesting scenarios. And, it seems, there are a few other significant differences as evidenced by the story's ending...
COST OF LIVING by Robert Sheckley
The notion of endless and effortless credit, to be passed on from one generation to another, is the theme of this prescient tale as a man and woman at some time in the not-so-distant future cannot bring themselves to say "enough" and stop buying their costly and often unused labor-saving devices on credit. It's all in how one defines a "need" vs. a "want"...and if something is deemed a need, then is it really necessarily to always buy the more luxurious and expensive model? This story accurately illustrates how easily-available credit can distort people from making realistic economic choices in their lives based on their priorities and ability to pay for them. Both editors expressed a analogy between Cost of Living and how our government runs up its own debt, to be paid back with interest by future generations...
Next week I'll begin a look at the year 1953 in science fiction short stories...
THE MARTIAN WAY by Isaac Asimov
Mars in in the early years of becoming settled and a demagogic politician on Earth uses its consumption of water to scapegoat it and rise in political prominence...Asimov meant the story as an analogy to Senator McCarthy's then-red baiting tactics against others to enhance his own national political stature. The settlers come up with their own solution to Earth's embargo on water, and it involves a bold adventure...
THE IMPACTED MAN by Robert Sheckley
Super-entities are responsible...by working on awarded contracts...for designing the various elements of the cosmos, including our own galaxy. Its designer accidentally leaves a glitch on one of its planets...naturally Earth...in which a man finds himself slipping into the past or future depending on whether he walks down or up. This is a satirical look at how our government does its own business handing out contracts to various companies..
WHAT'S IT LIKE OUT THERE? by Edmond Hamilton
Whereas the first story in this group painted an optimistic picture of settling Mars, this one goes in the other direction describing the various horrors inflicted on the second expedition there, as a survivor finds himself back on Earth wearily visiting the bereaved families of his buddies who didn't make it and trying to comfort them without fully explaining what really happened there...
SAIL ON! SAIL ON! by Philip José Farmer
It seems like the 1492 Columbus expedition to the Americas, but the priest on board communicates by radio in code to his counterpart on the Canaries...and soon it becomes clear that this is an alternate universe where certain historical events went different ways than in our own, creating interesting scenarios. And, it seems, there are a few other significant differences as evidenced by the story's ending...
COST OF LIVING by Robert Sheckley
The notion of endless and effortless credit, to be passed on from one generation to another, is the theme of this prescient tale as a man and woman at some time in the not-so-distant future cannot bring themselves to say "enough" and stop buying their costly and often unused labor-saving devices on credit. It's all in how one defines a "need" vs. a "want"...and if something is deemed a need, then is it really necessarily to always buy the more luxurious and expensive model? This story accurately illustrates how easily-available credit can distort people from making realistic economic choices in their lives based on their priorities and ability to pay for them. Both editors expressed a analogy between Cost of Living and how our government runs up its own debt, to be paid back with interest by future generations...
Next week I'll begin a look at the year 1953 in science fiction short stories...
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
My Sunday 13.3 Mile Training Run
This past Sunday afternoon...after slogging it out in the rain Friday night and most of Saturday...the skies over Gainesville miraculously cleared up, with moderately-warm temperatures and relatively low humidity. After cancelling my planned long-distance Saturday training run because of the adverse weather, I found myself stepping out my front door to try an unplanned Sunday run...and my goal was no less than to cover a course of 13.3 miles, slightly longer than a half-marathon. I figured it might be more challenging since I didn't prepare myself for a long-distance run the previous day as I customarily do through carb-loading (usually with pancakes, pizza, or pasta), but I was game anyway. I continued to employ the strategy that marathon guru Jeff Galloway suggests, involving regular short walking breaks interspersed throughout the run. This I did and easily surpassed my 10.0 and 10.6 mile runs accomplished September 28th and October 12th, respectively. But as I approached the 12.5 mark near the very end, I hit the proverbial runner's wall when my energy level plummetted and I was struggling step-by-step to finish...which I somehow accomplished. That's a marked improvement from last week's run when I ran out of steam after about 9 miles, though. I kept a slow, regular pace as I listened to a mix of songs I like (many of them on my personal "top 500" list that I'm gradually unraveling on this blog each Monday) and carried a bottle of Zero-Sugar Powerade, which I sipped during those brief breaks. My course took me up and down most of the residential streets of my Northwood Pines and the adjacent Northwood Oaks subdivisions up here in far northern Gainesville, along with a 3-mile stretch on the sloping NW 53rd Avenue walkway between NW 34th and 43rd Streets. For a couple of hours following the run I experienced some painful cramping in my toes, feet, and calves...which gradually subsided into a general lower-body soreness. Now a couple of days later I'm "good to go" and looking forward to the next weekend trek. I'm planning to enter Gainesville's Tom Walker, Jr. Memorial Half-Marathon, to take place on Sunday morning, November 10 at Boulware Springs Park and the Hawthorne Trail southeast of Gainesville. I've twice run that race before a few years ago, but at age 63 my strategy has been shifting away from fast finishing times toward that of successfully covering the distance...my fastest-ever half-marathon time, in March 2013, was 1:50:53 at the Orange Blossom Half-Marathon in Tavares. My time on this 13.3-mile training run was considerably (and deliberately) slower at 2:40:00. I'm wondering whether or not I should continue to ramp up the distance on my weekend training runs to possibly get myself into marathon territory, but at least for now I'll be focusing on getting through the next half-marathon, which will be my twelfth race at that distance since I began running them in 2010...
Monday, October 21, 2019
My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #420-411
Here is another segment of my top 500 favorite songs list that spans quite a long period of time: 1964 to 2016, 52 years. And the musical selections' tempos and styles vary widely as well...there should be something here you like. If you haven't heard some of the listed songs, why not give them a listen...I especially recommend Regina Spektor. Anyway, here's what I have to say about #420-411...
420 I AM MINE...Pearl Jam
I am Mine, written and sung by Eddie Vedder and released in 2002, is one of those special songs celebrating individuality and the importance of meeting life on one's own terms...like Frank Sinatra's I Did It My Way and Sammy Davis, Jr.'s I Gotta Be Me, but for the 21st century. Pearl Jam is one of those musical acts that had a breakthrough album establishing their fame and fortune but, after the first few years...although their product remained high-quality...didn't get the airplay they deserved for their newer songs and had to rely on their name and older hits on the concert trail...I am Mine should have been a much bigger hit...
419 ABRAHAM, MARTIN AND JOHN...Dion
This song was composed soon after the devastating assassination in early June, 1968 of Robert F. Kennedy while he was passing through the back of a hotel after his victory speech for winning the California presidential primary earlier that day. I didn't hear about it until the next morning at school (Nova Blanche Forman Elementary in Davie, 6th Grade, Wednesday, June 5th sitting on the south side of Room 18 in Suite D). Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby's brother, John F. Kennedy, were also victims to assassins' bullets...what a different country we would be had they not fallen. An appropriately very sad and unforgettable song...
418 STAY AWAY...Nirvana
A deep track from this Seattle grunge band's 1991 Nevermind album, it is full of their late frontman Kurt Cobain's rage at the outside world trying to typecast and crowd in on him...so why did he set out to achieve celebrity and fame, then? I can never get why some people struggle and struggle to attain something after which they act like such big victims for being successful. I like this song for a different reason: the words "stay away" as he screams them speak to my feelings during the times I feel overwhelmed in the middle of noisy crowds (like what is currently going on in this Starbucks), and hey, sometimes it's just fun to haul off and scream along with the half-crazed singer...
417 INFATUATION...Rod Stewart
Once I turned off the exploitative and asisine music video and considered this 1984 singles release by Rod Stewart on its own merits, I quickly grew to like and appreciate it, one of this British artist's best songs in my estimation. It's a good rock song full of strong guitar riffs and keyboard support...Stewart's gruff, scratchy voice fits in perfectly here. My only problem was the drawn-out ending, but I can always switch it off at that point anyway...
416 IT KEEPS YOU RUNNIN'...the Doobie Brothers
When Michael McDonald joined the Doobie Brothers, his deep, soulful singing and keyboards added a different dimension to this band, as exemplified by this slow and relentless 1976 classic from their Taking It to the Streets album. Not that I don't appreciate original lead singer Tom Johnston, who is back with the band and touring with them...they're performing in St. Augustine next month. I didn't get around to noticing It Keeps You Runnin' until 1980, when for some reason it seemed to be resurgent on the radio...
415 LET IT BE ME...Betty Everett and Jerry Butler
When I was a little kid back in 1964 I had first thought that the Everett/Butler version I had grown to like so much, even back then, was the original and that the Everly Brothers copied them. But not only did I have that backwards, but also the original song was a French hit (in French by somebody else) from 1955. No matter, I still greatly prefer the beautiful heart-rending performance by Betty Everett and Jerry Butler...although the Everly Brothers did a pretty bang-up job with it as well...
414 THE VISIT...Regina Spektor
To me Regina Spektor is the greatest popular musical artist of this era...if anything I should have included more of her songs on this list. The Visit is from her 2016 Remember Us to Life album. The lyrics are about a visit to an old friend from the past: "And somewhere on the hill inside the past we hear the bells catching only parts of thoughts and fragments of ourselves". Regina is a classically-trained pianist who records her own compositions and has already released several albums...
413 THE BIG TIME...Neil Young
Back in 1996 I became a member of one of those CD music clubs that offered a certain number of free CDs along with a minimum of purchases...had I not I might never have heard this wonderful opening song of Neil Young's Broken Arrow album, which he recorded and released that year with the backup band Crazy Horse and I picked as one of my CDs from the list. A long piece, The Big Time refers in what seems to be an autobiographical sense to a long life well lived...and it's still not over, he's not finished yet. I like both Neil's endearing lyrics and the instrumental breaks, not a single weak moment in this long track...
412 TIGHTROPE...Electric Light Orchestra
Tightrope is the opening track from ELO's 1976 album A New World Record, in my opinion (as well as many others) their best album...I remember going down to Peaches in Fort Lauderdale next to the library to buy it...every track is worth listening to, and this song is one of the best with a brooding opening leading into electric guitar riff-laden rock n' roll punctuated by sudden, dissonant strings...nothing like it...
411 PIGS (THREE DIFFERENT ONES)...Pink Floyd
In their succession of four blockbuster hit albums, released every two years from 1973 to 1979, Pink Floyd's 1977 Animals is the one generally least liked and most ignored. The main reason I think for this are the abnormally long tracks dominating it, and Pigs (Three Different Ones) is a prime example, going on for more than 11 minutes with an exceedingly long mid-song instrumental break. It's one that you probably have to develop a taste for, but the music is so well-crafted and produced and Roger Waters' flair for cynicism-in-song is on full display here, although some of the references appear to be England-based and not readily apparent to American listeners...especially that part about Mary Whitehouse. A really spooky song that you need to set aside time for...
Next week: #410-401...
420 I AM MINE...Pearl Jam
I am Mine, written and sung by Eddie Vedder and released in 2002, is one of those special songs celebrating individuality and the importance of meeting life on one's own terms...like Frank Sinatra's I Did It My Way and Sammy Davis, Jr.'s I Gotta Be Me, but for the 21st century. Pearl Jam is one of those musical acts that had a breakthrough album establishing their fame and fortune but, after the first few years...although their product remained high-quality...didn't get the airplay they deserved for their newer songs and had to rely on their name and older hits on the concert trail...I am Mine should have been a much bigger hit...
419 ABRAHAM, MARTIN AND JOHN...Dion
This song was composed soon after the devastating assassination in early June, 1968 of Robert F. Kennedy while he was passing through the back of a hotel after his victory speech for winning the California presidential primary earlier that day. I didn't hear about it until the next morning at school (Nova Blanche Forman Elementary in Davie, 6th Grade, Wednesday, June 5th sitting on the south side of Room 18 in Suite D). Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby's brother, John F. Kennedy, were also victims to assassins' bullets...what a different country we would be had they not fallen. An appropriately very sad and unforgettable song...
418 STAY AWAY...Nirvana
A deep track from this Seattle grunge band's 1991 Nevermind album, it is full of their late frontman Kurt Cobain's rage at the outside world trying to typecast and crowd in on him...so why did he set out to achieve celebrity and fame, then? I can never get why some people struggle and struggle to attain something after which they act like such big victims for being successful. I like this song for a different reason: the words "stay away" as he screams them speak to my feelings during the times I feel overwhelmed in the middle of noisy crowds (like what is currently going on in this Starbucks), and hey, sometimes it's just fun to haul off and scream along with the half-crazed singer...
417 INFATUATION...Rod Stewart
Once I turned off the exploitative and asisine music video and considered this 1984 singles release by Rod Stewart on its own merits, I quickly grew to like and appreciate it, one of this British artist's best songs in my estimation. It's a good rock song full of strong guitar riffs and keyboard support...Stewart's gruff, scratchy voice fits in perfectly here. My only problem was the drawn-out ending, but I can always switch it off at that point anyway...
416 IT KEEPS YOU RUNNIN'...the Doobie Brothers
When Michael McDonald joined the Doobie Brothers, his deep, soulful singing and keyboards added a different dimension to this band, as exemplified by this slow and relentless 1976 classic from their Taking It to the Streets album. Not that I don't appreciate original lead singer Tom Johnston, who is back with the band and touring with them...they're performing in St. Augustine next month. I didn't get around to noticing It Keeps You Runnin' until 1980, when for some reason it seemed to be resurgent on the radio...
415 LET IT BE ME...Betty Everett and Jerry Butler
When I was a little kid back in 1964 I had first thought that the Everett/Butler version I had grown to like so much, even back then, was the original and that the Everly Brothers copied them. But not only did I have that backwards, but also the original song was a French hit (in French by somebody else) from 1955. No matter, I still greatly prefer the beautiful heart-rending performance by Betty Everett and Jerry Butler...although the Everly Brothers did a pretty bang-up job with it as well...
414 THE VISIT...Regina Spektor
To me Regina Spektor is the greatest popular musical artist of this era...if anything I should have included more of her songs on this list. The Visit is from her 2016 Remember Us to Life album. The lyrics are about a visit to an old friend from the past: "And somewhere on the hill inside the past we hear the bells catching only parts of thoughts and fragments of ourselves". Regina is a classically-trained pianist who records her own compositions and has already released several albums...
413 THE BIG TIME...Neil Young
Back in 1996 I became a member of one of those CD music clubs that offered a certain number of free CDs along with a minimum of purchases...had I not I might never have heard this wonderful opening song of Neil Young's Broken Arrow album, which he recorded and released that year with the backup band Crazy Horse and I picked as one of my CDs from the list. A long piece, The Big Time refers in what seems to be an autobiographical sense to a long life well lived...and it's still not over, he's not finished yet. I like both Neil's endearing lyrics and the instrumental breaks, not a single weak moment in this long track...
412 TIGHTROPE...Electric Light Orchestra
Tightrope is the opening track from ELO's 1976 album A New World Record, in my opinion (as well as many others) their best album...I remember going down to Peaches in Fort Lauderdale next to the library to buy it...every track is worth listening to, and this song is one of the best with a brooding opening leading into electric guitar riff-laden rock n' roll punctuated by sudden, dissonant strings...nothing like it...
411 PIGS (THREE DIFFERENT ONES)...Pink Floyd
In their succession of four blockbuster hit albums, released every two years from 1973 to 1979, Pink Floyd's 1977 Animals is the one generally least liked and most ignored. The main reason I think for this are the abnormally long tracks dominating it, and Pigs (Three Different Ones) is a prime example, going on for more than 11 minutes with an exceedingly long mid-song instrumental break. It's one that you probably have to develop a taste for, but the music is so well-crafted and produced and Roger Waters' flair for cynicism-in-song is on full display here, although some of the references appear to be England-based and not readily apparent to American listeners...especially that part about Mary Whitehouse. A really spooky song that you need to set aside time for...
Next week: #410-401...
Sunday, October 20, 2019
About Gators and Dolphins Football, Baseball Playoffs
Gators Football: In college football the Florda Gators bounced back from their LSU defeat last week by coming from behind on the read against a touch South Carolina team and winning on the road 38-27 yesterday afternoon. Now they'll get a week off before their showdown against Georgia on November 2nd in Jacksonville. Meanwhile, the other team challenging so far in the Southeastern Conference East Division, Missouri, lost to Vanderbilt this week and will face Kentucky the next...they may or may not have a good team this year, it's hard to say until they are tested against Georgia November 9 and the Gators a week later...and the Tigers are currently appealing an NCAA ruling that would keep them from playing for the conference championship anyway this year. If Florida wins out it won't matter...but they have to win out...
Dolphins Football: The Dolphins showed signs of rebellion against the derision cast upon them across the country for their management-induced tanking season by nearly beating Washington last week before bowing after missing a late two-point conversion, 17-16. I've written before that I understand that teams have to rebuild from time to time...but deliberately trying to finish in last place in order to get higher draft picks is despicable and demeaning, especially to the fans as well as the players. But it looks as if Coach Brian Flores and his players haven't accepted the tanking strategy concocted by Dolphins management: they're actually trying to win, bless them. It's got to be tough working against the wishes of your own bosses. In today's game against an improved Buffalo team on the road, Miami actually maintained a 14-9 lead through three quarters before the Bills took over in the last to win 31-21...
Baseball Playoffs: I was gratified to see the Washington Nationals handle St. Louis so well, sweeping them in four games, to make it to the first World Series in franchise history (they were originally the Montreal Expos) and the first time since the American League Senators in 1933 that a major league Washington team will play in that championship series. Last night in the American League New York had a chance to force a game seven in their series at Houston, but although the Yankees outhit the Astros 10-6, the latter were able to pull off two incredible outfielder catches in the later innings, robbing NY of extra bases and the runs they desperately needed to come back. Houston won the game and thus the series in the bottom of the ninth with a walk-off homer by Jose Altuve...so now its Houston vs. Washington in the 2019 World Series, to commence next Tuesday...
Dolphins Football: The Dolphins showed signs of rebellion against the derision cast upon them across the country for their management-induced tanking season by nearly beating Washington last week before bowing after missing a late two-point conversion, 17-16. I've written before that I understand that teams have to rebuild from time to time...but deliberately trying to finish in last place in order to get higher draft picks is despicable and demeaning, especially to the fans as well as the players. But it looks as if Coach Brian Flores and his players haven't accepted the tanking strategy concocted by Dolphins management: they're actually trying to win, bless them. It's got to be tough working against the wishes of your own bosses. In today's game against an improved Buffalo team on the road, Miami actually maintained a 14-9 lead through three quarters before the Bills took over in the last to win 31-21...
Baseball Playoffs: I was gratified to see the Washington Nationals handle St. Louis so well, sweeping them in four games, to make it to the first World Series in franchise history (they were originally the Montreal Expos) and the first time since the American League Senators in 1933 that a major league Washington team will play in that championship series. Last night in the American League New York had a chance to force a game seven in their series at Houston, but although the Yankees outhit the Astros 10-6, the latter were able to pull off two incredible outfielder catches in the later innings, robbing NY of extra bases and the runs they desperately needed to come back. Houston won the game and thus the series in the bottom of the ninth with a walk-off homer by Jose Altuve...so now its Houston vs. Washington in the 2019 World Series, to commence next Tuesday...
Saturday, October 19, 2019
Nasty Nestor Rains on Gainesville
When I walked out the door last night at ten from work, I was dismayed at all the rainfall...but already knew where it was all coming from: Tropical Storm Nestor, its center far off to the west off the Florida panhandle coast just west of Apalachicola. The Weather Channel says that it's "tropical" in name only since the worst of its associated weather by far has been blasting the Florida peninsula...even 400+ miles away in south Florida...with storms and heavy winds...and even reported tornadoes in the central part of the state. Today around Gainesville they're predicting rain, rain, and more rain...I'm writing this as today's topic because in the past whenever I wrote about the bad weather it would suddenly clear up as if to spite me: maybe the strategy will work today! Still, the Walk to End Alzheimer's scheduled for this morning has already been postponed and I don't know what they're doing about the Tom Petty birthday celebration across town...the late rock n' roll legend grew up in Gainesville before hitting it big out west. Nasty Nestor, as I like to call it, has very little precipitation around its center, currently with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph. Its trajectory has it cutting across northern Florida through Tallahassee, where Florida A&M has already changed its home football game from today to tomorrow. Then it's onward through far-southern Georgia and South Carolina...
I was planning on trying a long neighborhood run today but I'm not very acclimatized to running in the rain and on the slippery roads with their slimy fallen leaves, puddles, water-filled potholes, and oil spots I'd have to avoid...better to wait a couple of days, I guess. This storm reminds me of Hurricane Juan, from October 1985. It was much stronger than Nestor and sat on Louisiana for a number of days, thoroughly flooding the state. But it also sent off distant feeder bands that struck Gainesville with some horrific stormy weather, hundreds of miles distant from its center. At least Nestor should be out of our way before too long...
I was planning on trying a long neighborhood run today but I'm not very acclimatized to running in the rain and on the slippery roads with their slimy fallen leaves, puddles, water-filled potholes, and oil spots I'd have to avoid...better to wait a couple of days, I guess. This storm reminds me of Hurricane Juan, from October 1985. It was much stronger than Nestor and sat on Louisiana for a number of days, thoroughly flooding the state. But it also sent off distant feeder bands that struck Gainesville with some horrific stormy weather, hundreds of miles distant from its center. At least Nestor should be out of our way before too long...
Friday, October 18, 2019
Quote of the Week...from Tom Daschle
Bipartisanship isn't an option anymore; it is a requirement. The American people have divided responsibility for leadership right down the middle. ---Tom Daschle
Tom Daschle, from South Dakota, was a Democratic senator representing his state and serving as both Senate Majority and Minority Leader during the early part of this century. He hasn't always lived up to his above quote urging for bipartisanship, but his leadership in that regard easily surpassed what we've been witnessing on Capitol Hill for the past few years. He is an example of a Democrat elected for office statewide in what are now solidly red, Republican states...and he's not the only one...
If you look at the electoral map nowadays its easy to see North and South Dakota, Arkansas, and West Virginia as solidly red...they all went overwhelmingly for Trump in the last election and only West Virginia...with John Manchin voting with the Republicans much of the time...has a sitting senator in the Democratic caucus. Yet just a few years ago all of these states each had two Democratic senators...what happened? There are two basic reasons as I see it...
One clear reason, as evidenced in North Dakota with past established Democratic senators Kent Conrad and Bryan Dorgan, in West Virginia with Jay Rockefeller, and in South Dakota with Tim Johnson, is that the sitting senators chose to retire and were replaced with Republicans. But elsewhere another process was afoot: voters in these states, seeing how extremely partisanly-divided the politics had become in Washington, chose party over individual...and those individual Democrats like Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor in Arkansas and Daschle himself in South Dakota supported Senate control by a party that many of them opposed and were defeated for reelection by Republican candidates. The fact that the party primary process favors more politically-extreme candidates for either party has scared incumbents from engaging in bipartisan engagement with the other side on their legislation and has resulted in a polarized Senate where more Democrats in more conservative states are marginalized when they try to tend to their constituents' interests there. Yet most of the American people are centrist...not far right or far left...in their political orientation and feel disenfranchised by this deteriorating political trend. If the Democrats want to regain red states they lost, their candidates and sitting politicians need to show that they are interested in the people living there and what their special concerns and priorities are...but that would necessitate making their tent a little bigger and more centrist, something that the left will not tolerate. Democratic presidential candidates are in the same bind: in this stupidly-protracted primary season they have to show their leftist credentials time and time again to garner the nomination...and then go around during the general election talking differently...but it won't wash in Wabash...
And eliminating the electoral college won't wash either, since it would require changing the U.S. Constitution which would then require the approval of most of those small rural red states to greatly diminish their own electoral power...never will happen. So instead of complaining about the electoral college why won't the Democrats just roll up their sleeves and get to work on the ground to win back their lost states in the time-honored American tradition? Now I was researching and discovered that twenty blue states have changed their laws to award their allotment of electoral votes to the presidential candidate winning the nationwide popular vote...originally I thought that this would put Democratic candidates at a decided disadvantage since none of the Republican-controlled red states are passing such laws. But after initially railing against that action here (and having to revise this article), I discovered that the laws wouldn't take effect until the red states sign on as well and close that loophole...and here we have the same problem I mentioned before about the smaller states not being likely to voluntarily diminish their own national political power. Maybe at some time a generation or two from now we'll get a consensus on this issue but until then the electoral college, voted on state-by-state, is going to be the way we elect presidents, like it or not...
Tom Daschle, from South Dakota, was a Democratic senator representing his state and serving as both Senate Majority and Minority Leader during the early part of this century. He hasn't always lived up to his above quote urging for bipartisanship, but his leadership in that regard easily surpassed what we've been witnessing on Capitol Hill for the past few years. He is an example of a Democrat elected for office statewide in what are now solidly red, Republican states...and he's not the only one...
If you look at the electoral map nowadays its easy to see North and South Dakota, Arkansas, and West Virginia as solidly red...they all went overwhelmingly for Trump in the last election and only West Virginia...with John Manchin voting with the Republicans much of the time...has a sitting senator in the Democratic caucus. Yet just a few years ago all of these states each had two Democratic senators...what happened? There are two basic reasons as I see it...
One clear reason, as evidenced in North Dakota with past established Democratic senators Kent Conrad and Bryan Dorgan, in West Virginia with Jay Rockefeller, and in South Dakota with Tim Johnson, is that the sitting senators chose to retire and were replaced with Republicans. But elsewhere another process was afoot: voters in these states, seeing how extremely partisanly-divided the politics had become in Washington, chose party over individual...and those individual Democrats like Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor in Arkansas and Daschle himself in South Dakota supported Senate control by a party that many of them opposed and were defeated for reelection by Republican candidates. The fact that the party primary process favors more politically-extreme candidates for either party has scared incumbents from engaging in bipartisan engagement with the other side on their legislation and has resulted in a polarized Senate where more Democrats in more conservative states are marginalized when they try to tend to their constituents' interests there. Yet most of the American people are centrist...not far right or far left...in their political orientation and feel disenfranchised by this deteriorating political trend. If the Democrats want to regain red states they lost, their candidates and sitting politicians need to show that they are interested in the people living there and what their special concerns and priorities are...but that would necessitate making their tent a little bigger and more centrist, something that the left will not tolerate. Democratic presidential candidates are in the same bind: in this stupidly-protracted primary season they have to show their leftist credentials time and time again to garner the nomination...and then go around during the general election talking differently...but it won't wash in Wabash...
And eliminating the electoral college won't wash either, since it would require changing the U.S. Constitution which would then require the approval of most of those small rural red states to greatly diminish their own electoral power...never will happen. So instead of complaining about the electoral college why won't the Democrats just roll up their sleeves and get to work on the ground to win back their lost states in the time-honored American tradition? Now I was researching and discovered that twenty blue states have changed their laws to award their allotment of electoral votes to the presidential candidate winning the nationwide popular vote...originally I thought that this would put Democratic candidates at a decided disadvantage since none of the Republican-controlled red states are passing such laws. But after initially railing against that action here (and having to revise this article), I discovered that the laws wouldn't take effect until the red states sign on as well and close that loophole...and here we have the same problem I mentioned before about the smaller states not being likely to voluntarily diminish their own national political power. Maybe at some time a generation or two from now we'll get a consensus on this issue but until then the electoral college, voted on state-by-state, is going to be the way we elect presidents, like it or not...
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Cornyn Raises Trump's 2016 Election Total in Senate Speech
Yesterday morning I was watching C-Span2 as the United States Senate was in session. One of the speakers rising to take the floor was the Texas senior senator, Republican John Cornyn, who is known to be a strong defender of the Trump administration and who also is a skilled orator and debater...he's a senator whom I respect and take seriously. He made an interesting point that the Democratic-controlled House, in its impeachment inquiry against Trump, was not according the President or the Republican side the kind of due process and consideration that the Republicans had displayed toward President Clinton and the Democrats back in 1998 when they were going down the same road. That may be true, but Cornyn, in accusing the other side of trying to undo the 2016 presidential election, made the erroneous claim that Donald Trump received 65 million votes in that election...let's take a look at the real figures...
If you go to Wikipedia, they report that Trump got 62,984,828 votes and Clinton 65,853,514. The Associated Press reported Trump at 62,985106 and Clinton at 65,853,625. And the official tally from the Federal Election Commission has Trump with 62,984,825 votes and Clinton with 65,853,516. Even with the figures rounded to the next million, Donald Trump received only 63 million votes while Hillary Clinton got 66 million. Now 63 million votes is nothing to laugh about, but especially considering that his opponent received nearly 3 million more than him, I wouldn't be making such an issue about Trump's popular vote total as Senator Cornyn did. Of course, Donald Trump has claimed without any substantiated proof that he really did win the popular vote over Hillary Clinton and that there was widespread voter fraud on her behalf. And if you're one of his idolizers who see everything only through his filters just because he supports you on your pet issues...and I pity you if you do...you most assuredly agree with him on this and just about everything else he puts forth: good luck on convincing me, though. I voted twice for Obama but also criticized the hell out of him when I thought he was wrong on something...
I am a supporter of the electoral college system and despite Trump losing the popular vote total to Clinton, I have always held that he won the 2016 election fair and square through the Constitutionally-mandated electoral college after winning close contests in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Florida. I remember before the 2000 election between Bush and Gore and polls were hinting that Bush might win the popular vote but lose the electoral college...but the reverse happened and Dubya was sworn in as the 43rd president. No problem...ever since I was twelve years old and observed the 1968 election returns between Nixon, Humphrey, and Wallace, I knew that it was the electoral college that determined a presidential election's winner. But I wonder how many adults around me are totally clueless with regard to how presidents are legitimately elected to office and what they were being taught...if anything...in middle and high school...
Wednesday, October 16, 2019
Weekly Short Stories: 1952 Science Fiction, Part 3
I continued reading (again) through the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 14 (1952), with four more good science fiction tales to review. Here they are...
DELAY IN TRANSIT by F.L. Wallace
Cassal, an agent in the distant future employed by a for-profit corporation seeking exclusive rights to produce and market an extremely important invention by a scientist living far away near the center of the galaxy...finds himself stranded on a planet on which he discovers many others in the same predicament as himself, not having the proper credentials to board their needed flights. Cassal, aided by a hidden device providing him detailed data on his surroundings and those around him, discovers a company that offers to get him passage to his destination...at a steep price. Ultimately, it is this company, not Cassal's mission or predicament, that I came away with as the main message of this story: some businesses will create the very problem that they then turn around and sell solutions for...
GAME FOR BLONDES by John D. MacDonald
A man, in the middle of an angry argument with his wife, has a terrible auto accident that kills her...later he finds himself deep in grief and guilt, staggering half-drunk through the streets when he notices three strangely-dressed and made-up blonde women are following him. Their eventual meeting takes this brief story in a completely unexpected direction, as well as a remarkable ending...
THE ALTAR AT MIDNIGHT by Cyril Kornbluth
The narrator of this story frequents different bars in town and one evening notices a young man sitting at the end of one of them with extensive broken red veins scarring his entire face, causing a ghastly effect. He reveals that the scars are from his job: he is a spacer, making a lot of money traveling through space between Venus, Earth, and Mars. His disfigurement comes from the many flights he has taken in ships equipped with the innovative Bowman Drive...he had meant to "retire" before too much scarring had taken place but couldn't pass up on the money: now on Earth he is ostracized and bitter. The Bowman Drive also enabled an atomic bomb installation on the moon that now threatens Earth: and just who is this Bowman who made all this possible? Read on to the story's end...
COMMAND PERFORMANCE by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
A young affluent, married woman with three children has always felt a sense of emptiness within her...something intangible that was missing...in spite of all her material and social success in life. One day the answer comes suddenly crashing down on her, but instead of being assured from it she retreats into fear and panic. When I first read this story I thought her behavior was foolish, but after giving it a little thought I'd probably have reacted similarly. What was the answer, you ask? No, you'll have to read it for yourself, another story that would play well on Twilight Zone or Night Gallery...
Next I'll continue my look at science fiction short stories from the year 1952...
DELAY IN TRANSIT by F.L. Wallace
Cassal, an agent in the distant future employed by a for-profit corporation seeking exclusive rights to produce and market an extremely important invention by a scientist living far away near the center of the galaxy...finds himself stranded on a planet on which he discovers many others in the same predicament as himself, not having the proper credentials to board their needed flights. Cassal, aided by a hidden device providing him detailed data on his surroundings and those around him, discovers a company that offers to get him passage to his destination...at a steep price. Ultimately, it is this company, not Cassal's mission or predicament, that I came away with as the main message of this story: some businesses will create the very problem that they then turn around and sell solutions for...
GAME FOR BLONDES by John D. MacDonald
A man, in the middle of an angry argument with his wife, has a terrible auto accident that kills her...later he finds himself deep in grief and guilt, staggering half-drunk through the streets when he notices three strangely-dressed and made-up blonde women are following him. Their eventual meeting takes this brief story in a completely unexpected direction, as well as a remarkable ending...
THE ALTAR AT MIDNIGHT by Cyril Kornbluth
The narrator of this story frequents different bars in town and one evening notices a young man sitting at the end of one of them with extensive broken red veins scarring his entire face, causing a ghastly effect. He reveals that the scars are from his job: he is a spacer, making a lot of money traveling through space between Venus, Earth, and Mars. His disfigurement comes from the many flights he has taken in ships equipped with the innovative Bowman Drive...he had meant to "retire" before too much scarring had taken place but couldn't pass up on the money: now on Earth he is ostracized and bitter. The Bowman Drive also enabled an atomic bomb installation on the moon that now threatens Earth: and just who is this Bowman who made all this possible? Read on to the story's end...
COMMAND PERFORMANCE by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
A young affluent, married woman with three children has always felt a sense of emptiness within her...something intangible that was missing...in spite of all her material and social success in life. One day the answer comes suddenly crashing down on her, but instead of being assured from it she retreats into fear and panic. When I first read this story I thought her behavior was foolish, but after giving it a little thought I'd probably have reacted similarly. What was the answer, you ask? No, you'll have to read it for yourself, another story that would play well on Twilight Zone or Night Gallery...
Next I'll continue my look at science fiction short stories from the year 1952...
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Just Finished Reading The Dreaming Jewels by Theodore Sturgeon
Theodore Sturgeon (1918-85) is widely known in the science fiction community as an excellent author of short stories...I've read a few of them myself and heartily agree. The Dreaming Jewels, from 1950, was his first published novel and, having just finished reading it, I naturally have a few things to say about it. The story concerns itself about Horton Bluett, nicknamed Horty, who at the age of eight has to deal as an orphan with a physically abusive, repulsive stepfather. Soon after that awful "father" causes him to lose three of his fingers after slamming a closet door on them, Horty runs away and meets up with some members of a traveling carnival...they're all part of the special cast in its freak show, before the time that this sort of designation would be considered offensive and demeaning. Beautiful Zena, called a "midget" (back in 1950 when it was PC-OK to use this term), takes in Horty and disguises him as a girl midget cast member. But I must backtrack here: she only does so after she discovers his one treasured possession that he has always had: a broken, old jack-in-the-box, named "Junky", with a hideous looking head but with large, glowing jewels representing its eyes. After she sees it and notices the effect it has on Horty, that changes everything...which is appropriate, considering the role it subsequently plays in the story's explanation and resolution. One big problem with this carnival: its leader is a misanthropic, bitter-but-brilliant former doctor who lost his medical license after being falsely convicted of malpractice...now he wants his revenge on all of humanity. And this man has his own secret, involving something he discovered in the forest...
At the beginning of The Dreaming Jewels, the story seemed more of a fantasy involving magic with Horty a special "Harry Potter" type of protagonist: a likable, spunky, and unpretentious little boy, abused by his custodians, who ultimately assumes the role as the indispensable character with special abilities and the implicit assignment of taking on the evil adversary. Yet Sturgeon, true to his science fiction roots, transforms it all into a plausible tale within that genre and the fantasy and magic recede as the more intriguing explanations reveal themselves. Reading through The Dreaming Jewels reminded me of a recent movie I've seen, The Greatest Showman, starring Hugh Jackman as a young P.T. Barnum and which also gave a sensitive portrayal to the special people in his circus. And sensitive is one adjective that applies to just about everything Theodore Sturgeon writes, for while his stories are full of innovative and often strange notions, the ultimate humanity of his characters stands out boldly as their most compelling elements. This debut novel of his is definitely worth looking into...
Some editions of The Dreaming Jewels came out with the alternate title The Synthetic Man...but it's the same story whichever name appears on the book's cover...
At the beginning of The Dreaming Jewels, the story seemed more of a fantasy involving magic with Horty a special "Harry Potter" type of protagonist: a likable, spunky, and unpretentious little boy, abused by his custodians, who ultimately assumes the role as the indispensable character with special abilities and the implicit assignment of taking on the evil adversary. Yet Sturgeon, true to his science fiction roots, transforms it all into a plausible tale within that genre and the fantasy and magic recede as the more intriguing explanations reveal themselves. Reading through The Dreaming Jewels reminded me of a recent movie I've seen, The Greatest Showman, starring Hugh Jackman as a young P.T. Barnum and which also gave a sensitive portrayal to the special people in his circus. And sensitive is one adjective that applies to just about everything Theodore Sturgeon writes, for while his stories are full of innovative and often strange notions, the ultimate humanity of his characters stands out boldly as their most compelling elements. This debut novel of his is definitely worth looking into...
Some editions of The Dreaming Jewels came out with the alternate title The Synthetic Man...but it's the same story whichever name appears on the book's cover...
Monday, October 14, 2019
My All-Time Top 500 Favorite Songs: #430-421
This week's slice of my 500 all-time favorite songs is a blast from the distant past: all but the last entry are from the sixties and seventies. Half are from Britain, half are American acts. And the opening song below belongs to its own special category: songs with extremely long titles, something I might look into down the line on this blog...
430 EVERYBODY'S GOT SOMETHING TO HIDE EXCEPT FOR ME AND MY MONKEY...the Beatles
Back in the early Beatlemania years they'd come out from time to time with a strong rocker with Lennon screaming his lungs out, songs like Bad Boy, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, Money, Slow Down, Rock n' Roll Music, and Twist and Shout...many of them covers of other artists. This track from disc two of their 1968 "White Album" would have fit in nicely with those, only 2:25 long but strikingly intense, abruptly following on the album the languid McCartney song Mother Nature's Son. This would be a good wake-up song on somebody's alarm...
429 LOVES ME LIKE A ROCK...Paul Simon
Recorded with the gospel singing group Dixie Hummingbirds as backup vocals, this song has an evangelistic flavor to it while the ultimate punchline is directed squarely at then-President Nixon, who at the time was thick in the middle of the Watergate scandal. I associate it with running massive quantities of laps in the early evening on the one-eighth-mile track at Hollywood's Apollo Middle School, very close to my home, in August and September of 1973...it's a very catchy tune that stuck in my mind as a never-ending song while my feet pounded the pavement and around and around I went...
428 I'M A LOSER...the Beatles
My parents were big Beatles fans in the early years and bought nearly all of their albums through Revolver as they came out...this song is from their American-released album Beatles '65 and I've heard it countless times on our phonograph. It's clearly a song the band worked hard together on, with John singing very compelling lyrics that reveal his own vulnerability..."and I'm not what I appear to be"...as he masks his anguish over a lost love...
427 DON'T BRING ME DOWN...Electric Light Orchestra
In between Electric Light Orchestra's brilliant classical/rock fusings of their earlier years and their ill-advised venture into crass disco hits stands this pure, classic rock song from 1979...no strings or dance beats here. I wish this was the direction that Jeff Lynne had taken the band...I think their popularity would have endured longer than it did if they had steered away from the disco crap. Don't Bring Me Down, for some reason, has a Dave Clark Five sound to it that gives me a sense of nostalgia for that simpler, more direct kind of rock from the mid-sixties...
426 KENTUCKY RAIN...Elvis Presley
Kentucky Rain I associate with the spring of 1970...I was only thirteen then but was formulating much of what my personality now constitutes, including a cynical but realistic view of basic human nature... not that I knew this at the time. Many of the songs from this period are deeply etched within me, and Elvis...no longer the dashing rock n' roll rebel from the fifties and not yet the sickly Las Vegas caricature in years to come...delivered what I believe to be his sweetest and best performance with this single...
425 MR. ROBOTO...Styx
The radio DJs didn't know what to make of this strange song which hit the airwaves in early 1983. Lead singer Dennis DeYoung apparently wanted it to be part of an onstage rock opera that the rest of the group...especially guitarist Tommy Shaw...objected to, leading to the group's breakup for a few years until they later reunited, seeing the Styx trademark as a cash cow they could make a lot of money touring under. I thought Mr. Roboto was a kind of commentary on the fear then sweeping parts of the country that the Japanese, with their automatized manufacturing techniques, were responsible for the recession and loss of American manufacturing jobs at that time. Doomo arigatoo, Mr. Roboto...I couldn't get enough of listening to it then and I still like it now...too bad DeYoung couldn't put a brake on the theatrics and keep the group together...
424 DON'T STOP...Fleetwood Mac
When I first moved to Gainesville, Florida in the late summer of 1977 this was the big non-disco song I liked to listen to on the radio. What a great song of optimism, not so different in character than Florence and the Machine's Dog Days are Over, which appeared earlier on this list. It's also the first Fleetwood Mac song I would take a strong liking to, although it certainly wouldn't be the last...more from this talented band to come...
423 MY SWEET LADY...John Denver
Some artist whose name I can't recall had a minor hit with his cover of John Denver's song during the spring of 1974...I moderately liked it. But Denver's original version from his 1971 Poems, Prayers and Promises album is by far the better. It's a tenderly sung, slow love ballad with the closing words "and I swear to you our time has just begun"...
422 ISN'T LIFE STRANGE...the Moody Blues
The Moody Blues were one of those rare groups in which everybody in it had a hand at composing their music. John Lodge wrote and sang lead on this one, off their 1972 Seventh Sojourn album at the time of its release in the spring of that year. Also, their Nights in White Satin, from back in 1968, was resurgent at the same time and played a lot on the radio...during a very pensive period in my fifteen-year old life, the last half of the tenth grade in high school. I associate Isn't Life Strange with this time when it never seemed to stop raining, both on the outside and the inside...
421 I WILL WAIT...Mumford and Sons
And here's a song that's much more recent...I picked it as one of my favorite songs of 2014 after hearing it played quite a lot on my local alternative radio station. My estimation since then has only grown of this song from a British rock band, a piece whose lyrics and singing style might fit on an old Chuck Wagon Gang gospel music album and whose instrumentation, complete with wild banjo picking, would stand up well on the Grand Ole Opry stage in Nashville...yet it was a big alternative rock hit!
Next week: songs #420-411...
430 EVERYBODY'S GOT SOMETHING TO HIDE EXCEPT FOR ME AND MY MONKEY...the Beatles
Back in the early Beatlemania years they'd come out from time to time with a strong rocker with Lennon screaming his lungs out, songs like Bad Boy, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, Money, Slow Down, Rock n' Roll Music, and Twist and Shout...many of them covers of other artists. This track from disc two of their 1968 "White Album" would have fit in nicely with those, only 2:25 long but strikingly intense, abruptly following on the album the languid McCartney song Mother Nature's Son. This would be a good wake-up song on somebody's alarm...
429 LOVES ME LIKE A ROCK...Paul Simon
Recorded with the gospel singing group Dixie Hummingbirds as backup vocals, this song has an evangelistic flavor to it while the ultimate punchline is directed squarely at then-President Nixon, who at the time was thick in the middle of the Watergate scandal. I associate it with running massive quantities of laps in the early evening on the one-eighth-mile track at Hollywood's Apollo Middle School, very close to my home, in August and September of 1973...it's a very catchy tune that stuck in my mind as a never-ending song while my feet pounded the pavement and around and around I went...
428 I'M A LOSER...the Beatles
My parents were big Beatles fans in the early years and bought nearly all of their albums through Revolver as they came out...this song is from their American-released album Beatles '65 and I've heard it countless times on our phonograph. It's clearly a song the band worked hard together on, with John singing very compelling lyrics that reveal his own vulnerability..."and I'm not what I appear to be"...as he masks his anguish over a lost love...
427 DON'T BRING ME DOWN...Electric Light Orchestra
In between Electric Light Orchestra's brilliant classical/rock fusings of their earlier years and their ill-advised venture into crass disco hits stands this pure, classic rock song from 1979...no strings or dance beats here. I wish this was the direction that Jeff Lynne had taken the band...I think their popularity would have endured longer than it did if they had steered away from the disco crap. Don't Bring Me Down, for some reason, has a Dave Clark Five sound to it that gives me a sense of nostalgia for that simpler, more direct kind of rock from the mid-sixties...
426 KENTUCKY RAIN...Elvis Presley
Kentucky Rain I associate with the spring of 1970...I was only thirteen then but was formulating much of what my personality now constitutes, including a cynical but realistic view of basic human nature... not that I knew this at the time. Many of the songs from this period are deeply etched within me, and Elvis...no longer the dashing rock n' roll rebel from the fifties and not yet the sickly Las Vegas caricature in years to come...delivered what I believe to be his sweetest and best performance with this single...
425 MR. ROBOTO...Styx
The radio DJs didn't know what to make of this strange song which hit the airwaves in early 1983. Lead singer Dennis DeYoung apparently wanted it to be part of an onstage rock opera that the rest of the group...especially guitarist Tommy Shaw...objected to, leading to the group's breakup for a few years until they later reunited, seeing the Styx trademark as a cash cow they could make a lot of money touring under. I thought Mr. Roboto was a kind of commentary on the fear then sweeping parts of the country that the Japanese, with their automatized manufacturing techniques, were responsible for the recession and loss of American manufacturing jobs at that time. Doomo arigatoo, Mr. Roboto...I couldn't get enough of listening to it then and I still like it now...too bad DeYoung couldn't put a brake on the theatrics and keep the group together...
424 DON'T STOP...Fleetwood Mac
When I first moved to Gainesville, Florida in the late summer of 1977 this was the big non-disco song I liked to listen to on the radio. What a great song of optimism, not so different in character than Florence and the Machine's Dog Days are Over, which appeared earlier on this list. It's also the first Fleetwood Mac song I would take a strong liking to, although it certainly wouldn't be the last...more from this talented band to come...
423 MY SWEET LADY...John Denver
Some artist whose name I can't recall had a minor hit with his cover of John Denver's song during the spring of 1974...I moderately liked it. But Denver's original version from his 1971 Poems, Prayers and Promises album is by far the better. It's a tenderly sung, slow love ballad with the closing words "and I swear to you our time has just begun"...
422 ISN'T LIFE STRANGE...the Moody Blues
The Moody Blues were one of those rare groups in which everybody in it had a hand at composing their music. John Lodge wrote and sang lead on this one, off their 1972 Seventh Sojourn album at the time of its release in the spring of that year. Also, their Nights in White Satin, from back in 1968, was resurgent at the same time and played a lot on the radio...during a very pensive period in my fifteen-year old life, the last half of the tenth grade in high school. I associate Isn't Life Strange with this time when it never seemed to stop raining, both on the outside and the inside...
421 I WILL WAIT...Mumford and Sons
And here's a song that's much more recent...I picked it as one of my favorite songs of 2014 after hearing it played quite a lot on my local alternative radio station. My estimation since then has only grown of this song from a British rock band, a piece whose lyrics and singing style might fit on an old Chuck Wagon Gang gospel music album and whose instrumentation, complete with wild banjo picking, would stand up well on the Grand Ole Opry stage in Nashville...yet it was a big alternative rock hit!
Next week: songs #420-411...
Sunday, October 13, 2019
Baseball and Football Over the Weekend
Yesterday I enjoyed sitting back and watching the Major League Baseball divisional playoffs on TV. First the Washington Nationals, on the road in their second game against the St. Louis Cardinals, delivered another exemplary pitching performance, this one from standout starter Max Schermer, as they prevailed again, 3-1. Then in the evening the New York Yankees got their own great pitching from Masahiro Tanaka against the home team Houston Astros in their American League series opener...young second baseman Gleyber Torres stunned the home crowd with 5 RBIs as the Yanks won, 7-0...
Although during the afternoon I would often check in on various college football games...including that shocking 20-17 South Carolina road upset over Georgia in overtime...I had already decided to deliberately avoid the Florida-at-LSU evening contest. My reason is that last week, while asked to work on my off day, right near my work station they had a radio blaring out the play-by-play of the Florida-Auburn game and I couldn't get away from the decibel attack...even with my own headphones and music. I didn't even know how the LSU game turned out until this morning, when I saw on my newsfeed that the Tigers beat the Gators 42-28 after a mostly close and competitive game. That loss really doesn't matter too much since Florida would have to beat Georgia on November 2nd anyway to win the SEC East and can still make it to the championship playoffs if they win out the rest of the year.. But just winning the division title by itself isn't that big a deal anymore for Gator fans: former coach Jim McElwain accomplished the feat in each of his first two seasons, but had a completely depleted and ineffectual offense at the end of both of them...
Let's see, the Yankees play the Astros again today and the National League playoffs resume tomorrow in Washington. As for the National Football League, the pitiful Dolphins are up against another winless team...albeit one whose management actually wants them to win: the Washington Redskins. They just fired their head coach Jay Gruden...let's see how their players respond to his ouster. If I were a Miami Dolphins player, though, in this tanking environment, I would know that rising in stature through effective and skillful play would probably result in me being traded off the team: excellence will not be tolerated by Dolphins management...
Although during the afternoon I would often check in on various college football games...including that shocking 20-17 South Carolina road upset over Georgia in overtime...I had already decided to deliberately avoid the Florida-at-LSU evening contest. My reason is that last week, while asked to work on my off day, right near my work station they had a radio blaring out the play-by-play of the Florida-Auburn game and I couldn't get away from the decibel attack...even with my own headphones and music. I didn't even know how the LSU game turned out until this morning, when I saw on my newsfeed that the Tigers beat the Gators 42-28 after a mostly close and competitive game. That loss really doesn't matter too much since Florida would have to beat Georgia on November 2nd anyway to win the SEC East and can still make it to the championship playoffs if they win out the rest of the year.. But just winning the division title by itself isn't that big a deal anymore for Gator fans: former coach Jim McElwain accomplished the feat in each of his first two seasons, but had a completely depleted and ineffectual offense at the end of both of them...
Let's see, the Yankees play the Astros again today and the National League playoffs resume tomorrow in Washington. As for the National Football League, the pitiful Dolphins are up against another winless team...albeit one whose management actually wants them to win: the Washington Redskins. They just fired their head coach Jay Gruden...let's see how their players respond to his ouster. If I were a Miami Dolphins player, though, in this tanking environment, I would know that rising in stature through effective and skillful play would probably result in me being traded off the team: excellence will not be tolerated by Dolphins management...
Saturday, October 12, 2019
Just Finished Reading Space by James A. Michener
I had never read anything before by acclaimed author James A. Michener (1907-97), who wrote many historical novels that opened up the world and the past to readers...I just finished my first Michener book, Space, from 1982: I think I just discovered a "new" author to follow...move over, Stephen King and Agatha Christie. Space chronicles the lives and experiences of several fictional characters as they pass through real historical events and processes, including the Apollo moon missions of the late sixties and early seventies, and ending following the first successful Space Shuttle flight in 1981. Michener gives an incredible portrayal of the crucial October, 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines between the Japanese and American navies...I felt at times I was there in the midst of it all (well, not really). Further in the story we read how some German scientists and engineers involved with rocketry development...and suspected of heavy water experimentation...escaped to the west at war's end and were picked up by the Americans. Skipping some years, the experiences of American fighter pilots in the Korean War and the later test-flying of new aircraft...nearly as deadly as the war...are described in detail. Then the author relates how the early Eisenhower administration deliberately prohibited rocketry development and how that president abruptly turned about-face following the Soviets' successful launch into space of their Sputnik satellite in 1957 and instituted NASA. Then the race is on to send men into space and ultimately to the moon and back. After success with our Apollo missions, Michener accurately describes the snowballing public disinterest about space travel and a building anti-science movement in the seventies emphasizing the paranormal, UFOs, the New Age movement, and religious fundamentalism...
I've always had an issue with historical fiction, being a history buff myself and wanting to internalize the truths from history. But if fictional characters are experiencing the real historical events...and even some things that never really happened are depicted in the story as having happened, then I have a task on hand in mentally sorting out what's real and what isn't. Michener added manned missions that didn't really happen in order to allow his fictional astronauts to play a larger role in his story...but I already knew enough about that part of his narrative to filter out fiction from truth. But with the naval battle, the escape of the German scientists, Korean dogfighting, test piloting, and the political narrative I'm much fuzzier about distinguishing between historical truth and the author's brilliant imagination. Then again, I can easily look these topics up on the Internet and read about them or explore more purely historical books that focus on these themes...
At least in this book, James A. Michener wrote in a plain, easy-to-follow style that rewarded my diligence as he revealed his extensive research and preparation and enlightened me as never before about his chosen topic. My favorite parts of Space were (1) Michener's detailed description of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, (2) young John Pope's fascination with the stars as a boy (I identified strongly with that), and (3) the later heated division among the space community as to the direction of the program: continued manned flights or a concentrated effort to explore the cosmos through unmanned probes. I'm looking forward to soon starting on another Michener novel after seeing how well he handled this one...
By the way, I just read that Michener's Space was adapted to a TV miniseries in 1985, starring James Garner. Look it up if you want, but for me I'm happy with the book...
I've always had an issue with historical fiction, being a history buff myself and wanting to internalize the truths from history. But if fictional characters are experiencing the real historical events...and even some things that never really happened are depicted in the story as having happened, then I have a task on hand in mentally sorting out what's real and what isn't. Michener added manned missions that didn't really happen in order to allow his fictional astronauts to play a larger role in his story...but I already knew enough about that part of his narrative to filter out fiction from truth. But with the naval battle, the escape of the German scientists, Korean dogfighting, test piloting, and the political narrative I'm much fuzzier about distinguishing between historical truth and the author's brilliant imagination. Then again, I can easily look these topics up on the Internet and read about them or explore more purely historical books that focus on these themes...
At least in this book, James A. Michener wrote in a plain, easy-to-follow style that rewarded my diligence as he revealed his extensive research and preparation and enlightened me as never before about his chosen topic. My favorite parts of Space were (1) Michener's detailed description of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, (2) young John Pope's fascination with the stars as a boy (I identified strongly with that), and (3) the later heated division among the space community as to the direction of the program: continued manned flights or a concentrated effort to explore the cosmos through unmanned probes. I'm looking forward to soon starting on another Michener novel after seeing how well he handled this one...
By the way, I just read that Michener's Space was adapted to a TV miniseries in 1985, starring James Garner. Look it up if you want, but for me I'm happy with the book...
Friday, October 11, 2019
Quote of the Week...from Ellen DeGeneres
I get those fleeting, beautiful moments of inner peace and stillness...and then the other 23 hours and 45 minutes of the day, I'm a human trying to making it through in this world.
---Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen DeGeneres, as you probably know, is a comedian who has her own weekday television talk show. She came out during the airing of her nineties comedy series Ellen as to her sexual orientation and received both support and criticism for it...I think she's pretty cool, but not because she practices identity politics (which she doesn't) or overdoes it with the political correctness schtick (which she also doesn't). No, Ellen is a nice person who understands that we're all different and can disagree and still be friends without demonizing one another...how refreshing. And she is strongly anti-bullying, an issue about which I feel vehemently as well. Her above quote is right on target, something I can really understand as it relates to my life. I know there are sources in our society that tell us to meditate, practice something called "mindfulness", pray, and engage in other activities to strengthen our inner being. But the day wears on and I have to meet it on its own terms, complete with the frustrations, occasional chaos, setbacks, and difficult encounters it inevitably brings up in my face. Holding on to a kernel of that inner spiritual peace as I go along is something to value, for it can make the difference in a trying situation between speaking or behaving in a manner that I will later regret and handling it in a constructive and ultimately rewarding way...
Ellen DeGeneres isn't a perfect human being and doesn't claim to be...I'm sure she has her share of personality failings...don't we all...as she herself is perfectly aware. But she is also a good model to emulate when it comes to listening empathetically and interactively with others, especially with those that she disagrees with. She believes, as something of an idealist, in the basic commonality of humanity and sincerely tries to see others as fellow travelers on this sometimes very confounding voyage called life...
---Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen DeGeneres, as you probably know, is a comedian who has her own weekday television talk show. She came out during the airing of her nineties comedy series Ellen as to her sexual orientation and received both support and criticism for it...I think she's pretty cool, but not because she practices identity politics (which she doesn't) or overdoes it with the political correctness schtick (which she also doesn't). No, Ellen is a nice person who understands that we're all different and can disagree and still be friends without demonizing one another...how refreshing. And she is strongly anti-bullying, an issue about which I feel vehemently as well. Her above quote is right on target, something I can really understand as it relates to my life. I know there are sources in our society that tell us to meditate, practice something called "mindfulness", pray, and engage in other activities to strengthen our inner being. But the day wears on and I have to meet it on its own terms, complete with the frustrations, occasional chaos, setbacks, and difficult encounters it inevitably brings up in my face. Holding on to a kernel of that inner spiritual peace as I go along is something to value, for it can make the difference in a trying situation between speaking or behaving in a manner that I will later regret and handling it in a constructive and ultimately rewarding way...
Ellen DeGeneres isn't a perfect human being and doesn't claim to be...I'm sure she has her share of personality failings...don't we all...as she herself is perfectly aware. But she is also a good model to emulate when it comes to listening empathetically and interactively with others, especially with those that she disagrees with. She believes, as something of an idealist, in the basic commonality of humanity and sincerely tries to see others as fellow travelers on this sometimes very confounding voyage called life...
Thursday, October 10, 2019
The First Amendment Needs Defending
New York City has criminalized speech in a recent law, mandating a fine of up to $250,000.00 on anyone convicted of uttering the words "illegal alien" or "illegals" in conjunction with someone's employment or housing, deeming such use to be "discrimination". I get it...they want to protect families from the fear of being suddenly rounded up and deported or losing their jobs for being here undocumented and to become more confident that their local government...including especially the police...will be there in times of emergency to help them. Still, if it is a federal crime to be here unauthorized then that is a conflict already in place between different parts of our government, and also to make certain words illegal to me flies directly in the face of our Constitution's crucial First Amendment, which elevates free speech as a fundamental human right. This does not mean that people should not be held accountable for what they say...it's just that the State...in this case New York City...has no business getting involved as a prosecutorial agent. If their discrimination laws are being violated, then charge them for that, not for saying certain words. For me, I am for better border security, solving the problems in countries like Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras through the good auspices of our government helping their economies, and normalizing the status of those already here over time. But the people who are here illegally...well, the criminalized terms are accurate even if they may offend some...
A manager for an NBA team a few days ago simply Tweeted on his own his support for the Hong Kong people and to keep fighting for freedom. Keep in mind that he an American living in America, not China. Yet China has responded by canceling within their own country any events or ties with the National Basketball Association, in spite of the fact that the manager had quickly apologized for his Tweet and removed it...and the league itself expressed regret over what I see as a perfectly legitimate original message. In this situation our First Amendment was never in question of being threatened since it's another country's government, not our own, that is exerting undue pressure and the NBA is a private concern. Now if you can see what China will do against someone who criticizes it...even indirectly...who is a citizen of a different nation, you can imagine the immense persecution that those residing in that vast, important country must be undergoing for speaking up themselves. A sober reminder that our own First Amendment needs to be held up high and honored for the treasure that it is...
And finally, not exactly a First Amendment issue...at least yet...is the wave of political correctness, much of it retroactive, that is sweeping this country, especially on the political left. At the Packers-Cowboys football game in Texas the other day, comedian Ellen DeGeneres and former president George W. Bush were seen sitting together and amiably chatting and laughing, two good friends who are able to step outside their political differences and see each other as human beings. From the negative reactions I have been seeing...all against Ellen associating with Bush...you would have thought she had said something like "Go Hong Kong" or "illegal alien". Why does she need to explain being friendly and nice with someone? Is that how bad it's gotten in this country?!
A manager for an NBA team a few days ago simply Tweeted on his own his support for the Hong Kong people and to keep fighting for freedom. Keep in mind that he an American living in America, not China. Yet China has responded by canceling within their own country any events or ties with the National Basketball Association, in spite of the fact that the manager had quickly apologized for his Tweet and removed it...and the league itself expressed regret over what I see as a perfectly legitimate original message. In this situation our First Amendment was never in question of being threatened since it's another country's government, not our own, that is exerting undue pressure and the NBA is a private concern. Now if you can see what China will do against someone who criticizes it...even indirectly...who is a citizen of a different nation, you can imagine the immense persecution that those residing in that vast, important country must be undergoing for speaking up themselves. A sober reminder that our own First Amendment needs to be held up high and honored for the treasure that it is...
And finally, not exactly a First Amendment issue...at least yet...is the wave of political correctness, much of it retroactive, that is sweeping this country, especially on the political left. At the Packers-Cowboys football game in Texas the other day, comedian Ellen DeGeneres and former president George W. Bush were seen sitting together and amiably chatting and laughing, two good friends who are able to step outside their political differences and see each other as human beings. From the negative reactions I have been seeing...all against Ellen associating with Bush...you would have thought she had said something like "Go Hong Kong" or "illegal alien". Why does she need to explain being friendly and nice with someone? Is that how bad it's gotten in this country?!
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
Weekly Short Stories: 1952 Science Fiction, Part 2
Here are my reactions to five more stories from the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 14 (1952). They're all pretty good, although the first three pretty much wear out the concept of time travel. So without further ado, here they are...
THE BUSINESS, AS USUAL by Mack Reynolds
This very brief tale examines the paradoxes built into time travel...that is, travel to the past, not the future. Once time machines get invented, the author hypothesizes the existence of a jaded future humanity expecting time tourists from the past...and only too ready to fleece them for everything they've got...
A SOUND OF THUNDER by Ray Bradbury
Big game hunters can't wait to take advantage of a time travel company's offer of a prehistoric safari time trip, with nothing other than the terrifying Tyrannosaurus Rex as the targeted prize. But the company tells the hunters of the restrictions, meticulously constructed in order to avoid influencing anything that might come back through the Butterfly Effect to drastically alter the present. You know something's bound to go wrong here as soon as the hunters are told in no uncertain terms NOT to stray from the prescribed path...
HOBSON'S CHOICE by Alfred Bester
A future America...and most of the rest of the world, for that matter...devastated by nuclear conflict is still plugging on forward, and an investigator is sent to an area in Kansas hit hardest in the war with little left to speak of but which, for some reason, is reporting a healthy increase in population. Upon arriving he sees how bad it really is and the area is mostly deserted...except for groups of happy, healthy people who from time to time come out of buildings, get on a bus, and ride off. He investigates further and discovers the unsettling reason for their presence. The moral of this story...yet another about time travel...is that people tend to think more fondly of the "good old days" or a more promising future than they do of their present circumstances without taking into consideration the many blessings they are currently enjoying that don't exist in their envisioned past or future. A good, thought-provoking tale...
YESTERDAY HOUSE by Fritz Leiber
Back in January 1973 I first saw the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece Vertigo, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak. It involves a man's despair over the tragic death of his young love and his fanatical determination to recreate her...in minute detail...in another woman. Yesterday House is a similar tale as a young man working as an assistant on the New England coast to a research biologist discovers a remote island where live an isolated and beautiful young woman with her two eccentric and unpleasant aunts. As he falls in love with her, our hero discovers a strange connection between the girl and his boss, who has been doing research into the generation of life...you might already see where this is going. It's a great story idea...and the ending was not at all what I expected...
THE SNOWBALL EFFECT by Katherine MacLean
A college's department head during budgeting time demands that one of the sociology professors justify his own field in order stay employed there. The response is a project he had been working about the snowball effect in social movements...by analyzing snowballing movements in the past he has discovered how to set up an organization whose effect and power will continue to increase without restraint. Intrigued, the department head sets up with the professor an experiment: they go to a nearby small town's social sewing club and implement the plan, with unforeseen consequences...
Next week I'll review some more sci-fi short stories from 1952...
THE BUSINESS, AS USUAL by Mack Reynolds
This very brief tale examines the paradoxes built into time travel...that is, travel to the past, not the future. Once time machines get invented, the author hypothesizes the existence of a jaded future humanity expecting time tourists from the past...and only too ready to fleece them for everything they've got...
A SOUND OF THUNDER by Ray Bradbury
Big game hunters can't wait to take advantage of a time travel company's offer of a prehistoric safari time trip, with nothing other than the terrifying Tyrannosaurus Rex as the targeted prize. But the company tells the hunters of the restrictions, meticulously constructed in order to avoid influencing anything that might come back through the Butterfly Effect to drastically alter the present. You know something's bound to go wrong here as soon as the hunters are told in no uncertain terms NOT to stray from the prescribed path...
HOBSON'S CHOICE by Alfred Bester
A future America...and most of the rest of the world, for that matter...devastated by nuclear conflict is still plugging on forward, and an investigator is sent to an area in Kansas hit hardest in the war with little left to speak of but which, for some reason, is reporting a healthy increase in population. Upon arriving he sees how bad it really is and the area is mostly deserted...except for groups of happy, healthy people who from time to time come out of buildings, get on a bus, and ride off. He investigates further and discovers the unsettling reason for their presence. The moral of this story...yet another about time travel...is that people tend to think more fondly of the "good old days" or a more promising future than they do of their present circumstances without taking into consideration the many blessings they are currently enjoying that don't exist in their envisioned past or future. A good, thought-provoking tale...
YESTERDAY HOUSE by Fritz Leiber
Back in January 1973 I first saw the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece Vertigo, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak. It involves a man's despair over the tragic death of his young love and his fanatical determination to recreate her...in minute detail...in another woman. Yesterday House is a similar tale as a young man working as an assistant on the New England coast to a research biologist discovers a remote island where live an isolated and beautiful young woman with her two eccentric and unpleasant aunts. As he falls in love with her, our hero discovers a strange connection between the girl and his boss, who has been doing research into the generation of life...you might already see where this is going. It's a great story idea...and the ending was not at all what I expected...
THE SNOWBALL EFFECT by Katherine MacLean
A college's department head during budgeting time demands that one of the sociology professors justify his own field in order stay employed there. The response is a project he had been working about the snowball effect in social movements...by analyzing snowballing movements in the past he has discovered how to set up an organization whose effect and power will continue to increase without restraint. Intrigued, the department head sets up with the professor an experiment: they go to a nearby small town's social sewing club and implement the plan, with unforeseen consequences...
Next week I'll review some more sci-fi short stories from 1952...
Tuesday, October 8, 2019
Just Finished Reading An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power by Al Gore
Back in 2006 Al Gore released his film/book combo titled An Inconvenient Truth, which presented the basics about the climate change crisis facing the world. Eleven years later the former American vice-president has authored An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power using the same film/book formats. I just finished reading it and have my own reactions. First of all, let me stress that I am not a climatologist or any type of scientist, for that matter. And if you're not a scientist, I really don't need to hear you or anyone else weighing in on what you think about climate change or whether or not it is a problem...I have a computer and can pull up the same links as you to prop up whatever preconceptions I have on the subject...so don't waste your time and mine going down this fruitless path. Gore presents, naturally, the view that the vast majority of the scientific community has toward the issue: that human-caused climate change...primarily through the burning of fossil fuels...is adversely changing our climate by warming it through the greenhouse effect of increased concentrations of carbon dioxide, and that a catastrophic level may be reached at some time in the foreseeable future if we don't change how we use energy, as well as in other areas of our economy. The book shows several examples of the effects that climate change has already had in different areas, but doesn't delve adequately, in my opinion, about the indicators that actually give statistics and hard facts on the subject other than a brief reference on page 42 about the Environmental Protection Agency's 37 indicators of climate change. And although the book's graphic design of varying fonts, colors, and many pictures makes it more attractive to the general public, there is neither a table of contents nor an index to look up specific points. The book...and I'm presuming the film...is divided into two parts, the first focusing on the problem and the second a sort of handbook to instruct people-at-large how to engage the issue on different levels such as petitions, town hall meetings, interviews, and so on. One suggestion the author made was to treat dependence on fossil fuels like smoking and to employ the same kind of ad campaigns that the anti-smoking movement has successfully employed. Uh, well, only one problem: as the book said in another section, we're still 81% dependent on fossil fuels for our energy needs and last time I checked nicotine isn't the least bit necessary for our survival...big difference! Also, the book in different sections mentioned that under the 2016 Paris Accords on climate change that Al Gore so highly praises, China, a vast developing economic power dominated by polluting, coal-burning plants, won't have to peak their CO2 emissions until 2030 (meaning they'll be increasing them until then) while elsewhere it's stated that we need to turn around our CO2 emissions by the year 2020 to avoid major negative consequences...say what? Furthermore, the author in the second half of the book has turned fighting manmade climate change...which in the book's first half he stresses has been firmly established to be true by strict scientific research and analysis...into a social cause to be campaigned for along with progressive issues that the Democratic Party has embraced, framing it as a partisan political issue that will dissuade Republicans from engaging in a positive way. And finally, in that second part of the book, they advise what they call "Climate Reality Leaders" not to inundate people with actual facts on the subject but rather to be more personal about how climate change has affected them in their own lives in order to enhance their presentation's emotional appeal...is that really where we want to go on this?
You're entitled to believe whatever you want on the subject, but I happen to think that climate change is for real. Does that mean that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause? The late Michael Crichton in his novel State of Fear posited that deforestation may be more of a factor and that the scientists have made a false correlation. Whatever the cause, I want our planet and our life on it to be more sustainable and it makes sense to cut our dependence on non-renewal sources of energy, anyway. Like a lot of us, though, I think that it's foolish for me to be oh-so-concerned about my personal "carbon footprint" while on the other side of the Pacific Ocean China is churning out the carbon into the atmosphere without any compunction...if this is what "globalism" means then I don't care for it, sorry Al Gore...
Monday, October 7, 2019
My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #440-431
It's Monday once again, time for me to list the next ten songs, in ascending order, from my personal all-time top 500 list. Here they are...
440 AROUND THE WORLD...the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis and his old friend, bass guitarist Michael "Flea" Balzary, to me have always seemed like a couple of jerks, especially the latter who used to be a lowlife high school bully... a category of subhuman that I have little tolerance for. Still, after filtering out my personal animosity I have to admit that this is a superb rock n' roll band that has done a masterful job over the years fusing different musical styles. In Around the World, from 1998, we get a mixture of rap, ballad, and hard rock that works well...and I dug their video, too: they are excellent showmen as well as accomplished musical artists...
439 THE CRUNGE...Led Zeppelin
A few years ago I ranked Led Zeppelin's songs from top to bottom on this blog and a dear old friend from high school strongly objected to The Crunge being so high on it. I answered that it was a tribute to James Brown, the late "Godfather of Soul"...and a worthy one in my estimation, with Robert Plant delivering one of his best singing performances. It's from their 1973 Houses of the Holy, one of my favorite rock albums ever. My only problem with this song was its confused ending about finding "the bridge", which really wasn't all that funny as it was intended to be...
438 DOG DAYS ARE OVER...Florence and the Machine
Although their original version of this song came out in 2010, I didn't hear it until 2014 after my local alternative radio station, WHHZ/100.5 "The Buzz" returned to actually playing alternative rock...enough of Nickelback, thank you. Besides Florence's powerful singing, the overwhelmingly optimistic mood of this song...celebrating the end of a personal storm and a return to better times...is infectious. Give it a listen and see if it doesn't raise your spirits...
437 NOBODY TOLD ME...John Lennon
Nobody Told Me came out as a singles release from John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono's Milk and Honey album more than three years after his murder in December, 1980...it was recorded shortly before that tragic event. I've since read that Lennon wrote it for Ringo Starr but he didn't use it after his former Beatles bandmate's death...Yoko completed work on John's 1980 recording and it was released early in '84 along with a video showing compelling clips of John and Yoko. That's the backstory to this song, but I liked it for both its catchy music and the lyrics, displaying Lennon's often perplexed and witty take on what was going on in the world around him...as he sang, "strange days indeed, most peculiar, Mama"...
436 ONLY IN YOUR HEART...America
I associate this especially good song from the band America with going through an introspective and uncertain period in my life late during my junior year in high school in May, 1973. Watergate was going full force with the televised Senate Judiciary hearings chaired by Sam Ervin, it looked as if we had given up on ever going back to the moon (which turned out to be true), and I had my own issues to deal with at the time...and here comes yet another song that transports me back to a special time and place whenever I hear it. It's a sweet song of an offered hand of compassion to someone with their own seemingly insurmountable problems...
435 MY MATHEMATICAL MIND...Spoon
The title of this deep track from Texas alternative band Spoon's 2005 Gimme Fiction album intrigued me enough, and then I listened to this jazzy singular song with lyrics of someone who has caught on to all the self-deception and manipulation going on from people around him and has something to say about what he's going to do about it. Pretty blunt words without adornment...like he has a "mathematical mind" that is "gonna see mistakes" and no longer sugarcoat life. Are any of us that strong? An interesting message and great music...
434 GIVE IT TO ME...the J. Geils Band
A lengthy song with two vastly different-sounding sections, it's another one that hit the airwaves...mainly on album rock radio...in the spring of 1973. Part 1, as singer Peter Wolf cajoles for some romance, has a catchy reggae sound while Part 2 springs into a long, savage instrumental jam session. Back in '73 I would only listen to the singing/reggae part, but now I prefer the insanity at the end...I'm not sure what that says about me. To me this was the J. Geils Band's best song, years before they achieved pop celebrity with hits like Centerfold and Freeze Frame...
433 SLEDGEHAMMER...Peter Gabriel
This is one of those songs that defy my ability to explain exactly why I like it. Originally I would always hear it while watching the extraordinary 1986 video with Gabriel in claymation settings and photographic trickery...that scene at the end with the dancing chicken carcasses forever changed how I view grocery shopping in the meat department. The song stands well on its own merits, though...I simply like Peter Gabriel's vocal style and the song's generally happy, bouncy...and funny...ambiance. And yet I can't get my mind away from that video, one of the best of all time...
432 SUFFER WELL...Depeche Mode
I can't say I've liked everything this often dreary-sounding band from England has produced over the decades, but some of their stuff is pretty fantastic. They've been around nearly forty years now, although here in the United States few know of them other than minor 1980s hit singles like People are People and Enjoy the Silence...they are much more popular across the Atlantic. Suffer Well was played often on my local alternative radio station 100.5/"The Buzz" in 2005-06, and I think it's one of this band's better songs. David Gahan is the morose singer and Martin Gore composes most of their music...although he didn't with this one. Expect to see more from Depeche Mode on this list...
431 CAPTAIN JACK...Billy Joel
Captain Jack was Billy Joel's breakthrough song that first catapulted him to radio play and ultimate fame after his debut album Cold Spring Harbor was mixed wrong and came out as a disaster...his second LP, Piano Man, was a blockbuster hit in 1974...I didn't hear the entire album, including Captain Jack as the closing track, until four years later, though. Joel speaks through most of the song to an unnamed spoiled young man whose narcissism, hedonism and immaturity obviously disgust him as he bluntly lays out what he has let his life degenerate into...the line "well, you're 21 and still your mother makes your bed, and that's too long" pretty much says it all. This song is anti-drugs (although Joel himself partook of them) and an "in-your-face" plea for people to stand up and take responsibility for their own lives...about as intense as it gets...
Next week: #430-421...
440 AROUND THE WORLD...the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis and his old friend, bass guitarist Michael "Flea" Balzary, to me have always seemed like a couple of jerks, especially the latter who used to be a lowlife high school bully... a category of subhuman that I have little tolerance for. Still, after filtering out my personal animosity I have to admit that this is a superb rock n' roll band that has done a masterful job over the years fusing different musical styles. In Around the World, from 1998, we get a mixture of rap, ballad, and hard rock that works well...and I dug their video, too: they are excellent showmen as well as accomplished musical artists...
439 THE CRUNGE...Led Zeppelin
A few years ago I ranked Led Zeppelin's songs from top to bottom on this blog and a dear old friend from high school strongly objected to The Crunge being so high on it. I answered that it was a tribute to James Brown, the late "Godfather of Soul"...and a worthy one in my estimation, with Robert Plant delivering one of his best singing performances. It's from their 1973 Houses of the Holy, one of my favorite rock albums ever. My only problem with this song was its confused ending about finding "the bridge", which really wasn't all that funny as it was intended to be...
438 DOG DAYS ARE OVER...Florence and the Machine
Although their original version of this song came out in 2010, I didn't hear it until 2014 after my local alternative radio station, WHHZ/100.5 "The Buzz" returned to actually playing alternative rock...enough of Nickelback, thank you. Besides Florence's powerful singing, the overwhelmingly optimistic mood of this song...celebrating the end of a personal storm and a return to better times...is infectious. Give it a listen and see if it doesn't raise your spirits...
437 NOBODY TOLD ME...John Lennon
Nobody Told Me came out as a singles release from John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono's Milk and Honey album more than three years after his murder in December, 1980...it was recorded shortly before that tragic event. I've since read that Lennon wrote it for Ringo Starr but he didn't use it after his former Beatles bandmate's death...Yoko completed work on John's 1980 recording and it was released early in '84 along with a video showing compelling clips of John and Yoko. That's the backstory to this song, but I liked it for both its catchy music and the lyrics, displaying Lennon's often perplexed and witty take on what was going on in the world around him...as he sang, "strange days indeed, most peculiar, Mama"...
436 ONLY IN YOUR HEART...America
I associate this especially good song from the band America with going through an introspective and uncertain period in my life late during my junior year in high school in May, 1973. Watergate was going full force with the televised Senate Judiciary hearings chaired by Sam Ervin, it looked as if we had given up on ever going back to the moon (which turned out to be true), and I had my own issues to deal with at the time...and here comes yet another song that transports me back to a special time and place whenever I hear it. It's a sweet song of an offered hand of compassion to someone with their own seemingly insurmountable problems...
435 MY MATHEMATICAL MIND...Spoon
The title of this deep track from Texas alternative band Spoon's 2005 Gimme Fiction album intrigued me enough, and then I listened to this jazzy singular song with lyrics of someone who has caught on to all the self-deception and manipulation going on from people around him and has something to say about what he's going to do about it. Pretty blunt words without adornment...like he has a "mathematical mind" that is "gonna see mistakes" and no longer sugarcoat life. Are any of us that strong? An interesting message and great music...
434 GIVE IT TO ME...the J. Geils Band
A lengthy song with two vastly different-sounding sections, it's another one that hit the airwaves...mainly on album rock radio...in the spring of 1973. Part 1, as singer Peter Wolf cajoles for some romance, has a catchy reggae sound while Part 2 springs into a long, savage instrumental jam session. Back in '73 I would only listen to the singing/reggae part, but now I prefer the insanity at the end...I'm not sure what that says about me. To me this was the J. Geils Band's best song, years before they achieved pop celebrity with hits like Centerfold and Freeze Frame...
433 SLEDGEHAMMER...Peter Gabriel
This is one of those songs that defy my ability to explain exactly why I like it. Originally I would always hear it while watching the extraordinary 1986 video with Gabriel in claymation settings and photographic trickery...that scene at the end with the dancing chicken carcasses forever changed how I view grocery shopping in the meat department. The song stands well on its own merits, though...I simply like Peter Gabriel's vocal style and the song's generally happy, bouncy...and funny...ambiance. And yet I can't get my mind away from that video, one of the best of all time...
432 SUFFER WELL...Depeche Mode
I can't say I've liked everything this often dreary-sounding band from England has produced over the decades, but some of their stuff is pretty fantastic. They've been around nearly forty years now, although here in the United States few know of them other than minor 1980s hit singles like People are People and Enjoy the Silence...they are much more popular across the Atlantic. Suffer Well was played often on my local alternative radio station 100.5/"The Buzz" in 2005-06, and I think it's one of this band's better songs. David Gahan is the morose singer and Martin Gore composes most of their music...although he didn't with this one. Expect to see more from Depeche Mode on this list...
431 CAPTAIN JACK...Billy Joel
Captain Jack was Billy Joel's breakthrough song that first catapulted him to radio play and ultimate fame after his debut album Cold Spring Harbor was mixed wrong and came out as a disaster...his second LP, Piano Man, was a blockbuster hit in 1974...I didn't hear the entire album, including Captain Jack as the closing track, until four years later, though. Joel speaks through most of the song to an unnamed spoiled young man whose narcissism, hedonism and immaturity obviously disgust him as he bluntly lays out what he has let his life degenerate into...the line "well, you're 21 and still your mother makes your bed, and that's too long" pretty much says it all. This song is anti-drugs (although Joel himself partook of them) and an "in-your-face" plea for people to stand up and take responsibility for their own lives...about as intense as it gets...
Next week: #430-421...
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