Month: February 2023

It’s weird how some incident or image can trigger a flood of memories from the past.

This morning, Charlie and I were watching some home remodeling show on TV where the homeowner revealed that she is a member of a club in New Jersey that does “roller derby”. That mention caused me to think back to the 1950’s when I used to watch roller derby on TV at my grandpa Benny’s house in Los Angeles.

Actually, the house was the same home that my mother grew up in. It was located on Rodeo Road (not the fancy Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills!) near the L.A. Colosseum and belonged to my maternal grandmother Pearl (we called her Nana). Way back in the day, my Nana married Alfred Powell, who co-owned (with his brother) a grocery store in Monrovia, a suburb east of Los Angeles. Pearl and “Alf” were good-time folks and alcoholics who did a piss poor job raising my mom Barbara, and eventually Alf and Pearl divorced. According to my Mom, her mother Pearl continued her good-time ways, becoming a barfly and floozie. Eventually, she met a guy named Benny Cobo at a bar, they got along, and later married.

In the early- to late-1950’s, my parents would occasionally drop off my brother Terry and I at Nana and Benny’s house while they took some much-deserved “together time” away from their brood. (My sisters  Kellie and Claudia would stay at grandpa Alf’s house, with his wife Dorothy, near the San Gabriel Country Club because Nana and Benny’s little house could not handle four little kids running amok.) Terry and I each got our own little room to sleep in; I loved mine because it had a very comfy feather bed.

Benny was the breadwinner of the family. He worked at U.S. Steel, as I recall, and took a streetcar to and from work each day. He got up pretty early, Nana would make him breakfast and fill-up his lunch pail, and he would trudge off into the darkness. I had a habit of getting up when Nana and Benny did (Terry slept in), and I would play dominoes with Nana each morning after Benny had left. I was about 8 in 1955, and I guess it was unusual for a kid to get up that early when he didn’t have to, so Benny came up with a nickname for me: The Farmer.

He called me “Farmer” as long as he lived.

My Nana was always nice to Terry and I. She must have given up the booze by then, because I never saw her drink alcohol, nor did I smell it on her breath, and she never appeared intoxicated around us. And I doubt that my parents would have left off their precious boys with an alcoholic, as my Mom had suffered through that in the very Rodeo Road house that we were staying.

Benny still drank beer back then. At the end of a long day of work, Benny would stop each day at a small grocery store at the end of the streetcar route and purchase a four-pack of Brew 101 quarts, which he would bring home for the evening. He would come into the house, greet everyone, set his four-pack down on a coffee table near his sofa, turn on the TV, plop down, and receive his dinner from Nana. She was a good cook, specializing in burritos, spaghetti, and fried chicken (made from live fowl that wandered around the backyard).

Back in those days, the variety of TV programming was meager. Benny controlled the TV, and he liked baseball, boxing, wrestling, and roller derby, so we got a healthy dose of that virtually every day when he got home. Nana wasn’t that much into those things, and I recall that she would knit or otherwise keep herself busy while Benny was watching his sports and sipping his suds.

More often than not, the both of them would fall asleep on their respective sofas while the TV was running.

Television back in those black-and-white days, with the small screens and crummy reception, was primitive by today’s standards. Commercials, on Benny’s sports broadcasts, were often live. Car dealers, like Felix Chevrolet, “Cal” Worthington, and Chip Lambert, would do commercials where some dude would drive a used car up to the announcer, he would showcase various features of the car, and then motion to the driver to move on so that the next car could roll up for its moment in the spotlight. It was not unusual for a car’s engine to stall out when its big moment came, and I can remember a fender or side mirror falling off when the announcer kicked the tires or pounded on the hood while exclaiming what a “solid vehicle” the jalopy was. Benny, Terry, and I got a big kick out of that.

I can remember watching the World Series with Benny in his living room. It was always the New York Yankees against another team, and the Yankees always seemed to win. There were no Major League teams yet on the West Coast (the Dodgers and Giants moved from New York in 1959), but there was a minor league team in Los Angeles called the “Hollywood Stars”. I believe that we watched some of the Stars’ games on Benny’s TV.

A regular feature on TV was the Friday Night Fight, a televised boxing card featuring at least one preliminary bout followed by the main event. It was live, which presented a problem if an early bout ended quickly by KO… requiring the TV announcers to kill time until the next scheduled bout commenced. Often, the producers would then throw the broadcast to commercials (also live), where’d that crew would be caught off guard and have to improvise on live TV.  It was a televised comedy, in some respects. I recall a main event one evening, a heavyweight bout, involving a fighter named (as I recall) Mike DeLong. The nationally-broadcast fight was scheduled for ten or twelve rounds, so probably at least an hour of programming had been set aside by the network. When the bell clanged, DeLong walked to the middle of the ring and cold-cocked his opponent, knocking him unconscious. Including the ten-count by the referee, the entire bout took 12 seconds. There was no instant replay at the time, so the network was stuck with a 60-minute hole to fill in its programming. Benny was highly annoyed, as it ruined his evening of TV.

We watched a lot of wrestling with Benny. This was back in the salad days of professional wrestling, long before the WWE and the WWF. Unlike the bronzed, steroid-enhanced body-builders/actors that we see on cable TV today, the wrestlers in those days were a tad more dignified and normal-looking; some had actually been amateur grapplers back in the day. However, they were the pioneers of many of the antics that we see today, like chair-throwing, tag teams ignoring the rules, competitors being thrown out of the ring into the crowd, illegal “holds”, distinctive costumes, and copyrighted “moves”. Some of the big names were Gorgeous George, Haystacks Calhoun, Mister Moto, and Freddie Blassie. It seemed that the big stars were always matched with some regular-looking wrestling guys (i.e. no costumes), whose main job it was to be pummeled mercilessly, jumped on from the corner buckle, get “clotheslined” while running across the ring, and then get unceremoniously thrown over the ropes into the crowd. It was high entertainment, and we lapped it up.

Maybe our favorite sports show was roller derby. There might have been a dozen teams on the professional circuit, but our favorite was the L.A. Thunderbirds. We knew all the stars, both male and female, and all the tricks of the trade. One of our favorite T-Birds was a small, speedy Latin-American skater named Ralph Valadares. The TV announcer for the roller derby was a colorful, bespectacled, bald guy named Dick Lane, one of the pioneers of sports broadcasting in America (he also did the boxing and wrestling shows on local network KTLA). Lane used the phrase “Whoa, Nellie!” long before legendary college football announcer Keith Jackson copied it. In fact, Mr. Lane popularized it on those roller derby broadcasts, when he would see the T-Birds getting ready to “crack the whip” and send Little Ralphie Valadares through the opponents defense and rack up a big score.

We loved these “contests”, particularly when the two opposing teams would get into a brawl. It was the National Hockey League… before the NHL ever came West. Lots of gals sucker-punching each other, folding chairs being used to bludgeon opponents, competitors going over the rail into the crowd, spectators getting in on the action, and general mayhem. It was professional wrestling on skates, the best of both worlds.

Oh, those were the good old days when I was the Farmer.

As I mentioned, Benny took the streetcar to work each day. However, he did have a car, an old 1940’s pile of junk that usually sat in the driveway. I don’t think I ever saw him drive it; maybe it was broken down. I do remember that poor Benny was under that car one day, repairing something, when he got bit on the elbow by a Black Widow spider. He was a very sick guy for awhile. I don’t recall seeing the car after that.

In the late 1950’s, my Dad got a job opportunity in Santa Cruz (400 miles north of Los Angeles), a lease on a gas station which also included a garage for car repairs. My Dad was an excellent Ford mechanic and thought that he could turn around the fortunes of the gas station. So, we relocated to the Santa Cruz Mountains (Ben Lomond) along with my grandparents. Our family of six lived in Nana and Benny’s converted garage for a time, and Benny worked with my Dad at the service station in Soquel. They did great, but the landlord pulled my Dad’s lease after a year and gave it back to her son, who had run down the business previously. My Dad was devastated and we ended up moving back to Southern California.

Nana and Benny stayed up in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Benny ended up getting a job at a service station in Felton, where he became a fixture in the community for many years. Our family occasionally visited Nana and Benny at their home, and the girls summered up there several times.

I can’t remember now exactly how old I was when Benny taught The Farmer how to drive a stick shift automobile; maybe 16 or so?

He had an old, beat-up panel truck with an on-the-column manual shifter. As I recall, Benny, me, and one of my sisters went out one day for the big lesson. As is normal when one learns how to use a stick shift, I had some problems stalling out when engaging the clutch. Benny, who had a bit of a Mexican accent, kept yelling, “Chift it, chift it!” as I floundered. Finally, he changed seats with me to demonstrated the proper use of the column shifter. Once he got the revs up, he jammed the engine into gear and… the column shifter detached from the steering wheel shaft and fell onto the floorboard. He got angry and flustered and we howled with laughter.

Good times.

Benny was a simple guy with a big heart. He loved Nana absolutely and would do anything for her. The two of them had their own sofas in the living room and, at some point, Nana decided that hers was too big: she wanted a more petite sofa. So, Benny got a chain saw and cut it in half.

Problem solved.

Nana and Benny are gone now, as are my Mom and Dad. All I have left of that part of my life are those memories of the good times, like watching roller derby on TV with  Benny and rooting on Little Ralphie Valadares.

And being “The Farmer”.

There are a lot of people in America who liked “the good old days” and want society/culture to return to those wonderful times.

They fondly reminisce about “Ozzie and Harriett”, 25-cent gasoline, “readin’, writin’, and rythmtic”, church on Sundays, men in charge of everything, women “barefoot and pregnant” whose “place” was at home, cars with lots of chrome and power, minorities who “knew their place”, and consumer products that were mostly “Made in America”.

Oh, those magical times!

Actually, I grew up back in the good old days and, in my opinion, they were wonderful… for me, a White, middle-class kid living in suburbia, raised by a Mom who loved me and a Dad who was always employed. We weren’t well-off financially, but our family enjoyed camping vacations from time to time. It wasn’t until my Mom began working that we were able to afford the upgraded consumer goods and realization of the American Dream.

Of course, those good old days weren’t so good for a lot of Americans, particularly minorities and women, who were discriminated against in housing, borrowing, and in the workplace. Black and Brown American citizens were routinely harassed by the police in urban areas and the South and there was a two-tiered system of justice where White people were treated with more respect than non-Whites. I was too young to appreciate this in those days (mid-1950’s), but I do recall our next door neighbor, Veigh Vaughan, a Los Angeles policeman, bragging to my Dad about how he routinely tuned-up Black people on his beat with his “nigger knocker” nightstick.

That problem, of systemic racism in the law enforcement and criminal justice systems, exists today and is the generator of BLM protests and Black mistrust of cops, anger in the law enforcement community (for being called out for misbehavior and criminal acts), and the recent hoopla by right-wing politicians about “wokeness”.

Things change, though. As Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, once said, “Change is the only constant in life”. This wise man also noted that, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

Humans and every other organism on Earth evolve as time goes on, changing so that they can thrive in the ever-changing world. The Covid-19 virus is an example, where the original version ran rampant, then ran into human defenses that caused it to morph into a different version of itself to remain viable, and then repeated that evolution a number of times until today, where the virus still thrives but is less lethal.

Human brain size has nearly quadrupled in the past six million years, average height has increased, and people are living longer lives because of medical advances, better nutrition, and government programs to assist the elderly. Premature deaths from automobile accidents, Black Lung disease, cigarette smoking, and lynching are down significantly due to societal changes since “the good old days”.

I would suggest that this “change” or “progress” is a good thing, that we’ve evolved a bit, just like that pesky virus.

Religion, something that man inflicted upon himself, has always been a barrier to societal progress in that it marginalizes the role of women, discourages learning, and perpetuates discriminatory behavior. The bottom-line purposes of religion have always been to obtain and wield power over individuals, to tell them how to think and act, and collect money from the faithful. The concept of “freedom” is anathema to religion, as all of the major religions officially prohibit a variety of human behaviors and perpetuate dogma which stresses blind obedience to the utterings of the clergy… which is universally old and male.

The faithful are “not to think beyond what is written” (Apostle Paul, Corinthians 15:3,4)

Why should a Jew be allowed to eat fish and fowl and meat but be prohibited from consuming pork? Why should a Muslim woman have to cover her head and face in public? Why should a Catholic woman be prohibited from aborting an unwanted fetus? Why must Brahmin Hindus eat only vegetarian foods? Why are young Christian children baptized before they can even understand what religion is? The answer is the clergy’s desire to control behavior to the Church’s benefit.

The Renaissance, which marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity, featured the rise of “humanism”, which is defined as an outlook of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. The Renaissance set the stage for the decline in the power of the Church over individuals, the rise in scientific thought, development of free-thinking philosophies which produced the democratic governing model, and the expansion of global trade.

Had not the Renaissance occurred, we would still believe that the planets revolve around the Earth, that leprosy and cleft palates are punishments from God, and that every child is born a sinner. There would have been no United States of America, no Industrial Revolution, no Theory of Evolution (which is the cornerstone principle of modern biology), no polio vaccine, no electricity, no Internet, no cell phones, etc.

We would have been stuck in “the good old days” when religion told everyone when to jump and how high. The clergy liked those times.

We would still have slavery, too.

One only has to read the books of the Old Testament to see that God Almighty was comfortable with, utilized as punishment, and encouraged Hebrew leaders to utilize slavery as a nation-building tool. If you don’t believe this, read carefully the books of Genesis, Proverbs, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Judges.

It is small wonder that Americans living in the “Bible Belt” have a much different opinion about the treatment of human beings than in other regions. For the most part, the forefathers of these Christians economically benefitted from slavery for three hundred years and were angry enough over “abolition of slavery” to start a Civil War over the subject. Interestingly, the United States (with the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1864) abolished slavery, becoming one of the last civilized countries in the world to do so.

Not surprisingly, the State of Mississippi, a bastion of the Ku Klux Klan, lynchings, and Jim Crow discrimination against the children of former slaves, didn’t ratify the 13^th Amendment until 1995. Recently, the capitol city of Jackson has been in the news for the toxic water than most of the Black inhabitants must drink and a proposed new court system for the city (which is 80 percent Black) which would be administered by White politicians.

This situation is an example of a society that wants to live in the past, opposing the evolution of civilization since those “good old days” (presumably Antebellum times!).

I see a lot of this rhetoric lately in news releases by Bible Belt politicians who, like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, suggest that it is time for a new civil war (in her words, a “national divorce”), where people of like values, religion, and politics can congregate and do what they please, free from interference by those demonic Democrats, liberals, and pointy-headed intellectuals who reside in the “Blue” states.

The problem, for Southern right-wing Republicans like Greene, is that the demographics of Bible Belt states are changing. In her own state of Georgia, young people, professionals, and Blacks make up a growing percentage of voters who have “moved on” from the old Southern mentality. Democrats now control the Georgia statehouse and the two U.S. Senate seats.

Speaking of moving, the Congresswoman has proposed that Democrats moving to Red States (i.e. predominantly Republican) should not be able to vote for five years, so as not to pollute the government and society in those Gardens of Eden.

(I find it ironic that right-wing politicians exalt the concept of “freedom” but not their opponents’ freedom to vote.)

Congresswoman Greene wants to turn back the hands of time, something that history tells us is impossible… because the world changes and evolves. Bad ideas, like racial discrimination, religion involved with government, and old-school attitudes about the role of women in society have almost universally been discarded.

It should be noted that, in “the good old days”, back in that wonderful Southern paradise, women like Marjorie Taylor Greene couldn’t work outside the home, vote, or be elected to Congress. Thank goodness that society has evolved a bit in the past one hundred years, otherwise we’d have never heard of Ms. Greene and her lame-ass, anti-democratic ideas.

Welcome to the Twentieth Century!

Back in the mid-1950’s, there was a TV series called “Topper” about a sophisticated but stuffy fellow named Cosmo Topper who purchased a home in Los Angeles from the estate of a deceased, young, fun-loving couple named George and Marion Kirby.

The Kirby’s had died in an avalanche while skiing, along with a St. Bernard named Neil, who had tried to save them. Mr. Topper soon realized that his new L.A. home was haunted by the ghosts of the former occupants along with Neil. To his amazement and consternation, Topper finds out that he is the only person that can see and hear the ghosts. Neil, the St. Bernard, loves martinis, as do his wacky owners, the Kirbys, and a running gag is the invisible dog lapping up the drink.

The comedy series was a big hit on TV, as I recall. We watched every episode until the show ran its course in 1955.

Several years later, my family uprooted itself from Monterey Park, California and moved up to Ben Lomond, California in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The community in the Redwood-forested mountains featured small town living, great natural beauty, and the sound of lumberjacks doing their thing with chain saws. It was paradise for my brother Terry and I, who were up for any adventure, and we spent many a day exploring the forest, shooting birds with BB guns, knocking bee hives out of trees, and getting zapped by poison oak.

Good times.

The Santa Cruz Mountains are drained by the San Lorenzo River, which meandered very near my grandparents’ home where we lived for a year or so. Terry and I quickly met a number of local kids in the area who clued us into a variety of fun things to do in the area, particularly along the river. Our closest friend was named Mike Eddy, and he lived in a house right up against the river. Several years previous, the river had flooded big time and the Eddy’s house had been inundated by muddy river water to a depth of about five feet in their living room. The Eddy’s didn’t have a lot of money, so they weren’t able to repair the flood damage. Consequently, upon visiting their home, one would notice two things: the “flood” line on the interior stucco walls and the unmistakable smell of mold.

The biggest attraction for young boys in the area was a spot in the river, just down the road from our house, where a small, natural rock dam created a very nice pool of water, maybe 10’ deep, where kids could swim and goof off away from the prying eyes of parents.

The place was known by local as “The Rope”.

The reason for that moniker was that, overhanging the natural pool, was an enormous Sycamore tree with a huge hawser rope hanging from one of the branches. With some effort, and the help of a long stick, the rope could be retrieved by brave kids and be used to swing out over the pooled-up river and drop into the water in front of your buddies and the young, teenybopper girls watching you from the sandy shore.

The natural set-up of The Rope was not optimal, as one had to climb a steep slope near the Sycamore, fetch the rope, and then run sideways on the cliff before heading off into space. This meant that the trajectory swung laterally around a pivot point (the tree), causing the daredevil to quickly arrive at the drop point before crossing over the rock dam and returning to the base of the huge tree. My brother Terry and I were young, dumb, and foolhardy so, of course, we needed to master The Rope.

The problem was that, on the initial efforts, we were scared a bit and hesitant to let go of the rope at the right time (i.e. above the deep part of the pooled river). After that point, if you hadn’t let go, your fate was sealed, as you could not let go over the rock dam, and the arc of your trajectory would take you right back to the trunk of that enormous Sycamore, where you would smash into solid wood. Ooooh, that hurt! Picture a zip line without cushioning or helping hands at the end point…

After taking our lumps, we learned how to negotiate The Rope satisfactorily and stole some fancy moves from the “regulars”, like diving into the pool (headfirst) or doing a somersault after letting go of the rope. It was sort of a right of passage there on the San Lorenzo River; all of our local guy friends were adept at it. This proved useful up in the little town of Ben Lomond, a few miles up the road, where there was a man-made dam in the river at a small public park in the center of town. This popular swimming area also had a “rope” where local guys could show off in front of the scores of adults and kids who watched from the beach. Letting go of the rope and merely dropping into the river was considered child’s play, so we felt proud of ourselves for being newly-minted “professionals”.

Good times.

Back to the original Rope…

As I recall, it probably took us 5 or 10 minutes to walk from our home over to The Rope. That journey, in bare feet and bathing suit, caused us to pass by a good-sized property that had an orchard of Granny Smith apple trees. We would occasionally jump the fence and grab an apple on our way. However, that property was guarded by an enormous dog who didn’t take kindly to trespassers and apple thieves. The dog, a huge St. Bernard, was named “Burp” and we all got chased by him from time to time, running for our lives and scrambling in terror over the fence before his massive jaws could grab our asses.

According to the locals, that dog was the movie actor dog named “Neil” in the Topper TV series. He was retired from show business but, even without the martini cocktails, still had some get-up-and-go left in him.

As I said… good times.

The idea that the 2020 election was “stolen” from President Donald Trump was something that die-hard conservatives and the Christian evangelical Army of God folks really wanted to believe in, even though there was no proof of election fraud.

Predictably, major Fox News personalities and their on-air guests went beserk with indignation and blame-throwing as soon as the election results came in, alleging all manner of crimes, malfeasance, and dereliction of duty by elections officials in all of the critical “battleground” states that Trump (and Fox News) had hoped would vote Red.

In the post-election run-up to the January 6, 2021 certification of the results by Congress, Fox News hosted a number of personalities (including the My Pillow guy and Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell) who claimed that Dominion Voting Systems’ (maker of voting machines for many jurisdictions) technology had been used to rig the Presidential election against Donald Trump.

On air, the Fox News hosts (including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs , Maria Bartiromo, and  Laura Ingraham) amplified the conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems and other alleged voting frauds that had occurred to steal votes from President Trump.

Dominion Voting Systems later filed a $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News for misinformation it broadcast which undermined customer confidence in the Dominion product. That lawsuit is ongoing and “discovery” by Dominion attorneys has revealed extremely compromising text messages and email from within the Fox News hierarchy.

It turns out that the prime time Fox on-air “journalists” (Carlson, Hannity, Dobbs, and Ingraham) knew early on that Trump campaign agents’ claims against Dominion were bogus, but higher-ups in the Fox News organization wanted their on-air host to fan the flames in order to avoid losing Trump-supporting viewers.

Trump supporters were incensed on November 7^th when Fox News “called” the Arizona election in favor of Joe Biden, even though the contest appeared to be a dead heat. (It turned out to be the right call, by the way.) However, the on-air talent at Fox News felt betrayed by Fox’s demographic/elections forecasters, as they had focused their pre-election broadcast on supporting the Trump message and predicting victory in most of the “swing” states.

That’s right, folks, a supposed “news” organization that had blatantly supported one candidate over another.

It was no news to viewers, as they watched Fox News religiously to hear candidate Trump’s virtues, his boasts, his disparagement of Democrats, and all of the assorted misinformation that the Trump campaign was disseminating. From the Fox News coverage, it seemed that a Trump re-election was guaranteed, as everyone that the news anchors featured on-air sang the Trump tune.

It is no wonder, therefore, that Trump supporters, on election night and following, believed that a Trump victory had been “stolen” by Joe Biden through nefarious means. Consequently, this cohort was looking for “proof” of this criminal act and they wanted it pronto, before Joe Biden could be declared the winner.

Fox News was in competition with other cable news outlets (particularly Newsmax, another favorite of conservative viewers) and wanted to claim the high ground in this big story. So, it appears from the discovered Fox text and emails that Fox executives directed their front-line talking heads to boost the alleged Dominion Voting Systems effort to rig the election against Donald Trump.

This despite Rupert Murdoch’s personal belief that the idea of a stolen election was “really crazy stuff”. Apparently, not crazy enough to rein in his own crazies who were presenting the prime time Fox News.

The Dominion “scandal” that Fox News helped amplify was based on conspiracy theory misinformation that Trump’s attorneys knew was bullshit and the Fox News on-air talent also knew was devoid of actual fact. Many of the texts and emails within the Fox News organization, discovered by Dominion’s attorneys, are emphatic that the “news” that the on-air talent was broadcasting on the Dominion matter was absurd, whackadoodle, laughable, wild, “shit”, etc.

Nevertheless, on November 12^th, Fox News host Lou Dobbs invited Rudy Giuliani to spew lies about Dominion Voting Systems on his popular program and then said the following: “It’s stunning… they have no ability to audit meaningfully the votes that are cast because the servers are somewhere else… This looks to me like it is the end of what has been a four-and-a-half… the endgame to a four-and-a-half year-long effort to overthrow the president of the United States.” Dobbs continued to broadcast these false charges throughout the week and for nearly a month.

Why was Fox News acting this way, broadcasting a conspiracy theory that they knew was bogus? Two reasons: (1) They were paranoid that competitor Newsmax was going to capture the conservative viewing audience, so they needed to own the Dominion story and out-shock the competition; and, (2) Not wanting to antagonize Trump further (by shattering his dream with the actual facts).

As a Fox executive said at the time (within the organization), Fox “needed to do a better job respecting our audience”. In other words, tell them what they want to hear and fan the flames of outrage.

As one commentator said at the time, “It’s remarkable how weak ratings make good journalists do bad things.”

It’s not that remarkable, really, considering who we are talking about in this case. Fox News is a cleaned-up version of the yellow journalism that Rupert Murdoch has been peddling his entire life. His “product” has always been hard-to-believe, breaking news that excites the reader or viewer… even though it isn’t true or may not be true. Murdoch made millions in the tabloid press with stories of aliens, celebrity scandals, juicy tell-alls from ex-employees of Queen Elizabeth, nasty “scoops” on Democratic politicians, and so forth. The only constant that Rupert Murdoch concerns himself with is “will it sell”.

Murdoch figured out long ago that right-wing viewers wanted to hear how “Liberals” were taking the country down the toilet, so he designed a cable “news” network that continuously fed that audience 24/7 information that would reinforce their political beliefs. By definition, what Fox News was distributing was propaganda, which is the opposite of “news”.

Murdoch’s empire is now on the hot seat, legally, as the Dominion Voting System lawsuit has begun to unmask what has really been going on since the 2020 election.

It’s ugly, embarrassing, scandalous, and true, but I doubt that this legitimate news story will receive much coverage on Fox News.

If you have done any traveling in the American Southwest, you have probably gone into at least one souvenir shop where there will be mounted Jackalope taxidermy for sale.

The Jackalope is a species of jackrabbit that has antlers, and rumor has it that this creature is super-speedy, agile, can jump like an antelope, and is a crafty fellow out in the wild. Of course, one cannot find Jackalopes out in nature, only in gift shops, as they are a good-natured hoax. The idea of a mixed breed animal is interesting, though.

Ex-Governor of South Carolina and ex-United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley announced this week that she will be running for the G.O.P. nomination for President in 2024.

Or maybe she won’t.

Nikki Haley is a gal who is hard to figure. She’s smart and clever, but she can’t always remember what she stands for. Prior to the 2016 election, she was adamantly opposed to the candidacy of Donald Trump, declaring him to be unfit for the highest office in the land because of his defense of KKK supporters. At the time, I thought, “Hey, this is my kind of Republican!”

And then she supported his candidacy, although commenting that she “wasn’t a fan”.

Haley was rewarded for her support when President Trump picked her for Ambassador to the United Nations. She did a creditable job in that role for two years, then resigned her office amidst the scandals and buffoonery of the Trump Administration, exiting the administration with her dignity largely intact.

Smart lady.

After Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in 2020, and the Trump-fomented January 6, 2021 Capitol Riot, Haley said, “We need to acknowledge that he let us down. He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t ever let it happen again.” She followed with, “Many of his actions since the election were wrong and will be judged harshly by history.”

Well said, particularly for a highly-regarded Republican.

Except in April 2021, Nikki Haley announced that “if Trump runs for President in 2024 then I won’t”.

(Uh, what does that mean? Does it mean that everything negative you previously said about the ex-President is bogus?)

Then, in February of 2023, Haley announces that she will indeed challenge Donald Trump in 2024.

Say WHAT? Make up your mind, lady!

I can understand the wishy-washy attitude by Nikki Haley in light of the fact that probably 30 percent of Republicans are “to the death” Trump fans. She faces an uphill battle to convince those cultists that the future of the Republican Party is dismal with Donald Trump in the lead. He lost the past two Presidential popular votes by 3 million in 2016 and 7 million in 2020, and after the Capitol Riot fallout would probably lose by 10 million in 2024. Unless she (or another G.O.P. candidate) can get the nomination, Trump will lose and insure another four years of Democratic control of the White House.

Interestingly, Haley’s candidacy (as it stands today) almost assures that Trump will win the Republican nomination, because the non-Trump candidates in the G.O.P. primaries will split the remaining (less the Trump core base) voters, giving the ex-President a big advantage. Nikki Haley would almost be better off by declaring herself an Independent, seeking approval from the more than 30 percent of all registered voters who declare themselves to be non-affiliated/independent.

It is obvious that Haley is a different kind of politician than Trump and doesn’t hold many of his extreme views. She is a Southern politician, however, so she carries some of that baggage with her. On the other hand, she is non-White (a child of Punjabi Indian parents, both professionals who immigrated to the U.S. long ago) and her role in the Trump Administration (United Nations rep) was distanced a bit from the nasty domestic stuff that Trump and his inner circle dished up later in his fourth and last year in office. Haley jumped ship two years into the Trump Administration, probably sensing that things were going down the toilet, politically. So, she has relatively clean skirts, good political instincts, and a slightly different perspective on race and social matters (from a lot of Republicans) as an Indian American.

And, she was a two-term Governor of South Carolina, so she has oodles of executive experience in government, something that ex-President Trump had none of… which was apparent as soon as he took office. Haley has a respect for bureaucracy that keeps government running efficiently, which is critical, as elected officials don’t do the grunt work. And, courtesy of the U.N. job, she has a modicum of foreign policy experience, something that most candidates lack.

Another important factor to consider is that she has the guts to publicly criticize Donald Trump and dare to run against him. Most of the big name Republicans are scared shitless by the ex-President and his rabid political base, constantly kowtowing to him, and continuing to support his Stolen Election scam/grift.

If Nikki Haley wanted to scare the crap out of Donald Trump and get a lot of people to start looking seriously at her for President, she would announce that she is seeking the top job as an Independent, and would get her operatives working to get her on the ballot in all 50 states.

If she ran as an Independent, she would not have to campaign against others in the regional primaries, saving a lot of money, and would be a legitimate, significant participant in any Presidential campaign debates. She could set her own policy objectives, distinct from the partisan stew that the Republicans and Democrats are tied to.

Nikki Haley could be a Jackalope, taking some good DNA from each of the major political parties… a hybrid politician, if you will.

Someone is going to do this in 2024, and it would be nice to see someone with smarts, courage, and top-level executive experience throw down the challenge to the established political parties.

It’s time for The Jackalope Candidacy.

In my long life, I’ve taken citizenship seriously, serving in the military, voting in every election, paying my taxes, being elected to two different neighborhood H.O.A. Boards of Directors, and not committing any crimes. The only thing left on my citizenship Bucket List is serving on a jury.

Oila, this month I got a jury summons!

Technically, since I’m over 70 years old, I could have declined. And, the fact that my second oldest son Ron was a Lieutenant in the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department would probably make me unacceptable to any defense attorney. Not good odds to actually being seated on a jury but, what the Hell, I thought I’d give it a chance.

The court system in Las Vegas is pretty up-to-date and asks potential jurors to call (or use the Web) the night before to make sure that one’s services will be necessary the next day (Monday, February 13^th). I checked and, “Yes!”, they needed me to show up.

So, I made the 70-mile drive down to downtown Las Vegas.

There is no available parking anywhere near the courthouse, so the geniuses have provided reimbursable pay parking at a lot up near Fremont Street. Unfortunately, accessing that parking lot requires local knowledge, as the downtown area is infested with one-way streets. I couldn’t quite figure out how to negotiate that labyrinth (in fact, I couldn’t find the entry), and it was about ten minutes to my reporting time. So, I found another parking structure, about 8 blocks from the courthouse. I was a bit annoyed at this point and was a bit testy with the parking lot attendant (a middle-aged Black woman who looked and acted like a drill sergeant) who give me my stub.

I headed off toward the courthouse, having to cover the eight blocks in fairly quick time. If you are familiar with downtown Las Vegas, you will know that I had to shuffle along through some pretty seedy areas, with drunks lying on the sidewalk, bums trying to bum some money, prostitutes wandering about, and busted gamblers grousing about their luck.

I was so happy to get to the courthouse a few minutes early. Then, I had to go through a metal detector after putting my personal property in a basket. Of course, the alarm went off when my two artificial hips passed the sensor. After convincing the officer that I wasn’t bringing in a bomb, I was accosted by another officer who pointed to my car key fob and said, “You can’t bring that knife in here!” On my keychain was a Victorinox multi-tool, with a tiny scissors, a tiny nail file, and a 1” blade… something that couldn’t bring down a crippled dog. “Nope”, she said, “you will have to return the weapon to your car!”

Yeah, I’m going to walk back 8 blocks thru the gauntlet of street people and then return another 8 blocks to the courthouse. Hell no, I would probably collect a shiv from some loser for my troubles. I told the officer, “No way!”, broke the offending Bowie knife off of the key ring and threw it at the cop. “You people asked me to come here; I’m not a criminal and I’m not here to break someone out of jail!”, I yelled. “Whatever”” she said.

I flew up to the third floor, getting to the Jury department at 11:59 a.m., one minute early, only to find a line of about a dozen folks waiting to be processed. “I’m good”, I thought, beginning to anticipate sitting on a jury for the first time, doing my civic duty.

And, then, a fellow came out of a door and announced, “We won’t be needing you folks today; we’ve got all the jurors that we need!”

When the guy collected my Juror badge, I told him that I had driven 70 miles because the Court had told me, last night, that they needed me. “Sorry”, he said. I responded by saying that I will ignore any future jury summonses and if the Court needs me they will have to come to my house and drag me out of it.

And, so , I trudged back through the eight-block gauntlet, anticipating being jumped at any moment.

When I got to the parking structure, I noticed that my parking lot ticket was no longer in my shirt pocket. “WTF!”, I cursed, knowing that I would now have to face the wrath of the Equalizer. “I was just here 15 minutes ago; you remember me, right?”, I said, sheepishly. She recognized me, but said, “Without your stub, you will have to pay the Lost Ticket charge… thirty bucks.”

Really! What a perfect ending to a beautiful Jury Service!

The Black lady was actually nice and God-blessed me after I paid up. Just doing her job. I’m sure plenty of shysters have tried the lost ticket trick on her and she’s wiser now. Can’t blame her.

I mentioned to her that I was here for jury duty and those criminals were damned lucky that I wasn’t chosen to actually serve because the entire morning had put me in a foul mood. She said, “I don’t want nothin’ do do with those courts.” I don’t blame her.

As I drove the hour and one-half back to Mesquite, I pondered jury service and my experience with the system. How many jurors, I wondered, sat down to hear a case while annoyed or angry about having to serve, negotiating the downtown jungle, pissed about some domestic or pressing financial matter, etc.? Would their minds really focus on the task before them or would they be daydreaming about solving their own problems while the attorneys rambled on?

It makes you wonder… if justice is ever fairly served.

Charlie and I recently watched a “20-20” episode about a woman who shot her sleeping husband to death and later blamed her behavior on the domestic violence that she had been enduring in the marriage.

Feminists and domestic violence activists raged when a jury convicted the lady of 2^nd degree murder, feeling that she should not have been given jail time.

Girlfriends of the lady testified that they were aware of the victim’s abuse (from things that they had been told by the wife), and had seen bruises on her skin. There were also allegations (after the murder) that the abusive husband had also filmed the two having sex and had put the video on internet porn sites.

All of this may or may not have been true. However, the supposedly abused wife had never formally complained to police about the alleged terror in her home. In fact, she opted not to sign a complaint that would have exposed her husband to arrest and charges. Nor did she leave the home or file for divorce.

Her solution was to shoot her sleeping husband in the head while he slept.

Charlie and I got into a debate about what should be the proper adjudication of this matter. My wife, who suffered from domestic violence in her earlier 8-year marriage, felt like the woman should be exonerated of all charges, even though she had not availed herself of available remedies while her husband was still alive.

(Interestingly, my wife resorted to some street justice on her ex-husband one time. She told me years ago that, after a physical beating by her asshole husband, and while he was passed out in a drunken stupor, she had conked him in the head with a big frying pan. He survived but never knew what hit him.)

My feeling was that cold-blooded murder had taken place in this recent tragedy (the alleged lout wasn’t attacking her… he was asleep on a sofa) when she could have just walked out the door of the residence or called the police. Instead, she appointed herself judge, jury, and executioner… when the criminal penalty for verbal harassment, physical assault, and surreptitiously filming marital sex (even if proven, which it was not) is a very modest stint in prison.

The guy may have been a scumbag (which was not proven) or his wife may have exaggerated her problems to cover an assault stemming from her rage. The husband’s execution denied the criminal justice system the opportunity to sort out the fact from fiction… which could have been the wife’s intent.

I sympathize with women who suffer from domestic violence, but it is a slippery slope when spouses can self-deputize themselves and dispense “street justice” like this. Domestic violence is not a capital offense in any state of the Union.

Frustration with our criminal justice system does not excuse vigilante behavior, particularly in this case, where legal recourses were not even pursued. If we allow a wife to execute a husband for alleged domestic violence, should husbands be allowed to do the same for a poor.ly-prepared meal, a sloppy house, or marital infidelity? How about credit card spending binges? (Maybe this husband was pissed off about all of those things and regularly yelled at and struck his wife in frustration? Who knows what goes on behind closed doors?)

Society has instituted a remedy for a bad marriage: it’s called a divorce.

The perpetrator of the evil deed in this story was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to 19 years in prison. The big hoopla by domestic violence activists surrounding the adjudication exerted immense political pressure on the State of New York. Accordingly, at the appellate court level, the murderer’s sentence was reduced to 7 years. The wife will be eligible for parole in a few years, although she will still carry the stigma of a convicted murderer.

We live in a society where lots of people feel aggrieved by rules, laws, government policies, and the actions of people who “are unlike us”. Unfortunately, that has given rise to violence that is escalating in its magnitude, pissed off folks who simply lash out with fury against their perceived enemies. The 2021 Capitol Riot by Trump supporters is an example.

Murder as a solution to problems is becoming socially acceptable, as we read news reports each day about mass shootings, bombing of abortion clinics, and policemen who beat or shoot to death Black motorists who fail to cooperate with their commands.

This kind of behavior reminds me of lynch mobs back in the day. Anger, sometimes ill-founded, led to “stringing up” a suspect, sometimes not even the right guy, for a perceived crime. It was a “feel good” moment for the town and the vigilantes, even though the Constitution of the United States was trampled in the process. At the Capitol Riot, there were shouts in the mob to “string up Mike Pence”. Luckily, the enraged vigilantes couldn’t locate the Vice President of the United States.

How is it that murder has become the punishment of first resort?

The guy who was shot to death while sleeping on his sofa was a gymnastic coach to young kids, was well thought-of in his community, and was never known to abuse anyone… until after his murder, when his wife and her girlfriends came up with their horror stories. However, even if the guy had a secret life of abusive behavior, didn’t he deserve the right to defend himself in a court of law? Maybe some jail time and psychiatric therapy would have straightened out his life?

He was denied that opportunity.

Now, his young children have no father and (temporarily) no mother, his parents and siblings are without him, his reputation is forever stained, and his wife is a convicted murderer who will carry that burden for the rest of her life.

All that was required for this never to have happened was for the wife to call the cops or simply take the kids and walk out the door while her husband was taking a nap.

Instead of bothering with that, she simply pulled a trigger.

There’s been a big hullabaloo this past week about a Chinese high-altitude weather/spy balloon that drifted over U.S. airspace.

Predictably, Republican legislators and prospective 2024 candidates have used the “incursion” to excoriate President Biden for not shooting the balloon down immediately. They claim that he “showed weakness” to the Chinese who, for their own part, expressed remorse that the balloon had drifted off course.

The whole thing seems like a tempest in a teapot because the Chinese don’t really need balloons to gather intelligence on American military bases (they have spy satellites like we do) and this is not the first time that Chinese balloons have trespassed into U.S. airspace: news reports indicate that there were three such instances while Donald Trump was President.

It wasn’t big news then, Trump didn’t have them shot down, and no Republicans made a big deal of it at the time.

President Biden refused to take out the balloon when it was over U.S. property because he didn’t know what was in it and didn’t want debris falling on American cities and people. When the balloon got to the South Carolina coast, Biden had it shot down and the military is now recovering the balloon and its cargo from the ocean. Hopefully, something significant will be learned.

Several G.O.P. politicians ranted and raved about Biden’s “irresponsible” behavior during the week, piggybacking on the Fox News constant drumbeat that the President is too old and mentally unfit for his job… as if he was the only person in the Administration (State Department, the Pentagon, C.I.A., National Security Agency) assessing the problem and coming up with options for the President.

Give me a break.

And what about the credentials of the legislator who is doing all of the criticizing? What is his expertise? What think tank is providing him with better information than that of the Biden Administration?

Anyone can get elected to Congress. Used car salesmen, disbarred attorneys, TV personalities, crooks, election deniers, White supremacists, football coaches, and social media influencers can, and do, run for office. With plenty of campaign money, a “safe” district, and support of the local political machine, even marginal candidates can win. Once elected, the new Congressman can hold a press conference and shoot his mouth off about any subject under the sun… as if he knows what he’s talking about. (For awhile, there was an avowed Ku Klux Klansman who represented a Conservative congressional district in San Diego County. He had all manner of wild opinions.)

A bunch of hot air, it is, just like the armchair advice given out by pissed off Congressmen during the Covid 19 pandemic.

It might turn out that the Chinese balloon was loaded with Covid-23 virus and the Chi Comms were hoping that the Americans would shoot it down over the heartland, infecting millions and re-devastating the U.S. economy. If that were the case, Joe Biden would be a genius for his forbearance.

Should something like that actually come about, he would receive zero credit from Fox News or the loudmouth Congressman, who would revert to shooting spitwads about other alleged Biden brainfarts.

Speaking of that, I’ve noticed that Fox News, several times per week, highlights public speaking flubs that President Biden makes, giving the impression that his 78-year-old brain is not working so well. I don’t know about that, but I do know that he is called upon to regularly speak to the public and reporters. The more exposure, the more chances for misspeaking. (I used to have a job that required public speaking, and I can assure you that it is easy to flub a line or misstate yourself when talking off the cuff in front of an audience. Confusion can happen at any age.)

It is interesting that Fox News is so focused on Biden’s occasional speaking flubs, particularly when that network was absolutely mute while ex-President Trump was lying to the American public every day for four years. The Washington Post kept a record of Trump’s public lies, and it was determined that he lied over 30,000 times to reporters, on TV, and at rallies during the almost 1,500 days he was in office. That’s an average of twenty public lies per day, and not once in four years did Fox New criticize the President his big whoppers.

I don’t believe that Fox News has yet denounced The Big Lie (i.e. the alleged “Stolen Election” of 2020). I am also pretty sure that none of the Fox News talking heads have yet criticized and called for the ouster of Congressman George Santos, who has lied about what his name is (he’s used at least four in the past twenty years), his ancestry, his education, his collegiate sports achievements, his mother’s death, his business experience, his sexuality, his charity work, his property ownership, his campaign financing, and crimes of which he claimed to be a victim.

More hot air was dispensed recently when some Congressman got all worked up about “Biden’s plan” to outlaw all gas stoves in the U.S. What actually happened was that one member of the Consumer Product Commission mused about phasing out gas stoves for safety/environmental purposes. His idea was not supported by other commissioners, nor by the Biden Administration. But, it made headlines on Fox News, riling up lots of Americans who were looking for one more excuse to hate on those bastard Democrats.

That reminds me of the big hue and cry several years ago when the Republicans raised a stink about an alleged plot by President Obama to outlaw the consumption of beef. The whole episode, a political stunt, was a “nothingburger” made out of 100% hot air. Some Montana Congressman made some political hay off of this stunt and then moved on to another one, while a lot of people were left concerned and angry.

What do you expect? It’s Washington D.C., the hot air capital of the United States.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame recently announced its list of 2023 nominees and there are quite a few that I’ve never heard of: Missy Elliott; Kate Bush; Joy Division/New Order; and, A Tribe Called Quest.

Who? How about Tiny Tim?

I know I’m old, but sheesh… these nominees are all-time greats like Elvis, Chuck Berry, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Queen? I don’t think so, but that’s just me.

Heck, Cher isn’t in the Hall of Fame and she’s been cranking out music and filling arenas for over 50 years. Tina Turner had a Top 40 hit in seven consecutive decades, held a concert in front of 180,000 paying customers in 1988, and sold 100 million records worldwide, wasn’t deemed fit for the Hall of Fame as a solo artist until 2021. Mariah Carey, who had eleven consecutive years with a U.S. number one single, has not been elected to the Hall of Fame!

Obviously, I have no idea what makes music “great” anymore. The Rap and Hip Hop genres are now quite popular, and I don’t listen to them. I’ve never listened to a Taylor Swift recording, either, which really shows how far “out of it” I am when it comes to modern culture. I do think Lady Gaga is immensely talented, though, but what has she done lately?

I was alive when Rock n’ Roll began and remember where I was “the day the music died” (Buddy Holly’s fatal plane crash). Of course, there was Elvis, Ricky Nelson, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and Roy Orbison back then, too. And, then, we had Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys in the mid-60’s. The sophistication of rock n’ roll went up a notch in the Seventies with groups like Led Zeppelin, Queen, the Eagles, and Fleetwood Mac. And, the Eighties brought us Michael Jackson, Elton John, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie and a lot of heavy metal, of which I was not a fan. I liked ZZ Top, though, which might be considered bluesy Texas hard rock.

I was in my 40’s by the time that the Nineties rolled around, probably set in my ways as far as music appreciation is concerned. For the past thirty years, I have been listening to “oldies” on Sirius XM and, recently, on Amazon Prime Music. I don’t do social media, TikTok, Twitter, or any other modern means of communication, so I am oblivious to new sounds and music genres. The Rap and Hip Hop stuff that I’ve heard turns me off, as it is often hard for me to follow the lyrics, the bass is overwhelming, and the message imparted often glorifies criminal behavior and “street” culture. Being white and privileged, I guess, makes this genre difficult to appreciate: I’m sure it’s good stuff, as lots of young folk like it.

Probably the most important figure in the history of modern rock and roll is Bob Dylan. Folk singing was the bridge from the traditional pop music crooning sounds of the 1940’s: it was music with a social message. Dylan took folk music and amped it up with an electric guitar, paving the way for groups like the Byrds, the Yardbirds, Crosby Stills and Nash, the Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Eagles, and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

Two bands have dominated the music scene during my life: the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

In April 1964, when I was a junior in high school, the Beatles held the top five spots on the Billboard 100, an incredible achievement that will never be topped. The group was only together for eight years and, as of 2019, have sold 600 million albums worldwide. Their impact on music, style, and culture remains unmatched by any musical group. They might have been the first rockers with long hair; now, it is a requirement, it seems.

The Rolling Stones were, arguably, the first hard rock and first counterculture band. I recall when they first came to U.S. attention in 1964, providing a gritty, rhythmicand bluesy sound that was definitely different than the Beatles and the Beach Boys, who were big at that time. The Stones were a “live” act, as opposed to the mostly studio-engineered music that the Beatles and Beach Boys were putting out, playing to huge crowds. They continued to do so for almost sixty years, until drummer Charley Watts death in 2021. They have sold 200 million albums and are, undoubtedly, the greatest rock n’ roll band of all time (apologies to Queen). Amazing fact: with all of their members in their 60’s and 70’s, the Rolling Stones were the highest-earning live act of 2021.

I have been listening to the music of Eric Clapton for most of my adult life. He is widely considered one of the top couple of rock guitarists of all time and has played for many groups, including an uncredited contribution to the Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, on of the greatest rock songs of all time. Clapton is the only performer to have been elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame three times, one as a solo performer and twice as member of the seminal bands The Yardbirds and Cream. He is 77 years old, still performs, and is the yardstick by which rock guitarists are measured. Maybe only Jimi Hendrix was better, but he died of a drug overdose when he was only 28 years old.

My favorite group of all time is the Traveling Wilburys, a “supergroup” which was made up of five Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame icons (Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, and Tom Petty). The group only recorded two albums, with members sitting in a circle with acoustic guitars, with the vocals being shared by all five musicians. The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 won the 1990 Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group and achieved triple-platinum certification for sales in the U.S. The group was short-lived, however, as Roy Orbison died just before the group’s second and final album.

My favorite rock performer was Freddie Mercury, the front man for the group Queen. He had a magnificent voice and stage presence, and could ignite a crowd by sheer bravado. In a lineup of rock’s greatest stars, at Live Aid 1985, Queen stole the show in front of a live crowd of 80,000 fans and 1.9 billion world-wide watchers on TV. His song, Bohemian Rhapsody, might be the most famous rock song of all time. Freddie Mercury died of AIDS in 1991.

Although I’ve loved music for sixty years or so, I’ve seen relatively few live performances in person. I saw Buffalo Springfield at my Cal State University L.A. in 1966 when they were just getting started: I think they sang “For What It’s Worth”, a protest song about Sunset Strip curfew riots. Two of the members of this group, Stephen Stills and Neil Young, later got together in the supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and then split up to have very successful solo careers. David Crosby was a co-founder of the Byrds, and Graham Nash was lead singer with the Hollies, both of these groups in the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame.

Charlie and I saw Michael Jackson at Dodger Stadium in 1984. Some years later, we saw Lionel Ritchie, who was a big star then, in Las Vegas (although the best music of the concert was the piped-in sounds of David Bowie for the 45-minutes before Mr. Ritchie took the stage). In the 1990’s we saw the Beach Boys, Willie Nelson, and Chicago at various Southern California venues. When I managed the Riverside County Fair/National Date Festival (for six years),we produced concerts by Tower of Power, the Coasters, the Shirelles, and Jan and Dean, among others.

The best live-act that I’ve ever witnessed in person was an Elton John concert at Caesar’s Palace. It was called the “Red Piano” concert and had all manner of stylish production involved, including a light show and huge inflatable props circulating about the stage while Elton reprised his many hits. It was magical; he really delivered the goods.

Nowadays, the only time I listen to music is in my car. If Charlie is with me, we usually listen to 50’s and 60’s “Golden Oldies”, because that is what she likes… easy and soothing songs that she knows the words to. When I am by myself, I like louder, more edgier stuff like David Bowie, Tom Petty, the Rolling Stones, Queen, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, Bob Seger, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin, U2, the Pretenders, ZZ Top, Credence Clearwater Revival, the Eagles, and the Doobie Brothers.

Yeah, I know, we’re old.