Bye Bye Miss American Pie...

Last night I indulged myself once again and engaged in my annual ritual of watching Bill Murray live through Groundhog Day again.  And again.  And again... Well, you get the idea.  How ironic that the day he's forced to live through again and again is the day before a day many of us would prefer never to have seen at all:  The Day The Music Died.  I was 18 when the plane carrying, among others, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper met the earth in a corn field near Clear Lake, Iowa.  For me and many of my contemporaries, it was the first deeply personal brush with death and the public mourning that goes with a celebrity death.  For that reason, the date - February 3, 1959 - became a demarkation line between childhood and adulthood.

As more than one op/ed writer has noted, the real irony is that the music never died at all.  And it never will.  Thanks to Don McLean's iconic American Pie, it seems to me that people will pause on this day for decades into the future as news anchors and deejays remind us each year on this date that it is the umpteenth anniversary of that fatal day when American teens shared a painful coming of age, because of the bad news on their doorstep.  We miss those good old boys...

You Say You Want a Revolution...

The words of our title - You say you want a revolution - were famously written by Lennon & McCartney, and became a touchstone for a generation.  About the same time, Pete Townshend wrote, and The Who sang, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." We propose using the wisdom in those words to re-build the seriously broken American Dream.  It's our belief the new boss is not just the same as the old boss, in too many instances the "new" boss is the old boss. And that's the reason we're proposing the opening salvo in our revolution:  Operation Clean Sweep.

 It's clear to anyone who doesn't live under a rock that our government is badly broken.  Partisan bickering has replaced lofty purpose as the guiding principle of both parties.  Our president is ineffective at best, respect for our institutions is at an all-time low and our economy both national and personal struggles for a toehold.  What to do?

Can we trust one party or the other to clean things up?  That's like banging your head against the wall because it feels so good when you stop.  Do we change our system?  Unnecessary and just not doable. No.  Operation Clean Sweep has one political enemy:  incumbency.  In all upcoming elections, we ask you to vote against any and all incumbents regardless of political affiliation.  It's obvious that those who have been elected have no desire or ability to change things.  Will this be enough of a message to those who would use our system for their own gain and ego polishing?  Possibly.  But the second time we do it may just start the congressional fat cats thinking.  After all, The United States is the prototypical democracy.  If we are unable to throw the scoundrels out, who will do it?

So let's get out our brooms and sweep the dirt out of our elected offices!  We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.  Your comments are welcome.

Liz and Michael

A few minutes of a morning show's time was today devoted to the up-coming auction of many of Elizabeth Taylor's goodies: designer clothing, diamonds (one that is expected to fetch $2.5 million all by itself), artwork, and whatnot. Among the artwork was an Andy Warhol portrait of Liz, including in the margin a note from Andy to Liz, followed by a "thank you" note from Liz back to Andy. The item had stayed in Warhol's personal collection for twenty-some years before it ended up in the Taylor collection and ultimately the Taylor estate. I was struck by this portrait because without the afore-mentioned notes, the casual viewer would have a hard time deciding if it were a picture of Liz Taylor or Michael Jackson!

Google it and take a look for yourself. This must have been what Michael showed his plastic surgeon(s) when he said, "Make me look like this." The nose, and to a lesser degree, the eyes. But the shape of the lips! Even the hairstyle. It seems to me that at one point, some wag suggested that LaToya didn't really exist; she was just Michael in drag. Well, if anybody could have been Michael in drag, it was the young Liz Taylor. Fortunately they were close friends and thus often seen together, so there's no secret identity issue.

The resemblance suggests an alternate defense that Dr. Conrad Murray might have used: "I thought it was Liz Taylor that I was treating!" Not much worse than his actual defense.

The End of the World As We Know It...

Everybody OK? I thought so. Now we're in for more excuses from the morons. "I made another mistake in my calculations." Or, "God can do whatever He wants. It's His way of showing us how powerful He is."

Next thing we'll hear is that this was a preliminary test for The Saved. Look out for the big one in October. When that date passes, we've got the end of the Mayan calendar to deal with. Oh well, another day another Armageddon.

Ta-ta for now.

Read This Right Away!!!

Well, I hope that got your attention, because if you're not reading this before 5:59 PM on Saturday, May 21, you're probably not going to get to it at all. Why? Because that's when the world is ending! Don't you watch the news?

That's right, there is a sizable chunk of the world's population that believes we're all on our last mile. Unless you're one of the saved who expect to be taken up to heaven in The Rapture. The rest of us are done for. Wouldn't you know that right up to the end of the world there are going to be the haves and the have-nots. Doesn't seem quite fair, does it?

I have a couple of questions. First, why is this killer earthquake starting in New Zealand? They seem like pretty nice people to me. Here's another: Since God created the Earth and the rest of the universe at the same time, is he now destroying the whole ball of wax or is it just Earth? And if so, why are we getting the short end of the stick?

Here are a couple of my own personal tips to enjoy The End. First of all, don't feel sorry for anyone who died today, like Randy Savage, the wrestler; they're only being short-changed by 24 hours or so. Whatever else you do, don't pay any bills today. Now that I think of it, tomorrow (before 5:59PM of course) would be a great day to bounce a few checks. After all, they won't bounce until Monday... Or forever. If you want to feel sorry for someone, give a thought to those folks who believed this hoohah so thoroughly that they started bouncing checks last month. They're going to be in more trouble if the world doesn't end than if it does.

And finally, spare a little sympathy for the misguided preacher who has been promoting this whole thing. This is at least his second such prediction of Armageddon. The last one suffered from a "miscalculation," which he's corrected for tomorrow. So have an extra glass of wine tonight and don't worry about pissing anyone off. As for me, I'll be sitting at the keyboard tomorrow evening, writing my next installment. Hope I'm right!

Greatest Guitar Riffs

My friend Al sends me all kinds of e-mail stuff. You probably have a friend like Al. Some of it is interesting, some silly, some mildly pornographic. Chain letters, urban legends, photoshopped pictures, and "tests" on anything from cars of the fifties to the citizenship test are included. We joke that Al has too much time on his hands, but every now and then he sends something brilliant. Two of his forwards this week fit that category. One was a short film of a young woman playing with and teasing a group of about 10 cheetahs. You can watch it here Click here

The other one, which I'm writing about today, was a link to a web-site that lists someone's opinions of the 50 greatest guitar riffs ever, and includes all 50 of them. A riff, by the way, is defined as a short repeating musical theme that forms a song's framework. Most music includes riffs, whether classical or rock, by Mozart or the Beatles. (A couple of Beatles riffs are on this list, although Mozart didn't make the cut. After all, this is a rock list.) I invite you to check out the list, listen to some you're not familiar with and refresh your memory of some old favorites. It seems to me that you'll have the same reaction I did: Hey, they left off ...! If that happens, please feel free to point out the oversights to the rest of us. I can't believe they omitted the bass riff from Stevie Wonder's Superstition. After all, what's a bass but a big guitar. And how about The Temptations' Papa Was A Rollin' Stone. That was a funkified riff. And I've got a couple from Eric Clapton and Duane Allman I'd like to add. And the Doobies! Holy crap! How could they forget the Doobies?! Well, you get the message. Just set aside some time to listen to some real Guitar Heroes. Enjoy. Click here

A Barn Find

In the second half of the fifties, I was in high school in NJ, one of the “car guys,” as opposed to the “jocks,” or the”geeks.” Every cent I earned went into a ’39 Ford DeLuxe rumble seat roadster. Equipped with the usual goodies – 3 Stromberg carbs, Edelbrock finned aluminum heads, glasspaks – and a few less usual items like its vacuum-operated Columbia two-speed rear, it was my Deep Cherry Metallic pride and joy.

The problem was finding – and affording – parts, a situation shared by two friends who had ’40 Standard coupes, almost duplicates of the ’39 DeLuxe. Remember, this was long before restoration was a big deal and before replica parts were available. Salvage yards were our haunt.

We must have visited half of the junkyards within three hours of our homes. One of us heard of a small yard in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, down behind the Hotel Bethlehem. We visited one day and asked the usual question: “Have you got any ‘39/’40 Ford parts?” To our amazement, the crusty old coot who owned the place said, “Yeah, seems like there’s some old Ford stuff in the hayloft of the big barn.”

As we found our way up to the hayloft, we guessed we’d find mostly unusable, rusted, cruddy parts. Boy, were we ever wrong! There in the hayloft was a pile of parts that people like us would kill for. Complete sets of fenders, still wrapped in cosmolene and brown paper. Pristine bumpers wrapped the same way, Complete grille assemblies. And headlight rims, brand new and still perfect. And those beautiful ’39 taillights, 2 pairs of them. And the less attractive ’40 chevron-style taillights.

I can’t remember how much we paid for it, but we bought the whole lot. Drove home and borrowed a truck to come back the next day and pick it all up. After we had skimmed off the stuff the three of us needed for our Fords, we looked up other Ford enthusiasts and sold the rest, for enough to cover all our costs.

We didn’t find a car in that barn behind the Hotel Bethlehem, but it seems to me what we found was even better: the fountain of youth for two ‘40s and a ’39.