September 2012 - Page 3 of 6 - Ramblin' with Roger

Six Songs of Me

I have been of the opinion that almost any song could be done in chicken.

Dustbury did NOT insist I do this, so naturally, I did:

What was the first song you ever bought?

As I’ve noted, I belonged to the Capitol Record Club in 1965, where I was buying albums, so I’m hard pressed to figure out the first single. It may have been Eleanor Rigby/Yellow Submarine; I was then depressed by the release of the Revolver album a short time later, yet puzzled by the variation between the single version and the album version of Yellow Sub, as I noted recently. But the more I think about it, my first single was probably Soul And Inspiration by the Righteous Brothers (listen), which came out a few months earlier in 1966, as I remember that blue Verve label.

What song always gets you dancing?

Cliche that it might be, but it’s Celebration by Kool and the Gang (listen). A short-lived romance got me dragged to a local disco a few times in the day. Recently bought a greatest hits album by that group.

What song takes you back to your childhood?

As Dustbury wrote, “There are those who would argue that I never left.” That said, I’ll pick another song from my father’s singles collection, Bird Dog by the Everly Brothers (listen), on Cadence Records. I discovered that women should be referred to as poultry (quail, chick) – something I fortunately unlearned quickly; and that men were canines – is that still true?

What is your perfect love song?

Forever I have been a sucker for I Only Have Eyes for You by the Flamingoes (listen). Always makes me a bit misty.

What song would you want at your funeral?

I have been, for a long time, of the opinion that almost any song could be done in chicken. Bold songs, such as the 1812 Overture or the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony are particularly great. But the first song I heard which stimulated this proposition was In the Mood by Henhouse Five Plus Two (listen), the “group” actually being singer Ray Stevens. I first heard it on one of those Warner Brothers Loss leaders of the 1970s.

Time for an encore. One last song that makes you, you.

At bare minimum, the chorus of Don’t let me be misunderstood by The Animals (listen). “I’m just a soul whose intentions are good.” I think many of us feel that others don’t “get” us, and I certainly am not immune.
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Both Mark Evanier and Dustbury are supporting the Kickstarter effort for Big Daddy’s Smashing Songs of Stage and Screen. I third that emotion.

No One Could Talk Like This Pirate

In celebration of the greatest athletic achievement by a man on a psychedelic journey…

It’s another Talk Like a Pirate Day. All I want is for the Pittsburgh Pirates, a baseball team with a proud tradition going back to the 1880s(!), to finish above .500 again. Is that too much to ask? They have not had a winning season since 1992, when the Atlanta Braves (and former Pirate) first baseman Sid Bream made the ugliest slide at home plate, just beating the throw from left fielder Barry Bonds, back when he was skinny. The Pirates are, last I checked, only 2 games over .500, yet are still in the hunt for a wild card to get into the playoffs. So there is hope. But not so long ago, they were 14 games above .500, so there is great concern as well.

Meanwhile, one of the oddest sporting events ever, 41 baseball seasons ago:
In celebration of the greatest athletic achievement by a man on a psychedelic journey, No Mas artist James Blagden proudly presents the animated tale of Dock Ellis’ legendary LSD no-hitter. This features the late pitcher’s actual retelling of this peculiar feat.
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Actual pirates now have form letters. Bizarre.

J is for Jazz

As Ira Gershwin said, in the line quoted in every obituary: ‘I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them.’

I decided that I don’t REALLY want to explain what jazz is, mostly because it’s too difficult. You can read all about it on the page dedicated to Ken Burns’ Jazz, the third in his trilogy of documentary miniseries about Americana, along with the Civil War and baseball. The Wikipedia reads: “Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in black communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions… As the music has developed and spread around the world it has drawn on many different national, regional, and local musical cultures giving rise, since its early 20th-century American beginnings, to many distinctive styles.”

This level of cultural integration is evident as musicians of different races often played together at a period in the United States where integration was NOT the watchword. Speaking of which, read what the New York Times columnist Frank Rich was moved to write a few days after Ella Fitzgerald’s death. He stated that in the Songbook series, she “performed a cultural transaction as extraordinary as Elvis’s contemporaneous integration of white and African-American soul.

“Here was a black woman popularizing urban songs often written by immigrant Jews to a national audience of predominantly white Christians. As Ira Gershwin said, in the line quoted in every obituary: ‘I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them.'”

Here are links to some great songs in various jazz traditions:

St. Louis Blues – W.C. Handy and Orchestra

Sing Sing Sing – Benny Goodman

Mood Indigo – Duke Ellington

Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off – Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, a Gershwin tune

Salt Peanuts – Dizzy Gillespie

April in Paris – Count Basie (cuts off last 10 seconds)

Take Five – The Dave Brubeck Quartet, one of the few jazz songs to make it onto the pop charts in the rock era

My favorite album, Kind of Blue by Miles Davis (read)
So What 9:22
Freddie Freeloader 9:46
Blue in Green (Miles Davis and Bill Evans) 5:37
All Blues 11:33
Flamenco Sketches (Miles Davis and Bill Evans) 9:26

Finally, Jazz Corner Of The World/Birdland – Quincy Jones (1989) featured the last studio recordings of jazz legends Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan.

Oh, one of a number of lists of the 100 great jazz songs of all time.

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

You say it’s in the Constitution: your most/least favorite Supreme Court decisions

I believe Bush v Gore signaled, for some people, the beginning of the end of the Supreme Court as a deliberative body and the perception, true or not, as another political operation.

For Constitution Day:

I recall that, four years ago, Sarah Palin, who was running for Vice President of the United States on the Republican line, could only name one Supreme Court case she disagreed with. ABC News came up with 24 Supreme Court Cases Every Presidential Candidate Should Know and something called Ranker ranks the Most Controversial Supreme Court Cases. Palin named Roe v. Wade, regarding abortion, #1 on the Ranker list, #11 on ABC News’ mostly chronological roster. In that light:

What are your favorite Supreme Court rulings?

What are your least favorite Supreme Court rulings?

On my favored side has to be Gideon v. Wainwright, where the right to an attorney was affirmed (ABC #6); Miranda v. Arizona (ABC #9); Lawrence v. Texas (Ranker #4 ABC #18); and my all-time favorite, Loving v. Virginia (ABC #10), which I wrote about here, and elsewhere. What about Brown v Board of Education, (Ranker #2, ABC #5)? Important in the broad sweep of breaking down separate but equal, which had been codified in Plessy v Ferguson (Ranker #9, ABC #3), but the resegregation of public schools is mighty discouraging.

On the least favored side:
Citizens United (Ranker #6, ABC #8), which encouraged an outrageous amount of big money in the political process; Kelo v. City of New London (ABC #19), the wrong use of the eminent domain, in my view; and of course, the Dred Scott decision (Ranker #7, ABC #2). Bush v Gore (Ranker #2, ABC #16) holds a special place, though, for I believe it signaled, for some people, the beginning of the end of the Supreme Court as a deliberative body and the perception, true or not, as another political operation.
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Last year, in Newsweek, in a title changed to The GOP Candidates Read Wacky Books (they got rid of the Bizarro reference from the print version), Paul Begala wrote:

Which brings us to Rick Perry, who got a C in animal breeding at Texas A&M. He’s not a big reader. But he claims to have been influenced by The Five Thousand Year Leap: 28 Great Ideas That Changed the World by W. Cleon Skousen. Glenn Beck, who went from Fox News stardom to oblivion, has pushed Skousen’s book relentlessly. It is stridently anti-Washington, tracing the decline of federalism to the 17th Amendment, which allows citizens, rather than state legislatures, to choose senators. Skousen, a John Bircher, is so far right that even National Review’s Mark Hemingway has called him an “all-around nutjob.”

Mocking Religion

Not all speech is protected by the First Amendment. Is this merely art? Or is this yelling “fire” in a crowded movie theater, where the consequences of one’s action, chaos, was foreseeable?

The question on Facebook the other day, I’m only mildly paraphrasing: “Should the US government be condemning a movie” – we know which movie, I think – “to improve diplomatic relations?” For me, it’s an unequivocal “yes.” Not that the audience of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s denunciation really cares. They seem to be of the opinion that the United States should arrest the filmmakers, or worse.

This leads me to all sorts of further questions. Should a government official comment on art at all? I use the term “art” loosely. In 1992, Dan Quayle, then the Vice-President, complained that TV character, Murphy Brown, deliberately had a child out of wedlock. Should he have been allowed to do that? Indeed, there are devotees who believe Quayle was right. I say yes, he should have said it, though I disagreed with him.

(When controversial art is paid for, in part or in toto, with public money, that becomes a whole new level of controversy.)

Should the Innocence of Muslims filmmaker be arrested? The film trailer is certainly crude and vile, and misleading even to some of the actors in the film, who swear Mohammed wasn’t even mentioned by name in the copies of the script THEY read. Seems as though some sort of fraud has taken place, but I’m not a lawyer.

Not all speech is protected by the First Amendment. Is this merely art? Or is this yelling “fire” in a crowded movie theater, where the consequences of one’s action, chaos, was foreseeable? The Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) allows proscribing “speech” if it will incite imminent lawless action, such as riots. It would SEEM that the Danish cartoon situation of a half-decade ago would suggest that the film would be received badly. But could the filmmakers have foreseen such a violent outcome? Don’t know.

In any case, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the alleged filmmaker, who was convicted of bank fraud, could go back to jail because the terms of his release stipulated that he be barred from accessing the Internet or assuming aliases without the approval of his probation officer.

Should the sensitivities of religious folks be taken into consideration? I remember the uproar over the Monty Python comedy Life of Brian (1979) and Martin Scorsese The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), directed by Martin Scorcese (1988), not to mention Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004). All appear on a list of The 50 most controversial movies ever, at #14, #1, and #20, respectively. I’ve only seen Brian, which I personally found uproariously funny, not to mention clearly NOT speaking about Jesus. Didn’t see the other two, but I think people, including politicians, can express their dismay without banning them outright.

And not so incidentally, I think artists should be able to make political statements, whether it be Barbra Streisand or Toby Keith. If people are annoyed by them and decide not to buy their albums, see their films, etc., that’s the way the marketplace works.

If this is more rambling than usual, blame Facebook.