June 2014 - Page 4 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

W is for the Wilson Brothers of the Beach Boys

In 1974, Capitol Records issued Endless Summer, the Beach Boys’ first major pre-Pet Sounds greatest hits package. The record sleeve’s sunny, colorful graphics caught the mood of the nation and surged to the top of the Billboard album charts.

Murry Wilson was an entrepreneur, but he also had an interest in music, which he passed along to his sons, Brian, Dennis, and Carl, sharing his love of the tight harmonies of groups such as the Four Freshmen. He became their business manager, finagling for their group, which also included his nephew, Mike Love, and the brothers’ friend, Al Jardine (replaced briefly by David Marks), a recording contract with Capitol Records. He was a great motivator, though considered abusive.

But it was not the group, or Murry, who dubbed the group the Beach Boys. That was done by some record company employee, to capitalize on the band’s surf sound that was so popular. Ironic, since only Dennis knew how to surf.

Links to all songs; chart action is for US (Billboard).

Surfin’, #75 in 1962
Surfin’ Safari, #14 in 1962
Surfin’ USA, #3 in #1963
Surfer Girl #7 in 1963

They gained some big success, even after the British Invasion.

Dance, Dance, Dance, #9 in 1964

But Brian, arguably the creative force behind the band, tired of the road, preferring the safety of the studio. It was in this period the group put out the legendary Pet Sounds album:

Caroline, No, #32 in 1966 (billed as by Brian Wilson)
Sloop John B, #3 in 1966
Here’s the whole album.

Brian was replaced on the road, briefly by Glen Campbell, but more permanently by Bruce Johnston, who participated in the studio as well. Despite some decent albums, the group went into commercial decline by the end of the decade, with Brian’s participation spotty in the early 1970s, with his brothers and the others picking up the slack.

Long Promised Road, #89 in 1971

A funny thing happened in 1974: “Capitol Records issued Endless Summer, the band’s first major pre-Pet Sounds greatest hits package. The record sleeve’s sunny, colorful graphics caught the mood of the nation and surged to the top of the Billboard album charts. It was the group’s first multi-million selling record since ‘Good Vibrations’, and remained on the album chart for three years. The following year, Capitol released a second compilation, Spirit of America, which also sold well.” The new success of the old music brought Brian back to the fore and released some new music.

Rock and Roll Music, #5 in 1976

One of my favorite Beach Boys stories:

From 1980 through 1982, The Beach Boys and The Grass Roots separately performed at Independence Day concerts at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., attracting large crowds. In April 1983, [James Watt, Secretary of the Interior] banned the concerts, on the ground that the “rock bands”… had encouraged drug use and alcoholism, and had attracted “the wrong element”… Watt then announced that Las Vegas singer Wayne Newton, a friend and an endorser of President Reagan and a contributor to the Republican Party, would perform at the Independence Day celebration at the mall in 1983…. Vice President George H. W. Bush said of The Beach Boys, “They’re my friends, and I like their music”. Watt apologized to The Beach Boys after learning that President Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan were fans of the band. Nancy Reagan apologized for Watt. The White House staff gave Watt a plaster foot with a hole for his “having shot himself in the foot”.

Dennis Wilson drowned in 1983. Carl Wilson died in 1998; I was at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in May 1998 when it had a nice tribute to the Carls Perkins and Wilson; the band was inducted into the Rock Hall back in 1988.

The subsequent relationships within the group became more complicated than I need to explain here, but involving multiple bands. There was, though, a new album, featuring Love, Jardine, Marks, Johnston, and Brian Wilson in 2012, and a short-lived tour, the length of which Mike Love may (or may not) have been unfairly vilified.

I linked to a bunch of my favorite Beach Boys songs a couple of years ago, for Brian’s 70th birthday.

ABC Wednesday – Round 14

Father’s Day: faith

I’m not trying to raise a Mini-Me, but a thinking, separate person. And, increasingly, she is.

One of the things I worried about when Lydia was born was whether I would be there when she grew up. After all, I was 51 when she was born, so I’ll be 70 when she’s 19.

What I had not seriously considered, beyond the normal concerns, is what if something happened to her. Her still mysterious illness in late February and much of March made me concerned because, as the doctors eliminated what it was NOT, I still did not know what it WAS.

It wasn’t until mid-May, though, that The Wife and I had a conversation with her about what she felt, I mean beyond the pain. She said that she figured that she’d eventually be OK because God had more plans for her.

This is interesting to me on a few levels. Certainly, we are raising her in the Christian tradition, but this specific narrative did not come from her mother or from me. I have been much more focused on the collective tradition of a Jesus for justice, and less on a God of healing, for while I have seen physical recoveries, I’ve also seen prayers answered in a way that was not what the people wanted.

100_0019 — **Lydia and Roger, Niagara Falls, NY, 2011**

This gets into the broader issues of parenting, teaching her stuff without saying, “Think as I think.” I work hard trying not to poison her with my… misgivings about United States’ oligarchies and residual racism and gun culture while letting her know, when appropriate, that it’s out there. I’m not trying to raise a Mini-Me, but a thinking, separate person. And, increasingly, she is.

She loves the overt signs of patriotism, flag-waving, and the like, while I’m less comfortable with it. But I can help her with the lyrics of The Star-Spangled Banner without sharing with her that fourth verse, which I know by heart and which REALLY makes me irritated.

I guess I’m doing OK as a dad.

Oh, and a variation on the usual: I wish my daughter had gotten a chance to know MY father. I have the sense that, had he been well enough, he would have visited often, as he had his other granddaughters.

Remembering Francis Bellamy

“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

From the Wikipedia:

The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by Francis Bellamy (1855–1931), who was a Baptist minister, a Christian socialist, and the cousin of socialist utopian novelist Edward Bellamy (1850–1898). The original “Pledge of Allegiance” was published in the September 8 issue of the popular children’s magazine The Youth’s Companion as part of the National Public-School Celebration of Columbus Day, a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas.

Initially, it went like this: “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

The Pledge was supposed to be quick and to the point. Bellamy designed it to be recited in 15 seconds. As a socialist, he had initially also considered using the words equality and fraternity but decided against it – knowing that the state superintendents of education on his committee were against equality for women and African Americans…
In 1923, the National Flag Conference called for the words “my Flag” to be changed to “the Flag of the United States”, so that new immigrants would not confuse loyalties between their birth countries and the United States. The words “of America” were added a year later.

This addition does seem to make sense, as it specifies the oath. Unfortunately, as Now I Know notes, Bellamy was also responsible for the Bellamy Salute, which was…

…very similar to the traditional Roman one, which Benito Mussolini and then Adolf Hitler adopted for their own supporters. By the early 1940s, the symbolism of such a salute was not longer one of allegiance to the American flag, but rather to Nazi Germany. On December 22, 1942, the United States Congress adopted the Flag Code, dropping the Bellamy Salute from the Pledge of Allegiance, and replacing it with the instruction that the speaker place his or her right hand over his or her heart.

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

The “under God” phrase wasn’t added until 1954, well after Bellamy died.

It becomes your issue when it becomes your issue

And it is BECAUSE of the tragedy that survivors or relatives of some senseless act, are more likely to be heard, sad to say.

It really does not matter what the topic is. Inevitably, when someone speaks out on an issue, usually after a terrible human-made event, some trolls will come out and complain that those people ought to have spoken out on the issue sooner. This is absurd.

People often, indeed usually, become aware of an issue and eventually speak out when it affects them personally. It’s human nature. Think of the founder of MADD:

Candice (Candy) Lightner is the organizer and was the founding president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. On May 3, 1980 Lightner’s 13-year-old daughter, Cari, was killed by a drunken hit-and-run driver at Sunset and New York Avenues in Fair Oaks, California. The 46-year-old driver, who had recently been arrested for another DUI hit-and-run, left her body at the scene.

Should Candy Lightner have been campaigning against drunk driving BEFORE her daughter was killed?

The trolls would say yes.

Ditto the parents of the Newtown, Connecticut shooting. To suggest they should have spoken out before is a straw man argument. These are parents of now dead six-year-olds who probably didn’t see themselves as activists.

My particular irritation was most recently generated by the criticism of Richard Martinez, father of one of the six young adults killed around the University of California at Santa Barbara in May 2014. He may not have been a crusader before his son Chris died, but he is now. And it is BECAUSE of the tragedy that he, and people like him, survivors or relatives of some senseless act, are more likely to be heard, sad to say. Richard Martinez now has a pulpit that he just didn’t have the month before. Perhaps it’s the CONTENT of his criticism, against the National Rifle Association, among others, that have some suggesting that he ought not to be heard at all.

But, as I’m trying to note, this isn’t specifically about Martinez. It’s about the nattering nabobs of negativism who would stifle the involvement of concerned citizens by criticizing their timing.

Historic US Route 20

“In New York State, 108 miles of Route 20 from Duanesburg (Schenectady County) on the east to LaFayette (Onondaga County) on the west is designated as a New York State Scenic Byway because of its spectacular beauty and unique history to the westward migration of the state and the nation. “

The federal highway that is the longest in the United States was developed well before the Interstate system. That is Route 20, which starts in Boston, Massachusetts, and ends in Newport, Oregon.

About three years ago, a fellow named Bryan T. Farr decided to drive the length of the highway, which he found to be quite beautiful, as he trekked through a dozen states. After he returned, he took no action about this experience for over a year, but he realized that he had to either do something with the hundreds of photos he took, or move on.

He ended up starting The Historic US Route 20 Association Inc., a 501 (c)3 nonprofit, educational organization. Moreover, he wrote a book, Historic US Route 20. Ambitiously, he decided to make another trip across the country, contacting towns along the way to see if they might be willing to set up some meet-and-greets.

When he got to the Sharon Springs area, the powers that be decided to add him to the schedule of the annual Sharon Springs Garden Party. The intermittent rain held off long enough for him to give his talk on May 24. The Wife and I just happened to be there for the event, and that was the only special talk that day we actually attended.

The next day, we, along with The Daughter, went to the Cherry Valley Museum. Among the factors in its history is the decision by the state in 1952 to have Route 20 bypass the village, which was economically devastating at the time. The Historic US 20 group, not incidentally, is working with locales to provide signage, even if the road was relocated. Later that day, we drove home along much of Route 20 and saw some tornado damage in Duanesburg, Schenectady County from a few days earlier.

I recall that Western Avenue, around Manning Boulevard, began the Great Western Turnpike. And it’s lovely:

US Route 20 is also New York State’s longest highway; 372 miles from the border with Massachusetts to the border of Pennsylvania.
In New York State, 108 miles of Route 20 from Duanesburg (Schenectady County) on the east to LaFayette (Onondaga County) on the west is designated as a New York State Scenic Byway because of its spectacular beauty and unique history to the westward migration of the state and the nation.

The First Presbyterian Church in Cherry Valley is the first church west of the Hudson River to have services in English, which I only recently discovered on our trip there.

As it turns out, we live only a couple of blocks from Route 20 in Albany. I thought it would be neat if some of the merchants on Western Avenue and Madison Avenue in Albany, and on Route 20 in East Greenbush, had signs in their windows signifying that they are part of something greater.