September 2016 - Page 5 of 6 - Ramblin' with Roger

Music throwback Saturday: Day After Day

You ever listen to something familiar and hear it anew?

More songs on the Come and Get It: The Best of Apple Records, released in 2010.

“Launched by The Beatles in 1968, Apple served as the new outlet for their own recordings as well as the music of an eclectic roster of artists who were all personally brought to the label by The Beatles (individually and/or collectively).

“In the revolutionary spirit of the times, Apple’s utopian artist-orientated mission celebrated diversity in a friendly creative environment. The result was a rainbow spectrum of music, from folk, rock, and soul to The Modern Jazz Quartet and the work of contemporary British classical composer John Tavener.”

Come And Get It / Badfinger (1969, written and produced by Paul)
Created for The Magic Christian film starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr, the first record issued by The Iveys under their new name. A worldwide hit (#7 US).

Ain’t That Cute / Doris Troy (1970, co-written, with Doris Troy, by George; produced by George)
Soul singer-songwriter had hits before coming to Apple in 1969, and she and George wrote this song from scratch in the studio.

My Sweet Lord / Billy Preston (1970, written by George; co-produced, with Billy Preston, by George)
George gave this to Billy before he had recorded it and released it himself. Billy’s version went only to #90 in the US. Of course, George’s version, which was #1 for four weeks in the US, appeared on his massive All Things Must Pass album.

Try Some Buy Some / Ronnie Spector (1971, written by George; co-produced, with Phil Spector, by George)
George later re-cut it himself for Living In The Material World, using the exact same backing as Ronnie’s single.

Govinda / Radha Krishna Temple (1970, produced by George, who also plays bass and accordion)
‘Govinda’ is a Sanskrit hymn to Krishna, and was a UK Top 30 hit. But if it were released in the US, it never charted.

We’re On Our Way / Chris Hodge (1972) – signed to Apple by Ringo Starr
#44 in the U.S.

Saturday Nite Special / The Sundown Playboys (1971)
A lover’s lament sung in Cajun French. The teenage accordionist sent in the song to Apple on a whim.

God Save Us / Bill Elliot & The Elastic Oz Band (1971, written by John, and Yoko Ono; produced by John, Yoko, Mal Evans, and Phil Spector)
This was a fundraiser for the defense in the famous Oz Obscenity Trial of 1971 Vocalist Bill Elliot later signed to George’s Dark Horse label. A version with John’s vocal shows up on John Lennon Anthology.

Sweet Music / Lon & Derrek Van Eaton(1972, produced by George; Ringo played drums)
One of the last acts to sign to Apple.

Day After Day / Badfinger or HERE (produced by George Harrison)
The band’s third single for Apple. George played a duet with the band’s Pete Ham on the slide guitar solo. It went UK Top 10 in 1972, and peaked at No. 4 Billboard in the US, in the same week that Nilsson’s cover of Badfinger’s ‘Without You’ was at No. 1.
You ever listen to something familiar and hear it anew? I played this album recently, and this final song I realized was absolutely gorgeous.

I just want the information, please

1. I get an alert from WSOC-TV in Charlotte, NC on Facebook when a significant news story comes along. On Friday, the sky turned black around 5 pm, the result of a storm. As I watch the picture, a stream of FB emojis scrolls along the lower part of the screen. Sad faces, wow faces, likes at different levels floating along the screen.

A bit later, another alert: an accident that killed two people. A bunch of mostly sad faces, a few wow, and of course, the like button, buzzing across the screen as we see an aerial photo of automotive devastation.

It is a case of “Because we can, we do.” How are you FEELING about this piece of news, Carolina? This not only in bad taste, but a distraction from what’s taking place.

Maybe we can do this for the 2017 State of the Union. Wait, wait, I was saying I thought it was a BAD idea. (Expect someone will do this next year.)

2. I was watching the US Open tennis tournament on ESPN2. There was an exciting 4th Round match going on between Rafael Nadal and Lucas Pouille. They would cut away to commentators, not the ones who were following the match, but other people, interview people with less-than-insightful questions. This is during the match, where we miss some court action to find out, if Pouille wins, there will be three French in the next round. What in the water over there? or something equally banal.

I like watching tennis. Commentators telling me first-serve percentage or the number of unforced errors is fine. Taking me away from the action is not.

3. Meanwhile, I find it really odd that I had seen not one story, on NBC or CBS, at least, about the Standing Rock Sioux protest in North Dakota, with tribes gathering together to block construction of a crude oil pipeline until a confrontation took place, and still zero on the evening news. This story from The Guardian lays it out.

I HAVE read several stories elsewhere, many from the “alternative” press, such as Indian Country Today and Democracy Now and Common Dreams and Nation of Change and Truthout.

I am pleased to note that the Presbyterian Church (USA) offers support for the tribe’s efforts to halt the pipeline beneath the Missouri River.

ADDENDUM (06:10): North Dakota activates National Guard to protect the pipeline instead of our tribes

Star Trek turns 50

Thanks to the VCR, I believe I missed but one episode.

From all the news segments, I knew that Star Trek turns 50 today. Yet I was going to let the anniversary pass, even though I really liked the piece on CBS Sunday Morning, where, I discovered, reporter Faith Salie appeared on Deep Space Nine.

But what tipped the tide was turning on the TV on Labor Day, and there was someone who looked a whole lot like Nichelle Nichols, Uhura on the original Star Trek, on the CBS-TV soap opera The Young and The Restless, which, I assure you, I never watch. And it was!

My excitement, BTW, was only mildly tempered by the fact that The Wife has NO idea who Uhura was, let alone Nichols, who was one of the very few black actors on TV in 1966-1969 when the original series aired. But my late father, who watched that series in real time, even as I mostly ignored it, knew the significance of the actress and the character.

I didn’t watch Star Trek but I did watch Leonard Nimoy in his next TV series, replacing Martin Landau on Mission: Impossible. And oddly, I started watching the Star Trek cartoon series in the 1970s.

I saw the first five Star Trek movies. The first one bored me, but I liked the next three. The fourth film, The Voyage Home, I saw in a movie theater in Charlotte, NC with my mother in 1986. And though she had not seen the previous films, which made the narrative a bit confusing, she seemed to enjoy it. But after the terrible fifth film, I never saw another movie with that cast.

Speaking of the original cast, the late James Doohan, who played, Scotty, participated at FantaCon in Albany in 1983. I saw him only briefly, but the story goes that he was…less than an ideal guest. Also, having been to several conventions and worked at a comic book store, I will attest that Get A Life, that famous segment on Saturday Night Live, had a HUGE element of truth; Shatner talks about the experience.

Like most people, I only discovered the original Star Trek in reruns. But I watched Star Trek: The Next Generation religiously from the start. Thanks to the VCR, I believe I missed but one episode, and that in the first season. But I have never seen any of that cast’s films. Go figure.

I viewed Deep Space Nine (1993–99) and Voyager (1995–2001) fairly regularly, though Enterprise (2001–05) considerably less so.

But I was a devoted follower of the TV series The Practice, which, in its last season, was essentially an extended pilot for Boston Legal with Shatner as Denny Crane.

There was also this Shatner-hosted program, and I hope someone can identify it since it appears nowhere in his IMDB or Wikipedia pages. He interviews people involved in saving a little girl who fell down a well, or victims of a crime, or Mary Kay Letourneau with the much younger Vili Fualaau.

And while I’m on Shatner, it was through Coverville that I discovered Common People, the cover by William Shatner and Joe Jackson, which I have great affection for.

Patrick Stewart, Jean Luc Piccard in The Next Generation, I love in almost anything I see him in. I get oddly great pleasure seeing his great friendship with Ian McKellan.

I’ve already addressed George Takei recently. And I noted Leonard Nimoy’s passing last year.

The first Star Trek movie reboot I’ve seen on TV. CBS Interactive is showing a new iteration of Star Trek, Discovery in January 2017. I’ll probably not watch it until it’s on a more affordable platform.

But I realize that Star Trek, no matter how much or little one has seen the movies, TV series, bought the comics (I did) or the novelizations, or purchased accouterments (I did not), is in the cultural DNA. So I need to acknowledge the fact that Star Trek turns 50 with an appropriate response.

Sara Niccoli and the Pledge of Allegiance

“A pledge reciter, who recites the words ‘liberty for all’ and yet accuses non-pledge reciters of un-patriotism, is breaking their oath as they speak.”

There’s a woman named Sara Niccoli, a farmer and a town supervisor in Montgomery County, who is running for the New York State Senate. The way districts are gerrymandered, the 46th District includes part of Albany County, but not the city of Albany. Otherwise, I would have supported her.

Her religious beliefs came under attack “after an anonymous Facebook page dubbed ‘The REAL Sara Niccoli’ posted” late in June “about the candidate’s [long-standing] decision not to recite” the Pledge of Allegiance.

“‘As we commemorate the birth of our nation and all those who gave so much to ensure its place as the ‘Shining City on a Hill,’ it’s unacceptable that [she refuse] to recite the Pledge… Tell Sara Niccoli to honor America!’

“Niccoli, who follows Quaker beliefs that followers do not take pledges or oaths, said …that she does stand and place her hand over her heart to salute the flag. She said the post, which makes no mention of her faith, underscores a need for Americans to revisit ‘what it means to be a patriot and how to act out our patriotism.'” She is probably alluding to Matthew 5:33-37, the Biblical invective against making oaths.

Sara Niccoli continues: “‘That means when we see attacks on faith, when we see attacks based on race or any kind of intolerance, we need to call it out, whether it’s coming from a politician pandering for votes or it’s coming out in the anonymous world of social media,’ Niccoli said. “What’s going on here…is very much a reflection of what’s going on at the federal level, and people who are sort of sitting on the sidelines disgusted by the hate and intolerance that they see, they need to get up and do something about it.”

Some came to Niccoli’s defense in the comment section of the Facebook post, though many of those were apparently deleted. Naturally, the verbiage became nasty, with profanity, “while one comment offered nothing more than an emoji of a handgun.”

Her friend and my fellow Times Union blogger Walter Ayres wrote a sterling defense in Sara, the Quaker patriot, noting “Quakers are not the only ones whose beliefs are misunderstood. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, Mennonites, Amish, and others have beliefs that are not always in line with the majority views on serving in the military, taking oaths and/or pledging allegiance…we should respect their right to abstain from these activities as much as we rejoice in our ability to participate in them.”

It occurred to me that her position is not dissimilar to what I’ve been reading in Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw. The Litany of Resistance from Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw says, among other things:
One: To the transnational Church that transcends the artificial borders of nations
All: We pledge allegiance

Found in Goodreads, Claiborne notes, “Some folks may be really bummed to find that ‘God bless America’ does not appear in the Bible.” Or as John Pavlovitz put it: “The heart of our Christian story is that God is not in a nation-maker or an empire-builder. God is a soul-lover.”

In this discussion, I’ve discovered a number of folks I know who, in their words, “do not pledge allegiance to a piece of cloth.” I can’t remember who wrote, “A pledge reciter, who recites the words ‘liberty for all’ and yet accuses non-pledge reciters of un-patriotism, is breaking their oath as they speak.” It is a form of Christo-Americanism, a “distorted form of Christianity that blends nationalism, conservative paranoia and Christian rhetoric” that has been especially virulent since 9/11.

I saw that on display at the Franklin Graham rally I protested last month. I was greeted by a couple “God thinks America’s the best” songs by a guy with his guitar.

That was all I had to say on the topic. Well, until San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the Star-Spangled Banner recently. While I admit that the protest made me initially uncomfortable, I find great comfort in the fact that among his staunchest defenders are veterans and active-duty military.

I’m also surprised, though I shouldn’t have been, that people were unaware of the racist narrative of the third verse of the national anthem. Four years ago, I linked to an article about Francis Scott Key’s pro-slavery defense.

I’ve also complained about the Manifest Destiny-riddled fourth verse. Do you know the song never even mentions the United States or America?

Not surprisingly to me, Jackie Robinson acknowledged in his 1972 autobiography, “I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag.” The wise Kareem Abdul-Jabbar notes: Insulting Colin Kaepernick says more about our patriotism than his. I like what Rob Hoffman had to say on the issue.

Finally, I just came across Has the American Dream Been Achieved at the Expense of the American Negro?, a famous 1965 debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley, Jr. Baldwin addresses “What are the psychological effects of oppression?”: “It comes as a great shock around the age of 5, 6, or 7 to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance, along with everybody else, has not pledged allegiance to you.” A half-century later, this still resonates for many people in “the land of the free.”

I is for interstate highway

I was actually stunned to see I-99 near Painted Post, west of I-81, and well west of I-87 and I-95.

2016 is the 60th anniversary of the interstate highway system in the United States.

Back in 1919, a young lieutenant colonel named Dwight Eisenhower traveled with a truck convoy “to road-test various Army vehicles and to see how easy or how difficult it would be to move an entire army across the North American continent.

“Averaging about 6 miles an hour, or 58 miles a day, the trucks snaked their way from Washington, [DC]… to California. Generally, it followed the ‘Lincoln Highway,’ later known as U.S. 30, arriving in San Francisco 62 days and 3,251 miles later. The convoy made a lasting impression on the young officer and stoked in him an interest in good roads.”

“On June 29, 1956, President Eisenhower signed the…bill [which] created a 41,000-mile ‘National System of Interstate… Highways’ that would… eliminate unsafe roads, inefficient routes, traffic jams, and all of the other things that got in the way of ‘speedy, safe transcontinental travel.’ At the same time, highway advocates argued, “in case of atomic attack on our key cities, the road network [would] permit quick evacuation of target areas.”

From here: “Although the Interstate System accounts for about 1.1 percent of the Nation’s total public road mileage, it carries 24 percent of all highway travel.”

One of those odd factoids I knew: “The numbering system used for interstates is intended to be the mirror opposite of the U.S. highway system, so drivers won’t be confused about whether to take Highway 70 or Interstate 70. For example, I-10 runs through southern states east-west (as all major even-numbered interstates do; odd-numbered interstates run north-south), while Highway 10 runs through northern states. Because I-50 would run through the same states as Route 50, the number will never be used.”

On vacation, we were traveled on Route 17, which is becoming I-86. But I was actually stunned to see I-99 near Painted Post, west of I-81, and well west of I-87 and I-95. It was a pork-barrel project of some Congressman, including the illogical numbering.

The large problem with the interstate highway system today is how to pay to repair roadways and bridges. The traditional source, the federal Highway Trust Fund, relies on the 18.4-cent federal gas tax, which has not grown with inflation. But there is no political will to do something about it.

ABC Wednesday – Round 19