Citizen Kane wins five primaries

Donald Trump swept the Republican primaries last night... and all I could think of was Hedley Lamarr, and the evillll for which he stands.

Yes, the Trump campaign makes me think of BLAZING SADDLES. Lots and lots of similarities.

Links:

Donald Trump Declares Himself 'Presumptive Nominee' After Tuesday Wins (NBC)

Trump sweeps GOP races (CNN)

Donald Trump completes sweep of five northeast states (USA Today)



~*~

I didn't post on this blog for quite a long time, and in the meantime, stored up a few stray links to discuss later.

And you probably know what happened, right?

About half of these are gone already, especially the tweets. Must have been some hard-hitting, gotcha tweets, for me to make a quick footnote of them. And now they are gone.

Dear Radicals, as I said two days ago, GET A GRIP! Citizen Kane and the Twilight Days of Empire await us. Stop feverishly erasing whatever it was that desperately needed to be said. STOP BEING AFRAID! Charles Foster Kane is who you need to be afraid of right now, not some damnable tweet that might have been heavy-handed, might have hurt some liberal's feelings. (Or worse, brought out the attack dogs.)

To sum up: Whoever deleted that tweet is not someone I want in my radical cell. If you are afraid of the consequences of a tweet, you are not going to be there when they start rounding people up, you will be out hiding in your shed or under your SUV. Count on it.

This is serious, people. THIS IS SERIOUS.

[Aside: See how it is? I eventually devolve into a hysterical splay of capital letters and explanation points because... what else can you say? How do we get the suburban white kids to panic? Take away all the phones?]

~*~

Other links of note:

[] Written during the 2012 election campaign, this post is now more pertinent than ever: Rethinking how we think about voting. THIS MEANS YOU!

[] Suzanne Vega found her old letter from Prince. (sigh)

[] Ted Cruz, John Kasich join forces to stop Trump. A day late and a dollar short, guys.

Speaking of old letters, I wish I had saved the nasty note I once received from Kasich, back when he was in congress and I was a born-and-bred citizen of the great state of which he is now governor. I wrote to him first and I was nasty, he replied and he was nasty right back, and we understood each other just fine.

I never dreamed he would be governor, let alone run for president.

My advice: Save those nasty letters from even the low-level politicians, kids! They could be worth something someday!

[] The diversity rally I tried to avoid, but in this town, I am spotted everywhere I go. Really.

Sometimes I wonder what life might be like in a really BIG town.

[] What you need to say to the smug atheist liberals who assure us religion is on the skids and down for the count: Not so fast.

Please understand, when they dwindle to "the remnant" -- that is exactly when they will fight like hell. And perhaps that is exactly what is happening right now.

Who among you, like me, grew up on the Christian term REMNANT? It was considered a compliment; the diehards who stay loyal until the Second Coming... and do you get it? They WANT to be The Remnant!! Looking around and deciding they are the legendary REMNANT will crank them up like nothing else you can imagine. They will REMNANTIZE the entire discourse, with Armageddon, the Rapture and the Tribulation right around the corner.

And see, here's the thing: they will MAKE Armageddon if they have to.

They will PUT US ALL through the Tribulation, my friends. (Does the term SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY mean anything to you?)

Fight them from within (as I once tried to do) or fight from without, but fight. Armageddon is an evil concept, and we must fight it that way. Accuse them of wanting to start it themselves, which I've learned, DOES make them blink and hesitate for a second.

Because I am sorry to tell you, its true. They can't wait for the endtimes war. Its behind everything they do.

~*~

Postscript/Obit

I lost a treasured friend right before Thanksgiving... in fact, right as I was getting ready to pick up this blog again, she passed away. Her death hit me hard and I once again dealt with acute writer's block.

I wrote a few words on tumblr, with photos. I always tell everyone that one of the worst aspects of aging is losing your friends, your teenage idols, your neighborhood, etc. Even though inevitable, it deeply hurts; what Buddha called "the suffering of change" (vipariṇāma-dukkha).

Tricia Earle always encouraged me and thought I was creative; she gave a generous speech/introduction for me once, and presented me with my 10-year AA chip. I realized, in reading the Facebook pages about her: not everyone knew she was in AA. After all, its supposed to be anonymous, and everybody isn't like ME, broadcasting all their innermost secrets to the world. I therefore didn't know if I should mention our friendship or not. Finally I decided, yes, I would. "Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions," but it does not extend beyond death.

And what I needed to say about Tricia was also about Alcoholics Anonymous itself.

Tricia, whose last name I didn't know for years, came from an elite old-South family. And I didn't know it. ME, the ultra-class-conscious socialist who can ferret out Harvard posts online... I did NOT KNOW she came from THE EARLES (there is a street here named after her family). She did not in ANY WAY act like she was elite, and this was the power of AA. We were "all in it together"-- and just as the homeless and poor are part of that deep, blood-brotherhood fellowship, so are the rich, so are the famous. When AA works correctly, when people are working the program correctly, you shouldn't be able to tell who the rich people are.... and I couldn't tell.

This means she did it right.

This is the greatest thing I can say about her, the highest compliment I could give her.

And you know what? She would hands-down agree with me. :)

Rest in peace, dearest one.

The Lynching of Willie Earle

NOTE: I originally posted this in February of 2011, when the memorial was placed. It has now been 67 years; the memorial is now a mainstay of Greenville County Civil Rights/genealogical tourism.



65 years ago, the last lynching in South Carolina took place about 10-15 miles from where I live. And last year, after a very long 64 years, a memorial was finally erected on the rural back road where it happened.

[Caution: disturbing and violent content]


On February 16, 1947, Thomas Watson Brown, a white cab driver, picked up a black man on Markley Street in Greenville, South Carolina. Brown was later found half-dead, his taxi driven off the road in rural Pickens County. He had been beaten, robbed, and stabbed three times.

The Pickens County sheriff reported that muddy footprints at the crime scene led to the house of Willie Earle, about a mile away, where officers reportedly found cash, a blood-covered knife and bloody clothing. (Many of these facts have always been in dispute, but this is what was presented at trial.) Willie Earle, age 24, wasn't at his residence; he was in another cab, driven by a man who would later become one of the 31 defendants.

Earle was arrested and put in the Pickens County second-floor lock-up.

The news of Brown's stabbing traveled like wildfire, as did the news of Willie Earle's arrest. The nexus of unrest was the Yellow Cab office on West Court Street, where Greenville's taxi drivers had congregated in an angry pack, and started passing around a bottle of whiskey.

The Greenville News, recently granted access to some of the trial records and police reports, offers some chilling accounts:

The attitudes of the time are reflected in the casual manner in which one of the defendants, Hubert Carter, explained in his statement to police how he joined the mob.

The 33-year-old driver and father of four called for a ride home from the Cleveland Street taxi stand at 1 a.m. on the 17th, according to the Greenville Police Department file. He was picked up by another defendant, Paul Griggs, who "asked me if I wanted to go with the others to get the Negro being held for stabbing Mr. Brown.

"I told him I'd go along with the crowd," Carter said in his statement.

And so, in a tableau reminiscent of the famous scene in To Kill A Mockingbird (and perhaps it was an inspiration for it), the taxis all lined up in the early morning hours and drove in formation out to the Pickens County jail, maybe 20 miles away. It was February 17th.

I have often re-imagined the striking sight of the line of yellow cabs driving down the old rural road I have traveled down so many times myself. Did other people see them? They must have. Did the onlookers know where they were going? Did they tell their wives or girlfriends first?

And there was, sadly, no Atticus Finch to stand by the door. Instead, there was a jailer named Gilstrap, who suddenly had two shotguns pointed in his face. He didn't argue.

The mob took Willie Earle from the jail.

A call to Greenville's black funeral home, notified authorities of where the body was.

Thomas Brown died six hours later.

~*~

The first lynching since 1912, the murder of Willie Earle became big news. The trial was biggest lynching trial the state had ever seen. Most lynchings had never even been investigated, while this one had then-Governor Strom Thurmond threatening to put the perpetrators away (yes, you read that right). Time magazine sent reporters, and The New Yorker sent no less than Dame Rebecca West to cover the event.

From Time magazine:

Somebody "pulled the Negro out of the car by his belt." The drivers ''hit him several times with their fists and knocked him to the ground." One of the drivers pulled out a knife. "Before you kill him," he said, "I want to put the same scars on him that he put on Brown." Said Jessie Lee Sammons: "I could hear the tearing of clothing and flesh."

Then the drivers "beat the side of his head with a shotgun." Said Marvin H. Flemming's statement: "I could hear some licks like they were pounding on him with the butt end of a gun. I heard the Negro say, 'Lord, you done killed me.' " Finally, said Charlie Covington, he heard Roosevelt Carlos Hurd Sr., a Blue Bird cab driver, cry out: "Give me the gun and let's get this over with." Just then, "a tall, slender boy with bushy hair hit the Negro in the mouth and knocked him down. The Negro started to get up when Mr. Hurd took the shotgun. He shot the Negro in the head. He unloaded the gun and called for more shells. . . . Mr. Hurd shot the Negro two more times." The tissue of Willie Earle's brain was left hanging on the bushes. The lynchers went back to Greenville and drank coffee.

Of course, it was an all-white jury. Of course, they offered no defense at all. And of course, they were acquitted.

Of the acquittal, Dame Rebecca West wrote:

There could be no more pathetic scene than these taxi-drivers and their wives, the deprived children of difficult history, who were rejoicing at a salvation that was actually a deliverance to danger. For an hour or two, the trial had built up in them that sense of law which is as necessary to man as bread and water and a roof. They had known killing for what it is: a hideousness that begets hideousness. They had seen that the most generous impulse, not subjected to the law, may engender a shameful deed. For indeed they were sick at heart when what had happened at the slaughter-pen was described in open court. But they had been saved from the electric chair and from prison by men who had conducted their defense without taking a minute off to state or imply that even if a man is a murderer one must not murder him and that murder is foul. These people had been plunged back into chaos.

Chaos is the word. Chaos was the state of race relations in the south until the Civil Rights movement, when the chaos was at last addressed.

Next week, after many long decades, the spot where Willie Earle was murdered will be officially and historically marked. Future generations will not be like me, driving by a rural place in the road without knowing whose blood was shed there. We will see, and we will know.

Tessie Robinson, Willie's mama, died 8 years ago. I am so sad she will never see the memorial to her son.

For black people, a memorial and a reminder of what they already know and do not have to be told. For us white people, a souvenir of our savagery, and the cover-up of that savagery. Which is why the memorial has taken 64 years.

Rest in Peace, Willie Earle.

Tom Laughlin 1931-2013

I once showed the film BILLY JACK (1971) to my daughter, and she rolled her eyes most of the way through. I was so crestfallen that she didn't get it. Or rather, I saw that she easily got it, since it all seemed so obvious to her.

I realized: much of what we once fought for had become passe. These truths are now just a given.

And that's a good thing, isn't it? In one way, of course. But it also means the young people do not understand how it was for us. They do not understand that what they now take for granted, was risky and dangerous for us--something as simple as standing at a bus stop, wearing patched jeans and scruffy hair. Or whites and non-whites entering an ice cream shop together.

That's when I knew the magic Billy Jack moment had passed forever, and doesn't even really translate well to the next generation.

Thus, the passing of Tom Laughlin is even more sad than expected.

From the New York Times:

Mr. Laughlin wrote, directed and starred in all four of the Billy Jack films, earnest tales of a tightly wound, half-Cherokee Vietnam veteran named Billy Jack who protects Indians, wild horses and progressive ideals against attacks.

...

By most accounts, the single-minded, loner-idealist tough guy at the center of the Billy Jack franchise was based on an amalgam of cowboy archetypes, Asian martial-arts film archetypes and Mr. Laughlin’s image of himself. Colleagues and family members described him as driven, stubborn, uncompromising and intensely attracted to quixotic endeavors.

After a succession of small film and television roles during his first decade in Hollywood, he and his wife, Delores Taylor — who later co-starred in the Billy Jack films — opened a Montessori school to keep their children out of what they considered the mediocre public schools of Southern California.

A half-dozen years later Mr. Laughlin decided to return to the movie business, but on his own terms. He wrote his script and raised money for the motorcycle movie “Born Losers” (1967), the first to feature Billy Jack. He later became an outspoken environmentalist and antinuclear activist and sought the Democratic nomination for president on several state primary ballots in 1992, 2004 and 2008.

At age 13 or 14, I wanted to go out west and go to the Freedom School run by Billy Jack's almost-girlfriend (and real-life wife) Jean. When my mother told me the school was all make-believe, I cried over it.

No, no, NO... the school is REAL. Billy Jack is REAL.

Just like Santa.

~*~

My deepest condolences go out to Laughlin's partner, Delores Taylor, who embodied the lovely, strong-willed Jean. The first lead actress in a Western movie who didn't seem to have on any makeup and didn't seem to care. Film critic Pauline Kael said Taylor's performance marked the first time she had ever seen a woman discuss her own rape in a movie, and what it meant to her life. "The film pauses for these moments, which were perhaps improvised by Delores Taylor," she wrote, amazed. Yes, and so did we. In the 70s-theater I was in, you could have heard a pin drop, as Delores Taylor relates the incident. Not a single woman was breathing, we hung on her every word. My mother said it was the greatest thing in the movie. (Later that day, she would finally tell me of her own experience.)

And see? We can turn on Law and Order SVU at any time of the day or night and see this scene over and over (with not nearly the gravitas) ... but once upon a time, it was odd enough that a New Yorker critic saw fit to mention it as almost-miraculous.

~*~

In Billy Jack, during a scene at the Freedom School, some kids are re-enacting the life of Jesus Christ. A black kid plays Jesus (which apparently is still pretty radical stuff!--but I digress).

One of the kids asks him, when you return, how do we know its you? Give us a sign! And he gives the black power salute, his fist in the air.

The kids, of all races, stand and silently return the salute.

And so, at about 2:04 in the video below, you see the significance as Billy Jack is taken away by the law. The kids, once again, give 'the sign'--the black power salute. And right in the shadow of a cross. (Sobbing at 2:39, in the purple shirt, is Laughlin's daughter, Teresa.) Whatever you think of Tom Laughlin's Jesus-complex, this was some bang-up B-movie film-making, folks.

Billy Jack finally controls his violent temper, for the greater good of the whole group. He sacrifices his own freedom to keep the Freedom School open. As one who often fights to control my own temper, do I have to tell you?

It always makes me cry.

~*~

Rest in Peace, Tom Laughlin. I would love to have known you.

One Tin Soldier - Coven (theme of Billy Jack)

Dead Air Church: Invictus, a tribute to Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela was buried today, in his ancestral village Qunu. I reprint the following comic in his honor.

For those who doubt that comics can be inspirational art, I defy you not to get chills and/or cry at the end. I first saw this on Tumblr and could not get it out of my mind. It easily eclipses all the TV-talking-heads trying to capture his spirit in mere words.

Invictus is by Australian artist Gavin Aung Than, at his amazing website, Zenpencils.com.

He's got a million of em, and I also greatly enjoyed his tribute to Roger Ebert. Great talent and great work!

Rest in peace, Nelson Mandela.

~*~

Nelson Mandela 1918-2013

The media mourning for Nelson Mandela has been shocking to me. Revisionism in my lifetime always rearranges my senses, and here we are again. (Note: Our radio show honoring Mandela was yesterday; our show honoring martyr Fred Hampton was Wednesday.)

It seems that only a short while ago, Mandela was regarded as a dangerous terrorist. Republicans spoke his name with audible contempt. It is dizzying and disorienting to see Fox News being all polite and respectful. I feel as if I have fallen through the proverbial Looking Glass.


As Mark Quincy Adams accurately writes (at Alan Colmes' blog titled Liberaland):

Their failed attempt to co-op the memory of Rosa Parks have not stopped our friends on the Right from trying the same with the late Nelson Mandela. Whether their hope is widespread ignorance of history or an attempt to disguise their true feelings, we must remember that Conservatives have always despised Nelson Mandela.

Dick Cheney, in particular, should be singled out as a leader in the ‘COWSHIT* Coalition’ (*Conservatives On the Wrong Side of HIstorys Tide). He was a vocal opponent of even setting the man free from prison! Sure, he said years later that Mandela had “mellowed out” but that’s hardly a recant of his indefensible position. Clearly, those who populate the Conservative Movement today are equally as hateful toward the man as Cheney and his ilk were in the 1980′s as we see from comments on Ted Cruz’s Facebook post attempting the gentlest of praise of Mandela.

While on some level we should welcome those on the Right who now want to praise Mandela, their sincerity should be met with great skepticism. The good news is there is something Conservatives really have to be genuinely thankful to him for. They should never forget that when Mandela was elected President of South Africa after 27 years in prison, he called for “Truth and Reconciliation” NOT “Truth and Retribution”. That’s a precedent Conservatives across the world should celebrate and hope that others in the future will find the Mandela-like strength to be so forgiving. Given their history, they will certainly need it.

And as Nelson Mandela himself said:

I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists. I tell them that I was also a terrorist yesterday, but today, I am admired by the very people who said I was one.

~*~

As I get older, I am more and more curious about how history will judge us. The longer I live and the more I witness this kind of revisionism, the more I realize we will be judged in ways we can not even anticipate right now.

A couple of months ago, I mentioned that as I stood reading the words on the Confederate memorial downtown, I was struck by the total moral certainty of the poem engraved on the side of that memorial. It never once occurred to the folks erecting the monument, that mores might change; that there would come a time that their moral certitude would be shameful and even regarded as patently evil.

And that will happen to us, too. About the drones, maybe... or the way we have refused to take responsibility for changing the climate. What are we doing right now, that we will be held ethically accountable for in the future? What horrors do we tolerate so we can hold on to our standard of living?

If I contemplate this too long (and I have made the whole "history's judgment" concept a repeated subject of my anicca meditation), I become afraid that I am not doing enough. I can become nearly frantic. It's a scary concept for me, which of course means that I must deal with it, head on.

I am often overwhelmed by trying to do everything at once. I spread myself pretty thin as it is, and yet... I worry it simply is not enough. And I also worry that no matter what we do, it will make no difference.

At least we can look at a life like Mandela's and say, HERE is a life that truly mattered, that made a difference in ways that counted, in ways that endured.

And at such times, when I have doubts that what we do makes any difference, I hold on to one truth:

"For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business." -- TS Eliot.

Rest in peace, Nelson Mandela.

Lou Reed 1942-2013

After hearing the news today, I find I am still not able to rationally discuss the impact of Lou Reed on my life.

I remember someone once remarked that the Velvet Underground only had about 200 fans, "but every one of them, started a band." And so, the legend was born; Lou was a legend to other legends. It is hard to describe the impact his work had on those of us who felt marginalized, those of us on the outside.

In so many ways, you had to be there.

I got a tattoo inspired by Lou. Early in recovery, I decided I did not want to be that heartless junkie in the middle-section of Street Hassle, who declares he won't wear his heart on his sleeve, will not become emotional when faced with the death of a stranger.

I knew that I did want to be that person, and that desire, that hope, is what prompted me to save my own life, to search for something better.

I do want to wear my heart on my sleeve. And so I got tattoo of a heart there, to remind me.

Goodbye dear friend. It hurts so much to lose you.

~*~



Some people got no choice
and they can never find a voice
To talk with, that they can even call their own
So the first thing that they see
That allows them the right to be
Well, they follow it.

You know, its called
Bad luck.



(from Street Hassle by Lou Reed)

~*~

We will be discussing Lou Reed's life and work on the radio show tomorrow.

And I hope to play this:

Rock and Roll - Velvet Underground



You know her life was saved by rock and roll.

~*~

Edit and Correction, from the New York Times, it was Brian Eno who said it, and here is their direct quote:

The composer Brian Eno, in an often-quoted interview from 1982, suggested that if the [The Velvet Underground]’s first record sold only 30,000 records during its first five years — a figure probably lower than the reality — “everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band.”

~*~

EDIT AGAIN 10/28/2013: I was really surprised to find this on YouTube, because, well, it just defies description. It's an 8-minute (spoken) story, and ... to say more is to ruin it. (Just one thing: if you start listening, please continue to the end.)

However, I don't mind telling you, I know the whole thing by heart and can recite it verbatim from memory: "Waldo Jeffers had reached his limit..."

I have never before admitted that out loud. But there it is.

The Gift - Velvet Underground



PS: Happy Halloween! ;)

FDR Memorial on Swamp Rabbit Trail

Greenville's Swamp Rabbit Trail was first a railroad bed before it was recycled for use as a recreational trail. This modest stone memorial to President Roosevelt is on the trail, and I wanted to share it.

It's one of those charming, amazing little snapshots of history.

The marker reads:

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT

1882 - 1945

While serving as the 32nd president of the United States, Roosevelt led our country through the Great Depression and World War II. He died while in office on April 12, 1945 in Warm Springs, Georgia.

Near this site on April 13, 1945 the funeral train carrying the body of Franklin Delano Roosevelt stopped at the Greenville station on its way to Washington, DC. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was aboard the train along with FDR's beloved Scottish Terrier Fala.

A crowd of more than 15,000 mourners gathered in final tribute and to show respect to Mrs Roosevelt. Soldiers lined the tracks for a mile north and south of the station. A telegram listing the names of family, friends and dignitaries who would attend FDR's funeral in Hyde Park, NY, was sent from the station.

Mayor C. Fred McCollough presented two floral wreaths to Presidential Secretary Steve Early. The wreaths were put inside the funeral car, one placed on top of the flag-draped casket.

Children began singing 'Onward Christian Soldiers' and the large crowd quickly joined in as the train slowly pulled away from the station.

~*~

At that time, the population of the city of Greenville was only around 35,000; Greenville County's entire population was approx 140,000.

In light of that, 15,000 mourners is an astronomical number.

Midweek updates

Time for an old car! DEAD AIR regulars know all about my enduring love of old cars, and this cherry-red Chrysler Plymouth parked next to the Peace Center in downtown Greenville, absolutely made me swoon. (As always, you can click to enlarge.) Any guesses on the year? I am guessing 1952. The license plate on the front says "Southern First"--which is a local bank.

Obviously, that license plate proves you have to be a well-paid banker to afford a car like this.

~*~

Some people are having issues finding the radio show's new location... it comes in best on 910 AM here in upstate South Carolina. We are on every weekday from 5-6pm on WOLI, the Source. Drive-time radio! Live at Five! Hope you will tune in. If you miss us, we are also on Spreaker.

I didn't do a proper obit of movie critic Roger Ebert (whom I admired) here on the blog, but I did do one on Occupy the Microphone last Thursday.

And speaking of our show, we interviewed Cynthia McKinney on Monday and Dr Margaret Flowers today. This was our second time talking to Dr Flowers; she was on the show last April as well. (You can also listen to her regularly on Clearing the Fog radio.)

Tomorrow we will be re-interviewing Efia Nwangaza, Greenville Occupier, radical lawyer and tireless activist (our March interview with Efia is here), about her recent trip to Switzerland to lobby the UN Human Rights Committee on behalf of US political prisoners, including the Angola 3. (Efia was also on the Daisy Deadhead show last year, see graphic below!) We will be taking phone calls and questions.



On Friday, we will be interviewing Jill Stein, 2012 Green Party candidate for president. (Last year's interview with Dr Stein is here.)

Give us a listen, and we sincerely hope you are having a good week.

Blogular Updates

WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK of my cool new blog banner? Fabulous Robert of BLUE HERON BLAST did this for me, and I have sent copious cyberkisses and hugs his way. IT'S JUST BEE-YOO-TI-FULL! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I did my last banner over 5 years ago, and couldn't even locate the website where I made it. Without the banner-making-for-dummies software, I had no clue how to proceed in conjuring up an updated banner. The few free banner-maker-sites I managed to find, did not have the crucial KASHMIR font, which I just HAD TO HAVE. (Led Zeppelin fans will undoubtedly recognize the lovely Kashmir font, named for the band who first used it on their album covers.) Also, I wanted outer space, utterly suitably for a flakey hippie like your humble narrator... the two together were nearly impossible for me to combine on the cheesy banner-maker websites. ((sobs)) I sulked for six whole months before wonderful Robert rescued me.

BLUE HERON RULES! Thank you so much, my friend.

Go visit Blue Heron Blast--which always has cool banners, and he changes them all the time, too... not once every five years, like some of us.

~*~

We did the promo for the radio show, today on Another Voice with Jason and Eric... they were kind enough to let us crazy lefties in to promote our new broadcast endeavor. Old-school Gentlemen! Very polite fellas who are all about free speech and everything... obviously, an endangered species in these parts.

Occupy the Microphone will formally debut on WOLT-FM, January 1st (and a happy New Year to you, too!)... WOLT-FM is a pretty snazzy-looking radio station, headquartered in the old McAlister Square mall, which I have written about here before.

~*~

At left: Daisy meets Country Earl, back on the auspicious date of 11-11-11.


WOLT-FM also once regularly featured local legend Country Earl's radio show. I was lucky enough to meet him last year, which was a real thrill for me. It therefore saddens me to announce that Country Earl passed away about a week ago, to the sorrow of upstate South Carolina:

A longtime Upstate radio personality also known for his Simpsonville restaurant has passed away.

“Country Earl” Baughman, 79, died Monday at Greenville Memorial Hospital.

Baughman was a local radio personality/disc jockey for many years, with numerous upstate radio stations including WESC, WCKI, WFIS, WBBR, WAGI and WOLT where he hosted his “Country Earl’s Country Classics Radio Show.” He started his career in the 1950s and continued until 2000s.

He was also known for his restaurant, Country Earl’s Stompin’ and Chompin’. In recent years, the restaurant became less of a restaurant and more of a performance or event venue, becoming known as “Country Earl’s Celebration Place.”

Baughman was native of Greenville County. According to his obituary, he was the son of the late Herbie Theodore and Susie Mae Lackey Baughman.

He was a member of Brookwood Community Church and was an accomplished musician and songwriter and was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall Of Fame.

A “Celebration of Life Service” will be held 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012 at Brookwood Community Church.

Forest Hills Funeral Home website says visitation will be held at the church following the service. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in Earl’s memory to The Muscular Dystrophy Association, 25 Woods Lake Rd., Suite 412, Greenville, SC 29607.

Another real gentleman of the old school, who will be sorely missed. :(

~*~

For those who asked (I am SO flattered yall care about me!)--my lifelong, growing, ugly brown skin-blotch was technically diagnosed as a dermatofibroma.

Nobody knows what causes them, but one theory is that they are caused by infected insect bites. Oh, GROSS!

You see??? I just knew all those horrific flea bites I endured would somehow have some negative repercussions; it just stands to reason.

I am TOTALLY blaming them.

~*~

We talked about the recent school-shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on our last podcast, if you'd like to give us a listen. I don't have much to add to what we said, except the song I played here on Saturday.

There is one quite fascinating link currently making the rounds--Mormon Church 'owns unregulated gun sale website':

One of the most active and unregulated gun sale websites in America is owned by the Mormon Church, an investigation by New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg has revealed.

You just have to wonder... who else is making a killing, if you will pardon the expression.

My apologies for once again boring my dear readers with Tales of The Call Center, but the fact is, I learned a great deal whilst being cussed out every day, and I was toughened up for the long haul besides (which made me well-prepared for the rigors of talk radio)... My call center took calls for a world-wide shipping conglomerate, whose name (and big brown trucks) you would instantly recognize.

At one point on my call center job, I took calls ONLY from South Carolina for about 6-7 months. I became alarmed when I realized how many involved shipping huge amounts of firearms to other parts of the country, where I knew they were illegal. Most involved gun shows (and similar exhibitions), but some had other creative, shifty ways to get around the local laws. And I don't mind telling you, some of the guys on the phone sounded like they were straight out of Lizard Lick Towing. They initially didn't seem too bright, but honey, you shoulda heard them spout those LAWS--they knew them inside and out, backwards and forwards, state by state and county by county. When packages got held up and/or inspected, which happened fairly often, they would cuss a proverbial blue streak. And I used to get seriously creeped out when packages got LOST (and yes, they did), which made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

I still remember one guy chuckling at the news that his enormous shipment of guns (to New York City) had apparently disappeared into the ether, and he would have to file a claim. "Bummer," he announced, "Hope whoever found it enjoys alla that fine weaponry," he chortled, "--and I hope nobody pisses him off tonight!"

I remember hoping nobody pissed him off too, whoever he was.

Imagine, a cache of weapons and ammo simply evaporating off of a loading dock? I hate to tell you, but it happens all the time.

Religion, Warthogs and Republicans...

From LOLCATS, this comic reminded me of this hapless incident I wrote about a couple of months ago. (You can click to enlarge.)


~*~

As far as I know, this has not been reported locally. I'm very glad that we have the internet to inform us of the unpopular news stories. From the Freedom From Religion Foundation:

The Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a federal lawsuit May 30 in U.S. District Court in Columbia, S.C., against School District 5 of Lexington and Richland Counties over a district policy that sanctions graduation prayer. Matthew “Max” Nielson, 18, who graduated May 30 from Irmo High School, was named as principal plaintiff.

Nielson has received a $1,000 Catherine Fahringer Memorial Student Activist Award from FFRF and will speak at FFRF’s 35th annual convention in Portland, Oregon, October 12-14.

On June 11, FFRF filed an amended complaint adding two new plaintiffs, Jacob Zupon and Dakota McMillan. They will graduate respectively from Irmo High School in 2013 and 2014, keeping the lawsuit ripe. Zupon and McMillan “reasonably anticipate constitutional injury” similar to Nielson’s, due to prayer at their upcoming graduations. All students describe themselves as “religiously unaffiliated,” meaning “they subscribe to no particular organized, institutionalized religion, nor other prescribed set of beliefs.”

A district policy titled “School Ceremonies and Observations” sets guidelines for benedictions and invocations at graduations and athletic events: Use of prayer “will be determined by a majority vote of the graduating senior class with the advice and counsel of the principal.”

Nielson was forced during his senior year to participate in a “vote” by graduating seniors on whether to pray at their 2012 graduation. That vote was organized, distributed and tallied by teachers and other staff. He met with Principal Rob Weinkle and Superintendent Steve Hefner to express his concerns. FFRF formally objected, but the district refused to remove the scheduled prayer. FFRF filed suit on the day of the graduation.

This kind of thing is very common even in public schools here in the Bible belt. Also common: impromptu public prayers given on the spot--usually before standardized tests, sports and field trips. Whoever chooses not to participate in these prayers, is often considered rebellious and/or a troublemaker, simply by fiat.

My daughter also had Bob Jones University students as student teachers in her public high school, believe it or not. (BJU is unaccredited.) In addition, due to budget cuts and lack of space, her school also had instrumental music concerts/recitals in various local churches that were kind enough to volunteer space. Thus, parents and families who wanted to attend their children's recitals were forced to go the churches.

Aside: The aformentioned BJU student teacher (a music teacher), addressed the audience of parents at one such local music recital and informed us he was thankful to his Lord and Savior. This aggravated me, since I went to hear the kids perform, not to listen to a sermon. However, at the time, I did not want to make an issue of these things and put my daughter in a precarious social position.

Therefore, I am pleased these students and FFRF are finally challenging this stuff. Maybe this will make them think twice.

The prayer at the graduation, written by the district but delivered by a student “volunteer,” was addressed to “Father.” The prayer asked for the “Lord’s guidance, protection and mercy,” asked students to be “touched” by “the Lord,” to be led “on the path you intend for their lives to lead,” and thanked a deity for “the teachers, parents and administrators that were here through our 12 years of school.”

... and if this is not your faith, well, they really don't care what you think.

~*~

At left: My daughter took this adorable photo of a warthog mama and baby at the San Antonio Zoo. DEAD FROM CUTENESS!!!

Speaking of warthogs (and how many of you caught that segue?), REST IN PEACE Ron Palillo!

~*~



Other links of note:

Lisa Marie Presley Says "So Long" to Scientology (Village Voice)

POLITICO e-book: Obama campaign roiled by conflict (Politico)

The Conservative Psyche: How Ordinary People Come to Embrace Paul Ryan's Cruelty (AlterNet)

Raising the Ritalin Generation (New York Times)

IN CELEBRATION: Thankful for the Life of Phyllis Diller (GendErratic)

The bizarre, unhealthy, blinding media contempt for Julian Assange (UK Guardian)

Americans ignore the war in Afghanistan, despite 2,000 US casualties (RT.com)

Prayers At Republican National Convention Expected From Cardinal Timothy Dolan And Prominent Mormon Friend Of Mitt Romney (Huffington Post)

Limited Convention Broadcasts Shut Out Ann Romney (New York Times)

And on that happy note (tee hee), we wish you a happy Wednesday evening... don't forget, local peeps, "The Feel-good, Fabulous, Four Hour, Fun-Filled, Festival-like thing we refer to as Dead Air!" (namesake of this blog) is on WNCW-FM tonight, as we speak.

Only a dullard could resist!

And When the Sky was Opened

A very old woman ran into me at the market today, slammed me in the butt with her cart. She started to cry, and her daughter (about my age) swooped in to rescue her... and I realized that she was what we used to call 'senile'. I guess the acceptable term is now Alzheimer's, that catch-all diagnosis for when the mind goes. I patted her, assured her it was okay. But I was alarmed, because in her distress, I could see myself and what awaits us all.

Buddha told us to meditate on death, and I have.

I once realized the abject terror in the old Twilight Zone episode, "And When the Sky Was Opened" -- was based on the fact that it mirrored our own experience and terror of death. In the show (written by Rod Serling and adapted from a short story by fantasy-genius Richard Matheson), three men come back from a flight into space, and begin to disappear, one by one. The title of Matheson's original story was, fittingly, Disappearing Act.

On the day of their return, the newspaper headline reads "Three Spacemen Return from Crash: All Alive" and then, after a strange chain of events, there are only two. But... there have always been two. The newspaper headline has changed, and now announces: Two Spacemen have returned. It is as if the third astronaut never existed. The two astronauts remaining start to panic, as everyone around them insists, no, there were only two of them, not three. Never three.

At the end, it is James Hutton (father of Timothy) who is the last astronaut left, looking for his suddenly-missing friend, the second astronaut. He then sees the newspaper headline, which now says only ONE astronaut has returned. The expression on his face has remained with me all of my life, ever since seeing this particular Twilight Zone episode as a child. And when I Googled the image, there it was (see above). Obviously, I wasn't the only one.

He knows he is next.

And the show ends with an empty room. None of them have returned from the flight. The camera pans to where their aircraft was. It is gone, too.

My grandmother died in 2004 and my mother died in 2006; it was when my mother died that I realized, I was up next. Maybe not for awhile, one hopes, but up nonetheless. It was no longer a far-away thing that happened to the old people... I was now the old people.

And so it was today, when I saw the old woman in the store, crying and confused. I saw that it was not simply her confusion that made her cry, although it was that, too... it was that she was afraid. I saw James Hutton all over her face. And then, I saw myself.

As I comforted her, I hoped someone would do the same for me.

~*~

Speaking of which, a sweet voice of my childhood is gone. Let us take a moment to remember Scott McKenzie, who recorded John Phillips' folkie-pop hippie anthem, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)".

I remember being in San Francisco, hearing the song and feeling oddly displaced, because of course the San Francisco I had moved to was not the one in the song, although it had always inspired me. I had moved to Kool and The Gang era San Francisco, the end of the disco era. I remember falling asleep under an open window and starry sky in Oakland and hearing it there too, thinking how odd it was that the song had helped make San Francisco too expensive for people like me to live in. For this reason, it made me sad to hear it, one of the first feelings of aging that I ever remember experiencing.

I came home from the market, and my experience of the woman running into me and weeping, to hear that McKenzie had passed.

It was the perfect ending to a day I had started with an extended meditation on death.

~*~

San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair) - Scott McKenzie



In this video of McKenzie performing the song at the Monterey Pop Festival, you see Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Mama Cass... again, the perfect ending to my daily meditation...

Gore Vidal 1925-2012

You will be greatly missed.

The War over Sally Ride

I was considering writing an obituary for astronaut Sally Ride, when the war over the facts of her personal life broke out.

Was she gay? Apparently so. Interestingly, one of my old friends told me his gaydar went off when he saw her interviewed on TV back in the 80s, when she first went up in space (and was still married to astronaut Steve Hawley). I have heard this "gaydar" comment several times since. I had no idea if this was true or not, so I went to Wikipedia, like I always do.

And wouldn't you know? That's where the war is.

Wikipedia does not see fit to mention that Ride had a 27-year relationship with a woman, Tam O'Shaughnessy, whom she called her partner. Glenn Greenwald tweeted his disapproval of Wikipedia's omission, and got goofy (and thoroughly bigoted) replies, such as "not sure why it matters?"

Not sure why it matters? Does the marriage of a heterosexual person matter, if one is seeking factual biographical information? I think we all agree that it does. In fact, even heterosexual AFFAIRS (not sanctified by legal marriage) are covered in Wikipedia biographies. But since being gay is considered BAD, it is widely regarded as an INSULT if you include this fact about her. Even if its accurate.

So, we have the (possibly) first gay astronaut, and most people do not know this about her. The official accounts are leaving out her grieving widow, Tam. Imagine if this was a heterosexual astronaut 'hero'--and they refused to acknowledge their widow?

Impossible to contemplate. It would simply never happen.

The GAWKER's article about this homophobic fiasco includes a series of comments left on the Wikipedia 'history' page, which would be hilarious if they didn't seek to erase 27 years of two women's lives. For example:

There's another logical gap: according to this bio, Tam O'Shaughnessy was Sally Ride's partner of 27 years, i.e. since 1985. But the article says that "in 1983 [Ride] became the first American woman, the first lesbian [...] to enter space", and it doesn't logically follow that she was a lesbian in 1983.

Do you believe this stuff? ANYTHING to avoid the facts, that the first US woman in space was a lesbian.

Last Autumn, I wrote about this phenomenon (the emphatic denial of gay sexuality in obituaries) after the death of film producer Ismail Merchant. The same hysterical, ridiculous denials surfaced at that time.

Why can't the homophobes at least ACCEPT PEOPLE IN DEATH? It's like they can't let their hatred go, even for a second. They refuse to grant any gay person respect. And if they should by chance actually admire the individual in question (as so many admired both Merchant and Ride), then they MUST deny that they were gay. Because they simply CANNOT ADMIRE a self-professed gay person.

There really is no other explanation for this behavior.

And with that, I will end with my concluding comment in my post about Ismail Merchant:

Again, we see how gay people are disappeared by the culture at large, as heterosexuality, even openly illicit heterosexuality, is heralded.

Unfortunately, it's still an accurate observation.

~*~

EDIT--Wikipedia has added the following paragraph to Ride's obit, due to popular demand: After death, her obituary revealed that Ride's partner was Tam E. O'Shaughnessy, a female professor emerita of school psychology at San Diego State University and a childhood friend who met Ride when both were aspiring tennis players. O'Shaughnessy became a science teacher and writer and, later, the chief operating officer and executive vice president of Ride's company, Sally Ride Science. She co-authored several books with Ride. The 27-year relationship was revealed by the company and confirmed by Ride's sister who also stated that Ride chose to keep her personal life private including her sickness and treatments.

More than I expected.

Ray Bradbury 1920-2012

He changed us. He made us different than we had been in the mere seconds before we picked up his stories.

One of my special favorites is All Summer in a Day, an incredible story about bullying, long before the subject was hip. (1954)

Reposting the obit from RayBradbury.com, which can't be improved upon:

Ray Bradbury, recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, died on June 5, 2012, at the age of 91 after a long illness. He lived in Los Angeles.

In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury has inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His groundbreaking works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He wrote the screen play for John Huston's classic film adaptation of Moby Dick, and was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted sixty-five of his stories for television's The Ray Bradbury Theater, and won an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree. In 2005, Bradbury published a book of essays titled Bradbury Speaks, in which he wrote: "In my later years I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I've worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior."

He is survived by his four daughters, Susan Nixon, Ramona Ostergren, Bettina Karapetian, and Alexandra Bradbury, and eight grandchildren. His wife, Marguerite, predeceased him in 2003, after fifty-seven years of marriage.

Throughout his life, Bradbury liked to recount the story of meeting a carnival magician, Mr. Electrico, in 1932. At the end of his performance Electrico reached out to the twelve-year-old Bradbury, touched the boy with his sword, and commanded, Live forever! Bradbury later said, "I decided that was the greatest idea I had ever heard. I started writing every day. I never stopped."

And we were all so much richer for that. Thank you Mr Electrico!

We will miss the master. (bows) Rest in Peace.

Donna Summer 1948-2012

On the Radio - Donna Summer (1979)



Last Dance - Donna Summer (1983)



The soundtrack of our youth; cross-country trips, late nights, friends meeting, parties and picnics... goodbye, old friend.

Levon Helm 1940-2012

I heard from my friend Blue Heron that Levon Helm had passed, which just broke my heart.

I adored his raspy Arkansas voice. I also loved him in Coal Miner's Daughter and The Right Stuff, which he narrated wonderfully in his trademark twang.

We will miss him so much.

Levon Helm, Drummer in the Band, Dies at 71
By JON PARELES
New York Times

Levon Helm, who helped forge a deep-rooted American music as the drummer and singer for the Band, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 71 and lived in Woodstock, N.Y.

His death, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, was from complications of cancer, a spokeswoman for Vanguard Records said. He had recorded several albums for the label.

In Mr. Helm’s drumming, muscle, swing, economy and finesse were inseparably merged. His voice held the bluesy, weathered and resilient essence of his Arkansas upbringing in the Mississippi Delta.

Mr. Helm was the American linchpin of the otherwise Canadian group that became Bob Dylan’s backup band and then the Band. Its own songs, largely written by the Band’s guitarist, Jaime Robbie Robertson, and pianist, Richard Manuel, spring from roadhouse, church, backwoods, river and farm; they are rock-ribbed with history and tradition yet hauntingly surreal.

After the Band broke up in 1976, Mr. Helm continued to perform at every opportunity, working with a partly reunited Band and leading his own groups. He also acted in films, notably “Coal Miner’s Daughter” (1980). In the 2000s he became a roots-music patriarch, turning his barn in Woodstock — which had been a recording studio since 1975 — into the home of down-home, eclectic concerts called Midnight Rambles, which led to tours and Grammy-winning albums.

Mr. Helm gave his drums a muffled, bottom-heavy sound that placed them in the foundation of the arrangements, and his tom-toms were tuned so that their pitch would bend downward as the tone faded. But his playing didn’t call attention to himself. Three bass-drum thumps at the beginning of one of the Band’s anthems, “The Weight,“ were all that he needed to establish the song’s gravity. His playing served the song. In “The Shape I’m In," he juxtaposed Memphis soul, New Orleans rumba and military tattoo. But though it was tersely responsive to the music, the drumming also had an improvisational feel.

In the Band, lead vocals changed from song to song and sometimes within songs, and harmonies were elaborately communal. But particularly when lyrics turned to myths and tall tales of the American South — like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Ophelia” and “Rag Mama Rag” — the lead went to Mr. Helm, with his Arkansas twang and a voice that could sound desperate, ornery and amused at the same time.

Indeed it could.

~*~

And here is one of those amazing songs that you tend to hear at apocalyptic moments. Not for nothing has it become an ongoing cinema-staple, usually played as the protagonists are figuring out something important.

I remember a fight with my mother as a teenager, and going out on the stoop to pout. Hearing the song at that moment (coming from somewhere across the street) was a spiritual lesson I needed, one of my first tutorials in The First Noble Truth.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And Levon was my teacher, in those few moments.

The Weight - The Band



Requiescat in pace.

Dick Clark 1929-2012

In this post only nine days ago, I briefly mentioned the Rolling Stones concert in San Francisco. One thing I remember from that show is a couple dancing together (very well), and when they finished, someone shouted out, "Let's hear it for couple number 14 from Milwaukee!" and everyone standing around applauded, whistled and laughed appreciatively.

I realized that a lot of Americans would not get that joke now. And it made me sad.

His name was Dick Clark, and we grew up with him. Now he is gone, along with his black counterpart, Don Cornelius. And with them passes a whole way of life, memorialized in musicals like Grease: young people dancing on live TV to the popular songs of the day.

Upon hearing of Clark's passing, my first thought was the 'tribute song' by Barry Manilow (a remake of Les Elgart's big-band original, with updated lyrics mentioning the show and Clark by name)-- which Clark liked so much he closed out American Bandstand with it from 1977 until the show's demise.

The song sums it up.

Bandstand Boogie - Barry Manilow



(He actually starts DANCING in the middle, and then continues singing. I very much doubt he smoked!)

We're goin hoppin
we're goin happin
Where things are poppin
The Philadelphia way
Were gonna drop in
On all the music they play
On the Bandstand

Bandstand, bandstand, bandstand

Hey! I'm makin my mark
Gee, this joint is jumpin
They made such a fuss
just to see us arrive
Hey, it's Mister Dick Clark
What a place you've got here!
Swell spot, the music's hot here
Best in the east,
Give it at least
A seventy five!

And as you know, lots of the songs were worth the whole hundred percent. :)

This list gives you a partial idea of the impact of American Bandstand on mass media and pop culture.

Goodbye Dick, and thanks for the jams.

Peter Bergman 1939-2012

I really wanted to title this obituary, "Waiting for Peter Bergman, or someone like him," which I think he would have appreciated.




Instead, decided to be properly respectful and just reprint the New York Times obit:

Peter Bergman, Satirist With the Firesign Theater, Dies at 72
By PAUL VITELLO
Published: March 9, 2012

Peter Bergman, a founding member of the surrealist comedy troupe Firesign Theater, whose albums became cult favorites among college students in the late 1960s and ’70s for a brand of sly, multilayered satire so dense it seemed riddled with non sequiturs until the second, third or 30th listening, died on Friday in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 72.

The cause was complications of leukemia, said Jeff Abraham, a spokesman for the group.

Mr. Bergman hosted an all-night radio call-in show on KPFK in Los Angeles beginning in 1966, “Radio Free Oz,” which served as the testing ground for the high-spirited Firesign sensibility. Phil Austin and David Ossman, two other founders of the four-man group, were the producer and director of the show; the fourth founder, Phil Proctor, was a frequent guest.

“We started out as four friends, up all night, taking calls from people on bad acid trips and having the time of our lives,” Mr. Austin said in a phone interview Friday. “And that’s what we always were: four friends talking.”

Mr. Bergman and his friends recorded their first album, “Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him,” in 1968, followed the next year by “How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All?”

By 1970, their mordant humor and their mastery of stereophonic recording techniques had made them to their generation of 20-somethings what Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are to today’s (if Mr. Colbert and Mr. Stewart had a weakness for literary wordplay, psychedelic references and jokes about the Counter-Reformation).

Their records employed sound effects in ways considered pioneering in audio comedy at the time. More generally, they were considered important forerunners of comedy shows like “Saturday Night Live.”

Ed Ward, writing in The New York Times in 1972, described the third Firesign album, “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers,” as “a mind-boggling sound drama” and a “work of almost Joycean complexity.”

“It’s almost impossible to summarize any Firesign album,” Mr. Ward wrote, because most of their albums were so filled with “intricate wordplay, stunning engineering and use of sound effects, breakneck pacing and, of course, a terribly complex story line.”

When the Library of Congress placed “Don’t Crush That Dwarf” in its National Recording Registry in 2005, The Los Angeles Times described Firesign Theater as “the Beatles of comedy.”

Mr. Bergman told people the ensemble’s albums, unlike most comedy records, were never made to be listened to just once or twice. “He said our records were made to be heard about 80 times,” Mr. Austin said.

While the ensemble continued making albums for three decades, Mr. Bergman also wrote and produced several one-man shows, including “Help Me Out of This Head,” a 1986 monologue-memoir that drew on his childhood in Cleveland. He also wrote interactive games, including a CD-ROM parody of the popular adventure video game Myst.

Mr. Bergman was born on Nov. 29, 1939, in Cleveland, one of two children of Oscar and Rita Bergman. His parents hosted a radio show in Cleveland when he was growing up, “Breakfast With the Bergmans.” His father also worked as a reporter for The Plain Dealer.

Mr. Bergman graduated from Yale and taught economics there as a Carnegie Fellow. He later attended the Yale School of Drama as a Eugene O’Neill playwriting fellow. He moved to Los Angeles in the early 1960s to pursue a writing career.

He is survived by a daughter, Lily Oscar Bergman, and his sister, Wendy Kleckner.

Mr. Bergman got a taste of radio work when he was in high school, according to a biography on Firesign Theater’s official Web site. But he lost his job as an announcer on the school radio system, it said, “after his unauthorized announcement that the Chinese Communists had taken over the school and that a ‘mandatory voluntary assembly was to take place immediately.’ Russell Rupp, the school principal, promptly relieved Peter of his announcing gig. Rupp was the inspiration for the Principal Poop character on ‘Don’t Crush That Dwarf.’ ”

For good or ill, I hold Bergman and Company responsible for much of my rather bizarre sense of humor.

My consigliere posted the following quote from Bergman on Facebook (originally posted on the Firesign website), and I certainly can't improve on it... could any of us improve on Peter Bergman?:

Take heart, dear friends. We are passing through the darkening of the light. We're gonna make it and we're going to make it together. Don't get ground down by cynicism. Don't let depression darken the glass through which you look. This is a garden we live in. A garden seeded with unconditional love. And the tears of the oppressed, and the tears of the frustrated, and the tears of the good will spring those seeds. The flag has been waived. It says occupy. Occupy Wall Street. Occupy the banks. Occupy the nursing homes. Occupy Congress. Occupy the big law offices. Occupy the lobbyists. Occupy...yourself. Because that's where it all comes together. I pledge to you, from this moment on, whatever it means, I'm going to occupy myself.

I love you. See ya tomorrow.

Ah, he's no fun. He fell right over!

Goodbye old friend. We shall not see your like again.

Terri Leigh McKee 1958-2012

The Queen of Cups, from the Art Nouveau Tarot by Matt Myers.




Advice: When people ask you to stay in touch, stay in touch. Don't tell yourself "one of these days"--because you might Google them one day and find their obituary.

She came to my grandmother's funeral, whom she had loved. I promised her I would mail her copies of photos I had recently discovered, of our childhood... one of us standing next to an old Packard, another of us trying to make Kool-Aid, and still another, in front of a gaudy, awful, silver Christmas tree.

I never remembered to send them.

We grew apart... I became a crazy radical, and she remained devout and conservative. We had little in common as adults, and it was somewhat uncomfortable. You know how that is.

I still remember us singing together, "In the Year 2525" and laughing about the lyrics. We also sang it into the telephone for crank calls, which of course, you can't make any more. (The kids have no idea what they're missing.)

I had been thinking about her all week, possibly due to the death of Davy Jones. But it suddenly became pressing and important, as if I should see if I could try to find her. (She wasn't on Facebook or any of the other social media sites.) So, I did, and found this:

McKEE Terri L. McKee, age 53, passed away Monday, March 5, 2012. She was a member of St. Cecilia Catholic Church and a graduate of Westland High School, Class of '77'. Preceded in death by great-grandparents Charles and Sarah Bentz, grandparents Frank and Thelma Bragg and Adryenne and Arnold McKee, aunt Marilyn Isaac, and cousin Robert Riley. Survived by parents, John and Julia McKee; fiancee, Michael Woolfe; sister, Vicki (Mike) Davis; nephews, Nicholas Davis and Benjamin (Sara) Davis; great-nephew, Thomas Davis; along with aunts, uncles, cousins, loving relatives, and friends. Family will receive friends Sunday from 2-5 p.m. at THE TIDD FUNERAL HOME, 5265 Norwich St., Hilliard, OH 43026. A funeral service will be held 11 a.m. Monday at CONCORDIA LUTHERAN CHURCH, 225 Schoolhouse Lane, Columbus, OH 43228. Interment Sunset Cemetery.

All attempts at taking photos of photos have failed, so you will have to settle for my physical description: light light parakeet-blonde hair (100% natural) and extremely disarming pale blue eyes. Very feminine, small, thin, petite.

Aspasia offers the consoling thought that I thought of Terri because her soul was reaching out to me, to say goodbye. It is a comfort to think so.

And you folks reading: please don't forget my advice. Contact those old friends now. Don't put it off.

~*~

In the year 2525 - Zager and Evans



We got on a roller coaster once, at the Ohio State Fair, while this song was playing, full-blast. We screamed and sang along, all at once. One of those wonderful, great moments of childhood... perhaps she thought of it in her last moments, as I surely will.

Pleasant Valley Sunday - The Monkees



Mr Green, he's so serene, he's got a TV in every room... we decided we liked Mr Green and wanted TVs in every room when we grew up, too.

Goodbye, old friend.

Davy Jones 1945-2012

Daisy's very first imaginary boyfriend has passed on:

No doubt you're humming Daydream Believer or Last Train to Clarksville as you read this.

The lead singer of The Monkees, Davy Jones, has died.

His rep tells TMZ that he died after suffering a heart attack this morning in Florida. Jones was 66.

TMZ confirmed Jones' death with an official from the medical examiner's office for Martin County, Fla.

Jones is survived by his wife Jessica and four daughters from previous marriages.

Jones joined The Monkees in 1965, with Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork.

I wrote about the Monkees here.

Goodbye old friend. (((sobs)))