During my recently surfing of the internet, I found this cover of the February 1970 issue of Circus magazine, which was devoted to rock and roll/popular music in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
If you want to see a bigger picture of the cover, please click on it.
It wondered who of the above would survive the 1970s.
The performers are by row:
- First -- Johnny Cash, Pete Townsend, Jim Morrison, Paul McCartney, Grace Slick;
- Second -- Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winter;
- Third -- Alvin Lee, Ray Davies, John Mayall, Mick Jagger, Elvis Presley;
- Four -- George Harrison, Ringo Star, Charlie Watts, Jimmy Page, David Crosby.
The first one to die was Hendrix, who went in September 1970 by choking to death on his own vomit.
The second was Joplin, who died a month later of a heroin overdose.
Then came Morrison, who died in July 1971. Some thought the cause was a heart attack. Some thought it was a heroin overdose. Since no autopsy was made, no cause is known for certain.
Three in a row, and quickly, too.
But six years passed before the next death: Elvis Presley in August 1977 of a heart attack aggravated by drug abuse.
Next was John Lennon: Shot to death in December 1980.
But then 20 years passed until the next deaths: George Harrison in November 2001 of lung cancer; then Johnny Cash in September 2003 of complications from diabetes.
That's seven out of 20, or 35 percent.
Everyone else is still alive and playing, although their current careers aren't as big as they were back then.
I posted this picture to mark the 66th anniversary of D-Day, when the Allies landed on the beaches of Normandy and opened the second front in the European Theater of the Second World War.
Eleven months later, the Germans surrendered.
It was a huge military operation. Nuclear weapons and spy satellites make sure that something that big will never happen again.
The picture shows troops of Company E, 15th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division -- aka The Big Red One -- hitting Omaha Beach.
Earthquakes tend to be rare in this part of the United States. Because of their rareness, I post this about two of them that happened within the last six years.
I came across notes about one of the quakes last week while going through some old journals, and decided to combine it with an older post.
I was asleep in bed on the morning of Friday, April 18, 2008, when I heard the window sills of my apartment rattling. That didn't bother me because they often did that when the wind blew strongly.
But when i felt my bed start to shake, I thought: Hey --this must be an earthquake!
It was.
It hit the Midwest around 5:35 a.m. that day. its epicenter was the town of West Salem, Illinois, which is northwest of Evansville, Indiana. news reports said it had a rating of 5.2 on the Richter scale.
I also felt what i thought was a small aftershock -- much lower in scale -- around 12:30 p.m.
Later, I found out that April 18 was, by coincidence, the 102th anniversary of the infamous San Francisco earthquake. Instruments weren't available then to measure its power, but scientists now believe that it was between 7.8 and 8.3 on the Richter scale.
Between 8 a.m. to 8:05 a.m. on Sept. 12, 2004, there was an earthquake that measured a 3.6 on the Richter scale. The epicenter was about five miles north of Shelbyville, Indiana, a town that's about 30-40 miles south of where I live.
I didn't feel anything because the Richter scale was so low, but shakes were felt on the east side of Indianapolis and Marion County -- especially in the town of Cumberland and the intersection of East 16th Street and Ritter Avenue.
Today is the 65th anniversary of V-E Day, when Germany surrendered to the Allies to ene the European theater of World War Two.
If you want details about it, please click here.
To mark the date, I post this picture:
On the campus of Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, May 4, 1970.
Forty years ago today.
This picture posted to mark the event.
History often seems to repeat itself.
Some times, it's as if the thing happening now is exactly like a thing that happened in the past.
Some times, it's as if a Bell curve is unfolding before you.
For example, John F. Kennedy was a handsome, charismatic man in his 40s who was elected to office. While in office, however, he was assassinated.
He was followed by Lyndon B. Johnson, a politician from Texas who got the United States involved in an unpopular land war in Asia -- back then, in Vietnam.
George W. Bush was a politician from Texas who got the United States involved in an unpopular land war in Asia -- this time, in Iraq.
He was followed by Barack Obama ...
Just saying, folks. Just saying.
This is another commonplace post. It's by Larry McMurtry, author of The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment, Lonesome Dove, and other books. It appeared in the March 24, 2005 issue of The New York Review of Books:
After visiting Tombstone (Arizona), I realized that the reason the O.K. Corral is so persistent in our culture is really quite simple; it's one of those lucky places where history is instantly converted into money. Much of the history may be ersatz, but all the money is real.
The last words of gangster Dutch Schultz have puzzled men since his death in 1935. Some think it's a code. Some think it's garbled nonsense and a very good imitation -- if unintended -- of the writings of Gertrude Stein.
Details of his life are here.
And here is a link to a transcription of the words themselves, which I put in my blog for your possible enlightenment and amusement.
Hitler was mass-murderer crazy -- that is, he would go into a place and spray everyone there with bullets.
Stalin was serial-killer crazy -- that is, very secretive and furtive.
Hitler never had the atomic bomb, so we don't know definitely if he would've used it. But I believe he would have.
Stalin did have the atomic bomb, but he never used it -- and neither did any of the other men who followed him as rulers of the Soviet Union.
So you could say one thing about that. The communists were tyrannical bastards -- but SANE tyrannical bastards.
recently, i've been thinking about obscure history.
i don't mean history that's been obscured because it was hidden and or suppressed, like the soviet union did when it was in existence. i mean history that's been abandoned or discarded: more or less in the back of the public's collective mind like a box that's been put into storage and then forgotten.
one example of this is the horse seabiscuit. in 1938, according to the book about him by laura hillenbrand, he was the number one newsmaker in the united states: not clark gable, lou gehrig, adolf hitler, howard hughes, benito mussolini, pope pius xi or franklin roosevelt. he went above and beyond sports, much like michael jordan did when he was playing basketball.
as the years passed, few people thought about him. i remember his name was often used in jest about horses and their lack of speed on the race track.
but in 2001, hillenbrand wrote her book. that put seabiscuit's name back before the public. i bought a copy of it and admit i only read half of it before i put it down and forgot about it -- ironically, much like the public did about him.
sometimes i wonder what famous or infamous subject of these days will be forgotten, then, because of fate or chance, is remembered in the future.
addenum, aug. 30: i had some time during the last two weeks, so i read seabiscuit. i enjoyed it very much. i haven't seen the movie, and don't know if i will. i'll see what happens.
i'll post this now to get it out of the way and so i don't have to do it tomorrow.
sunday, february 22, will be the 276th anniversary of the birthday of george washington,
he's one of the most honored, if not most honored, presidents of the united states -- and rightly so.
not only did he lead the continental military to victory over the british in the war of independence, he served by acclimation as the first president of a newlyborn nation in a political office that was, at that time, truly unique. nations had kings and tyrants as their chief executives, but never one who was elected by the citizenry.
and to his credit, washington never acted like a king or a tyrant. he set the tone for the presidents who followed him. most of them, however bad, followed it.
so to honor washington, i just might go out and buy something -- and use onedollar bills to pay for it, because his picture is on it.
and his picture is on the unit of currency that gets tucked most of the time into the g-strings and thongs of strippers. i bet he'd be proud of that.
i don't know if he had a sense of humor, or if he showed it. but i'd like to think he'd laugh -- if only to himself or with only his wife, martha, present -- at this catmacro based on a painting of him by gilbert stuart:
the portrait is also known as the athenaeum. it was left unfinished at stuart's death in 1828.
again, sir -- i wish you a happy birthday, wherever you are. and i also wish you many, many thanks
first, happy 200th birthday to abraham lincoln.
sir, you and theodore roosevelt were the only republican presidents who were worth a damn. i don't count dwight eisenhower as a republican because he wasn't one fulltime and since his youth
(a sidetrip in this post: although warren harding was a fool and his administration was full of corruption, he did one good thing: he freed eugene debs, hoosier and socialist, from prison because he was against world war one.)
also, congratulations to your number one fan, so to say: barack obama, who got an economic stimulus bill passed by congress this week.
i saw this picture on the net and downloaded it. i think now is the best time to use it.
presidents' day will be this monday. that's the day where the country honors all of its presidents, and not just lincoln and george washington. but i know one man who refuses to do that because, as he told me, "there's no way in hell i'm going to honor richard nixon!"
also, happy 200th birthday to charles darwin. but i note it with mixed emotions, because many of my fellow citizens don't believe in the theory of evolution. if you want to read a story about it, please click here.
it's wonderful to read, huh? it's truly uplifting and heartwarming. it makes me feel very optimistic.
to call these people my "fellow citizens" presses my tolerance to its limit. many of them are evangelical protestants and bible literalists. they consider me, a deist, to be a hellbound sinner and a terrible american.
as for you, i hope you don't have such foolish beliefs. i also hope your day was satisfactory.
a big part of american history includes white people ripping off black people. two examples are profits from cotton farming in the south, along with rock and roll.
i feel about half guilty about it. my ancestors didn't own a plantation, so they never exploited any slaves or indentured servants, more or less.
but i do like rock and roll.
so i listen more often to classical music, and i'm beginning to like it more and more. whatever you might say against it -- oldgeezer music, irrelevant, boring, etc. -- no one can say it rips off blacks in any way.
today is the 45th anniversary of the assassinatin of john f. kennedy. that got me to thinking ...
in my post of november 5 about barack obama's election, i said that the great interest and excitement he brought to people reminded me of the great interest and excitement people felt about kennedy. i even noticed it at my young age -- i was a gradeschool student during his administration.
the day kennedy was shot, i was 10 years old and in the fourth grade. it happened on a friday; just before 3 p.m., when school was to be dismissed, the school's principal came to my classroom and told us the news.
rain was falling, and i imagined that the angels in heaven were crying about the sad news. (i was much more religious then, so please give me a break.)
then came the long weekend. lyndon johnson, the new president, declared monday, november 25 as a national day of mourning.
it seemed like nothing much happened. most of that time i was watching television, like most of the country. and i was shocked, like most of the country, when i saw jack ruby shoot lee harvey oswald.
when i wasn't inside i was riding my bicycle, especially in the neighborhood of a girl on whom i had a crush. i won't tell you her name, but the first letter of her first name was t. she and i were in third grade together, but she was transferred to a new school for fourth grade.
i especially remember riding my bike on sunday, november 24, 1963. the day was sunny in that way it sometimes is during the fall and winter; the light was white and bright but not warming in any way.
i stopped a couple eof houses from where t. lived, but i went no further. i was paralyzed -- from fear of rejection or of the unknown, i don't remember -- so i didn't go by her house, or even up to her door and ask for her.
yes, i'll admit it now -- i was a gradeschool stalker.
politically, you could say that november 22, 1963, was the day the music died. it was the first of several tramatic events -- such as the vietnam war and the protests against it, the assassinations of malcolm x and martin luther king (with its attendant riots) and robert kennedy -- which made it seem for many people that a lot of hopes and dreams went into the toilet and were flushed away.
also --
i have no way to prove this point, but it seemed that american society started to change in another way. it started scheduling holidays on mondays so people could take a threeday weekend. they weren't that prevalent in the 1960s, but became more so in the 1970s and beyond.
*
addenum, november 23: the website gawker has several pictures of the day and place of jfk's shooting. please click here to see them.
*
addenum, november 26: by coincidence, i came across some notes this weekend about the assassination. i was going through some old notebooks to find things i can use in this blog or elsewhere.
i wrote them on november 22, 1993 -- exactly 30 years after the shooting.
in the notes, i wondered how reckless he was and if the open air car he rode in dallas was an invitation for assault. i think kennedy might've had a death wish because he was suffering from addison's disease and under severe pressure from his father.
i also wondered how committed he was to the advancement of civil rights for blacks and for withdrawl from the vietnam conflict.
but i was thankful that he was elected in 1960, because that meant richard nixon didn't become president -- then. that had to wait until 1968.
nixon was a convenient symbol of the lowermiddleclass wing of the republican party -- vindictive, smallminded, angry and resentful. it's an attitude that has run through the party for as long as i've been watching it.
for the last few weeks, the financial news has been astounding -- $700 trillion? -- and at times, very frightful.
some people say it's been the worst financial crisis since the great depression.
for those out there, i have these things to say: don't be afraid. and don't do anything rash, like this man's grandfather did.
i found it on the net and present it for your inspiration.
During my recently surfing of the internet, I found this cover of the February 1970 issue of Circus magazine, which was devoted to rock and roll/popular music in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
