This Guy Is Still Alive?

Pat Boone. The very name conjures up some vague and misty saccharin-sounding memories of the 1950s, what with writing love letters in the sand and all that. Never mind that devil-made-me-do-it "heavy metal" album he made in what, the 1980s?

I'm surprised to learn that he is still alive and writing for that wingnut wacko website, WorldNetDaily. Remember them? --- they are the ones famous for "swiftboating" John Kerry way back in 2004.

Now, thanks to Wonkette, we learn that not only has Pat Boone's career path taken an ugly turn or two, but that now he is officially not only batshit crazy but also senile:

This is the 50th anniversary of the film “Doctor Strangelove.” Ironic, if not prescient. […] There’s a different scenario unfolding in this country we love, right before our eyes, and we’re reading about it in the daily papers and seeing it on the nightly news broadcasts. What if our elected leadership had decided America no longer deserved to be leader of the free world, should have its military and its programs reduced to ineffectual status, our vibrant economy bankrupted, and that our republic should be “fundamentally transformed” into a virtual socialist, if not outright communist, society?

Cue Scooby Doo: "Unh-Hyunhhhnh???"

What if the elected president and his attorney general, both sworn to defend the Constitution and the security of the United States, decided – even made public statements – that they would not defend the laws concerning our borders and a mass invasion by illegal aliens, including near certain terrorists with plans for future 9/11 style attacks in our own cities? Even crazier than “Doctor Strangelove,” right? Couldn’t happen? But wait. Are you old enough to remember the name Willie Horton?

Willie Fucking Horton? Really, Pat? Really?

Well, Pat, I guess it's time for you to put on some of those White Buck Shoes and kick some Negro ass. But you know, not all the Negroes -- just them white-woman-rapin' Negroes. Like Willie Horton. Not the "good Negroes" -- I'm sure you know one or two.

Goddammit, I wish I had some old Pat Boone records, just so I could toss them into a record-burnin' bonfire. The same bonfire that the wingnut Religious Right wackos used to burn "the devil's music" back in the day. The same bonfire that the Rethugs and those in their righteous thrall used to burn The Dixie Chicks records because one of them, the dastardly unpatriotic BITCH, had the nerve to criticize Baby Doc Bush. In public.

But sad to say, I never really had any Pat Boone records. I had a lot of Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Little Richard (back before he went religio-insane) and the like. But none of that spongey-fuck crap that sounded like the singer (i.e., Pat Boone) had a mouthful of Santorum...

The Day the Music Died

If you are of a certain age, you will recall 1972 when Don McLean's abnormally-long ballad, "American Pie", hit number one on the charts and was widely interpreted as being "about" the 1959 deaths of musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valenz and the Big Bopper.

But there are more connections, some that may be kind of fanciful and some not, and they've all been put together by a guy named James Waller in a "culture map" that is surely worth taking a look at, if not for the music-connection theories then for the clever use of Internet technology that illustrates them.

It's called, naturally enough, The Day the Music Died. See how Buddy Holly connects to Charles Manson and the Altamont Concert!

Oh, and while you are there, take a look at another culture map, this one called Propaganda by the Deed: Anarchism in Revolution.  Or take your pick from dozens of other culture maps -- they have a lot of them.

It's true that these are some ultra-simplified presentations of some super-complicated connections, but I'm a sucker for this kind of thing... See my New Years Eve post on apophenia.

165 "Lyrically Questionable" Songs

Quick, what do all of these songs have in common?

New York, New York by Frank Sinatra
Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap by AC/DC
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da by The Beatles
Wonderful World by Sam Cooke
Johnny Angel by Shelley Fabares
I Feel the Earth Move by Carole King
Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin

There doesn't seem to be any common thread tying these songs together, does there? Yet they are all on a list of 165 songs dubbed "lyrically questionable" in a memo that Clear Channel Communications sent to the radio stations it owned.

The date? Shortly after September 11, 2001. Talk about overreacting.

To be fair, Clear Channel didn't come out and say that the stations couldn't play any of these songs -- it was just a "suggestion".

But Jesus, Frank Sinatra, Carole King and Shelley Fabares? Really?

Time for a Boogie-Woogie Break!

Here are famous world champion French Boogie-Woogie dancers, William Mauvais and Maéva Truntzer, dancing to the music of the equally-famous Swiss piano player, Silvan Zingg, with Nuno Alexandre on bass and Simon Shuffle Boyer on drums.

Wow!

Sam Cooke Died 50 Years Ago Today

One of my very favorite performers from the late 50s and early 60s was the legendary Sam Cooke. He died 50 years ago today, shot to death by a motel manager in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Morgue Files blog has a moving tribute to his life along with a detailed report on his death. It's worth reading, to get an insight into the troubled life and tragic death of one of America's most influential artists.

In the meantime, here is my own tribute: From 1960, Sam Cooke singing his classic, "Chain Gang", with video from the documentary film American Chain Gang, from Chain Gang Pictures:

Just Two Years Later: Another Anthem

Just two years after Louie Louie was the Anthem for a Generation, we got another one:

This time it's not the beat -- it's the words: "The eastern world, it is explodin'..."

Yeah... Hard to believe it was 45 years ago. But you know the old saying, "Time's fun when you're having flies..."

Louie Louie by the Kingsmen

The anthem of a generation:

I was 18 in 1963, and this was, up until the Vietnam War heated up and we were all being drafted, the anthem of our generation. Never mind the words, it was all about the beat...

Another Dealy Plaza Shooting

It's all there: A vintage Lincoln, the pergola, the Dal-Tex Building, the Grassy Knoll, the perch on which Abraham Zapruder stood to shoot the famous 8-mm film, even the Texas School Book Depository from which Lee Harvey Oswald did not fire the shots that killed JFK.

It's probably THE most-photographed urban area in America, if not the world, but there's something ... different ... about this video.

Maybe it's the fact that it's a video shoot that features musical performer Erykah Badu walking down the sidewalks of Dealy Plaza slowly shedding her clothing until she is finally completely nude at the foot of the Grassy Knoll.

At which point something surprising -- but ultimately not unexpected -- happens.

You'll just have to watch the video.