'Tis the reason...

 There's a tiny town in Indiana named South Whitley, which is odd because north of South Whitley there is no town named Whitley. South Whitley is due east of Fort Wayne and just north of Bippus. Another tiny town named Etna is nearby.

The only reason to mention South Whitley is that Janie Fricke was born there on this day in 1947. Ms. Fricke moved to Nashville and made some records.

She shares a birthday with the noted chanteuse Edith Piaf, born in Paris, France in 1915. Piaf was known as the Little Sparrow. She set the standard for a generation or two of French balladeers.

I think the title of this tune is "No, I'm not sorry."

Which brings us to a more contemporary event that happened on this day in 1998. Just before adjourning for Christmas break, the US House of Representatives passed two articles of impeachment against president Bill (Bubba) Clinton. They said he lied to congress and obstructed justice. The Senate later declined (somewhat shamelessly, in my view), to convict.

Here's another tune that fits the theme of today's blog post. Please enjoy...

Musical Birthdays Galore

 Today (December 12) is the birthday of many well-known musicians and a few not quite so well-known. If you can spare about twenty minutes out of your busy day (and I suspect you can), please help me celebrate the birth of these folks.

We begin with two members of the Rat Pack -- Sammy Davis, Jr. and Frank "Ol' Blue Eyes" Sinatra. Sammy was born in Wilmington, NC in 1900. Little-known fact: he started his musical career as a drummer! Francis was born in 1915 in Hoboken, NJ. 

Sammy and Frank were buddies and it is rumored that Frank intervened on Sammy's behalf with certain [ahem] influential folks in Vegas to open some doors there for Sammy. 

Rumor has it that a guy named Musk plays "Fly me to the Moon" at every staff meeting.

Another New Jersey product born on this day (Newark, 1937) is Concetta Franconero, better known as Connie Francis. I'm reluctant to post a Connie Francis video because I really did not like her singing very much. But you might, so...

And we have to include Dickie Betts on our birthday list (Bradenton, FL 1948). Dickie is best know as a key member of the Allman Brothers band. Imagine playing guitar well enough to join Greg and Duane Allman! 

It's 1957, Oakland, CA. Shiela Escovedo is born. She became a drummer and singer and songwriter and a good pal of Prince Rogers Nelson (aka Prince), who wrote this song. She helped bring funk to the masses and for that we should all be grateful

And finally, there's Eric Schenkman, born on this day in 1963 somewhere in Massachusetts. He co-founded the Spin Doctors, who wrote and recorded one of my favorite little ditties. Enjoy!

Waits and Brautigan: Wrong for all the Right Reasons

 It's the birthday (1949) of Tom Waits. He was born in California, went to high school in Chula Vista, and describes himself as a "rebel against the rebels." This has been interpreted as a rebuke to the hippie culture in SoCal during his teens and a nod to the earlier beat generation -- the Kerouacs and Ferlinghettis and Brautigans. Waits is said to have been inspired by Bob Dylan and other early folk-rock figures.

Mr. Waits is a brilliant songwriter and dedicated individualist. I really like his stuff, especially the holiday classic "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis."

 Brautigan and Waits shared an affinity for the mundane and the absurd, as in this little gem from Brautigan:

Private Eye Lettuce

Three crates of Private Eye Lettuce,

the name and drawing of a detective

with magnifying glass on the sides

of the crates of lettuce,

form a great cross in man’s imagination

and his desire to name   

the objects of this world.

I think I’ll call this place Golgotha

and have some salad for dinner.

--------

The Double-Bed Dream Gallows

Driving through   

hot brushy country

in the late autumn,   

I saw a hawk

crucified on a

barbed-wire fence.

I guess as a kind   

of advertisement   

to other hawks,   

saying from the pages

of a leading women’s   

   magazine,

“She’s beautiful,

but burn all the maps   

to your body.

I’m not here

of my own choosing.”

--------------

Thanks for stopping by and please enjoy some music and poetry of your own choosing.

Thanks a Bunch

On this day in 1921, John Bunch was born in Tipton, Indiana. Tipton is the county seat of Tipton County. It is roughly half way between Indianapolis and Kokomo. I don't think I've ever been to Tipton, but drove past it dozens of times. One of my old bosses worked at the mental health center in Kokomo. John Bunch was a pianist and formed the cleverly-named John Bunch Trio. They were on TV a few times and sold some records.

Here's Mr. Bunch and his pals.

This is a good excuse to dust off another classic about Kokomo

I have invited folks to comment on this blog and some of y'all have been generous enough to do so. But I am in a bit of a wrestling match with Blogger about comments. I want to respond to comments with clever or snarky or supportive ripostes, but I can't seem to comment on my own blog, much less respond to comments left by others. This is strange and frustrating (at least to me). Blogger's help feature has been no help at all. So...do not misinterpret my lack of response to your comments: I do read and enjoy them!

Thanks, a bunch, Blogger.

Movies, Poetry, Family, War

On this day in 1931 Shintaro Katsu was born in Fukagawa, a suburb of Tokyo known for its geishas. He grew up to become an actor, singer, producer, and director. He directed the seminal martial arts movie "Zatoichi Meets the One-Armed Swordsman."

I've never been to Japan, but the titular focus of this old blog, Richard Brautigan, spent a year there (1975/76), which culminated in his poetry collection "June 30th, June 30th." Here is a short poem from the book, in which Brautigan remembers the feeling of never fitting in, never being entirely comfortable -- except perhaps at the game arcade!

Pachinko Samurai

I feel wonderful, exhilarated, child-like, 

perfect. 

I just won a can of crab meat*

and a locomotive** 

What more could anyone ask on May 18,

1976 in Tokyo?

I played a game of pachinko

/ vertical pinball /

My blade was sharp. 

*real 

**toy

The only person in my immediate family to have been in Japan (so far as I know) is my father. He flew several missions from Okinawa to the main islands of Japan in the late stages of WWII, including some transfers of Japanese POWs just after Japan surrendered. In our back hall closet hangs a silk embroidered smoking jacket he got in Japan. One of my sisters has the Samurai sword he brought back.

Fukagawa was also where the esteemed Haiku master Basho lived for a time. Here's a Basho poem, translated, curiously enough, by Robert Hass.

Taking a nap, 

feet planted 

against a cool wall.

Hoagy

On this day in 1899, one Howard Hoaglund Carmichael was born in Bloomington, Indiana. Carmichael, known to everyone as Hoagy, was a great songwriter, credited with many contributions to what some still call the Great American Songbook.

I lived a couple blocks off campus in Bloomington, and there was a little diner nearby called The Gables. I ate lunch there often because they offered students a punch card deal -- twelve meals for the price of ten, or something like that. Their beef commercial was cheap and filling.

In the back at The Gables stood an old upright piano with a small plaque commemorating the fact that Carmichael wrote many of his hits there, when the building was a bar. Here's Diana Krall crooning a Carmicheal tune. Enjoy!

Confusing Civic Nomenclature: Midwest Division

In a recent TV news story, the reporter referred to “The University of Indiana.” As you surely know, the official name of the school (my alma mater) is Indiana University. There is a school called Indiana State University in Terre Haute (French for ‘high ground’ even though it’s really not very). There is also a school called Indiana University of Pennsylvania because it is in the city of Indiana, Pennsylvania.

So far as I know, only one major university has officially tacked “The” in front of its name:

The Ohio State University, although the official name of Rutgers includes an emphatically capitalized 'the':

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. But there are a half dozen other state universities or colleges in New Jersey.

I worked at The Ohio State University when the name and logo were changed, which lead to no perceptible difference on campus. Coincidentally, I lived on Indianola Avenue in Columbus. There’s another school in Ohio called Ohio University. It’s in Athens, OH. I think the founders of Athens had unrealistic aspirations.

I did a stint as a student teacher in Columbus, Indiana. Columbus, IN, billed itself as the Athens of the Prairie not in homage to Athens, Ohio, but because Columbus, like the Original Athens, boasts many fine buildings designed by famous architects. The famously high architecture fees were paid for by the founder of the Cummins Engine Company because he liked nice buildings. My student teaching gig, which did not go well, was at a school designed by famous architect Eliot Noyes,

who apparently knew little about schools but a lot about poured concrete.

I worked for a time in the architecture department at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, two cities named for a city and county in Ohio. The founders were not very imaginative. The main campus library is underground. Even the architects I worked with at U of I did not know why.

So be careful when people talk about Indiana or Columbus or Athens or Urbana or Champaign or any school associated therewith; you might want to get some clarification.