I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Laramie, Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES— a traveling exhibition entitled Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love— the Pakistani-born American’s first Pacific showing of forty works (often with his signature palette of emerald greens) — is at the Honolulu, Hawaii Museum of Art to October 8th.
YOUR WEEKEND READ #1 is this story by The Bulwark writer Tim Miller …. who spent weeks listening to right-wing pundit Candace Owens (w/o hardship duty pay) … and relates how she navigates Trump, has a few good thoughts yet — otherwise — provides social-change-is-bad! Americans … with lotsa comfort food.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Willow the Hero Cat— the winner of the Moggy Marvels category in Britain’s National Cat Awards for alerting a woman’s boyfriend (by biting on his leg when he was asleep) to her slipping into a diabetic coma … and thus, he was able to summon an ambulance in time.
FOR THE LATEST NEWS on the resistance to Binyamin Netanyahu by Israeli citizens … the X … ahhh, still Twitter (to me) account of Noga Tarnopolsky is filled with vivid photos and short back-stories on key people.
YOUR WEEKEND READ #2 is this commentary by Jim Geraghty — a (not-insane) writer for National Review— detailing how several state GOP committees have become irrelevant over in-fighting, purity and loyalty tests, with this quote:
Prudence, diligence, coalition-building, and cooperation — sure, those traits might not quicken your pulse, but they are required to get the job done. You cannot bellow, snarl, table-pound, and rage your way to an effective state or local party organization.
FRIDAY's CHILD was (safely) extricated from a vehicle’s engine by firefighters in Akron, Ohio and taken to a local animal rescue shelter.
YOUR WEEKEND READ #3 is this short essay by economist Robert Reich, detailing how in a speech 35 years years ago: he had a petite mal seizure similar to Mitch McConnell (and wasn’t even aware of it) … and while noting the harm McConnell has done concludes, “On another level, he and I — and all of you reading this — share the same terrifying fragilities of being human. I wish him well”.
BRAIN TEASER— try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC ...… and the usually easier, less UK-centered New York Times quiz.
SEPARATED at BIRTH— Zbig (born 1928), Hef (born 1926)
...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… blues fan that I am: upon looking, it appears that I have never had any sort of profile on a pioneering electric blues guitarist. No less an authority than B.B. King said, “He was the first electric guitar player I heard on record. He made me so that I knew I just had to go out and get an electric guitar.” So, it’s time to remedy-the-situation ... fifty years after his death.
Aaron Thibeault (T-Bone) Walker was born in eastern Texas in 1910, then his parents split and his mother brought him to Dallas. She and his new stepfather were musicians and one visitor to their home was guitarist Henry Blind Lemon Jefferson (whose name inspired the band title Jefferson Airplane) and a teen-aged T-Bone served as a “lead boy” — bringing the blind man to bar gigs.
Walker began playing with a medicine show as well as a sideman to the blues singer Ida Cox (whose song Four Day Creep was a Humble Pie concert favorite). He relocated to Los Angeles in 1934 and made the switch to electric guitar a few years later, although he found work quickly as both a big band singer (and even dancer).
He became a featured guitarist in 1939 with the Les Hite Orchestra, before moving out on his own in the 1940’s. He was quite a showman: able to do splits onstage, play behind his back and even pick with his teeth.
In 1942, he helped a struggling Capitol Records with some hit singles such as Mean Old World, and then went on to a series of different record companies throughout the 40’s and 50’s. Songs such as T-Bone Shuffle, West Side Baby and others made him popular in the jazz world as well as among blues fans, in addition to his magnum opus (which will be noted later).
As with many of his peers: his career had a downturn from the mid-50’s to mid-60’s rock era; instead finding success travelling in Europe on folk music tours in the early 60’s. Over the last ten years of his life his career had a re-birth, as many rock fans discovered his status as a pioneer, with recordings charting again and club dates once again coming his way.
He won a Grammy in 1970 with Good Feelin’ and his last recording came in 1973: produced by Jerry Leiber/Mike Stoller, Very Rare featured an all-star backing band. He suffered a stroke in 1974 and died in 1975, six weeks short of his sixty-fifth birthday.
His legacy is immense: Chuck Berry acknowledged that his duck-walk was inspired by T-Bone and Jimi Hendrix emulated his playing with his teeth. T-Bone Walker was inducted posthumously into the Blues Hall of Fame (in 1980) and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 (as an Early Influence) and in 2015 he was ranked #67 in Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.
That song I’ve referenced as his magnum opus is, of course, his 1947 single Stormy Monday— whose title is listed in all manner of words — and is a blues classic, recorded by innumerable performers (across all musical genres). It is listed in the Grammy Hall of Fame, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll and the Library of Congress’s National Registry.
They call it Stormy Monday But Tuesday's just as bad Wednesday's worse And Thursday's oh, so sad
The eagle flies on Friday And Saturday I go out to play Sunday I go to church, Then I kneel down and pray
Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy on me Lord have mercy, my heart's in misery I'm crazy about my baby Please send her back to me