there are decades when nothing happens, there are weeks when decades happen
I am quoting Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov or as he was better known, Vladimir Lenin.
So what?
Later on I will also be quoting Marx.
ANYWAY . . .
I have aged 10 years in the couple of months.
I say that as the last couple of months have lasted 10 years.
Or is it that the last couple of months seem like one long day.
If it has been one long day, a month of these days would be years long.
Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November, all the rest have thirty-one Except for April which has 8000
Groucho Marx once said, “My favorite poem is the one that starts ‘Thirty Days Hath September…’ because it actually means something“
I have no idea what he would say about any of this but I am sure it would be funny.
Most likely he would have said, “It’s quitting time in New York.”
Mr. Groucho did say “I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.“
That would suit me fine right now.
If I listen to Mr. Marx and Mr. Lenin, and if I have just that one day, today.
Then I am going to be happy in it.
That that day is lasting forever is not such a bad thing.
She was writing about all the things people are doing during this stay-at-home period.
She commented on coronactivities.
I love that word and I am going to embrace it.
Ms. Hadley was referring to learning to bake bread or reading (or attempting to read) Finnegan’s Wake.
Which calls to mind an anecdote that I cannot place right now but someone (maybe William Shirer?) who said he could never get through Finnegan’s Wake but by chance he was somewhere where James Joyce was doing a reading of the book.
The man wrote that the text came alive when read in a Irish accent and phrasing.
But I digress.
I also have never opened a copy of Finnegan’s Wake.
STILL!
In defence or defense (depending on which side of the Atlantic Ocean you are on – I love how my spell check throws out defence) of thinking extremely stupid deep thoughts, let me say this.
JUST DO IT.
I am allowed to do so.
Browse pages of cowboy boots I will never order and wouldn’t wear if I did.
But I can imagine it.
Reread old books for the fun of it.
I looked up Double Trouble for Rupert and Triple Trouble for Rupert on archive.org.
Books I haven’t thought about in 50 years.
They are still worth the time.
I log on to the website for the Desoto Beach Hotel on Tybee just to watch the live beach cam.
I plan to be there on my 60th birthday this summer.
I plan to get up and watch the sunrise out of the Atlantic Ocean.
What has that to do with social distancing?
Will that help locate toilet paper?
Will it help pay or provide for all the out of work barbers?
Will it hurry along my stimulous check?
Not much, nope, nope and nope.
But I get to spend my time planning.
I am reminded of the scene in the movie Amadeus where it is suggest to Mozart that his choice of source material is not what it should be.
“Surely you can choose more elevated themes,” says the Baron Von Swieten.
“Elevated? What does that mean? Elevated! Come on now, be honest. Wouldn’t you all rather listen to your hairdressers than Hercules? Or Horatius? Or Orpheus? All those old bores.” replies a flustered Mozart.
I am spending my stay at home thinking extremely stupid deep thoughts.
Nothing against the corornactivies.
I think it is great folks are cooking and eating and reading.
Going back to Ms. Hadley, “This isn’t just about giving yourself a break from thinking about the coronavirus, although God knows we could all do with one. You cannot read dystopian headlines all day without collapsing in on yourself like a dying star. Instead, it’s about giving yourself permission to still be a human being.”
Permission to still be a human being.
Why?
As Mr. Joyce writes in Finnegans Wake, to “Make me feel good in the moontime.“
flavors and textures spicy hot, tangy sweet, crunch banh mi on my mind
John Thorne was a foodies before there were foodies.
I guess there always were foodies but there were gastronomes,
As the online dictionary says, one with a serious interest in gastronomy or more simply, a lover of good food.
Mr. Thorne was writing a food blog before there were blogs.
His NEWSLETTER, Simple Cooking, was available by subscription and MAILED out quarterly.
I first heard about Mr. Thorne from reading Jim Harrison.
Harrison wrote in his essay, Consciousness Dining (Smart Magazine, 1989), “But for day-in day-out innovative brilliance and lucid prose, Thorne is my favorite.”
That is good enough for me.
I also appreciate, as Mr. Harrison did, when he wrote about Mr. Thorne, “On a long warm flight from New Orleans, He [Thorne] imagined that the two pounds of Boudin in his suitcase were spoiling, so ate all on his arrival.”
Mr. Harrison calls that ‘timeless wisdom.”
Prompted by Mr. Harrison’s recommendation, I searched out Mr. Thorne’s cookbooks but I never subscribed to his newsletter.
The Thorne Cookbooks, Outlaw Chef, Serious Pig and Pot on the Fire are part of my permanent library, the books that will always move with me no matter how much I downsize and may be on my burn list.
In Pot the Fire, (North Point Press, 2000), I first read about the Vietnamese sandwich, the Banh Mi.
Thorne wrote, “I had no idea what they were. I also had no hesitation in giving on a try. The truth is that I have always had a weakness for anything that comes packaged in a French roll. I bought one, took it out to the car, ate it and went straight back in and bought another. One bite and I knew I was into a good thing.”
Just from reading the essay, a craving burrowed in the soul of my appetite and stayed there.
Nagging at me from time to time.
A gustatory longing.
I could feel the crunch of the crust of the French roll.
I could taste the flavors.
I could feel the spicyness.
Just from reading,
But as I was living in Grand Rapids, Michigan at the time, it was a longing that looked doomed to be unfilled.
But the thought of Banh Mi stuck in my mind and if I ever had the chance I was going to try them.
Then through a chain of events I ended up living in Gwinnett County, Georgia.
Take everything you think about when you think about the south and stop thinking it.
Moonlight and magnolia are no longer a part of this part of Georgia.
From 1996 (The Atlanta Olympics) to now, the population of Gwinnett County, (named for Button Gwinnett – one of Georgia’s three signers of the Declaration of Independence) has grown from around 200,000 to just under 1,000,000.
9 out of 10 people in Gwinnett are not from Georgia.
1 out of 4 people in Gwinnett are foreign born.
There is been a lot of impact due to this and nothing is more evident then in the restaurants.
You can get anything and I mean anything you might want to eat.
And I can get Banh Mi.
There are at least 5 Vietnamese restaurants within 5 miles of where I live.
I feel the crunch of the crust of the French roll.
that freedom highway Nobody can make us turn back land made for you, me
The other night before she had to go to bed, my grand daughter asked me to sing the ‘Goodnight Song.”
There isn’t a lot of common overall agreement on anything these days.
You might get 73% of the people to agree that the sun rises in the east.
I beleive however that you could get 100% on my inability to sing.
It is odd as I come from a family of noted singers and musicians.
But not me.
Just not musically inclined.
At least from a performance point of view.
I took piano lessons for 3 months when I was in third grade.
Then the teacher had a nervous stroke and had to give up teaching.
Draw your own conclusions from that true episode in my life.
Later on I discovered I have no natural sense of rythym.
I have to count in the gaps of ‘Hail to the Victors Valiant’ or I will stand up in Michigan Stadium and yell ‘HAIL’ all by myself.
I sing good enough for the grand children and that’s good enough for me.
The Good Night Song is usually Good Night Ladies using an arrangement by a folk song trio named the Limeliters.
You might think it hard for 1 person to sing in three part harmony but when you can’t sing, normal rules don’t apply.
Last night I thought of singing Good Night Irene.
Which led down a trip across Mr. Lincoln’s mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone.
I was thinking what exactly were the lyrics to Good Night Irene?
Which, when you think about it, is a dumb question for a song that goes
“Irene, good night, Irene, good night Good night, Irene, good night, Irene I’ll see you in my dreams”
In my mind I could hear a version of the song sung by the Irish Rovers.
My Dad loved the Irish Rovers.
My Dad loved the Limeliters too.
Which is why we had their albums in the stacks of records next to the family stereo.
But that wasn’t the version I was thinking of.
I was thinking of a version that I heard on TV when I was a kid.
I can’t remember who was watching with me, but it was a LIVE FROM WOLFTRAP program on PBS featuring Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger.
The more I thought about the more I wanted to see if I could find and I was off to the Information Super Highway.
I was really hoping to find a video of the concert.
It wasn’t the song I really wanted to hear again.
What was on my mind was a story that Arlo Guthrie told before he sang the song.
Mr. Guthrie related how one time during the depression, his father, Woody Guthrie, was out traveling with his band and found himself both in Chicago and out of money.
Mr. Guthrie told how his father and friends walked into a record company and Woody Guthrie and his band made a recording of ‘Good Night Irene.’
It was so good, the record company offered Woody and the band a contract.
Woody looked them there record company fellers in the eye and said, “No Sir! $50.”
Them there record company fellers were quick to hand over $50 for a contract giving them the rights to recording.
“My Dad and his band walked out with the $50”, said Mr. Guthrie.
And then went to 27 other record companies in Chicago.
As a side note, during my daily ZOOM meeting for work, someone asked what concerts everyone one was watching online, mentioning Elton John and the One World: Together At Home Global Special.
I announced I watched Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger from 1978 on YouTube.
The conversation paused for a second and went back to Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani.
As I said, I watched the video but something wasn’t right.
Good Night Irene wasn’t in there.
Nor was another song I remembered.
A song about the folk hero, Reuben Clamso, who defended the New England coast from rogue giant clams.
To this day, at any random moment, I am apt to break out in full voice and the chorus;
Poor old Reuben Clamsoooooooooo Clamso, boys, Clamso Poor old Reuben Clamsoooooooooo Clamso, me boys, Clamsoooooooooooo
Try this if you ever want to get some stares in a mall.
But it wasn’t in the video.
What goes on here I wonder.
Were there other shows?
I looked to the YouTube page.
The user who posted the video wrote;
“I am unsure if this is the complete show or not – I have heard that the original airing was about 90minutes, and rebroadcasts were cut down. This is the only known version that I am aware of.“
The YouTube version is 70 minutes.
There is 20 minutes of the show I remember watching that is missing.
Further down in the comments was this statement,
“This is the cut-down one. The original airing was live, and they cut a couple of tunes. I remember, as a teenager who lived in the DC area, calling up WETA, the station that aired it, and bitching, and I ended up speaking to the actual guy who edited it. He was really nice, and explained that they had to to cut it down to meet something-or-another that the other stations they distributed to needed. Near as I know, the original never existed outside of the original broadcast.”
This is right up there with Hadley’s Suitcase but another time.
Interesting to the point almost beyond belief.
On a random Saturday night in August when I was 18, I watched this show.
A show that, “Near as I know, the original never existed outside of the original broadcast.”
Somehow it stuck in my brain and apparently though I heard it once, I still sing RUEBEN CLAMSOOOOO.
I have a relative who works at that PBS station in Washington and he is going to hear from me about any possible archives.
From working in TV, I know how often this type of request comes in.
“I was on the BOZO show in 1965. Is it possible that your archives …”
Archives?
At a TV station?
Let me say here that keeping reels of film and boxes of video tape is nothing like keeping a copy of the daily newspaper but I digress.
And I will reach out to my cousin in DC.
So I watched Arlo and Pete from 1978.
There were lots of other YouTube clips to watch and sing along with.
And I did.
Two in particular.
They were both from another concert at Wolf Trap and again in August but this time in 1993.
I got chills just listening to the opening chords.
There is so much history behind the song.
There is so much history in the song.
Robert Kennedy was asked once what he would do if elected President.
“Change the National Anthem to This Land is Your Land,” he replied.
For me, that would have put Robert Kennedy up with Thomas Jefferson’s serving ice cream in the White House on my list of worthwhile Presidential acomplishments.
Can you just imagine in it?
Opening a baseball game or a football game with EVERYONE SINGING This Land is Your Land.
Picture an Olympic Medal ceremony where those crazy American’s actually SINGING their National Anthem.
As Big Bill would say, “a consummation devoutly to be wished” but most likely not to be.
I went back to World Wide Web and looked up the complete lyrics to This Land is Your Land.
I came across this verse.
Verse 5.
In the squares of the city – In the shadow of the steeple Near the relief office – I see my people And some are grumblin’ and some are wonderin’ If this land’s still made for you and me
WHOA.
WAIT ONE MINUTE HERE.
Where did that verse come from.
How had I never seen it before?
Made me think that the ghost of Woody Guthrie came back and added that verse just for today.
My Church just posted a video of how the Cross Pointe Food Bank opened its gates and the cars lined up IN THE SHADOW OF THE STEEPLE for miles.
My wife asked, where do the people without cars go?
The other song I clicked on was Arlo singing Amazing Grace.
I like Amazing Grace.
I like it a lot.
It has kind of become the American Lament De Jure (or is it defacto) for funerals.
Sad to me as I am not sure that a lot the people who sing it understand the Grace they are singing about.
Maybe they do at that.
So Arlo talks about the song and what it means to him.
If you are familiar with Arlo Guthrie half the fun is listening to him just talk.
In this talk about Amazing Grace, Arlo pointed out, back in 1993, how messed up the world was and what a gift that was.
Arlo pointed out that if everything was going well and everyone drove gold plated BMW’s, think how difficult it would be to help someone.
Think how it hard it would be to stand up and make a difference.
Arlo said that with the world so messed up, it was EASY to make a difference.
Again, I had to wonder, did somehow this conversation get recorded and saved to be heard today?
Never in the field of human endeavor can so little be done by so few to help so many.
I tell you one thing, with a 2.2 TRILLON DOLLAR relief package out of the way I NEVER AGAIN WANT TO HEAR SOMEONE ARGUE that the GOVERNMENT can save $4.8 Billion by cutting food stamps.
We ARE the GREATEST COUNTY on EARTH.
Maybe in HISTORY.
LETS PROVE IT!
Near the relief office – I see my people …
Near the relief office – I see MY people!
I don’t want anyone to wonder If this land’s still made for you and me.
And as far as I can do anything about, I will.
Nobody living can ever stop me As I go walking that freedom highway; Nobody living can ever make me turn back This land was made for you and me
squabble and squabble squabble squabble and squabble and squabble squabble
CNN Anchor Chris Cuomo was quoted saying recently that he was tired of, “talking to Democrats about things that I don’t really believe they mean” and “talking to Republicans about them parroting things they feel they have to say.”
Mr. Cuomo also said, “It is frustrating to do this job in an environment where people are not interested and open. It is hard to practice journalism when people are so intent on believing what they want to believe for political advantage.”
I am quoting the New York Post but I don’t mind as I am not trying to get on Mr. Cuomo’s case for being tired of what he does or who he interviews or even his thoughts on his job.
But I find the “hard to practice journalism when people are so intent on believing what they want to believe for political advantage’ pretty funny.
In the long on glorious history of politics is there any other reason for people to believe what they believe?
I am reminded of Minister of Administrative Affairs, The Right Honourable Jim Hacker, MP, when he described who read the newspapers in Britain.
Jim said, “I know exactly who reads the papers. The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country; the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; the Financial Times is read by people who own the country; the Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country, and the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.”*
If updated for today in these United States and Television, you might say:
I know exactly who watches TV News. NBC is watched by people who think they run the country; CNN is watched by people who think they ought to run the country; CBS is watched by the people who actually do run the country; ABC is watched by the wives of the people who run the country; MSNBC is watched by people who own the country; PBS is watched by people who think the country ought to be run by another country, and FOX is watched by people who think it is.
My point being whether it was newspapers or TV or other media outlets, I am attracted by ideas that I agree with.
Back in the day I shared a ride to work with my good friend Elaine.
When I drove we listened to NPR.
When she drove, we listened to a local Christian radio station, WCSG.
It was two different news cycles and rarely did any story make the crossover.
I didn’t mind that.
I thought it was interesting.
A new perspective.
I don’t mind who might watch which tv networks or why.
Because I seek out views that I agree with.
I don’t get what Mr. Cuomo is mad about.
I do mind that regardless of the channel or network, the show is the same.
squabble and squabble squabble squabble and squabble and squabble squabble
Come on folks.
Where is that off button?
*Yes Minister, in Series 2, Episode 4 – 1987- A Conflict Of Interest by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn
No Haiku For You 