John Lennon Video: Watching The Wheels

I remember this song playing that terrible December day (Dec. 8, 1980), when John Lennon was assassinated. I was at home on the Upper West Side of NYC, and could hear dozens of sirens. Just a few blocks away, John Lennon had just been shot.

I was listening to Vin Scelsa on the WNEW-FM 102.7, and he broke in crying, telling us his good friend John had just been killed at The Dakota. Friends like Jerry Melin called, and my friend Cheryl Hardwick called and insisted we needed to drink some wine together. Of all the stupid killings over the years, this one hurt the most. It's hard to convey how much this one hurt. 27 years later, things have not much improved. No one knows what the years would have brought, but I don't think it would have been so bad to hear John's take on the 21st century.


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The New York Times May No Longer Be Actually Printed In Five Years

This echoes Michael Corleone telling Kay "The Corleone family will be entirely legitimate in five years." But I think the New York Times may keep its promise. Arthur Sulzberger, a very rich dude, owner, chairman and publisher of the most respected newspaper in the world, is in the middle of a transition from print to internet. He may be thrown out of the wagon before it gets there, however. Morgan Stanley, his banker, recently seems to have launched a campaign that will cost Sulzberger control of the paper.

"I really don't know whether we'll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don't care either," said Arthur Sulzberger.

Read the story by Eytan Avriel on haaretz.com here. This is a shocker. The New York Times is a great 'paper, and it hurts to think of the day when I can't carry it along with me. We have subscribed every since we moved from NYC 25 years ago. It's hard to picture the day when we are cut off. Sure, we'll still be able to print it all out on 8 1/2 x 11" paper. But that is not the same. On the other hand, when is the last time you saw anyone under, say, thirty holding a newspaper?
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Painting: Old Glory

. . .click the painting to enlarge. . .

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Poem: Changes 34/ The Power of the Great

1
A goat butts against a hedge
It cannot go backward
It cannot go forward

2
You can give up
Your stubborn ways
And not live to regret it

When your inner worth rises
And comes to power
Its strength passes the median

That deadly middle point where
You rely on your head of steam
Asking what's next instead of what's right

3
The gates of success begin to open
Resistance falters
And you forge ahead

If you perservere chiseling away
At the resistance
The obstructions fall into pieces

4
Your power may not show
Like a prairie schoover

Whose strength lies in its axle

Your tenuous hold on earth

Is disguised by a long shadow

When you are tethered

To the ground

By the soles of your feet
And a theory of gravity.

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Fear Of Flying, Fear of Dying

What do Jack Brummet, Isaac Asimov John Madden, Dennis Miller, Billy Bob Thornton, Kate Bush, Muhammad, Ray Bradbury, Cher, Florence Henderson, Glenda Jackson, Michael Jackson, Bob Newhart, Ronald Reagan, Elisha Cuthbert, Doris Day, Aretha Franklin, Tony Kornheiser, Kim Jong-Il, Matthew Sweet, Richard Wright, David Gilmour, and John Gotti have in common? We're all scared s***less of flying (or were, in the case of the departed. . .none of who actually perished in an airplane); we're all aviophobes.

There are even fictional characters in our ranks, like B. A. Baracus of the TV series The A-Team. They usually have to slip him some heavy drugs, or knock him out with a punch to get him on a 'plane. And Tyler from Snakes On A Plane is in the same boat.


illustration from http://www.fearofflyingdoctor.com/

When my fear of flying comes up in conversations, people remind me that being a hard core commuter, I am at far more risk going to work than I am flying off somewhere. False! According to the wikipedia "there is no way to unambiguously validate or invalidate this notion. While there are far more automobile deaths per year, that is mostly due to the far greater number of automobiles in society. In the United States, the number of fatalities per 100 million miles traveled is slightly higher for commercial air travel than for driving! with rates of 1.9 versus 1.3, per 100 million miles traveled, respectively.

"The risk, however, that someone randomly selected from the general population will die in an aviation accident during a single year is far higher for motor vehicles (1 in 7700) than for aircraft (1 in 2,067,000). The air travel statistic includes small commuter flights, which, if excluded, would improve the air travel statistics; however, the number of motor vehicle deaths do not include motorcycles, which, if included, would substantially worsen the motor vehicle risk." I don't ride motorcycles.

Travel on commercial airlines is reasonably safe; when you toss in the Cessnas, Lear Jets, home-builts, and Beechcrafts, flying becomes far more dangerous. And air travel in developed countries is several times safer than air travel in developing countries, a statistic I remember every time I fly to Mexico.

Another thing people tell you is that most aviation accidents (like car accidents) are due to human error rather than mechanical failures. But, you know, that does little to assuage my angst. In fact, however, I am probably less afraid of flying than I am of flying and then not flying; it's not the air that spooks me so much as the ground!

Link to my poem, "Notes On Flying."
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Reverend Haggard says he is "cured," and no longer gay

Ted Haggard, the disgraced former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and head of one of the largest churches in the country, says he has emerged from three months of intensive counseling convinced he is now "completely heterosexual." Reverend Haggard was outed about three months ago by a male prostitute he patronized. He lost his pulpit and he lost his position with the evangelical association.

All This Is That articles on the Reverend:

"I am a deceiver"

President Bush Silent On Recent Ted Haggard Revelations

Rev. Haggard hauls out the old reliable "just the tip" and "I didn't inhale" defense

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Happy Birthday To Ronald Reagan (President, 1981-89)

Happy birthday to 40th President Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004). Ronald Reagan was also the 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975) a film and television actor, and a spokesman for General Electric. At 69, he was the oldest person ever to be elected President of the United States.

You think we were shellacked in the 2004 Presidential election? Take a look at how Reagan owned Walter Mondale in '84:

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Prince at the Superbowl

Prince slyly outdid Janet Jackson without even whipping out his willie! No outrage, no FCC fines, no blacklisting. . . Which reminds me of a story. After Jim Morrison was busted for indecent exposure at a concert, the other Doors were very angry. At the band meeting they asked him why he had exposed himself. "I wanted to see what it looked like in the spotlight."
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Bright lights reported over Midwest skies: Have the Chicago UFOs headed west?

From Wisconsin to Des Moines and St. Louis, people reported seeing balls of fire, possibly meteors, streaking across the sky Sunday night, according to the Associated Press

"No major meteor showers were expected in the northern hemisphere on Sunday night, "said Jim Lattis, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison astronomy department's Space Place.

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Painting: the heat signature of my head

click painting to enlarge

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Lyrics and video: The Pretenders' "Back On The Chain Gang"

click 2x to play...


I found a picture of you, oh oh oh oh
What hijacked my world that night
To a place in the past
Weve been cast out of? oh oh oh oh
Now were back in the fight
Were back on the train
Oh, back on the chain gang

A circumstance beyond our control, oh oh oh oh
The phone, the tv and the news of the world
Got in the house like a pigeon from hell, oh oh oh oh
Threw sand in our eyes and descended like flies
Put us back on the train
Oh, back on the chain gang

The powers that be
That force us to live like we do
Bring me to my knees
When I see what theyve done to you
But Ill die as I stand here today
Knowing that deep in my heart
Theyll fall to ruin one day
For making us part

I found a picture of you, oh oh oh oh
Those were the happiest days of my life
Like a break in the battle was your part, oh oh oh oh
In the wretched life of a lonely heart
Now were back on the train
Oh, back on the chain gang
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Up With. . .Down With People

Last night, we went to see Down With People play at the Lo Fi performance gallery (what a fantastic space), on Eastlake Avenue. My old friend Scott Boggan's band rocked the house, accompanied by a fascinating, pulsing light show by Michael Laton! And four go-go dancers! Ron Nine has a great array of pedal effects, and used a Theramin to great effect. This band takes the best of the psychedlic and garage worlds and put on a flat out great show.

Down With People play high-octane garage-psychedelic-pop music. They sounded great tonight--better than the last time I saw them at the Crocodile two years ago (although I really hoped they'd play Brian Eno's Needle in the Camel's Eye, which they played as an encore the last time I saw them). Ron Nine returned to the band after Love Battery called it quits a few years ago, and these three high school pals, resurrected their band from 20 years ago. Michael Laton's light shows are always fantastic. I think he got his start in the San Francisco 60's doing light shows for some of the heavy groups. If you get a chance, go see these guys.

You have to admit, this is about the best band name of all time...
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