47 years ago today, The Beatles first played Seattle and fished from their hotel room window

Three bucks!

By Jack Brummet
Rock Editor

47 years ago today, The Beatles first appeared in Seattle at the Seattle Center Coliseum (now called The Arena) and fished from their hotel room at The Edgewater Inn.  According to an article by Greg Lange and Alan J. Stein on historylink.org:



"That evening, the opening acts took to the stage beginning at 8:00 p.m. At 9:25 disc jockey Pat O’Day from radio station KJR, Seattle's leading Rock and Roll station, introduced the Beatles. The crowd went wild.

Ringo fishes from his hotel room at The Edgewater Inn on Elliott Bay

"Screaming fans made the noise in the Coliseum deafening and few if any could hear the songs. The Beatles played: "All My Lovin’," "Twist and Shout," "You Can’t Do That," "She Loves You," "Can’t Buy Me Love," "If I Fell In Love With You," "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," "Boys" (sung solo by Ringo Starr), and "Roll Over Beethoven." They ended the concert with "Long Tall Sally."

"During the concert, hundreds of teenage girls rushed the stage in the hopes of catching the eyes of their idols. Police and firefighters did their best to prevent injuries, but 35 people required first aid treatment, ranging from bumps and bruises to all-out hysteria. One girl was restrained on a stretcher, all the while screaming "Paul! I love you!"

"The Beatles waited an hour before leaving the Coliseum in the rear of an ambulance that returned them to the heavily guarded Edgewater Inn on the waterfront. They earned $34,569 for their performance."

I got to see them there two years later, when I was 13.  That was one of their final shows.  After leaving Seattle, they played two shows in California, and never played in public again except for the famous rooftop concert around their album.

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Libya News: another mid-east domino topples

All this king's horses, and all the king's men (not to mention the long-faithful all-female guard [about which, see our earlier article here]. could not keep Muammar's regime intact.  From this morning's New York Times:

"Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's grip on power dissolved with astonishing speed as rebels swept the capital, declaring victory. Colonel Qaddafi’s precise whereabouts remained unknown and news reports said loyalist forces still held pockets of the city, stubbornly resisting the rebel advance. Overnight, in Tripoli’s central Green Square, the site of many manufactured rallies in support of Colonel Qaddafi, jubilant Libyans tore down posters of him and stomped on them. The rebel leadership announced that the elite presidential guard protecting the Libyan leader had surrendered and that their forces controlled many parts of the city, but not Colonel Qaddafi’s leadership compound."

Previously on Quaddafi on ATIT: The women a/k/a Amazonian Guards charged with keeping Muammar Qaddafi in one piece

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Faces No. 245 - org chart

By Jack Brummet
[analog-digital hybrid; hand drawn 24"x24" canvas digitized into photoshop]

click to enlarge

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Faces No. 244 -- Shadowland

Drawings by Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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Great Britain's attempt to turn Adolf Hitler into a woman

By Jack Brummet,
Military History Editor

When World War II seemed like it would never end, with Germany's unending pursuit of real estate, America dragging her feet, and the relentless Blitzkrieg pounding London almost nightly, British spooks cooked up a plan to insinuate Hitler’s food with female sex hormones (e.g., estrogen) in hopes of taming the killer inside him.


Counterintelligence agents came up with a plan to smuggle doses of estrogen into his food to make him less aggressive.  The Fuhrer, natch, had a battery of food tasters.   But estrogen is colorless, tasteless, and odorless, and works slowly.  The food tasters would never detect it.

[Editor's note:   This reminds us of the wacky CIA plans cooked up in the 60's to poison Fidel Castro's cigars, and another one to slip him drugs that would make his beard and hair fall out.]

The Allied plan to nudge Hitler into womanhood is just one of the many bizarre plots detailed in a cool new book: Secret Weapons: Technology, Science And The Race To Win World War II, by Brian Ford.  You could buy a copy here.

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Poem: Getting Crowded

 

Getting Crowded
By Jack Brummet

We cover the earth
With Venn Diagrams

As our steps
Bisect old steps.
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Faces No. 243 - night school

Drawings by Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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Think Progress's "10 things you need to know about Rick Perry"

Via Pablo Fanque, All This Is That National Affairs Editor

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Not To Scale - Smoke Farm LoFi Arts Festival (Photos) & Cafe Nordo treehouse dinner

By Jack Brummet, Arts Editor

I spent last Saturday at the Not To Scale - Smoke Farm LoFi Arts Festival at Smoke Farm
near Arlington, WA.  The festival features site-specific work in all visual and performance media--all spread across something like 300 acres a couple of rivers, creeks, and rugged hills.  Perhaps the most interesting thing we did that day was the Cafe Nordo dinner.    After you signed up (21 of us), they told you to come to the barn sober at 6:00 with good walking shoes. We paid our $20, were blindfolded and driven about ten minutes to a trailhead. Then we made the brutal hike to our dining destination, fording three creeks, dozens of fallen trees, and muddy steep hills up and down. But then we arrived at a beautiful treehouse 30 feet up an old and very large cedar tree, where were fed excellent chow paired with very good wines (see the menu, below).

Titanium Sporkestra plays at the bonfire (love these guys)

Daryle and Susan at the bonfire.  Daryle ran a great treat shack at the fest.

A sculpture that becomes part of an aerial performance

A tree in a tree 0n the hike to our treehouse dinner

Susan at the treehouse, with the salad granita

Our servers by the hoist

Michael by the tree

the menu

Titanium Sporkestra

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Faces No. 242 - the downsizing meeting

Drawings by Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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Fun with fruit

"Shut It Down, America" - Let's take Howard Schultz's suggestion and close our purses and wallets

By Jack Brummet, Ethics Editor

and
Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

We could follow our earlier advice and "throw the bums out."  But we just might end up with a President Bachmann, or President Nader.  Or, we could take up Howard Schultz's suggestion and starve them out.  Eliminating all campaign contributions would seriously shake the pumpkin.

"This means not kicking the can anymore. It means reaching a deal on debt, revenue, and spending long before the deadline arrives this fall. It means considering all options, from entitlement programs to taxes." - Howard Schultz

illustration © 2011 by Jack Brummet

A "throw the bums out" movement won't really change anything, because politicians thrive on backbiting, sophistry, backlash, and factionalism.  But choking off the supply of cash to all politicians would surely have desired effect. It is the thing they fear the most.

Let's give it a shot.  In the words of Tina Fey, "Shut it down America!"

In his--now--widely distributed email dated today, Schultz wrote:

August 15, 2011

Dear Fellow Concerned Americans:

Our country is better than this.

Over the last few weeks and months, our national elected officials from both parties have failed to lead. They have chosen to put partisan and ideological purity over the well-being of the people. They have undermined the full faith and credit of the United States. They have stirred up fears about our economic prospects without doing anything to truly address those fears. They have spent a resource even more precious than the dollar: our collective confidence in each other, in the future, and in our ability to solve problems together.

As leaders in business, we have watched all this unfold, first with frustration and then with dismay. Like so many of our employees and customers, we are gravely concerned about the current situation. Today, with both humility and urgency, we propose to do something about it.

First, we aim to push our elected leaders to face the nation's long-term fiscal challenges with civility, honesty, and a willingness to sacrifice their own re-election. This means not kicking the can anymore. It means reaching a deal on debt, revenue, and spending long before the deadline arrives this fall. It means considering all options, from entitlement programs to taxes.

This is what so many common-sense Americans want. That is why we today pledge to withhold any further campaign contributions to the President and all members of Congress until a fair, bipartisan deal is reached that sets our nation on stronger long-term fiscal footing. And we invite leaders of businesses – indeed, all concerned Americans – to join us in this pledge.

We also believe in leading by positive example. And we believe that while the long-term fiscal challenge is serious, even more painful to millions of Americans today is the immediate crisis of jobs. Tens of millions are unemployed and underemployed. Right now our economy is frozen in a cycle of fear and uncertainty. Companies are afraid to hire. Consumers are afraid to spend. Banks are afraid to lend. Record levels of cash are piling up in corporate treasuries, idling. That cash is not being used to expand operations, train new workers, underwrite new ventures, or spark innovation.

The only way to break this cycle of fear is to break it. The only way to get the country’s economic circulatory system flowing again is to start pumping lifeblood through it. That is why we today issue a second pledge. Our companies are going to hire. We are going to accelerate growth, employment, and investment in jobs.

We do this because we want to set in motion an upward spiral of confidence. We are not waiting for government to create an incentive program or a stimulus. We are not waiting for economic indicators to tell us it’s safe to act. We are hiring more people now. We invite leaders of businesses across the country to join us in this pledge as well – and to bring their stakeholders into the effort. Confidence is contagious. The best thing we can do now is to spread it.

This is a time for citizenship, not partisanship. It is a time for action. We don't pretend that our two pledges are quick fixes. We just believe that in this moment of great uncertainty, the government needs discipline, the people need jobs – and leaders need to lead.

Our country is better than this. Let’s get things moving now.
Respectfully,

Howard Schultz

Other recent relevant posts on ATIT:
"Throw The Bums Out" - images from a quick web search
Throwing The Bums Out Does Not Mean Replacing Them With Teabaggers
"Throw the bums out!": more reflections on the deficit fiasco

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