THE VOLUMES - I LOVE YOU - CHEX REORDS - DOO WOP 45RPM

The version below has better sound, but it's cut short.  Here's the entire cut. 

Volumes - I Love You

We're often given to believe that popular music in America before the Beatles had fallen into some kind of malaise.  People will mention Frankie Avalon and Fabian as examples of how the industry was trying to create new versions of Elvis or something out of whole (plastic) cloth, and dumbing down music in the process.  True, as far as it goes, but nowhere near the entire story.  

This cut is from 1962, and it's as good as anything cut before or since.  There was a lot going on between, let's say, 1959 and 1964.  It just wasn't all rolled up into one package.  It was spread out, from California to Oregon and Washington, from Texas to Cincinnati, from Chicago to Boston, from New York to New Orleans, and back to Cleveland! 

Blame the industry.  Who needs a hundred great acts that you can sell 10,000 each of, when you can find one Elvis that can sell a million!  They're still reaching for that brass ring.  Music has suffered accordingly, but let's not blame it on the artists. 

The Confederate Flag Kerfuffle

One of the kerfuffles that is currently dividing Americans and distracting them from their real problems is the debate about the meaning of, and the proper usages for, the Confederate flag.  Americans in general have suddenly become aware that reverence for that flag has a distinct racist component, and white Southern Americans in particular have thereupon dug in their heels for the right to employ it as a symbol of pride and a matter of cultural heritage.  As so often happens in kerfuffles, neither side is entirely right, nor entirely wrong.

Let’s be clear about two things:

1. Flags have meaning.  They are powerful symbols for the political entity that they represent; and

2. Revisionism is a bad thing.  Political entities and historical events must be judged on the facts, as they were at the time.

I’m about to go off on the Confederacy, for which I have no sympathy.  The Civil War was a horrible idea, rashly begun, and millions of people suffered needlessly because a handful of artificially wealthy men got their panties in a twist.  But first I want to admit that I believe that the individual white Southerners who constituted the Confederate Army deserve our respect, and that they do, indeed, have my respect.  Those brave fellows were not asked to vote on the war; they were not consulted in any way.  The war was presented to them as a fait accompli.  They were only asked to “defend their homes,” and their “way of life.”  That they did so, and the manner in which they did so, were generally honorable.  (Without making a list of the dishonorable things, let’s just say except for the treatment of Union prisoners.) 

That’s the soldiers.  The generals, I’d say, were less admirable, because they knew much more of what they were doing.  But even the generals had little to say about the starting of the war.  They also fought and died in a war that was not of their invention.  I prefer to judge them on their actions as generals, rather than judge them harshly on the decision to fight for their states. 

The Flag

Having said all of that, the flag in question, the Confederate flag, is the banner of a political entity that had no right to exist from the beginning.  The United States had existed for almost 100 years, all of the states in the Confederacy had signed onto the Constitution of the United States and all of the amendments thereto, and all of the politicians in the Confederate States had sworn allegiance to the United States and its constitution.  Rather than honor their commitments, they turned away from the country of their birth, created an insurrection, and started a traitorous war against their own country.

They did this for one reason:  to preserve and institutionalize the system of human slavery that had made some of them rich. 

And yes, I can say that so straightforwardly.  The Confederate States wrote a constitution of their own, and it tracked the U.S. Constitution in remarkable detail, with one exception.  Slavery was codified, and the rights to own slaves, and to profit from their labor, and to buy and sell them as freely as you might sell a desk, were guaranteed. 

That’s what the flag stands for.  It stands for an insurrectionist pseudo-government that was pro-slavery, white-supremacist, anti-black, and at war with the United States.  Revisionism notwithstanding, there are no two ways to look at it.  It marks one for a fool to suggest with a straight face that it was a war over “states’ rights,” or a “war of Northern aggression,” or "a war between the Confederates and the Federals,” as though they were two sides of the same coin. 

Back To The Kerfuffle

The last month has been quite an education about the various flags used by the Confederacy and their utility.  The flag that we now recognize as the Confederate flag turns out to be the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia.  So be it.  It is, nevertheless, the very Confederate flag itself in our memory and in current usage. 

I think that there are two true things about this flag:

1.  There are many honorable, non-racist people in the South for whom this flag is a symbol of the struggles of their forbearers during the Civil War.  They see that struggle as having been honorable, based on what they believe to be their forbearers’ honest feeling that they were defending their region.  In light of the entirety of American history, this is not hard to understand.  The key element running through the formative years of America was “local control.”  The thirteen colonies rejected not only control from England, but also control from the other colonies, later the other states.  I think that it would greatly overstate the case to say that the entire Civil War was fought over the issue of “states’ rights,” because it was so specifically about slavery.  This is obvious from a reading of the history of the ten years leading up to the war.  It is, however, fair to say that there was a measure of local control in the minds of non-political, non-slave-owning Southerners that were caught up in the war; and

2.  A very substantial number of the white Southerners now waving the Confederate flag and complaining about some kind of a genocide of white Southerners are using the flag as a symbol of racism and white supremacy, in the same spirit in which the Civil War was declared. 

In light of number two, and in spite of number one, I believe that the flag has no place in modern discourse, and its display outside of historical contexts should be condemned. 

A Word About Confederate Monuments

Within the last month, this flag kerfuffle has spread to include Southern institutions and municipalities named after prominent Confederates and monuments to Southerners who died in the war.  This is almost certainly overreaching on the part of the righteously indignant.  The individuals whose names are invoked, and more certainly the individuals whose sacrifices are memorialized, do deserve their place in the historical context.  Defacing statues of ordinary soldiers is a cheap way to advertise one’s non-racist, politically correct bona fides.  Stone Mountain Georgia should remain safe in its impressive and imposing dignity.  Sure, some of the racist element will employ these monuments for improper purposes, but the monuments themselves remain valid expressions of historical recognition. 

The flag should go back to the museum, but the monuments can stay.

STUDENTS - EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK

This song played over the end credits of a Sopranos episode that I watched the other night.  I loved the guitar part, doubtless the inspiration for The Bristol Stomp by the Dovells a few years later.  Doubtless?  Maybe not.  Those chords were kind of in the air at the time. 

I was sure that it was Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, so I had a hard time finding it on the 'Tube.  But the Internet is amazing these days, and I quickly found a couple of sites that list every song played in every episode of the Sopranos.  The Students!  From Cincinnati!  Great job, fellows.

Teaching Trip To Korat

The official name of the province is now Nakorn Rachasima, but no one seems to call it that.  Thais prefer to stick with the traditional name, which is Korat.

I got to the Moachit bus station in Bangkok with no trouble, but then everything went to hell pretty quickly.  Note to self:  from now on always go to the bathroom and buy a couple of sandwiches BEFORE buying the tickets.

The NOW problem.  Now means something different in Thailand.  In Thai or in English, the concept is viewed in a different light.  I bought the ticket and asked, in good Thai, when the bus was leaving.  The answer was, "now."  They even had a guy bring me to the bus.  I told him that I would like to use the bathroom first and he said that I had to get on the bus "now."  I sat on the bus for a half hour before we finally left.  I'm sure that it was still "now."

The ticket said "1st Class," and the bus said, "1st Class," but really it was a lousy old bus from the get-go.  Zero suspension; tired air-con; uncomfortable seats with no arm rests; exposed wiring some of the lights and speakers.

The trip to Korat should be three and a half to four hours, and the first two and a half hours were trouble free.  Then something broke, the hydraulic system or something.  Maybe the clutch?  That vocabulary is over my head.

The crazy Farang sitting behind me started mumbling immediately.  "This is not good," over and over again.  We were the only two Farang on the bus.  I'd seen him at our fueling stop, standing over to the side making weird faces and repetitive, circular hand movements, and had there and then resolved not to talk to him under any circumstances.  I didn't have to worry.  Within a few minutes of the bus stopping, he took up all of his things, put on his hat, and got off the bus in the middle of nowhere.  I didn't see him anymore.

We were there for two and a half hours before another bus stopped.  Same company, at least ten of their buses had passed us already.  This driver was also a bus mechanic, and he had some ideas.  Our own driver and the "bus assistant" had been poking around to little purpose beyond getting dirty with the oldest, rustiest set of tools in a ratty back-pack that you've ever seen.  The new guy began supervising, and within fifteen minutes or so something in the bowels of the bus gave up all of its pressure with a huge sigh.  The new guy seemed pleased and prepared to leave, buttoning up his shirt.  He had been joking with me me a little bit and talking at some length to another passenger that I had also become friendly with.  We were about the only passengers on the bus, us and two Tamils who never looked anyone in the eye, including each other, preferring to glare off into space.  My friend was a factory mechanic and he was interested in the proceedings; I found standing around outside equally uncomfortable so I switched off between outside and sitting on the hot bus. The driver exchanged words with my friend and he told us not to make a fuss but to keep quiet and come with him, he only had two free seats on his bus.  The rest of the passengers had to soldier on. 

To be fair, this was only the third time in over ten years that a bus had broken down on me in Thailand.  

So I left the house at 8:50 am and got to Korat at 5:30 pm.  I was so hungry that I ate at the bus station.  The tuk-tuk to the hotel was a bright spot.  He gave me the Thai price right away and was a very nice guy, very helpful regarding buses back to Bangkok.  I gave him a forty Baht tip and he was wildly appreciative.

I had booked and paid for the hotel room on Agoda dot com, but the hotel was not expecting me. I didn't have a print out, but I did remember the confirmation number.  That didn't really help.  I fired up my Chrome Book on the wi-fi and showed him the confirmation.  He was still lost.  He made a couple of notes and went back to the office for a while.  When he returned, he had a paper from his "manager," and said the manager told him that it was all good.  They got confused the next day too when I didn't check out.  I got back from teaching and they thought that I was going to check out late and leave.  No, I explained, I paid for two nights.  They issued a new room card and I could stay in the same room, so it could have been worse. 

The hotel was only okay.  I won't give the name, because they had so much trouble with the Agoda that I don't know if I trust them.  It was okay, though.  There was hot water, the free breakfast buffet was great, and the air-con worked.  Only Sy-Fy and the Universal Channel on the TV, plus a soccer channel in English.  The rest of the channels were in Thai.  So it was two days of House, and Law and Order, and 500 Mile Per Hour Storm.  (I only watch Sy-Fy in hotels, and of all things the last time I stayed in a hotel the same movie was playing.  500 Mile Per Hour Storm is okay, for a Sy-Fy movie, but isn't it funny how these things work out?)  One wall in the lobby was covered with pictures of military aircraft, most of which were signed by pilots and crew from many other countries.  The U.S., Singapore, Australia, Europe was in there too.  Some signed their names, some their call-signs, some both.  Thor; Minion; Bookworm.  Many said, "To Top and the rest of the staff at the ___________ Hotel."  Top sounds like a call-sign too, so maybe the owner of the hotel is a former pilot.   I guess there's a big training air base nearby. 

Later on I went to the lobby to inquire about the less-than-intuitive wi-fi in the rooms.  I rode down on the elevator with an old Asian man who probably wasn't Thai.  He was dressed like a Commodore, white military cut suit, white peaked cap, white shoes.  We smiled but only I spoke, I tried Thai and English but neither worked very well.  When we got off at the lobby he took a handful of amulets out of his pocket and gave me one.  The only thing he said the whole time was, "good luck!"

Teaching and the return trip were uneventful.  The bus coming back was much nicer, cooler and more comfortable, and I got to watch Lucy in Thai.  It's nice to travel, but it's oh, so nice to come home.

Fathers' Day Note

Fathers and sons, maybe there's always a little tension in that relationship.  Almost all fathers are imperfect in the role; almost all children don't live up to the limitless hopes and dreams that parents have for them.  This stuff ain't easy. 

 The following is a letter that the great Michelangelo sent to his father back in long ago Florence.  I got it from a magazine called Lapham's Quarterly, which has a generous website and is always worth a look. 

Father vs. Son

Dearest Father—

I was amazed at your behavior the other day when I didn’t find you at home, and now, when I hear that you’re complaining about me and saying I turned you out, I am even more amazed; for I’m certain that never, from the day I was born till now, have I thought of doing anything, great or small, to harm you; and always all the toils I’ve endured, I’ve endured them for your sake. And since I came back to Florence from Rome, I’ve always looked after you, and you know I confirmed that all I have is yours; and indeed it’s only a few days ago, when you were ill, that I told you and promised that I would do my best never to fail you as long as I live, and this I confirm. Now I’m amazed that you’ve forgotten everything so soon. Yet you’ve tried me out these thirty years, you and your sons, and you know I’ve always thought about you and helped you whenever I could. How can you go around saying that I turned you out? Don’t you see what a reputation you’re giving me when they can say I turned you out? That’s all I needed, on top of my worries about other things, and all for your sake! A nice way you have of thanking me!

Back to Khun Fred here.  So, fathers, and sons too for that matter, are often guilty of unreasonable expectations or ingratitude.  It happens. 

Happy Fathers' Day to all of the dads out there in general, and to my own father and my sons in particular.  (One son a father already; another son aspirational at this point.)  If you did the best that you could, or if you're doing that now, your conscience is clear.  Being imperfect is not your fault.  

I hope that you had a great day!

Heard You Missed Me

How's that title for wishful thinking?

I've been busy, and that other thing that can make a blogger go quiet.  One month in America, denied access by my friends at Google.  Came back to teach the summer term.  Then proctoring tests.  Then moving to a new (rented) condo.  It's been a busy, slightly stressful time.

Just settling into the new place now.  Very interesting.  It's on the 12th floor and it has a nice view.  One great component of the view is that I'll be able to watch them build this thing.  The tallest building in South East Asia at a proposed 615 meters.  The Rama IX Super Tower, named for Thailand's king, I'm pretty sure, although it does front on Rama IX Road.  Okay, both named for the king, most likely.  125 floors!  Not a bad design, to my eye.

So don't worry, I'm fine.  More wishful thinking!