Johnny Burnette Train Kept A Rollin'

Of all things, the guitarist came across the knowledge of how to create this tone by accident. The secret is a slightly loosened tube, probably one of the power tubes. 

I still have a Bearsville CD of Johnny Burnette's Greatest Hits that includes this version of this song. It's the most expensive CD that I've ever owned, I think I paid $34 for it at Tower Records in Marina Del Rey in the late 1990s. My ex-wife and I always had Friday dinner at ChanDarette, a Thai Fusion place down there. I was usually a little lit after a long dinner, so there were times that I splurged on things like this. Twenty-five years and I still love it, so I guess it was worth it. 

World Wide Anxiety Update

The other day I mentioned a certain event that was so powerful that it was making the entire world simultaneously anxious. That's an interesting idea.

Consider how many cultures there are in the world who generally remain unaware of current goings on outside of their little area, people who live in the margins of the earthly life. Some live out in the woods, like the Amazon, or Papua New Guinea, and some live in countries that don't get a lot of press, and don't generate a lot of economic activity, and concern themselves almost entirely with their own way of life. Well, even the people out in margins are getting sick now, so they're on board. They're anxious too.

Come to think of it, I knew a Euro-hippie woman back in the 1970s who was so completely disinterested in the world at large that when I mentioned that Patty Hurst had been convicted of that bank robbery, she looked genuinely confused and said, “who is Patty Hurst?” Wherever that woman is now, I wish her well. She was fourteen ounces of life in a twelve ounce bottle. My guess is that she is aware of this new plague. And she's anxious about it. She had a son, and she's probably a grandmother by now. So yeah, she's anxious about it.

What about the entire countries that usually don't give a shit? Like Lao, for instance.* Lao is a fairly large country with a population of about seven million. It is located north and east of Thailand; north of Cambodia; and west of Vietnam. It's mostly mountainous, and it's almost completely undeveloped. There are places so remote that if you could get there by helicopter, you might find herds of wild elephants, this is up in the mountains. That's also where most of those gray Asian leopards live. People live up there too, hill tribes mostly. Almost no one ever goes to Lao, maybe some NGO types, and foreign construction engineers working on dams or hydroelectric plants. A couple of tourists, but not a lot, mostly in Luang Prabang, which is pretty, but wildly overpriced. Well Lao just got their tenth confirmed case yesterday. They do a lot of across the river business with Thailand, so you can bet that they've all heard about it by now. And you can bet that the disease is spreading, and that they're anxious.

You can't hardly get away from this thing already, and the numbers are still small. Iceland, check. Tajikistan, check. It's everywhere. And it's a sneaky fucker too, half of the people with the virus never show symptoms. They have no fever, no cough. They're just out there breathing on us. It's mysterious! I'm sure that the virologists are fascinated by the entire thing. I wish them Godspeed coming up with a vaccine. None of us will be letting out breaths out until that happens. Even then, this sneaky little fucker might mutate! What form might that take? Well, this virus is “novel,” so no one can even imagine! What fun.

Top marks to Taiwan, they really leapt into action at the first sign of trouble. Plus, they have one of the best and most modern health care systems in the world, and a government that is set up to get things done expeditiously. They got great results. Singapore did a fine job too, and Germany seems to be working it hard. Iceland did okay. Lots of places are doing better than average.

Lots of places are doing below average, and many places are just plain fucking it up. Some are engaged in magical thinking that allows them to believe that if they mimic some of the things that other countries are having luck with, they'll be able to beat the virus down to a dull roar in the same way. They're concentrating on the optics. Brother, I wish it were that simple. Some countries are still scratching their heads, looking for a way to make money off of the virus or achieve political supremacy. There are a couple of them in Europe; I can't speak for the entire world. People who are terrified are easily manipulated. Let's see, who's going to die, anyway? Who would they have voted for? My own miserable country displays its unfortunate tendency to monetize everything, to use any distraction that presents itself as an excuse to enhance their group's political power, to use any excuse for a Federal bailout that will go mostly to filling certain people's pockets, to make self-serving comments to the press to assist them in making the stock market their own personal ATM machine, and to invent cute but inappropriate nicknames for the virus to turn the whole matter into a racist mess.

That's our choice now. The lucky ones only have to worry about the virus, but they are sure that their country is doing all that it can to keep the number of deaths down, and they live in countries where getting top-notch medical care is a right, not an expensive privilege. They'll get their jobs back as well. That's the lucky few. Then there are the people who are worried about the virus, living in countries where this is stretching the medical establishment to the breaking point, but at least they know that they'll come out of this with their democratic freedoms intact, without having incurred major debts in the attempt to keep their families alive. Many people are stuck in countries where the medical and political responses have been inadequate, and the virus is already being used as an excuse to eliminate or weaken their democracies. This group includes America and Israel. Several democracies have already crossed the river of no return, so the survivors in those countries will live out their lives under a strong-man of some kind, with any rights that they might have had having evaporated in the viral mist. None of these choices is in any way attractive, and the entire enterprise is unsettling and anxiety producing. That's for every single person in the world over the age of about seven.

The entire thing is amazing, that now overused and misused word, used here in it's correct context. If it plays out in the way that appears most likely, it will be a “before/ after” moment in history. Dare we even hope for a quick pharmacological fix? Something to get us through the development period for a true vaccine? That would be a wonderful surprise. We dare not hope, I'm afraid. You can't hope for a wonderful “surprise.” There ain't no Santy Claus.

In the meantime, be careful crossing the street! Don't slip in the shower! Death has proven to us many times that it can keep up with its work load, no matter what kind of additional demand is placed upon its time. And no matter how anxious you become, don't take any foolish action to make things worse. We're all human, so we'll all be dead before too long anyway, in the natural way of things. Just wait for it.

*Lao. Take my word for it, they don't appreciate it when anyone calls the place, “Laos.” They don't want you to call them, “Laotians.” They are the Lao; their country is Brataet Lao; they speak Lao and use the Lao alphabet. The French came up with that Laos/ Laotian thing, and the Lao are good and sick of it. They have mostly dirt roads, and a few grass airfields, they shop in outdoor markets, and they cook their own food, and that's the way they like it. Now the outside world is getting them sick, and that will probably make their tendency to “self isolate” themselves from the world even more intense. They are really very nice people, and very happy in their isolation. They're poor, but they don't know it. They have their families, their friends, and their culture, and they are happy. They're so far off of the beaten path that they just might do okay in this thing.

Gil Scott-Heron, Winter In America, Central Park Summerstage, NYC 6-27-1...

Hey, Jack! A five minute introduction to a great song! You don't see that shit everyday. 

The record shows that Gil Scott-Heron was not the most agreeable of men. For me, his status as a great artist is not diminished by that fact. After all, Caravaggio remains a great painter, does he not? And a murderer, in the margins. 

Events That Alter The Path Of History

It doesn't happen often. Most events don't offer the required emotional impact. I'm only considering events that have occurred within my lifetime, so we're talking about after 1950 or so.

One momentary event can only alter the path of history if it can demonstrate that it will, within itself, enter the consciousness of the entire population and change the character of everything that happens after it. It will alter the way that people think of the world. This leaves out many otherwise momentous events. The Soviets, and then the Chinese Communists, exploded atomic devices? No, not a big enough deal. Those we could see coming. Death of Stalin? Same thing. Not a big deal, because no one lives forever. Sputnik? Now you're getting closer. That was a surprise to kids like me, because we'd never even thought about that before, other than watching Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, and the old Flash Gordon serials. But it was a shock to anyone who realized the capabilities of such rocketry. (ICBMs.) So, no, Sputnik doesn't qualify. Too abstract, and it didn't really change anything beyond some acceleration of programs already in place.

Events that instantly alter the path of history must place a new filter in the thought process of every person on earth. They must render more cynical every person who becomes aware of the event, and everyone must almost immediately become aware of the event. We all become more cynical, or more pessimistic; the point is that people are forever changed. These events change the meaning of everything that subsequently happens from what it would have meant before the event to what it means in light of the event.

There have only been two such events in my life, according to my way of thinking. Three, if you add the one that punched us in the stomach in just the last few weeks and which we are in the midst of right this second.

For me, the first one was the JFK assassination. That was the death of innocence for a large part of the earth's population. I was only fifteen at the time, so it was only later that the full meaning of it sunk in for me. JFK was a big deal, he was a world-wide phenomenon. That's easy to forget today. Now, to most Americans, he was just a liberal Democratic president who probably got what was coming to him. The reality of JFK at the time went much deeper than that, and not just for Americans.

Around 1980 I worked at a camera factory in West Los Angeles that had an interesting strategy for saving money on payroll. They hired a lot of people that were just plain desperate, like me, and they hired people from other countries who needed visas to stay in the States. Half of the machinists were Russian Jews on some special program, and one guy that I got to know very well was a rich kid from Egypt who was probably trying to avoid military service. He told me about his mom having a big shrine in the house. It had three parts, with multiple photos, statuettes, candles, the works. One of the three was JFK. It wasn't political, like having Nassar up there. To her, JFK was a saint. The whole idea of “they” got a lot darker when JFK got shot. We finally get a decent, honest man to lead us (yeah, I know), and right away “they” took him away from us.

The second event on my short list is 9-11. I was on the West Coast, and my alarm went off at about 6:00 a.m., that's 9:00 a.m. New York time, and out of the daze of sleep NPR's Morning Edition was offering blow-by-blow coverage of a plane that had not long before crashed into the World Trade Center. I got up and put on CNN, and there are the videos and everything, but it's still a plane crash as far as anyone knows, so I'm still going to court. I've got appearances to make. I had TVs everywhere at the time, all with the cable hook up, so all of a sudden I'm watching live, in real time, a second plane crashes into the second tower. At that point, I sat on the bed and did the math. Someone has done this; I can guess who, because they have attacked these buildings before; the old world has just died, I said to myself, and everything that happens after right now is the new world. (I did drive to the courthouse, by the way. Of course, it was closed. I wasn't taking any chances.) 

Now we're experiencing number three. It seems like the “midst” of this one will last for a while, so maybe we ought to get used to it. It lacks the instant quality of the other two, but it brings its own unique qualities. What does it take to make every single person in the world simultaneously anxious at a level that is life altering? Well, now we know. We'll all be scared shitless at least until they come up with a medicine that will knock the wind out of its sails. Like, you know, with HIV, there's a medicine generally available that both a) prevents the virus from becoming full-blown AIDS; and b) prevents the spread of the disease. That's some good medicine, and that's what we need. What we really need, of course, is a vaccine, so that we can all get inoculated and just forget about the whole thing. Like we've forgotten about smallpox. At least, that is, until some genius brings it back to life. The vaccine will happen someday, but that day is probably eighteen months away. There will be drama at that point too. They give those things away in most countries, rich or poor, because the minimal expense of their distribution is obviously to be preferred over spreading AIDS or our new plague around. That is the compassionate thing to do, and definitely pragmatic as well. It's a win for everyone. I wonder if we'll be so lucky this time, with even the President of the United States of Blood, Bones, and Profits trying to get into the act of profiting from this plague. (“Buy me that vaccine they're working on in Germany.”)

Call it what it is: it is a plague. To call it a pandemic is like calling a balls-to-the-wall crack-whore a “taxi dancer.” There's no need to be polite! Plagues do not offer dispensations for your courtesy.

Is it really necessary for people to eat pangolins, and civits, “jungle meat,” and God knows what all else? The fallout from this fucking bat-virus will be extreme and disagreeable. That's economically, medically, politically, socially, wholly, and individually. Within a couple of years, nothing at all will be the same.

There's a small chance that things will be better. A very, very small chance.

Gil Scott-Heron - 'I'm New Here' (official video)

Here's another very nice song by a cherished veteran. There's a message here, for sure, but I'm not so sure that it's the message that Brother Gil thought it was. 

Because that's just the nature of things, you know, by the time you turn around, everything is new again and you don't know what's happening at all. So in one way, hey, Boomer! when was the last time that you felt like you comfortably understood what the fuck was going on? And in another way, when I listen to the new Dylan song I understand all of the references. People younger than x-years-old are in the dark about a lot of it. Old Bob drops in "don't let me be misunderstood," and dozens of others. That "Murder Most Foul" should have footnotes for the uninitiated.  

What's Fred Up To?

"Have you heard from Fred lately?"

"Fred's dead."

"Oh, that's too bad . . . did he suffer?"

"I don't think so."

"Oh, too bad."

Vince Taylor and his Playboys - Brand New Cadillac

Famously covered by the Clash on London Calling. Good song. 

Okay, Professor Google tells me that this was originally a Vince Taylor "B" side. I like the band, which includes Joe Moretti playing the guitar. There's an impressive list of bands that covered the song, either playing it at shows or releasing records in other countries. Reading about all of those shenanigans makes a nice catalog of record business misconduct. Many law suits were involved. 

Vince lived the last almost ten years of his life in Switzerland, working as an aircraft mechanic. Go figure. Died at age 52 of lung cancer.