I don't expect any of you to like or even finish listening to that video. It radiates raw anger which is what the punk movement was all about back in the day. I had a roommate then who actually threw fits and started throwing things whenever I'd play Husker Du. Seeing you guys turn on each other is heartbreaking and sort of predictable. I'd rather talk about several women who seem to care about me--none romantically--well maybe one--but she's back in California.
Here are the lyrics for "Divide And Conquer." I boldfaced the parts I thought were prescient for 1984 which is when the album came out.
We've had a few days of exceptionally warm weather here in western Wisconsin. We used to call this Indian Summer.
Then God commanded November to brighten the sky and to mitigate the air for the entire duration of Martin's travel.
And since God does not rescind his orders, the first days of November are always cheered by a warm sun. We call this season Indian Summer. Link
If one is not inclined to the sacred, there is always the profane redeemed:
According to Robby Krieger, "Indian Summer" was the very first song The Doors ever recorded, in 1966. The version everyone knows was released in 1970 on Morrison Hotel. I think that the vocal track dates from 1966. Morrison's voice was not yet ravaged by all the booze and cigarettes.
Well not the Buffalo Springfield. I did see an old Buffalo-Springfield steamroller years ago at the Antique Gas & Steam Engine Museum in Vista CA:
The parade MC said that the Buffalo-Springfield was one of just a few remaining working examples of something once so commonplace that it gave rise to a verb: "to steamroll".
And the band really did take their name from that machine. So there's this:
That's Neil Young plucking those harmonic pings in the background.
Saw this on Facebook and thought I'd pass it along:
Total fuel consumption of U.S. airlines is approximately 19 billion gallons annually.
Total fuel consumption for mining ore for construction of electric car batteries is approximately 21 billion gallons annually.
The 21 billion gallons of fuel burned can only produce enough ore to build 250,000 electric car batteries.
The lifespan of an electric battery is 10 years and is not renewable. By 2050 these batteries will fill landfills with 50 million pounds of waste that does not break down.
I wonder if people would still believe in electric power cars, vehicles or equipment if they knew how massive the carbon emissions footprint really was?
The photovoltaic industry used to be a net consumer of energy when the big picture was considered. Economies of scale and the ultimate low cost of the key ingredient--silicon derived from silicates (sand) -- help the economies. But still, ripping the oxygen atoms from silicon atoms in sand is energy intensive as it is one of the strongest chemical bonds known.
I used to work in the carbon energy sector until it was defunded by the government and industry. The US was and still is considered the Saudi Arabia of coal. I guess the Red Chinese are waiting for mineral rights to fall far enough to snatch them up. Then we'll be truly fucked.
Chrissie Hynde claims that she wrote this song for/and about a lonely fan, but I think she's fibbing; she wrote this for Ray Davies of The Kinks. Whatever, it's beautiful song and I'm glad that she gets credit for songwriting. I never saw the original Pretenders before half of them died, but I did see the second incarnation, The Pretenders, and the treat was that she was playing her hometown of Akron, Ohio. Some co-workers and I drove over from Cleveland to see them in 1984.
To me, the song is about letting go of a special someone you can't have today, but maybe tomorrow or someday.
_____________________
Added: The electric version with the original band members from the good old MTV days:
I'm reposting the same text that I posted about ten years ago which recalled events ten years earlier. A "score" is 20 years right?
Back in 2000 I announced to some former coworkers that my wife and I and our two toddlers were planning to buy a house up in Oceanside. The La Jolla chemistry lab where I had worked was mainly staffed by foreign students and postdocs, but the US students and post docs who were there were mostly the products of elite American universities. One of them looked at me and in all earnestness said: "You know they fly flags up there don't you?"*
Now this was all pre-9/11, but it did typify the mentality at elite universities--even among hard science students who people think are apolitical. Link
Flag Day is just around the corner (June 14th). We all know that God hates flags, but this isn't a religious holiday. There have always been those who express visceral negative reaction towards the flag. There are probably far more who keep it to themselves. Do they feel the same way at Arlington? Do they feel the same way on July 4th? If so, it's important to know which way the numbers are changing, demographically. Are there more flag h8ters today than there were 20 years ago?
_______________________________
*If you know San Diego County geography and history, you know why this is so.
I do love the 70s, when men could wear tiny sequined matador jackets, or whatever that is, and still be men.
Remember when Robert Plant wore blouses?
The video is great of example of how tightly drummer Bonzo and guitarist Page fed off each other. Some have said that was the key to the Zeppelin sound.
I spent the weekend turkey hunting with my son, my nephew, my brother, and his friend. This was the first time I'd been hunting in about 45 years. The last time was shortly after my dad gave me a .22 caliber rifle because, well, that's just what fathers in Wisconsin did back then. Rite-of-passage and all that. I went squirrel hunting with a best friend, we each shot a squirrel, and I felt terrible. So I put the gun away. Now I came from a gun-toting heritage as I explained in part back here.
We didn't get anything both mornings, even though we could hear toms gobbling. So no animals were hurt. We did get to shoot some cool hand guns because my brother's friend is a collector. He brought along a 9mm German Luger and a .45 caliber 1911 Browning service pistol. Both weapons have storied histories on two sides of major twentieth century conflicts. The Luger especially intrigued me:
The 9 mm weapon first appeared in 1908 and was called the Parabellum Pistole. "Parabellum" is Latin for "prepare for war." What an understatement in 1908. I particularly liked the stamped engravings; the word "beladen" (loaded) appears when a round is chambered:
The word "gesichert" is revealed when the firing pin is safetied:
Of course we had many discussions of gun laws and the intentions of the Biden Administration and nascent Harris Administration. The locals are not convinced that the Fed's intentions are kosher. Universal gun registration followed by gun confiscation IS the ultimate goal. How do I know this? I know too many Dems on board with the notion that all guns are icky and need to be rounded up and destroyed, just like in the rest of the Anglosphere. Funny, nobody ever mentions Switzerland. The other side's attitude is best summed up by the defiant Greek expression μολὼν λαβΠ(come and get them) first uttered in 480 BC.
There is another movement brewing called "2nd Amendment Sanctuaries." The usual suspects in the media are calling this movement anti-common sense. That's a bit rich coming from the side that backed and continues to back Sanctuary Cities. I say turn about is fair play.
Sixty's talk about his beloved big bamboo put me in a mood for some vintage Cheech and Chong. Their second album, called "Big Bambu," hit the record shelves in 1972, just around the time I hit middle school. It was perfect puerile fodder for imitation. I used to know these skits by heart and could recite them doing all the voices. Good times.
As promised, I'm going to try to keep an opera theme going, even if it tangential.
I've loved that movie since I was a kid. I read the Gaston Leroux novel and paid respect to the Opera House when I first went to Paris. But I wasn't really into opera then.
Lon Chaney, Sr. was a gifted actor in his day -- probably the best actor in his day. If they had given out Oscars then, he'd have had a couple few.
I recall Chip Ahoy's reaction to Chaney's life story here. I don't recall who hear was first interested in ASL, Chip or Sixty. They both posted on it. They both knew it. How fascinating.
The Italian libretto uses the 2nd person plural: voi che sapete...(ye who know). This looks like the second person singular (formal) in French: vous qui savez (you, sir, who know): French uses its second person plural vous form to address single people formally, while Italian reserves that pronoun -- voi = vous-- for addressing more than one person (second person plural). Italians use their third person (pronouns Lei and Lui) and corresponding verbs to address someone formally.
It seems that every European language -- whether derived from Latin or not -- chose a particular way to address strangers but especially royalty. The Germans took over their third person plural for this purpose: Wissen Sie (literally "They who know" is used to address one person; Greeks, like the French, use their second person plural; We, like the Italians use our third person singular verb form which you can see in vestigial English: "Does his majesty wish" (third person, singular). Anything but the familiar tu, du, thou's to address royals. If you think this is confusing, try holding all these in your head when playing polyglot.
The word nozze in Italian is intriguing. Where does it come from? The closest English cognate is nuptials.
Back to the aria itself. I should see "The Marriage of Figaro" before I die. I am a perfect candidate for enjoying opera, especially Italian. I have a good working knowledge of the language. Back when when I first studied it as my first foreign language at UW Madison, it was just me and a bunch of female music students in that class. Good times! I was just a local bumpkin -- not even matriculated -- trying to show off for those young women. That worked out well. But I always thought opera too highbrow for the likes of me. My sad loss.
We ate Imperial in the 60's. My guess is because it was cheaper than butter, not because of the Sturgeon General's fishy data.
My parents drove over the border to Illinois back then (we lived near Madison) to buy "colored oleo" which was yellow margarine. At the time, it was illegal to sell margarine that looked like butter in Wisconsin. Oleo margarine was especially high in trans fats because of the way it was made: Hydrogenating vegetable oil using a supported heterogenous catalyst essentially guaranteed it.
Remember all the margarine commercials back then?
And this was my personal favorite:
I learned my French accent from that guy and also from LeBeau on "Hogan's Heroes."
