Passings

[BO]

Dan Folgelberg dies of prostrate cancer. 56 years old.

http://www.danfogelberg.com/news.html

I loved this guy--sappy music and all.

[Mouse]

"I've been in a van with some people and they've messed with my head"

We are asked not to speculate about the death of Keith Mothersson.

Oh dear.

[pan]

“If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America.”

[BO]

Here's a comment from one of his fans...

OneOfTheHerd wrote:
This is like loosing Michael Jackson all over again

:*(

Yep.

[waldopaper]

...a few years ago when the boy was just a wee lad and I was picking him up from middle-school... I was listening to a ditty on NPR where Cronk was talking about Eric Sevareid, Murrow, and the other great news-analysts/ essayists who had gone beyont. I told the lad about (what I called) the de-briefers... and he had no concept of such a thing. To him, the yapping heads on teevee were just like everything else... bad attempts at "entertainment."

I am re-reading Wm. Shirer's "Berlin Diary" for whats gotta be at least the tenth time. I don't think the psychology buzzword "compartmentalization" existed back then... but that's how he kept describing the Germans... and marveling at how anybody could possibly do such a thing. Bill went beyont way before the current Amerikkkan shite of, "...it's not fascism when WE do it," which is compartmentalization in a butt-shell... just like the Germans in 1940. The idea that the "other guy" would do the same thing YOU would do was incomprehensible.

Why? Because the "other guy" is just flatwork... a prop in your play. He aint real. Why? Because he aint YOU. In those old days, Cronk would wind up with. "...and that's the way it is..." and he didn't tag on a bunch of weenie-ass academic qualifiers like, "...from my position... right now... based on the information I have... which could be biased..." in some feeble-ass attempt to be "fair and balanced," Why? Because you already KNEW all that shit... and Cronk didn't have to waste time telling you that. He knew it... you knew it... and he knew that you knew that he knew... etc.

Today, we take it for granted that the yapping head has been through a billion filters, so we expect it to be totally free of any "bias." What a load of crap. And when did God carve it in stone that "bias" was bad? And where the hell did we get the idea that it was even possible for any human being to say anything that was "unbiased?" Seems to me, in those days we understood human frailty and accepted it. We didn't expect absolute sterility anywhere in the world.

God-- how I miss real reporters and essayists and analysts. Oh- they're still out there... on the internet... and there's Bill Moyers and all that shit. But they're a vanishing breed... and I think Cronk knew that. He was just a young stripling when Shirer and Severeid and Murrow were showing him how steak was done. You can't believe anything the yapping heads say any more because there is some kind of agenda behind an agenda behind the copy they read... that has something to do with creating shareholder value. Few people like Cronk just doing their fucking job.

And that's the way it is.

[littleoldme]

Seems to me, back in the day, newsmen (there were no women), didn't have an opinion. The news wasn't delivered in a politically correct manner. It was news, just the facts. It was left up to the masses to form their own opinion. That's where the "dumbed down" thing comes in. People don't have their own opinion, they spout whatever their favorite talking head tells them to spout. Most of it garbage.

[pan]

His partner John Cage (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) had an impact on all of the arts, but Merce Cunningham was the most influential choreographer in the second half of the 20th century.

[pan]

Les Paul
THE solid-bodied electric guitar that he invented in 1941 would in itself have guaranteed Les Paul's place in musical history. Subsequently marketed by the Gibson guitar company as the Les Paul model, and gradually improved via a series of innovative patents in the 1950s, it became the pre-eminent amplified guitar of the early rock'n'roll era, and has remained one of the dominant designs in the modern guitar industry.

Yet Paul also pioneered multi-track recording, commissioning the first eight-track tape machine, and was one of the earliest musicians to use echo, delay and reverberation effects in his work. In addition, he was a remarkably gifted instrumentalist with a fluent melodic style that crossed easily from one genre to another.

In his late eighties, he was still playing each Monday night at the Iridium jazz club, New York, creating a joyous and intimate atmosphere, to which such giants of the guitar world as Keith Richards and Paul McCartney would occasionally drop in and pay their respects.

[hannah j]

this is how i remember les paul and mary ford, i would be eating deviled ham sandwiches and fritos, with milk on metal tv trays home for lunch from school. we lived close. not sure how long there show was on. also sheriff john, but that's another story. i know he influenced a lot of people, but having had the weird reverb and harmonies imprinted on my baby brain, i could never get into him. so great though that he kept playing till the end. no death panel for him.....

[pan]

Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and....

7th grade, St Cecelia's School. 7th and 8th grade party. First time we ever slow dance. There is only one slow dance song available. Swaying back and forth with a girl in my arms (hoping my groin doesn't betray my enjoyment to my partner - how embarassing would that be!) to Leaving on a Jet Plane, again and again.

The next day Sister Patrice is very upset. Turns out some of the 8th grade cool boys were dancing and kissing some of the 7th grade cool girls (the ones who had developed breasts). Many years later I hear that our former principal has left the Order and is now living in a lesbian relationship.

"....don't know when I'll be back again..."

[curt]

Sorry to hear about Mary, good to hear about the former principal. I remember my first slow dance. Her hair smelled soooo wonderful. I asked her which shampoo she used and she said, and this is the truth, folk, she said, I swear this is the Goddess' truth, she said, "it's a new shampoo made with beer".

ROFLMAO (virtually)

[littleoldme]

Henry Gibson, of Laugh-In fame, passed today as well.

[BO]

Wery interesting.