Tag Archives: Life

6.5 billion reasons to live TODAY

Posted on June 30, 2020 by | 3 comments

Jack wrote this in February, 2006:

Hi blogsters:

I saw a post on the Reiki group I mentioned yesterday, someone wanting all Reiki Masters to take a specific day for a world-wide healing project.  Try to cure every ailment human beans have in one fell swoop.

Guess I’ll take a pass on that one.

Saw on one of the blogs the previous day that the world population has reached 6.5 billion.

I’m not overly fond of the human genre.  My general feeling is that 650 thousand would be a more salubrious number of souls to occupy the mudball, though I’d be pleased enough with 6.5 million if I didn’t have to live in close enough to see what they were doing.

On the other hand, 13 billion’s all right.  That would happen a decade from now if humanity prospers.  It’s okay by me because I feel 100 percent confident it won’t happen.  A long time before 13 billion human numbers will come nearer to reaching 650 thousand.

This certainty is based more on gut feel than anything else.  I suppose there’s a segment of the younger population who can fathom 26 billion souls, or 52 billion squeezed up here, elbowing one another when they’re my age, clogging the highways with quantum RVs, playing golf and watching television.

I can’t.

Everything I know about the way the life-energy-matrix on this planet works and has always worked tells me otherwise.

More likely there’s a surprise brewing out there in the life-soup somewhere between here and 13 billion humans to do a bit of culling.  I’d call it a tragedy if I weren’t certain all you humans will end up in another life afterward.  One where they don’t have television, most likely.

If some of you blogsters are accomplished remote viewers, take a peek at anything you find interesting after 2012.

Just my thought to brighten your day.

You folks who are spending your lives on autopilot figuring there’s plenty of time to get your affairs in order later might want to do some thinking about that.

The number of times you get to circle this star in a lifetime doesn’t count for much.  If you live to be 90 without doing anything besides watching television and worrying about what might kill you maybe nothing will.  You’ll just die without something killing you.  

Jack

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Posted in 2000's, Adventure, America, Current Issues, Human Behavior

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The love affair with automobiles

Posted on January 10, 2015 by | 7 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Experts agree that almost everyone born in the US between 1950 and 1960 was conceived in the back seat of a Ford, General Motors, or Chrysler automobile.  The overwhelming majority of the comparative few exceptions were mainly Studebakers because of the convenience of the suicide-style back doors opening forward to allow more horizontal legroom.   The highest percentages go to the 1949 Ford Club Coupe, the 1954 Chevrolet Sedan, and the 1956 Ford Crown Victoria.

But I’ve digressed.  My point is, almost nobody was conceived in a pickup or passenger car with a floor shift or bucket seats.  And nobody, not one pregnancy resulted from sexual congress in a hotrod.  Which is the reason parents allowed youngsters of the day to build and drive them.  A young man with a hotrod had little time or need to devote himself to the pursuit of female company.

Naturally the music industry approved this means of birth control and tried to the best of its ability to stimulate interest in and sing the virtues of coffins on wheels, speed, running from the law and other non-sexual avenues of endeavor for young men.

Red Foley’s, ‘Hotrod Race‘ was the first of these:

After a tasteful passage of time this was answered by Charlie Ryan’s, ‘Hotrod Lincoln‘, claiming to be the person driving the Model A who passed Foley and the car he’d been racing against in ‘Hotrod Race’.

George Hamilton IV, in “If You Don’t Know” attempted to combine an interest in girls and hot cars by driving a ’54 souped up Ford Deluxe with high compression heads and overdrive, which succeeded for speed but had mixed results with females.

The Beach Boys were a bit late off the starting line with “Little Deuce Coupe” in 1964 because the sexual revolution had come along allowing babies to be conceived elsewhere than the back seats of automobiles.  However, I mention it here to demonstrate the lingering nature of fads, once begun.  Long after hotrods were no longer needed to protect the virtue of young men in the US, the sound of a burned out muffler still caused a faster heartbeat.

Robert Mitchum followed the formula in Ballad of Thunder Road, combining fast cars and running from the cops with filling up the spare space in the automobile with mountain whiskey instead of females.  The song led to many a high-speed chase around the cities of America providing thrills to both police, and teenagers.  And frequently ambulance and hearse drivers.

When the Nash Rambler hit the market nobody mistook it for a cool aphrodisiac setting for launching future generations.  The car was considered ugly, though it appealed so a certain type.  But since it wasn’t for the one thing, it must be for the other.  At least in the minds of the music industry:

Although I doubt many children begin their long journey toward birth in modern automobiles now, there are a lot of similarities to the hotrod part of the 1950s love affair.  People love being seen in Hum Vees and dooley trucks.  Everyone wants a SUV.  And a person still sees the occasional racy sports car.

Mostly today the guys don’t roll up their pants cuffs, though, and some do find themselves attracted to women.

Old Jules

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Posted in 1950's, Animals, Music, YouTube

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The man who couldn’t cry

Posted on January 9, 2015 by | 7 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Loudon Wainwright wrote and performed The Man Who Couldn’t Cry without making much of a splash.  Fairly typical of Loudon Wainwright, despite the fact he’s always had my vote for president or anything else he might want to do.

However, Johnny Cash is another man who has always had my vote and I’ll confess he does about as fine a job on the song as Wainwright.  As far as I know those two are the only people who’ve ever performed it.

Think about it.  We live in this amazing time.  The oldest, most musically astute of us probably couldn’t name more than a couple of 19th Century singers.  We know they sang and people loved their singing, Lola Montez, Lillian Langtry.  But we’ve never heard them do it.

For we 21st Century folks, though, Al Jolson’s still alive out there singing Mammy, Waiting on the Robert E Lee and Anniversary song.  In two part harmony with Lee Marvin singing I Was Born Under a Wandrin Star in Paint Your Wagon.  The Kingston Trio are their young selves being the Cumberland Three singing Civil War Songs, or as themselves rendering another South Coast and Seasons in the Sun.

It isn’t just the listening, either.  Incredibly, we can wander around on YouTube and watch young Lonnie Donnegan sing Jack of Diamonds and Chuck Berry perform Se La Vie Say the Old Folks.

A briefly popular song from 1961-62 used to run through my head, Dear One, by the Ravens.  I asked lots of people through the years if anyone remembered it with never a soul answering they did.  But there it is on YouTube.  Horrid song.  I can’t believe I loved it back when then was then.  But there you are.

But I’ve digressed.  I was listening to MP3 shuffling through songs, passing the time, and heard Johnny Cash singing The Man Who Couldn’t Cry.  I never recalled hearing it before.  Laughed and snorted, looked it up on YouTube to watch him sing it.  When Jeanne got home between jobs I played it for her to provide a laugh.

“Who’s that singing it?  That’s a Loudon Wainwright song!”

“Eh?  No, that’s Johnny Cash.”

“I know it’s a Loudon Wainwright song.  Look it up!”

Okay, spang robbed my macho.  Hell, until we met Jeanne had never heard of Loudon Wainwright.  [Nor a lot of her other favorite performers, I hasten to brag]  But here she is thanks to it being the 21st Century when all the singers of the 20th Century are still alive and young if they wanted to be, here’s Jeanne instructing me on whether that’s a Johnny Cash song, or a Loudon Wainwright song.

And the cool thing about that is the day is coming when nobody who loves Johnny Horton singing Miss Marcy will have been alive when Johnny Horton sang it.  People will probably dance to Al Jolson singing Anniversary Song and be as moved as they were in 1950.

At least as long as the Internet lasts.  Probably around December, this year.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2015, America, Music

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Cats can’t sing either

Posted on January 8, 2015 by | 5 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Old Hydrox has become a frequent singer in his dotage.  Jeanne described the ones happening several times per night lately as ‘annoying’.  And I haven’t found a way to discourage him doing it, nor thought of any explanation.

I tend to think he misses being around several cats, possibly [especially] Niaid, his litter-mate who went on permanent mouse patrol slightly over a year ago in Andrews, Texas.  We were all together 17 years, so I’d imagine if a cat’s capable of ‘missing’ another creature Niaid is one of his night songs.

On the other hand, it’s clear Shiva is a part of all this.  He’ll walk over and sit on the floor in front of the chair where she’s sleeping and begin the serenade until he runs out of lyrics.  Sometimes it’s Sweet Betsy from Pike, other times Otis Redding or Roy Orbison.  Fortunately that usually happens during the hours of daylight.

The night songs seem to be triggered by dreams, or by Shiva creeping through the living room where Hydrox and I bed down.  She has to go by here on the way to the litter box, a few laps of water, or to check out the food dishes.  And there’s no way she’s getting past here without the keen ears of Hydrox detecting it, head jerking around to stare.

Usually he’ll contemplate what he’s seen until she passes on her return trip.  Then he’ll jump to the floor and follow her with his immortal prose or a few stanzas of Pretty Woman Walk on By.  Or My Girl.

If he had a better command of English and had ever shown any signs of being susceptible to reasoned argument or persuasion I’d try it.  But a whispered 2:00 am yell at him only results in a brief pause and stare.  Getting up and chasing him around also only gets me back under the blankets with my teeth chattering and him carrying on where he left off.

Maybe I misinterpreting the song.  Hydrox might just be saying, “This getting old is hell.  I surely do miss ambition.”

Cyrano de Bergerac remembering the moon.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 2015, Animals, Senior Citizens, YouTube

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Immigration reform

Posted on January 5, 2015 by | Leave a comment

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Later this year when the petrodollar crashes and burns most of you will probably be hoping the Mexicans will revise their immigration laws.  Likely you’ll recall the last time the US economy fell on really hard times how US workers drifted to Mexico and further south looking for work.  It wasn’t a lot better there, but there was less English speaking competition for jobs.

Here’s an example from the Bogart movie, Treasure of Sierra Madre:

Things haven’t really changed much, have they.  Except the guy doing the hiring and cheating them out of their pay is a gringo in Mexico instead of a gringo in the US.

I’m betting those Mexicans will be tickled pea-green to have gringos coming down to work.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2015, America, immigration, YouTube

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Shredded ginger in oatmeal

Posted on January 5, 2015 by | 6 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

I’ve told you plenty of times the lengths I go to finding miniscule sodium or no sodium food products to prepare for myself.  I’ve found a good many more since the last time I talked about it.

For instance, cranberries were on sale for a buck per bag during the holidays and knowing how heavily I use cranberries I loaded up Jeanne’s freezer.  Every day I put a handful into my breakfast oatmeal.  Adds zest.  But even that gradually becomes ho hum.

Naturally there’s a lot of ginger nodules around here because both Jeanne, and I cook with ginger.  She’s careful and skins hers before grating it.  I just chunk mine into the blender, fill that blender up with shredded ginger, then flatten it so’s it’s easy to break off inside the baggie when frozen.  [Gallon freezer bags work best]  So spang, pull it out of the freezer, break off a piece, and you can put a hefty ginger flavor to anything you please.

This morning I’m having ginger-cranberry oatmeal.  It hits the taste-buds a bit hard the first spoonful, but after that oatmeal becomes a someone you’d like to get to know better.

I’ve come up with a number of other items I’m planning to tell you about, even though there’s probably not anyone else here who’s fanatic about keeping salt ingestion below 2000 grams per day.  There’s stove top pizza, stovetop wheat buns, green chili Swiss cheese omelets [amazingly low sodium] huevos ranchero style.

And so on.  I’m going to try to remember to post some ingredients and methodology as the year rolls out and I find more of them or run new trials on the ones I’ve already invented.

I’ve got to find a replacement for Hatch green chili, by the way.  They had it in the grocery stores [outside them] here during harvest time, and I bought a few pounds to run through the blender and freeze.  But I’m running dry on them.

These were only partly roasted, but Jeanne’s son, Michael, roasted them in an outdoor barbeque for me.  I debated on peeling them and decided it’s time the world found a way to get loose from green chili skins without anything labor-intensive.  So I blended the bejesus out of them and turned out to be right.  They’re great.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 2015, Cuisine

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Pre and post Elvis Imitators

Posted on January 4, 2015 by | 4 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read so damned early in this year we’re stuck inside.  I tried looking forward into it and couldn’t see a thing I recognized.  Almost everything appears to be an imitation of something else and a lot of what’s being imitated came later than me paying it any mind.

However, this imitating thing has been going on a longish time.  Listening to the Late Marty Robbins talking about all the people he had to imitate before he ever got any popular songs of his own is a lesson in musical history.  Somewhere below you can actually hear him do it.

But for my generation the bulk of the imitating ended up being Elvis Presley stuff.  Steve Goodman explains it better than I could:

Even Johnny Cash imitated Elvis at a time when Johnny Cash was at the top of the charts:

But of course, imitation is the something-or-other of whatchallit, according to someone or other who’s frequently quoted.  And Elvis imitated Johnny Cash because turnabout is something-or-other.

A lot of you readers probably never even heard of Ferlin Husky, but back when Keith Kelt and I were kids listening to KENM radio in Portales, New Mexico, Ferlin was a big piece of the musical fare.  Along with Kitty Wells, Red Foley, Lefty Frizzell, Webb Pierce, Gentleman Jim Reeves, Ernest Tubb, Little Jimmy Dickens, Hank Snow and Hank Williams.

So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that one of Ferlin’s stunts was imitating most of them:

And for that matter, so did a much younger Merle Haggard:

Merle did it enough to draw the attention of the ones he imitated.  Here he is singing George Jones with George Jones and Johnny Cash with Johnny Cash:

I mentioned Gentleman Jim Reeves back around the time of Ferlin Husky but he got away from me.  Here he is a few years before anyone ever heard of Merle Haggard, but Johnny Cash was already on the charts:

Johnny Counterfit made a career of imitating them all and did a middling good job of it.  He could still do young Johnny Cash when Johnny Cash couldn’t do young Johnny Cash anymore.  [Afterthought:  Notice Chet Atkins sitting there in front of him while he’s playing.  Old Chet was one hell of a guitarist but he doesn’t appear to give Johnny Counterfit a particularly high approval rating.  Maybe Counterfit didn’t bow and scrape enough to suit him.]

I mentioned Marty Robbins earlier telling about how he used to have to imitate other singers before he got popular and eventually died.  It’s worth listening to him telling who he was imitating.  I’ll bet a lot of you never heard of Johnny Ray.

I’m including this non-imitation of Johnny Ray so’s you’ll have an appreciation for the tough job of work Marty Robbins had doing it.

Seems almost everyone these days is imitating something, judging from the way words such as ‘awesome’, ‘fail’, ‘epic’ and a hundred other good solid words have lost their meanings, been usurped by meanings from the mouths of television writers.

But I suppose it’s possible to do some imitating without being a fawning worshiper of fad or some mindless celebrity with a screenwriter feeding the memorable lines.

Wonder what ever became of Gentleman Jim Reeves.  I thought for a lot of years he was killed in the plane crash with Hawkshaw Hawkins and wossname, Patsy Cline.  But while I was looking all this up on YouTube I was reminded that was Cowboy Copas.  Still, I’m fairly certain Jim Reeves bit it around then, too.

Old Jules

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Posted in Music

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Musical archeology

Posted on January 2, 2015 by | Leave a comment

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Hell, it’s already January.  Damned year is almost over and I’ve got a lot to do.  Jeanne had a box here with what’s left of my old hundreds of cassette tapes I converted during the 1980s from vinyl LPs.  I’ve tried to get as much as possible from the local library and InterLibrary loan, but some of it just isn’t out there.

I say it isn’t, but probably a lot is on YouTube and available from Amazon if a person pays for it.  But I donealready paid for this back in the day when music was music and everyone was glad of it.

Time was I believed my favorite bluegrass album was Jonathan Edwards and Seldom Scene, Blue Ridge.

However, I eventually found this one elsewhere digitized.  The library was also helpful finding old Louvin Brothers I didn’t expect to be available anywhere.

On the other hand, I once believed The Red Clay Ramblers were the best bluegrass ever and had a lot on cassette.  And today nobody’s ever heard of them for the most part.  The Johnson County Library doesn’t have any of their work.

So most of what I have by RCR on tape will be all I ever listen to in the future once I convert it to MP3.  Then there’s Ned Sublette’s early years, a guy I used to know named Jerry Sires, along with [not enough] other tapes Jeanne salvaged from my ruins after Y2K.

A new project for 2015 and the damned year’s almost gone already.  These things take time.

Old Jules

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Posted in America, Libraries, Music

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Miss World 1967 visits the troops

Posted on December 25, 2014 by | 1 comment

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Bob Hope used to do those USO shows every year.  In fact Al Jolson died in the aftermath of returning from a USO show in Korea.  Fact is, any Christmas entertainment that includes John Wayne jokes and nasty jibes at draft dodgers burning their draft cards is probably worth a rerun anytime anyone is singing songs about Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men.

Ms. Welch, at least, is about reality, which every USO show should include a taste of.

As an aside, a lot of you probably didn’t know Clint Eastwood’s real identity was Andy Williams.  Here he is singing something I thought of as a favorite in 1963.

No Christmas is complete without Clint Eastwood singing Old Bilbao Moon.

Here’s wishing everyone a merry little war.

Old Jules

 

 

 

 

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Posted in 2014, America, US Army, Veterans

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Asian grocery mystery

Posted on December 22, 2014 by | 8 comments

Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.  A few days ago Jeanne decided to give me a shot of rare pleasure.  She took me to my favorite place in the Kansas City area:  A giant Asian grocery store.

As we entered the large vestibule at the entrance I noticed large ceramic pots for sale and the one below caught my eye.

IMG_5046

I walked over for a closer look and called to Jeanne.  “Look at this!”  Pointing with my cane, “These are petroglyphs from the US!”

Meanwhile an Oriental man noticed me from inside and rushed out.  “One hunnerd dollars!  One hunnerd dollars!”  I dragged my attention away from the pot and stared at him.  He pointed to another pot.  “Fifty dollars!  Fifty dollars!”

IMG_5045

Then he pointed inside the pot and shouted, “Look!”

IMG_5047

So the burning question is, are Asian petroglyphs so similar to Native American petroglyphs as to be indistinguishable from them?  These pots seem to be decorated with some symbols definitely not Native American, mixed promiscuously with reproductions of petroglyphs I’ve seen countless times in New Mexico and Arizona, Colorado and Utah.

It’s clear no matter what the answer might be that Asians have gotten the jump, however, on the ceramic petroglyph trade.

If I had someplace to put one of those pots and something I wanted to put in it and $100 lying around with nothing to do I think I’d just buy one of those pots.  And maybe haul it over to Zuni or Acoma to give them a looksee.  The tribes have been losing business to Asians copying their fetishes, their kachinas, their other crafts for a longish while.  Maybe a bit of reversed engineering of petroglyph covered pots  would provide a shot in the arm for them.

Aside from the fact nobody’s likely to buy some damned pot covered with petroglyphs.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2000's, Native American, Native Americans

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