Multitrackin'

Once upon a time, my sole aspiration and life goal was to be a "rock star." Correction. Once upon a time, my sole aspiration and life goal was to be one of The Beatles. Strangely enough, that didn't work out as planned. But from the time I was around thirteen to about forty-three twenty-five, it's all I thought about doing. The problem was, unlike The Beatles, I didn't have all that much talent or ambition. I think it was all about the screaming girls. Despite this, I loved music, especially recording music. In hindsite, I was probably more of a frustrated producer/engineer wannabe than an actual musician.

Pete Townshend recording at home in 1971
Like two of my biggest musical heroes (other than the Fab Four) as a kid, Pete Townshend and Prince, I liked home recording, trying to play every instrument myself. Of course, Prince would release entire albums where basically he was the only person on them. I thought that was so cool. Using a four-track recorder, not too much unlike the one Bruce Springsteen used to record the classic Nebraska album, I spent much time, imagining I was in my own little Paisley Park, creating, if truth be known, total crap. But I had fun. I recently stumbled across something I recorded way back in the summer of 1987 that didn't make me cringe too badly when I listened to it again. Actually, my first thought was I almost pulled off playing the drums on this one. Here I am doing one of the few Prince songs an unskilled white boy could even come close to pulling off, one of my favorites, "Christopher Tracy's Parade." Forgive me in advance for the pain this may cause, but I just had to unleash it upon an unwitting blogosphere:

First the Auschwitz sign, now this?

What's a person to make of our times? The famed Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro, one of the New Seven Wonders of the World (oh, by the way), was vandalized last week:


The Christ the Redeemer statue appears surrounded by scaffoldings for a cleaning operation, on March 8 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Brazilian officials were Friday cleaning up graffiti on the famed Christ statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro, which was vandalized after access was cut off in the wake of devastating rains. (AFP/File/Antonio Scorza)


Ray Anthony

The Tee Pee Motel

The Tee Pee Motel, in Wharton, built in 1942, was abandoned in the '80s and renovated in 2005. There are obvious similarites to the Cozy Cone Motel in Cars:

Scenes from the remake of Lolita were filmed in tee pee #2. More history and information can be found here. I took these pictures in February 2007. The first picture (the neon sign pic above) was taken my first night there. The rest were taken the following morning at sunrise and then a couple of hours later as I left Wharton.

Take me where my future's lyin'

Yes kids, life really was a little bit like St. Elmo's Fire, back in the day...
The future was so bright, we should have been wearing shades:
Christmas 1984
I've been unfairly compared in this picture with Jack Torrance at the end of The Shining, right?

Wait a minute. I blew it up (so it's blurry) and just noticed this....

The Face...

Here is an article a friend and I did for our high school newspaper back in October 1984. It was about a "legendary" marking on an UTMB (University of Texas Medical Branch) building in Galveston, called "the Face." There are various stories and explanations as to its origin and who is supposedly depicted - disgruntled former UTMB patient, the owner of the property on which the building is now located, for example - but it just as easily could have been our theory...

Click on it to make it bigger (that's what she said)

Alice Roosevelt Longworth

According to the Wikipedia entry, the following images are in the public domain.

Having just finished David McCullough's book about Theodore Roosevelt, Mornings on Horseback, I now find myself sort of crushing on Alice Roosevelt (so look out, Blake Lively). Weird.

The Roosevelt clan in 1903, with Quentin on the left, TR, Ted, Jr., "Archie," Alice, Kermit, Edith, and Ethel.

Alice in 1891
Alice was Theodore Roosevelt's first child, born in 1884, and only offspring with his first wife. She (TR's first wife) would die as a result of Bright's disease, in addition to childbirth complications. It also happened to be the same day (in the same house, on a different floor) TR's mother, Mittie, passed away. In his diary, TR would say about that day: "The light has gone out of my life." He would never speak of his first wife ever again, failing to so much as mention her name in his autobiography.

Alice would be sent away, to live with TR's older sister, Bamie, until he eventually remarried in 1886. And I got the impression from reading Mornings on Horseback, as well as Alice's premature (she wrote it in 1935, and would live until 1980) autobiography, Crowded Hours, and Mrs. L: Conversations With Alice Roosevelt Longworth, that although he loved her, Alice was for TR an unfortunate reminder of a profoundly painful life event. Consequently, the way I read it, he didn't show her much affection, and being as busy as he was, he most likely didn't give her as much attention as she craved. Consequently, Alice could be a bit of handful. This blurb from from the children's book, What to Do about Alice?: How Alice Roosevelt Broke the Rules, Charmed the World, and Drove Her Father Teddy Crazy!, is probably only slightly hyperbolic:

Theodore Roosevelt had a small problem. Her name was Alice. Alice Lee Roosevelt was hungry to go places, meet people, do things. Father called it running riot. Alice called it eating up the world. Whether she was entertaining important White House visitors with her pet snake or traveling the globe, Alice bucked convention and turned every new experience into an adventure!

With her dog, Leo, in a 1902 White House photo
And according to Wikipedia:

When her father took office following the assassination of President William McKinley (an event that "filled (me) with an extreme rapture"), Alice became an instant celebrity and fashion icon. She was known as a rule-breaker in an era when women were under great pressure to conform. The American public noticed many of her exploits. She smoked cigarettes in public, rode in cars with men, stayed out late partying, kept a pet snake named Emily Spinach (Emily as in her spinster aunt and Spinach for its green color) in the White House, and was seen placing bets with a bookie.

Once, a White House visitor commented on Alice's frequent interruptions to the Oval Office, often because of her political advice. The exhausted President commented to his friend, author Owen Wister, after the third interruption to their conversation and after threatening to throw Alice 'out the window', "I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both."

Alice (looking a bit more like her cousin, Eleanor) christening the sub named after her father, the USS Theodore Roosevelt in 1959

At the end of Theodore Roosevelt's presidency in 1909, she is alleged to have buried a voodoo doll of new First Lady Nellie Taft in the White House lawn. She was such a fixture of the Washington D.C. social circuit, living until 95-years-old, she was sometimes referred to "the other Washington Monument."

1902
1902
Picture from a 1906 postcard related to her wedding
Formal portrait from 1901
Someone was inspired all these decades later to do a YouTube video about her, complete with poetry by Lord Byron:

Separated at birth?

Is it just me?

UPDATE (10/5/09): I guess it's just me!

R.I.P. Ed McMahon

On The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in the '70s
Ed McMahon, TV icon, is gone. When I was growing up, he was everywhere on television. I think at one time during the early 1980s he was on The Tonight Show, Star Search, and TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes, as well as hosting the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. But he will probably be most remembered (at least by moi) for his repartee and banter with Johnny Carson, all those many, late nights:

Like a Sears catalog cowboy

Jezebel has an amusing and entertaining look at the spring, 1972 Sears catalog's children's clothing section. This reminded me of how every winter during the 1970s, I anticipated, and then consumed (at least the toy section) the annual Sears Wish Books. I look at examples of them now, and the amount and clarity of sensory memories I receive is almost too much to bear. As I scrolled down the Jezebel post, I saw just this, and thought it seemed vaguely familiar:

An odd sense of déjà vu continued, and then, this:

My parents got my sister and me sets like the red one with chaps, for what must have been the Christmas of 1972. I had a green version, and she had the red one. They came with a hat, frilly, plastic-like gloves, chaps, pants, a belt, a bandanna, and a matching checkered shirt. I remember going to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo the following February (probably in the Astrodome) with my parents, and my sister and I wore them (of course!). My little sister got kicked by a calf, behind which she had unfortunately stood, so her memories of that day may not be all that good. For whatever reason, my parents held on to those little Sears cowboy outfits, and a couple of years ago, they had them framed. Here's what was left of my sister's (the picture I took of mine was blurry, so I deleted it):

Hell of a burger

I'm sort of fascinated by these incidents of POTUS (any POTUS, by the way) attempting to maintain some degree of a "normal" life. This time found President Obama and Vice President Biden (VPOTUS?) having their weekly lunch together at an Arlington "hole-in-the-wall" burger spot called Ray's Hell Burger (link goes to Ray's the Steaks).


The President's favorite news network has to fill that 24-hour-a-day news cycle with something, especially now that the Swine Flu panic they created has begun to wane!

This reminded me of a previous president, and his love of such fare:

R.I.P. Horton Foote

"Playwright, screenwriter Horton Foote dies at 92"
Horton Foote (March 14, 1916 - March 4, 2009) was an American playwright and screenwriter probably best known for writing the screenplay to the 1962 film, To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he earned an Academy Award. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1995 for his play, The Young Man From Atlanta. His other writing credits include Tender Mercies (1983) and The Trip to Bountiful (1985). Two years ago I went to Wharton (his birthplace/hometown) to get pictures of the Plaza Theatre on the last night of its acting company's performance of Foote's "Mockingbird" screenplay. I wondered if he was in attendance that night.

Radio reminiscence

pic source
When I was but a wee lad, I became somewhat obsessed by old time-style radio shows, though not necessarily old time radio. My fascination was primarily with the sound effects which were used, and the ingenious ways in which they were created.

Many a late night, as I lay in bed, a single earphone connected to my Panasonic Panapet Radio , tuned to KTRH, I would slip this mortal coil. KTRH ran both The CBS Radio Mystery Theater (1974-1982) and, a bit later on, the General Mills Radio Adventure Theater (1977).

In 1981, National Public Radio began broadcasting the BBC's awesome The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and its own dramatization of the original Star Wars trilogy (not even a mention of mitochlorians or Jar-Jar Binks). But as cool as these two were, they could never do to me what the sound of this could do to me and my 8-year-old imagination....

It is still rather remarkable to me what can be found at YouTube. Or is the remarkable thing what people upload to YouTube?? Either way, this is a bit of an episode of The CBS Radio Mystery Theater which was broadcast on December 28, 1976. This one was titled "The Artist":

Torgo for president!

One of the more creative and inventive pop culture bloggers out there, Gilligan, provided many of us this past weekend with even more ways to kill time, thanks to Obamicon.Me. The one he has done with the classic The Exorcist subliminal/guaranteed nightmare inducer, Pazuzu, had me in stitches. Mine you see above.

Barack rocks the nicotine gum

President Barack Obama takes a sip of his drink as he attends the Washington Wizards NBA basketball game against the Chicago Bulls at the Verizon Center in Washington, Friday, Feb. 27, 2009. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) - AP



It's cool that President Obama was able to mollify his Basketball Jones and briefly attend Friday night’s Bulls-Washington Wizards game (the first pro basketball game of the season) at the Verizon Center in D.C. It's significant he thought or made time to do it. He probably won't be able to do stuff like this for too much longer. What's scary is word of the plans for the President to make an appearance at the game began to get out while Obama was greeting the Chicago Bulls in the White House. The New York Times described it as "the worst-kept secret in Washington." He looks like he's really wound up, but having a good time. May be his last time for a while he can be something even close to resembling a "regular guy." What must it be like to be him right now?!? How many times can I use "be" in a sentence???

Dealey Plaza

I went to Dallas this past weekend. I initially had around twenty things I wanted to find and photograph, but ultimately I shaved it down to around twelve. Dallas will require a return visit! One of those must-sees for me was Dealey Plaza. The experience of being there was very surreal. The shapes and outlines of the WPA pergolas and peristyles from the late '30s, early '40s, that triple underpass, the mysterious sounding "grassy knoll," the Texas School Book Depository, etc., etc. Those things have been burned into our collective long-term memory from repeated exposure. It seemed as if I'd been there before. I was profoundly moved by the whole thing and found myself unable to control my emotions, twice.

By the time I made it to the cenotaph (open tomb), to make sure I was actually there (going back to the feeling of "surreality"), I needed to slide my hand along the right edge of this low-hewn, black, granite square pictured above as I exited the structure. Out of a feeling of reverence and grief, I was obliged to quietly whisper the man's name ("John....John") as I reentered the Memorial Plaza:

As I walked down Main Street, past the former courthouse, "Old Red," (because the parade route went right by it, I kept thinking: "Kennedy saw this!") it was my first glimpse of the Plaza. That's one of the Plaza's two peristyles constructed by the WPA around 1938. The bronze statue is of George Dealey. And yes, wouldn't you know it, things were under renovation of some kind, so those pylons were everywhere, and the reflecting pools were empty and unaccessible. It's not as if I drove a total of around seven hours (to and from Nacogdoches) or anything to see this stuff. Oh wait a minute, I did. This is like when I went to London in '85 and there was scaffolding up around Big Ben, but that's another story...

Taking a right, this is the other peristyle. This one, and it's obelisk, was constructed in 1940. Walk a few more steps to the right, and there it is, that building:

The window from which Oswald fired his rifle is on the sixth floor, and it is left permanently "opened." Those shadows were cast by the upper portion of the Romanesque Revival, former Dallas County Courthouse ("Old Red").

Walking down Elm Street, from the Texas School Book Depository, this is one of two pergolas constructed for the Plaza, once known as "The Front Door of Dallas." To the left of the pergola is the wall upon which Abraham Zapruder sat as he made his fateful home movie. Also in the picture is the "grassy knoll." Perhaps you can see where the grass has been worn away by countless footsteps.

More of the "grassy knoll" can be seen here (to the right of the steps), as well as the picket fence, behind which it has been theorized a second gunman fired shots on November 22, 1963.

Another iconic image in my mind, the triple underpass/train overpass. I took this one as a train was making use of it.

This is the other pergola. As I walked through this one, I suddenly had a very pungent idea as to where the guys following me around, trying to sell me a Dealey Plaza souvenir newspaper, used the restroom during the day.

I walked across this grassy area in the middle of this shot photograph a couple of times as I explored the Plaza. It is here I had my "private moments," and lost it a little bit. I'm trying to explain in this post the feelings being at Dealey Plaza stirred in me, and it isn't easy to do. I was flooded with memories of 8th or 9th grade, sitting in a classroom watching the Zapruder film for the first time, memories of my mom and dad and remembrances they shared of that day (and Kennedy in general), and dozens of other memories created over the years as I've been exposed to television programs and coverage of November 22, 1963. A lot of that welled up in me as I stood in this part of the Plaza.

From the Plaza, I walked over to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Plaza. This is the cenotaph designed by Philip Johnson.


It seemed so much quieter within the cenotaph. Perhaps it was so designed. Either way, one is overcome with a sense of solemnity. As a Texan, I felt strangely guilty -- that here was honored the descendant of Irish immigrants, born in Massachusetts, educated in Cambridge, survivor of PT-109, "winner" of Jacqueline Bouvier, father of Caroline and John, ascendant to the pinnacle of American power in Washington, D.C., lover of Norma Jean Baker [whom he described as being like "electric velvet" (the dog!)], pally of Sinatra...and it all ended here, in the streets of Dallas, frickin', Texas. As Vonnegut would have said, "So it goes."