He'd Make Make You Feel So Good

We lost a great this week.



music legend Ray Charles dies

Rembered

In this interest of accuracy, I'll note that Charles did great performances and recordings of the tune "Georgia On My Mind", but contrary to some media obits I've heard, the tune was written by the great Hoagy Carmichael, not the great Ray Charles.

For pointing this out, I expect to get a fresh batch of hate mail and angry replies, calling me "pathetic", "stupid", "cruel" and "pro-terrorist". ...Or does that only happen when one tries to be accurate in rembering a prominent Republican?

Welcome to America. Here are your handcuffs.

UK journalist Elena Lappin flew into Los Angeles as she had many times before. This time a "problem" was found in her paperwork, and she was held as "threat to security" at Los Angeles airport:

Read article in The Guardian here

Go read it.

US government officials are behaving ever more like those of a 3rd world dictatorship.

And this is how a Brit was treated. A national of the government that's been George W.'s best friend.

Heaven help a visitor from someone even more "foreign".

And this ties in to what I said a while back about attitudes being constructed about the enemy strawman "The Media".

Official Post for the National Day of Rememberance for What's-His-Name

As the official orgy of worship of the newly Deified Caesar reaches its climax, I mark the day with what I hope will be my last post on Ronald Reagan. Here are links to the best of the articles about him I've seen recently.

Eulogy For Ronald Reagan: I go all the way back with Ronzo. on Hugh's Ominous Blog (via the ever froggeriphic hyla_regilla)

Death of a Salesman by Tom Carson snarky but perceptive Menckenesque obit in Village Voice (via ronebofh)

Ronald Reagan in Truth and Fiction by Alexander Cockburn, on CounterPunch (via testcase)

I Remember Ronnie by vyoma

And finally, to quote hephaestos:

"Get him in the ground already. It's summer, and we're running out of ice."

Useful phrase

I had a chance to use something I learned from the late great Doc Cheatham at a gig the other night.

Not a riff, break, or musical phrase. Something else.

For those who don't know, Doc Cheatham (1905-1997) was a trumpeter who played with McKinney's Cotton Pickers, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, and many other luminaries and was still playing brilliantly past the age of 90, when his duet cd with Nicholas Payton won a Grammy. Doc was not only a splendid jazz musician but also, as anyone who knew him could vouch, one of of the nicest people one could ever care to meet.

At lunch once Doc told about some producer who flew him out to the West Coast to particpate in some sort of avante garde free jazz "experiment". As others banged out non complmentary rhythms and unrelated chords, Doc was urged to "just blow anything!", so he did, rapidly fingering his valves at random. He was given encouragement "Yeah, that's the stuff!". Doc himself didn't think it amounted to anything.

Afterwards, the sponsor came up and enthusiastically asked Doc, "So, how'd you like it?"

Doc replied, "Man, it was far out."

I had a chance to use that phrase the other night.

Far out.

It's a good one to keep handy.

[edited to add: The rest of the story]