Andy Warhol And Frank Zappa
Andy Warhol Hosts Frank Zappa on His Cable TV Show, and Later Recalls, “I Hated Him More Than Ever” After the Show.” Andy had a public access cable tv show in New York. One of his guests was Frank Zappa. FZ talked a lot, while Andy was silently uncomfortable. A friend of Andy’s, Richard Berlin, did the interview. Mr. Berlin is possibly the brother of Warhol film actress Brigid Berlin.
The Andy Warhol Diaries has a few comments about the show. “… I hated Zappa even more than when it started. I remember when he was so mean to us when the Mothers of Invention played with the Velvet Underground—I think both at the trip, in L.A., and at the Fillmore in San Francisco. I hated him then and I still don’t like him.”
Jimmy Carl Black (The “Indian of the group” for the Mothers of Invention): “I don’t remember Zappa actually putting them down on stage, but he might have. He really disliked the band. For what reasons I really don’t know, except that they were junkies and Frank just couldn’t tolerate any kind of drugs. I know that I didn’t feel that way and neither did the rest of the Mothers. I thought that they were very good, especially Nico (whom I secretly fell in love with or was it lust?). I especially thought that Moe was a very good drummer, because in those days I don’t recall there being any other female drummers on the scene. The thinking of the audiences was completely different than those from New York City. They were lukewarmly received.”
“In 1965 The Trip opened at 8572 Sunset Boulevard right next to the towering Playboy Club building. The Trip was located in the former popular 60s jazz club called the Crescendo. There was a comedy club upstairs called the Interlude. … The Velvet Underground and Nico are the musical guests at a series of shows at The Trip nightclub on Sunset Strip in 1966, but it is their manager, Andy Warhol, who is the headliner with his outrageous, multi-media Exploding Plastic Inevitable Show.” …
“On May 3, 1966 I was serving drinks in the celebrity section at The Trip. Jane Fonda is seated and she orders a drink and I asked her for ID. She removes her sunglasses and says, Do you know who I am? … Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention are the opening act the first night. At the end of the set they receive a standing ovation and cheers from the audience.”
“The Exploding Plastic Inevitable Show started after The Velvet Underground played a couple of songs. … When your eyes adjusted to the manipulation of the light what you saw was an interaction between Nico and two men, one who carried a whip, the other chains. It was an illusion, I think, of sadism, not at all acceptable to peace loving hippies. … The EPI featured a mixed media orgy that included film loops, music by the Velvets, sadomasochistic dancing and an epileptic lightshow.”
“Before the first set was over people stared to walk out of the club. Cher said “It depressed me. It will replace nothing – except maybe suicide.” People were standing up at their tables, booing as they waited their turn to leave the club. The line for the second show circled the block but the customers leaving started warning people not to go in. They said the show was vulgar and violent. The line got smaller and smaller until only a handful of people remained.”
“The Buffalo Springfield is playing the Whisky A Go Go as the opening act and is free to leave at 12:45 am. They walk to The Trip in time to see the feature act. … The musicians are equally offended by the appearance of sexual violence and what they assumed was part of the Velvet Underground’s act. It was later that we realized that Andy is the creator of the act of violence. … There is more then one story about why on the third day of the New Yorker’s show, L.A. Sheriff’s officers closed The Trip.”
“The show was cancelled before the advertised end date of its run. According to Callie Angell “On May 12, the club was temporarily closed when Virgina Greenhouse, wife of one of the operators, sued to collect a $21,000 over-due promissory note, and a representative of the sheriff’s office delivered a writ of attachment to the club. Warhol and the Velvet Underground filed a claim for their fee with the local musicians’ union, and were forced to wait in Los Angeles for payment to arrive.” According to Bockris, the club was “closed down by the Sheriff’s office on their third day. The troupe stay in LA, hoping the club would re-open, and the musicians’ union said if they stayed in town for the (union rules) duration of their engagement they would have to be paid the complete fee. They used the time to continue recording the first album.”
The Trip, engagement was supposed to be May 3 -18, 1966, at least for EPI. The Mothers (not yet of Invention) headed north after the show. … “May 6-26, 1966 Frenchy’s House of BBQ, Hayward, CA (on the 21st they backed Neil Diamond who played a one night stand) … May 27-29, 1966 Fillmore Auditorium , San Francisco, CA (The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, Supporting Velvet Underground & Nico) … June 3-4, 1966 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA (supporting Quicksilver Messenger Service & The Grateful Dead) … June 24-25, 1966 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA (supporting Lenny Bruce).” Lenny Bruce died August 3, 1966.
“The Exploding Plastic Inevitable arrived in San Francisco to play for two nights at BILL GRAHAM’s Fillmore Ball Room with the MOTHERS OF INVENTION and the early JEFFERSON AIRPLANE. The Warhol crowd hated the hippie culture of San Francisco. Bill Graham pulled the plug on the Velvets the second night when the band left the stage after leaning their instruments against the amplifiers creating a “barrage of sonic feedback”.
“John Cale: “In San Francisco, we played the Fillmore and no one liked us much. We put the guitars against the amps, turned up, played percussion and then split. Bill Graham came into the dressing room and said, “You owe me 20 more minutes.” I’d dropped a cymbal on Lou’s head and he was bleeding. “Is he hurt?” Graham said. “We’re not insured.””
“After the second night in San Francisco Gerard Malanga was arrested in an all night cafeteria in North Beach for carrying an offensive weapon (his whip) and spent the night in jail. … While In San Francisco, Lou Reed shot up some bad speed causing his joints to seize up and he was incorrectly diagnosed as having a terminal case of lupus. Upon their return to New York, Lou Reed checked into Beth Israel hospital with a serious case of hepatitis and had a six week course of treatment. Nico left for Ibiza while the rest of the Velvets started rehearsing for an upcoming June booking in Chicago – a one week stint at Poor Richard’s. ANGUS MACLISE returned as drummer and MAUREEN TUCKER switched to playing bass.”
The VU and The Mothers of Invention both recorded on the MGM/Verve label. According to some, this caused problems. “The band believed that Zappa used his clout to hold back their release in favor of his own album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out. “The problem [was] Frank Zappa and his manager, Herb Cohen,” said (Sterling) Morrison. “They sabotaged us in a number of ways, because they wanted to be the first with a freak release. And we were totally naive. We didn’t have a manager who would go to the record company every day and just drag the whole thing through production.” (John) Cale claimed that the band’s wealthy patron affected the label’s judgment. “Verve’s promotional department [took] the attitude, ‘Zero bucks for VU, because they’ve got Andy Warhol; let’s give all the bucks to Zappa.’”
“On October 23, 1967, in New York, singer Nico sang with The Velvet Underground. (This list of VU performances does not mention a show on that date) … Nico’s delivery of her material was very flat, deadpan, and expressionless, and she played as though all of her songs were dirges. She seemed as though she was trying to resurrect the ennui and decadence of Weimar, pre-Hitler Germany. Her icy, Nordic image also added to the detachment of her delivery. … In between sets, Frank Zappa got up from his seat and walked up on the stage and sat behind the keyboard of Nico’s B-3 organ. He proceeded to place his hands indiscriminately on the keyboard in a total, atonal fashion and screamed at the top of his lungs, doing a caricature of Nico’s set, the one he had just seen. The words to his impromptu song were the names of vegetables like broccolli, cabbage, asparagus… This “song” kept going for about a minute or so and then suddenly stopped. He walked off the stage and the show moved on. It was one of the greatest pieces of rock ‘n roll theater that I have ever seen.”
The Library of Congress furnished the pictures for this feature. This is a repost.
Empathy
This is a repost from the murky past. The college on N. Indian Creek Dr. is now known as “GSU Perimeter College – Clarkston Campus” The Watering Hole was torn down, and is now Top Express Car Wash. Abortion has been legalized, and re-criminalized. Atlanta still has a lot more Peachtrees than peach trees. … I walked down New Peachtree Road. This is Atlanta, where there are a couple of hundred roads named Peachtree. No one seems to mind that most of the peach farms are south of Macon. The peaches grow a lot better there. They fuzz comes in heavier, and the pits are pittier. … I was walking down the road in the rain, with a freight train going down the tracks. This is forty percent of the ingredients for the perfect country and western song.
When I was younger and drunker, there was a place on Clairmont Road called the Watering Hole. I would go there, drink beer, play pool, and have a good old time. As was the custom in such facilities, there was a jukebox. The patrons put money in the box and played the songs that they wanted to hear. A favorite was “you never even called me by my name.” There is a little spoken part, where David Allan Coe talks about the perfect country and western song. This song must talk about rain, Momma, trains, trucks, prison, and gettin’ drunk.
New Peachtree Road has this gravel yard where the eighteen wheelers come and go. There was a big rig backing into place when I walked by. A truck bumped into a trailer. I walked in the rain, between the train, and a big rig going bump against the trailer. The problem was, Mommas gone, I doesn’t get drunk, and prison is way too much work. So much for the perfect country and western song.
The songwriter is Steve Goodman. He gave a show at the Last Resort in Athens GA, that a friend of mine attended. Mr. Goodman tells a story about performing on a train, during a series of concerts supporting Hubert Humphrey. It seems like Mr. Goodman had to use the restroom on the train. Now, in those days, the trains did not use holding tanks, but just ejected the matter by the tracks as they rode by. Mr. Goodman was told, do not flush the commode while the train is in the station. Mr. Goodman forgot the instructions. Mr. Humphrey said ”I am going to give the people of this country what they deserve”, Mr. Goodman flushed the commode, and sprayed the crowd.
I told the Steve Goodman story another time. There was a comment. “Great to see your blog post that invokes Arlo Guthrie’s version of Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans.” Goodman often doesn’t get his due. You might be interested in my 800-page biography, “Steve Goodman: Facing the Music.” The book delves deeply into the genesis and effects of “City of New Orleans,” and Arlo Guthrie is a key source among my 1,080 interviewees. The book also delves deeply into “You Never Even Call Me by My Name.” John Prine and David Allan Coe were key interviewees, and the book debunks the notion, promulgated by Coe, that Coe had anything to do with triggering the famous last verse of the song.
Finally, the Humphrey story actually stems from Goodman campaigning for Sen. Edmund Muskie in Florida in early 1972. You can find out more at my Internet site . Amazingly, the book’s first printing sold out in just eight months, all 5,000 copies, and a second printing of 5,000 is available now. It won a 2008 IPPY (Independent Publishers Association) silver medal for biography. If you’re not already familiar with the book, I hope you find it of interest. ‘Nuff said!”
Back to empathy for a minute. The word always takes me back to an auditorium in 1971. I was in my first quarter at Dekalb College. One of the selling points of college has always been the outside speakers that were brought to campus. This day, the subject was abortion.
A note on set and setting is appropriate. In 1971, New York state had legalized the procedure. Roe vs. Wade was in the pipeline that would lead to the Supreme Court. That ruling would not be issued for another fifteen months. In the meantime, abortion was illegal in 49 states, including Georgia. The debate about abortions was not as politicized as today. The nomenclature of pro-choice or pro-life had not entered the vocabulary.
The Vietnam war was still being fought, although with fewer Americans in combat. The withdrawal of US forces took most of the steam out of the anti war movement. The modern spectacle of a person supporting a war, while claiming to be pro life, did not happen.
I walked into the auditorium and found a seat. The lady began her presentation. After a few minutes of talk… she said something about a woman who was artificially inseminated with masturbated semen. The house lights were dimmed. A black and white film, of an abortion, was shown. It was noted when the fetus went into the vacuum cleaner attachment. The house lights were brought back up. They should have remained dim, as the woman was not kind on the eyes.
The closing part of her presentation was a song she wrote. She sang acapella. The song was written out of empathy with the not-to-be-born baby. The song was titled ” My mother My grave”. I left the auditorium, and went to world history class.
Natural Foods
I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.
The best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it.
If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.
The easiest way to find something around the house is to buy a replacement.
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.
There are two kinds of pedestrians: the quick and the dead.
Life is sexually transmitted. It is always fatal.
If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
Health is merely the slowest possible rate a which one can die.
The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
Some people are like Slinkies. Not good for anything,
but you still can’t help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days,
no one ever talks about seeing UFOs anymore?
Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.
All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.
In the 60’s, people took acid to make the world weird.
Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.
Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession.
I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
Who was the first person to look at a cow and say,
“I’m squeezing these dangly things here, and drinking whatever comes out?”
Who was the first person to say, “See that chicken there?
I’m eating the next thing that comes outta its bottom.”
Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?
Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They’re both dogs!
If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?
If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables,
then what is baby oil made from?
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Whales Of The City
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This is a repost from 2017. The events of the last seven years make “Tales of the City” look like Dick, Jane, and Sally … The plot lines in “Tales of the City” can be tough to figure out. The books have been *coming out* since 1978, which is several lifetimes ago. I read the first installment, Tales of the City, sometime in the eighties, thought it was fun, and went on about my way. At some point, I got copies of More Tales of the City and Further Tales of the City. Significant Others turned up at a yard sale, with the step grandson rescuing the step grandpa at a radical women’s retreat. Good clean fun.
Babycakes and Sure of You, the last two books of the original series, will be discussed today. It can be tough to make sense of the plot. Michael Tolliver goes from the “Whore of Babylon” to model HIV+ citizen. Mary Ann goes from the naive Ohio girl to a popular TV personality. Mrs. Madrigal is Mrs. Madrigal, and San Francisco is San Francisco.
I found Babycakes in a box of free books at a faerie gathering. Merry part, merry meat again. BC is set early in the Reagan Presidency. Michael’s bf, Jon, died of AIDS in 1982. Michael goes to England, and runs into an old friend, Mona. It is a complicated, and tough to believe, story. You have to put away your skepticism, and go with the story. It is a good story, and fun to read. This is why I read.
Sure of You was the last book of the original series that I was sure I had not read. The library had it. SOY is set in 1988, and this is a key part of the story. AIDS is running wild. Michael has a pill box with a beeper. Everywhere you turn, men are dead and dying. I lived my version of 1988 in Georgia.
There were some interviews with Armistead Maupin during this era. He is very angry, and into outing celebrities. The name Tom Selleck was prominently mentioned. This anger shows up in SOY. Michael goes to a black tie reception with Mary Ann. A famous designer, who might be Calvin Klein, hits on Michael. There is an angry lecture about being in the closet. The improbability of Calvin Klein hitting on a plant store owner is not mentioned.
On page 107, the designer’s wife says something to Mary Ann about Ivana Trump. The TV personality wants to know what Mrs. Trump is like in real life. Thirty seven later, the late Ivana Trump is the ex wife/kidsmomma of the President of the United States elect. Maybe those plots were not as far fetched as what really happens. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Thanksgiving Story
Thanksgiving was a time our family cherished. It was the only time all of us got together under one roof and mingled. Except for me. ~ I was the the family embarrassment. They were Catholic, and disliked my way of life. I played guitar, loved Heavy Metal, and worshiped Satan. ~ All this explains why my family shunned me. In their eyes, I was the flaw of a nearly perfect gem, but in mine, I was the cream of the crop.
I should’ve known they had something awful in mind when they asked me to join them somewhere. They drove me to the very corner of the ranch. ~ “What the fuck are we doing back here,” I asked. My only reply was, “Shut up you blaspheming fool.”
At last we got to the destination. My father, mother, and sister were standing around, wearing funeral clothes. ~ In the middle was a shallow grave. “What’s that hole for?” I asked dumbly. “Take a guess you satanic fucker!” Was the reply from my father.
I felt a thud on my head. I hit the ground with a loud thlap. I turned in spite of excruciating pain to see my uncle wielding a shovel. ~ I touched the back of my head to find my fingers coated in blood. I suddenly grew light headed and passed out. When I woke up I inhaled dirt. ~ Luckily, my family didn’t know how to properly bury someone so I was able to dig myself out. I sat there and puked for about fifteen minutes.
When I got back, it was Thanksgiving night. through the window I could see my family, sitting there, saying grace like the sheeple they were. ~ Seeing them praying made my hate for them and all Catholics grow. It went from a smouldering, muddled anger, to a flaming, outrageous hatred.
I ran into the garage and found my uncle’s shotgun, sitting there, waiting for me, beckoning, saying, “Go ahead, make these fuckers pay.” ~ “Hi Mom!” I shouted as I pulled the trigger, I started laughing uncontrollably as I continued firing at my family until I was empty.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” My father asked, wounded, shot in the gut. “Wrong with me?” I asked calmly. “What’s wrong with you?” ~ With that I threw the gun away and dined. Not on Turkey, but on raw human flesh. It was the best Thanksgiving ever. ~ Twitter serialization by @creepypasta_txt. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
‘Rushed Into Things’
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I remember the moment I quit paying attention to TYT. A video showed a man shouting into the camera “If you don’t like being called racist, then quit being racist. How hard is that?” · … My problem with leftists has never been that people care about identity and want to consider the interests of minority groups. I care about lies, about cliqueishness, about bullying and ostracization, about excusing and running cover for cruelty under the guise of fighting for good. That has never been the sole property of “identitarians,” and as far as I always saw, TYT epitomized those qualities. … · This is a repost. · Later that night, a plane arrived in Washington. The tv cameras showed a gruesome looking man walk up to a microphone. He was introduced as President Lyndon Johnson. This may have been the worst moment of that day. · i just went out for my walk on the “outdoor treadmill” … a school cut through across the street … and workmen were cutting down a tree. I went on the street instead · australia, azalea, regalia, vidalia, bacchanalia, paraphernalia · This is a repost from 2019, before the world went into a spiral. · arcana spell check suggestions: canary, canard, narc, NASCAR · @The_Kyle_Mann Everyone remembers where they were the day CS Lewis died @chamblee54 I was in fourth grade. What really tore me up was Aldous Huxley. · ““Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.” – Martin Luther King Jr. A facebook friend posted this quote. I felt pedantic, so I looked at Dr. King’s wikiquotes page. The quote does not appear there. @QuoteResearch · That moment when you listen a podcast from two weeks ago, and they have a breathless ad promoting the netflix livestream of Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. @deathsexmoney · “Derogated links to substink, I mean substack” · “cuz I tell people all the time what you don’t like a lot of time God will put that in your in your life to make you understand you what are” · “No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.” ~ Plato– This item is floating around. According to wikiquote wiki, “It is possible this a loose translation of the end of the “Defense” from the “Apology” … “what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth?” Another example of the genuine item being better than the meme. · “No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.” ~ Plato– This item is floating around. According to wikiquote wiki, “It is possible this a loose translation of the end of the “Defense” from the “Apology” · “And this, O men of Athens, is the truth and the whole truth; I have concealed nothing, I have dissembled nothing. And yet I know that this plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth? – this is the occasion and reason of their slander of me, as you will find out either in this or in any future inquiry.” · This is Plato’s account of the trial of Socrates. The response of the authorities to this late apology is to hand him a cup of hemlock, and say drink up. 2500 years later, the facebook response to this late apology is to pervert this phrase into another tacky meme. · The fact that the alleged crime, for which Socrates … remember not to say sew crates, which might actually be closer to his real handle than Socrates … gave his half hearted so called apology, or at least that is what Plato shared with us. · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress · selah
·
The Day CS Lewis Died
It is a cold saturday before turkey day. Since I am too lazy to write fresh material, I will recycle. The product is a book report of Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, by Thomas Eugene Robbins. When you read TER, you start to think, which can cause trouble in both Little China and Big Muddy. Just editing a book report from five years ago can have that effect.
A note on context. A load of laundry is in the machine, and will require a maintenance visit. The good news is that the device is working properly, and the drain is sending all the water to the county, without leaving any overflow on the floor. Somewhere between 19 and 39 minutes from now, the load will be done, and it will be time to hang it to dry in the back yard.
The music in the background is by JS Bach. The internet archive is chock full of high quality music by the gentleman. I can go back to listening to more recent music when the time is right.
In the text, the word arcana appears. It should not surprise anyone that a text about TER will have the word arcana, which rhymes with banana and Savannah … jfc, I hit the cntrl button instead of shift when spelling Savannah, and google docs had a hissy fit because it thought I wanted voice typing, and this device does not have a microphone … arcana is not recognized by spell check. The suggestions are canary, canard, narc, NASCAR.
So, the post is finished and posted. On a good day, it will get a viewer. I am posting almost exclusively for my own enjoyment. A Dick Cavett guest once said that reading and masturbation were the only solitary pleasures, but he never wrote a blog.
It is now 2315, roughly 14 hours after I started this. I originally thought I would write and write and write, but now the get up and go has done got up and went. Maybe it was when I got in from hanging the laundry out to dry. I decided to go for my morning walk, and put a bottle of water in my bag. Unfortunately, the cap on the bottle wasn’t shut all the way, and about half the bottle wound up in my bag. I had to empty the bag, set half of the contents out to dry, and take the bag out to the clothes line to dry. That was the high point of the day.
@The_Kyle_Mann Everyone remembers where they were the day CS Lewis died @chamblee54 I was in fourth grade. What really tore me up was Aldous Huxley. … Aldous Huxley was tripping on acid when he met his maker. JFK was dreaming about having a quickie with this girl he was going to meet after lunch, while Jackie was getting her pillbox hat retooled. As for CS Lewis, it was really an allegory for Jesus getting offed on the cross. Some people just know how to have a good time.
Maybe a few notes more about HAIFP are in order. The first time I read HAIFP was early 1996. I was taking a break from smoking pot, and wondering if I was going to make it. After six weeks of misery, I was reading HAIFP one night. One character said, in the house of your mind, the pictures are all upside down. I walked over to a poster of Grace Jones, pulled the push pins out, and put it upside down. At that point, I realized that marijuana detox was going to work, but not until I finished my peanut butter and raw garlic sandwich. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas Part Two
This is a repost from 2019, before the world went into a spiral. … Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas finished it’s performance in front of my glasses. Like most Tom Robbins books, HASP does not have a satisfying ending. The author/auteur creates characters, throws them into troubling situations, and makes word jokes about their plight. Unfortunately, books come to an end, and what serves as a plot should have a termination. For this wordsmith, the journey is so much fun that the destination is reduced to an ad in the travel guide. (Author and auteur both come to us through “Middle English auctour, from Anglo-French auctor, autor, from Latin auctor promoter, originator, author, from augēre to increase.”) Neither noun is as important as it used to be.
The best way to approach HAFP is to forget the plot God, and go directly to the details, where she can be found. Like page 333, which is half of 666, but with a fraction of the opprobrium. There is this exchange, between Gwen Mati and Larry Diamond. They are the *star crossed lovers* in HAFP. “Wait a minute. You have to get the government’s permission to get an enema?” “This may be the land of the free, sweetheart, but you’re deluding yourself if you think your ass is your own.”
Larry Diamond is probably the stand in for Tom Robbins. He is full of conspiracies, hypotheses, feces, and other aromatic arcana. Considering that HAFP was published in 1994, and presumably written before then, the reader wonders what was in his crystal ball. Consider this item on page 315: “If global warming melts the polar ice caps, as some predict, we will have little choice in our resumption of an aquatic life style.” LD talks about frogs a lot in HASP, but very has little to say about pajamas. Do you say pa JAH muz, or pa JAM muz?
HAFP is full of semi-plausible conjecture projection. Consider the part on page 318, about magic mushroom spores coming to earth, from the star Sirius. Fair enough, but how did the extraterrestrial spores find their way to cowpies? The star Sirius is a key player in the morpho-mythology of HASP. How much is true, and how much was created in the mental compost of the Robbins mind? When I read HAFP in 1996, I could only wonder. On the 2019 reading, Google is ready when you are.
The tale LD weaves involves the Dogon people of ancient Timbuktu. Here is what one source says: “The Dogon stories explain that also. According to their oral traditions, a race people from the Sirius system called the Nommos visited Earth thousands of years ago. The Nommos were ugly, amphibious beings that resembled mermen and mermaids. … The Egyptian G-ddess Isis, who is sometimes depicted as a mermaid, is linked with the star Sirius.”
Isis has a PR problem these days. For some reason, an armed terrorist/freedom fighter group is killing people in the middle east. Depending on the day, and campaign contributions, ISIS is seen as an enemy of the American people. What does this have to do with a Goddess? Will a rebel army be named for Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, or Inanna?
“The Nommos, according to the Dogon legend, lived on a planet that orbits another star in the Sirius system. They landed on Earth in an “ark” that made a spinning decent to the ground with great noise and wind. It was the Nommos that gave the Dogon the knowledge about Sirius B. The legend goes on to say the Nommos also furnished the Dogon’s with some interesting information about our own solar system: That the planet Jupiter has four major moons, that Saturn has rings and that the planets orbit the sun. These were all facts discovered by Westerners only after Galileo invented the telescope.”
“The system is also known to the Bozo, who call Sirius sima kayne (literally: sitting trouser) and its satellite tono nalema (literally: eye star).” Lately another Kayne has become popular. He is hardly a sitting trouser. Has the Kardashian husband been gifted to us from a distant solar system?
At some point in HAFP, Larry Diamond makes plans to go to Timbuktu. He will lick the belly of the toad, and take a magic carpet ride. Gwen Mati was grossed out. “It sounds like a drug.” “Its a hallucinogenic bufotoxin. Aspirin is a drug.”
“Bufotoxin, a moderately potent poison secreted in the skin of many anuran amphibians, especially the typical toads (genus Bufo.) The milky fluid contains several identifiable components: bufagin, with effects on the heart similar to those of digitalis; bufotenine, a hallucinogen; and serotonin, a vasoconstrictor. The composition of the poison varies with the species of toad. Taken internally, the poison causes severe, even fatal reaction in many predators, but some animals (e.g., hognosed snakes) are not affected. The poison does not normally affect human skin, but it does irritate the eyes and mucous membranes.” There was no word on spores from outer space.
This is enough fun for one day. Part one of this series is available at an internet near you. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Sixty One Years
Sixty one years ago, John Kennedy went to the oval office in the sky. The bullets hit Mr. Kennedy at 12:30 pm, CST. He arrived at the hospital at 12:37. He had a faint heartbeat on arrival, but quickly succumbed to his wounds.
I was nine years old. I was in Miss Mckenzie’s fourth grade class. There was going to be an assembly soon, and the class was going to perform. There was a rehearsal in the cafetorium, and some of the kids were acting up. They went back to the class, and I thought they were going to be chewed out about the misbehavior in the cafetorium. Instead, Miss Mckenzie came into the room, and told the kids that President Kennedy had been shot during a parade in Dallas Texas. She did not say anything about his condition. One kid cheered the news.
School let out at the regular time, and I walked home. My mother and brother were crying. I was told that the president had died. The cub scouts meeting that afternoon was canceled.
Later that night, a plane arrived in Washington. The tv cameras showed a gruesome looking man walk up to a microphone. He was introduced as President Lyndon Johnson. This may have been the worst moment of that day. Photographs for this repost today are from “Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Did Socrates Read And Write?
This story starts with a facebook meme. A fbf posted a picture of a thoughtful statue. The text read ‘When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.’ Socrates. I thought that Socrates never wrote anything that survived. All of what we attribute to Socrates was written by Plato. People reading this blog should know what happened next. This is a repost.
Did Socrates Say Slander Is ‘The Tool of the Losers”? is one of several results. They all said the same thing … the quote is bogus. A tweet from Eric Trump is not evidence of authenticity.
I began to think, which is never a good sign. Was Socrates able to read and write? was on the screen a few minutes later. The speculation is mixed. Some say that that Socrates was stone illiterate.
Thomas Musselman “Socrates served in the government on juries. Historians now know that legal proceedings were common over business matters of great sophistication and the the juries were well-educated concerning such matters. General literacy existed by the late 400s BC for the general pubic in primary school. Upper class males even in Socrates’ day would have been literate and there was an active book-seller market. To function in the world that Socrates functioned in required literacy.”
Google turned up a curious document. It is a passage written by Plato, “Phaedrus.” Pp. 551-552 in Compete Works. An Egyptian G-d is talking to a King, about an invention … writing.
“In fact, it (writing) will introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it: they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own. You have not discovered a potion for remembering, but for reminding; you provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not with its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being properly taught, and they will imagine that they have come to know much while for the most part they will know nothing. And they will be difficult to get along with, since they will merely appear to be wise instead of really being so.”
SOCRATES: “But, my friend, the priests of the temple of Zeus at Dodona say that the first prophecies were the words of an oak. Everyone who lived at that time, not being as wise as you young ones are today, found it rewarding enough in their simplicity to listen to an oak or even a stone, so long as it was telling the truth, while it seems to make a difference to you, Phaedrus, who is speaking and where he comes from. Why, though, don’t you just consider whether what he says is right or wrong?”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Chamblee54 
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