Chamblee54

0814-0951 – Last week’s path journal, The Tyranny Of Words, is now available. Today’s walk was respectable. After a few days with no foot problems, there was some mild dizziness. I did the standard 36 minutes, with heat increasing by the minute. The commentary today was Peter Asher on The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan. PA (no middle name) was part of Peter and Gordon, onetime bf-inlaw of Paul McCartney, and an all purpose music industry actor. He had some good stories.
“PA: “It took me a while to like Bob Dylan because I thought, who is this guy who wants to sound like Woody Guthrie? Cuz I was a big Woody Guthrie fan. I first saw Dylan in that light and later it dawned on me that songs he was writing were of a different caliber. But his singing put me off for a while.”
WPC: “Uh, how does that work when your sister goes to your mom and your dad and says, “Hey, by the way, the the Beatle wants to move in.” PA: “Well, my mother actually offered him the guest room, because he was hanging around a lot. I mean, he would come to dinner” … WPC: “This is early like 63, 64. …They’re getting there, but they’re not like what they became.” PA: “It’s sort of love me do time.”
Paul McCartney was staying in a spare bedroom at the Asher house. Mrs. Asher had a music room in the basement. And she said to Paul, “If you ever needed a piano, he could use the piano in that room, which was a small upright piano.” And he did quite often. And on this particular day, John Lennon came over. … They went down to this basement room and after a couple of hours, I guess, called upstairs to see who was around, and asked if I wanted to come hear the song they had just finished.” The song was “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”
PA: “We played the World’s Fair in New York. We played the Unisphere, or whatever they called it. … We had a moat filled with water around the stage. And the police were going, “Oh, don’t worry, we got this all under control. … The minute we came on, all the screaming girls jumped in the moat and swam across to the stage and jumped out on the stage. So, it was incredibly exciting. It was like an early version of a wet t-shirt contest.”
0815-0855 – Today’s walk was without adjectival description. There was mild dizziness, which wore off completely. I walked 1.47 miles in 49:26. I went by the place where I noted an ATT wire on the sidewalk. The wire has been removed.
The entertainment was What Is There To Say About Ariana Grande? on Infamous. Ariana Grande-Butera is an entertainer I have not followed. That said, the show today kept my interest for a half hour. It turns out there have been incidents. There was the donut licking incident, and the suicide bomber at a concert. The two incidents were not connected.
0816-0913 – The walk today was ideologically successful. I did 44 minutes with mild dizziness on the first couple of laps. The show today was EP-01 Imperial Germany vs Nazi Germany on Hardcore History Addendum. Daniel L. Carlin compared the German Army of WW1 to the Wehrmacht of WW2. To DLC, the problem with Hitler’s armies was putting ideology over competence. Many people see this problem today with the military industrial complex. This episode was released October 19, 2017. It may have been intentional when DLC said “ideology trumps merit” for the Wehrmacht.
“The military dictatorship of Germany was able to isolate and quarantine the Kaiser himself, the imperial warlord of Germany. Sit in the corner, play with your maps and your ships, we have a war to conduct. Who’s gonna do that in the Second World War? Who’s gonna cordon off Hitler, and quarantine Hitler from his bad decisions being transmitted to the military? Nobody, because it’s an ideological state. The ideology plays as large a role, or a larger role in everything. Ideology by the way is absolutely key for understanding the second world war at all.”
0817-1030 The walk today was muggy. The dog days of summer are barking. It is hot, with no rain to moderate the carnage. The wind forgot to blow. This might be a problem today. I am doing laundry, and drying the clothes outside. Wind is what dries laundry. Fortunately, I can leave the clothes up as long as I like, which may be tomorrow morning.
The first show today was Madhuri Vijay Reads “Hidden Life” on The New Yorker: The Writer’s Voice. The story was set in India. A young lady is sent to live with an elderly aunt. A cousin, and an old friend of the aunt, play co-starring roles. It should be boring, but was actually fun to listen to.
The second show was Episode 319: If You Haven’t Seen Woke 1, This Episode Won’t Make Much Sense To You on Blocked and Reported. The episode was being recorded when news arrived about Jason Atta Kwei Arday’s death. His demise is assumed to be suicide. This video presents another scenario for the dreadlock toting JAKA. A man, with enormous unkempt dreadlocks, goes to a barber to have them cut off. Soon, the man screams in pain, goes home, and dies. There were black widow spiders living in the dreadlocks, which did not like having their home disturbed.
Later, during a discussion about Woke 1.0, we had this exchange between Catherine Ronan Herzog and Jesse Richard Singal. JRC: “I just think if you were very loudly proclaiming a certain belief not long ago, you should defend your original belief, or explain why you changed your mind, or basically do anything but what a lot of these folks are doing.” CRH: “It shows very little commitment to a value.” JRC: “You’re saying politicians don’t always have strong principles.” CRH: “I think I think maybe I’m saying that. Am I the first person to come up with that?” JRC: “Possibly.”
0818-0913 – The walk today was soporific. The heat is on the way, but I got done early. I did 48:00, with no foot dizziness. The entertainment was EP:58 – Netanyahu Jerks Trump’s Chain on Provoked. This was a good show. Darryl is a former DOD contractor specializing in air defense, so he knows a thing or two. One theme of the show was how screwed we are in Iran, part 420.
0819-0919 – Today was lawn cutting day. The summer is winding down, and this will not need to be done too much more. In December, the lawn will be cut, and the fallen leaves ground up. As usual with the lawn, there was no dizziness.
0820 – The walk today was tubular. I did 47:30 with no foot trouble. I cut out an exposed root. It was on the ground, waiting for someone to trip over it. The show today was EP-24 Manifesting the Muse with Rick on a Hardcore History Addendum episode released February 14, 2023. Frederick Jay “Rick” Rubin was talking to Daniel L. Carlin. FJR is a joy to listen to, with his soothing voice and insights into the human condition. There are tons of quotes, each one of which I could write a term paper about. It will be a problem to sort out the thoughts inspired by this show, and write a few hundred coherent words. Easy writing makes tough reading, and I want people to enjoy reading this.
FJR: “The record that really changed the world in many ways was I Feel Love. That was done by Giorgio Moroder, and the music was completely generated. It wasn’t played by people, although Giorgio did control the parameters of the machine that was making the sounds. It was the first big record that was all generated through a machine.”
Recorded music is a theater of change. Before 1924, recordings were made by playing into a recording horn, which cut a groove into a disc. There have been many upgrades in the technology since then. Some time in the sixties, the technology of the studio became part of the music. Today, it is tough to tell where the medium ends, and the message begins.
DLC: “Tucker Carlson is a deliberate provocateur for money and that drives me crazy. It especially drives me crazy when people consider themselves, and I’m using air quotes here, Patriots.” Tucker Carlson was fired by Fox News in April 2023, two months after this show was released.
FJR: “I was listening to the local public radio station in Hawaii. There was an old Hawaiian man, who maybe was 100 years old. He was out on a boat looking back at his Island. He said, all of the things over the last hundred years that man has built on these islands, none of them were more beautiful than what was here before.” … I have had this thought myself. The thing is, I live in an area that is in the second phase of development. Many of the buildings from the fifties and sixties are being replaced by newer structures. Some of these newer buildings are nicer than the buildings that they replaced.
FJR: “Some people have read it and said, this inspires me to want to make things. That feels really good because it’s fulfilling its promise.” DLC: “ This is your frozen in amber moment.” At this point, the buzzer went off, telling me I could quit walking if I wanted to. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the social media picture in July 1937. “Packing filled cans into cooking basket. Sun Prairie, Wisconsin” For more information about my morning walks, see The Path Journal. ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah