Presidential Middle Names
This is a repost from February 2008. That was the year Barack Hussein Obama was elected POTUS. The middle name was frequently heard, mostly by people making subtle digs about the President. BHO was followed by Donald John Trump. Commode/man-who-pays-for-prostitutes is a poetic commentary on this controversial figure. The middle name of Joseph Robinette Biden did not inspire anything or anybody. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Arthur Rothstein took the featured photograph in 1942. “Queens, New York Nursery school at the Queensbridge housing project. Child washing before lunch.” Research for this post used Wikipedia.
With the current controversy about the Middle name of Barack Hussein Obama, perhaps it is time for a look at the lessons of history. George Washington did not have a middle name. Nor the rest of the early Presidents. The first one to have a middle name is John Quincy Adams. J.Q. Adams is the first son of a president to hold the office. Many current observers wish he were still the only one.
Abraham Lincoln did not have a middle name. Ulysses S. Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant. Moving into the twentieth century, William Howard Taft was referred to by all three names. Herbert Hoover’s middle name was Clark. Perhaps that was the reason for the depression.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first president of the modern age. For some reason, his middle name was frequently used, and the initials FDR became popular. Presidential initials did not become popular again until JFK and LBJ. After FDR went to the fireside chat in the sky, Harry S Truman became president. “S” stood for nothing.
The next president whose middle name was frequently used was John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Could this be a subtle dig at his Irish background, much as the current noise about BHO? As for Baines and Milhous, those both seemed to fit the personality of the man in the oval office.
After Tricky Dick was helicoptered out of the White House, the use of Presidential middle names went into decline. Gerald Rudolph Ford would be a good trivia question. George H.W. Bush downplayed his quadruple initials, perhaps knowing that many people don’t trust a man with two middle names. George W. Bush is frequently referred to by his middle initial. Some even refer to the current “War on Terror” as “World War W”.
In the 2008 election, we had a dark skinned man, with a Muslim middle name. We have a white haired republican, with the middle name of Sidney. Another frequent flyer candidate was a married woman, using her maiden name as a middle name. Her original middle name is Diane. In 2012, the losing candidate was Willard Mitt Romney. And so it goes.
Fifteen Minutes
Andy Warhol is quoted as saying that “in the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” This has become a popular saying. If a celebrity is getting tiresome, people will wonder when their fifteen minutes will be up. After hearing about fifteen minutes his entire life, PG began to wonder if Drella really said that. If you can’t be cynical about Andy Warhol … This is a repost.
Wikipedia is a good place to start. “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes” … appeared in the program for a 1968 exhibition of his work at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden. Photographer Nat Finkelstein claimed credit for the expression, stating that he was photographing Warhol in 1966 for a proposed book. A crowd gathered trying to get into the pictures and Warhol supposedly remarked that everyone wants to be famous, to which Finkelstein replied, “Yeah, for about fifteen minutes, Andy.” Nat Finkelstein was a sketchy character, in the Warhol tradition. His version is suspect. The Swedish museum part is real.
“Andy Warhol’s first European museum solo show took place at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm from February through March 1968. Pontus Hultén curated the exhibition together with Olle Granath. The exhibition came with a catalogue that was, like the show, named ‘Andy Warhol’. Kasper König, who worked for the Moderna Museet as an intern of sorts in New York, developed a basic concept for the book. … After Warhol had given his approval to this first proposal, König proceeded to create a dummy. … When König returned his dummy to the Factory, Warhol scrutinized it carefully but made only a small number of changes. Contrary to what Warhol wanted to be popular belief, those who produced input at the Factory were carefully monitored. … The final edits on the dummy were made in Stockholm by Olle Granath. He compiled a small selection of Warhol quotes and aphorisms from a stack of books and clippings collected by Hultén and placed them in the book as an introduction before the image sections.”
“Sometime in the autumn of 1967, Pontus Hultén called and asked me if I (Olle Granath) could help him and the Moderna Museet to organize an Andy Warhol exhibition that was due to open in February…. An important part of the exhibition was the production of a book. It was not supposed to be an analytical catalog of Warhol’s work, but a book that conveyed his aesthetics without heavy texts. … One day, Pontus brought me a box, almost the size of a Brillo box, and told me that it contained everything written by and about Andy Warhol (today the equivalent would probably be two truck loads). My job was to read it all and present a proposal for a manuscript with Swedish translations. After a couple of nights of reading and taking notes I delivered a script to Pontus and awaited his reaction with great anticipation. ‘Excellent,’ Pontus said when he called me, ‘but there is a quotation missing.’ ‘Which one?’ I said. ‘In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,’ Pontus replied. ‘If it is in the material I would have spotted it,’ I told him. The line went quiet for a moment, and then I heard Pontus say, ‘If he didn’t say it, he could very well have said it. Let’s put it in.’ So we did, and thus Warhol’s perhaps most famous quotation became a fact.”
“The exhibition in Stockholm attracted a relatively small number of visitors, due to the extremely cold winter, but also to the fact that leftist radicalization increasingly drove the Museets public to mistrust anything American or consumerist. There was no space yet for a more complex reading of Warhol’s relation to consumption. The book, however, became very popular: its enormous edition allowed it to be distributed in nightclubs and record stores, not only museums. A timeless update on the latest from New York, it first became a cult object, then a collectors item.”
Did Andy say that? Probably, but not definitely. Andy was shot by Valerie Jean Solanas on June 3, 1968, a few months after the show in Sweden. Andy survived, and had fifteen more minutes. Pictures today are from Pictures are from The Library of Congress. The 1927 pictures were taken at “California Beauty Week, Mark Hopkins Hotel, July 28 to Aug. 2, auspices of San Francisco Chronicle.”
The Henry Ford Meme
There is a meme going around. It has a quote, “Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him, better take a closer look at the American Indian.” The credit/blame for the quote is given to Henry Ford. There are so many things to say.
You might ask if the quote is genuine. A bit of research leads to a foundation that studies the life of Henry Ford. They have a spreadsheet of his quotes. A search for the words happy, Indian, and prosperous do not show this quote.
The second comment is about what might be termed political correctness. The term American Indian is now considered offensive. If you consider the historic relationship between Native Americans, and the European conquerers, you see a history of land theft, treaty violation, and genocide. That this could be considered “letting the government take care of him” is a sick joke.
Ad hominem comments are just too easy to make. Henry Ford had a reputation for extreme anti-semitism. Mr. Ford was no fan of labor unions, and fought them fiercely. There are many other stories about what a horrible man Henry Ford was.
This is a repost from 2016. Pictures today are from “Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.” This featured picture shows 826 Peachtree St.
Civil Disobedience
One morning, while shaking the cobwebs out of my head, I stumbled onto a meme. “CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE BECOMES A SACRED DUTY WHEN THE STATE HAS BECOME LAWLESS OR CORRUPT. Mahatma Gandhi” Shouting is not civil.
I was in an ornery mood, and decided to investigate. When I searched wikiquotes for “civil,” a festive item turned up right away. “It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious middle temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the east, striding half-naked up the steps of the viceregal palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the king-emperor.” Winston Churchill addressing the Council of the West Essex Unionist Association (23 February 1931); as quoted in “Mr Churchill on India” in The Times (24 February 1931)
Chamblee54 has written about MK Gandhi before. 050415 020521 042222 010723 There is a large archive of his words. If a quote is genuine there should be a source available. Unfortunately, if you read the context, Mr. Gandhi will often contradict, and counter-contradict, himself. MK Gandhi was a lawyer, and could crank out a word count. Those words often do not fit your agenda.
The search for “civil” yielded three quotes by Mr. Gandhi. While none of them match the meme verbatim, they send much the same message. The genuine quotes place an emphasis on civility, which is often decried today as “tone policing.” These items are found in Young India … “an English weekly journal, started by Mahatma Gandhi. It was in circulation from 1919-1931.”
“I hold the opinion firmly that Civil Disobedience is the purest type of constitutional agitation. Of course, it becomes degrading and despicable if its civil, i.e. non-violent character is a mere camouflage.” (15 December 1921) · “Disobedience without civility, discipline, discrimination, non-violence, is certain destruction. Disobedience combined with love is the living water of life. Civil disobedience is a beautiful variant to signify growth, it is not discordance which spells death.” (1 May 1922) · “Disobedience is a right that belongs to every human being, and it becomes a sacred duty when it springs from civility.” (4 January 1926)
There is one more quote to ponder today. On the surface, it might raise eyebrows. … “Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilised—the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals.” “My Experience in Gaol”, Indian Opinion (7 March 1908). Also: Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, op cit., Vol. 8, p. 199.
There is a bit more to the story. “In jail in South Africa in January 1908, Mahatma Gandhi was served a South African breakfast staple known as mealie pap. Gandhi associated mealie pap with black South Africans and rejected it as unsuitable for Indians. One year later, however, he revised his opinion and actively encouraged Indians to eat mealie pap. Tracing Gandhi’s evolving approach to mealie pap reveals a profound shift in Gandhi’s views on race and diet.”
A google search for “My Experience in Gaol” yielded an AI overview. “My Experience in Gaol” is an article written by Mahatma Gandhi and published in the South African newspaper “Indian Opinion” on March 7, 1908, detailing his personal experiences while imprisoned in a South African jail, where he was incarcerated due to his activism against racial segregation during the Apartheid era.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress Arthur Rothstein took the featured photograph in September 1939. “Farmers on main street, Saturday night. Iowa Falls, Iowa”
A Book About Woodstock
This is a repost from 2011. … I read The Road to Woodstock, by Micheal Lang, ghostwritten by Holly George-Warren. Mr. Lang was one the the producers of the Woodstock music and arts festival in 1969. Mr. Lang was a Brooklyn kid, who got turned onto the counterculture in 1959. When he decided that college was not for him, he did what Jews do … he moved to Miami. Before long, he owned a head shop, and was promoting a rock festival. The Miami Pop Festival, in 1968, featuring Jimi Hendrix and a big rainstorm, was sort of a success.
Micheal Lang was back in New York soon. Mr. Lang met Artie Kornfield, who was in the recording business. They started to talk about ventures, and had an idea for a recording studio in Upstate New York. They met some guys with capital, John Roberts and Joel Rosenman. The four of them became Woodstock Ventures. A music festival in the country got started.
Fast forward to 2010. I am in a waiting room at the Department of Labor. A book is a handy companion in a waiting room. I brought a notepad along. … I am reading a memoir about the Woodstock festival, and it is a gold mine of trivia. Did anyone know that Joan Baez was pregnant? Jim Morrison would not appear because he was afraid of an on stage assassination. The promoters kept Pete Tomnsend up until 8am to convince him to play.
I got my business done at the DOL, and the festival on Yasgur’s farm went off. There was a lot of chaos and ignorance, but good will saw the thing through. The first act to perform was Richie Havens. He was playing an acoustic set while the electric PA was set up, and was not allowed to leave the stage. Finally he ran out of material, and just started to say the word Freedom and jam. This is what appeared in the movie. … I saw Richie Havens in 1974, at a nightclub in Atlanta called Richards. Havens played a Guild guitar, which he strummed, hard, across the front of the instrument. He would wear holes in the front of his guitar, which apparently did not last for more than a show or two. The crowd … this was the second show of the evening, starting at 2am … kept yelling for Freedom.
In Woodstock, the town of Walkill kicked out the festival, and, with a few weeks to go, they met Max Yasgur. Max rented the farm to 50k. Bethel approved the festival July 21, one day after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. The festival was August 15-17. … Back to the dairy farm. The story is familiar by now…it was a free concert, they ran out of food, and tie dye was perfected. Abbie Hoffman jumped on the stage during the Who, and Pete Townsend hit him upside the head with a guitar. Stephen Stills did not need a laxative. After Jimi Hendrix played the final set, the crowds went home, and the workers wanted to get paid. A series of meetings took place to settle the business end of the festival. Lang and Kornfield were bought out, and Roberts and Rosenman owned the franchise.
The Woodstock festival was a milestone of sorts. Richard Nixon was new to the Presidency, and the war in Vietnam was going strong. The moratorium in the fall of 1969 was the high water mark of the anti war movement. Soon, the government started to withdraw troops, and look for “peace with honor.” Promoters found festival sites with sturdy gates. And so on and so forth. The sixties were too beautiful to live, and too profitable to die.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The featured photograph was taken September 1863.
“Culpeper, Virginia. William H. French and Staff”.
Why I Should Not Multitask
The other day, I was minding my business. Solstice was approaching, and I wanted to make a meme to celebrate. I typed “Happy Solstice.” A picture was chosen … “One-man band at Davis Brothers Restaurant, Atlanta, 04-07-1952.” Other pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Meanwhile, I needed to listen to something. Youtube makes suggestions, based on what big brother decides. Today it was Lex Fridman talking to Saagar Enjeti. Both men have a few smarts, and enough inconvenient opinions to gather haters. If I only listened to people nobody complains about, I would live in a world of silence.
A problem with multitasking on youtube is the temptation to make a clip. It is fairly easy. First, I hear something I want to save. Get the code, determine the start time and end time, and fill in the blanks. Unfortunately, this means you have to shift your focus, away from the task at hand.
The first time I heard this dialogue, Saagar said something about Ghosts of the Ostfront. GOTO is a Hardcore History series about the Soviet-German part of World War II. This is seldom mentioned in the United States, but was crucial to defeating Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, the Soviet Union was forced to pay an appalling cost.
After hearing about GOTO, I found the audio file. It was over four hours long, which is typical for Hardcore History. Dan Carlin goes into great detail, and is reasonably neutral. If you want someone to tell you who the bad guy is, there are other sources. In the case of Nazi Germany vs the Soviet Union, many people say there were no good guys, only bad evil against worse evil.
The solstice meme was coming into shape, slowly. A previous copy of the image was not working, and I had to find the original. A template had to be fashioned, to fit the text into the best part of the picture. The meme model was created. I decided to fit “Happy Solstice” on the bottom of his tuxedo. I was cropping the image to facilitate this, when Saagar made his comment about the Ostfront. I had to stop work on the picture, and get the clip.
“Again shout out to Dan Carlin. … I’ve never met you before, I would love to correspond at some point. I love you so much you changed my life man. … I think his best series one of his best series he gets no credit for Ghost of the Ostfront. … This is a 2011 series … on the Eastern front of the Nazi war against Russia, fundamentally changed my view of warfare forever. At that time I was very young, and to me World War II was Saving Private Ryan. I wasn’t as well read as I am now … this entire thing happened which actually decided the second world war and I don’t know anything about this.”
One thing about a series like GOTO is comparisons to other wars. At the start of Operation Barbarossa, some Germans speculated that the Wehrmacht would need to kill thirty million people to gain Lebensraum. In 2024, we see headlines like this: “Israel Needs ‘Lebensraum’ Says Blog by Major National Newspaper.”
After making this clip, it was time to avoid distractions, and finish the meme. When this project is over, future distractions will find me. Soon, the meme was finished. The text file was saved, and used for another meme. This is based on a November 1940 photograph. “Mr. Timothy Levy Crouch, a Rogerine Quaker, living in Ledyard CT, finishing up his Thanksgiving dinner. Mr. Crouch is a stonemason by profession and lives on his farm where a little farming is done.”
United States Of Amnesia
I stumbled onto a podcast of Allan Gurganus speaking at a literary event in Key West. Mr. Gurganus, bless his heart, is a good writer. As a public speaker, the jury is “out.”
This particular literary event concerned historical fiction. Tom Robbins went on a tear once, comparing animal husbandry to history. With one, you combine blood lines to create a superior breed. With the other, you mix “facts” to create an inspiring story. With both animal husbandry and history, you are frequently up to your ankles in shit.
Mr. Gurganus trotted out a bunch of quotable lines. ”Liars like historians and politicians tend to overdocument.” ”Myth is gossip grown old.” ”the term historical fiction sounds as pitifully redundant as, say, creative writing. … It’s like having ‘oxygen breather’ stamped on your driver’s license.” ”History is agreed-upon hearsay granted tenure.”
The first time I tried to listen to the Gurganus speech, the cliche slinging got too thick, and the player triangle was turned into the parallel lines. Or maybe it was the parallel lines turned into the triangle. In any event, the speakers quit making sounds. This option is not available live.
The second time I tried to listen to the Gurganus speech, the line about hearsay granted tenure stuck. Mr. Google was consulted, and found a nice website for the literary event. Another speaker at said event was Gore Vidal. Finally, Mr. Gurganus wore out my patience. It was time to download the appearance by Mr. Vidal.
The emcee said, “I don’t want to steal your jokes, but you said that this is the United States of Amnesia.” Mr. Vidal said, “I don’t remember that.” This is going to be fun. Photographs for this repost are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Birthday Cake
I try to post something every day. When I am too lazy to write anything, I look in the archives. Today this took me to December 2008. Sixteen years ago was a simpler, gentler time. BHO had been elected POTUS, and many were optimistic. We were “winning” the war in Iraq. The smart phone was one year old. Sarah Palin was not going to be VPOTUS.
The idea at first was to take a post, gussy it up a bit, and repost it. The first post I saw was When Dogs Fly and You Clean Up. This was based on a list of questions that someone sent out as a joke email. “If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from? · Why do the Alphabet song and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” have the same tune? · Why did you just try singing the two songs above?”
Air Strikes Kill Children could be written today. “The headlines are so antiseptic… “Israel air strikes demolish Hamas compounds, over 200 dead” · It seems there is a pecking order for tragedy. When it is a Caucasian English speaking American, the media goes bonkers. A dark skinned American gets a more muted response. If the deceased lives in a foreign country, the response is a bit less. If the dead children live in a territory next to Israel, they might as well not exist in the first place. · It is a familiar story. The rockets were coming out of the Gaza Strip, and landing on Israel. The Israeli government decides to take action. No one is really sure how many of the dead were Hamas, and how many were children. Children born into a hell hole, who had no control over who their neighbor is. · The response is predictable. The spokesman for the White House said “Hamas’ continued rocket attacks into Israel must cease if the violence is to stop. The United States urges Israel to avoid civilian casualties as it targets Hamas in Gaza.”
Then there is my dysfunctional relationship with Jesus, which can be challenging during the holidays. In between my hurt feelings, a blogger appears, with some information about “Historic Jesus.” “Israeli meteorologists best guess places the real date of Christ’s birth on September 29th, 5 BC. · The Catholic writer Mario Righetti admits that, “to facilitate the acceptance of the faith by the pagan masses, the Church of Rome found it convenient to institute the 25th of December as the feast of the birth of Christ to divert them from the pagan feast, celebrated on the same day in honor of the ‘Invincible Sun’ Mithras, the conqueror of darkness” (Manual of Liturgical History, 1955, Vol. 2, P. 67).”
This is starting to get depressing. Maybe we should end this with a feel good story. “The Clan Campbell is notorious in Scottish history. It seems as though there was a conflict with the MacDonalds, and a rather ugly incident in 1692. This might explain why the golden arch people do not serve soup. · The latest Campbell to make the news is Adolph Hitler Campbell. The three year old resident of Holland Township NJ is the sibling of JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell. The father, Heath Campbell, tried to get a birthday cake for young Adolph. The local Shop Rite store refused to put the name on the cake, saying it was inappropriate to send a birthday greeting to Adolph Hitler. A WalMart came to the rescue, and made a cake for young Adolph.” Let the good times roll.
Unfortunately, even the most uplifting stories can have unhappy endings. Reason Hitler Can’t Go Home: Alleged Abuse, Not Nazi Name “A New Jersey court decided that a couple should not regain custody of their three children — not because the parents named their children after prominent Nazis, but because of alleged abuse and parental incompetence, court documents state. · Heath and Deborah Campbell’s three small children were removed from their Holland Township home by the state in January 2009 after they asked a grocery store in Greenwich, N.J. to write “Adolf Hitler” on their son’s birthday cake and a media storm ensued. · While a local Wal-Mart honored the birthday cake request, Adolf Hitler Campbell and siblings JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell have been in foster care ever since. · The appeals court ruled Thursday that sufficient evidence of abuse or neglect existed. Court records state that both parents were victims of childhood abuse and both are unemployed and suffering from unspecified physical and psychological disabilities. · Neither Campbell has been adequately treated for their psychological conditions, court records said. Thirty-seven-year-old Heath can’t read and Deborah dropped out of high school before finishing the 10th grade. · But the most convincing piece of evidence may have been the note signed by Deborah and given to a neighbor, which was full of grammar and spelling mistakes: “Hes thrend to have me killed or kill me himself hes alread tried it a few times. Im afread that he might hurt my children if they are keeped in his care. He teaches my son how to kill someone at the age of 3.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The featured photograph was taken by Russell Lee in May 1942. “San Benito County CA. Japanese-Americans at picnic.”
Mithras
Mithras is a Persian deity, from the Zoroaster tradition.(That is pronounced Zor uh THRUS ta.) Not much is known about Mithras … did he really exist, or was he a legend? There was a cult of Mithras in the first century Roman empire.
There are supposed to be similarities between Mithras and Jesus. These include the virgin birth, the birth on December 25, and rising from the dead after three days. Some spoilsports say the early Christians grafted Jesus onto the legend of Mithras.
One indication that this might be true is The Catholic Encyclopedia. “Some apparent similarities exist; but … it is quite probable that Mithraism was the borrower from Christianity.” This repost has pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. (more…)
Rachel Maddow On Gaza
This is a repost from 2023. Donald Trump survived nine years of hate speech from Rachel Maddow to win a decisive victory in the November election. The carnage in Gaza continues, and has spread to Lebanon and Syria. MSNBC is not doing well. … Rachel Anne Maddow is the personification of so much that is wrong about american media. Her polemic pushing is entertaining to millions of people. She does for the left what the blowdrys at Fox do for the right. It is the information equivalent of eating all your meals at Burger King.
UN calls Gaza destruction by Israel ‘tragedy of colossal proportions’ This feature will not look at the Palestinian horror from a perspective of Team Israel or Team Gaza. Instead, we will consider what Rachel Maddow, a media actor trusted by millions, says about the war in Gaza.
I am cable challenged, and do not watch MSNBC. Youtube is little help. I have decided to go to facebook, where The Rachel Maddow Show posts several times a day. I scrolled back to December 12, and did not see one comment about Gaza.
@maddow is not especially active on twitter these days. If you go back to November 4, she retweets a video of Barack Obama. To his credit, Barry uses the word listen, although not as much as talk. Most of Barry’s remarks were about the complexity of the Gaza story. This is similar to Donald Trump saying there are “very fine people, on both sides.”
RAM is also on Instagram, where she posts mostly head shots. It is tough to quickly tell what she is talking about. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress
UPDATE I stumbled onto a quote from RAM about Gaza. “you can’t say, it doesn’t matter what the truth is here” The quote is from October 17, “Rachel Maddow and Nicolle Wallace react to the latest developments out of Gaza after the bombing of a hospital which has left hundreds dead.” 50 seconds after RAM says truth, Nicolle Wallace says “we … does not include Hamas terrorists. They don’t care what the truth is. … Hamas will use Palestinian civilians as human shields. Its what they do.”
Names
Alan Burnett~Bill Gaddy~Bill Medlock~Bill Meneely~Blaze Mills~Buddy Conine
Calvin Bunn~Danny Fields~David Chewning~David Hadden~Charlie Hall~Dwight Dunaway
Freeman Waldrop~Gary Hunton~Gene Haynes~Gene Holloway~Gibson Higgins~Glenn Krause
Greg Scott~Harold King~Hawk~Jerry Pyschka~Jim Anderson~Jim Ferguson
Jim Woodward~Joe Kenney~Joe Vickery~John Kelley~John Harllee~Jon Gordon
King Thackston~Larry Jackson~Layton Gregory~Lee Mullis~Les Friessen
Mac Wilson~Manfred Ibis~Mark Keenum~Mark Rosen~Martin Isganitus
Michael Dollins~Micheal Mason~Mike Perling~Moon Moore~O’Gene Donohue
Purl Sudds~Ron Davis~Sam Mitchell~Skeeter Smith~Steve Bedworth~Stuart Davis
Ti Barfield~Tom Aderhold~Tom Selman~Tom Williams~Trion~Winston Morriss
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.
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