The narrative begins in the ’60s, when Carole King and Gerry Goffin were writing their now-iconic songs at Manhattan’s 1650 Broadway hit factory, and James Taylor was emerging as a folksinger/songwriter. The location then shifts westward to L.A.’s Laurel Canyon, the breeding ground for the burgeoning singer-songwriter community, and to Doug Weston’s Troubadour, where the King/Taylor partnership begins to blossom and a close-knit crew of future legends — including Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, Eagles, and Elton John—performs on the small stage and holds court in the bar, the epicenter of the action.
The story is told through archival footage, much of it never before seen, which is intercut with the vivid recollections and incisive reflections of a wide cast of characters. Along with King and Taylor, contributors include David Crosby, Roger McGuinn, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Chris Darrow, Kris Kristofferson, J.D. Souther, and Elton John; Taylor’s former manager and producer, music impresario Peter Asher; the one-time head of Ode Records and producer of King’s Tapestry, Lou Adler; musicians Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar, Craig Doerge and Danny “Kootch” Kortchmar (Taylor’s childhood friend and King’s bandmate in The City); songwriters Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil and (King collaborator) Toni Stern; rock critics Robert Hilburn (who covered the scene as Los Angeles Times’ pop music critic); Barney Hoskyns (author of the So Cal music histories Waiting for the Sun and Hotel California) and Robert Christgau; Troubadour denizens Cheech & Chong and Steve Martin; photographer/musician Henry Diltz; and King’s daughter Sherry Goffin Kondor.
"And the sex. There was a LOT of that. There was also this small window of time (he holds his hands about a foot apart to illustrate) between The Pill and AIDS when it was all fun and games, and it was good. (He pauses for about three beats here and looks directly into the camera) I need to emphasize that. It was GOOD."
No Tanker Protest: EADS North America has announced that it won't protest the Air Force's award of the KC-X tanker contract to Boeing. The Air Force ran an "extremely professional" and "scrupulous" competition, Ralph Crosby, EADS North America chairman, told reporters during a press conference March 4 in Washington, D.C., to discuss the company's decision. USAF officials did "everything they said they would" during the source-selection process," leaving "nothing to hang a protest on," he said. "The Air Force looks forward to the long-awaited recapitalization of its air refueling fleet," service spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Vician said in a statement released following the company's announcement. Boeing's tanker spokesman Bill Barksdale, in a statement issued after EADS' event, said: "We understand the importance of this effort to our customer and the country and stand ready, along with our nationwide team of suppliers, to go to work on the new KC-46A program." Continue to Cleared for Takeoff. (See also our initial coverage)I'm surprised EADS isn't filing a protest, given the long and tortuous ten-year history of the tanker war. I'm SO very glad they aren't gonna go down that road.
Jokes, he argues, were a vital communication tool for President Reagan "because he could illustrate points with them." Mr. Johnson adopts a remarkable vocal impression of America's 40th president and delivers an example: "You know, he said, 'I'm not too worried about the deficit. It's big enough to take care of itself.'" Recovering from his own laughter, he adds: "Of course, that's an excellent one-liner, but it's also a perfectly valid economic point." Then his expression grows serious again and he concludes: "You don't get that from Obama. He talks in paragraphs."
His concern with the human dimension of history is reflected as well in his attitude toward humor, the subject of another recent book, "Humorists." "The older I get," he tells me, "the more important I think it is to stress jokes." Which is another reason he loves America. "One of the great contributions that America has made to civilization," he deadpans, "is the one-liner." The one-liner, he says, was "invented, or at any rate brought to the forefront, by Benjamin Franklin." Mark Twain's were the "greatest of all."
And then there was Ronald Reagan. "Mr. Reagan had thousands of one-liners." Here a grin spreads across Mr. Johnson's face: "That's what made him a great president."
During this year's Super Bowl, President Obama created a stir by offering guests at the White House beer that he'd brewed himself. And now the president reportedly plans to have another batch of his homebrew on hand March 17 — that's right, for St. Patrick's Day.
According to the Irish Central website, when Obama announced that this March is Irish American Heritage Month, he also pledged to serve his own White House Honey Ale — made with honey from the White House garden beehive — to help celebrate St. Patrick's Day.
In fact, while beers sales fell as a whole by almost 3 percent nationally, the sale of craft beer -- which is any beer made by breweries producing less than two million barrels a year -- has gone up.
In the first half of 2010, the sales of craft beer went up 9 percent by volume and 12 percent in dollars, according to the Brewers Association, a national non-profit association representing the majority of U.S. breweries.
While craft beers are still a small percentage of total beer sales, the totals are staggering and sobering: nine million barrels, more than $7 billion in sales, helping to fuel an estimated 100,000 full- and part-time jobs coast to coast.
Julia Herz, spokeswoman for the Brewers Association, says that breweries are on the rise in U.S. neighborhoods, with more than 1,600 breweries registered and another 500 in the planning stages.
A TV that is capable of side-by-side method 3D playback, 3D Eyewear, and HDMI cable connection are required to play the recorded 3D images.
The central issue, in my mind, with a no-fly zone (NFZ) is a policy one. What do you want to do? It is too facile to say: Stop aircraft from killing people and destroying things ... as it begs the question of: “Soooooo, are you OK with ground forces killing people and destroying things?” If the latter is answered in the negative, then the air piece is only one part of a larger answer. [I worry this option is being considered just to be seen as “Doing Something.”]A second, but lesser important question is: How long do you want to do this. If the answer is: We don't know ... but plan for a month or so. Then we'll need a couple hundred aircraft for 24/7 ops ... and either 3-4 carriers plus land-based support or bases in nearby nations or both. Italy is the best choice ... and to get its OK, we'll need either a NATO sign off, a UN Security Council Resolution, or just plain leaning on a good friend with a weak government. Other basing options are a bit unsavory. Egypt probably won't help ... neither will Tunisia. Algeria has its own terrorist problems. Israel won't want to be seen in an active role. Other African choices are pretty far away with little infrastructure.[...]A subset of the first issue -- more in the tactical realm -- is you would want to take out some of the air defenses no matter what systems you use ... and that means killing Libyan troops ... with all the unintended consequences of such actions. Secondly, what do you do about helicopters? They are hard to kill ... especially if they know you are coming. What if they just set down on the top of a building? You can't get them with an air-to-air missile; you'd need bombs [or as some of our members have pointed out – bullets] ... and that may mean civilian casualties ... especially if you don't hit that which you are aiming. Also, you don't generally configure fighters for both air-to-air missions and air-to-ground ones at the same time. Thus the need for more aircraft.[...]Finally, the Navy is not configured for round the clock operations, except in a short-term surge mode and has to keep a bit of its airpower to defend the fleet. This means less for NFZ ops. The good news is that you would not have to establish a NFZ over the entire country -- probably just the major cities and perhaps a few key air bases.Bottom line: creating a NFZ over the country is “do-able” – but not simple … and I would want to get the policy pieces answered before we embarked on this option.
I remember the stupid things, the mood rings
The bracelets and the beads
Nickels and dimes, yours and mine, did you cash in all your dreams?
You don't dream for me, no, you don't dream for me, no
(Goodbye, goodbye)
But I still feel your pulse like sonar from the days in the waves
That girl is like a sunburn
I would like to say
The girl is like a sunburn
I would like to say
She's like a sunburn
(She's like a sunburn)
She's like a sunburn
Technology!
technology!
Bugs
I’m putting the final touches on dinner last evening (read that: taking the last of three grilled cheese sandwiches out of the frying pan) when, from literally out of nowhere, a medium sized daddy longlegs drops on to the counter in front of me. I quickly put that grilled cheese on the cutting board and take a swipe at the spider. I miss. He’s a quick little bugger! There’s only one escape route available to said spider and he takes it, leaping on to the cutting board, heading straight for my dinner. I take a couple of stabs at him with my finger, again. Miss. Miss. Now that bold little SOB is actually ON my dinner, so I sweep him off the sandwiches with the flat of my hand, surgical precision be damned. I succeeded in sweeping him off the cutting board back on to the counter from whence he came. He was terminated with extreme prejudice and the remains deposited in the trash.
Fifteen or 20 minutes later and we're done with dinner. Those sandwiches were good! As I’m clearing the table I look down on the cutting board to see what are clearly two tiny little legs amongst the remnant crumbs. Which, of course, raises the question: “How many spider legs did I actually eat?” After a brief “ewww” moment I realize this ain’t the first or the last time I’ll consume a bug, in whole or in parts. The government has standards for “acceptable” amounts of insect parts and other filth in our food, ya know. And here they are. I’m glad I didn’t have any fig newtons for dessert.
Which brings to mind another bug story. In the last installment of “Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine” I told you about my mid-70s trip to Ramasun Station in Thailand and associated events. During that trip I became very good friends with a young lady that worked in one of the local bars in Kho Kha. One evening after work I’m sitting at the bar, nursing a Singha and minding my business when my lady friend slides on to the stool next to mine. We exchange greetings, and she says: “I bring you present.” “Cool!” sez I.
She reaches into her (very large) purse and pulls out this little cage made out of woven palm fronds or something, about three inches in diameter by two inches high. She then opens the top of the grass cage and dumps out this VERY large beetle-looking insect on to the bar. The beetle is about the size of an Almond Joy piece, which is to say it’s a really big bug. It's alive... and crawling ponderously around on the bartop.
“That’s nice,” I say. “What am I going to do with this?”
“You eat!” she says.
“You SHIT, too!” sez I.
She looks at me in a mildly offended way, shrugs her shoulders, picks the bug up off the bar, bites off the bug’s abdomen, and chews it up with exaggerated smiles of delight. I almost threw up.
It turns out she had offered me a Rice Bug, a particular form of beetle found in rice fields. This beetle eats rice, “processes” it, and stores the resulting paste in its large abdomen. A real Thai delicacy, so I’m told, even if the bugs are normally deep fried or steamed. My friend ate this one raw (and ALIVE, fergawd's sake!), though. It was a day or two before I kissed her again.
However meanly and grudgingly, even the new Republican speaker has now conceded that the president is Hawaiian-born and some kind of Christian. So let's hope that's the end of all that. A more pressing question now obtrudes itself: Is Barack Obama secretly Swiss?
Let me explain what I mean. A Middle Eastern despot now knows for sure when his time in power is well and truly up. He knows it when his bankers in Zurich or Geneva cease accepting his transfers and responding to his confidential communications and instead begin the process of "freezing" his assets and disclosing their extent and their whereabouts to investigators in his long-exploited country. And, at precisely that moment, the U.S. government also announces that it no longer recognizes the said depositor as the duly constituted head of state. Occasionally, there is a little bit of "raggedness" in the coordination. CIA Director Leon Panetta testified to Congress that Hosni Mubarak would "step down" a day before he actually did so. But the whole charm of the CIA is that its intelligence-gathering is always a few beats off when compared with widespread general knowledge. Generally, though, the White House and the State Department have their timepieces and reactions set to Swiss coordinates.
Minimal head, and it's lacking a bit in retention, though there is a ring of lace that does not waver even after a few hearty gulps. Slight haze in the deep amber brew--we thought this beer could have been a shade darker, with a tinge of red to it. Buttery, fruity, malty, faint caramel aroma--so we definitely know the yeast worked on this beer. Smooth with a medium body. Buttery on the palate, tending toward the sweet-malty side, with a quick draw of modest hop bitterness. The buttery character is hard to shake even with its toasty and caramel malt backbone. Finishes a little dry.
Today's (very short) war story... The video reminded me of watching missile launches at Vandenberg AFB, where I was stationed for a lil over three years. I arrived there as a jeep two-striper back in '64 and moved into the barracks, as all young troops do. The first week I was there I was awakened around 0200 hrs by some violent shaking, accompanied by a dull rumble-roar. Now, I'd been in a few earthquakes as a child and recognized the feeling... I lept out of bed and literally ran out of the barracks on to the lawn in my underwear, yelling "EARTHQUAKE" at the top of my lungs to wake up the other guys who might be sleeping through this. And all I got for my concern was angry shouts of derision (and worse) from my fellow airmen, who were NONE too kind.
One of the guys did take pity on me as I walked back in, extremely red-faced and about to fuckin' DIE from embarrassment. "That was a Titan," he explained. "You won't feel the Minutemen or even hear 'em until long after they're gone, and the Atlas launches aren't nearly as bad... but yeah, a Titan launch feels just like an earthquake." The launch pads were about three or four miles from our barracks.
I saw hundreds of launches over the course of the next three years and was also involved in a project to see if our air defense radars could pick up ballistic missile launches (they couldn't and didn't, but that was long ago and radars have changed, along with the times). That was pretty cool because I was tied into the Vandenberg launch control center in order to start my scope camera three minutes before launch. I then got to step outside and watch the missile go from our mountain top, which looked exactly like the shuttle launch from that airplane. Pretty cool, in other words.You can't possibly imagine how embarrassed I was about that "earthquake" thing, Gentle Reader. Military guys ain't supposed to panic, for starters, and we're supposed to know every-damned-thing about our service, on top of that. I betrayed both principles in that episode and it took me quite a while to live that down.
