Do you wanna know a secret?

Harry Hammond/Getty 

        OK, so it's not really a secret, but it's something about which most people don't have a clue. You recognize the Fab Four above, and one of the reasons you do is because of the name below the frame.

        Harry Hammond was the first of the great Rock and Roll photographers and the image above was part of the creation of Beatlemania. It was 60 years ago this week George, Ringo, Paul and John appeared on the Ed Sullivan show which is considered the birth moment of a phenomena that rocked the world.

        This photo was the image tens of millions of people first saw of the Beatles.

        Harry Hammond took the photo as the Beatles were about launch. Hammond

was the early photographer for the Rolling Stones, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Eddie Cochran.

        It's hard to believe now, but for a while Hammond had the business to himself.

        London born Hammond dropped out of school at 14 and picked up a job shooting on Fleet Street. That was where printing and publishing began in Britain in the 16th century. By the 20th Century most of London's Newspaper and magazines were there. 

        Hammond showed an early talent and soon he was hired by an outfit that was known as "Society's Photographers," the wealthy and the aristocrats. In the 40's he decided there would be interest in showbiz and pop culture. By the 1950's he was known by most of the entertainment scene including musicians and had photographed Billie Holliday, Frank Sinatra, and Judy Garland among others. 

        When he took the photo that was used in advance of the Ed Sullivan show he was a middle aged 45, but had a way getting the trust of rock and roll's pantheon.

        When Rock became big big business, thanks largely to the culture changing impact of the Beatles and the "English invasion," Hammond decided he didn't care for the growing number of other photographers doing what he had done almost exclusively, so he retired from shooting rock stars in the mid 60's and began managing bands.

        His work is highly valued and collected. Harry Hammond, who helped light the fuse for the Beatles explosion passed in 2009 at 88. As we think back about that first Beatles appearance and all that followed, you know that iconic image was the work of Harry Hammond.

        

        See you down the trail.

        

        

 

BACK IN TIME and RESERVATIONS IN A LAKE OF FIRE

THE DARK LORD AND EGYPT

   Dick Cheney and Egypt have things in common. That follows below, but first-

INTERSECTIONS OF TIME

Reunion Ramblings

   Strange to be a visitor where once you lived. Things look differently, and indeed they are.

       Arriving in time to "enjoy" a severe weather outbreak, wondering if the locals realize how precious is the rain.
    It has been a while since my last thunderstorm and it is an appropriate commencement for a kind of "magical mystery tour."
     Even more appropriate the Beatles' movie of that name played on the local PBS station as I prepared for a 50th reunion. 50th?! Really?

   But first, there were tasks.  Miles to drive. Indiana countryside, flat and rich with corn well on the way to "knee high by the fourth of July."

   Obligations and remembrances down the road, while also

 invoking an old family custom-a visit to the Pizza King, after cemetery visits or funerals. 

    Memories too of college dates. Where else can you find a barbecue hamburger, thin crust delicious creation, still changeless after 50 years?  

 More highway views, ingrained memories,  

  more changed vistas, 

 and calming traditions and sights.

Amazement at bushes, trees and a lawn we planted, now a few years on.  Our design worked, as a park like setting ensues. Happy that we've made a place more green.

Amazement too at who we have become, while still only 18, in some place in our being.

    While old institutions gain a new face. The Indianapolis Museum of Art continues to re-invent itself and to spread its influence

   even to the new trendy Alexander Hotel, where art is celebrated and abounds.

         Reunion journeys where memories old and new gather.
     I grew up learning of Madame CJ Walker, probably America's first African American woman millionaire. Now she's a work of art, though I over heard young members of a wedding party identify her as a "famous singer." Time does its tricks! 
 What do I wish I could have again, or take back to my home in California? Certainly I'd take an abundant cure to our drought.

  And we leave a piece of history behind, while taking the memory. 40 years ago my radio employer staged what became known as the Great Raft Race. As old is often new, it is the subject of media attention and there is discussion of a reunion of another sort. That is one I'll sit out, though an old image of my colleague Bob, in the cap, and me booms out from the past. Those were the days.

    Confluences in the river of time. A 50th High School reunion. Stirrings of a 40th anniversary for a major cultural event and I'm still at a loss to believe my generation has made so many orbits around the sun.

     Years ago when Lana and I settled into our first house, a neighbor, a great old guy in his 80's, rode his bike over to our porch to visit. He said he didn't have the endurance he used to, even though he could only think of himself as an 18 year old.  At the time we thought what an odd notion. Now we are beginning to understand.
      As the great Indiana writer Kurt Vonnegut puts it,
"and so it goes."

RESERVE SPACE IN THE LAKE OF FIRE

   Dick Cheney and a recent ruling by the Egyptian courts are travesties. The judge and the discredited ex-vice president would be bound and gagged and put in public stocks were this my world to control.

   The Egyptian courts have sentenced 3 journalists to long prison terms for telling the truth.  

    The truth is something Dick Cheney does not tell. He is a liar and probably indictable on several charges of corruption to say nothing of his potential as a war criminal.  Cheney  became so toxic that even the not so bright George W. Bush and his other advisers shunned him in the last term as though he was a ham sandwich left in a car trunk over the summer. That same idiot is running his mouth again.

  America should not forget those weapons of mass destruction that Cheney "knew" were in Saddam's Iraq. Nor that Iraq would become a Democracy. Or that Iraqi oil money would repay the war effort, etc. Nor should we forget Cheney's famous "One Percent Doctrine," which contributed to the ill fated invasion of Iraq and war on terror all the while Cheney's old Haliburton pals and subsidiaries earned billions in war profiteering in no bid contracts.  

    Pulitzer winner Ron Suskind's book One Percent Doctrine, published a few years ago, reveals how Cheney's sick mind and devious politics spun us into the web of violence, war, death and bad diplomacy that plagues the planet now.

    No one should take a word this malevolent jack ass spews with anything but contempt.  It is after all a free country, despite Cheney's poisonous misadventures and crime. In his transplanted heart he probably applauds the decision of the Egyptian court.  You can't help but think this evil cretin has contaminated that new heart with his own hovering greed and darkness. Dick Cheney is the worst of America. 

     See you down the trail.

IRONY OF ICONS

ICONS

     Paul McCartney playing with Nirvana may have been the  cosmic rift that some have attributed to the Mayans.

      First at the Sandy benefit international broadcast, 12/12/12 and then again on Saturday Night Live (SNL), McCartney assumed the late Kurt Cobain's role. That is not something we saw coming, nor would ever expect.

        By virtue of his "Beatledom," McCartney is probably the reigning star in the Rock realm.  Some ascribe such cultural and musical shaping influence to the Beatles they belong in Darwin's theory of evolution.  Of course most of that is true.  And Paul is a superb player, in addition to writer, composer, arranger, producer and by most accounts a grand fellow.  He certainly held his own, and in a way was saying, I maybe the grand old man and the master of pop and ballads and lyrics, but I can still kick out the jam.  Still

McCartney with Nirvana was just plain weird!

THE LEGEND MAKERS

     One more item of Iconography.  One of the greatest sports legends, because it is true, is the "Goliath killer" Butler Bull Dogs.  

       The small Indianapolis north side University thrilled NCAA fans a couple of years ago with back to back national championship runs, ending up as runner up two years in a row.  Over the weekend the "Dawgs" worked their way into the nation's top 25 again by knocking off the nation's number 1 powerhouse, neighboring Indiana University.

       The IU Hoosiers lay claim to 5 national championships and 8 final four appearances.  To some, IU under Bob Knight, UCLA under John Wooden and Duke under Coach K are the epitome of college basketball powerhouses.

      Well,...way back, in my kid hood, we remember the great and historic Butler teams under the legendary Tony Hinkle.  Always a small school, but with a brand of basketball that cast a national shadow.  

      Under former coach, now athletic director Barry Collier and coach Brad Stevens, Butler has become the favorite little guy. Their intelligence, determination and toughness remind millions of how basketball excellence can look.  

      If you saw the classic movie Hoosiers written by Angel Pizzo, you may be inclined to say the real Hoosiers in Indiana-the little guys who knock off the big boys, are the Bull Dogs!  Great stuff.

Day File
at the coast

  See you down the trail.

TAKE ME BACK

ALL YOU NEED IS.....

 WHERE IN SOME OLD BOYS 

REDISCOVER

      You are in the midst of a full cultural hiccup when a when a Beatles retrospective celebrates a fifth anniversary.

     And you are in the presence of a transcending greatness
when the magnificent Cirque du Soleil is the ride into the power of the Beatles song book.

      I'm one of those who think the Cirque troupes are among this planets greatest specimens of human skill, talent and creative imagination.  Already you know you are in for something extraordinarily special when you enter their arena.

     But when it is the Beatles that becomes the raison d'être, it's transporter time-beam us up, or back as it were.         
     As Linda, one of the boomer bunch who shared the time trip said, "It's more than a show, or a performance. It's a human experience!"
     Every accolade that can be laid on this cast probably already has been.  They are all deserved, and then some.
     You know how totally engrossing a Cirque performance can be.  What plusses this show is the music, voices, audio
documentary moments and the spirit of John, Paul, George and Ringo.   
     You are immersed not only into a full body assault of site, sound, texture and essence.  You are also "claimed," or captured and emotionally pulverized by the spirit of that time, its innocence, its playfulness, its youth-our youth.  
    As my friend Jim said "Several times I said I want to go back to that time. I want to go back to that age."
    Boomers can, at least for a couple of hours.  Be ready
to let the tears flow. And then, at least in some special
way, feel something sweet and wonderful, again!

See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER:) TAKE FIVE

THE CLASSIC

Dave Brubeck's TAKE FIVE took me out of a rock and

pop world into jazz back in high school.  I found a 

jazz station on the dial and was hooked, though my

buddies barely tolerated it on my car radio. 

I enjoyed being able to punch back and forth between say,

Satisfaction by the Stones and and Sidewinder by Lee Morgan. When they drove it was all Beatles, Stones,
Beach Boys, Dave Clark Five, etc.  That was fine
but jazz held a special allure.
As a school kid I worked in the downtown area of Indianapolis  as a "stringer" and gofer for the Indianapolis Times and as a board operator for a "fine music" FM station headquartered in an old hotel.  Well the jazz station was on the top floor of another hotel that I passed on my commute.  I'd stop by that hotel, buzz at the studio door and be ushered into warren of an album filled rooms. 
"Look around kid, see what you like." 
The DJ's were not like the
pop star jocks at the rock stations.  These guys were older, both black and white, musicians themselves and
somewhat tickled that a white middle class kid
was hooked on jazz.  
It all started when I first heard Brubeck's piano and Paul Desmond's sax.  
So the Weekender :) wants you to dig it.

See you down the trail.