God only knows.....

 

When I heard Brian Wilson and friends 9 years ago, he was somewhat frail but the music he wrote and played, including the Beach Boys hits, never sounded better.

He was a senior maestro, sitting behind the piano and conducting a stage of talented players and singers, who made his music, even live, sound perfect. It was scary brilliant, and so was he.

Paul McCartney calls God Only Knows the best song ever written.

Without the legendary Pet Sounds album, there would have been no Sgt. Pepper. That musical brilliance was the Beatles answer to Wilson's innovation. 

Nobel Laureate and Bard of the 20th Century, Bob Dylan said he "admired his genius."

Listen to the hits, or to his avant-garde' creations and the sound infects you, with happiness and the never ending summer of youth, and it is marvelous.

It was bitter sweet hearing the tunes again, when the genius was being mourned. And when the idiot king sends the marines to Wilson's home area, and illegally federalizes the national guard. It doesn't matter anymore that no one in LA wanted them there, not the Governor, Mayor, Police Chief or the citizens.

The idiot king is mad and vengeful and a nation destroyer. Standing in front of uniformed troops and talking his insane trash politics demeaning not those he savaged only, but taking the US to new lows, dangerous and deranged lows. 

Yea, hearing Brian Wilson, his brothers and cousin Mike and buddy Al was a dose of sunshine, but poignant to the point of tears. It seemed only a temporary railing against this nose dive. Oh those happier, innocent times when we wanted to salute our land of liberty. As grade school kids, even in an imperfect and not yet fair US, we had a nation we were proud of.

 Just a fews hence from when that Cub Scout in uniform stood on the back row under the watchful eye of an untrusting teacher and next to his buddy John Smith, we Boomers would be under the thrall of a political system that seemed bounding with hope as a young President invited us to ask what we could do for our country and when even those of us in the great mid west wanted to go surfing...surfing USA.

A sweet time, rich with what will be, shinning with dreams.

We grew up tough though, doing duck and cover drills. Remember those? We'd have to duck under our desks and cover our heads to protect us from the Atomic bomb. I had nightmares about the bomb. I read a lot about the bomb and why we had to worry about it. I decided then the "duck and cover" was not going to stop any of us from being incinerated or vaporized, so I stopped ducking and covering. When my mates were being compliant, and Mrs. Rogers would be scorning me to obey I tried to explain how it was all useless. 

But there was hope too. Our government had developed a vaccine against dreaded polio that was killing and crippling our generation. We lined up to be Polio Pioneers, testing the Salk Vaccine.

Health Secretary RFK jr would just boil himself wouldn't he? It was a time of honor, a time when science and medicine was making for a better future. It was a time to be smart, to reach for the stars. We believed that our leaders also believed in the words of the Pledge of Allegiance "...under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all."

I listened to a lot of Brian Wilson's work over the years and like that pledge I believed what I heard, especially California Saga

Have you ever been south of Monterey?

Barrancas carve the coastline

and the chaparral flows to the sea

'Neath waves of golden sunshine

Have you been north of Morro Bay?

the south coast plows the sea

and the people there are of the breed

they don't need electricity.

That's precisely where I sit, remembering Brian Wilson and that era. My electricity comes from the panels on my roof.

 

Have you ever been down Salinas way

Where Steinbeck found the valley?

 

There the monarch's autumn journey ends

on a windswept cypress tree.

Again this Father's day weekend, my daughters and grands will join Lana and me on our annual trip to the Live Oak Music Festival. It's a tradition out here.

Have you ever been to a festival

The Big Sur congregation?

Where Country Joe will do his show

and he' ll sing about liberty. 

And the people there in the open air

are one big family

Yea, the people there love to sing and share

their newfound liberty.

I expect California music veterans and longtime emcee Joe Craven will have a few things to say this year. There will be mention of Sly Stone, and Brian Wilson. There will likely be more. Live Oak is a fundraiser for our public radio station. Yea, that kind of targeted, enemies list, media. So, maybe we'll get put on the idiot king's list. A badge of honor. 

As we take this nostalgic pause, we rightfully should recall those men called POTUS who actually quoted song writers and poets. And they all visited the Kennedy center to enjoy the arts. Not one of them showed up only to fire the staff!

Take us back to the trail, Brian.

"I may not always love you

but as long as there are stars above you

you never need to doubt it 

I'll make you so sure about it.

God only knows, what I'd be without you..."

To my kindred of age and temperament, keep on rockin' in the free world.

See you down the trail.

Freedom of thought is absolute

 

        "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing," the bard wrote in Subterranean Homesick Blues when some of us were stretching our minds and pushing boundaries of custom and law while getting an education on campus.

        Nothing was off-limits. War, peace, love, hate, race, speech, art, sex all spilled into classrooms and campuses, the media and even the church. The discussion was fully engaged and frequently rancorous.

        People expressed their views, protested and even went to jail for equal rights, and free speech. 

        I wonder if Bob Dylan of the early 60's would be allowed to sing or think aloud his thoughts on campuses today.   

 

        Would Deans, Provosts or college Presidents  permit a professor to teach of a few words spoken about civil disobedience;

        "There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus---and you've got to stop it! And you're got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it---that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all!"

       Mario Savio said that to 4000 people on the UC Berkeley campus, sparked a sit in and the arrest of 800 students. It was the high atmospheric turbulence of the Free Speech Movement in 1964. 

        Other winds blow today. Free speech, even humor, is "canceled." Freedom of expression and to incite thought  is increasingly stifled, it might upset or disturb. 

It is a weird mirror opposite of the way it was. Now professors and teachers are fired because those young minds they seek to teach take offense. Today the student has become the heavy. 

        

    

        In decoding the intellectual tyranny haunting academia and popular culture we  are forced to face, to quote David Byrne, it is " the same as it ever was." There is a circular nature to this that is troubling. 

        Savio was among a group of students who had been busy in the south trying to register black voters, facing all the hate and violence that came with that effort back then. 

        When they returned to their northern campuses, including Savio's Berkeley, efforts to raise money for the voters registration and civil right organizations had been banned. The fuse was lit.

        Despite all that ensued in the intervening half century,  schools buckle to pressure from right and left and every garden variety special interests that is either loud or financially empowering to assert a censorship on speech and thought. It is a wave that teachers, adjunct professors, contract lecturers especially and those who are on the tenure track find difficult navigate.

            Tom Nichols nails it.  He's a respected security and weapons analyst who spent 35 years as a professor. He recently used an Atlantic column to dissect the dismissal of an adjunct professor who, with warning, showed students in a global art history class an image from the 14th century of the Prophet Muhammad. She offered any student who did not want to view it an an opportunity to leave class.

           In the resulting furor the school's president, Faynese Miller, questioned that academic freedom was at issue and questioned if academic freedom was sacrosanct or should be put above students own views and traditions.

        Nichols responded:

This makes no sense. The “rights” of students were not jeopardized, and no curriculum owes a “debt” to any student’s “traditions, beliefs, and views.” (Indeed, if you don’t want your traditions, beliefs, or views challenged, then don’t come to a university, at least not to study anything in the humanities or the social sciences.) Miller’s view, it seems, is that academic freedom really only means as much freedom as your most sensitive students can stand, an irresponsible position that puts the university, the classroom, and the careers of scholars in the hands of students who are inexperienced in the subject matter, new to academic life, and, often, still in the throes of adolescence. This, as I have written elsewhere, is contrary to the very notion of teaching itself. (It is also not anything close to the bedrock 1940 statement on the matter from the American Association of University Professors.) The goal of the university is to create educated and reasoning adults, not to shelter children against the pain of learning that the world is a complicated place. Classes are not a restaurant meal that must be served to students’ specifications; they are not a stand-up act that must make students laugh but never offend them. Miller is leaving the door open for future curricular challenges.

        Yes, we know the way the wind is blowing. Poet Dylan was particularly precocious with another line from Subterranean Homesick Blues.....

        "The pump don't work cause vandals stole the handles..."

         Free thought and speech are the pump handles of intellectual

progress. That chill that blows comes in on winds of repression and it bears a thief who seeks to steal your right to exercise and speak your mind.

           See you down the trail. 

        

...we will not look away...

   Bob Dylan's recent and rare interview with historian Douglas Brinkley covers sensitive history and sacred ground and does so at this time when the history we are creating shakes us to the core. 
    The rebellion against racism is global. The outcry about killer police and the culture of inadequate training and profiling is also world wide. It seems people of reason are fed up with the enabling of racist attitude. Non-Black people are the majority of this universal movement. This may be one of those "inflection points in the arc of history."

     "...If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that's so unjust,

      Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt, your mind is filled with dust..."

      Dylan wrote the lyrics to the Death of Emmett Till in 1963, 8 years after the bright eyed 14 year old Chicago youth was savaged into a grotesque corpse in the Mississippi delta.

      "...For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!"

     Years later a white woman admitted she lied about the incident that sent her husband and his half brother into a rage where they grabbed the youth from his uncle's home, beat and mutilated him, shot him in the head and put him in the Tallahatchie River. 

     An all white jury acquitted Roy Bryant and J.W. Millam. A year later the men admitted they killed Till.

    "...This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man

  That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost robbed Ku Klux Klan."

    Till's family wanted an open casket. The gruesome truth helped launch what we call the Civil Rights Movement.

    Dylan's song came in the midst of the push for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that outlawed segregation. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited discrimination in elections. 

     

     We know those rights did not come without bloodshed, police violence, massive marches and demonstrations. 
     The extension of those freedoms were born of courage and faith.

      And, it seems, we are back to the start, though now everything is accelerated. The 21st century struggle against racism and repression is world wide. 

      People around the globe are demanding better training and less violence from their cops. 

       Too many men and women, black and white are killed by police without cause and for crimes that are minor, not serious and would never carry a death sentence. 

       Whites do not walk out of their homes with the daily fear that accompanies Blacks; will this be a day when a police encounter ends my life?  Being white in America offers a safety. Being Black in America brings jeopardy. Still, all these years later!

       Things must change and the momentum has filled our screens, dominated government attention, and provoked something new and powerful. 

     This has happened more rapidly than any political movement I've witnessed. But the grievances are centuries in the making.

      Something seems different. There is a kind of spiritual momentum. Justice and equality seem to be getting breath, bringing a multitude of races and ethnicities together and into the streets and halls of government with a common purpose.

   

     But racism does not die and it's congress of dunces do not go easily into the night, here or anywhere in the world.

     Ignorance is a powerful strain in humankind. While some refuse to see and understand, resisting all the while proclaiming they are not racist, others conspire to keep a knee on the neck of equality. We need only look at what Georgia did in their recent primary, suppressing black votes, as they did earlier in electing a racist governor denying hundreds of thousands of votes to a Black woman, the likely winner.
     The Republican strategy of voter suppression is in full overdrive, now trying to eliminate vote by mail, even in the midst of the pandemic. There continues a deliberate attempt to deprive people of the right, because of the color of their skin.

     It is dead wrong, but not surprising as the two most powerful racists in the US are the President and his partner Mitch McConnell.

    People of conscience should note, some of the harshest critics of the racist Trump and McConnell are Republicans, former Republicans now. They are a bit like the Germans who fled as the world watched the rise of a fascist regime.
Those who stay loyal to this President will be marked by history as ignominious fools.

        It is not unreasonable to see the murder of George Floyd as being a galvanizing moment, one death too many. In that way his murder by a dead eyed, trouble making cop captured on video is like the horrible casket photo of Emmett Till. We can not look away from that kind of evil. We can't deny the hatred, the racism, the stupidity, that still exists.
      Those of us who thought the legislative acts of the 1960's fixed the problem, were naive and racist in our way, because we refused to see the truth. 
     Racism is a human stain, it is ours to eliminate. It does not happen with one election, or a congressional action, or better testing of the psychological fitness of cops. 
     My dad used to say, equality cannot be legislated, but discrimination can be outlawed. Real equality is the work of the heart. 

       "...but if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all that we could give,
        We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live.
           from The Death of Emmett Till-  Bob Dylan

beautiful diversion

Jacaranda trees are in bloom on the California central coast

     Take care, stay well.

      See you down the trail.

A NATION OF LAW-A POLITICS OF FEAR AND FIRE

words are inadequate

    California grieves. The accounts and images of the hell of the Camp Fire in Northern California hit with such force as to knock the joy of life out of its fulcrum in our hearts. Our tears, depression, and abject sadness, as deeply as they are felt, are meager human echoes to the horrendous reality of those who lived and lost in Paradise and the surrounding area.

    The emotional toll conspires to knock this beautiful state out of its natural orbit of nature, light, creativity and a zest for life full speed ahead. The Woolsey Fire complex north of LA has destroyed iconic sets, scenes, famous homes and dreamy enclaves. Hundreds of thousands are upended and live on the edge of uncertainty. Those who survive shudder to think of the loss of life and they way they died.

    Somehow the sun shines less brightly.
    There is something that can and must be done-bury power lines. Trouble with lines are again the suspect in these fires. In a corporate calculus a board may reason it is too expensive. That is wrong. 
     Talk has begun in California legislative circles that a private energy company, a monopoly, is no longer the model that works. Time for evolution, for safety's sake, for the people's sake. 
      My friend Bob who writes the blog You've Got A Lot To Learn, found in the column to the right of this post, has written of his experience with the Ventura County fire.

a place away

     Not far from here, tucked into a hidden cove, stands an old fishing hut dating to the early 20th century. 
     The images are offered as metaphor for retreat, a place away from the complexity of these days.

but there is an accounting

the bill comes due

     At this juncture I can't help but think of the Dylan lyrics "and it's a hard rains a gonna fall." 

      Add together these clips:

      The US was horribly and embarrassingly "misrepresented" at the Armistice Day ceremonies in France.* The missed commemorative appearances will go down as some of the most offensive and despicable Presidential behavior in history, underscoring his unfitness.

      The repudiation of this rogue administration is about to escalate. It is telling when the Fox News organization, a right wing propaganda voice for most of its broadcast day, has joined in the legal action against the dictator-like banning of CNN reporter Jim Acosta. Fox joins ABC, NBC, Associated Press, Bloomberg News, New York Times, Politico, EW Scripps, USA, Washington Post, First Look and others in trying to block this usurpation of press freedom.

      This White House is also being sued for the appointment of a former shill of a fraudulent company and who is opposed to the Mueller probe, to be the Attorney General. Just contemplate that for a moment.

     No administration in history has had so many guilty pleas and indictments of high ranking staff and cronies and more are on the way. Now the First Lady is making a list of staff who should be fired. All of this is preparatory to what will happen when the subpoenas and investigations begin when the Democrats take leadership of the House. It may feel like a swarm of hornets.

     After watching and covering Presidents since 1965 I wonder if this man can hold up to the pressure of the onslaught. He is bloated, overweight, does not work out, has questionable sleeping habits and a furious temper. A major publication is out with an inquiry into his recent behavior and asking if there is something wrong with him. 

     Now that something is in place to challenge him, now that voters have tossed over some of the acquiescing sycophants, Donald Trump's life will be tougher than ever before. If he's got a breaking point, emotionally, politically or physically we may see it. The bill comes due sometime. And overarching all of this is the Mueller report, also due.

dollars but no sense

    At a time when this White House and the Republican party is driving the national deficit to all time highs and busting the budget, one must note Trump is blowing as much as $220 Million on sending troops to the border, even though the experts, the Generals, the Pentagon tell him they don't see the "caravan" as a risk. He's sent 6000 troops and says he may raise it to 15,000. This President calls the caravan an "invasion." In fact his irrational behavior is a diversion, an attempt to work up his base, an appeal to his racist and xenophobic supporters. But it is racism and he undertakes it at a huge economic loss to the nation. It's almost like going bankrupt when you own a casino.

how much is too much?

    Here's a money story that may blow your mind. Thanks to Bloomberg, Time Magazine, and Democracy Now we know that Amazon's Jeff Bezos was worth on May 1st $132 Billion. In January his worth was $99 Billion, so he's continuing to earn.

    Here are the stats. He makes $275 Million a day, that is $11.5 Million an hour, $191 thousand a minute or $3,182 every second.  The median salary for an Amazon employee is $28,000 a YEAR.  Bezos makes as much in 3 seconds as he pays his employees for a year of work.

the asterisk footnote

 *After watching his petulant appearances in Paris and hearing of his refusal to go to honor the fallen in Belleau Wood, or to take part in the multi nation march I thought a few Marines should grab him and give him a thrashing.
Those 50 plus Republicans who served in previous Republican White Houses and who published the ad saying he was unfit and unqualified should have been listened to by their fellow party voters. 

    A hard rains a gonna fall!

    See you down the trail.

 A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall

Video of a young Bob Dylan performing

A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall

      

LIFE SPAN OF A LYRIC

IS THERE A SHELF LIFE?

      An especially placid and expansive blue Pacific rolled by as Paul Simon's I Am A Rock jarred a stream of memories awake.
       Then I began to wonder what Paul Simon thinks of the lyrics today. What do they mean to him now?  There are some wonderful lines beginning with the "Deep and dark December" and "the freshly fallen silent shroud of snow."
"Don't talk of love…it is sleeping in my memory"…"I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died"…"I have my books and poetry to protect me." What does the current Mr. Simon think of that 1965 version songwriter?
      Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan and Peter Gabriel tunes followed and I wondered again, how do songwriters think about earlier work, especially those that were hits and choreographed seminal moments in the life of a generation?
      We've changed and our perspective on those passages of life that played against the music of our era have morphed as well. Some lyrics no doubt mean the same today as they did then and as they will tomorrow, but some seem more fragile, or wed to an ethos that existed then. Is it a matter of sensitivity, emotion, a breakthrough or insight? Or perhaps it is all in the ear of the beholder.  Still, I wonder  how Simon, Dylan, Lennon, McCartney et al regard some of their early work and their labors at being profound.
      Then I hit a button and was enveloped in a Stones set and cruised up the coast in a slip stream of Wild Horses, Jumping Jack Flash and Street Fighting Man. Pretty sure there's been no slippage of meaning in those and the boys can still bang them out. Maybe somethings don't change, they only age. Cheers to the vintages.

TWIN BAMBIS

     Birthing season in Cambria brings a somewhat rare set of twins.

   Double the munch, a reason gardeners resort to fences.

SIMPLE AMUSEMENTS

    John is one of the village's most active citizens. At 90 he's learned a few amusements here between the Santa Lucia Mountains and the Pacific.

   His co-star is "Jay" as John has dubbed him.

    Our buddy Reg also gets into the act.

    Jay looks right…

 …looks left

   And he scores….

   Coming back for seconds.

   See you down the trail.

DYLAN SCORES-SEATTLE POUNDS-USING THE RAIN AND OTHER GOOD THINGS-CHEERS

GOOD THINGS
(For the Dylan surprise and the Super flop
read below--but first....)

     A painted sky, from the deck of friends Jacque and Mike.

THE FIRST RAIN OF THE YEAR

   The California drought was dampened with a bit of rain on Super Bowl Sunday.  A little more than an inch fell in the first measurable rain since last year, but conservation minded Californians went to work gathering what we could.

 Lana made repeated visit to empty a catchment vessel, filling storage containers. 

    The harvested rain water will irrigate a vegetable garden.

  All communities ought be more aggressive in harvesting rain flow. 

 MORE GOOD STUFF

   Comparing French Burgundy to Windward Pinot. Vintage tasting from 2000 to 2014. Our favorite was Windward in each year and these women are two of the best wine hostesses in the state, any year.

    Carpaccio covered with a Parmesan and truffle sauce!

    Catching the Moon and Venus in a ballet.

   And one more look at a rain wet deck-a delightful scene to dry Californians.

NOT SO GOOD

    Disappointed by the Super Bowl-not just the outcome, but the lack of excitement, balance, and competition.  Seattle's defense was relentless and effective. Denver's was not. 
     It is almost a sport to criticize Peyton Manning today, though not fair or objective. Manning never really got a chance, his line did very little to help, though his performance still set a record, but is of little consolation. Seattle's offense and especially Russell Wilson were champions. Seattle won the game, handily and deserve accolades.I wish it would have been closer, just because it would have been more fun. And while the Red Hot Chili Peppers are fun, I would have preferred a half time show with more Bruno Mars and less Peppers. But the party was cool, the company was great and the food was good, so, why should I complain.  Go 49ers!
     And while some of you are yelling "sell out," I was knocked out by the Bob Dylan Chrysler commercial. I certainly didn't see that coming! I was surprised that he'd do a commercial, yes, but I loved the tone and vibe of the piece he did.  
     I can't understand why folks would be upset. After all the music biz is just that, a business. Why shouldn't a poet, songwriter or rock star be able to earn a bit more by doing a commercial? It raises the quality of the advertising. Are artists supposed to give away paintings, or songs, or novels? I'm not sure it makes me want to buy a Chrysler, but I give them credit for making the American road, a patch of Highway 61.

    See you down the trail.