Maverick Philosopher

What do you want to be buried with?

When I was a teenager I fantasized dying and being buried with my guitars.  A fantasy puerile and absurd, as it seems to me now.  For some, however, adolescence is a life-long condition:

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Are You a True Boomer or a Shadow Boomer?

We boomers are one self-absorbed generation, further evidence of which fact is a post like this.  You are a boomer if you were born between 1946 and 1964.  Call the elder half of that cohort the true boomers, or the classics.  Call the second half the shadow boomers, or the reboots.  Take this test to see where you fall.

I'm talkin' 'bout my generation.  If music is the sound track of one's life, then you must admit that we boomers have the best soundtrack of any American generation. 

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Spencer's Picks

Spencer Case thinks I need to expand my musical horizons.  I don't disagree.  He writes,

 

O.K. here are my five picks for good folk/rock music within the last ten years.

First, "The Wrote and the Writ" by Johnny Flynn, an artist I've just discovered. I chose it because of the syncopated guitar and the outstanding lyrics.

Second,  "Right Moves" by Idaho's own Josh Ritter. Ritter been one of my favorites for about six years. He isn't instrumentally out of this world like some of the other artists here, but he's a great songwriter. It's hard to find a representative song for him for a first exposure, but this seems like a safe bet.                                                                                           
Third, "Simple as This" by Jake Bugg, another new discovery. Great lyrics.

Fourth, "Don't Need No" by Punch Brothers. I've seen these guys live and they are  amazing.                                                                        

Fifth, "Big Parade" by Lumineers. These guys are from Denver and actually, they are quite popular now. So not everything on this list is obscure.

 

As far as I'm concerned, these artists prove good music is alive and well, if under-appreciated. Interested to hear how you think they stack up.

 

It's good stuff, Spencer.  I enjoyed 'em all.  Here are some obscure tunes/renditions I think you'll enjoy if you haven't heard them already.  I won't make any invidious comparisons.  It's all good.

 

Fred Neil, The Other Side of this Life

 

Fred Neil, I've Got a Secret

 

Ry Cooder, Jesus on the Main Line

 

Ry Cooder, He'll Have to Go

 

Doc Watson, Tom Dooley

 

Nanci Griffith, Boots of Spanish Leather

Kate Wolf and Don Lange, Rock Salt and Nails

JFK Assassination: Chalk it up to One Lone Nebbish

I don't usually recommend anything from Slate, but Fred Kaplan's  Killing Conspiracy is a must-read.  The money quote:

. . . If horrible events can be traced to a cabal of evildoers who control the world from behind a vast curtain, that’s, in one sense, less scary than the idea that some horrible things happen at random or as a result of a lone nebbish, a nobody. The existence of a secret cabal means that there’s some sort of order in the world; a catastrophic fluke suggests there’s a vast crevice of chaos, the essence of dread.

As the old adage has it, “Big doors sometimes swing on little hinges.” John F. Kennedy’s murder was a big door—had he lived, the subsequent decades might have looked very different—and Lee Harvey Oswald was a preposterously small hinge. The dissonance is wildly disorienting. It makes for a neater fit, a more intelligible universe, to believe that a consequential figure like John Kennedy was taken down by an equally consequential entity, like the CIA, the Mafia, the Soviets, Castro … take your pick.

We are beings who seek Deep Meaning in all the wrong places.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Some Recent Dylan Bootleg Releases

Song to Woody.  This version from the 1970 New Morning sessions, but not included on that album.  Originally heard on Dylan's first album.

Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.  This version too from the 1970 New Morning sessions.  First heard on the 1966 Highway 61 Revisited album. Ramblin' Jack Elliot delivers a haunting version.

When I Paint My Masterpiece. Another Self Portrait, Bootleg Series. vol. 10.  The Band's version.

Intro to Another Self Portrait, Bootleg Series. vol. 10. 

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Dylan's Civil Rights Songs

The 1963 March on Washington now lies 50 years in the past.  Those civil rights battles were fought and they were won.  What could be achieved by legislation and government intervention was achieved.   Unfortunately, the civil rights movement gradually transmogrified into a civil rights hustle and grievance industry as the original ideals of Martin Luther King, Jr. were betrayed by race hustlers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.  And now look at the mess we are in. But it was a time of great and inspiring music.  Here are some of Dylan's singular contributions.

Blowin' in the Wind

They Times They Are a' Changin'.  A wonderful alternate version by the man himself.

Oxford Town

Only a Pawn in Their Game

The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.  What ever happened to William Zantzinger? See here.  The Althouse take on the case.

The Death of Emmett Till.  Once again: Trayvon Martin was no Emmett Till!

Chimes of Freedom.  Duet with Baez.  (Or is it Joan Osbourne?) The Byrd's folk rock version.

When the Ship Comes in.  Duet with Baez at the 1963 March on Washington.  Clancy Bros. version.

After Dylan did his bit to change the world, the quietist and poet in him won out over the activist and he bid farewell to his past, and, like a quintessential American, moved on down the line.

Restless Farewell. Mark Knopfler rendition.

My Back Pages.  Byrds' version. 

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He Was a Friend of Mine

John F. Kennedy was assassinated 49 years ago today.  Here is The Byrds' tribute to the slain leader. They took a traditional song and redid the lyrics.  The young Bob Dylan here offers an outstanding interpretation of the old song.

I was in the eighth grade when Kennedy was gunned down. We were assembled in an auditorium for some reason when the principal came in and announced that the president had been shot. The date was November 22, 1963. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was seated behind my quondam inamorata, Christine W. My love for her was from afar, like that of Don Quixote for the fair Dulcinea, but at that moment I was in close physical proximity to her, studying the back of her blouse through which I could make out the strap of her training bra . . . .

By the way, if you want to read a thorough (1,612 pages with notes on a separate CD!) takedown of all the JFK conspiracy speculation, I recommend Vincent Bugliosi, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy.

It was a tale of two nonentities, Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. Both were little men who wanted to be big men. Oswald, acting alone, shot Kennedy. Ruby, acting alone, shot Oswald. That is the long and the short of it. For details, I refer you to Bugliosi.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Youth, Fast Cars, and Death

Tomorrow is the 57th anniversary of the death of James Dean.  When the young  Dean crashed his low slung silver Porsche Spyder on a lonely California highway on September 30, 1955, he catapulted a couple of unknowns into the national spotlight.  One of them was Ernie Tripke, one of two California Highway Patrol officers who arrived at the scene.  He died  in 2010 at the age of 88.   But what ever happened to Donald Turnupseed, the driver who turned in front of the speeding Dean, having failed to see him coming?  His story is here. In exfoliation of the theme that "speed kills" I present the following for your listening pleasure:

Jan and Dean, Deadman's Curve (1964).  But it is not just boys who are drawn to speed, little old ladies have been known to put the pedal to the metal.  Case in point: The Little Old Lady From Pasadena.

Johnny Bond, Hot Rod Lincoln (1960)

James Dean, Public Service Announcement

James Dean, The 'Chicken' Scene

Beach Boys, Don't Worry Baby

Ike Turner/Jackie Brenston, Rocket 88 (1951).  The first R & R song?  With footage of Bettie Page.

Billy Joel, Only the Good Die Young

 

 

 

 

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Levon Helm and Dick Clark

Both passed on this last week, Helm at 71, Clark at 82.  Here is part of a fine tribute to Helm:

He was a river of American popular music. Whatever you call it, roots music, Americana, R&B, rockabilly, gospel, country soul, he kept its rhythm and sang it as well as any American musician ever has. We heard all of it in that soulful howl of his lamenting the missing Ophelia and the soul-crushed Confederate soldier, and the temptations and ravages of the road.

[. . .] We’re a hell of a musical country. We’re a people with a soundtrack. The wind whistling through the pines and jackhammers tearing up concrete, guitars and fiddles in the subway, hip-hop on the corner, blues down the alley, “a saxophone in some far off place,” a flute in the desert.

Whatever levees we build between us, by color, class, creed or politics, the river overflows them. In the city, out in the country, on the plains or in the projects, we pine and dream and cry and love to some strain of American music that is connected to every other strain of American music. Levon showed us that, and made us want to sing along with him on his ramble.

Up on Cripple Creek
Chest Fever
The Weight
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.  A great piece of Americana.  "Like my father before me, I'm a working man/Like my brother before me, I took a rebel stand . . . ." Joan Baez's interpretation.
I Shall Be Released. With Dylan and a number of other luminaries.
Evangeline. With EmmyLou Harris.
When I Paint My Masterpiece.  Tune written by Dylan.

"They'll be rockin' on Bandstand, Philadelphia, PA" in Chuck Berry's Sweet Little Sixteen is a reference to Dick Clark's American Bandstand.

Philosophy, Superman, and Richard C. Potter

I was pleased to hear from Patrick Kurp of Anecdotal Evidence this morning.  He inquired:

About four or five years ago you wrote about an American writer and thinker, perhaps an academic philosopher, who published, I believe, two books and seemed to disappear. You had difficulty finding information about him online. I believe you said he had an interest in East Asian thought. His “career” was eccentric by conventional standards and he seemed to be something of a loner.

Then I remembered a post of mine which begins:

This post examines Richard C. Potter's solution to the problem of reconciling creatio ex nihilo with ex nihilo nihil fit in his valuable article, "How To Create a Physical Universe Ex Nihilo," Faith and Philosophy, vol. 3, no. 1, (January 1986), pp. 16-26. (Potter appears to have dropped out of sight, philosophically speaking, so if anyone knows what became of him, please let me know. The Philosopher's Index shows only three articles by him, the last of which appeared in 1986.)

I don't know whether Potter is the man Kurp had in mind, but the former does satisfy part of Kurp's description.  In any event, the Richard Potter story is an interesting one. 

I recall talking to him, briefly, in the summer of 1981 at Brown University.  I was a participant in Roderick Chisholm's National Endowment for the Humanities  Summer Seminar, and Potter, who I believe had recently completed his Ph.D. at Brown, sat in on a few sessions.  My impression was he that he was unable to secure a teaching position.  I also recall a slightly derogatory comment I made about the Midwest and  how one might have to go there to find employment.  Potter's mild-mannered reply was to the effect that he preferred the Midwest over other geographical regions.  His name stuck in my mind probably because of a paper on the paradox of  analysis he co-authored with Chisholm and because of  the F & P article mentioned above.  See here.  But then he dropped out of  philosophical sight.

A few years back, I did a search and he turned up again as a George Reeves and Superman aficionado.  So here is part of the rest of the Potter story.  Here  is Potter's George Reeves site.

A checkered career, his.

I too enjoyed the Superman series while growing up in the '50s.   Some thoughts of mine on George Reeves are in Superman: The Moral of the Story.

Old Paul Harvey Joke

Man attempts to enter swanky restaurant. Maitre d' informs him that coat and tie are required. Man returns to car, dons coat, and tries once more to enter. Maitre d' says that a tie is also necessary. Man returns to car, opens trunk, takes out jumper cables, and arranges them around his neck. Heated discussion ensues, but maitre d' finally relents: "OK, you can go in, but just don't start anything!"

I remember exactly when and where I heard this joke.  It was June of 1995.  I was headed from Phoenix to Charlottesville to take part in an NEH Summer Seminar on the Philosophy of Science at the University of Virginia.  As I was 'motorvatin'* in my '88 Jeep Cherokee past  Knoxville, Tennessee on Interstate 40, old Paul Harvey (1918-2009) came on the air and told the above joke.

Now you know the rest of the story.

_______________

*'Motorvatin' borrowed from Chuck Berry's Maybelline.

Hello October

And no better way to start Kerouac month off right than with a reading from October in the Railroad Earth.

Saturday NIght at the Oldies: Death and Taxes

Blind Lemon Jefferson, See That My Grave is Kept Clean
Son House, Death Letter Blues
Don McLean, American Pie (The Day the Music Died).  Excellent video explication of this wonderful bit of Americana.
Beatles, Taxman
Harrison and Clapton, Taxman

Harley-Davidson: Stickin' It to the Man

Check out this H-D promotional video.  A celebration of individuality by people who dress the same, ride the same make of motorcycle, and chant in unison.

"Some of us believe in the Man Upstairs, but all of us believe in stickin' it to the Man Down Here." 

But without the Man there would be no roads, no gasoline, no science, no technology, no motorcycles, no law and order, no orderly context in which aging lawyers and dentists could play at stickin' it to the Man on the weekends.  The Man is discipline, self-denial, repression, deferral of gratification, control of the instinctual.   The Man is civilization discontents and all. Without the Man there would be no one to stick it to, and nothing to stick it to him with.  Adolescents of all ages need the Man to have someone to rebel against.

Still and all, after watching this video, what red-blooded American boomer doesn't want to rush out and buy himself a hog?  Get your motor runnin', head out on the highway . . . .