Come Together - Decade 2

Decade 2 - Come Together
8 hours 9 minutes

1. Come Together - The Beatles, 1969
2. Let's Work Together - Canned Heat, 1970
3. Dialogue (Part One) - Chicago, 1972
4. Southern Man - Neil Young, 1970
5. Ride My See-Saw - The Moody Blues, 1968
6. Pinball Wizard - The Who, 1969
7. I'm Not Like Everybody Else - The Chocolate Watch Band, 1968
8. Rock & Roll - The Velvet Underground, 1970
9. Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin, 1969
10. She Came In Through The Bathroom Window - Joe Cocker, 1969
11. (I Know) I'm Losing You - Rare Earth, 1970
12. Beware Of Darkness - Leon Russell, 1971
13. Season Of The Witch - Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper & Stephen Stills, 1968
14. Sookie Sookie - Steppenwolf, 1968
15. Peace Frog - The Doors, 1970
16. I've Seen All Good People - Yes, 1971
17. Low Yo Yo Stuff - Captain Beefheart, 1972
18. Angry Eyes - Loggins & Messina, 1972
19. Bad Side Of The Moon - Elton John, 1971
20. Wild Night - Van Morrison, 1971
21. I Walk On Guilded Splinters - Dr. John, 1968
22. The Witch Queen Of New Orleans - Redbone, 1971
23. Ball And Chain - Big Brother & The Holding Company, 1968
24. Help, I'm A Rock - The Mothers Of Invention, 1966
25. Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan, 1965
26. We're A Winner - Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions, 1968
27. Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday - Stevie Wonder, 1969
28. M'Lady - Sly & The Family Stone, 1968
29. There Was A Time - James Brown, 1968
30. I'll Bet You - Funkadelic, 1970
31. Fire And Rain - The Isley Brothers, 1971
32. By The Time I Get To Phoenix - Isaac Hayes, 1969
33. Slippin' Into Darkness - War, 1971
34. Spirit In The Dark - Aretha Franklin, 1970
35. Reflections - The Supremes, 1968
36. Cloud Nine - The Temptations, 1969
37. Harlem - Bill Withers, 1971
38. Inner City Blues - Marvin Gaye, 1971
39. Whitey On The Moon - Gil Scott-Heron, 1970
40. Sympathy For The Devil - The Rolling Stones, 1968
41. Turn On / Tune In / Drop Out - The Fugs, 1968
42. Heroin - The Velvet Underground, 1967
43. White Cat Heat - The Godz, 1966
44. Bird Song - The Holy Modal Rounders, 1968
45. Bat Macumba - Os Mutantes, 1968
46. Hallogallo - NEU!, 1972
47. The Story In Your Eyes - The Moody Blues, 1971
48. 5:15 - The Who, 1973
49. Do The Strand - Roxy Music, 1973
50. 20th Century Boy - T. Rex, 1973
51. Pablo Picasso - John Cale, 1975
52. Real Man - Todd Rundgren, 1975
53. Aht Uh Mi Hed - Shuggie Otis, 1974
54. Everything I Own - Ken Boothe, 1974
55. The Hurt - Cat Stevens, 1973
56. Brand New Me - Dusty Springfield, 1970
57. Because Of You - Gene Clark, 1971
58. Crayon Angels - Judee Sill, 1971
59. Let It Be Me - Roberta Flack, 1970
60. Oh Me Oh My - Lulu, 1970
61. At Seventeen - Janis Ian, 1975
62. Love Hurts - Gram Parsons, 1974
63. Forever Young - Bob Dylan, 1974
64. A Case Of You - Joni Mitchell, 1971
65. A Man Needs A Maid - Neil Young, 1972
66. Chestnut Mare - The Byrds, 1970
67. Alligator - Grateful Dead, 1968
68. All The Love Of The Universe - Santana, 1972
69. Hocus Pocus - Focus, 1971
70. Orgone Accumulator - Hawkwind, 1973
71. I Been Hoodood - Dr.John, 1973
72. Soulsville - Isaac Hayes, 1971
73. What Am I Living For? - Mark-Almond, 1973
74. It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City - Bruce Springsteen, 1973
75. Babylon - New York Dolls, 1974
76. Everyone I Meet Is From California - America, 1975
77. California Saga (On My Way To Sunny California) - The Beach Boys, 1973
78. Susie-Q - Jose Feliciano, 1970
79. I Can See Clearly Now - Johnny Nash, 1972
80. I've Been Hurt - Bill Deal & The Rhondells, 1969
81. Rainy Day Women #13 & 35 - Bob Dylan, 1966
82. Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies - The Association, 1966
83. House Of The Rising Sun - The Animals, 1964
84. Wild Is The Wind - Nina Simone, 1966
85. Caroline Say II - Lou Reed, 1973
86. Paris 1919 - John Cale, 1973
87. Every Picture Tells A Story - Rod Stewart, 1971
88. Captain Jack - Billy Joel, 1973
89. It Makes No Difference - The Band, 1975
90. Take It To The Limit - Eagles, 1975
91. (I've Been) Searchin' So Long - Chicago, 1974
92. Love, Devotion & Surrender - Santana, 1973
93. Across 110th Street - Bobby Womack, 1973
94. Hey Big Brother - Rare Earth, 1971
95. Higher Ground - Stevie Wonder, 1973
96. The World Is A Ghetto - War, 1972
97. People Get Ready - Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions, 1965
98. Who Knows Where The Time Goes - Fairport Convention, 1969
99. Sitting - Cat Stevens, 1972
100. Starman - David Bowie, 1972
101. Behind Blue Eyes - The Who, 1971
102. Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory - Traffic, 1973
103. Conquistador - Procol Harum, 1972
104. Get Back - The Beatles, 1970

Glass of Beer - Sponge Candy Stout

Imperial Sponge Candy Stout, a bourbon barrel aged stout from Resurgence Brewing, Buffalo, NY.

I've had this wonderful stout a few times over the year both by the bottle and on tap at the brewery. This is a photo of a bottle I took to Philly to share with my sister Betsy who also loves a good stout. We drank this together on her backyard deck on a warm July evening.

This cellared from 2015 bourbon barrel aged stout was a gift from Sean and Ashely.

Neuromancer

The What When Book List 

Neuromancer by William Gibson, 1984

Read in January 1986

Another one of my favorite science fiction novels. This one from one of the pioneers of cyberpunk. Reading this was liking looking into a new world that had just opened up around us with computers and the emerging online technology that I would become so involved with in my everyday work life. It's amazing how much influence Gibson has had on media culture.

I always look forward to reading his books.

The books of William Gibson that I've read:

• Neuromancer, 1984, January 1986
• Count Zero, 1986, June 1990
• Burning Chrome, 1988, September 1990
• The Difference Engine, 1990, March 1992
• Mona Lisa Overdrive, 1988, October 1992
• Virtual Light, 1993, March 1994
• Pattern Recognition, 2003, August 2003
• Spook Country, 2007, March 2008
• Zero History, 2010, March 2011
• The Peripheral, 2014, April 2015

I've missed a couple of books from the late 1990's

Uptown String Band

I was a member of the Uptown String Band which was a Philadelphia Mummers Association string band that marched up Broad Street every New Year’s Day. I joined the band in 1962 and marched in my first parade January 1, 1963. The last parade was in 1968.

Our next door neighbor Joe DeLuca was an accordion player who got me to join the band with him. He only lasted a couple of years. I started out playing the clarinet but a year later I bought a tenor saxophone from one of the other guys and took lessons from one of the band members.

We marched in many parades throughout the year and especially on holidays like the 4^th of July and Memorial Day. We also gave concerts in bandstands and halls around the city. Occasionally we would march through a neighborhood in our regular clothes as a fundraising activity.

We always marched in the parades wearing the costume from the previous New Year’s Parade so each year we had different costumes. People loved it when a mummers string band came down the street on the 4^th of July. We would march in parades throughout the region and sometimes even farther away like Baltimore MD or up in New York.

There were 22 string bands and we were all in competition. Bands not only marched all the way from South Philly to downtown but also practiced carefully choreographed routines along the way and then performed for the judges at City Hall. Of course it was all on TV too.

The band had a clubhouse on Lehigh Avenue a few blocks from Germantown Avenue. It was a three story house. The first floor was a practice space for the entire band and also had a kitchen. The second floor was office space. There was a third floor where the teenagers hung out after band practice and sometimes smoked pot. We were supposed to be up their practicing music and routines.

Sadly the guy who sold me his saxophone and gave me lessons on using it was later killed in Vietnam after joining the Marines. He was three years older than me. He had a Polish name and everyone called him Stash.

Another thing about the Mummers and something I'm not proud to have been a part of but there were no black people and no women in any Mummers organization. Girls were not allowed to join the band. Different times.

Friends Free Library

 

We had two libraries in our neighborhood that were each a few blocks away and an easy walk. One was the regular neighborhood Philadelphia Free Library located in Vernon Park. The Germantown Friends Free Library which was part of the Quaker school in the neighborhood was located a little closer to my home so that was the one I went to as a kid. I really didn't know the difference between the two libraries and had library cards from both of them.

I spent most of my time at the Friends Free Library which had a very good children's area. I have very fond memories of going to this library as a kid and developing my love of books and reading with the help of those wonderful old ladies working there. Eventually that love of books would lead me to a career as both a public librarian and a college librarian. 

Years later I was doing some research on the peace collections Quaker libraries including our Germantown library and discovered that many of those helpful old ladies we loved were convicted felons. As young women many of them were jailed numerous times for anti-war activities during World War I. We never saw their stories in our school history books but the archives at Swarthmore College has extensive resources on the women’s peace movement of WWI.

Piecework

 

The Book List

Piecework: Writings on Men & Women, Fools and Heroes, Lost Cities, Vanished Calamities and How the Weather Was by Pete Hamill, 1997

Read in July 2019

After reading a novel by Pete Hamill I discovered he was first a journalist. I read his novel Tabloid City last year and really liked his take on New York City. I then found out he has been a journalist in New York for forty years and has worked for many of the news institutions of that city including writing as a columnist for The New York Post, The New York Daily News and the Village Voice. He has also written for Esquire, Vanity Fair and New York. 

This book collects many of his best writings over the years going back to 1970 where he has covered a wide variety of topics including politics, sports, entertainment business, the mob, foreign affairs, social issues, the art world, New York City and many more subjects. 

Becky and I went up to New York City many times during the late 1970's when we were living in Philadelphia. We saw lots of art at galleries and museums, went to clubs like the Roxy and Danceteria, saw music in places like CBGB's and spent lots of time in the Village especially the restaurants.  This book reminded me of how the city was at that time. We also went regularly over the years from Buffalo on this cheap airlines to the Newark Airport.

Piecework is a interesting collection of his touch-minded provocative work and a travelogue back in time. I found these essays engaging and endlessly fascinating.