The Shaggy Dog

This was a Walt Disney film starring Fred MacMurrary and Tommy Kirk that was released in 1959. We saw it at a drive-in movie theater probably the following summer with us all squeezed into our dad's '55 Chevy.

The story of a teenage boy who magically periodically turns into an Old English Sheepdog. It was re-released in 1967 and of course I saw it again at the neighborhood theater. Tommy Kirk was The Shaggy Dog.

I saw a lot of the Walt Disney Studio movie productions in the 50's and 60's but of course that is a whole other story.

I would also go on to love watching Fred MacMurray in the television series My Three Sons.

I liked Tommy Kirk too and saw him in other movies around that time like Old Yeller, The Swiss Family Robinson, The Absent Minded Professor and Babes in Toyland. He was also in a lot of beach party movies in the mid-sixties along with Annette Funicello. Kirk would get fired from Disney for being gay and by the 1970's had given up acting.

Birthdays - Glass of Beer

Today August 18th is my daughter's birthday. It is also my daughter-in-law's birthday. We saw our daughter last week and we will see our daughter-in-law this coming weekend but it would have been nice to enjoy this beer with the both of them on their birthday.

All America IPA from Flying Bison Brewing, Buffalo NY. 

Becky recently brought home a 12 pack of assorted beers from Flying Bison. It would be nice to get over to their brewery some time and taste some of their in house special brews.

Van the Man - Kitchen Listening

Morning kitchen listening... It feels like a brand new day as it stoned me to my soul so I turn it up a little bit higher and together we float into the mystic.

Van Morrison has always been one of my favorite rock artist and his album Moondance is an absolute classic from 1970. Every song is wonderful. I listened to it this morning,,, twice. That is something I very seldom do and usually it would only be for something completely new but today I played the CD then when it was over I played it again. I maybe even enjoyed it more the second time. Now I feel like going up on the third floor and giving my vinyl copy a spin.

I truly loved his blue eyed Celtic soul music right from his very start with Them. I still have a pile of Van Morrison vinyl albums upstairs that cover his work from the early 70's to the mid 80's including a couple of great live albums. Saw him a couple of times in the late 60's and early 70's. He's someone I would have liked to have seen perform more throughout his career. His album It's Too Late To Stop Now is one of the greatest live records of all time. I have a few other live albums of his and I particularly like Live At The Grand Opera House, 1984 and the Night In San Francisco, 1994 albums.

Some other of his albums that rise above the rest are Tupelo Honey, Wavelength and Saint Dominic's Preview... IMHO.

Henry the Builder

Henry likes to build things. As a recently turned four year old his favorite material to play with is his sets of duplos and he has a lot of them. His other passion is his cars and trucks and recently he has combined the two into the building of elaborate towering vehicles made of duplo blocks.

The duplo creation in the photo is an example of his vehicle towers and he wanted me to protect it from his little sister who loves to dismantle towers. I placed it up high where Clara could not get to it and it did look interesting next to some of Becky's pottery.

During our time with the kids I've watched Henry build lot of things. We spent a lot of time last year with the kids in their house in Philly and at that time he was especially happy building large elaborate train track setups. He also had big duplo towers and other types of blocks. I really liked what he did with the various magnetic blocks sets. Fun to watch.

He also got very defensive about Clara toddling around threatening to destroy all his works at any moment. Poor Henry would sometimes get so emotional about protecting his creations.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what he does with the regular Legos. We have several boxes of Legos stored in a closet in our house from when Sean was a kid.

People are dying...

 

People are still dying and he doesn't care. Not even a little bit.

Andygator - Glass of Beer

It's a warm rainy night in Buffalo and the perfect time to have a glass of Andygator, a Helles Dopperbock from Abita Brewing, Louisiana,  A tasty potent but deceivingly light German style bock. One of many nice Abita beers.

Becky recently brought home a party 12 pack of Abita beers that included one of her favorites Purple Haze along with Big Easy IPA, Amber Lager, Strawberry Lager, and Wrought Iron IPA. Two bottles of each in the box. 

Although we have not been going out we have been drinking a beer or two in the evenings during this seemingly relentless stay at home pandemic. I haven't had much at all in my usual quest for trying new and different beers. Becky has been doing the food shopping and regularly comes home with nice assorted packs or a six pack of one of our regular go to beers. I've considered online beer shopping but I really don't want to go there. I like having a nice regular beer most of the time when sitting at home writing and listening to music.

TLA Cinema

 

This downtown Philadelphia theater located on South Street was originally a nickelodeon in the early 1900's, then a concert hall in 1927 and eventually a movie theater in the 1940's but which declined in the 50's. Then it was a repertory theater throughout the 1960's. In 1971 it became a movie theater again and specialized in hard to find and foreign films.  The theater showed nearly 20 films a week. It was my movie theater of choice when I lived in Philly 1974 – 1979 after getting out of the Navy in December 1973. It was also the time period when I was attending Temple University’s School of Communication and Theater majoring in Film & Media Studies. I would often have assignments to see a particular film playing at the TLA. 

When we first started going to the TLA it was the only business on that part of the South Street strip. Everything else had closed in previous years except for a few wholesale distribution businesses. It was dead as a place for something to do except go to the movie. However, the TLA triggered a revival of the street into a center of alternative counterculture.  A wonderful bookstore opened up next door followed by South Street Art Supply down the street. Galleries and restaurants followed. We were there regularly for movies, books and art materials. Then over the next couple of years there were even more bars and restaurants opening on the street. Clubs with live music too. One of our favorite places was Grendel’s Lair that had live reggae bands and some early punk bands. Even back then it was hard to park down there and we had some very specific strategies to get a spot. We often parked a couple of blocks south of South St. They also pioneered the midnight showings of cult films like The Rocky Picture Horror Show and Pink Flamingos.

South Street eventually became a happening destination hot spot for tourist and folks from the suburbs going out in the city. Parking got even crazier and the city had to build some parking ramps. A fancy mall called New Market was also built nearby. By the time we moved in 1979 is was radically changing and was almost unrecognizable in later years when we were visiting.

The TLA stopped showing films in 1981 and eventually went back to live theater before being converted to a live music venue in the late 80's

During the five and a half years I was going to the TLA I probably saw a couple of hundred films there. There were different double features almost every day and we went at least several times a month and sometimes more. It would be interesting to come up with a list of films I've seen at the TLA.

Becky and I were just commenting on the fact that the high point of the TLA Cinema was a very brief period and we were lucky to have been part of it for those almost six years.

When we moved to Buffalo in June 1979 we found a similar movie theater... The Allendale on Allen Street in the Allentown section of the city. Saw a lot of films there for another brief period before that theater also shifted to live repertory theater. 

Clara and the Bunny

Clara loves bunnies. All the bunnies in her life have been the cuddly stuffed animal, a character in a children's book or just a cute picture. She loved pointing her tiny index finger at a bunny and loudly exclaiming "bunny". 

The family was sitting around in the backyard on a warm August evening this week enjoying some time with our grandchildren when I saw a rabbit in the back of our neighbors yard eating some grass. I picked Clara up in my arms and walked toward the rabbit.

We have many rabbits in our backyard and generally they are not afraid of us. There have been times when I've seen five or six back there at the same time. One in particular often comes within a couple of feet of my chair when I am in the backyard reading a book. 

So I walked toward the rabbit with Clara in my arms and said to her "lets go see the bunny". She was immediately ready and since there was no fence between the yards it was easy to get close to the munching rabbit.

Clara was watching very intently and whispered "bunny". The rabbit just sat there very still without moving a muscle as we slowly approached. I was wondering what was going through Clara's mind as we watched the rabbit quietly looking at us. Then it blinked, it's ears moved and the nose twitched. Then there was absolutely no doubt for Clara that the bunny was real. Suddenly I could feel her trembling in my arms as she got physically excited. Then the rabbit took a few steps forward and Clara loudly exclaimed "bunny rabbit". This was no longer just another bunny like a toy or a picture in a book. This was real and she knew it. She started shouting "down down down" and I let her down to the ground.

She slowly walked quietly toward the rabbit who quickly ran a few feet away from her. Then Clara laughed out loud while running to the rabbit and the chase was on. I scooped her up because I really didn't want her running around the neighbors yard. She didn't seem to care and was just so excited to see that rabbit scampering around on the grass.

I carried her back over to the family sitting in chairs around the table where she happily told everyone she saw a bunny rabbit. When asked where the bunny was she would point her finger over to the back of the neighbors yard to the spot where the rabbit had been eating grass.

For the rest of the week she constantly looked in the yard for that bunny rabbit... and the kitty cat and the hippo but those are other stories.

JImmy Smith Organ - Kitchen Listening

Morning kitchen listening... Jimmy Smith from the Talkin' Verve Roots of Acid Jazz series.

One of my favorite jazz artist compilation albums from the great Jimmy Smith on the Hammond B3 organ. He was a link between 60's jazz and soul music. He could play that amazing 60's funky jazz style and then turn around and play the top 40 pop songs. I really liked both versions of Smith. 

He came out of the Philadelphia jazz and soul clubs and was immediately signed to the Blue Note label in 1956 where he recorded some classic albums before signing with Verve in 1962 and made albums with other artists such as Wes

Montgomery, George Benson, Kenny Burrell and many others. I've always liked his soul jazz music but also when he would apply his mighty organ to a pop classic such as Ode To Billie Joe and Funky Broadway.

I started listening to a lot of jazz in the mid to late 70's and greatly expanded my jazz collection of records. I was also listening to the WRTI radio station from Temple University that regularly played jazz and discussed the music and the artists they featured.  I was mostly listening and buying hard bop and fusion at that time. It would be many years later that I discovered my love of 1960's soul jazz. It was Jimmy Smith that opened that up to me especially when I heard some of his records he made with Wes Montgomery. Then I was all about the jazz guitarists and organists playing their funky grooves. 

In addition to Jimmy Smith I also discovered the soul jazz organist Shirley Scott, Jimmy McGriff, Brother Jack McDuff, Richard 'Groove' Holmes, 

Some other Jimmy Smith albums in my collection:

• Back at the Chicken Shack, 1960
• Best of Jimmy Smith: The Blue Note Years, 1988
• Bluesmith, 1972
• A Date with Jimmy Smith, 1957
• Jimmy Smith Retrospective, 2004
• Walk On The Wild Side: The Verve Years, 1973

He is also included in many of the jazz compilations in my collection and I've used his music on dozens of mixes over the years.

Voting Democrat

I am a Democrat but there have been a few times over the past 50 years when I didn't vote for the Democratic Party candidate. However, I've never even considered voting for a Republican Party candidate for any office, at any time, in any place, for any reason. Ever. I could also never see that happening anytime in the future especially since the Republican Party has degenerated into the obvious party of greed, racism, misogyny, ignorance and hypocrisy. 

So who did I vote for those times I didn't vote Democrat? The Green Party, The Working Families Party and maybe a couple others over the years. I also refused to vote for any candidate that was in the Democrat line and also listed in the Republican line. Any candidate whatsoever that had an endorsement from the Republican Party did not get my vote for moral reasons.

I grew up with the Democrat Party. Both my parents were Kennedy Democrats in the 1960's and my mother was a committeewoman for many years. As a teenager I participated in anti-war student demonstrations and I guess I considered myself a leftist in the late 1960's but it didn't stop me from enlisting in the Navy in late 1969. It was my exposure to Southern culture and racism while in the Navy that cemented my left leaning tendencies along with seeing many other countries around the world. Later in the 1970's I volunteered for several organizations including Mobilization For Survival and the Keystone Alliance that were mostly focused on anti-nuclear issues at the time.

Over the years I've gotten to the point where I consider the Democrat Party to be politically moderate and middle of the road. I would proudly consider myself now to be a Democratic Socialist a communitarian who believes in a community taking care of each other regardless of race, immigration status and economic situation.