Standing My Ground - MAGA Dystopia Book

Democracy Book Challenge. #3 - One post a day on the books I’ve read on the maga dystopia. Standing My Ground: A Capitol Police Officer's Fight for Accountability and Good Trouble After January 6th by Harry Dunn, 2023. Read in 2023 and everyone should read this book by one of the real heroes of January 6th.

And now thousands of those convicted violent domestic terrorists have been released. Maga dystopia indeed.

Posted on Bluesky.

Birth of the Cool - Music Book Challenge

Music Book Challenge #9. Birth of the Cool: Beat, Bebop and the American Avant Garde by Lewis MacAdams, 2001. I read this brilliant book right after it was released in March 2001. Today I posted a brief review on Bluesky as part of my Music Book Challenge. This is the 9th book I posted in this series. A few of them I've posted on this blog many years ago.

When cool happened. A cultural history of the avant garde 1940s-1950s and went way beyond just what was happening in music at the time. I enjoyed reading this book very much. It was music, art, films and the culture of the time. Learned a lot too.

It was great working in a library and helping to select books like this which allowed me to read it right away. Yes, it was cool.

Try It Again - Funky Jams FV

More funky stuff and some classics too. I really enjoyed putting this together and then giving it a listen... a few times.

This mix is part of my Funky Jams series and a Final Version mix.

Try It Again - Funky Jams FV

1. Try It Again – Bobby Byrd, 1973
2. In A Funky Way – Charles Rouse, 1974
3. Them Funky Changes – Sonny Stitt, 1971
4. Goin’ Down – Allen Toussaint, 1972
5. Right On – Clarence Wheeler & The Enforcers, 1970
6. Hang On In There – The Stovall Sisters, 1971
7. Foxy Woman – Eldridge Holmes, 1968
8. Bold Soul Sister – Ike & Tina Turner, 1969
9. Funky Women – Maceo & All The King’s Men, 1970
10. A Funky Song – Ripple, 1973
11. Boogie Joe The Grinder – Quincy Jones, 1974
12. Funky Love – The Staple Singers, 1975
13. We Came To A Funk Ya – Fred Wesley, 1977
14. Hold On, I’m Coming – Solomon Burke, 1979
15. Just The Two Of Us – Bill Withers & Grover Washington Jr., 1980
16. Street Life – Herb Alpert, 1979
17. Breezin’ – George Benson, 1976
18. Walk in the Night – Jr. Walker & The All Stars, 1972
19. Black Market – Weather Report, 1976
20. Crosswind – Billy Cobham, 1974

No Buffalo Chamber Music Concert Tonight

Tonight was were scheduled to attend another performance in our series of Buffalo Chamber Music concerts. Obviously with Becky's positive covid test and my bad cold we could not go. Even if we weren't sick we probably would not have gone out with the temperatures at show time around 6 degrees plus it had been snowing all day.

The concert tonight was the Horszowski Trio, piano, violin and cello along with an added viola player for the tour.

It's hard to imagine many people showing up for that concert when most of the ticket holders are senior citizens.

There are three more concerts left in the series over the next three months.

Garth Hudson RIP

It was sad today to hear that Garth Hudson passed away at the age of 87 and that he was the longest surviving member of The Band. I saw them in concert four times between 1969-74 and then again later on in 1994 Becky and I saw The Band minus Robbie Robertson along with Blue Rodeo and some other Canadian bands and a Canadian Invasion concert down at Griffis Sculpture Park in Ashford Hollow.

I remember an interesting story about Garth Hudson from a biography of The Band I read many years ago. When he joined Levon & The Hawks the condition was that he was paid extra to give music lessons to the other members of the band. This was to satisfy the his musician parents for his moving to the US to be in a band. He was several years older than the rest of the band members.

Of course in 1965 they hooked up with Bob Dylan and the rest is history. Although he was an amazing accomplished multi-instrumentalist in particular with keyboards, accordian and saxophone and other instruments but I really loved when he played the organ.

Got Some Thunder Snow

A little while ago we heard some Thunder Snow. That was the definitely the first time we heard it this year and it's probably been several years since we heard it. I was sitting in the chair reading a book when I saw a flash of lightning. Then the thunder clap. Just one and that was it. No more for the afternoon or evening.

I got up and took a picture out front at the time just for the hell of it.

The Inauguration Wimp

It was a cold winter day in Washington DC. Too cold for an Inauguration Day for the wimpy Orange Menace. He wanted to have great big crowds on the streets of DC but not if it meant him getting his fake hair blown around or his makeup messed up. Yes, it was cold with freezing temperatures and high winds but that didn't stop previous presidents' inauguration celebrations but trumpy moved everything indoors.

Lots of people paid $5,000 a piece for tickets to his outside seating area but when the event was moved indoors in a much smaller venue all of those ticket holders were stiffed. No refunds. The conman exclaimed that the new indoor ceremony would be a great TV event for everyone. The limited seating in the arena was reserved for all those rich folks who spent a million bucks to attend. All of the dopes who paid for those tickets to sit in the stands lost their money. Trump told them that the unused tickets would make valuable souvenirs that they should keep in a scrapbook. LOL.

Inauguration Day 2025

Today is the day that the orange cockroach with the big mutant ego and the tiny grasping hands becomes the scourge of the world voted in as president by a bunch of ignorant racists and power mad oligarch loving anti-democracy jerks.

He wants today to be a big televised event with the best ratings which is why in our home and many across America we are watching anything at all rather than inauguration day coverage. For us it is lots of cooking and gardening shows. Last night it was football games. Anything but politics.

Lillian Roxon's Rock Encyclopedia

I posted on Bluesky about some of the music history books I've read over the years which reminded me of this one... the first one.

Lillian Roxon's Rock Encyclopedia came out in 1969 and was the first book of music I owned. I remember buying it in 1969 and having it in my room at the house in Harleysville. I just remember it as a red book and have no idea what happened to the original paper book cover. Sometime many year ago I lent it to my brother-in-law Joe to read and he probably still has it on his book shelf. I should see if it is still there or maybe his brother sold it at a flea market. I should see if it is still around. It would be fun to look through it one more time. I did look to see if there was an e-book copy available to borrow from the library but no luck there.

Lillian Roxon was an Australian journalist and author. She moved to the US in 1959 as a correspondent for an Australian newspaper. In the mid-1960's she became obsessed with pop music and began writing about artist and groups. She also was one of the first journalist to cover the rise of the hippie movement. She wrote the first encyclopedia of rock music in 1968-69 which was published in late 1969.

I really enjoyed having this book back in the day. I read it cover to cover and was always interested in what she had to say about any particular artist or group. She had very strong opinions. It was interesting to read about some groups I had never heard of at the time... or since. I was also very cool to read about so many first impressions of groups that would go on to be the core of classic rock.

Land Between the Rivers

Land Between the Rivers: A 5000-Year History of Iraq by Bartle Bull, 2024.

I started reading this in November 2024 and it took me two months to complete it. That's a little longer than usual for me with a book but this was an unusual reading experience. This book covered a vast amount of history of a very interesting part of the world. I needed to put it down periodically to contemplate and absorb what I read. I was also reading several other books during that same period. 

This book was a history of the Middle East spanning thousands of years where civilization was born and where the East met the West and clashed. It was a story of religions and their impact on humanity. It's about Iraq but also way beyond it. It was a very well written book but really made me think about those times and places. From Turkey to Iran and beyond. Covering 5 thousand years on 500 pages was quite the challenge.

I had read some books over the years on Islam but I think I learned more about the actual culture of that religion here than anywhere else. It was a fascinating history of the Muslim conquest of the region.

Overall a very readable and interesting history. I should add that I've several other histories of the region over the years so I was familiar with most of what was covered here.