Daily Blues & Views

I have a very rare record.  It is a 7 inch 331/3 disc that was recorded in 1968.  This small artifact would have no real value save for a few songs by one of the artists recorded. Here's the story:  Early in 1968 I took interest in a new literary magazine being planned by some UCLA students.  I think it was an ad in The Daily Bruin newspaper that first sparked my interest.  I was writing a lot of poetry in those days and was looking for outlets to publish.  Since I had succeeded in applying for and then getting accepted to a poetry workshop course, I had the novel thought in my mind that what I was saying might be worthy of a larget audience. As is often the case, when I met with a small group of the students behind the newspaper ad/call for submissions, I emerged as one of the "poetry editors" of the magazine.  To be sure, this was a fledgling effort, but the people involved had some solid ideas.  I liked them and their vision. The magazin...

The country has quarantine fatigue.  The weather, in most places, is goading the people to action.  They want more than extended walks, trips to the grocery store or gas station, essential forays into the dystopia.  They want their lives back. In typical American fashion, many feel the need to demand their rights, quote the Constitution, and demonstrate their rage in public.  The government is, according to this view, not treating them as the adults they are and they are mad as hell and won't take it anymore. They want nothing to do with spikes, new waves, or predictions of the "darkest winter" likely to come.  They need to go to the beach, the neighborhood bar, any restaurant, no matter what form that might take.  It's bad enough they can't attend a live sporting event, but at least some car, horse, and possibly human races will soon be held in silence.  There might even be basketball and some form of baseball. They are Americans and demand thei...

Yesterday was the first Saturday in May.  It might have been a traditional first Saturday if the Kentucky Derby had been run.  It wasn't.  For the first time in 75 years, the grandstand at Churchill Downs was empty.  Along with sports stadiums and large arenas, most race tracks have stopped. The Derby is a real harbinger of Spring along with the leaves on trees, robins, and snowmelt that fills rivers and streams.  The birds are there and the streams are swollen, but we don't have Spring Training anymore.  Not this year. All, however, is not doom and gloom.  Yesterday no Kentucky Derby but it has been rescheduled for the first Saturday in September.  The management at Oaklawn Park, in Hot Springs, Arkansas did take advantage of the date and offered in place of "the" Derby the 2020 version of the Arkansas Derby.  Oaklawn's Derby has traditionally been an important prep race for would-be Kentucky Derby aspirants.  That still goes.  R...