Daily Blues & Views

 I recently received a youtube video link in an email from a friend.  It was a rare video of a 1952 telecast of the final game of the 1952 World Series.  Along with a small group of others on the receiving end of this clip, I began to share comments and realizations about this 70-plus-year-old game.   It reminded me of a graduate course in media and history that I took some years ago.  In that's we spent a fair amount of time looking at old film footage, most of it rare stuff that had been recently uncovered.  I recall one clip that followed a trolly car on its route in downtown San Francisco shortly after the 1906 earthquake.  Aside from evidence of the quake, we paid particular attention to the transportation facilities, the clothing, worn, and any other glimpse of a social mores or behavior that might be present.  Most notable that day was how people dashed in and out of horsedrawn vehicles without a care in the world. Watching this old Wo...

 They moved into one of the best-known houses on the block.  The one with the strange, albeit homemade TV antenna on the roof.  That's because that was the house that had probably the first color TV in the San Fernando Valley.  Hell, probably the first one in Southern California.  Rupert Goodspeed, a TV engineer for CBS and family had moved on.  As the late 50s gave way to the 60s, a new family occupied the home directly opposite my family home.   To say they were different folks would be an understatement.  Coming to the greater LA basin from Ripley, Tennessee was a culture shock at best, traumatizing at worse.  But they settled in, not exactly the stereotypical hillbillys, but not far off, either.   Homer, Ruby, and their son Eddie soon adapted to the demands and lifestyle of Southern California.  Eddie "talked funny" to most of the neighborhood kids and didn't easily fall into street baseball games or the budding adoles...

 "It's getting late, but it's not dark yet." My heroes are aging.  Strike that, they are getting old.  Very old, very fast.  So it seems.  The baseball player in his 90s can only recollect.  The boxer can barely stand.  The writers are blind and the fisherman can no longer tie a knot.   And then there is Dylan.  He announces a new tour.  It's what he does.  Still writes songs of substance and takes his show on the road. For me, it was always about Dylan.  The force that hit home at the precise moment I needed.  He is a giant redwood with roots that go deep to Woody Guthrie and beyond to Baudelaire.  Thick, gnarly, massive roots that go to the magma.  He really does contain multitudes. My intro was on Thursday nights.  At 6:55pm I would go to the backyard and ready the two trash barrels to be taken to the curb in front of our house.  I was set with earphones in place and my transistor radio in my po...

 Battle Lines are being drawn.  The Supreme Court's 5-4 majority is about to put an end to Roe v Wade.  Despite the fact that national polls show a majority of Americans are pro-choice, the stage is set.  Settled Law?  Not so, apparently.   Already many women I know are gearing up for the fight they know is coming.  This is worst-case scenario stuff.  If anything could polarize this country more than it already is, it is the question of legal abortion.   It is the slavery of our time.  The biggest moral question dividing the country...despite the polls.  For many, it appears as if our country is going backward.  So why now?  I can't help but think this move is related to other issues, most notably the agenda of what's left of the Republican party.   This is the agenda of fear and the mixture of church and state.  The ironies abound.  Liberals say that the pro-life faction is only pro-life unti...