I recall where I was when Pres. Kennedy was assassinated, during the Oklahoma City Bombing, and when the Twin Towers fell. But today, I recall getting the news that my older brother had died of cancer.
As I say in the article, I go public to memorialize him and perhaps to help others who are coping with grief over the loss of a loved one.
If you’re interested, check it out here:
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My goodness — it’s been a while since I updated this page. Since I’m not using Facebook much any more, I’ll probably be transferring old things here and posting new things.
As I do each year at this time, I’m honoring my late brother Craig this week. Each year I’ve added more to his mythical and his realistic history — you just have to figure out which is which.
You can find the newest entry here:
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Some witty person once said that writing poetry is a bad habit, but it is even worse if they read it in public.
I’ve had that bad habit — mainly writing song lyrics — for many years. I just can’t quit. However, I also collaborate with people and that mitigates my sins (I hope).
On this — the anniversary of John Lennon — I want to turn serious for a moment (I promise I won’t keep it up long).
Once upon a time I was noodling around on the piano, and while I was playing “Imagine” (John Lennon’s masterpiece), I got a few chords wrong but found out that I liked the way it sounded.
I used that as a springboard to write a song that is NOT a direct copy of Imagine, but is in the same spirit.
But over the years I have failed to write a lyric that satisfies me.
My wish this year is that I can find someone willing to write lyrics for me. I call the song “Peace On Earth” because one of John and Yoko’s causes was world peace.
Is there anyone who would like to take a shot at it? I’d love to have this tribute to John Lennon in my portfolio, and if it ever became commercially viable would share ownership equally with any person (or persons) who can finish up this song for me.
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Willie Nelson has been a very influential person both in music and in other parts of life. He was certainly influential for the Bunkhouse Boys.
Craig and I saw Willie Nelson perform a few times and of course had some of his records. But another way he influenced us was the way he partied. Willie started a tradition of having a huge concert on the 4th of July. He called it his ” Picnic. “
Not long after the Bunk House boys got together in 1975 we decided we wanted to do a big full-day blowout. Craig had purchased the local tavern, and so had an “in” with the Coors beer distributor. They allowed us to use a refrigerated truck that held about 10 kegs of beer and had spigots on the outside of the body so you could pour all you wanted. It stored another dozen or so kegs inside the refrigerated section.
We also had volunteers to do the barbecue. I don’t recall exactly how much we charged, but I believe we started out having our own big party on the 4th of July with all the beer you can drink and free barbecue for the low price of $10. Each year was bigger and better.
For music, of course, we decided that the Bunk House boys would be headliners. However we would have other musicians come and play and sometimes jam with various members of our group. We also invited some of the bands and neighborhood towns to come and play.
Mike Miller, a former Norton classmate of Craig’s and owner of West End Recording Studio in the Kansas City area, came down and set up an awesome sound system for us. The stage was a flatbed trailer.
John Hix, another Norton classmate and a talented musician who could play any stringed instrument, would also join the fun.
Those two (Mike played bass) performed rock and new wave music with Ron Bailey on drums and our brother Bart on guitar. We had quite a variety of music going on.
I don’t think any tapes of those concerts survived. I do remember that one time I had one of those large old-fashioned reel to reel tape recorders, and set it up and got quite a bit of a Fourth of July concert on tape.
When you remember what year of this, you’ll understand why I might have made copies off of the master tape onto 8 track tapes. Those things were notoriously fragile, and I doubt if any of them have survived. I believe I also may have made copies on cassette tapes, but those are notoriously low fidelity.
Although I’d love to have a copy of any of those tapes if anyone has any kind of recording from the Bunkhouse Boys, I wouldn’t bet that you would get rich on them because I doubt if they are collectors items.
The party usually started in the afternoon and lasted well into the night until either all the food was gone, the beer was gone, or all the people were gone.
Since we were basically our own bosses, sometimes discipline became a little bit lax. It was often hard to get all of the Bunkhouse Boys on the stage together to play, and sometimes the breaks between sets went on a little longer than expected.
The Bunkhouse Boys Fourth of July picnic was a success and was repeated several times over the next few years. But we did it for the fun mainly — oh, and the food, and the beer, and whatever else would happen during those wild parties.
The wildest one was probably one hosted by Willie and Carol Warren, at their spread out in the country.
They moved to the Hoisington area from the Kansas City area, and Willie had some friends who were bikers that he invited down for one of our parties. And what a wild party it turned out to be!
During the day when the sun was hot, someone got the hose out and soon after — the clothes came off. Pretty soon we had mud wrestling, starting out with a bunch of hairy guys wrestling around in the mud. However I don’t think it took long for some of the ladies to join in.
We also ended up at least one time having a wet t-shirt contest. And I feel safe in saying that since we know that there are photographs surviving from that, some of the participants may hope that those photographs are permanently buried.
These parties were the true Spirit of the Bunkhouse Boys– and that spirit was embodied in Craig — Wild, uninhibited, undisciplined, and a heck of a lot of fun for everybody.
In all the years that we did this, I do not recall a single fight breaking out. Yes there was a lot of drinking going on, and a lot of wild activities, but it was all a big Love fest.
I don’t think that I could handle one of those parties these days. For one thing, I don’t drink anymore. Back then I used to start early and keep a steady pace until late at night. Also I’m more of an early-to-bed person than I was in those days. I was usually one of the last men standing at a party like that.
But if any anybody asks me to describe my brother Craig, I would say the Bunkhouse Boys Fourth of July parties were basically a manifestation of Craig’s personality.
I believe there are quite a few survivors of those parties still around today. Maybe they will send in their reminiscence of those late 1970s parties.
But then again there may be a lot of them who will just take the fifth amendment.
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I have been honored to be asked to vocalize on a world-music track written by Shane Pillay of Amsterdam.
From Shane’s website — “I collaborate with world artists on projects that include producing animation films, performing music,creating drawings and paintings.”
The song I sang was “Running in Love” and it is credited to BigBossBand. Shane did the production and mixing.
He explains: “A track inspired by rockabilly which I had written and produced. Unfortunately I didn’t achieve the rockabilly sound. Perhaps next time.
Besides my vocals, the other participants are:
Andy Rice from USA — guitar.
Bruno Moses from Nigeria — bass.
Anthony Wraith from UK provided the artwork.
I do a lot of collaboration over the internet, having written songs with artists from Brasil, Canada, and Australia as well as all over the USA. However, I usually produce the finished tracks myself. This was a new experience for me.
Here is the finished track of “Running In Love” by Shane Pillay — Please enjoy it and let Shane know how you liked it.
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Originally from my Facebook page
June 3, 2017
I’ve actually enjoyed my commute time this week — the 50th anniversary of the Beatles releasing “Sgt Pepper!”
While driving I flip around the radio dial to get the good parts of various stations as they go by and I have four PBS stations, which tend to do more special programs.
The “normal” radio stations did their share of Beatles tributes, but programs on PBS like “On Point” and “Fresh Air” give 30 to 60 minute interviews and profiles.
It was 50 years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play. And I was a couple of years away from picking up the guitar and learning to play. But I had been a Beatles fan since their Ed Sullivan debut in 1964.
My grandparents had sold their grocery store and opened and ladies’ ready to wear shop on the main drag in Norton, KS (right next to the Lennox storefront on State Street for you Norton historians). Mom worked there — the first time she worked outside the home since baffling the world with three unusual sons.
The grandparents bought the first two 45 RPM records (check Wikipedia if you don’t know what those are) issued in the US — “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You” on the Parlophone label (before Capitol Records picked them up for US distribution) and played them for background music during the grand opening of The Wards For Ladies.
After the Grand Opening, the grandsons were gifted with these records — possibly still in the collection of brother Bart. I remember playing the records constantly and singing along at the top of my lungs. One memory that sticks with me is when Tim Sterrett came over and we played the records at high volume — I remember singing the bridge with these lyrics:
And when I touch you
I feel happy inside
It’s such a feelin’ that my love
I get hives
I get hives
I GET HIVES!
(I don’t think that was really the words, but that’s what it sounded like in all the excitement of Beatlemania)
When Sgt Pepper was released, believe it or not, most of the copies sold were in mono. After all, stereo home players were not owned except by audiophiles and the radio and TV sets were all mono.
I first heard the stereo version (on headphones) when I was in high school. I remember “Good Morning, Good Morning” ending with the farm animal noises bouncing between ears and I think at the very end is a horse galloping across the stereo spectrum. Also, on “A Day In The Life” the last verse is in the opposite ear from where the first verse played. The cacophony in the middle of the song swirls around and around too.
I was thrilled by the beauty of “She’s Leaving Home” — it sure wasn’t rock ‘n roll. And I really glommed on to “When I’m 64.” My parents asked me to play it on guitar and sing it for my grandma (who turned 64 in 1972, I think) and I played for my own mom when she turned 64.
Sgt Pepper was a landmark of audio recording experimentation. The machines they had at that time were only 4-tracks and there was massive overdubbing. The best recounting of the creation of this album (that I have read or heard) was the memoir by Abbey Road studio recording engineer Geoff Emerick — Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles. The fab four were making all kinds of demands to producer George Martin and Emerick. Some of the things they came up with were absolutely wild — like putting a reel of tape on one machine, then unspooling it down the hallway to another machine in another room to get a long tape delay.
The Beatles are legendary and Sgt Pepper is rightfully a legend. Most in the know agree it isn’t the best album the Beatles ever made (some say it isn’t even the best album they made in 1967), but it was the signpost toward their final albums that showed the industry that albums were an art form and that music didn’t have to be tightly squeezed into narrow genres.
The fact that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are still alive and productive is amazing and wonderful — we shouldn’t take it for granted.
Now — I hope you are inspired to go out and listen and read and groove on the great gifts given to us by those four working class lads from Liverpool.
https://www.beatlesbible.com/…/geoff-emerick-here-there-an…/
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Today is the 28th anniversary of our wedding. We have had quite a journey so far in our life, and we don’t think we are finished yet.
But the journey is a cycle, and when you complete one cycle, the next one starts.
The master who figured this out is a legend himself — Joseph Campbell. He wrote books, including “The Hero With A Thousand Faces,” about myths and legends from prehistoric times to the present that presented what he called “The Monomyth” or The Hero’s Journey.
This pattern of story telling appears in every culture and is the basis of literature, religion, history, and especially today — superhero movies.
I knew I married an exceptional lady, but as I learned about Prof. Campbell’s work, I realized that her life story closely followed the Monomyth. I started mapping her biography to the Campbell formula and found that she had already been through her initial cycle before I even met her. Since then, she has been through two more.
For those not personally familiar with me, I am married to Estelle Toby Goldstein, a medical doctor — and so much more.
Her first cycle was the creation. She was born, left her home and family to travel to a foreign land seeking wisdom. There, she learned powerful skills through trials and with the help of mentors. This was medical school in a second language and against the patriarchy that was threatened by a woman in what had traditionally be the domain of males. At the completion of her learning, she returned home to bring her powers and wisdom to the people she left behind.
Her second cycle was going into the world as a modern-day wizard. She traveled through her homeland gathering more power and knowledge as well as helping others and achieving modern-day miracles. On this journey, she sought happiness and fulfillment but faced new trials and hardships. The completion of this journey is when she found her one true love and was married.
The third cycle was when she took her accumulated wisdom and her mate — who became her partner and helped her accomplish new achievements — and rose to a higher plane. She broke free of the restraints of an academic institution to establish herself as a champion health practitioner, researcher of new healing, and finally completed the cycle by finding the promised land: she moved to California to start a new life and career with her mate.
Now in her fourth cycle — together with her mate, they traveled through this new land and began doing things that others would not or could not do. Her trials here included a health crisis that nearly killed her, but which she broke through to a new power/knowledge base — applying her traditional medical skills to the ancient arts of natural medicine. Her transformation included curing herself of congenital health conditions, losing massive amounts of weight, and transforming her visage to one of beauty. Changes in the way medicine is practiced and the fortunes of society destroyed the successful business and prevented her from continuing her practice.
This cycle is coming to an end, and the finish cannot yet be revealed. Strong allies are rallying around her. She is preparing new and exciting methods for the climax of this cycle. It could take her in any of several directions, but all of them are upward.
We are watching and expectant. The work is hard and risky, but the rewards are great.
This cycle will not be the last — there is much more ahead. But no more can be revealed yet. This is the cliff-hanger — stay tuned. All will be revealed — and it could be very soon.
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I really like John C. Reilly
I do admire Will Ferrell
However, with the reviews and the external news reports I’m getting on “Holmes & Watson,” I don’t think I’ll waste my time on it.
When respected (by me) media site AV Club reports “Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly hit career lows in the abysmally unfunny Holmes & Watson,” this ought to be a wakeup call to someone.
Straight-industry-news website “Deadline” reported dismal audience response “… however audience gave the Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly PG-13 comedy a D+. which is lower than Ferrell’s Zoolander 2 (C+) and Land of the Lost (C+).” And last year — remember ” last holiday season’s comedy Father Figures, which tanked with a final gross of $17.5M.” ?
That can’t be enough for a profit.
“Deadline” reports: “We had heard for quite some time that test scores for Holmes & Watson were so bad that Sony tried unloading the movie to Netflix, but the streamer wouldn’t buy it.”
“Rotten Tomatoes” gave it a 9% favorable (critics) rating and a 27% favorable (audience) score.
“Rolling Stone’s” reviewer said, “It’s so painfully unfunny we’re not sure it can legally be called a comedy.”
“The Wrap” sums it up nicely: “Stan and Ollie (Reilly plays Oliver Hardy) is a movie about a comedy duo that has seen better days, while Holmes & Watson merely stars one.”
Where have the formerly-great gone wrong?
Well, perhaps Ferrel’s judgment isn’t the best. After all, he told “Altpress.com” (Headline): WILL FERRELL ADMITS HE THOUGHT ‘ELF’ WOULD RUIN HIS CAREER.
That was made 15 years ago and is now a Christmas perennial.
Even his “Funny Or Die”schtick is getting criticized. “The Daily Beast” sniped: ” ‘The Campaign’: Will Ferrell Phones It In . Will Ferrell’s new movie The Campaign is perfectly fine—but Richard Rushfield wishes the once inventive comedian would try harder.”
At least Reilly is getting some respect for his Extra-Ferrell work, like “Stan and Ollie” and “Ralph Wrecks The Internet.”
But we’ve seen the greats who seem to lose direction and wander off into their own little space/time continuum — sometimes never to return. Jerry Lewis, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler … and the list could go on.
Let’s hope for a pleasant surprise — and the return of Will Ferrell’s funnybone someday.
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Now listen up and listen good — I don’t like to repeat myself.
I like film-noir, see … I can get lost in the action when the tough guys start slinging the lead and the cars come squealing around corners.
There ain’t many to live up to the great Bogart or Cagney or that crazy Mitchum macho. But every once in a while, a new style update makes it worth going back to the movies to see what’s going to happen next.
Like that current movie, “Bad Times at the El Royale.” It’s really got the goods. A seedy motel outside of Reno, a shady travelling salesman, a daffy old guy who claims to be a priest — but we know better. The nightclub floozie and the runaway girl — they all get together at the motel, and you know it ain’t gonna be a happy ending.
The director lifted some good ideas from Tarrantino, and the pacing is as tight and tense as “The Maltese Falcon” 80 years ago. Bullets and fistfights? Present and accounted for. Lots of evil and maybe, just maybe, no good guys at all.
Jeff Bridges as the off-kilter priest and Cynthia Erivo as the nightclub singer carry the movie along. The big surprise is Lewis Pullman as the creepiest desk clerk since Dennis Weaver in “A Touch Of Evil.” And when Chris Hemsworth — Thor Himself — drops the hammer, he sure ain’t gonna save the day.
You haven’t seen it yet? There are other ways to waste your time. But if you haven’t had a tension headache and if your blood pressure isn’t abnormally high, this might be the ticket to buy.
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A mouse is 1940s jive slang for a pretty girl. In the movie “Pal Joey,” Frank Sinatra flips his lid for Kim Novak when he sees her in the chorus line (skimpy dress, of course) and says with a leer, “Who’s the mouse with the built?”
The wolf is a frequent symbol of the predatory male. In Tex Avery cartoons of the 1940s, the wolf is dressed in a zoot suit and when he sees a mouse his eyes pop out, his tongue unrolls like a carpet, and he issues a sound like a flivver’s horn — “OOOOOooogah! Ooooogah!”
Now in that historical context, I will give you my recently completed updated lyrics for this fine song.
THE MOUSE: I simply must go
THE WOLF: Baby it’s cold outside
THE MOUSE: The answer is no
THE WOLF: Oh, in that case, I’ll call you an Uber. Good night.
(Total running time: 16 seconds)
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