D.F. Rogers has provided a copy of a mailing he received from the Republican National Committee. If you want proof the GOP is still infiltrated by the extreme Neocons spouting their nonsense, this is it.
With more than 80% of Americans supposedly feeling the country is on the wrong track, why vote for McCain? Just because Obama is black? C’mon, we’ve got to be bigger and better than that.
There is precious little about humorist Jackson Paine available on the Internet. In fact, there’s nothing at all. Everything that I know about him is on the back of his 1961 LP, “The Explosive Sounds of Jackson Paine: Humor in its Newest Form.”
My dad got this record when he bought a stereo in 1963, a big GE tabletop console. The turntable had an automatic changer that swung down on a hinge, and it included stereo FM, which was quite new at the time. In fact, my father first brought home a GE stereo radio without a record player, but exchanged it. A wise move.
“The Explosive Sounds of Jackson Paine” is one part comedy record, one part sound effects record, and one part stereo demonstration record. I have very fond memories of listening to it when I was a kid, along with the Audio Fidelity Stereo Spectacular record that I featured over a year ago.
I think a lot of the humor holds up pretty well. It’s a real artifact of its time, created by a New York ad man working in the JFK era, as depicted in Mad Men. Each side is about ten minutes long.
Side 1
[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2011/Jan/JacksonPaine1.mp3|titles=The Explosive Sounds of Jackson Paine: Side 1]
Side 2
[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2011/Jan/JacksonPaine2.mp3|titles=The Explosive Sounds of Jackson Paine: Side 2]
Let’s get caught up a bit with some of Petula Clark’s doings.
For complete up-to-date information, check the American site PetulaClark.net, and in the UK, the Petula Blog.
Last Sunday we were at Tanglewood, in Lenox, MA, where the Boston Symphony Orchestra plays every summer. It was an all Mozart program, and well attended, although the age of the audience skewed decidedly 40 and up.
While waiting in the “wine line” during intermission, I happened to stand next to political consultant and former presidential adviser David Gergen. I overheard him discussing — what else? — politics.
Here is the ultimate 8-Track cartridge listening experience. Lou Reed’s “Metal Machine Music” is ideally suited to this particular electronic audio medium. 8-Track tapes were notorious for leakage between channels, but in this case, if that were happening who could tell?
I suspect the tracks are identical, but again, who can tell? Nevertheless, here are all four of them, with the “click” between tracks left intact to simulate the 8-Track listening experience. (Four tracks in stereo, for a total of eight.)
Track A-1
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/AUG/MetalMachineMusic1.mp3]
Track A-2
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/AUG/MetalMachineMusic2.mp3]
Track A-3
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/AUG/MetalMachineMusic3.mp3]
Track A-4
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/AUG/MetalMachineMusic4.mp3]
I watched some, not too much, of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, and they sure were impressive in HD. All of the coverage is in HD, and it’s scaled down for regular TV. This made me think about the looming end of analog broadcast TV on February 17, 2009. When that happens, my little LCD TV that Carol bought for me Christmas 1999, will no longer work.[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/AUG/China.flv 440 330]This TV is very important to me, because it’s what got me out of a very deep and dark place emotionally, while I was face down for weeks on end, stuck in something called a vitrectomy chair, following a second surgery for a detached retina.
Before getting that TV I listened to the radio all day, but as much as I love radio, doing that didn’t lift my spirits. Reading was impractical, but I could put that portable TV on the tray of the chair and watch it out of my “good” eye, which later had problems of its own.
There was a UHF station in Boston that showed a lot of old Bonanza episodes, and those became the highlight of my day. I was amazed by how adult the show was, and by how much innuendo there was in the writing.
Besides the TV, something else Carol did that was helpful was she read out loud from Thomas Hardy’s tragic book “The Mayor of Casterbridge.” It’s not a very cheerful story, but I really got into it, and enjoyed discussing its characters and themes with Carol. Since then we’ve watched several different adaptations of “The Mayor of Casterbridge.” The recent A&E production is very good, but Dennis Potter’s version with Alan Bates is probably our favorite.
And I must also say thank you to D.F. Rogers, who played Dragnet radio shows from the 50’s for me, that we listened to on Eric’s toy R2-D2 cassette player. When I was down and out, doing that was a lot of fun. Hard to believe that was almost nine years ago.
