Showing posts with label 1970s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1970s. Show all posts

Monday, April 17, 2017

Ken Kesey Wisdom


Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.

You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.

Take what you can use and let the rest go by.

To hell with facts! We need stories!

People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense.

The trouble with super heroes is what to do between phone booths.

Ken, on a bus trip heading east, stopped in Yellowstone and saw a sign that said "Beware of Bear" and said : This used to mean be aware of the bear. But now, it means "be afraid of the bear."




Of offering more than what I can deliver,

I have a bad habit, it is true.
But I have to offer more than I can deliver,
To be able to deliver what I do.

Always stay in your own movie.

You're either on the bus or off the bus.

... you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It's still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it's the truth even if it didn't happen. (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)

When Shakespeare was writing, he wasn't writing for stuff to lie on the page; it was supposed to get up and move around.


To hell with facts! We need stories!

Good writin' ain't necessarily good readin'. (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)

The frontiers we broke into in the '60s are still largely unexplored.




When you're around the whole Dead scene, they're there as a tribal thing; they're there as part of a rendezvous and a pow-wow.

The truth doesn't have to do with cruelty, the truth has to do with mercy.

Leary can get a part of my mind that's kind of rusted shut grinding again, just by being around him and talking.

The fundamentalists have taken the fun out of the mental.

He knows that you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)



I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph.

Nowhere else in history has there ever been a flag that stands for the right to burn itself. This is the fractal of our flag. It stands for the right to destroy itself.

You've got to get out and pray to the sky to appreciate the sunshine; otherwise you're just a lizard standing there with the sun shining on you.

Listen, wait, and be patient. Every shaman knows you have to deal with the fire that's in your audience's eye.

---o0o---

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Brent Mydland brings it home

By Jack Brummet, Music Ed.

Brent Mydland was The Grateful Dead keyboard player, singer and songwriter between 1979 and 1990. This is a clip of Brent doing what he does best.

---o0o---

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

NYC survival tips from the mid-1970's

By Jack Brummet, NYC Metro Ed.

NYC was a dangerous, dirty, and crazy place in the mid-70s (when I lived there, in Loisaida, in Brooklyn, and the Upper West Side).  In the mid-1970's, the Council for Public Safety (police, firefighters and other unions) published a pamphlet called "Welcome to Fear City: A Survival Guide for Visitors to the City of New York."   Both the Blackout and the arrest of Son of Sam happened during my first two months there (The Summer of Sam as Spike Lee called it). This pamphlet caused a lot of turmoil in the city, and was later renamed "If You Haven't Been Mugged Yet..."  [Ed's note: I was mugged three times over the course of five years.]

The tips are below the video. 





Fear City page 1

Times Square

Fear City page 2

Fear City page 3

garbage burning in the streets, mid-70s
---o0o---

Friday, May 04, 2007

A great Devo video & lyrics for Come Back Jonee

I recently picked up a couple of Devo albums (a twofer: Duty Now For The Future/New Traditionalists) and have been enjoying renewing my acquaintance. You'd think Devo would be the most dated of all the bands from the 70s/early 80s. They sound amazingly good; they've aged well. One of my favorite tunes from their early albums is Come Back Jonee. . .a version--it's not quite a cover (I wonder if they had to pay Chuck Berry royalties?)--but a transformation of Johnny Be Good (similar in spirit to maybe Anne Sexton's Tranformations). They pack a lot of drama into one small song.

Gerald Casale, who co-wrote much of Devo's material, along with Mark Mothersbaugh, said that Come Back Jonee uses 50s rock and roll metaphors to mourn the passing of John F.Kennedy.

On a side note, 23 seconds into the video, you'll see and hear the loudest mike bump I've ever heard. It such a weird sound, it could almost be Foley'd in...it's a clank sound--I'm used to mike bumps sounding pretty percussive with a lot of bottom end...





Come Back Jonee

jonee went to the pawnshop
bought himself a guitar
now he's gonna go far
you gotta love 'em and leave 'em
sometimes you deceive 'em
you made her cry
jonee you're bad
you're gonna make her sad
jonee jumped in his datsun
drove out on the expressway
went head-on into a semi
his guitar is all that's left now
he made her cry
now she calls his name
jonee you're to blame

---o0o---