Wildlife: Ice was forming on Firehouse Pond, just below Little Foy's Lake yesterday. Migrating flocks of Canadian Geese were still swirling around in the evening.



Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!

Weather: It rained last night -- just like the predictions said. It is warmer today, and there are gorgeous intervals of sunshine in between soft squalls.

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site Click to help feed people, buy books, help animals, save forest land, pay for mammograms, and aid children.

Media Watch: Montana Public Radio out of Missoula played a huge chunk of The Specialty Story 5 CD set before and after midnight the other evening. It was hard staying awake the whole time, but those great R&B singles made for some sweet dreams when I nodded off --


Tracks of Disc 1: 1. Boogie #1 ~ Sepia Tones 2. Voo-It! Voo-It! - The Blues Woman 3. Milton's Boogie ~ Roy Milton & His Solid Senders 4. R.M. Blues ~ Roy Milton & His Solid Senders 5. True Blues ~ Roy Milton & His Solid Senders 6. Thrill Me ~ Roy Milton & His Solid Senders 7. Keep A Dollar In Your Pocket ~ Roy Milton & His Solid Senders 8. Everything I Do Is Wrong ~ Roy Milton & His Solid Senders 9. Hop Skip Jump ~ Roy Milton & His Solid Senders 10. Information Blues ~ Roy Milton & His Solid Senders 11. The Hucklebuck ~ Roy Milton & His Solid Senders 12. Rainy Day Blues ~ Jump Jackson Band 13. Ice Cream Freezer ~ The Blues Man 14. Rockin' Boogie ~ Joe Lutcher & His Society Cats 15. Teardrop Blues ~ Jimmy Liggins & His Drops Of Joy 16. Cadillac Boogie ~ Jimmy Liggins & His Drops Of Joy 17. Careful Love ~ Jimmy Liggins & His Drops Of Joy 18. Don't Put Me Down ~ Jimmy Liggins & His Drops Of Joy 19. X-Temporaneous Boogie - Camille Howard 20. You Don't Love Me ~ Camille Howard 21. Fiesta In Old Mexico ~ Camille Howard 22. Fat Meat ~ Jim Wynn 23. Big City Blues ~ Big Maceo 24. I Want A Roller ~ Smokey Hogg 25. The Honeydripper ~ Joe Liggins & His Honeydrippers 26. Rag Mop ~ Joe Liggins & His Honeydrippers Tracks of Disc 2: 1. Pink Champagne ~ Joe Liggins & His Honeydrippers 2. Junior Jives ~ Roy Milton & His Solid Senders 3. Where There Is No Love ~ Roy Milton & His Solid Senders 4. Everything's Gonna Be All Right Tonight ~ King Perry & His Pied Pipers 5. Please Send Me Someone To Love ~ Percy Mayfield 7. Little Joe's Boogie ~ Joe Liggins & His Honeydrippers 8. Oh Babe! ~ Roy Milton & His Solid Senders 10. Frankie Lee ~ Joe Liggins & His Honeydrippers 17. Strange Angel ~ Amos Easton 18. Best Wishes ~ Roy Milton & His Solid Senders 22. The Wheel Of Fortune ~ The Four Flames (A Cappella slice of Heaven) 26. Night And Day (I Miss You So) ~ Roy Milton & His Solid Senders Tracks of Disc 3: 1. Oooh Oooh Oooh ~ Lloyd Price 3. Dream Girl ~ Jesse & Marvin 4. Tell Me Pretty Baby ~ Lloyd Price 6. Frantic ~ Frank Motley & His Crew 7. Too Close To Heaven ~ Alex Bradford 8. I'm Coming Home ~ The Swan Silvertones 9. I've Got A New Home ~ The Pilgrim Travelers 10. One Room Country Shack ~ Mercy Dee Walton 11. Lucy Mae Blues ~ Frankie Lee Sims 12. Early In The Morning ~ Roy Milton & His Solid Senders 13. She's Been Gone ~ H-Bomb Ferguson 14. Hard Living Alone ~ Floyd Dixon 20. I'm Your Best Bet Baby ~ Earl King

Model: Mamie Van Doren
They ran out of time before getting to even BETTER cuts! I've heard most of the following over the years, and they are well worth the time of anybody who loves Rock and Roll at it's wildest. Many of these singles were recorded in New Orleans with Lee Allen on Sax, Clarence Williams on drums, Professor Longhair on Piano, and more of the FUNKIEST musicians who ever swung an axe! The Los Angeles sessions were classics on their own:
15. Drunk ~ Jimmy Liggins & His 3-D Music (...reach for the knob, miss the whole darn door!) 19. The Things That I Used To Do ~ Guitar Slim (Ray Charles leading the band on piano.) Tracks of Disc 4: 1. Nite Owl ~ Tony Allen & The Champs 2. Tutti Frutti ~ Little Richard (His best work was recorded in New Orleans for Specialty Records!) 5. Squeeze Box Boogie ~ Clifton Chenier (King of Zydeco.) 6. Touch The Hem Of His Garment ~ Sam Cooke/The Soul Stirrers (Yep, Sam Cooke started as a Gospel singer.) 7. Long Tall Sally ~ Little Richard (Paul McCartney got his WOOOO from this record.) 8. Slippin' & Slidin' (Peepin' & Hidin') ~ Little Richard 11. Cherokee Dance ~ Willie Joe & His Unitar/Bob Landers (Proto-Heavy Metal guitar) 12. Rip It Up ~ Little Richard 13. Ready Teddy ~ Little Richard 14. Sweet Breeze ~ Vernon Green & The Phantoms (LOVE those Doo-Wop vocal groups!) 15. (Every Time I Hear That) Mellow Saxophone ~ Roy Montrell (Not just ONE sax, but a whole bunch of 'em -- blowing strong & LOUD with a screaming lead vocal!) 16. She's Got It ~ Little Richard 17. Heeby-Jeebies - Little Richard 24. Lucille ~ Little Richard 25. Send Me Some Lovin' ~ Little Richard Tracks of Disc 5: 2. Jenny Jenny Jenny ~ Little Richard 3. Miss Ann ~ Little Richard 6. Keep A-Knockin' - Little Richard 7. Bony Maronie ~ Larry Williams (His biggest hit.) 10. Good Golly, Miss Molly ~ Little Richard 11. Slow Down ~ Larry Williams (My pick for one of the best singles of ALL TIME -- The Beatles did a fine version too.) 12. Dizzy, Miss Lizzy ~ Larry Williams (The Beatles really rocked on this song as well.) 13. Justine ~ Don & Dewey (Good as the Righteous Brothers were, these guys were better.) 14. True Fine Mama ~ Little Richard 15. Ooh! My Soul ~ Little Richard 18. Koko Joe ~ Don & Dewey (Don "Sugarcane" Harris later made a name for himself playing electric violin.) 20. There's A Moose On The Loose ~ Roddy Jackson (Insanely fun, big-band R&B) 21. Haunted House ~ Johnny Fuller (Big fat sound, big fat hit.) 22. She Said, "Yeah" ~ Larry Williams (The Rolling Stones covered this one.) 23. Bad Boy ~ Larry Williams (John Lennon sang some of his best leads on Beatles versions of Larry Williams' songs.) 25. Big Boy Pete ~ Don & Dewey (Succesors -- The Olympics' cover version in the 60's, The Kingsmen "Jolly Green Giant," Jim Croce's "Don't Mess Around With Jim" and "Bad Bad Leroy Brown")

Wildlife: This Whitetail Deer was waiting on the side of my neighborhood road for me to pass her -- at least it LOOKED like she was waiting! She moseyed across when I was safely down the hill.



Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!

Weather: Cold, but that bright sun warms things up by mid-afternoon.
(Rumors of rain this the weekend.)

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site Click to facilitate sponsor contributions.

Media Watch: NPR had John Updike and Susan Stamberg talking about Edwin Hopper and a couple of other artists this morning while I was shaving. Updike studied drawing and painting in college before he wrote novels. There's a pretty good page about Updike's newest book of essays on their site: 'Still Looking' Collects John Updike Essays on Art
I remember reading Rabbit Run when I was about 14 -- I'd just been told not to use the second person point of view when writing, and there was a whole book chock-full of it ... and graphic sexual encounters too. Hmmm -- what did that say about the "rules?" It was Number One on every best-seller list, so that was good -- no authority figure could challenge me for reading it. I think Updike's going to be all over the media for awhile -- an author's gotta do what an author's gotta do when a new book is out.
Muhammad Ali and Aretha Franklin were among 14 new recipients of the Medal of Freedom (along with two co-inventors of the World Wide Web). They surely deserve our country's highest honors -- too bad it was the unworthy G.W. Bush handing them out.

Muhammad Ali "Whups" on Superman
(Aretha must have sang before the fight began.)
Cover design by Joe Kubert for the mid-70's comic,
drawn by Neal Adams (see interview excerpt below)
Fighting under a red sun, Supe is outclassed in the ring, but won't fall down until Ali turns and strides away, refusing to hit him anymore.
Adams: My agreement with DC Comics was that I couldn't commit to a deadline, and it was agreed it would be done when it was done. That was the agreement-the full measure of the agreement-and it took a year to get the thing done! If there was a deadline, certainly the book would've been pulled long before the year went by. Everybody agreed there was no problem, and it was a big project to do.
Interviewer: The ironic thing is that Ali was champion when the project was announced, and in a bitter irony, by the time the book came out, he was....
Adams: In between his second championship and the third. Then, almost on the occasion of the book's release, he won the championship back a third time. So, I actually liked that the coincidence worked out very nicely. I had no problem with it. It was clear the book was very popular all over the world. It appeared in more languages than you can possibly imagine, and it was very, very popular. Superman, of course, is a popular character around the world; Muhammad Ali-even though he got rapped in the United States-you must remember that Ali is the champion of the world. He was certainly the champion of people whose color isn't exactly white. And for people like myself, he's our champion, too, because he stood up for what he believed in, and was willing to go to jail for it [i.e., refusing to fight in Vietnam, citing his religious beliefs].
Interviewer: And he forfeited the crown.
Adams: These are not small things. People do make light of them, but I don't. I really feel very strongly about it.
Interviewer: Actually, they don't make light of him now.
Adams: They did, they don't so much now. I'm doing the cover for ESPN Magazine featuring the 100 greatest athletes in the last century, and you can pretty much guess about right where Muhammad Ali is located. In fact, I was asked by ESPN to do it very much like the cover for Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali, because the editor remembered that book.
From Comic Book Artist Special Edition c)2003 www.twomorrows.com

Wildlife: Two Bald Eagles sighted over Middle Foy's Lake yesterday -- maybe they're going to nest again this winter.



Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!

Weather: Cold, but sunny -- it snowed about half a millimeter on my deck last night.

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site Click -- just click, to trigger contributions from their sponsors. If I can convince just ONE other person to do it regularly, I'll be happy!

Media Watch: I have to finish the two books I have on interlibrary loan -- Dancing in the Vortex; The Story of Ida Rubinstein by Vicki Woolf (2000 Harwood Academic Publishers). This author is an actress like Ms. Rubinstein, and furnished some remarkable details of her life. and Ida Rubinstein, A Theatrical Life by Michael de Cossart (1987 Liverpool University Press). His extensive research into public and private archives in France and England seemed to lay the foundation for the later biography, and likely saved the career of this remarkable person from obscurity.


Portrait photo of Ida Rubinstein,
Dancer & Impressario
circa 1920-30, artist unknown

Wildlife: On Middle Foy's Lake as the migrations proceeded, we saw: A Crested Cormorant with a beautiful long white neck; A Hooded Merganser, slurping along the surface of the water; And a Bald Eagle fishing for unwary trout, or pearching in a tall pine tree.



Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!

Weather: It was cold all weekend. I stacked up a whole garbage can's worth of exhausted flowers from the annuals around the house and deck, but there's still more planters to empty. I mixed some hardy alyssiums in with my transplanted catnips, so they will look better.

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site Click -- just click, to trigger a contribution from a sponsor!

Media Watch: Jimmy Carter was on CSPAN, but his host Brian Williams was often recycling GOP talking points, and wasn't listening to the best ex-president we've ever had in our lifetime.
Gina Gershon sighting! She plays the director of FEMA in CBS's miniseries Category 7: End of the World, with Randy Quaid, Shannen Doherty, Tom Skerritt, James Brolin, and Swoosie Kurtz. I wanted to say she's been getting better roles than playing sexual deviants, thieves, and criminals, but is the Director of FEMA a "good" role in the wake of Hurricane Katrina? Some people's luck ...
NFL Football -- Donovan McNabb needs an operation. Philly isn't going to the Superbowl or the playoffs unless he's healthy. Terrill Owens was suspended from that team too, but that's a whole other matter.
Pre-Game Follies -- Frank from MAD-TV was extraordinarily funny on Fox's pre-game show -- he impersonated G.W. Bush trying to dodge questions at a press conference.
Jillian Barbarie's weather-girl segment co-starred Pamela Anderson, promoting her new sitcom unfortunately named "Stacked."
Jillian was trying to keep things light and funny, but Ms. Anderson was acting her too-familiar role of a ditzy blond, and the omnipresent bad taste of mostly-unspoken big-bust jokes put everything under a cloud.
Barbarie's humor relies on taking sexual stereotypes right up to the line of harassment, and then daring someone to cross it. The laughs come when she lets the tension go away with a throwaway line or dismissive gesture. When the four-man panel comes back on-camera, they are usually laughing about Jillian taking one or more of them down a peg.
Yesterday the panel had their heads down, and were uncharacteristically silent afterwards. It turned out to be one of those things that might have seemed to be funny before the show, but died onstage. Y'know what? Barbarie and Anderson both looked beautiful, and neither of them said anything unladylike. There was a "right way" of doing this idea -- too bad it didn't happen that way.

Now for something completely DIFFERENT:

Ride of the Valkyries
by Arthur Rachkam, from Ring of the Niblung 1910
Sing along with Elmer Fudd: "Ki-ill the Wabbit, ki-ill the Wabbit..."
otherwise you'll be thinking about Apocalype Now or (gasp!) even Richard Wagner.

Wildlife: While driving home last night, we saw these little points of light floating above the road ahead of us, so we knew to slow 'way down for the small herd of Whitetail Deer up the hill.



Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!

Weather: It has been colder this weekend. The thermometer outside says it is close to 50 F, but the wind makes a liar out of it. I'm doing a dozen chores outdoors to winterize the house -- BRRR!

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site Click to help!

Garage Sale Booty: A salt-and-pepper shaker in the shape of a telephone; Books -- The Ring of the Niblung, illustrated by Arthur Rackham. A copy once owned by a library, but otherwise complete and in full color; Sikh Festivals by Dr. Sukhbir Singh Kapoor, illustrated by color photos; The Photographic Illusion by Duane Michaels; Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks; Two nonfiction books by Issac Asimov -- ...Guide to Halley's Comet, and The Beginning and the End, which starts with a little essay about the REAL soldier/writer Cyrano DeBergerac (1619-1655), who was famous in his time for writing the fantasy Voyage to the Moon;
and FINALLY, Cyrano's illegitimate step-child Flash Gordon and the Caverns of Mongo by Alex Raymond (NOT!) -- a ghost-written pulp novelization with endpapers and a frontispiece by Robb Beebee. He may share his surname with lead-handed film director Ford Beebee, who oversaw the Flash Gordon chapter-serials, but I doubt there's a connection -- who knows?

Robb Beebee's Flash Gordon and the Caverns of Mongo from 1936
The dust jacket illustration and plot summary are included here:
Holloway's Flash Gordon Essay
Classic Comics stalwart Arthur Lortie researched connections between Robb and Ford Beebee
Ford was a descendant of the 49ers, and a lifelong Californian.
Robb lived in New York and was more often associated with religious publications.