Sail Along Silv'ry Moon

1937
Sail Along Silv'ry Moon
Key: F Major
Lyrics: Harry Tobias
Music: Percy Wenrich

If it weren't for Sammy Davis Jr. I might claim Bing Crosby as the most talented entertainer in history; he was definitely the most successful. At one point he led in record sales, movie grosses, television ratings, and radio ratings. He has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He is also the significant growth ring in the American pop music tree stump that delineates the beginning of the era of "crooning" with the end of the full throat belting that we witnessed in the Harry Von Tilzer era, the pitch perfect "performance" era where Opera and Theater and Pop music fused. Crosby is the original king crooner, his performance technique is casual but professional and for the first time a mainstream audience responded to the lazy approach that was accepted in western swing and cowboy songs. This was a style almost anyone could sing. Crosby sounds like your next door neighbor, except good. Until Crosby, a recording artist was required to be exceptionally good, there are no duds prior to 1930; everyone was a first class singer. Nobody in your neighborhood sounds like Charles Hart singing Harvest Moon, but many amateur singers sound like Bing Crosby, at least in their own minds while singing in the shower. And that's the important thing, Crosby is casual, he sings sitting down, stretched in a hammock, riding in a car. I imagine Charles Hart standing with perfect posture, his chest puffed out, his jaw open wide like he's on a ship that's sinking and he wants the world to hear him. But Bing Crosby could sing with a pipe in his mouth, his character's casual personality was recognizable, and that's something that hadn't yet been accepted. Ask anyone on the street to sing a song and they will probably try to sing like Bing Crosby. Among other things, Bing Crosby proved a singer could be casual and still get his point across. Eisenhower loyalists only have themselves to blame for the popularity of degenerates like Jack Kerouac and Miles Davis because Bing Crosby was cool before cool was cool and he soon became not cool enough.

Huaquechula

The volcano has been erupting lately.

So, I want to spare some people a bit of struggle in getting to Huaquechula and back. I almost took my moped there on a rural road but took the bus instead. The moped is running great after like three weeks of work. But it's a little far to ride and I don't like leaving my moped in odd places. That decision led to some problems I'll get to later, but the initial problem was finding the bus terminal to Huaquechula. I guess asking someone would be the fastest way by old Oggy decided to hunt for it like a rooster in a barn full of mirrors. I figured it would be near the normal bus terminals on Independencia in Atlixco. I was right about that. If you are at the downtown Oro terminal then you are about three blocks away from the Huaquechula terminal. This is assuming you took a bus from Puebla. If you took a bus from Izucar de Matamoros then you should get off before Atlixco at the road to Huaquechula and take your chances that a small bus will have room.

WTF?

 I hear this song repeatedly at my fitness club as my arthritic limbs crack and rebel. They mostly play English club songs. I reflect on the fact Puritans left England for the New World because the Church was becoming too lenient. You understand? It's easy to look around and think this is the liberated x-rated world those early pilgrims were dreaming of but that's exactly 100% wrong. This club culture of date rapes and teen gang bangs is exactly what they thought England would turn out to be if the church was not so strict. The Puritans objected to celebrating Christmas. See? They were the Latter Day Saints of 1650. Puritans were zealots and extremists. Paul Revere's family were Puritans. Yes, it was an issue of religious freedom, escape from persecution, but the fundamental issue was the Puritan's opposition to what they perceived as godless hedonism. So they came to North America hoping to start fresh with clean virtuous lives. So did millions of others who didn't agree with the Puritans.

The other thing I think of is Spain's conquest of South America about 100 years earlier. While the English and then Americans nibbled away at the Indigenous people for 200 years, Spain's Catholic crusade obliterated Indian culture as fast as possible. Piles of heathen bodies were burned! The goal was a devout people, devout, loving god, obedient to god.

The popularity of this club is fading. Maybe techno beat hymns are the answer?

Then I watch this dance club video and I think, "What the fuck?" All these people would be burned as witches in 1692...which leads me to think witchcraft was a generic term for non-conformist, and conformity is the key to stability. It's the old paradox that with freedom we will destroy ourselves, and without freedom there's no point in living.

Buy War Bonds And Stamps For Victory

Musical wartime propaganda .

Comin' In On a Wing and A Prayer contains a melody that is very close to an old hymn called The Sweet Bye and Bye, which was adopted by the Wobbly songwriter Joe Hill for his song The Preacher and The Slave. You heard it here first. It's odd that I can barely remember the chords for a song seconds after playing it but I had not heard The Sweet Bye and Bye in two decades but I recognized the melody and tracked it down in my brain to a particular rainy night in Santa Cruz where a street activist who modeled himself after Joe Hill was singing on the sidewalk. "There'll be pie in the sky when you die....and that's a dirty lie." Bob, was the singer's name and he's the character in my Santa Cruz epic. He's the guy who fills balloons with urine to defend himself when the police raided the abandoned squat we were all living in. It was good times.

Sabado

They set up a raised walkway for me.

Calavera means skull

Oggy's latest addiction. Taco Arabe. Not pork. It's cecina...shaved steak.

Both volcanoes. Once every two months I can see this clearly