Paul Soglin: Waxing America

Lord Buckley on Facebook

I got a short note from George Hesselberg. He saw on Facebook that I joined the Lord Buckley group:

Not where, but HOW in the world did you find this page?

Good question. Most people would not think to search for a group devoted to His Royal Hipness on Facebook with all of its politically correct groups and sites devoted to the likes that adorn the pages of People Magazine or Entertainment Tonight.

I was introduced to Lord Buckley on the 1950's when bits of his work along with Mort Sahl and Bob Newhart's Buttoned Down Mind were interspersed on WFMT's Midnight Special on Saturday nights.

As I told George, when I was 13 years old I hung out with all the wrong people and now my past is catching up with me. Sure enough the kinds of people I attract in my social network, are the same sorts who influenced me in the idle hours of my youth.
Think about it. It makes sense.

For those who want to learn more Lordbuckley.com.

A good bio: A Most Immaculately Hip Aristocrat.

A quick excerpt from The Nazz.

Ohio DWI Issued After Crash of "Motorized Barstool" - Doh!

This is both sad and funny.  A 28-year-old Ohio man with a suspended license was busted March 4 after the motorized 5 hp barstool he was driving home rolled over after he had consumed "about 15 beers." The Newark, Ohio Advocate has the whole story here. He pleaded not guilty and has demanded a jury trial. 

Good luck with that.

- Barry Orton

(ht: Scatterplot)

AIG: A Fresh Perspective - Maybe There is a Role for You

Last night Sara and I were watching the evening news and taking in the reports about the anger emanating from Washington D.C. over the bonuses paid to AIG executives. The $165 million in bonuses, some of which are over $1 million and designed to 'retain' executives who already left the company.

Raising three girls, two still in college and one a recent graduate and a struggling actress, coupled with my self-employment has meant things have not always been flush around here the past year.

Sara, fork in hand, gestured at me, "Why don't you go work for AIG?"

Mallatts Does Just Fine, No Mail Order Here

Mallatts is our convenient neighborhood, locally owned pharmacy. We like them. They fill our prescriptions. I like walking in and being able to speak with a pharmacist who knows me and all of my frailties and infirmities.

We use their postal service. Sara and the girls buy a variety of toiletries there, and of course they are always purchasing theatrical makeup whether it is Halloween or not.

This week my insurance company made some changes in the formulary schedule and its three tier system for classifying pharmaceuticals.

I called the insurance company.

While I may not have health insurance past May, the changes would cost our family $720 on an annual basis.

The representative of the insurance company discussed the changes, all the while I was bemoaning the cost of drugs. The nice woman suggested I use a mail order house for the pharmaceuticals and save even more money.

I contained myself and calmly explained to her that if we all did that, Mallatts would go out of business, we would lose all of their non-health services, and I would certainly miss having a conversation with a pharmacist who knows me and knows my heath-care needs.

Sometime I wonder if the folks at Mallatts consider me a nuisance. If they do, they tolerate me very well and the deserve every penny they make.

While I am at it, have you noticed the increased number of advertisements for prescription medications on television?  The descriptions of the warnings and the contraindications is worse than the blood and gore on the criminal investigation shows.

Bob Dylan Definitely Did Not Arrive On Mifflin Street

We owe Nadine Goff an incredible heartfelt thanks since she has enough time to research such weighty matters. Recall I posted The Day Bob Dylan Came to Mifflin Street

It was mid summer, I think 1969. A sign went up in front of the Mifflin Street Co-op announcing that Bob Dylan was coming on Saturday. He would play in the empty lot, gloriously renamed People's Park...The crowd faded under the hot Madison afternoon sun.

Nadine Goff, the Central High graduate who researches all things important and not, could not remain idle and so a few days ago she posted: The day Bob Dylan didn't arrive on Mifflin Street (July 4, 1969)

    ...I spend a lot of time in libraries doing research and sometimes I wander off task, diverted by some tidbit that grabs my attention...That's when I remembered Bob Dylan and Mifflin Street. Short and sweet, and lots of names that may draw visitors to my blog. Perfect. So without further blather, here's The Capital Times story about Bob Dylan's non-appearance, written by reporter Jim Hougan:

  
 

Click on picture to enlarge.

Now all we need is the elusive photograph of the sign announcing Dylan's arrival.

"Blessed Christian Salt" Marketed As Alternative to Kosher Version; Insert Punchline Here

It's got to be true; it was featured as an AP news story.

Retired barber Joe Godlewski says he was inspired by television chefs who repeatedly recommended kosher salt in recipes.

"I said, 'What the heck's the matter with Christian salt?'" Godlewski said, sipping a beer in the living room of his home in unincorporated Cresaptown, a western Maryland mountain community...

A one-time Catholic who now holds Bible studies in his home, Godlewski is a longtime entrepreneur. In 1998, he founded a kielbasa sausage business now run by a nephew. In 2000, he introduced the Stretch & Catch, a fishing gizmo that he says was copied and buried by foreign competitors.

If the salt takes off, Godlewski plans an entire line of Christian-branded foods, including rye bread, bagels and pickles.

The salt, blessed by an Episcopal priest, is available here.

The race for the funny is on.  Boing Boing:

Oh, sure, but what if you're not an Episcopalian? What about Mormons, Baptists, Catholics and Scientologists? Where's their salt?

The Fark:

Man markets Christian salt to stand against the cabal that markets kosher salt. Customers dismayed it's only available in pillar form.

The funniest part of this story is on the home page of the company that's selling the Blessed Christian Salt, the Ingredients Corporation of America, located in Memphis, TN. Right there is the proud statement that: "All our ingredients are Kosher Certified and FDA approved." 

So, it's really Blessed Christian Salt that's Certified Kosher. (And FDA approved.)

- Barry Orton

The Threat To Arts With Overture Failure - Return the $30 Million

Lost in the discussion about the Overture Center problems is the threat to community-based performing artists in Madison.

Between the old Civic Center and the transitioning Bartell Theater, the city of Madison provided a home to children and adults to participate in the production of the performing arts. They built sets, operated sound systems, performed, and directed. Some went on to professional careers, some continued to be involved into their 80's and 90's, and others simply became the backbone of a community audience that purchased tickets.

While the Bartell will continue to provide a strong home for a number of theatrical companies, it appears that the facilities that constituted the old Civic Center are lost, most likely forever. CTM is a shell of its former self, and the Madison Repertory Theater, staggering all winter, is on its back and listening to the count of ten quickly approaching.

This is about $30 million. This is about $30 million of public dollars given away and gone.

Madison Mayor Susan Baumann, fearful of the responsibility of operating the proposed Overture Center, did agree to give, as part of Madison's "contribution" to the project, the land and buildings that made up the Madison Civic Center.

We have already seen the flawed planning and design that damaged the community-based performing arts when the city was taken out of the planning process. Overture Center: Where It Went Wrong

Lost in all of the discussion about Overture's future is the central point that Madison lost its Civic Center and more important the State Street home for local performing arts groups, the programming that went on in the Crossroads, and the community based use of its rooms from the ground to the third floor.

Most observers are taking a hands off approach.

Whether it be bankruptcy or some new merged structure which uses state funds through the University of Wisconsin, every elected official in the city of Madison must commit to the return of the $30 million so that the city can go about the business of investing in community arts.

$30 million of city public property was given away, and it is about to be given away again. The city of Madison is in a position to stop any deal or bail out.

There is a mandatory bottom line. Return of the city's money - it belongs to the taxpayers of the city of Madison who built and operated the Civic Center for twenty years.

Fairer Wisconsin In the Making: An Invitation to WMC

Key components of Governor Doyle's budget are the domestic registry for same-sex couples and the extension of health insurance and related benefits to the domestic partners of state and university employees.

It would be nice if there was bipartisan support for the proposal.

When state voters unfortunately adopted the constitutional amendment in 2006 depriving Wisconsinites of the right to a same-sex marriage, we were assured that it did not preclude registries, or extending benefits as proposed by the Governor.

The benefit question is not of importance to just the directly effected households. It impacts the University of Wisconsin, which has already lost brilliant researchers and educators who could not obtain heath coverage for their partners.

That in turn, adversely impacts not only the moral health but the economic health of the state.

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) recently published a draft of Moving Wisconsin Forward . The document speaks of making the state economically competitive and supporting the University of Wisconsin.

As a specific strategy to further those goals, WMC must support this proposal.

Imitations - Madison Music of the 60's. Nothing is over until we decide it is....

Susan Kepecs' article, Free-Jazz missionaries: Madison's Imitations were the sound of 60's radicalism, in this week's Isthmus is important in understanding the connection between the evolution of modern music and and politics. Hart McNee was right.

"The frats paid pretty good, but they were the enemy," recalls McNee. "Everybody in the band was basically left of socialist. We were playing 90% black music. We were playing for snotty rich kids and conservative football fans, but we were for civil rights and against the war."

When I got to Madison in 1962, one of the first things I did was look up Ben Sidran. Our families were friends back in Chicago and there was no problem finding him at Discount Records on State Street. Mike Moss was easy to find as well, since we had graduated from high school together.

The tough part was sneaking into the fraternity houses to hear the Imitations play. They were not pleased that friends of the band would wander in around 11:30 pm, but we stayed in the shadows and were generally left alone. Thank you, Chi Phi.

It was either 1964 or 1965 that someone at the Memorial Union got the bright idea to book the Imitations into Great Hall on Saturday nights. Tracy Nelson modestly recalled in the article:

...I hung around for a while, and they let me join...It was the first time I sang with an electric band. I felt lame and white singing with Irma and Chuck. There was nothing they couldn't hit. But the tunes, the big horn section — people loved us.

Tracy need not make any apologies. She could belt them out and hold her own with Irma Routen and Chuck Matthews. Ten years later, Chuck worked for Dane County, I think with kids, and died at a young age. Heart attack.

Ben did fundraisers for my various mayoral elections from 1973 into the 21st century. Dick Drake, "Fat Richard," did a number of them as well, either with Ben or with his own band, was Ben was booked doing real work. Many were at the Nitty Gritty.

I last saw Tracy when she played Madison about eight or nine years ago with Irma Thomas and Marcia Ball doing their "Sing It!," still one of my favorite CDs. In 1965, Tracy lived around the corner from us, in an apartment on Broom Street. We were are 515 W. Dayton and there was occasional traffic back and forth.

As I reread this, I am wondering if this is important to anyone else.

Susan Kepecs makes the point:

...Not everyone who lived on the front lines of the '60s sold out. The Imitations are a case in point. They broke down racial barriers with their bare hands and pitted their collective voice against the war in Vietnam. Some of them are dead now — Matthews, Drake and others who came and went. A few just disappeared. But the rest keep on keepin' on. ..

As I noted in a post a few weeks ago, "We are not done."

Pete Seeger - A report from a friend on his recent concert

I attneded my first Pete Seeger concert when I was around eight or nine. It was probably at Mandel Hall at the University of Chicago. I do not know how many of his concerts I attended over the years, perhaps a half a dozen. Some were fund raisers for the secular, South Side school of Jewish Studies (for several years we were located in a YMCA) which I attended.

Each one was fresh and and exciting.

When PBS broadcast the American Masters program last February, Pete Seeger, The Power of Song, I regretted that I had not seen him in concert in over thirty years.  I figured I would never get an opportunity to see him perform again.

Yesterday I got a message from friend Vicki Gabriner who was Miss Sifting and Winnowing at the 1967 Dow Demonstration. Vicki mentioned that she had seen Seeger, who will be ninety in May, in concert. 

I told her that when I saw him perform, on at least one occasion, he chopped a log as he sang a chain gang song.

I asked Vicki to share her thoughts:

No axes or chopping wood but there's still that essential Pete Seeger-ness, his optimism, good humor, good politics, smart lyrics, ability to pull the audience along with him even though his voice is nothing like it used to be. My favorite song was AMAZING GRACE, holding note after note for a long time, feeling the vibrations of the notes. And amazingly, he ended with BLUE SKIES (nothin' but Blue Skies do I see . . . ) and OVER THE RAINBOW.

I missed Woodstock, Dylan at Newport, great performances at Monterey, and I missed one more Pete seeger concert. Drats. And it would have been fun to see him with old friends. That is the way life should be.

Also from the New York Times: Pete Seeger, Still Singing His Message at 89