A comment by Guffaw in an earlier thread led me to Wikipedia, where I learned:
I remember Guy Lombardo from when I was a wee lad. Every New Year’s Eve up until roughly 1976, there was Guy and his Royal Canadian Orchestra hosting their New Year’s Eve special. Sometimes I was able to stay up and watch at least part of it.
I associated Guy and the RCO with Lawrence Welk and Liberace and, for want of a better word, the kind of music my maternal grandmother and grandfather liked. But at the time, there were only three real television channels, I never really got into Dick Clark, and “Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadian Orchestra” flowed trippingly off the tongue.
I hadn’t thought of Guy in years, until a few paragraphs in The Power Broker
Wikipedia turned up one of those odd historical byways that I’m so fond of. In addition to being the leader of the Royal Canadians, Guy raced boats. Seriously raced boats. As in, he won the Gold Cup (which is the biggest prize in boat racing) in 1946.
Before his retirement, he was planning to make a run at the world speed record on water. His retirement may have been prompted by the fact that the boat he was planning to use disintegrated during a test run.
(As a side note, that record isn’t for the timid. Wikipedia claims “an approximate fatality rate of 85% since 1940“, though it should also be noted that this statement is tagged “Citation needed.” No matter what the actual percentage is, looking over the history of attempts makes it very clear that this is an expensive way to kill yourself very fast if anything goes wrong.)
And what’s the relationship between Guy and Robert Moses that brought this up in the first place? Guy and his RCO were basically Robert Moses’ house band. Moses set them up at Jones Beach and gave them an incredibly sweet deal: Moses didn’t just pay Guy and RCO to play at the park, but also absorbed all the costs of running the venue, and allowed Guy and the RCO to keep most of the ticket money and advertising revenue. In return, not only did Guy and the RCO play at Jones Beach, but they also entertained at various other offical functions for Moses, and Moses used them to impress people he needed to impress. For example, if you had a small child and Moses needed your help with something…well, Guy entered the Jones Beach theater every night on one of his speedboats. Wouldn’t your kid love to ride along with Guy as he made his grand entrance in Tempo? Of course they would.
(There are a couple of good biographies that need to be written. I can’t find any evidence that there was ever one written of Guy and his brothers, and it sure seems there’s more to their story. I think you could also get a good book out of the story of Rosebud Yellow Robe.)
Since the topic of accordions has come up several times in the past few days, I feel like I have to link to Popehat’s “A Story About Low-Key Policing and Corduroy“.
Also, posting this gives me a chance to test the “Save Draft” function. Yes, Lawrence, it works for me.
(Subject line hattip
Back in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, Los Angeles had a well-established accordion ecosystem.
I have no joke here, I just like saying “accordion ecosystem”.
Flames! Flames!
Obit watch: Charles Keating, of S&L scandal fame.
More flames!
The most recent mayor, Patrick D. Cannon, was arrested last week on public corruption charges and resigned.
But has Ms. McCabe ever tried to use a $2 bill at a Taco Bell?
I wanted to link to, and comment on, the latest entries into the National Recording Registry, but the LOC didn’t have them up when I was working on this post earlier today. Now that they are up…well, I’m kind of curious about “Only Visiting This Planet” and “Copland Conducts Copland: Appalachian Spring” (I have recordings of “Appalachian Spring” but not that one). I think the original cast recording of “Sweeney Todd” is probably a good choice, and, yes, even though I think it has been overplayed, I can see putting Jeff Buckley’s version of “Hallelujah” on the list.
Also: Shaft!
The only one that I really boggle at is “The First Family”. Not that I have anything against comedy, but is that album really memorable or significant? Especially when compared against some of the other comedy entries? Or is this just folks feeling bad (and perhaps rightly so) for poor Vaughn Meader?
I was planning to steal a lyric from “Radio Free Europe” for this post title. Then I went to look up the actual lyrics, and found this; “complete babbling” seems like it fits just as well here.
By way of Big Jim, I found a rather interesting LA Weekly article on the latest goings-on at Pacifica Radio, about which I’ve written before. Some highlights:
On March 13, after weeks of rumors, Pacifica Radio’s board of directors voted to fire its executive director, Summer Reese, during what was essentially a conference call…
And so it was that Reese marched to the Pacifica national office in Berkeley on March 17, bolt cutters in hand, removed a padlock placed on the front doors over the weekend, and essentially occupied the building. When newly appointed interim executive director Margy Wilkinson showed up, Reese and 12 of her compatriots — including Reese’s mother, a longtime anti-war and civil rights activist — refused to let Wilkinson, her husband and two of her allies pass.
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Pacifica’s New York station, WBAI, is even worse off, with too few listeners to register on the Arbitron rankings, and is all but bankrupt. Last year, most of the staff was laid off, including the entire news department.
Making matters worse, the federal government, via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is withholding Pacifica’s grant money, thanks to the network’s “failure to provide documentation” for a 2012 audit.
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Within a few months, Democracy Now! was privatized. In what may have been a reward for Goodman’s support of the revolution, she was handed complete ownership of the show. For free. In fact, they paid her to take it, handing Goodman a contract worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year — and gave her an automatic 4 percent raise every year, regardless of the size of her listenership or the money she raised…
Today, Pacifica’s debts amount to roughly $3 million; $2 million of that is owed to Democracy Now!, which is also the name of an independent nonprofit run by Goodman.
You may be wondering why this boxcar is so important to preservationists. After all, aren’t there plenty of boxcars in the world?
Yes. But this isn’t just any boxcar: this is Merle Haggard’s childhood home.
I wanted to drop some Haggard into this post, but I had a lot of trouble finding a performance of “Rainbow Stew” or “Fighting Side of Me” on YouTube that allowed embedding. So how about this: Merle Haggard in 1978 on “Austin City Limits”.
There will be more to say about this tomorrow, but Harold Ramis is dead. I liked this line from the Chicago Tribune:
Ramis also left behind a reputation as a mensch and all-around good guy.
I didn’t post this yesterday, because I couldn’t find any obits I wanted to link to. While this has been well covered, I wanted to mention the passing of Maria von Trapp, last of the singing von Trapps.
And I missed this earlier in the week, but Richard Cabela, founder of the eponymous chain, passed away.
Mr. Cabela was a vocal supporter of the National Rifle Association. In a video posted on the group’s website this week, Mr. Cabela was asked what he would say to someone who identifies as a hunter but who does not belong to the N.R.A.
“How are you going to hunt without a gun?” he responded. “These guys protect your right to own a gun. That’s what it’s all about.”
How about a little musical interlude? This is one of my favorite songs; oddly enough, it is also the only one I can think of off the top of my head that works for both Valentine’s Day and Halloween.
And if you haven’t purchased something for your significant other yet, you may wish to check this out. Usual conflict of interest disclaimer applies.
Sorry. Nothing much going on, nothing really engaging me, and the Japanese “composer” story was already on FARK. If you missed it: NYT.
(Mike the Musicologist points out that Beethoven was not the only deaf composer in history. Noted for the record.)
The weather here is crap and possibly getting worse and work has been mildly frustrating (thank Ghu for free coffee, though). I’m ready for a battery recharge.
The Government Series II Les Paul guitar. (Hattip: Sharp as a Marble.)
What I really want is for Oleg Volk (or an equally talented photographer) to do a shoot with this and a Colt Government Model. Why? No reason, really; it just tickles my sense of whimsey.