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Thursday, December 15, 2016

Atlantic Russian Hack

I don't know, did Putin "direct" The Atlantic?  Apparently this whole "fake news" thing might have to do with computers writing all the headlines.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Stoned Police News

In today's Google News:

-- !! -- ...I wasn't aware the police were enforcing any laws while stoned.  And as for facing obstacles while doing it, (sputter) -- I would expect so!  Stoned policing may be more of a problem than we thought, if it garners headlines like this!  I'm George Putnam.  

Friday, December 2, 2016

Hendrix restorations

Well, look who's sitting out in the lobby.  Here's an offering for his birthday last Sunday.

Hound Dog was made from a bootleg of his Albert Hall soundcheck.  The scratchy vinyl makes it ancient.

Hound Dog

There's a bootleg of Ezy Ryder that has a couple blank spots, about 45 seconds total, like someone accidentally pulled the line out of the board a couple times.  I patched it up, back in ought-12.

It had a few plays, and may be a rerun on this site (full disclosure).  Is it the only "complete" copy of this take, or is the original out there undamaged?  Who knows.  They're just jammin.  I could leave or I could play on...

Ezy Ryder



Monday, November 21, 2016

3 Shots Rang Out


(4:44) Comments on the JFK murder.  Primarily, the over-use of the phrase "rang out," like it was a manufactured story from one source, and the Washington DC phone lines going down at the same time.

link

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Furtwangler and the Magic Brain Guy

Been thinking more about that Magic Brain that Putnam was describing.  I wonder if anyone noticed this at the time...

The "Magic Brain" was an RCA Victor ad concept, a platform touting an exciting new technology that allowed you to listen, hands-free, to over two hours of phonograph music.  (A 78 rpm side maxes out at about 12 minutes.)  Their symbol was this little conductor guy.

(The invention of the airbrush really revolutionized commercial art, didn't it?  This is from 1942.  Look at that impervious plexiglass dome protecting your records, and his expression of stoic confidence, bathed in the honest, unforgiving light of the future.)






Wilhelm Furtwangler was a celebrity conductor back then-- toured the world putting on musical extravaganzas, kind of like a 1930's rock star, very prominent.  Especially in regard to his cranium.  Lots of room for music to bounce around up there.  He started out with a shock of red, bushy hair but after it burned off, he became increasingly gaunt, his great celestial brow a symbol of his look, like Lennie Bernstein's sneakers.










So when RCA's ad agency designed their futuristic jukebox head, this is what I see:
Furtwangler-in-a-box?  Sounds great!  That gaggle of Park Avenue swells seem to think so, too.  Even though they can't quite tell why.  (It's subliminal Madison Avenue mojo, circa 1940's.)  

Sunday, November 13, 2016

MacArthur vs the Flying Saucers

(4.44)  What if General Douglas MacArthur used the occasion of his 1962 farewell speech to warn us of an impending war with an intergalactic civilization?  It might have gone something like this here link...

(Version 2-- added music and picked up his speaking pace quite a bit.)

A True Story About Perspective

I was sitting on my front porch with the breeze kicking up.  Way down below me on the pavement, a little slug, maybe just about an inch long, was pressing forward through a small scale windstorm-- keeping its face turned into the wind, braving all the small pieces of smoosh (besides having to fight the headwind)-- when this twig, a teeny piece of straw, blew up and hit him right square between the eyes.  For you and me, like a two-foot-long hunk of wood.  Pow!

I've never seen a slug pass out before.  He verryy sloowwwly teetered over.  And stopped.  And sat there.  Eventually he roused himself and slowly rose to his foot, and carried on.  Because what else was there to do.

And indeed.  So while there might be things dropped here on the site from time to time, there's a few twigs in the wind today.  We'll just do what we can.