Only one cloud in the sky:

"

And....Gunnison Beach and the NYC Skyline:

"

"

With an attitude...

"

More later! 

I got interested in the Ivory Billed Woodpecker for a couple of reasons:  (1) The story itself is so amazing- a huge beautiful woodpecker is logged out of existence and not seen since 1944, then reemerges; and (2) Reemerges in Brinkley, Arkansas, a mere 150 miles or so from my birthplace in Southeast Missouri.  Here is a picture of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker.

<img src="http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e123/marvincat 10/ivorybilled.jpg" title="http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e123/marvincat 10/ivorybilled.jpg" target="_blank"http://i38.photobucket.com/al...">

The story initially was all positive.  Then came the inevitable:  a leading birder (David Sibley) stated that the four second film that sealed the identity of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker was actually that of the very common Pileated Woodpecker-  an impressive, but not hard to find bird.

The four second film has become the Zapruder film of birding.  You can download it and see for yourself- I'll try to post a link here.  This has become a great scientific debate, pitting the prestigious Cornell Department of Orinthology against one of the world's leading bird experts.  It is, believe it or not, fascinating stuff.  http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory" title="http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory" target="_blank"http://www.birds.cornell.edu/...

Last Friday night I attended, with my wife, a lecture on the Ivory Billed Woodpecker by one of only 17 people to have seen it.  His name is Jim Fitzpatrick and here is a picture of Mr. Fitzpatrick at the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor, New Jersey:

<img src="http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e123/marvincat 10/apr06004.jpg" title="http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e123/marvincat 10/apr06004.jpg" target="_blank"http://i38.photobucket.com/al...">

Jim Fitzpatrick's younger brother, John, is the head of the Cornell University Department of Orinthology.

His presentation demonst rated the devastation that industry (loggers) wreaked on the Ivory Billed Woodpecker habitats in the South and up into Arkansas and parts of Missouri.  Essentially, the swamps were drained and every single tree cut.  He went into great detail explaining the Ivory Billed Woodpecker's reemergence, and convinced me, and everyone else in the room, that the bird was for real.

Of course, there will be doubters until someone gets a definitive picture.  That's why Cornell University has teams of experts in the Big Woods Swamps around the clock. 

Here are a couple of other New Jersey pictures (I hope):

<img src="http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e123/marvincat 10/march182006051.jpg" title="http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e123/marvincat 10/march182006051.jpg" target="_blank"http://i38.photobucket.com/al...">

<img src="http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e123/marvincat 10/march182006037.jpg" title="http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e123/marvincat 10/march182006037.jpg" target="_blank"http://i38.photobucket.com/al...">

More later! 

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Today Wilson Pickett died, and, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, a piece of me died with him.  When I was young in the sixties and seventies, my life and most of my friend's lives revolved around books and music.  And there were a handful of us in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, all white, both male and female, who loved "soul" music and worshipped Wilson Pickett. Nobody on earth could scream like Wilson Pickett.

Those were great times for great music.  The young Aretha; the young Ray; Sam and Dave; Isaac Hayes; Sly and the Family Stone; Otis; The Four Tops; The Tempting Temptations; The Supremes; Marvin Gaye; Stevie Wonder; and on and on and on.

But to many of us, there was only one King- and that was Wilson Pickett.  Wilson Pickett could sing a ballad that would leave you with only one option- play it again.  Listen even today to "I'm In Love" or "It's Too Late".  And for up tempo and flat out screaming for joy, nothing tops "She's Lookin' Good" and "I Found A True Love".  We would play these songs over and over.  As far as we were concerned, the best songs never hit the top of the charts.  Don't get me wrong, we loved "Mustang Sally", "Land of a Thousand Dances" and "Midnight Hour", but what about "You Left the Water Running", "634-5789" and "Funky Broadway"?

Wilson did some great covers later in his career: "Hey Jude", "Sugar, Sugar" and "Mama Told Me Not To Come", among others.  In 1970 Wilson had one of his last big hits, and my personal all-time favorite, that I can still play time afer time, "Don't Let the Green Grass Fool You."

Wilson Pickett will not get the respect he deserves.  He had obvious problems with drugs and alcohol, perhaps, most famously, getting drunk and driving his car over and subsequently destroying the Mayor's lawn in the upscale town (I forget the name) in New Jersey, where he lived. I think it was over a zoning dispute, and he did a little time over that.  That was in the early 90's.

I will tell you a true story about Wilson Pickett and I.  In the early 70's I had returned to Poplar Bluff from Lake Tahoe, "between jobs" (unemployed). I headed back to Northern Nevada where I had another job lined up, but stopped in Las Vegas on the way- I'd never seen Vegas.  I sat in a dark dive bar called the Nine-Ball Lounge, drinking and reading the Las Vegas Sun, and discovered that WILSON PICKETT was appearing in the lounge at the International Hotel, for a two-drink minimum.  I immediately found me a cheap room, landed a job at the Aladdin Hotel and Casino as a cashier, and went to see Wilson Pickett every night for weeks. 

The lounge at the International was huge- it was like a theatre itself, and probably seated a thousand people.  And Wilson packed it every night, and just put on astounding show after astounding show.  Wilson was an artist who could perform his hits better in person than on record. AND, he could dance. Wilson didn't have a reputation for dancing, but I'm here to tell you he could shake 'em down. He would sing and dance and laugh and joke every night, working so hard that he would invariably be drenched when the show was over.  He had a great time and we had a great time.

He appeared at the International for several stints during my couple of years there, usually for weeks, not days.  And I don't think I ever missed a show.

Today should have been a day when all of the radio stations played Wilson Pickett songs all day.  I don't think that happened.  But I'll do my part to make up for it, and I'm sure there are thousands more out there like me.

Mama get your mojo

Papa get your gun

I'm gonna steal your daughter

I'm gonna be your son

She's lookin' good...

She's lookin' so good...

She's lookin' good...

Just like I knew that she would

9/11/05

On the beach

I’m reading the New York Times

About Doris Duke

Her estate is 2700 precious New Jersey

Acres

She’s dead of course

Her estate has private sunken tennis courts

And private lap pools

(Of course everything is private)

That’s why this article was even written

Now some are being allowed

A glimpse of this life of untold wealth

A glimpse of the ‘last intact estate of the 20^th century

Industrial tycoons’

Doris Duke never married

Now her estate is dedicated to horticulture

And the environment

And the arts

And all those healthy things

What the Duke family

Really did

Was destroy lives (by the hundreds of thousands)

Destroy our health care system

By overloading it with lung cancer patients

Create untold and unimaginable human suffering

And now the tours tell of the beautiful plants

Do they have tobacco plants there, I wonder?

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This is about Bob Dylan and "Like A Rolling Stone".  Today I received in the mail two books from Amazon.com: Like A Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan at the Crossroads) by Greil Marcus and A Simple Twist of Fate (Bob Dylan and the making of Blood on the Tracks) by Andy Gill and Kevin Odegard.  This is really a great deal, by the way.  The two books together retail for $40, but on Amazon you can get them for $26 with free shipping.

I'm going to see Dylan, Merle Haggard and Amos Lee twice in the next three weeks, once at Borgata in Atlantic City with my son Scott and then the last night of the tour in NYC at the Beacon Theatre with my son Casey.  Maybe that last night Bob and Merle will finally sing a song together.

The Marcus book is about one song: "Like A Rolling Stone."  If ever one song deserved an entire book, this is the one.

I remember it well.  It was 1965 and I was home in Poplar Bluff, Missouri.  At that time I was lost and as wild as it was possible to be.  I had been a Dylan fanatic since 1961 when I attended William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri (just outside of Kansas City).  A bunch of us hung out with WJ's French professor, Phil Rotsch, who used to get wildly drunk and blast out Dylan and Edith Piaf.  He eventually was instumental in getting us and himself cashiered out of the school.

In 1965 I had transferred to Southwest Missouri State in Springfield, but I spent most of my time in Poplar Bluff, since I was in and out of school.  This was just before the Vietnam War really took off and I started some serious draft dodging.

I remember it well.  It was around noon, and my good friend Bill Morrow had just picked me up and we were heading to The Cottage Inn beer joint to start drinking.  Just as we turned onto Highway 67 North it came on, unannounced, on radio station KWOC (or it may have been KLID- there were only two). It hit like a thunderclap.

Bill was driving, and he was a Dylan guy also, but not quite like me.  I recognized Dylan immediately, and exclaimed, increduously, "that's Bob Dylan!"  I turned it up as loud as it would go, and we kept driving on past The Cottage Inn, and drove, and drove, and drove, because the song did not end! All singles then were 2-3 minutes.  There hadn't even been a four minute single- it was just unheard of.  Now, here was Bob Dylan not only singing on a six minute single, but singing the greatest record we had ever heard.  In Poplar Bluff Missouri! On KWOC (or KLID)!

If you had been following Dylan the lyrics weren't a total shock, but almost.  The most shocking thing was that it was mainstream, AM Top-Forty, News, Weather and Sports, and dead aimed right at the top spot.  And there was no doubt about where it was headed, in anyone's mind.

I rushed right down to Hayes Music, but Mrs. Hayes didn't have it yet. But she had already heard about it, and she was already getting calls for it, and she was already on the search for it.  I remember being surprised that anyone in Poplar Bluff except Bill and I had even heard of Bob Dylan.  And it wasn't on an album yet.  You couldn't get it, you just had to wait to hear it on the radio.

It was unlike anything we had ever heard, and it was pretty obvious to everyone that pop music had just been changed forever, although we certainly didn't think in those exact terms.  It was also pretty obvious, to be a little corny, "that something is happening here, and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?" 

It was that good.  It was that shocking.  And, sorry kids, you really had to be there.

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The year was 1965 and the place was Springfield, Missouri.  Springfield at that time was a thriving college town of 100,000 or so in Southwest Missouri.  Branson, Missouri was a few miles south, and wasn't even a wide spot in the road.  The only reason I'd ever heard of it was I had a girfriend from there.

Today Branson is a world-wide travel destination and no one has heard of Springfield.

I had transferred to Southwest Missouri State that year.  I had a good friend, Ernie Richardson (mentioned below in the Kesey post, actually) who played football for the University of Arkansas.  The U of A was football mad, having just won (shared) the national championship in 1964.  This is how good they were: Ernie was a Parade High School All-American at Poplar Bluff, Missouri High School, and he hardly ever played.  He was a star on a Poplar Bluff team that also included Warren Whitworth and Les Kingery, friends of mine also who were just as tough as Ernie.  Ernie didn't care if he played at Arkansas or not, actually- he was there on a full scholarship&nbs p;and looking to get an education.

A Dylan fanatic I am, and have been, since 1961.  There are a lot of us, but we didn't know that back then.  There was no communication, at least where I lived.  In 1965 I was in Springfield attempting college again, when I walked to the local Walgreen Drugstore for something or other.  As I routinely shuffled through the record bin (Walgreen had a large selection) I came across, out of nowhere, Highway 61 Revisited.  There it was, just setting there.  There he was, dressed weirdly and looking even weirder.  DYLAN.  I shoplifted it immediately (I'm not proud of this- but I was broke at the time, and nuts). That was on Friday.  I played it all night long in the attic where I lived, drinking wine with some friends.  It was like nothing we had ever heard before.

The next day I hitchiked to Fayetteville, Arkansas to visit Ernie.  I did this a number of times, hitchhiking through the desolate Ozarks with absolutely no hesitation or qualms. I traveled alone, with the clothes on my back and Highway 61 Revisited.  There was a game that weekend, and somehow Ernie and I ended up in a "coffeehouse".  Yes, they had coffeehouses in Fayetteville, Arkansas then.

I will never forget this.  The place was mobbed and they were playing recorded music on a stereo, and I asked the owner to play Highway 61. He did, immediately, and as the music set in the buzzing conversations stopped.  The record absolutely took over.  Everyone was trying to find out who/what it was. The proprietor played it over and over and over again.  When we finally stumbled out, he had someone out scouring Fayetteville for a copy.

You had to be there for the impact of that album.  There was no promotion, no tours posted on the internet, no hype. I don't even think Rolling Stone Magazine had started yet.  There were no cell phones, portable phones, cable TV stations, MTV, FM radio.  There were three TV channels, AM radio (if you were lucky) and whatever newspapers you could buy that were delivered to your area.  You might have been able to buy the Sunday New York Times in St. Louis, but you damn sure couldn't in Kansas City.

And that album hit the record bins, with Like a Rolling Stone, and changed music (and, to an extent, our culture, for better or worse) forever.  And, ironically, it's still that way for Dylan.  He tours always, but there is no hype.  If you don't seek him out, you certainly won't have him thrust upon you.

And during this week of March Madness-(there was no March Madness in 1965 either- UCLA was in the second year of a decade long domination of NCAA basketball)- a side note.  The aforementioned Poplar Bluff High School Mules basketball team just won the large (class 5) state championship for the second year in a row.  They beat the hell out of Vashon (St.Louis) who was ranked Number 1 in the USA Today prep poll, with a 60 game winning streak.  This thrashing dropped Vashon down to number 8.  The Mules could not crack the Top 25, in spite of a 28-4 record.

Yes, Things Have Changed.  But change is not, by definition, always a good thing.

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Sometime in the early to mid seventies I read Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.  I have read all my life, and I had read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes A Great Notion as soon as they were published.  My good friend Ernie Richardson had somehow come across Kesey's first novel early on, and I'll swear a bunch of us in Poplar Bluff, Missouri were among the very first to read it.  Well, among the first few thousand, maybe, but still right out there.

In the seventies I was in Lake Tahoe, leading the wildest life humanly possible, along with a great friend, Mike Carson, who was even wilder that I (I think).  When I read the Wolfe book, I started tracking down the old haunts amongst the Redwoods where Kesey and The Merry Pranksters used to hang out, although they were long gone.  I also discovered, by calling information, that Kesey's home phone in Oregon was listed, and, as was my wont during that time, called him up.  The conversation was brief and to the point (I admired his books and might be up that way).  He replied, politely and softly, that if I was I should stop by.

One night after many days of drinking and doing everything else possible to our minds and bodies, Mike Carson and I decided in a moment worthy of (or perhaps surpassing) the late H.S. Thompson, to drive to Oregon -I think it was Pleasant Hills- near Springfield, anyway. It was at least 8 or 9 hours away, and involved driving through the High Sierras, the California redwoods, and along the Oregon coast.

We drove all night.  I think Mike drove, but we might have taken turns.  We both had bad habits of wrecking cars.  At some point in the night, after entering Oregon, we stopped at a bar and I tried to get some pot.  I'll never forget this, obviously- the bartender reached down below the bar and sold me some right on the spot.  He had a whole stash and they just sold it as a commodity.

Somehow we got to Pleasant Hills, and I got on the phone to Kesey.  He answered, and I told him we had driven up to see him.  He stated, very politely, that he and his family were in bed-it was very late- and maybe we could do that tomorrow.  Mike and I drove around and somehow found his house.  All I can remember was that it was nicer than I had expected and lights were on that emitted a soft warm glow.

Mike and I stood on the road outside Ken Kesey's house in the black Oregon night, deranged, and took a leak.  Then we got in the car and drove back to Tahoe.

:D

So W got in the spirit of things and wrote a check for tsunami relief!

$10,000!  Of his own money, as the press and White House so proudly reported.  Sandra Bullock, whoever she is, gave a cool million, just for comparison purposes.

I guess after appealing to the American people to cut loose, W decided to set a leadership example by "giving until it hurts".

He even did it the old-fashioned way, by writing a check.  It just makes you proud to be an American.

The reason that I can state, flatly and unequivocially, that "sports" are dead, is exhibited in my home tonight.  That may seem a premature statement, given the gross amount of money that people of all nations, especially the United States, spend on sports "entertainment", but the end is absolutely in sight.

Exhibit number one would be me.  Tonight is the Orange Bowl game for the mythical National Championship.  Only this morning did I find out who was playing in the game.  Even then I was only interested because both teams were 12-0 and both have Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacks.  And even now I don't really care who wins or if I see it or not.  Since I'm originally from Missouri I'd kind of like to see Oklahoma kick USC's ritzy ass, but I won't lose any sleep over it one way or the other.

I now live 50 minutes from Lincoln Field, the new home of the Philadelphia Eagles.  A couple of weeks ago I received four tickets to the Eagles vs. Green Bay, the hottest ticket of the NFL week, on the fifty yard line about twenty rows up.  I gave them away. 

I had a rare run of luck with professional sports tickets. A few days later I received tickets to the 76'ers vs. Knicks, again great seats.  I was actually a little irritated that I had to fool with them.  I did, however, take my daughter to that game and we had a great time, but because of the companionship and not because the Sixers or Knicks were any great shakes.

My good friend Warren Whitworth, of Poplar Bluff, Missouri e-mailed me an article about the St. Louis Cardinals this year, which I did enjoy.  Warren undoubtedly remembered the old me, who was as die-hard a St. Louis Cardinals fan as ever existed.

The new me, however, has a passing interest at best.  When the Cardinals got humiliated by the Bosox, I really didn't care.  Actually, that just validated my lost interest:  In the days when sports were real, a true St. Louis Cardinals baseball team would never let that happen.  The Cardinals I loved more than anything else had Bob Gibson on the mound, and he would pin your fucking ears back in a heartbeat.  His 1967 E.R.A. was 1.12.  That's right, 1.12.  They lowered the pitcher's mound because of Gibson- he was too good, no one could touch him. And he was a mean son of a bitch who didn't like you and he also pinch hit regularly and well. 

When Lou Brock stepped on deck the crowd would begin to buzz.  When he approached the plate the fans would roar with anticipation.  Every pitch was an adventure, as Brock worked the count toward ball four or slapped a single into the outfield. When he got on first base the place went nuts.  No one wanted to see Brock on second or third, we all wanted him on first.  The pitcher was immediately in trouble, no matter who he was.  In his prime years Brock would sometimes lead off squarely between first and second and dare the pitcher to throw to either base.  If the pitcher tried to pick him off at first he'd just take second.  A lot of the time he would steal second base on the first pitch and third base on the second.  At least once he stole second, third and home.

I also lived for professional football, pro basketball and all college sports.  I would never have dreamt of missing the New Year's Day Bowl Games.  If I wasn't scheduled off work I just called in sick.  There was nothing in life more important or more fun than sports.

What happened to exhibit number one and sports? Let me count the ways: 1- Free agency.  I remember when the Cardinal's Old Warhorse, Enos Slaughter, got traded to the Yankees.  The St. Louis Globe Democrat ran a front page, full page picture of Slaughter with tears running down his face, and the caption was Slaughter's statement:  "What a Hell of a Way to Treat a Guy."  And he got traded to the Yankees!  2- Salaries-  these guys make how much? 3- Expansion. 4- Thugs. 5- New stadiums. 6- Ticket prices to pay for the thug's salaries and the new stadiums. 7- Watered down talent- they would make Bob Gibson pitch from a hole now. 8-Steriods. 9- Attitudes. 10- And so on. 

Exhibit number two predicting the death of sports would be my children.  I have two boys and a girl, and they know sports and played sports throughout high school and they could care less.  Oh, they'll watch a game once in a while, or go to a game occasionally, but it's certainly not an obsession.  There are a thousand other things they'd rather do, actually.

They're pretty typical, which does not bode well for the "sports industry".

But I wasn't typical.  And as I sit here writing this entry in my Electric Revolution blog with the Orange Bowl in the background (I think it's tied 7-7) it's pretty clear that sports has lost me.  And if they can lose me, they can lose anybody.

My next blog will be about my intrepid visit to Ken Kesey's house with another friend, Mike Carson, some years ago.  Bot this blog to be notified when new entries are posted.