via ill doctrine
At this time of year we always hear the same 2 or 3 MLK clips over and over, but there was much more to the man. So here are ten of my favorite quotes from MLK that aren’t heard as often.
Thanks again Ron Nachmann !
Can you imagine what sort of “mad man” it would take to propose an advertisement like this today? (Having said that, as the YouTube poster says “It’s nice to know that in the future you will still be able to get malt liquor in outer space.”)
Haitian writers remember the island country as it was. Here’s Langston Hughes, from Autobiography: I Wonder as I Wander, 1956
Haiti, land of blue sea and green hills, white fishing boats on the sea, and the hidden huts of peasants in the tall mountains. People strong, midnight black. Proud women whose arms bear burdens, whose backs are very straight. Children naked as nature. Nights full of stars, throbbing with Congo drums. At the capital lovely ladies ambergold, mulatto politicians, warehouses full of champagne, banks full of money. A surge of black peasants who live on the land, and the foam of the cultured elite in Port-au-Prince who live on the peasants.
Port-au-Prince, city of squalid huts, unattractive sheds and shops near the water front, but charming villas on the slopes that rise behind the port. A presidential palace gleaming white among palm trees with the green hills for a backdrop. A park where bands play at night. An enormous open-air market.
“Ba moi cinq cob,” children beg of tourists in the street. Cinq cob means a nickel. They speak a patois French. The upper classes, educated abroad, speak the language of Paris. But I met none of the upper-class Haitians.
Here’s a fun Flickr photostream from Txrelichunter dedicated to all things skateboard.
Some memories of the good ole days. Used to be on the Pepsi skateboard team back in the 70s on the East Coast. We would put on shows at verious locations in New England and abouts..We went to New York a few times for a few parades including the Macys day parade where we skated with Tony Alva during his hayday. Steve Ellis AKA Woody Woodflow and later known as Cholo (of Hawaii) was also on the team..Some of the great parks we skated in this erra were Cherryhill in NJ, Shooting Star in Mass, Vernon in CT, Centrifical Force in RI and of coarse Yawgoo Valley Ski resort of RI… (our roots)
All Things Skateboard
(via Kanardo)
Garland Jeffreys says, “Wild in the Streets is my pride and joy. I consider it my “first” Rock ‘n’ Roll record, written and released in 1973, and recorded with Dr. John and his band, with Alan Freedman, Michael Brecker, David Sanborn, David Spinozza, David Peel, Produced by Roy Cicala.”
(via Wooster Collective)
From today’s Los Angeles Times, the little known tale behind the famous photo of Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon, including the top page of the letter Presley wrote to Nixon that led to the meeting:
“Dear Mr. President, First I would like to introduce myself. I am Elvis Presley.”
In five pages, Elvis explains he loves his country and wants to give something back and, not being “a member of the Establishment,” believes he could reach some people the president can’t if the president would only make him a federal agent at-large so he can help fight the war on drugs.
“Sir, I can and will be of any service that I can to help the country out. . . . I will be here for as long as it takes to get the credentials of a federal agent. . . . I would love to meet you just to say hello if you’re not to [sic] busy. Respectfully, Elvis Presley.”
Picture of Elvis and Nixon is worth a thousand words (Los Angeles Times)
Newly discovered: a tape recording of Nazi officers describing the moment they found the body of Adolf Hitler in his Berlin bunker. While the recording was made on October 25, 1956, in a courtroom in Berchtesgaden (the place of Hitler’s Bavarian mountaintop retreat), it was unearthed only recently by researchers for the German Spiegel TV channel.
Among those giving evidence that day were Otto Guensche, an SS officer, and Heinz Linge, a valet, who first discovered the corpses of Hitler and his new bride Eva Braun. The men speak under oath of entering the Fuehrer’s study after hearing shots ring out on April 30 1945. “When I entered to my left I saw Hitler on the sofa,” said Linge, who died in 1980. “Hitler had his head bent forward somewhat and I could see a bullethole approximately the size of a penny on the right side of the temple.”
Guensche, who went to his death in 1983 refusing to give details about the dictator’s end, said: “Hitler sat on the arm of the sofa with his head hanging down on the right shoulder which was itself hanging limp over the back of the sofa. On the right side was the bullet hole.”
From that point, on Guensche and Linge started removing the bodies and preparing them for cremation. After Berlin fell—and before their story went very far—the pair were captured by the Soviets and whisked off to Moscow. Their testimony lay hidden all this time in Munich’s public records office.
Square America has a delightful series of stereo animated gifs titled “The Bar Mitzvah and Other Tales of Living in Stereo.” Totally worth a look.
Since Michael Jackson and the Beatles are, respectively, the best and third best-selling artists of the decade (with music that wasn’t even recorded this millennium in Jackson’s case and that is four decades old in the case of the Fab Four) the record industry seems to have realized that (Taylor Swift aside) most people actually want good music rather than bland, marketing department driven ditties. Or is that the reason? Of course there is also the old music biz adage that “the only good artist is a dead artist” (lookit Elvis, for f’s sake, to say nothing of Tupac and Biggie Smalls). There’s big money in death, it’s a great career move (although one difficult to enjoy), so it comes as no real surprise that the Jimi Hendrix estate announced today that they’d be releasing a 40 year old bunch of recording Jimi made with Billy Cox and others back in ‘69, called Valleys of Neptune. There has been a fair amount of posthumous Hendrix material ranging from great to not so great. Who knows, this Band Of Gypsys
From Geoff Boucher’s cover story in today’s LA Times:
South African native Eddie Kramer was the lead producer on the album, and he was also the engineer in the studio with Hendrix during the original sessions. Kramer spent months using vintage analog approaches and the latest digital tools to excavate the material. “I felt like an archaeologist using a brush who finds, underneath the dust, this marvelous gold artifact,” he said.
Kramer said the music of “Neptune” comes primarily from 1969, a time of “both frustration and real excitement” for Hendrix as he pushed his way toward “a new direction.” The guitarist had brought in an old friend, bassist Billy Cox, to play on some of the tracks; on Friday, Cox, now living in Nashville, said he is giddy at the prospect of hearing the results of his work with Hendrix.
“I can tell you that Jimi was on his way to a powerful new thing, a new direction completely, he was going back to his roots and he wanted a sound with more soul,” said Cox, later in Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys. “Who can say where it would have led him if he hadn’t died?”
Jimi Hendrix fans have a new experience in store (Los Angeles Times)
Tantalizing short excerpt from The Harvard Psychedelic Club
From the book:
Weil and Winston had both read The Doors of Perception, Huxley?