The existential query is this: How many times in life is a column by Camille Paglia going to remind you of a song you want to hear at all, let alone immediately?
Well, kids, you’re looking at it right now. Correct answer: Once . . . at the very most.
She mentioned “Hypnotized,” the Bob Welch penned and sung tune from Fleetwood Mac’s ’73 album Mystery To Me in a recent column. Frankly I don’t remember her point. I seem to recall how some of the lyrics refer to Carlos Castaneda.
For those too young to know, he was one of the inescapable gurus of the drug infused 70s. You’d be at a pal’s pad, smoking some weed, and they’d be talking effusively about finding your place in the circle and what it meant and how spiritual it was (Castaneda stuff), and you’d just want them to roll another joint, put Janis on the stereo and shut up.
Actually, as soon as I read Paglia’s reference I stopped reading the column — which I obviously never got back to — and went to the stereo where I cranked up the ol’ turntable and put the album on.
I smiled, realizing again after all these years what a sublime, beguiling song this is.
Of course, there are way too many folks — many of whom should actually know better — who think Fleetwood Mac began (and maybe ended) with the Lindsay Buckingham/ Stevie Nicks lineup. Which of course is not only poppycock, but foolish, given that Mick Fleetwood and John McVie have hooked up with more musicians for a longer period of time than anybody in rock.
(It is at this point when I must mention, as any rock raconteur with the slightest bit of inner Lester Bangs would, that the original lineup included one fabled guitar player named Peter Green. Who, besides being well schooled in the blues as all alumni of the John Mayall school were, wrote “Black Magic Woman.” Yes, that song, the one stolen forever and always by the Santana Band.)
But more on all this in a second. You want to hear the song don’t you?
As I was saying, there have been many, many incarnations of Fleetwood Mac. One history of rock diagrams out 11 different lineups. And that’s only through . . . 1987. Read the rest of this entry »
Larry Eustachy is now the hoops coach at Southern Mississippi.
A little over a half decade ago, when he was at Iowa State, he was legitimately in the conversation about the next great hoops coach. He was already a member of the Party Boy Hall of Fame. He was hangin’ with Betty Coed. And all her sorority sisters. Always with a drink in hand.
Larry Eustachy lost his job. And found a life.
To salvage his career, Eustachy entered treatment for the deadly disease which with he is afflicted. Alcoholism. Six years later, Eustachy remains sober, and, reading between the lines of his interview with Parrish, is an active daily participant in a 12 Step recovery process.
The purpose of Gary Parrish’s interview was to provide perspective on the Billy Clyde Gillispie situation. Gillispie, recently arrested in rural Kentucky for DUI, has entered John Lucas’s rehab facility in Houston. Eustachy publicly expressed his support and willingness to share his experiences, hoping to give strength and resolve to Gillispie to stay the course.
In the interview, Eustachy correctly parallels the diseases of alcoholism and cancer. He knew it would bring out the scoffers. Which it did. Parrish wrote a follow up column about the comments he received. It’s linked in the first story, or you can get to it here.
I’ve often said reiterated that I don’t comment at this venue on the personal lives of the sports personalities I cover, the men and women who are important to folks here in Kentuckiana. And I certainly gave Gillispie way more than my allotment of shit over his behavior while he was UK coach.
But this is no time for silence.
Of all the diseases from which people suffer, alcoholism and drug addiction might be the most misunderstood. Comments online and on the street about Gillispie’s situation indicate that.
So it is. And so it shall probably remain.
Such a pity.
I now pray for Billy Gillispie as well as for alcoholics and drug addicts who still suffer and patients battling cancer as I have during the course of my recoveries from those equally debilitating diseases.
I don’t in any way mean to condone some of Gillispie’s well chronicled life mistakes while at UK, and elsewhere for that matter. But I do understand that he has the opportunity, if he gets and stays sober, to avoid such gaffes in the future.
I hope he makes it.
And I hope Larry Eustachy’s Southern Miss Golden Eagles make it to the dance. But know that, at least for today, he’ll be okay if they don’t.
Of another Slim Harpo song, no less an authority than Mick Jagger had this to say: “What’s the point in listening to us doing “I’m a King Bee” when you can hear Slim Harpo do it?”
True.
As it is for “Shake Your Hips,” which most rock & rollers know from Exile On Main Street. It’s time to set you right, kiddies.
Slim Harpo is one of the lesser known mid 20th century bluesmen, and one of the more interesting. Because, well, his life wasn’t that interesting. No selling his soul to the devil at the crossroads. No prison terms. No famous liquor infused incidents. He did grow up Negro in the Huey Long south, but, well, other than that, nothing out of the ordinary.
Let’s hear his original rendition of “Shake Your Hips,” then we’ll talk more. (Alas, I’ve never seen any footage of Slim Harpo live. If you know of some, do tell.)
He always showed up for his gigs. He never appeared to have any drinking related episodes. He was pretty fair businessman, managing himself for the most part. He worked construction and as a longshoreman, mostly near his home in Baton Rouge, where he was born in January, 1924. (Unless it was up the road in Lobdell in February, 1924) He lived in New Orleans for awhile.
He met his wife in 1949 while helping to build a church. They stayed married until his sudden death of a heart attack in 1970. She traveled with him on the road.
Harpo — born James Moore — didn’t become a professional musician until the 50s. At first, he called himself Harmonica Slim before switching to the more resonant and appropriate Slim Harpo. He had a few hits during the Top 40 era: most notably “Rainin’ In My Heart” and “Baby Scratch My Back.”
His voice was unique, slithery but smooth and diffuse. His tunes are laid back in the way that many from Louisisana are. It’s the nature of the beast, the combination of heat, humidity and home cookin’.
Anyway, now you’ll have an answer if somebody asks, “Whattaya know/ About Slim Harpo?”
Call me old fashioned. Call me a diehard red, white and blue patriot. Call me out of touch. Whatever.
But I know it’s gotta be a good thing when the duly elected President of the United States wants to talk to the nation’s kids about staying in school, and studying and achieving and setting goals and reaching them.
But . . . Nooooooooooooooooooooo!
Seems as if some zealots whose political persuasions are different from his don’t want the President of the United States to talk to their kids or your kids in school. He might, you know, pollute their minds or something. Try to convince them about some issue of the day. You know, brainwash them into thinking universal health care for everybody is a good thing, or some such foolishness.
No matter that Bush the Elder did it when he was President of the United States. No matter than Ronnie Reagan did it when he was President of the United States. No matter that Bush the Younger appealed to the nation’s children to support his war when he was President of the United States.
We don’t want that current guy to do it. You know, the President of the United States of America.
It is the latest sign yet that America is deeply divided politically. And that there’s a lot of misinformation being disseminated and digested in this Age of Overinformation.
And, one guy’s opinion, it is yet another sign that racism is cunning, sly and continues to insinuate itself in the subtlest of ways.
You think there would be such an outcry over the President’s upcoming address to the country’s school kids, if he weren’t, you know, uh . . . different? One wag’s opinion — mine — is that this uproar wouldn’t have happened even for Bill Clinton, who was really loathed by a lot of folks. Because, you know, Bill might be a scumbag and philanderer, but, gosh, he’s . . . one of us.
The school administrators who are bowing to the outrageous demands that some people’s kids shouldn’t be forced to listen to the President of the United States ought to be fired immediately for incompetence.
What in the world have we done to ourselves? We aren’t even willing anymore to listen and hear a diversity of ideas. We aren’t willing to let the duly elected President of the United States give a fatherly pep talk to our kids in school.
Cardinal fans frolicked out of Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium in a state of such ecstasy, many smiled tolerantly at the brewski-overloaded nabobs pissing in the bushes.
Maybe Howard Schnellenberger’s bluster was indeed more than boast. U of L had just sent the third-ranked West Virginia Mountaineers hightailing it back to Morgantown with wet powder and a jammed musket.
As pigskin planet’s population watched on prime-time Thursday, the Cards’ future route appeared in the headlights’ beams. That collision course with a national title jumped in front of Louisville like a deer on River Road.
Louisville 44, West Virginia 34.
A week later U of L’s hopes were roadkill. The Cards blew a 25-7 lead and lost to Rutgers. Instead of vying for a national title, they landed in the Orange Bowl, registering a tepid win over Wake Forest. Supercoach Bobby Petrino jumped to the pros.
The existential query is this: How many times in life is a column by Camille Paglia going to remind you of a song you want to hear at all, let alone immediately?
Larry Eustachy is now the hoops coach at Southern Mississippi.
Of another Slim Harpo song, no less an authority than Mick Jagger had this to say: “What’s the point in listening to us doing “I’m a King Bee” when you can hear Slim Harpo do it?”
The President of the United States, that’s who.
Oh what a night it was: Nov. 2, 2006.