Barnsey & Friend

 

Robert A. Barnes, 64

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. Robert A. "Barnesy" "Caveman" Barnes, 64, of this community and Ocean City (NJ) died Aug 7 in the veterans' home in Grand Junction, Colo. He was born in Somers Point, NJ.

Mr. Barnes attended Ocean City High School, served in the U.S. Air Force (1956-58) and worked as a carpenter, craftsman, boat builder and in other trades. He spent most of his time fishing, particularly in the Great Egg Harbor and in the Florida Keys and Colorado.

He wrote an, as yet unpublished manuscript "Into the Slime: The Art of Fishing."

Mr. Barnes was a member of the Praise Tabernacle Church in Egg Harbor Township and Sonlight Foursquare Gospel Church in Glenwood Springs, Colo.

Memorial services will be held at noon Sunday, Oct. 13 on the 12th Street pavilion on the bay in Ocean City and at 1 p.m. at the Tight End Fishing Club at Gregory's Restaurant in Somers Point.

Burrial was in Western Veterans' Memorial Cemetery in Grand Junction, Colo. Arrangments by Rifle Funeral Home in Rifle, Colorado.

St. Nicholas Church Leipzig

 

St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig was ground zero and the first domino in the protest movement that ultimately resulted in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War.

St. Nicholas Leipzig October 1989

 

In Berlin on November 9, 2009 - the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, they used giant dominoes falling in a line to illustrate the chain of events that led to the opening of the wall and end of the Cold War.

In that case, the first domino was St. Nicholas Church in Liepsig, East Berlin, where the daily Monday Prayers for Peace sessions grew from a few dozen people to tens of thousands of people, and spread to other churches in other cities.

Of course you won't read about it or hear about it in the mainstream media for some reason, and I have found only a few references to it on the internet, but with the 20th anniversary more people are being reminded of what really happened over those revolutionary days in Communist East Germany.

I first heard about it from an East German Intourist guide in Berlin in July, 1990, who explained the amazing story of how the Liepsig Church became a refuge for street musicians being harassed by the police and the Church prayer group that was harrased by the Stassi secret police.

Before I get into how I got to Berlin in the summer of 1990, and what happened there, here's a few articles I found that tell the story of St. Nichs.

Instead of Ronald Reagan, Gorbachev and Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it should have gone to the Pastor at St. Nichs Christian Fuhrer, who instigated the Monday Prayer for Peace sessions, and told the developing crowds to "put down your rocks," and sing, "We shall overcome," in English.

"We were prepared for anything, except prayers and candles."
- Leipzig Security Chief

City of Heroes'

Of course the city, dating from the 11th Century, is no stranger to change.

Back in 1989, the Nikolaikirche (St Nicholas's Church) in Leipzig was the focus for the first protests against the communist regime, with thousands of people gathering to march after Monday prayers.

As other cities followed their lead, the Monday demonstrations became the centre of a call for freedom that eventually led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Since the reunification of former East and West Germany in 1990, the city has seen rapid economic growth for many and a boom in construction.

Its streets, bombed during World War II, now present a striking mix of stark Soviet-era buildings, Baroque, Art Nouveau and modernist architecture.

But, as Leipzig's Mayor Burkhard Jung told the BBC News website, the courage that earned Leipzig the name "City of Heroes" is far from forgotten.

"The events of 1989 have left an indelible mark in the hearts and minds of all Leipzigers. And they are still visible," he said.

Visitors can take in a monument to the peaceful protests in the square next to Nikolaikirche, he says.

"But above all it is the people that matter. Ask any of our citizens who are old enough to remember and they will tell you their story."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_5013000/5013728.stm

http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/tag/communist/

http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2009/11/06/some-east-german-protestants-feel-overlooked-as-wall-recalled/

Reuters Blogs
FaithWorld

Some east German Protestants feel overlooked as Wall Recalled

Posted by: Tom Heneghan

As Germany celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, some Protestants feel the crucial role their church played in shepharding the democracy movement to success is quietly being overlooked. This seems strange to someone like myself who reported on those eventsback then. Any reporter in Berlin in the tense weeks before Nov. 9, 1989 knew the Protestant (mostly Lutheran) churches sheltered dissidents and was working for reform. But the idea that this was fading from public view came up during my recent visit to Leipzig when, at an organ recital in Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Thomas Church (Thomaskirche), the pastor mentioned the point in a sermon.

When I later went up to Berlin, I ran the idea past a leading east German Protestant theologian and a pastor and two parish council members from the Gethsemane Church (Gethsemanekirche). That church in eastern Berlin was one of the most active centres of protest in the tense months before demonstrators forced open the Wall on Nov. 9, 1989. They all agreed.

The many anniversary celebrations, documentaries and discussions now underway across Germany seem to focus mostly on how fearless street protesters and astute politicians pulled off the “peaceful revolution” that ended communism. Films and photos of dissidents packed into the Gethsemane Church in East Berlin or Leipzig’sSt. Nicholas Church (Nikolaikirche), the leading houses of worship that sheltered them until the Wall opened , are among the trademark images. But those crowded “peace prayer” evenings were only the tip of the iceberg of behind-the-scenes work by pastors and lay people who considered it their Christian duty to promote civil rights and human dignity in a rigid communist society.

At the organ recital, Rev. Christian Wolff illustrated the point by mentioning a recent commemoration in Leipzig attended by German President Horst Köhler, Chancellor Angela Merkel and other dignitaries. “At the ceremony, Werner Schulz spoke of the role of the churches — nobody else did,” he noted, referring to a former East German dissident who is now a European Parliament deputy. Köhler didn’t go into it in his speech, the main address of the day. While the Protestant churches didn’t claim all the credit for the success of the protests, Wolff said, “it wasn’t just a quirk of history that Christians took leading roles in the late 1980s.” They acted out of their religious convictions that each person had God-given dignity and rights that the communists were denying them.

Richard Schröder, the East German theologian who was a Social Democratic politician in the transition period and then headed the theology faculty at Berlin’s Humboldt University, agreed the churches’ role was being overlooked. “In the media reporting now, the Wall seems to have fallen without any pre-history,” he told me during an interview at his home south of the capital. “Western German public opinion doesn’t have a clear perception of the churches’ role.” He thought the dynamics of politics and the media in united Germany played a part in changing the public perception of 1989. Most politicians and journalists come from western Germany, he said, and had no experience of the underground activity bubbling below East Germany’s calm surface during the 1980s. Because 3/4 of eastern Germans belong to no church, the westerners underestimate the influence the churches had, even among the non-religious. This is the image that is now being repeated in speeches and television documentaries around Germany, Schröder said.

The pre-history to the Wall’s fall goes back at least to the early 1980s, when underground groups opposed to the superpower arms race linked up with activist pastors increasingly critical of the regimentation of life under the communists. In 1982, Leipzig’s St. Nicholas Church launched weekly “peace prayers” mixing Gospel readings with political debates. Police did not break up church services, so these sessions gave dissidents a freedom of speech and assembly they could find nowhere else.

Similar alliances emerged in many cities, aided by the large network of parishes maintained by the Protestants, who far outnumbered the cautious Catholic minority. By 1988, the Stasi secret police counted 160 such groups, almost all connected to the churches. In the debates, pastors sometimes cited models such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran theologian executed for resisting the Nazis, and the non-violent strategy of U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King. In guidelines for participants at his Monday evening “peace prayers,” St. Nicholas Church pastor Rev. Christian Führer laid down the rule that “participants and their contributions to the debate may not contradict the Gospel of the crucified Christ and its message of reconciliation and must be based on the commandments of God insofar as they aim to preserve life.”

Such activist pastors were a minority among the clergy, but became a majority in the political parties that formed in the autumn of 1989. The speaking and organisational skills developed in their church careers, one of the few areas of East German life not controlled by the communists, clearly helped them to take charge.

As Werner Schulz put it in the speech that Pastor Wolff cited,“the peaceful revolution was, at its core, also a Protestant revolution … Its pioneering motto ‘no violence’ was the essence of the Sermon on the Mount, the most revolutionary passage in the Gospel… Protestant churches were base camps of this revolution… People went from peace prayers to street protests with a serious Protestant manner, disarming reasonableness and discipline.”

The gap in perception of 1989 emerged clearly at a forum I attended in eastern Berlin where the Gethsemane Church showed a film about its role in 1989 and invited comments from audience, which was about 2/3 Ossis (easterners) and 1/3 Wessis(westerners) who’d settled there since the government moved from Bonn in 1999. One Wessi criticised a section on the “Round Table” — a church-moderated public panel that helped oversee the transition to democracy between December 1989 and March 1990 — as not lively enough to show the real drama of that period.

The Ossis promptly and unanimously disagreed. They found it thrilling to see clips of civil rights activists politely grilling once untouchable communist officials, uncovering their corruption and insisting they take responsibility for their misuse of power. This showed the new democracy in action, they said.

The film, Ende der Eiszeit (End of the Ice Age), also showed the central role of the churches in shielding the dissidents and encouraging them to embrace non-violence and transparency. “Without the churches, this openness couldn’t have come about,” said Rev. Heinz-Otto Seidenschnur of the Gethsemane Church. A parish council member there, archeologist Ursula Kästner, said the church stepped into a vacuum to ensure a peaceful transition. “This was the church’s synodal principle at work,” she told me. “Otherwise, we would have had violence like in Romania.”

Dieter Wendland, a graphic designer and veteran member of the parish council, said the phenomenon of packed churches burst like a balloon when the Wall opened. “On the first Sunday, almost all the pews were empty. About 10 people were sitting there and that was it. It was a bit depressing, but I said we’ve achieved what we were struggling for. Now we can do the work we’re called to do, that is, organise church life and preach the Gospel.”

Published: Mon, November 9, 2009 @ 12:00 a.m.

A tale of two wallshttp://www.vindy.com/news/2009/nov/09/a-tale-of-two-walls/

EDITOR: Something there is that doesn’t like a wall. Those immortal words from a Robert Frost poem came to full life 20 years ago with the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989. By then, almost no one still liked that wall, but its sudden fall took just about everyone by great surprise. Everyone, that is, but a small group of devout Christians in the East German city of Leipzig, where this miraculous revolution of our times germinated.

Under the prophetic leadership of the pastor of Leipzig’s St. Nicholas Church, a humble man with the remarkable name of Christian Fuehrer, a small group of Christians formed a prayer circle called “Swords into Plowshares” a decade before the wall fell. Every Monday beginning at 5 p.m. sharp, members of Swords into Plowshares gathered in the church sanctuary for prayer and discussion. Attendance in the early years remained low, and participation in these prayers was, like everything else in the former German Democratic Republic, monitored by the Stasi (the secret police). Yet since the prayers and discussions were strictly for and about peace, hardly a subversive theme in the GDR, nothing was officially done to stop them, until it was too late.

By fall 1989, it was too late.

Hundreds of people, many in a church for the first time, packed the sanctuary of St. Nicholas every Monday evening during September and October of that historic year. The critical mass was reached on Oct. 25, when the church was packed to capacity and thousands more stood outside holding candles in the night. Also packed, albeit with heavily armed troops and police, was the adjoining Opera Plaza.

A bloody suppression of nonviolent protest, like what happened in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square or on Kent State’s campus, seemed unavoidable. Thousands of participants, singing “We Shall Overcome” in English, took to the streets of Leipzig in an unauthorized demonstration following the prayer service. The order to shoot them was given. It was not followed. No one knows exactly why.

Perhaps it was the courageous intervention of Kurt Masur, the highly respected conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, who passionately pleaded with troops not to open fire. Perhaps it was an intervention of a different and higher sort, one that no army can overcome.

Leipzig, after all, is the city of Bach, who gave life to some of the most divine music every composed. The in-breaking of divine forces through the social ministry of Martin Luther led to the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation not far from Leipzig. That same power was planted, like a mustard seed, in the heart of this heroic city within the confines of that Monday peace prayer circle. It burst out in a nonviolent revolution of candles on that fateful October evening, and within the following weeks it accomplished that which the mightiest armies in human history could not: the Fall of the Wall, the end of the Cold War, and the re-unification of Europe.


WERNER LANGE
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Edinboro University of Pennsylvania
The author was an exchange professor at the University of Leipzig in 1983 and conducted extensive interviews with Leipzig residents during 1990s.

http://yesmagazine.org/blogs/sarah-van-gelder/people-power-brought-down-the-berlin-wall

People Power Brought Down the Berlin Wall

Posted by Sarah van Gelder at Nov 09, 2009 09:45 AM | Permalink

Some say it was Ronald Reagan's toughness that forced down the wall. But detente between East and West and grassroots people's movements deserve the credit.

What brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago?

Some argue that it was the Cold War and the escalation of military spending that was justtoo costly for the Soviet empire to maintain.

If that was the case, that should be a cautionary tale for the United States as we struggle to maintain a nuclear arsenal, support over 700 military bases around the world, developexpensive new weapons systems, and, of course, fight two wars - including one in a country where the USSR, also, met its match.

But military over-spending was only part of the reason the people of East Germany were able to bring down the wall, according to an article in Forbes by Konrad H. Jarausch, professor of European Civilization at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. "Ultimately it was the spread of detente, helped by his personal rapport with the U.S. president that allowed [Soviet President Mikhail] Gorbachev to ... set the satellites free," he says.

Another factor was just as important. The wall couldn't have come down without a nonviolent people power uprising.

A recent account from the Geneva-based Ecumenical News International (ENI) tells of thechurch-based protests exactly a month before the Berlin Wall's opening, that followed earlier days of protests:

"After the 9 October services in Leipzig, an estimated 70,000 people poured into thecity centre, connecting in a full circle on a ring road around the downtown area. 'There were too many of us that night to arrest, the prisons were already full,' Jochen Lassig, a Leipzig reporter, told ENI."

According to the article, there had been warnings in the communist-run media that force would be used to suppress demonstrations. "Local doctors and nurses reported that hospitals were building up blood reserves and being put on alert to deal with bullet wounds."

"Pastor Christian Fuhrer of Leipzig's St Nicholas' Church gave this account:
'More than 2,000 people leaving the church were welcomed by tens of thousands waiting outside with candles in their hands—an unforgettable moment. Two hands are necessary to carry a candle and to protect it from extinguishing so that you can not carry stones or clubs at the same time.'

In front of the Leipzig headquarters of the Stasi—the East German secret police—demonstrators gathered, laid candles on the steps, and sang songs. What few knew at the time was that inside the darkened building, most Stasi members were present and armed with live ammunition. They had orders to defend a strategic building. They had sandbags under the windows, still displayed today as it is now a museum.
Irmtraut Hollitzer, once curator of the museum, said: 'One stone through thewindow would have been enough to set off a bloodbath.'"

Professor Jarausch concurs that it was people power that made the difference:
"It took a transnational grass roots movement of courageous Polish workers, Hungarian activists, German refugees and Czech dissidents braving considerable risks in order to revive civil society and regain space for public protest. ... The fall of the Wall was magical because it signaled the peaceful triumph of people's power over a regime that commanded enormous repressive force."

The combination of a leader who understood the need for change—President Gorbachev—with a popular uprising allowed change to proceed without violence, and much more quickly than anyone could have imagined.

So the question this anniversary raises for me: Can we build such a people power movement today, strong enough to overcome the power of global corporations and wise enough to collaborate across our many differences? Because that's what it will take to get on with theurgent business of stopping climate catastrophe, building sustainable economies, reorienting our societies away from violence and militarism and towards a world that works for all.

We have a forward-thinking president, but he—and we—can't get much done without powerful people's movements creating real change.

http://www.pres-outlook.com/news-and-analysis/1-news-a-analysis/9277-pastor-honored-for-role-in-protests-that-felled-the-berlin-wall.html

Pastor honored for role in protests that felled the Berlin Wall

Written by Frauke Brauns
Tuesday, 06 October 2009 00:12

(ENI) — Leipzig Protestant pastor Christian Führer has been honored for his autobiography that recounts how the weekly peace prayers in his parish led to the 1989 protests that contributed to the fall of communism in East Germany.

Führer was awarded a special prize by the Protestant Literature Portal for his book, "Und wir sind dabei gewesen: Die Revolution, die aus der Kirche kam" ("And we were there. The revolution that came from the Church").

On October 9, Leipzig in eastern Germany marks the 20th anniversary of tens of thousands of people taking to the streets after the prayers for what turned out to be a peaceful demonstration for change, despite fears of a Beijing-style Tiananmen Square crackdown.

The peaceful outcome of the Leipzig demonstration marked a turning point in the democracy protests that led to the opening of the Berlin Wall exactly one month later, on November 9, 1989. Führer's autobiography recounts the spirit of optimism people felt during that year and what is left of it today.

Führer was pastor of the church of St Nicholas in Leipzig where the weekly prayers for peace began in 1982 when Europe faced the deployment of nuclear missiles in West and in East and at a time of the growth of an independent peace movement in East Germany

The award was made during a gathering in Kassel organized by the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), the country's biggest Protestant grouping.

"The peaceful revolution of 1989/1990 was formed by the Protestant church and has deep roots there," said the EKD's Eckhart von Vietinghoff in his tribute. "Recounting the story of his contribution and exceptional life, Christian Führer, who was for more than 30 years pastor at St Nicholas' in Leipzig, brings this experience back to life."

The meeting in Kassel marked a step in the process that EKD started in January 2007 to prepare for the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation in 2017.

During the meeting, other awards were given to outstanding missionary work.

The "fantasy of faith" award of the Association of Missionary Services (AMD) was given to a small Christian community in Essen called e/motion. The community was founded in 1999 and now has 90 members aged between 20 and 30. They share daily life and organize evening services each Sunday. "E/motion is the answer to the question as to how the Church will look when money is short," said Axel Noack, presenting the award.

The Protestant Youth in Germany (AEJ) presented an award for the "Move your life" project in Laatzen, near Hanover. This encourages young people to use physical exercise and sport in urban settings.

By James M. Wall

Twenty years ago, October 9, 1989, East German citizens marched to a prayer service at Leipzig’s St. Nicholas (Lutheran) Church. In a ritual they had repeated many nights before, they marched to the church holding lighted candles.

There were 70,000 marchers in the streets of Leipzig that night. Communist East German officials waited for the signal from Berlin and Moscow to disperse the crowd by force. The signal never came. Two weeks later, the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union began its total collapse.

The Leipzig Communist security chief wanted very much to subdue the rebellion. His police force was well armed. Soldiers with machine guns stood on top of nearby buildings.

In a final scene from the East German movie, Nikolaikirche, the security chief stares out at the crowd, his defiance now gone, and says, “We planned everything. We were prepared for everything, except for candles and prayers.”

I attended the premier showing of Nikolaikirche (St. Nicholas Church) at the 1996 Berlin International Film Festival. Thirteen years later, Nikolaikircheremains for me one of strongest cinematic demonstrations I have ever seen of the power of peaceful, non violent protest against an occupying force.

I opened my Berlin Film Festival report by placing Leipzig in a religious context:
One could not visit Berlin in the 450th anniversary year of Martin Luther’s death without making a pilgrimage to Wittenberg, the city in which Luther began the Protestant Reformation.

His tomb lies in a place of honor in the Schlosskirche, where Luther posted his 95 defiant challenges to the pope’s authority. To reach Wittenberg from Berlin, one travels south on the autobahn past now-empty Soviet army barracks, passing at highway speed through areas where border crossings once delayed travelers for hours.
After an hour and a half on the autobahn, a smaller highway takes the pilgrim to the Elbe River, not far from the spot where American and Soviet troops met in the final days of World War II. One passes outmoded, nearly vacant chemical plants in what was once East Germany’s thriving industrial region. The more efficient factories in the western part of the country have replaced many of these plants.

At one operation near Wittenberg, the number of employees has been cut from 8,000 to 700. Wandering through Luther’s city and reflecting on the strife in Luther’s career, I saw similarities to more recent struggles in Germany that led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

In Luther’s life, religion regularly interacted with politics. His initial success in reforming the church was possible in part because he cultivated the support of political leaders who protected him, and who eventually separated their states from the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. . . .Nikolaikirche, directed by Frank Beyer and based on a highly respected novel by East German author Erich Loest, records some decisive moments in “Die Wende”, the “turning” from communism to freedom. The movie re-creates events at Leipzig’s St. Nicholas (Lutheran) Church during the peaceful revolution of 1989.

Communist officials in Leipzig came very close to applying the “Chinese solution”–using massive force to put down public demonstrations. Those demonstrations began as prayer meetings across the city. . . .Many if not most of those who prayed in the churches and then walked the streets with lighted candles to express opposition to communist policies were not committed Christians. But they found in the church a place where opposition to oppression could be voiced. The pastor at St. Nicholas acknowledged that the church was open to nonbelievers as well as believers.

On one occasion, the pews were filled with government officials and university students who had been sent to foil the demonstration. But the pastor shrewdly “reserved” the balconies for the demonstrators.

On the night of October 9, 1989, more than 70,000 citizens mobilized in the streets of Leipzig. Before the march, the St. Nicholas pastor admonished the demonstrators to be nonviolent: “Put down your rocks.”

Meanwhile, security officials waited for instructions from Moscow and Berlin on using force to subdue the demonstrators. The orders never came, and the police gave up. A month later the Berlin Wall fell. The security chief who wanted to subdue the rebellion is shown in the film staring out at the crowd in front of his headquarters.
“We planned everything,” he says. “We were prepared for everything, except for candles and prayers.”

Berlin Wall November 9 1989

 

Most people remember November 9, 1989, the day they opened the Berlin Wall, by the vision of people climbing on the wall and dancing and cheering, an unbelievable scene and one that few people ever envisioned.

The CIA were caught off guard, not having anticipated such a thing from happening, and even the local news media in Berlin were unprepared and failed to anticipate such a thing from happening.

Eight months later, when I was in Berlin for the Wall concert, me and Jack were hanging out at the hotel bar when two of the rock band the Scorpions came in and sat next to us at the bar. They recalled that they were playing in a club when they saw the scene at the Wall on the bar TV, and everybody began crying.

They had grown up in West Berlin, and lived within a few blocks of the wall, and so it was a very personal experience for them, and thus they were honored to open the concert of the rock opera the Wall in July, 1990.

They were also inspired to write a hit song and made a video of "Changes."

When they released the album of the Wall concert in America, at an album release party on the USS Intrepid in New York City, the Scorpions came into the large, crowded room, and recognized me and Jack and came right up to us, apparently glad to see us.

East Berlin TV Tower

 

When we got to Berlin in July, 1990, the gates were open and people were constantly chipping away at the Wall, taking pieces as souveniers, there was still an East and West Germany, though they were collaborating on the concert and other cultural projects.

Jack Snyder, my friend from Ocean City, had met an East German Intourist Guide, who took us over to East Germany and to lunch at the rotating restaurant on top of the TV tower.

Like the rotating tower in Dallas and I presume in the Seatle needle, you sit at a table against the window and the room slowly rotates slowly so that you get to view the entire city 360 degrees within the hour, without even noticing you are moving.

It was there that the Intourist Guide explained to us the events that led to the November 9, 1989 opening of the Wall.

At the Wall Berlin Nov. 9, 1989

 

Music Brought the Wall Down

 

The Wall Nov 9 1990

 

The Wall Berlin 1990

 

White Deer in Roger's Backyard

 

White Deer in Roger Beckwith's Backyard

Check out Roger's Roadhouse Report

The White Deer pix is from the photo section of Roger's Web Site, where you can get weekly updates on where the best bands are playing.

http://www.angelfire.com/nj/Roadhouse51/pictures.html

Bill Fallon

 

Kelly at Key West

 

Jude Burkhauser & the Walum Olum

 

Jude, was an artist and weaver from Cape May.

She fought to get the State of New Jersey to include a percentage of all major building projects be allocated for art - and she got the commission to add the art to the public library in Upper Township in Cape May County.

Jude did three tapestries that now hang on the back wall of the library, weaved images that reflect images from the Walum Olum - or "Red Score," the ancient legend of the Lenni Lenape Indians native to New Jersey.

The pattern of the tapestry Jude is photographed with is one of the legends of the Lenape - how the cranberries got their red color.

As Jude related the story to me, the Indians, who arrived in New Jersey about 12,000 years ago, just as the last of the elephant sized tusked mammoths were killed off, tell the myth of a battle in the mountains among the mammoths and the saber tooth tigers, and in the end they killed each other off, their blood flowed down the mountains and died the cranberries red.

The cranberries provided the Indians with the red die used to draw the pictographs of the Walum Olum on the backs of tree barks.

There were over a hundred pictographs to the Walum Olum, each with a meaning and a story behind it.

Two Indians, Talking Wood and Dancing Bear were entrusted with the sacred Walum Olum, and traveled among the different tribal communities of the Lenni Lenape, including the Wolf Tribe of the North, the Turkey Tribe and the Turtle Tribe, each with its own totum.

While Talking Wood read the story of the symbols of the Walum Olum on the tree bark, Dancing Bear would act out the saga in a dance around a fire.

When Jude went to Europe to research a book she wrote "Glassgow Girls," about the weavers of Scotland, I stayed in her apartment above the pharmacy across the Washington Street Mall from the Ugly Mug.

Before she lived there, Jude stayed in an apartment above the carriage house at the Physick Estate, and ran the Cape May County Art League.

Jude waged a tremendous battle before dying of cancer, leaving behind her legacy of art and her book "Glassgow Girls."

Lowell George at Browns Mills

 

Lowell George at Alexanders in Browns Mills, N.J.

Lowell George and Little Feat played Alexanders in Browns Mills in 1979.

I didn't stay for the whole show, but took this photo, along with a few others I can't find. In any case, I remember telling Bill Vitka at WMMR about seeing Lowell George a few nights before he died, and Vitka said that he interviewed George at the MMR studios in Philly the day after he did the Browns Mills show. He died the next day or shortly thereafter.

Flashback 1979 - Alexanders

From Atlantic City Sun newspaper (September 28, 1979)

Rockin' in the Pines

By William E. Kelly

The quiet hamlet near Mirror Lake is known as Browns Mills "in the Pines," but today it is better known as the rock music capitol of South Jersey.

Alexander's Sunset Inn has put Browns Mills on the map as the area's only showcase of traveling rock bands.

Some years ago, the old Sunset Inn was refurbished and renamed Alexander's. The large dance hall was closed off from the side bar by a sliding wall. With the wall closed, Alexander's has the appearance of a typical small, local tavern, complete with electronic games, pool table and a small stage for go-go dancers.

The dancers were the club's biggest attraction as they gyrated before lonely soldiers on leave from nearby Fort Dix.

Then, last January, owner Butch Lupinetti let Steve Benson produce a few shows in the huge back room dance hall. The sliding doors were folded back, another bar opened, and a traveling rock show performed on stage. It was such a success that they are now doing it as regularly as a couple a nights a week. The acts that perform aren't local talents but rather top recording acts.

The popular acts from the Tower Theater and the Bijou Cafe in Philadelphia were persuaded to come to Browns Mills for a one night stand at Alexander's - just far enough outside Philadelphia not to bother the Electric Factory concert promoters, yet close enough to attract the 18 - 20 year olds who are not old enough to drink legally at home, but are old enough to drive to Browns Mills.

Alexanders and Browns Mills became Philadelphia household names when Steve Benson and Lee Stulman placed radio ads on the popular FM rock stations that beckoned you to go out of your way to see and hear a great show. The ads gave directions from Philadelphia: take the Ben Franklin Bridge to Rt. 38 east to Pemberton, then Rt. 530 past Burlington County College to Browns Mills. If you got lost you were instructed to call 893-6174. Browns Mills is only 40 miles from center city Philadelphia and 60 miles from Atlantic City.

By sunset, the large parking lot is full of cars, most with out-of-state plates - Pennsylvania, Delaware and even New York.

It's not the club, but the music that packs them in. The bands that play Alexander's are top recording acts usually out on the road promoting a new album. The cover charge is typical for a concert, with tickets available from Ticketron, and a dollar more at the door.

Last summer Johnny Winter, Steve Forbert, George Thoroughgood and the Delaware Destroyers, the Average White Band, James Cotton Blues Band, John Lee Hooker and Jorma Kaukonen all made their first South Jersey appearance. Those who follow Jorma's entourage to New York say that his three-hour Alexander show, which he did solo, was by far the best performance of the tour. But the best act last summer had to be by the late Lowell George.

Last June 26, two days before he died of a heart attack, the former leader of Little Feat put on one of his last concerts at Alexander's. Although he was popular for the album, "Feat Don't Fail Me Now," and the song, "Dixie Chicken," Lowell George was more respected by his peers. After he died, the largest benefit since Bangladesh took place at the LA Forum, with Jackson Brown, Linda Ronstadt, Ricki Lee Jones and the rest of the California rock fraternity. Lowell was more influential than popular. His Alexander's concert was a classic.

The lineup of shows for this fall is even better. Edgar Winter and the Nighthawks were at Alexander's on September 21, followed the next night by the Greatful Dead ofshoot, the New Riders of the Purple Sage. Steve Forbert did a one-night engagement on September 26. Tonight, the Philadelphia area's own Nan Mancini and Johnny's Dance Band take the stage.

The big name attractions slated for the fall include Hall and Oats on Saturday, October 13, and Arlo Gunthrie on Sunday, November 11.

Alexander's is not really that hard to find from Atlantic City. To get to Browns Mills take the White Horse Pike to Rt. 206 towards Trenton. From 206 take Rt. 38 east to Pemberton and Rt. 530 to Alexander's. And remember, if you get lost, call Steve at 893-6174 and ask for directions.

Interview with Admiral Fallon

This is an edited transcript of the interview. Do you think he's a little gun shy of interviews? - BK


When Retired Adm. William Fallon came back to Jacksonville for an award ceremony Saturday night, much had changed since the days when he was aide to the commander of Fleet Air Jacksonville.

Fallon rose from that position to become a four-star admiral, eventually running Central Command, overseeing military operations in the Middle East, Central Asia, Horn of Africa and combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. He retired and was replaced by Gen. David Petraeus after an article in Esquire magazine painted him as at odds with President George Bush over Iran.

The admiral was in town to receive the Distinguished Sea Service Award from the Naval Order of the United States.

He sat down with the Times-Union before the ceremony. This is an edited transcript of the interview.

Q: Why is it important to look at the history and the heritage of the Navy?

The U.S. became first and foremost a maritime power, and in that time, we have become the guarantor of this vast commercial enterprise. ... I think it's well we remember we wouldn't be where we are without their services and sacrifices.

Q: Where do you see Afghanistan going, based on your experience?

First, we ought to remind ourselves how quickly things change. ...It's difficult for people who are not there ... experiencing these changes to actually distinguish that ... I would say very similar things are occurring in Afghanistan. It's not Iraq; it's very different. But things have changed.

Q: Do you see a need for more troops going to Afghanistan?

Certainly, for training. The time I was there, I had a need for more troops that we could muster and the primary need was for training.

Q: Do you regret the interview with Esquire?

The problem was the author wrote it in the way that it was a direct challenge to the commander in chief, my boss, daring him to fire me for insubordination.

Q: You were the first admiral to hold your position at Central Command.

Despite the fact that we're involved in ground wars, there's a number of admirals in key positions, including heading up European Command and Pacific Command.

Q: What does that say about what the Navy brings to the fight?

(W)e put a lot of responsibility on people and we have them often operate in situations where they don't have a lot of help. They make tough decisions on their own.


http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2009-10-18/story/admiral_in_town_for_award_interviews
timothy.gibbons@jacksonville. com, (904) 359-4103

Fallon Lecture on Strategic Energy

Former head of U.S. Central Command: Energy use, foreign policy closely tied

http://www.missoulian.com/news/article_042bc48a-acb8-11de-94f5-001cc4c002e0.html


The launch of an Iranian missile doesn't threaten the United States nearly as much as the energy Americans waste at home each day, according to the man who used to oversee U.S military operations in that part of the world.

Retired Adm. William Fallon warned Monday that energy - its production and its use - underpins most of today's major challenges and opportunities in world security. The University of Montana president's lecturer said reducing the United States' own energy consumption would help its international relations while boosting its domestic economic health.

Fallon led the U.S. Central Command during 2007-08, directing all U.S. military operations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa, focusing on combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. He retired last year amid controversy that developed over his criticism of American policies and attitudes regarding Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran.

He is now a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for Naval Analyses, a federally funded research and development center serving the Navy and other defense agencies.
"He has demonstrated expertise in how power is organized, particularly soft and hard power," former UM President James Koch said in introducing Fallon. That also extended to the ideas of power as military force, political control and energy resources, Koch said.

All three must come together to get a better understanding of world affairs today, Fallon argued. For instance, Russia has found its natural gas wealth a more effective negotiating tool than its military strength, having captured much of the energy market for Western Europe and its former satellite nations.

That, in turn, has inclined Russia's leaders to push for "our way or no way" relationships with its energy-dependent neighbors. While this doesn't directly affect U.S. security, Fallon said, it does make Russia less willing to help U.S. efforts in places where it has influence, like Iran.

Misunderstandings about energy can also have global impacts. Fallon said this played out in the Strait of Malacca, between Indonesia and Malaysia. Several years ago, this major shipping route became infamous for high levels of piracy. Even though oil tankers were virtually never pirate targets there, the insurance companies that covered the ships increased their rates enough to affect energy prices worldwide.
The United States proposed increased military patrols in the area, but Fallon said local governments did not welcome the idea. Instead, they devised a local response to the pirates, which essentially eliminated the threat to shipping.

Empowering and assisting such local responses plays into the United States' long-term interest, Fallon said. Places like Afghanistan and Pakistan have the potential to become successful trading partners with the growing economies of India and China. But the region clings to a habit of assuming big decisions are made elsewhere, in places like Moscow or Washington, D.C. Fostering more trade security and opportunity could reduce the need for military presence, he said.

We must look in the mirror for some energy solutions, however, he said. As the world's biggest energy consumer per person, the United States has a heavy responsibility to cut back its consumption or innovate in alternative energy sources. Doing so, Fallon said, would both increase our own economic security (by lowering dependence on foreign energy suppliers) and divert the rest of the developing world from multiplying past pollution and consumption mistakes.

"This is really a pretty good investment for government," Fallon said of alternative energy development. While renewable energy systems still don't make economic sense, the long-term payoff for both people and the planet are unmistakable.

A year and a half ago, it was hard for U.S. solar energy companies to get attention, Fallon said. That's changed dramatically as individual state governments have gotten involved with incentive programs and research opportunities. Much of that stemmed from the energy shock of the last couple of years.

"The politics of the energy embargo of 1973 was our first real wake-up call, but we didn't wake up very long," Fallon said. "A lot of that same kind of politics is at play today."

Reporter Rob Chaney can be reached at 523-5382 or at rchaney@missoulian.com.
Posted in News on Monday, September 28, 2009

The Fighting Race by J.I.C. Clarke

THE FIGHTING RACE.; J.I.C. Clarke's Poem, Recited by Him at President Roosevelt's Request

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9807E5D7133EE733A2575AC1A9659C946497D6CF

March 19, 1905, Sunday
Page 8, 562 words

The President led the applause that followed the reading. Then there was some whispering between him and Judge Fitzgerald, resulting in the announcement from the latter that Mr. Clarke, in direct response to the President's request, would recite "Kelly, Burke, and Shea," which was done to the evident enjoyment of Mr. Roosovelt……

http://www.robert-e-howard.org/IronHarp4.html - fighting

The Fighting Race
by Joseph I.C. Clarke

"Read out the names!" and Burke sat back,
And Kelly drooped his head,
While Shea -- they called him Scholar Jack --
Went down the list of the dead.
Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,
The crews of the gig and yawl,
The bearded man and the lad in his teens,
Carpenters, coal passers -- all.

Then, knocking the ashes from out his pipe,
Said Burke in an offhand way:
"We're all in that dead man's list, by Cripe!
Kelly and Burke and Shea."
"Well, here's to the Maine, and I'm sorry for Spain,"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.

"Wherever there's Kellys there's trouble," said Burke.
"Wherever fighting's the game,
Or a spice of danger in grown man's work,"
Said Kelly, "you'll find my name."
"And do we fall short," said Burke, getting mad,
"When it's touch and go for life?"
Said Shea, "It's thirty-odd years, bedad,
Since I charged to drum and fife
Up Marye's Heights, and my old canteen
Stopped a rebel ball on its way.
There were blossoms of blood on our sprigs of green --
Kelly and Burke and Shea --
And the dead didn't brag." "Well, here's to the flag!"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.

"I wish 'twas in Ireland, for there's the place,"
Said Burke, "that we'd die by right,
In the cradle of our soldier race,
After one good stand-up fight.
My grandfather fell on Vinegar Hill,
And fighting was not his trade;
But his rusty pike's in the cabin still,
With Hessian blood on the blade."

"Aye, aye," said Kelly, "the pikes were great
When the word was 'clear the way!'
We were thick on the roll in ninety-eight --
Kelly and Burke and Shea."
"Well, here's to the pike and the sword and the like!"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.

And Shea, the scholar, with rising joy,
Said, "We were at Ramillies.
We left our bones at Fontenoy
And up in the Pyrenees.
Before Dunkirk, on Landen's plain,
Cremona, Lille and Ghent,
We're all over Austria, France and Spain,
Wherever they pitched a tent.
We've died for England from Waterloo
To Egypt and Dargai;
And still there's enough for a corps or a crew,
Kelly and Burke and Shea."
"Well, here is to good honest fighting blood!"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.

"Oh, the fighting races don't die out,
If they seldom die in bed,
For love is first in their hearts, no doubt,"
Said Burke; then Kelly said:
"When Michael, the Irish Archangel, stands,
The angel with the sword,
And the battle-dead from a hundred lands
Are ranged in one big horde,
Our line, that for Gabriel's trumpet waits,
Will stretch three deep that day,
From Jehoshaphat to the Golden Gates --
Kelly and Burke and Shea."

"Well, here's thank God for the race and the sod!"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.

1898


A note at the end of the poem states the date of composition as March 16, 1898: about a month after the sinking of the Maine, and before the declaration of war with Spain (April 11).

Several of the poems in the book's first section, "Songs of the Celt," relate to the Spanish-American War (which apparently got Clarke's Irish fighting blood up); there are three more in which Kelly, Burke and Shea figure.

I won't bother with a point-by-point rundown of all the references to major battles and military engagements to which the trio refer in "The Fighting Race," merely note that, in the passage to which Moore evidently referred, Howard would have well known that Vinegar Hill was the decisive battle of the 1798 United Irishmen rising. At the time, Hessians comprised the bulk of Britain's mercenary troops -- as, indeed, they had done in America.

UN Security Council Adjurns to P. J. Clarke's

President Obama sat at the UN Security Council meeting with Col. Kadaffi, the Irish delegate sitting between them, and the Isralie delegate sitting next to him, so Obama suggested they continue their discussions off the records over a few beers at P.J. Clarke’s.

This is a partial transcript of an NSA intercept of what was said.


Obama: “I don’t think we can solve all the world’s problems over a few beers, but we can get to know each other better, share our opinions, have a good time, and maybe change each other a little bit so we can learn to compromise and solve problems without resorting to violence and war.”

Khadafi: “You call sitting around drinking beer and having to go outside to smoke is having a good time? My son, you let me set my tent up in your backyard and I show you a good time.”

Irish delegate: “You smoke in your tent? You come visit us in Ireland and you can set up your tent, mate. And bring a lot of money because we want reparations for all the maiming, death and destruction you caused by giving the IRA plastic explosives.”

Isralie: “Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. The Irish get plastic explosives from the Libyans, blow themselves up with it, and now they want the Libyans to pay them restitution and reparations for providing the weapons they used to kill each other? I should have been a lawyer.”
Gadhafi: “Yes. Exactly. That’s exactly what I mean. We like the idea of restitutions, because we intend to seek restitution from the British Imperalists, Italian barbarians, and Nazis invaders for their wonton destruction of Lyba and the Americans for enslaving Africans and providing us with the plastic explosives that we gave to the Irish. So ask for millions, whatever you want, and we’ll pay it because we’ll get even more from the British, Italians, Germans and Americans, who owe us trillions in restitution.”

Obama: “Now wait a minute guys, you can’t always look to me to bail you out. That wasn’t my CIA who gave Khadafi the plastic explosives. You can’t hold me responsible for that, or we’ll have to seek restitution from the Swiss, who made the plastic explosives.”

Qaddafi: “Ah, yes, the Swiss. There are No Swiss. They’re all either French, Italian or German, nobody’s Swiss. Swiss should be done away with, dissolved, broken up and given to the French, Italians and Germans.”

Obama: “But then we couldn’t seek restitution from them, and the whole scheme falls apart.”

Irish delegate: “Kadaffi, you really got a kid named Hanibal, who beats his servants?”

Obama: “Well as you know, I have two daughters, who I’m sure will be giving me plenty of trouble when they get to be teenagers too.”

Irish delegate: “So in retaliation for your son Hanibal being embarrassed at a Swiss hotel, you cut off all oil shipments to Switzerland, bring the country to its knees, and they kiss your arse to be friends again? That’s awesome. Did your son learn that at the London School of Economics?”

Isralie: “I hope you tought your son some manners, or to be more gentle with his servants and slaves, at least in public.”

Kaddafi: “Manners! You talk to me about Manners, after you killed JFK because he wanted to stop you from making a nuclear weapon.”

Isralie: “Nuclear weapon? We don’t have any such thing. You’re a lunatic. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Obama: “Gentlemen, gentle men, settle down now. Let’s go out in the alley, share a butt, and let things calm down a little bit before they get out of hand.”

Qhadafi: “See, if we were in my tent, we wouldn’t have to go outside for a smoke, and we could solve all the world’s problems while having a really good time.”

Ted Kennedy RIP

Ted Kennedy RIP

I met Ted Kennedy on two occasions, once when I was a kid, I guess I was nine in 1960 when Teddy was campaigning for his brother for President in downtown Camden and the nuns let us out of school to go see him.

It was at the Walt Whitman Hotel, which isn't there anymore, but at one time was a grand old hotel, and I was walking next to TK down the grand staircase, while he scribbled his name on a piece of paper for me.

I don't know what ever happened to that relic, but years later I met him again, this time at his home in McLean, Virginia, in the spring of 1977 or 78.

My friend Brian had lost a leg in a motorcycle accident in Ocean City (NJ), and with the insurance money he bought a little red TR7 sports car and asked me to join him on a cross country road trip. We lived in a seasonal-winter rental beach house at the time, with two other guys, and literally drove from coast to coast. My brother Leo gave us his CB radio and we were "Red 7" on a cross country trip to Long Beach, California, where we would attend the US Grand Prix auto race, which like Monaco, was through the streets of the town.

On the way we stopped to visit friends of mine from college, and in Colorado, stopped at Winterpark, where we met Hal O'Leary, who invented three-track skiing for one-legged handicapped people, like Brian. They ski without a prothesis, on one leg, with outriggers on the poles. After awhile you don't consider them handicaped, as Brian quickly became a better skier than me, a "normie."

A week or so later, on the other side of the Rockies, we put into Aspin, where we met another three-track skier on Ajax, Aspin Mountain. One of his outriggers was broken, so Brian helped him down the mountain and at the base bar, where our waitress was Nancy, who we knew from Ocean City. Nancy worked on the boardwalk at Irenes, near where I worked in the summmers, Mack & Manco's Pizza. Nancy is now married to Ed Devlin, then the owner of Irenes. So we introduce Nancy to our new friend, who we jus met on the mountain, Ted Kennedy, Jr.

Teddy was then seventeen, and had just lost his leg to cancer, but was clean now, and learning how to ski three track, and a few other things. Brian took Teddy out for a spin in the TR7 and showed him how to shift gears with one leg, and do a handbreak turn 360.

Teddy wanted to go to California with us, but the car only held two people, but he gave us his phone number and said when we got back to the East Coast to give him a call and tell him how the rest of our trip went.

We drove to California, went straight to Santa Monica Pier and then to Long Beach for the Grand Prix, and to Mexico, a little further down the coast to Ensenada, where Brian got arrested with another one-legged skier we met in Colorado. They had turned the street lights switch out and were arrested, put in a Paddy Wagon, taken to court, where the judge was working, and were fined whatever they had on them. They were out of there by the time I walked down the street.

Before we left town I grabbed a couple of $5 Cuban cigars, Montecristos, that you can't buy in the USA, figuring I'd give one to my father's boss, the county prosecutor, and the other to George McGonigle, the long time bartender at Gregory's our local bar in Somers Point. (Ocean City, NJ being dry).

Well, to cut to the chase, on the way home we stopped in Columbia, South Carolina, where we visited our good friends Scott and Duncan MacRae, who had worked with me at Mack & Manco's. They had opened a college bar/restaurant called Yesterdays, at Five Points, and are really successful. Leaving there, we were about two hours out of DC when Brian called Teddy and told him we were in the neighborhood.

Teddy said to come by his house, we could still make dinner if we hurried. We didn't hurry, and got tied up in traffic and lost, and it was about 8pm at night when we pulled into a gas station in McLean, not far from the CIA. Teddy gave us directions to his house, and young Patrick answered the door. It's hard to imagine Patrick is now a Congressman from Rhode Island, but then was just a kid.

Teddy was glad to see us, and introduced us to his sister Kara, and then took us into the library where his father was on the phone. There was a fire in the fireplace, and a sterio was playing a reel to reel tape of a speech by RFK that Teddy, Sr. was apparently listening to. Although he was at home in his own study, Ted Kennedy wore his tie tight up on his neck, and yet seemed comfortable.

Senator Kennedy handed the phone to young Patrick, saying "Talk to your aunt Ethel," while Teddy, Jr. introduced us, "Dad, these are the guys from Jersey I was telling you about."

As the Senator shook our hands, and asked how our trip was, I noticed he was smoking a cigar, which he was holding in his other hand, a cigar that was down to a roach, as they say.

While he wanted to hear some stories of our adventures on the road, I said that while in Mexico I had bought a couple of Cuban cigars, and asked if he would like one. Sure. So I went out to the car and got one of the cigars, and as I gave it to him I told him that I had bought two, one for my father's boss, the prosecutor, and the other for our local bartender, George McGonigle.

Then he wanted to know which one I was giving him?

He was getting the one I was going to give my father's boss.

"That shows whose more important in your life," Kennedy said laughing.

I then remarked about how there is the story of "your brother ordered a case of Cuban cigars before he signed the trade embargo," which Kennedy said, "was something Jack would do."

Young Teddy then showed us around the house, his pin ball machine in the basement, and his bedroom, where on the wall was a framed page from a yellow legal pad, with notes and scribbles and dated April 17, 1961, the day of the Bay of Pigs.

I later saw that a book was published on presidential doodles, and thought about that page and what was on it.

We didn't stay long, an hour or so, but we got to know young Teddy better, skiing with him again in Colorado a few times, and he visited the Jersey Shore.

I also got to know Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who stayed overnight at my family's house at 819 Wesley Ave. in Ocean City, while on the 1980 campaign trail when Teddy Sr. ran for President. I drove Bobby around to radio stations and meetings and hooked up with his brother Michael. I then drove Bobby and Michael to New York City, where the major argument was to have dinner at 21 or pizza. We ate pizza.

Having met young Teddy skiing, and the Senator and his family at their home, and knowing Robert and Michael from the campaign trail, I can say that I found the Kennedys to be a fairly typical Irish American family.

And now Big Teddy is gone, and the younger generation must step up. Hey, that's us.

Les Paul RIP

Charlie Carney, one of the last of the old time bartenders, insisted that I check out this guy John Coliani, a pianist who used to play at Steve & Cookies - the old Strotbecks club. John is indeed a terrific musician who then introduced me to his mentor, Carlton Drinkard, Billy Holiday's pianist.

One night I accompanied Carney and Drinkard to Philly to see a Billy Holiday show, a night to remember.

More recently I heard a recording of John Coliani on the radio and was inspired to write my first Nightbeat Blog about him, and how he was playing every Monday night in New York City at a nightclub with the Les Paul trio.

After exchanging a few emails with John, I promised him I'd check out his show with Les Paul.

Well, now I guess I can't keep that promise.

http://jerseyshorenightbeat.blogspot.com/2008/02/john-coliani-with-les-paul.html


Les Paul, Jazz-Guitar Virtuoso and Inventor, Dies at 94

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/08/13/ST2009081301806.html

By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 13, 2009; 1:40 PM

Les Paul, 94, a Grammy Award-winning guitar virtuoso and inventor who helped bring his instrument, typically assigned to chug along rhythmically and compliantly, to the forefront of jazz performance, died today at a hospital in White Plains, N.Y. He had pneumonia.

Mr. Paul first came to prominence for his fast and flashy jazz-guitar style. In the 1940s and early 1950s, he and singer Mary Ford, his wife, had hits with "How High the Moon," "The Tennessee Waltz," "Vaya con Dios" and "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise."

All along, he refined musical inventions in his workshop. He was an early designer of an electric guitar that had a solid body, and his model managed to reduce sound distortions common to acoustic instruments.

He actively promoting such guitars for the Gibson company, and the Les Paul line of guitars became commonplace among such musicians as bluesman Eric Clapton, jazzman Wes Montgomery and rocker Pete Townshend.

Mr. Paul called his first solid-body guitar "the Log." It was made of a four-inch thick piece of wood from a nearby railroad track, a neck he borrowed from an Epiphone guitar and two pickups to give it the electric pulse. Audiences and music executives laughed at the ungainly device, and he spent years honing its visual appeal.

He said his efforts were toward one goal: to change the way people saw the guitar.

"I wanted people to hear me," he told the publication Guitar Player in 2002. "That's where the whole idea of a solid-body guitar came from. In the '30s, the archtop electric was such an apologetic instrument. On the bandstand, it was so difficult battling with a drummer, the horns, and all the instruments that had so much power.



"With a solid-body, guitarists could get louder and express themselves," he said. "Instead of being wimps, we'd become one of the most powerful people in the band. We could turn that mother up and do what we couldn't do before."

He played a key role in developing the eight-track tape recorder, and used the device to play many parts on the same recording, a process now called multitracking. Such early work in overlaying sound contributed to the richness and distinctiveness of his recordings.

Mr. Paul earned the nickname "the wizard of Waukesha," after the town in Wisconsin where he was born Lester William Polfuss on June 9, 1915. His father was an auto-garage mechanic.

As a boy, Mr. Paul taught himself music on his mother's player piano, mimicking the notes with his own hands. An admirer of the blues and country troubadours he heard on the radio, he imitated their songs with his own harmonica and mail-order guitar. He played both instruments simultaneously by making his own harmonica holder.

As a teenager, he played dates at a drive-in restaurant, where he experimenting with amplified sound to reach the open-air audience. He stuck a phonograph needle inside his acoustic guitar and wired it to a radio speaker.

Adopting the moniker "Rhubarb Red," he left high school and joined a traveling cowboy band and later played on the "Barn Dance" program on WLS radio in Chicago. He named one of his early groups the Original Ozark Apple Knockers.

Not wishing for a career in hillbilly music, he convinced two friends -- guitarist Jimmy Atkins (Chet's brother) and bassist Ernie Newton -- that he knew Paul Whiteman, the prominent big-band leader. The trio went to New York in 1937, only to be kicked out of Whiteman's office.

They were waiting for the elevator back down when they saw bandleader Fred Waring next to them. He already had dozens of musicians, but Mr. Paul insisted he hear the trio's lightning-fast tempo -- timed to please Waring before the elevator arrived. He was hooked, and they got a job on his NBC show.

Around this time, Mr. Paul also became a consultant to the Gibson company, testing its new models. Not until a decade later, in 1952, and after a rival company developed a similar model, did Gibson see the selling potential of Mr. Paul's solid-body electric guitar. They sought his endorsement on their own design.

Meanwhile, he had disagreements with Waring about the continued use of the electric guitar. He announced he wanted to be the accompanist for Bing Crosby, one of the most popular singers in the country.

It took Mr. Paul two years to meet Crosby and worked as musical director for two Chicago radio stations before impressing the crooner during a musical date at a Los Angeles club.

Crosby arranged for a recording session at Decca records, where they made "It's Been a Long, Long Time," "Tiger Rag" and other titles that were best-sellers.

In the early 1940s, Mr. Paul worked for Armed Forced Radio Service and became a staff musician at NBC, accompanying the Andrews Sisters and other pop singers.

He jammed the blues with pianist Nat "King" Cole in Norman Granz's first Jazz at the Philharmonic concert series in 1944. Their quicksilver note-for-note matching of solos created howls of approval from the audience.

He also had musical dates worldwide, once meeting his idol, Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt.

On Crosby's advice, Mr. Paul created his own recording studio, both to help his guitar career and his interest in electronics. He began to take advantage of new, still bulky, tape-recording machine technology. Facing initial skepticism, he persuaded Ampex to market his eight-track tape recorder.

After hundreds of false starts, he began recording with these new devices in the late 1940s and can be heard on such standard and novelty numbers as "Nola," "Josephine," "Whispering" and "Meet Mister Callahan."

His version of "Lover" boasted him playing eight electric guitar parts, which he electronically wove into a single record. It was a sensation.

Married at the time, he also had been seeing Ford, whom he had hired as a singer and guitarist. Both were in the auto wreck, on an icy patch of road in Chandler, Okla., that almost killed Mr. Paul in 1948.

Mr. Paul's right arm was crushed, and one doctor suggested amputation. Instead, he had it fixed at a right angle so he could play his instrument.

The next year, Mr. Paul divorced his first wife, Virginia Webb Paul, and married Ford. The new couple settled in Mahwah, N.J., and continued to work together on a series of albums for Capitol and Columbia in the 1950s, including "The New Sound" and "Time to Dream."

The rigorous touring schedule and Ford's alcohol addiction damaged their marriage. Meanwhile the public demand for rock 'n' roll harmed their careers.

They divorced in 1964. Survivors include a companion, Arlene Palmer; two sons from his first marriage; and a son and daughter from his second marriage; five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. A daughter from his second marriage died in infancy in 1954.

Mr. Paul, who had long ago made his fortune, tried to settle into retirement in the 1960s as the popularity of rock-and-roll music grew. He made occasional recordings, notably the album "Chester and Lester," for which he shared a 1976 Grammy for best country instrumental performance with Chet Atkins. Mr. Paul was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and won two more Grammys, in 2006, for his album "Les Paul & Friends: American Made, World Played."

He gradually reentered public performance, obtaining a regular date at Fat Tuesday's in New York through the 1990s. For fans and fellow musicians, including Billy Joel, catching Mr. Ford at Fat Tuesday's was a Monday-night must. He was a sprightly presence at the club, even after he developed arthritis that left him with use of only two fingers in his left hand.

"If you're stubborn, it can be done," he once told The Washington Post. "I've been playing with what fingers I have left. If they'll put up with it, I can put up with it."

Bill DeMain's 2006 interview with Les Paul:

http://www.puremusic.com/pdf/les.pdf

Adml. William Fallon, USN (Ret.)

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/08/prweb2700424.htm

All Press Releases for August 1, 2009

Admiral William J. Fallon, U.S. Navy (Retired), Former Commander of U.S. Central Command, joins Tilwell Petroleum LLC.

Tilwell Petroleum LLC is pleased to announce that Admiral William J. Fallon, U. S. Navy (Retired), former commander of U.S. Central Command, has joined Tilwell Petroleum as a partner and advisor for the company's strategic business development program.

We are excited to have Admiral Fallon join our team at Tilwell
Mystic, CT (PRWEB) August 1, 2009 -- Tilwell Petroleum LLC is pleased to announce that Admiral William J. Fallon, U. S. Navy (Retired), former commander of U.S. Central Command, has joined Tilwell Petroleum as a partner and advisor for the company's strategic business development program.

Admiral William J. Fallon, U.S. Navy (Ret.)
"We are excited to have Admiral Fallon join our team at Tilwell," said Tony Cardwell, Managing Member of Tilwell. "Admiral Fallon's extensive experience in the Navy and his work with government and non-governmental agencies is a great addition to Tilwell as we continue to expand our customer base and support for both military and commercial applications."

Admiral Fallon spent 41 years in the U.S. Navy where his career began as a naval flight officer flying combat missions in Vietnam. Prior to becoming CENTCOM commander, he served in numerous high level positions, including Commander of U.S. Pacific Command (2005-2007), Commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command and Atlantic Fleet (2003-2005), and Vice Chief of the Navy (2000-2003). Admiral Fallon, recently completed a year as a Robert E. Wilhelm Fellow at the MIT Center for International Studies, has a private consulting and advisory business and serves on several corporate and university Boards.

Admiral Fallon is a graduate of the Naval War College in Newport, RI, the National War College in Washington, D.C., Old Dominion University, and Villanova University, where he presented the commencement address to the graduating class of 2009 and received an honorary Ph. D.

About Tilwell Petroleum:
Headquartered in Mystic, Connecticut., Tilwell Petroleum LLC supplies fuels, standards, and solvents to the Aerospace and Defense Industries. The company offers the unique ability to supply customers with products in a variety of quantities to fit their specific requirements. Tilwell also prides itself on delivering a high level of service and support that its customers are finding unique within the industry. More about Tilwell Petroleum and a current product offering will be found at tilwellpetroleum.com.

Tilwell Petroleum LLC
Peter M. Tilton, Media Relations
Ph. 860-536-4777
Fax 860-536-3638

http://tilwellpetroleum.com/

###

Wait A Minute! Whose the older women?

Wait a minute!

Just when I thought this story was going to play out quietly, along comes an unexpected curve ball.

In this case two curve balls - that the women who called 911 to report a possible burglary at the residence of Professor Gates, didn't actually eyewitness the event at all, and was tipped off by another person, who so far has only been described by CNN as "an older women without a cell phone."

Of course the CNN's top notch investigative team that's on this story is hot to trot to identify and locate this so far unidentified informant, who some speculate is either a certifiable racist or covert Cuban agent.

And then,

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/01/harvard.gates.flowers/

“….Whalen said an older woman with no cell phone told her that she was worried someone was trying to break into the home, and decided to call 911…”

“…An officer responding to a report of a possible break-in at Gates' Cambridge, Massachusetts, home arrested the professor on July 16 for disorderly conduct. The charge was later dropped.

The arrest sparked a national debate about race and police relations.
Whalen said an older woman with no cell phone told her that she was worried someone was trying to break into the home, and decided to call 911.

Whalen never referred to black suspects when she called authorities about the suspected break-in.

On Thursday, President Barack Obama -- who had weighed in on the controversy, saying initially that police acted "stupidly" -- sat down for a beer at the White House with Gates and the officer who arrested him.

The meeting has been called the "beer summit..."


“…Whalen said an older woman with no cell phone told her that she was worried someone was trying to break into the home, and decided to call 911….”

"Jimmy the lock?"

Not only is there still an unidentified confidential informant on the loose, Gates himself has expressed the belief that while he was gone, someone tried to force their way into the apartment, the reason he could't get in.

Even Wiki has a yet inconclusive web page on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HarvardGate

On July 16, 2009, Gates had just returned from a trip to China, where he had finished filming a new documentary series for PBS tracing the ancestry of cellist Yo-Yo Ma.[11] As the front door of his home would not open, Gates entered through his back door. He could not, however, open the front door from the inside, even after unlatching it. Gates states that the lock was damaged and speculated that someone had attempted to "jimmy" the lock while he was away. Gates went back outside and, with help from his driver, forced the door open.

Now what was strictly a potentially hot race issue, suddenly becomes a multiple mystery, that's yet to fully unravel.

More to come on this story.

White House Beer Garden Diplomacy

WHITE HOUSE BEER GARDEN DIPLOMACY

I knew right away that this story was going to get out of hand, and when Professor Gates, Obama and the black Governor of Massachusetts were ganging up Sgt. Crowley, I knew they were in trouble.

For one, there was a 50-50 chance that Crowley was, as the mobsters and con artists call them - the Wrong Copper, the cop who won't take a bribe or bend the law, or do the wrong thing.

For starters, Professor Gates was not arrested, as asserted in a Philadelphia Inquirer editorial (Friday, July 24, 2009) for "breaking into his own house."

He was arrested for being a disorderly person, failure to respond to the requests of an officer investigating the report of a crime in progress, for uttering disrespectful insults, cursing and bringing Crowley's mother into it.

An hispanic officer who arrived at the scene made a report that supports Crowley, and a black officer there also stood by Crowley and commented on Professor Gate's behavior.

At that point I thought Gates, Obama and the Governor owed Sgt. Crowley an apology, and Professor Gates should have to go through an indoctrination class and taught how to respond to a police officer doing his duty.

Then Obama came out and interupted a press conference on rehabing healthcare to say that he was sorry that he entered the Cambridge fray and contributed to the "ratchiting up" of the issue, and that he had called Professor Gates and Sgt. Crowley and invited them both to the White House for a beer to cool things off.

Once in a blue moon you get invited to the White House for a beer, but in this case, it seems like it's going to work. An initially skeptical Professor Gates belatedly accepted the invitation and it didn't take long to find out how Crowley got the message.

As a true blooded Irish American cop, a Wrong Copper to the con jobs, Crowley was sitting depressed at the bar of Tommy Doyle's pub, sipping a cold Blue Moon and complaining to the bartender about the TV camera crews camped out on his front lawn, that his daughters can't go out to play in their yard, and about unfairly and wrongfully being branded a racist in every newspaper and on every TV and radio in the country.

And then his cell phone rang.

Thanks to Mike Daly, embedded at Tommy Doyle's, for relaying this story.


- Hello, Sgt. Crowley, It's the President Calling.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/07/26/2009-07-26_hello_sgt_crowley_its_the_president.html?print=1&page=all

By MICHAEL DALY

Sgt. James Crowley was having a burger and a Blue Moon beer in Tommy Doyle’s Irish Pub when his cell phone rang.

The Cambridge cop spoke for a moment and hung up looking altogether amazed.
“His jaw dropped,” recalled Peter Woodman, a co-owner of the Kendall Square pub and two others of the same name. “He said, ‘Jesus Christ, you'll never guess who’s going to ring me.’”

Word quickly spread through Friday’s lunchtime crowd that White House press secretary Robert Gibbs had just telephoned Crowley to say President Obama would be calling him.
“‘No way!’...‘No way!’...‘No way!’” patrons exclaimed.

A hush swept across the whole place. The TVs and music went off. The clanging in the kitchen ceased.

Crowley remained at a table by the front window, the cell phone set before him.

“He got a bit nervous for a minute or two then he got his head, Woodman said. “Cool as a cucumber, just sat there sipping his beer.”

The pub stayed absolutely silent.

“You could hear a pin drop,” Woodman said. “Literally 80 to 100 people standing around him. It was surreal.”

A couple came in from the street and asked for a table.

“The whole bar [said,] ‘Shhh! Shhh! Shut up and sit down!’” Woodman said.

After five or maybe six minutes, the phone rang again.

“He braced himself, took a deep breath,” Woodman recalled.

After two, perhaps three rings, Crowley answered.

“Hello, Mr. President.”

Obama addressed him as Sgt. Crowley.

“Call me Jimmy,” Crowley said.

Obama said to call him Barack. They spoke for five minutes or more as the crowd stood transfixed.

“Not a person breathed,” Woodman said.

Woodman watched a happy change come over the cop whose life had been upended after he responded to a report of a possible burglary. He had arrested Harvard Prof. Henry Gates for disorderly conduct.

Woodman knew Crowley to be the ultimate professional, an officer of the law before all else when on duty.

“He might know you outside work, but when he’s working, he’s Sgt. James Crowley,” Woodman said.

Woodman is friendly with Crowley, but knows to expect no favoritism.

“If there’s something wrong, Jimmy is the first guy going to roast me,” Woodman said.
“If you break the law, you broke the law; if you don’t, you didn’t.”

The world surely has too many racist cops, but by everything Woodman and others say Crowley is not one of them. Woodman saw in the days after the arrest that the accusation cut deep.

“He’s blown away anybody could call his integrity into question,” Woodman said. He won’t admit it, but I think he was genuinely hurt by the whole thing.”

Crowley seemed particularly bothered by the effect on his family. The media was staking out his home and the three kids could not just go out and play.

“You could see over the last few days he was stressed, he was under pressure,” Woodman said.

The situation intensified after Obama said at a press conference on Wednesday that the Cambridge cops had “acted stupidly.”

The police union held its own press conference on Friday to demand an apology from anyone who suggested the arrest was influenced by race.

Afterwards, Crowley and the cops took Woodman up on an invitation to stop into the pub for lunch away from the media.

Then came the phone calls. Obama told Crowley he regretted his choice of words and praised him as “an outstanding police officer and a good man.”

At one point, “Barack” asked “Jimmy” what he was drinking. Barack said he also is partial to Blue Moon. They talked of getting together with Gates for a beer at the White House.

When the call ended and Crowley set down the phone, the pub erupted in cheers.
Obama would continue to suggest Crowley may have overreacted, but allowed that Gates may have as well. The fact remained that the President had called the cop. Woodman beheld a cop restored.

“A new man,” Woodman said.


ALL OF WHICH REMINDS ME OF THE TIME I USED TO HANG OUT AT THE TUNE INN ON CAPITOL HILL, when I was there one summer during the 9/11 Commission hearings.

The Tune Inn is a small, shot and beer, greasy spoon grill about two blocks from the Capitol, and probably most famous as the place where James Carvelle met his wife, or took her there for their first date.

Well I was sitting there late one afternoon, sipping a cold draft beer when a US Marine came in and sat next to me. The Marine barracks aren't that far away, four or five blocks, and its not uncommon to see marines jogging down the street.

This guy was off duty and out getting some exercise and stopped in for a beer, so I struck up a conversation with him.

He was a White House guard, and was proud of what he was doing.

When I asked him if he ever sees Number One, he said all the time. It's his house.

Did the president ever talk to you personally?

Sure, he said.

After their shifts, the marine guards usually have a beer in their locker room, and once in awhile the president joins them for a brewski.

Of course this president was George Bush II, who after a raccus youth, was supposed to be on the wagon, having abstained from drinking for the past 20 years.

But I didn't say anything, as I was glad George got away from his wife and cabinet and problems every once in awhile, and had a beer with the boys in the locker room.

And now Obama is in the White House, and he likes to have a cold one after shooting some hoops or arm wrestling with Congress, and he's "ratchiting it up" as he puts it,
bringing together the differing factions of the Cambridge dispute over some beer at the White House.

The Rose Garden becomes the Beer Garden, and if successful, this technique will be used again, though I don't think it will work with Israel and Hamas, but maybe the Irish and the English can work something out over a few Blue Moons.

And Blue Moon seems to be the beer of choice for Crowley, and Obama said he liked Blue Moon too, but Professor Gates said he prefers Becks or Red Stripe, both imports, Becks from Germany and Red Stripe Jamaican.

According to one news report, "Obama hasn't weighed in on his favorite brew. But foreign beers are not stocked at the White House, in a tradition dating to the Johnson administration."

http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/The+White+House

The Sheriff of Reality

The Sheriff of Reality - By Pittsburgh Paul Meyers

I am
the Sheriff of Reality

So watch out
Bad Guys

For I am
Everywhere

I'll step upon
Your Shadow
and walk upon
your Dreams
until you think
you're carrying
the world upon
your shoulders

Thus spoke
The Sheriff of Reality

Wither I come
and wither I go
no one knows
Not even I

Thus spoke
The Sheriff of Reality

Cold Steel
pressed upon
your back

Give me the Goods
And I don't mean
The Money

Thus spoke
The Sheriff of Reality

Thundering I come
and Thundering I go
and the world
will never
be the same

Thus spoke
The Sheriff of Reality