http://www.webmusher.com/radio/wednesday.mp3
Wednesday Music collection compiled by me for my own amusement.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Monday, April 06, 2009
Monday Music
http://www.webmusher.com/radio/monday.mp3
Monday Music collection compiled by me for my own amusement.
Monday Music collection compiled by me for my own amusement.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Friday, April 03, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Facebook and the great social experiment
Facebook had a wonderful little social interaction site going and suddenly something happened. Someone decided that what they had needed to be changed and the managed to piss off the overwhelming majority of their members. I was really starting to like what they had going, and now, after just a short time with their new format I'm bailing out and going back to my blogs and websites and things that make me some money, not things that make Farcebroke money.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
To those that have come after me
I would like to let those born in the last 20 or 30 years know just how much life has changed.
When I was a child Elvis was topping the charts and Sinatra was still the real king. I would have nightmares about Atom Bombs in the closet, not because I was a paranoid little wussy, but because when I started school they showed me movies about how Yertle the Turtle could survive an attack that was coming any day from the evil Reds. It could be the Russian Reds or the Chinese Reds but some Reds were going to Atom Bomb us soon and we had to practice curling up in the fetal position under our desks.
I remember how when the Russians put missiles in Cuba it seemed like everyone was holding their breath, waiting for the big war to start. When it didn't everyone sighed and life went back to normal, then the breath was sucked out of the entire country when the President was shot in the head. A few Months before the assassination in Dallas a friend of my Fathers took him and my Mother out to his desert ranch and showed them his Barn. It was full of rifles, hand grenades, ammunition and other implements of destruction. Dad's friend invited him to join him and his friends and move the cache of weapons into Mexico and then on to Cuba. I'm glad Dad decided not to join the CIA that night.
When I was a child there were several distinct types of music. There was real music, the Mozart type stuff that taken quite seriously, and there was Country and Popular Music, which were less serious but still far above Rock and Roll. There was Folk, Jazz and Blues, but they were for a different sort of people. Then Rock and Roll started to change, to become something more then just kids music. The kids started to grow up and the music grew up with them. Today it is common for someone to write a song and it becomes an event, a cult, a rage, a video, a movie, a movement, an anthem and then fades into classic status. When I was a child perhaps a few Folk songs that had some sort of power to motivate and cause actual change, but somewhere in the 1960's music became a powerful force for actual social and political power.
And the Powerful saw that and did everything they could to stop it. Elvis and Pat Boone were safe, because they didn't poke at the Lions, but the Byrds, Animals, Stones and Beatles were starting to make music that made people think about more than girls and cars. And when people started to think things started to change fast. People started questioning the Government, not just complaining about it, but actually questioning, and demanding answers. They didn't get the answers of course, but they no longer believed that Uncle Sam was always the benificent guardian of their own best interests and only Commies questioned their motives.
We had a big Bakelite Telephone. The handset was big enough to hammer nails or knock a man out. Sometimes the sound would start to get a little scratchy and you had to rap the mouth piece on the desk to loosen up the charcoal in the microphone. And when you picked up the phone you would first listen for a few seconds to see if any of your neighbers that shared the telephone line were listening. My first portable radio was about the size of my head, a few years later I got one that was almost small enough to fit in my shirt pocket. It was AM, the only ones that listened to FM were those Jazz and Classical people, and AM was just fine for Country music and carried a lot farther.
Pretty much everyone where we lived didn't bother to lock their doors, and the occasional killing was usually either a crazy drunk or a crazier "lone nut". We didn't worry about "Gangs" unless were were driving the Southern California highways and a few hundred Harly Davidsons would roll by us. The only real fear we lived with was the ever present Red Scare waiting for us to blink so they could Nuke us in our sleep.
I blame the Jazz music crowd for ruining our paranoid Eden. They were the Hop Heads, the Reefer smokers, something in the evil weed they smoked made the lies they were told sound like lies. Then the serious damage came from Albert Hoffman and his LSD, it made people see just how complete the illusion we were being fed was, how tragic and irrational the bullshit of our supposed leaders was and how burdoned they had been with religion and politics.
Life has a far richer texture and depth for you then it did for the last few generations, you know and understand more because you are starting from a level of understanding that was not understood by your parents and grandparents. There were a few with that understanding, but they were an extreme few and peer pressure usually kept them silent or outcast.
Al Kaida has replaced the Reds, and the evil men in power have only become more powerful and more evil, but they no longer can hide in plain sight their evils, and you know that there are more important concerns then Al Kaida and Commies. You have been given a World on the edge of ruin, but you have also been given the wisdom and understanding to take it away from those that have pushed it into ruin and hopefully bring it back from the edge.
When I was a child Elvis was topping the charts and Sinatra was still the real king. I would have nightmares about Atom Bombs in the closet, not because I was a paranoid little wussy, but because when I started school they showed me movies about how Yertle the Turtle could survive an attack that was coming any day from the evil Reds. It could be the Russian Reds or the Chinese Reds but some Reds were going to Atom Bomb us soon and we had to practice curling up in the fetal position under our desks.
I remember how when the Russians put missiles in Cuba it seemed like everyone was holding their breath, waiting for the big war to start. When it didn't everyone sighed and life went back to normal, then the breath was sucked out of the entire country when the President was shot in the head. A few Months before the assassination in Dallas a friend of my Fathers took him and my Mother out to his desert ranch and showed them his Barn. It was full of rifles, hand grenades, ammunition and other implements of destruction. Dad's friend invited him to join him and his friends and move the cache of weapons into Mexico and then on to Cuba. I'm glad Dad decided not to join the CIA that night.
When I was a child there were several distinct types of music. There was real music, the Mozart type stuff that taken quite seriously, and there was Country and Popular Music, which were less serious but still far above Rock and Roll. There was Folk, Jazz and Blues, but they were for a different sort of people. Then Rock and Roll started to change, to become something more then just kids music. The kids started to grow up and the music grew up with them. Today it is common for someone to write a song and it becomes an event, a cult, a rage, a video, a movie, a movement, an anthem and then fades into classic status. When I was a child perhaps a few Folk songs that had some sort of power to motivate and cause actual change, but somewhere in the 1960's music became a powerful force for actual social and political power.
And the Powerful saw that and did everything they could to stop it. Elvis and Pat Boone were safe, because they didn't poke at the Lions, but the Byrds, Animals, Stones and Beatles were starting to make music that made people think about more than girls and cars. And when people started to think things started to change fast. People started questioning the Government, not just complaining about it, but actually questioning, and demanding answers. They didn't get the answers of course, but they no longer believed that Uncle Sam was always the benificent guardian of their own best interests and only Commies questioned their motives.
We had a big Bakelite Telephone. The handset was big enough to hammer nails or knock a man out. Sometimes the sound would start to get a little scratchy and you had to rap the mouth piece on the desk to loosen up the charcoal in the microphone. And when you picked up the phone you would first listen for a few seconds to see if any of your neighbers that shared the telephone line were listening. My first portable radio was about the size of my head, a few years later I got one that was almost small enough to fit in my shirt pocket. It was AM, the only ones that listened to FM were those Jazz and Classical people, and AM was just fine for Country music and carried a lot farther.
Pretty much everyone where we lived didn't bother to lock their doors, and the occasional killing was usually either a crazy drunk or a crazier "lone nut". We didn't worry about "Gangs" unless were were driving the Southern California highways and a few hundred Harly Davidsons would roll by us. The only real fear we lived with was the ever present Red Scare waiting for us to blink so they could Nuke us in our sleep.
I blame the Jazz music crowd for ruining our paranoid Eden. They were the Hop Heads, the Reefer smokers, something in the evil weed they smoked made the lies they were told sound like lies. Then the serious damage came from Albert Hoffman and his LSD, it made people see just how complete the illusion we were being fed was, how tragic and irrational the bullshit of our supposed leaders was and how burdoned they had been with religion and politics.
Life has a far richer texture and depth for you then it did for the last few generations, you know and understand more because you are starting from a level of understanding that was not understood by your parents and grandparents. There were a few with that understanding, but they were an extreme few and peer pressure usually kept them silent or outcast.
Al Kaida has replaced the Reds, and the evil men in power have only become more powerful and more evil, but they no longer can hide in plain sight their evils, and you know that there are more important concerns then Al Kaida and Commies. You have been given a World on the edge of ruin, but you have also been given the wisdom and understanding to take it away from those that have pushed it into ruin and hopefully bring it back from the edge.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
2009 Copper Basin 300 Pics
My Sister Helen was out braving the cold and covering the Copper Basin 300, you can see some of her pictures from the trail here...
http://picasaweb.google.com/NorthernLightMedia/2009CopperBasin300#
http://picasaweb.google.com/NorthernLightMedia/2009CopperBasin300#
Monday, January 12, 2009
Another year gone by
It is January again. My 52nd or 53rd, I stopped counting. The year gone by was the worst I have had so far. I lost my Mother. Mom was the center around which my planet orbited. I think all my siblings felt much the same, and the loss of our collective gravitational center has effected us all greatly. We don't see each other nearly as much as we did before. Most of our meetings in the last few years were at Mom's, but now I don't go there much. Dad and I never have had very much to discuss, and a few minutes together has us both looking at TV or looking for an excuse to find something else to do.
Sometimes I feel I should make more effort to have a relationship with him, but then I think that it was on him to develop a relationship with me in the last 50 some years. Until I got in trouble or joined the Army he was just the guy that came home late from the office, stayed in the bathroom for hours with a book and drove the car when we went somewhere and then he would drive us there and read a book while the rest of did what ever we had gone there to do.
Now a large screen TV has replaced his books, but the distance is still the same.
Sometimes I feel I should make more effort to have a relationship with him, but then I think that it was on him to develop a relationship with me in the last 50 some years. Until I got in trouble or joined the Army he was just the guy that came home late from the office, stayed in the bathroom for hours with a book and drove the car when we went somewhere and then he would drive us there and read a book while the rest of did what ever we had gone there to do.
Now a large screen TV has replaced his books, but the distance is still the same.
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Listen to the starsQuadrantid Meteors
When a Quadrantid (pronounced KWA-dran-tid) meteor passes over the Air Force Space Surveillance Radar facility there is an echo.
Listen to live audio from the radar at http://wowzaweb.streamguys.com/~spaceweather
I'm using this to see when to go out with my digital camera and try to shoot some.
Bill in Meadow Lakes, Alaska -26°F Current: Clear Wind: N at 2 mph Humidity: 41%
Listen to live audio from the radar at http://wowzaweb.streamguys.com/~spaceweather
I'm using this to see when to go out with my digital camera and try to shoot some.
Bill in Meadow Lakes, Alaska -26°F Current: Clear Wind: N at 2 mph Humidity: 41%
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Christmas 2008
It's xmas Eve and I have no xmas spirit whatsoever. This first xmas without Mom just reminds me that shes gone.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Odetta : 1930 - 2008
Odetta has passed away. One of those individuals that was instantly known by just one name, like Dylan, Madonna, Elvis and Sting.
When I was just 13 I went to see Bill Cosby at West High School in Anchorage. Odetta opened for him. It was my first exposure to live music. I did not know who she was at the time but as the years went by I came to understand that she was an icon in her field and had been influential on many artists that came to be much more well known by the masses, like Dylan.
When I was just 13 I went to see Bill Cosby at West High School in Anchorage. Odetta opened for him. It was my first exposure to live music. I did not know who she was at the time but as the years went by I came to understand that she was an icon in her field and had been influential on many artists that came to be much more well known by the masses, like Dylan.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Wassup
Remember when Wassup was hip? watch it again just to refresh your memory...
Now see how times have changed...
Now see how times have changed...
Sunday, September 28, 2008
I love you Mom, Goodbye
Virginia Ellen (Burke) FikesMay 14th 1934 - September 14th 2008
I don't have any children, so I doubt I will ever have a greater pain in my life than the death of my Mother. On September 13th she started feeling sick. By the 14th she decided she should go to the hospital. For Mom that ment it was serious, she hated doctors and hospitals and by the time she convinced herself to go it was too late. She had a blockage in her heart, and the local hospital was not equipped to deal with it. They had cath surgeons on staff but not on the weekends, so they tried to get her to Anchorage, but she died in the air on the way there.
My Sisters helen and Sandra were there with me when she said her last words, Lewis was bringing Dad from Big lake and Susan was in Washington.
I am still angry. Angry she didn't go in a day sooner, angry they didn't have a cath lab open on Sunday at Valley Hospital, angry Mom died before we got back to Petersville to look for Gold and angry she didn't live to be 110. Every day sorrow and pain start to creep in and I force it back with anger. I think if I allowed the sorry to take over it might be more than I could take.
Mom always understood, always got the joke, always laughed even if it wasn't funny, always said "I love you" at the end of a telephone call, always offered me something to eat, or money, or what ever she thought I might need. Mom loved red wine, martinis, steaks and chocolate and collecting dolls and pianos and elephants and lions and Mom loved her children and husband and devoted her life to making ours better. We are better for your having been here, and so much worse for your having gone. I love you Mom.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
World view, waste management
When I was stationed in South Korea during the late 1980's I went on several Month long Field Trips to remote areas of the country and always enjoyed observing the Koreans and their daily works and play. On one such outing I was the Mail Clerk, making a 200+ mile route daily picking up and distributing mail. I'd drive to the local distribution area and collect several sacks of mail and packages and then return to the Command post and sort it by Platoon and give to the Platoon Leaders that made daily visits to the Command tent. The Command Tent contained the Commanders Field Desk, The 1st Sgt's desk and the XO's desk. I had a long table along one wall with a 48 cup coffee urn and my field mail safe and sorting bins, each labeled with the destination section. When I was there it was open and when I left the area it was locked and under guard.
On these daily drive arounds I noted an old Woman was always at the back wall of our walled Compound certain hours of the day. I walked around the perimeter until I got to the spot where she was essentially "goldpanning" the open drain that led out of the 8 foot high cement wall of the compound. She had several small wicker baskets and was carefully sorting corn, peas, bits of meat and other edible items out of the refuse stream. I walked back in the compound and followed the wall until I came to the place where the pipe entered the walls and followed the depression in the dirt to the back of the Mess Hall building. The old Woman was there every day as the cooks prepared the meals and sent the waste down the drains. I wondered how many mouths she was feeding with her daily pannings.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
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