"Chicago is up in the house!"/"He's never nipped at anybody but he barks and growls"/"I wanna be your dog"...

... "Everyone left is from Chicago"/"It's the love-in of a lifetime"/"People are going to be really embarrassed some day to look back and realize that they had joined in on something that was really a mistake and they chose the wrong side and that they joined it with such fervor"/"Did you ever do that when you were young?"



All this video was recorded yesterday... except the flashback. (That was originally blogged on February 17th.)

And here's the NYT article on "self-compassion" that I talk about in the car.

"Unlike probably everyone else watching Charlie Sheen these days, we think this 'train wreck' (as some are calling it) is probably the best we've seen him..."

"... and (having mutual friends) we applaud him mightily for it. He looks and sounds more like his father than ever. His nothing-can-take-me-down attitude, in the face of this wimpy, middle class, wet rag nanny state finger-wagging opinion is winning. This is a man, owning his actions and insisting everyone else come clean and take responsibility for theirs as well.... [A]ll too often, we see too many powerful beta males in this country... We've become a cautious, conformist, inoffensive, non-risk taking, arrogant, lying bunch of NewAge pussies who think if any woman... says she or others don't approve, then some form of public contrition and apology is called for. Well, screw that. Neither she, or the public, are Charlie Sheen's mother and even if his parents disapprove, he's a grown-assed man who refuses to be a part of whatever milquetoast existence the rest of you think is good for gaining social approval from a worthless feminized culture-killing clique. He didn't ask for it, doesn't need it, and isn't angling for it. He's a man. He's rich. And he's free."

That's Crack Emcee, taking a macho look at Charlie Sheen.

It's funny, I was just saying to Meade that people don't rant against "conformity" anymore — not like they did in the 50s and 60s. What got me going wasn't Charlie Sheen. It was my Bloggingheads with Timothy Noah, which, for various reasons, made me think about the way liberals, including liberal media folk, talk to each other and feel emotional rewards for saying what they all say back and forth to each other. They become so immersed in this feeling of belonging that they don't even hear the things that are not the things that they've been saying back and forth to each other. And my question is: Why does that feel so good? Why doesn't that immersion feel like drowning? Why don't you want to surface into the air and be free — to think about everything, from any perspective, and to find out for yourself what is true and what is good? You are a human individual: Don't you want that?

"And that was when he discovered he had a special kinda way with animals."

"They just come right up to him like he was a natural part of the wilderness."



Have you been living free in harmony and majesty like we did back in the 1970s?

***

Charles Sellier Jr., the man who created "The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams,” has died at the age of 67.

Loosely based on an actual person who escaped into the wilderness in 1853 after being accused of a murder he didn’t commit, Grizzly Adams is a bearded, barrel-chested man (played by Dan Haggerty) who counts among his friends raccoons, skunks, ferrets, deer, coyotes, porcupines, an eagle and, of course, the abandoned grizzly bear cub who matures into a powerful companion named Ben.

ADDED: Did you have the same question I had?: Is Ben the same Ben as "Gentle Ben"? The answer is no: "there is no connection between the bears."



Wow! The 60s were so different from the 70s. The 60s had a lot of 50s in them, and the 70s had a lot of 60s, but not the part of the 60s that was leftover from the 50s. If you're not old like me, maybe those distinctions sound meaningless, but if you are, I bet you know exactly what I mean.

Gladys Horton, the lead singer of The Marvelettes...

... has died at the age of 66.

As a student at Inkster High School, Horton helped found the group that would eventually become the Marvelettes, linking up with fellow glee club members Katherine Anderson, Juanita Cowart, Georgeanna Tillman and Georgia Dobbins.

A successful audition for Motown Records was followed in 1961 by the group's debut single, "Please Mr. Postman," with 17-year-old Horton on lead vocals. It became Motown's biggest pop crossover hit to that point, reaching No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100.

The audio is a lot better here. And here are The Beatles covering the song, pretty much adopting The Marvelettes' style. (You know The Beatles took a large component of what they were from the great girl groups of the early 60s.)

My favorite Marvelettes song was always "Beechwood 4-5789." Another really cool one is "Don't Mess With Bill":



Love the bows! We girls used to go to school dressed just like that in the early 60s. Tried to tease our hair that big too. It wasn't easy! It wasn't even possible.

I love looking back at these old styles and this old music. I'm sorry that these days the occasion for celebrating someone from back then is an obituary. I'm sad to hear that Glady Horton has died, but let's talk about how great The Marvelettes were.

"Back in the 1960s, who'd have imagined that a septuagenarian white sheriff from Arizona with a hostility to free speech would one day become a hero to the left?"

Let's talk about Clarence Dupnik.

Dupnik made multiple statements drawing connections between conservative "rhetoric" and Saturday's crime.... At a time when most politicians were behaving responsibly, why was Sheriff Dupnik speaking with a reckless disregard for the truth...?...

The Arizona Republic reported Wednesday that Dupnik's department was "refusing to release a wide range of public documents about the man charged in Saturday's shooting rampage that left six dead and more than a dozen wounded." Later that day, the Republic reported, the department relented and released "12 sets of incident reports" about police calls to the Loughner home or Jared Loughner's high school....

It's quite possible that Dupnik simply enjoys shooting off his mouth. 

More likely he enjoys covering his ass. Shame on all the journalists who scurried forward with their big old newsrags to help him cover said ass.'

IN THE COMMENTS: Irene (who knows such things) says:

A juvenile point: the surname "Dupnik" derives from "Dupa," a word used in Slavic- and Baltic-speaking languages. The word "dupa" means "ass."

"Dupnik" can translate as "assman." There is a bawdy dance — usually done at vodka-infused weddings — called the "dupnik," during which the partiers "fist bump" their cheeks.

"In an effort to relieve her boredom, Julie proceeded to throw a glass out a window."

Am I the only one here who remembers listening to "The Anecdote of Horatio & Julie" on the radio, late at night, in the 1960s... WFMU?

"Barbara Billingsley, TV’s June Cleaver, Dies at 94."

Ah!

I was 6 years old when the show "Leave It to Beaver" began in 1957 and 12 when it ended in 1963. I watched an unbelievable amount of television in those years, but, without question, the TV family that impressed me most deeply was the Cleavers. June and Ward were, for me, the perfect parents. From this long distance, it now seems that were not really that different from June and Ward, but back then, how I longed for a family like the Cleavers. I can still make the theme music play in my head and open a flood of memories of childhood feelings of what a family should be. How profoundly affecting were the gender differences between the 2 parents! Ward and June were a beautiful team, and they were not even all that dissimilar. Both were tough and principled and at the same time caring and sensitive. But I can hear June in my head, echoing for all the ages, urging Ward not to be too severe with the boys. And Ward always listened and hesitated before he proceeded with his fatherly role.

Here's some video.

"Hey! Don't just sit there! Come on and sing!"

Mitch Miller, who had us all singing at the television, back in the 1960s, has died. He was 99. The show was considered ridiculously square at the time, you should understand, when you watch that clip. But we watched, fascinated by Miller's overenthusiastic smile, his beard, his idiosyncratic arm movements — he was very easy to imitate! — and the peppy pop songs.

Remember, walking in the dunes?

This is Whitefish Dunes State Park, and that water — with a riptide just waiting to drag you to your death if you don't have the presence of mind to swim parallel to the shore — is Lake Michigan.



If you dawdle on the stairs, you might notice this orchid-like vine, and if you're married to a horticulturist, he might tell you it's sweet pea, which it is:



And if you're old like us, you might feel compelled to sing the old Tommy Roe song. The video at the link is nice. You see Roe performing and interacting with a girl in the audience. "Pause at exactly 1:43...the look on her face & eyes as he whispers in her ear..priceless!! :)" says a comment. Another comment comes from "Itsmewithroe," who says:

Actually, Tommy Roe was lip singing. 

I.e., lip synching.

We could hear the recording, and he was whispering. Even he was strumming his guitar, but it was a quiet strum. We were all told to sing the song along with him. If I had known the camera was on me all that time, I would have been so embarrassed. I thought the camera was on everyone.

No. That's not his daughter. the blond in the back, she had a blue & white sailor type 2 piece bathing suit. Tommy Roe had no children. I remember now. It was the summer of 67. I've been talking about that day all my life. I was in ecstasy. I never knew the camera was on me. The producer/director, who ever he was, stage the girls behind me in position. I wonder if I could upload my pictures when I was a kid on this site.

Ha. The producer knew what he was doing. The girl is adorable. And what a great bubblegum song of that era. Roe's best song, however, was "Sheila." It was a cool enough song that The Beatles saw fit to cover it, pretty much in the original form.

But back to Whitefish Dunes. I was going to do a spiffy segue. You know, something with...



... but... well, that counts, according to my rules of blogging.

We were lying on the beach, and a guy came over and asked me if I was Ann Althouse. I confessed and he introduced himself — we'll call him Dr. Steve — and said he loved reading the blog. So, then, hi, Dr. Steve. You know, you said something that invited an answer and I let silence be the answer, but then as Meade and I were walking back across the dune...



I experienced l'esprit de l'escalier — staircase wit — literally on the stairs.

This name for the phenomenon comes from French encyclopedist Denis Diderot’s description of such a situation in his Paradoxe sur le comédien. During a dinner at the home of statesman Jacques Necker, a remark was made to him which left him speechless at the time because, he explains, l’homme sensible, comme moi, tout entier à ce qu’on lui objecte, perd la tête et ne se retrouve qu’au bas de l’escalier: a sensitive man like me, overwhelmed by the argument levelled against him, becomes confused and can only think clearly again [when he gets to] the bottom of the stairs.

Blogging is great for people afflicted with l'esprit de l'escalier, because I can answer Dr. Steve here. He said: "I can never quite figure out your political persuasion."

The late riposte: "I am not persuaded."

"Wow! Jimmy Dean. He was pretty cute when he was young!"

What I exclaimed, after seeing that Jimmy Dean had died and Googling "Jimmy Dean" and seeing this...



... and it took me a couple seconds to recover from the dazzle of male beauty and realize the essential stupidity of Google.

What I was really looking for was the old TV show, "The Jimmy Dean Show." What passed for entertainment in 1964:



Was Rowlf the Dog the original Muppet? He was the first Muppet star!

I remember watching that show. I don't have much to say about Jimmy Dean. He seemed like a nice man — I've heard otherwise, but I won't pass the story on. He's dead. Here's a piece about whether, now that Dean's dead, Dean's song "Virginia" ought become the Virginia state song:

Virginia is one of the few states that has no official tune. It's been without one since 1997, when the General Assembly retired "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia," because its lyrics were deemed racist. 

"Deemed racist"? "Virginny" was "where the old darke'ys heart am long'd to go."

The state has repeatedly tried to choose a replacement, notably by appointing a 12-member committee that sifted through 400 suggestions and whittled them down to eight finalists.

One of those finalists was the appropriately titled "Virginia." It was a ditty played for legislative committees by its composer, song-writer and Varina resident Jimmy Dean.

Is the song any good? I can't find an on-line video rendition of it, and apparently neither could the author of the linked column. There's video there, but not of the song "Virginia." It's a video of Jimmy Dean singing his hit song "Big Bad John." Which he didn't write. (It's by Dean and Roy Acuff.) [CORRECTION: Dean co-wrote the song. Somehow I managed to read "Dean and Roy Acuff" as referring to Roy Acuff and some other guy named Dean Acuff! Ha.] And it's a big, big song. I love it. I listen to it every time it comes on "60s on 6" (my favorite satellite radio channel). Go listen to it. I don't think there's a better storytelling song. 

Do I have to mention the sausage too? (NSFW:)

"The sultan has a duty to the harem. You will be called upon countless times to perform duties only a man can carry out successfully."

"For example, you will: change flat tires, put on snow chains, unlock locked bumpers and carry in bulky packages."

A line from an obituary that I put at the end of this post from last Saturday. It's about my old teacher, Mr. Hannan, who wrote a novel about being the only male teacher at an elementary school. The name of another teacher comes up in the obit, and it sends me into an old memory:

Mr. Ginter! The man whose office I was sent to by teachers who didn't like my short skirts and long bangs! Ha. He tried to reason with me, hypothesizing what if a girl came to school in a bikini. What would happen to the poor boys? I reasoned back: I was not wearing a bikini, but a skirt — in the length that was fashionable. Let the girls wear pants then, but don't force me to wear a skirt that's the wrong length.

Here's a picture of me from that era, but that's not a mini-skirt, it's what you call a skort, and I would have been disciplined for wearing that even if it had been knee length.

When Mary Travers was thin, Mama Cass was radiant, and Joni Mitchell did not have multicolored fibers protruding from her skin.

They say everything can be replaced...



... but they are wrong.

Any day now, any day now...

Are you still looking toward the future, or do you look back to the gorgeous, unreachable past?

The 1960s look.

I was enjoying this selection of photos of women who exemplified 1960s style. Lots of iconic prettiness. But then I hit this one:



Ha ha.

And here's a bonus 60s style video — fashions by Elizabeth Taylor, with Patti Boyd modeling, and George Harrison, John Lennon, and Richard Burton gawking.

What's your earliest political memory?

Some writers answer that question here. You can answer it here.

What's my answer? Let's see. Maybe, 1960. I was in 4th grade. All the kids I knew were for Nixon. I analyzed the situation and proclaimed: "If kids could vote, Nixon would win by a landslide!"

Is it a "hit piece" if the NYT parallels Tea Partiers and 60s radicals?

Gateway Pundit thinks it is and so does American Power, but they are righties. You have to look at this from a lefty perspective, and that's something that I — with a long life experience among the lefties — can do. (I went to the University of Michigan as an undergrad in 1969 and had SDS people arguing on the other side of my dorm room wall, I lived in the West Village in the 1970s, I went to NYU School of Law circa 1980, and I have been with the law professors at the University of Wisconsin — in what is affectionately known as the People's Republic of Madison — since 1984. I have had lovers quarrels with Communists.)

Here's the photographic juxtaposition that American Power calls "a genuinely sick comparison":

It was the front-page teaser for this "Week in Review" piece by Benedict Carey. Carey is a medicine and science writer for the newspaper, and his topic is the public display of anger in American politics. He's looking at the long history of demonstrations, and it's a great concept to put up a 60s "Days of Rage" photograph with a man yelling and gesturing along with a present-day Tea Party photograph with a man yelling and gesturing in just about the same way. That the man in the 60s photo is Bill Ayers is a fabulous bit of irony. It's a perfect illustration for Carey's topic, Carey's topic is a good one, and the newspaper succeeds in attracting readers.

Now, I understand the right-wing anger — hmmm — at the juxtaposition. The 60s protesters are Weathermen, and the Weathermen advocated and practiced violence. They murdered people. The Tea Partiers, by contrast, are engaging in the highest form of freedom of expression: assembling in groups and criticizing the government.

But people on the left admire and respect the 1960s protests. They wish there was more expressive fervor on their side today. To have the passion and vitality of the 60s is a good thing. And the air of potential violence, especially in the absence of any actual violence? I think lefties love that. They may not admit they do. But there's a frisson. Remember, the NYT readers are aging liberals. They — we — remember the 60s as glory days. Yes, there was anger, and yes, it spilled over into violence sometimes, but the government deserved it, and these young people were idealistic and ready to give all for their ideals. They are remembered — even as (if?) their excesses are regretted — in a golden light.

***

Now, let's look at what Carey says:

Each party charged the other with fanning the flames of public outrage for political gain. 

Sounds pretty balanced!

But ... [w]hat is the nature of public anger anyway, and can it be manipulated as easily as that?...

At a basic level, people subconsciously mimic the expressions of a conversation partner and in the process “feel” a trace of the other’s emotion, recent studies suggest....

And in groups organized around a cause, it’s the most extreme members who rise quickest, researchers have found....

See? He's a science writer. He's mining the sociology of anger. Carey first notes that "lone-wolf" actions are more likely to occur. But what of the notably non-loner types who go to demonstrations?

Protest groups that turn from loud to aggressive tend to draw on at least two other elements, researchers say. The first is what sociologists call a “moral shock” — a specific, blatant moral betrayal that, when most potent, evokes personal insults suffered by individual members...

The second element is a specific target clearly associated with the outrage. A law to change. A politician to remove. A company to shut down....

Given the shifting political terrain, the diversity of views in the antigovernment groups, and their potential political impact, experts say they expect that very few are ready to take the more radical step.

“Once you take that step to act violently, it’s very difficult to turn back,” [Kathleen Blee, a sociologist at the University of Pittsburgh] said. “It puts the group, and the person, on a very different path.”

So there. Carey concludes with a calming message about the link between vocal protest and real violence. Now, there is a bit of a warning:

If a group with enduring gripes is shut out of the political process, and begins to shed active members, it can leave behind a radical core. This is precisely what happened in the 1960s, when the domestic terrorist group known as the Weather Underground emerged from the larger, more moderate anti-war Students for a Democratic Society, Dr. McCauley said. “The SDS had 100,000 members and, frustrated politically at every step, people started to give up,” he said. “The result was that you had this condensation of a small, more radical base of activists who decided to escalate the violence.”

That appears near the end of the article. But you can easily see the message: Democracy. As long as the political process seems to work, people won't cross the line into violence. And the size of the Tea Party movement is a safeguard. In Carey's scenario, it's only if the masses of people — the ordinary, pretty conventional people — cool off and go home that we ought to worry about violence. You have the "radical core" left. That's what you don't want. So this NYT piece, after teasing us with the similarity between Tea Partiers and Weatherman, draws a decisive line separating them.

"Here, it's tie-dye and marijuana. It's just like the 1960s, with the Vietnam War still to protest."

John Yoo, back at Berkeley, endures his environs.

"I think of myself as being West Berlin during the Cold War, a shining beacon of capitalism and democracy surrounded by a sea of Marxism," Yoo observes, sipping iced tea in the faculty club lounge, a wan smile registering the discomfort of colleagues walking by en route to the bar.

He sees his neighbors as the human figures of "a natural history museum of the 1960s," the Telegraph Avenue tableau of a graying, long-haired, pot-smoking counterculture stuck in the ideology's half-century-old heyday.

He's happy in Berkeley, he says, and that's something I understand.

A teach-in. Are you going to this 60s flashback?

Here in Madison.

I went to a big teach-in at the University of Michigan circa 1969. What I remember most vividly is one speaker lobbing the vivid insight that it wouldn't be so bad if North Vietnam won the war. The crowd cheered. I can't picture a present-day crowd of students cheering at the idea of the Taliban winning in Afghanistan. I can't even picture much of a crowd attending a teach-in on Afghanistan. Especially, now that Obama is President.

Rush Limbaugh, still pissed about hippies after all these years.

Even though I am kind of a hippie — an evolved hippie —I was amused this rant from Friday's show, which I listened to in podcast form just now. What set him off was this dreamy Nancy Pelosi murmur:

PELOSI: Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or, eh, a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance, or that people could start a business and be entrepreneurial and take risk but not [be] job-locked because a child has asthma or someone in the family is bipolar. You name it. Any condition is job-blocking.

Now, I think it's really important that under the current system, for health insurance reasons alone, people stay put in jobs instead of moving freely and efficiently into work that would be better for them. Insurance and work shouldn't be linked like that. I would love to find a way out of that problem, even though I loathe and dread the Democrats' heath care bill. Conservatives who like free markets and economic liberty ought to care about de-linking career and insurance choices. But what set Rush off was the kind of work that Pelosi used as her examples. You could be an artist or a photographer or a writer.

RUSH: So this is what the Democrats are fighting for. They're fighting for you not to have a job and still have health care so you can pursue your entrepreneurial risk of writing, painting, taking pictures. 

Because it's never an actual job to write, paint, or take photographs. In Rush's mind, artists have just got to be freeloaders.

It's just such a pain in the rear end to have to have a job. It's so damn mean of this country to require people to have a job. It stifles people. It stifles creativity and economic growth to require people to have a job, to have health care. What a country. Man, are we horribly rotten mean to people. So Pelosi says go ahead, health care will allow people to quit their jobs and write, take pictures and paint while the rest of us work to pay for it. While the rest of us work to pay for these... never mind.

[AFTER A BREAK] This is what Democrats are fighting for. Nancy Pelosi, this idiot Pelosi, thinks this country is Woodstock or Moscow or something. [PLAYS PELOSI AGAIN.]  So they're fighting for people to be able to quit work while the rest of us pay for their health care while they go out and be artists and photographers and tend to bipolar kids with asthma or what have you, and we're going to pay for this. This idiot thinks this is Woodstock. I mean, it's right out of the San Francisco mentality. It's just breathtaking here....

... I mean, she thinks of the country as Woodstock or as San Francisco.

...So quit work. Indulge your fantasies. Become an artist or documentarian, photographer, what have you -- and let the rest of us pay for your health care bill. And, by the way, while you're out there finding yourself, if you happen to get pregnant and want to have an abortion, no worries! We'll pay for that, too. But I want to focus on something here. "Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance." Now, one of the things that Obama has promised is that you will not lose your coverage. If you like it, you'll be able to keep it. Here is Pelosi admitting: If you're able to quit your job and have "free," quote-unquote, health coverage, who is hell is providing it for you?

I thought people were supposed to buy health insurance and the reforms (if they were any good) would make it possible to afford to buy health insurance individually, even if you had a pre-existing condition.

Pelosi inasmuch as confirmed single-payer, public option, universal health care in this quote, while she's attempting to establish solidarity with the nation's freeloaders! She's encouraging the freeloaders to freeload. Isn't it such a shame that this country requires people to work to have health care? How inhumane is that? So we're going to enable you to quit! If you want to dabble sitting there writing things, taking pictures or painting garbage that nobody will ever be able to understand, go for it!...

Art can't be work in Limbaugh's mind: Those writers and photographers and painters aren't going to be buying their insurance. As Limbaugh sees it, Pelosi is sending out a coded message to the nation's hippies: We will have taxpayer-funded health care as a government benefit in the end.

Just move to Haight-Ashbury. Just be done with it. Move out there and start painting murals or whatever you want to do, and all of your neighbors will come up and pay for your health care for you. 

... be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. 

I'd say the 60s left quite a mark on Rush Limbaugh. They left a mark on me too — quite a different mark though (and I was born on the same day in 1951 as Rush).

For some reason, people are interested in what Andy Williams thinks.

This story — "Andy Williams accuses Barack Obama of following Marxist theory" — is featured at Memeorandum and Drudge. Andy Williams is an 81-year-old singer. Here's what he was like in 1966:



In case you weren't around then and can't quite figure it out, let me assure you that this sort of thing was disturbingly square at the time. I'm laughing at it now, but I remember that back then, it would actually make me angry.

No one in the 60s, when he was popular in some quarters, would have cared what Andy Williams thought about politics. I can't imagine why anyone cares now. Really, that linked story looked like it belonged in The Onion.

"Yellow Submarine" — the remake!

By Disney. Seriously.

Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook said the new "Yellow Submarine" will be directed by Robert Zemeckis using the same motion-capture effects employed in "Polar Express."

Oh, no. We will encounter the Beatles in the "uncanny valley." The original visual aspect of "Yellow Submarine" is all about clear, crisp, flat color. Now, I admit, looking at some clips on YouTube, that the old film looks sketchy and cheap by current animation standards. I'd love to see a new 2D version of the film — or a new 2D animated film using Beatles songs. I just hate 3D animation. It makes me feel bad on a deep physical, animal level.

And "Yellow Submarine" means so much to me. It came out in 1968, when I was in my last year of high school, and if someone had given me the information on how to dedicate my life to making animated films like that, I would have gone there (and lived a completely different life).

It was so much harder back then to figure out such things. So I ended up, the following year, entering a hippie college experience at the University of Michigan called the Residential College and then tripping across the street to the art school. But life is so much easier now — with the internet. For example, I just had a major flashback brought on by Googling my way to the Facebook group " UM Residential College-East Quad ("Where East Quadies and RC students of past meet").

But perhaps life was better when it was hard to find things.... and cartoons needed to be drawn ....