Holiday Wishes from the 20th Century

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Why Rock Once Ruled

Although I'm a 58-year-old, over-the-hill recluse whose favorite music is jazz and big band (most of it before my time) and some classical, I'm still aware of how and why Rock music once ruled the airwaves in the 1960s and 70s.

It wasn't simply because Rock (or, Rock and Roll, if you will) was the banner music of Baby Boomers, the biggest generation in Earth's history, and that this was a generation in rebellion because of all the lies and deceit and corruption they had been born into. That was merely the catalyst. Rock music was a secret recipe for feeding the strongest human emotions of impressionable and vulnerable youths with more emotion. Rock was an addictive pabulum for the uncontrolled and seemingly uncontrollable thoughts, actions and hormones of a new generation of movers-and-shakers whose courtship with life had scarcely begun.

The formula for Rock music was to take two parts "anger", one part "personal discovery", add a dollop of "revelation about life" and a generous helping of "sex". Blend together with a driving beat, adding addictive guitar runs and tantalizing licks as you go. Sweet and sour vocals, spicy flute and exotic keyboards are optional. Bake uncovered at 98.6 degrees for about 20 years. Sprinkle with your favorite herb and serve immediately.

A Baker's Dozen*
Song Title - Artist (Release Date)

_1. Satisfaction - Rolling Stones (1965)
_2. Under My Thumb - Rolling Stones (1966)
_3. Somebody to Love - Jefferson Airplane (1967)
_4. All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix (1968)
_5. Born to Be Wild – Steppenwolf (1968)
_6. Layla - Derek and the Dominos [Eric Clapton] (1970)
_7. Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin (1970)
_8. Locomotive Breath – Jethro Tull (1971)
_9. Rock and Roll – Led Zeppelin (1971)
10. Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who (1971)
11. Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress) – The Hollies (1972)
12. Barracuda – Heart (1977)
13. Heartbreaker - Pat Benatar (1979)

*These music links were chosen for audio quality, not video quality. Video images may not reflect the release date of these songs. Headphones are recommended. I apologize beforehand for links that have changed. YouTube video links are not carved in stone. I'll monitor these links as best I can. It is also recommended that you ignore the comments posted by YouTube viewers. Many of these comments are unnecessarily crude and improper for a public forum.

100 Words About "Police Action"

A "police action" was another American name for a war that Congress hadn't officially declared, although the funding was certainly there. Examples from around the globe where 20th Century American "police actions" took place were Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Bosnia and Somalia.

When accused of waging war by the world press, the Pentagon would often use the word "police action". When accused of a "police action", the Pentagon would then use the term "military advisers", knowing full well that no one would jump on a General's back or even a President's back for offering another country a little "free advice".

War of the Noses

The Falklands War was a two-month skirmish fought in 1982 between Argentina and Great Britain in which Great Britain stole back the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands that Argentina had just stolen back from Great Britain and which Great Britain had stolen from Spain five hundred years before that.

This splendid little war was basically a South Atlantic naval battle with Britain's Royal Navy on one side and the Argentine Navy and Argentine Air Force on the other. The root cause of The Falklands War was not so much a dispute over territory as it was the refusal of a Latin American nation to continue looking up to a bully nation like Great Britain while it, in turn, looked down its nose at the rest of the world.

This was yet another Imperial War fought and won by Great Britain who, once again, came out smelling like a victorious rose while the rightful owners of yet another British territorial trophy came out smelling like rat bastard, thieving, third-world ingrates who never knew how good they had it under the thumb of Her Majesty the Queen.

Celebrating Summer

Way back in the 1950s and early 1960s, before my foot ever touched a car's accelerator, one of the best things about summer vacation was going to a carnival or a festival. To a kid like me, they meant games, rides and things to eat that you couldn't get at home.

The best carnival in the world was, of course, the Fourth of July carnival in your own hometown. Especially if you could walk to it. High on my priority list was being scared out of my wits by a carnival ride that constantly spun you around and/or lifted you up and dropped you down as your lunch and the loose change in your pocket battled with gravity. Then the games of skill where you threw a ball at wooden milk bottles or tossed rings at bottles filled with colored water, and so on, in order to win a cheap, insignificant prize like a fake Hawaiian lei or a wooden stick with a handle that passed for a cane and other trinkets that were the trophies of a kid's summer. Lastly, I went to the carnival for some stuff that might pass for food and lots of stuff that never would, not in a million years. I'm talking pizza, hotdogs and hamburgers for food and cotton candy, candy apples, snow cones, funnel cakes and sugar waffles just for fun. If you made it home with a few coins in your pocket and no ride tickets left, you were enjoying the gusto.

Festivals, on the other hand, were smaller and run by churches or groups of people in order to raise money for something or to celebrate something, like strawberries or blueberries or lumbering. There may or may not be any rides at a festival and few games of skill but there were a lot of "games of chance" and lots and lots of food. Even real food that came from mothers' and grandmothers' kitchens. Who cared if there was no Ferris Wheel or Merry Mixer or Octopus? Sometimes you got to win money or a prize that wasn't worthless, like a clock or a wrist watch. And, of course, you got to eat.

But the biggest deal of all when it came to outdoor celebrations was the county fair. I wasn't a little kid by the time I went to a county fair and remembered going. I was a grown man by that time. A county fair had everything a carnival had, only five or ten times as much. I enjoyed watching kids shoot a BB-machine gun at a playing card or hit a stuffed animal with a club whenever it peeked out of its hole. They could shoot baskets, roll balls, throw darts, blow up a balloon with a squirt gun and all kinds of stuff. And, if they didn't win, so what? They had fun. Then they could go eat again or join the other grownups, like me, who seemed to enjoy looking at new John Deere tractors and Holland combines and baby animals and jars of homemade canned goods and the latest thing in manufactured housing as much as we liked being scared out of our wits on a ride when we were kids.

I never made it to a state fair when I was a kid but before the 20th Century gave up its wonderful, historic and unforgettable spirit, I got to experience a state fair as a grown man. It had everything a county fair had only three or four times as much. It even had real helicopter rides. I decided to stop while I was ahead after my one and only state fair experience. After going to the "King of Fairs", I couldn't imagine anything bigger. But biggest isn't always the best. From time to time I still enjoy the hometown carnivals as a grown man. But, instead of playing games and getting sick on wicked rides, I just eat carnival food and watch all the kids have their fun.

Apollo 11 - 40th Anniversary

Click on Mission Insignia for More

Forty years ago today, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. Buzz Aldrin was the second man to walk on the moon. And I was one of the millions of people watching it live on television.

Happy 40th Anniversary Apollo 11!

See the Random Retro Reviews Manning the Moon post.
Watch Neil Armstrong take first steps on moon On YouTube.

Affirmative Action at a Glance

Affirmative Action was the misleading name for a discriminatory hiring practice in the late 20th Century that allowed unqualified non-white people to be hired for a job instead of qualified white people. This unsuccessful and unnecessary social program was eagerly employed by stupid and scared American employers who were afraid to demand federal and state tax money to educate and train these non-white people so they would be qualified.

Another misnomer for Affirmative Action was Equal Opportunity which suggested that qualified non-white people would be given the same chance for a job as qualified white people. But, since this idea had virtually nothing wrong with it and was applauded by just about all Americans, it was not as successful as Affirmative Action, which forced people to march to a government tune instead of freely doing what the government wanted them to do anyway.

Affirmative Action was the second stupidest social program the federal government ever made into law, next to Prohibition, both of which proved to hard-working Americans and Americans who wished they had the opportunity to work hard, that letting Uncle Sam secure the American Dream for you will only backfire and leave you holding your hat in your hand.

M*A*S*H*I*N*G America

M*A*S*H, a TV sitcom airing from 1972 to 1983, was about a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War. Or at least it was supposed to be. Starring self-anointed feminist actor and Groucho Marx wannabe, Alan Alda, as Captain Hawkeye Pierce, M*A*S*H quickly degraded into an Alan Alda soapbox for anti-war and anti-American dissent after its first two seasons and the show's unscrupulous and opportunistic producers, writers, directors and cast never looked back. What ensued was the liberal, bleeding-heart, Baby-Boomer version of the Korean War, not a cool comedy about Army doctors and nurses.

What Baby-Boomer issues, you might ask? Well, the preposterous notion that men and women are interchangeable, for one thing. And the idea that marital infidelity, fornication, cross-dressing (even if it is just a "dodge" to get out of the Army) and homosexuality were perfectly natural and acceptable social behavior for the early 1950s. Oops, that's right, this sitcom was about the Korean War, not Vietnam. I guess the writers, producers and directors just plum forgot.

There's more. M*A*S*H tried its best to perpetuate Baby-Boomer myths like the misconception that doctors can operate on patients at peak levels after drinking the still dry and really talented surgeons can get away with all kinds of anti-social behavior then hide behind their unbeatable skills as surgeons when the crap hits the fan. Or putting the wounded enemy patients ahead of the American and Allied wounded for treatment. Or not tossing a Korean thief out on his ear when he robs you blind after you agree to put him through college in The States at your own expense. What twisted, illogical, ridiculous crap. What kind of role models were these for young American viewers who were already screwed up by having divorced parents or parents who were high most of the time or in jail for not paying their income taxes?

The funniest thing about M*A*S*H was McLean Stevenson as Colonel Henry Blake. But he left at the end of the third season, to be replaced by a 9-year view up Harry Morgan's incredibly large nostrils, along with "Colonel Potter's" boring, mundane, running commentary on life and everything Army. Considered by many to be "the worst career move in television history", McLean Stevenson's departure left the show at the mercy of Alan Alda and the writers who loved this pantywaist's shlocky delivery of their asinine lines that were anti-everything-traditional and heavy-on-the-Jewish-humor.

Larry Linville's portrayal of Major Frank Burns and Loretta Swit's Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan were the only other funny things left. But when Larry Linville departed after the fifth season, "Hot Lips" Houlihan became just plain Margaret Houlihan, a major feminist whiner with a big, man-hating axe to grind on our own personal prime time. More Baby-Boomer issues in place of 1950's army hospital comedy. More soapbox dissent in place of entertainment.

And why go into details about the other regular characters, like Radar O'Reilly, Spearchucker Jones, Ginger Bayliss, Father Mulcahy, Maxwell Klinger, "Trapper" John McIntyre, B.J. Hunnicutt and Charles Emerson Winchester? I mean, what can you say about a brown-noser, your token black character, your token black female character, a geeky guy who doesn't like girls, a homely cross-dresser, a lame comic sidekick, a lamer comic sidekick, and a rich, hateful snob that hasn't been said before?

But, as bad as it was, M*A*S*H the TV Show was still better than M*A*S*H the Movie, starring Donald Sutherland as Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce and Elliot Gould as Captain John "Trapper" McIntyre. M*A*S*H the Movie was the most boring, the least funny and the lewdest Army comedy I've ever seen. Robert Duvall was sorely miscast as Frank Burns and Sally Kellerman's brief offering of eye candy (as a much hotter "Hot Lips" Houlihan than Loretta Swit could ever be) was, unfortunately, this dog of a movie's only memorable moment.

So, that's not saying much for the Alan Alda vehicle that took us for a whining, crying, anti-war ride every week for a dozen long years, without mercy. Yep, for an unbelievable 12 seasons this schizophrenic sitcom seesawed back and forth between cheesy, sight-gag, back-biting, sarcastic humor and the depths of utter, tear-jerker, self-inflicted despair before CBS finally put this out-of-touch sitcom out of its own misery in 1983 with a two-hour finale entitled, "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen". This last episode of M*A*S*H aired live on big-screen TVs in taverns, clubs, restaurants, sports bars and Baby-Boomer watering holes all across America. It even set a record as "the most-watched television episode in U.S. television history", a fact that should have come as no surprise to anyone. Hell, nothing loves company like misery. Especially when alcohol is involved.

The "Roman Send-off" for this highly overrated TV sitcom was affectionately dubbed the "M*A*S*H Bash" by its millions of rabid, teary-eyed fans and, in fact, this finale was nothing more than 12 years worth of recaps and show highlights rolled into two hours of public drinking, group hugging and therapeutic crying jags. The fact that M*A*S*H immediately went into syndication after its highly-publicized euthanasia proved the theory that mystery, murder and crime don't attract nearly as big a TV viewing audience as sexual innuendo, social commentary and human suffering packaged together as a situation comedy.

Muscle Car Madness

"Muscle Cars" were two-door "coupes" made in the 1960s and 1970s for young American males who had no respect for the posted speed limits or local noise ordinances or the safety of their passengers or sleeping neighbors.

These cars were manufactured by every major American automaker and they boasted huge internal combustion engines that were often "turbo-charged" with extra air intakes so they would be even faster and noisier. Muscle cars were almost invariably equipped with four-on-the-floor standard transmissions and after-market gear shifts and/or gear-shift knobs. After-market mufflers with virtually no noise-reduction properties usually replaced the factory-installed mufflers.

"Popping the clutch" on these cars enabled the ability to "peel out" or "burn rubber" or "lay gum", which was the recreational destruction of tire tread through friction. This was a common practice of all muscle car drivers in order to enhance their driving experience with reckless swerving, smoke and banshee-like squealing. Beer was often consumed in the car by drivers and passengers, especially during weekends when American youths used their hometowns as their personal amusement park, garbage dump and public toilet.

Many of these freaky automobiles came in garish colors like electric yellow and blaze orange so they would stand out even more among the normal, family, passenger cars of their generation. Most muscle cars were hardtops, some were sloped "fast backs" and a smaller portion of them were convertibles, without roll bars. Roll bars were an added safety feature that was considered to be a "chickenshit" feature by the screwed-up youths who drove these muscle cars. Muscle car driving had nothing whatsoever to do with safety or responsibility.

Most of the devil-may-care "greaser" rednecks who drove these hideous, noisy cars had no clue that every type of muscle car appeared on state police profile lists all over America as the first cars to hold a radar gun on or to follow closely for driving violations. The muscle car lovers who did know this fact either didn't care or simply thrived on the inevitable police pursuit.

Muscle car madness swept through America the Beautiful for two generations and it was an unbridled exhibition of American Youth at its worst.

The Old Swimming Hole

Back in the 20th Century every rural community had a natural place for people to swim. They were called "swimming holes". Why a pool of water was ever called a "hole" was something I never understood but then I don't have to understand something in order to enjoy it.

Some swimming holes were dammed-up creeks where the water would be just over a grownup's head. Others were nothing more than a deep pool of water, often at a curve in a stream where the water flowed slowly in the summertime. Often there was a large tree shading the pool. Some of the "neatest" swimming holes were beaver dams. If you could swim with beavers and get past the smell, you were on your way to having a lot of fun.

Then there were the big community swimming holes where townspeople would get together and build a big earthen dam with bulldozers and divert a natural creek into it. A week later the dam would be full of water, sometimes ten feet deep or more at the breast of the dam. Big pipes let water in and out so that the water would never become a stagnant home for mosquitoes. The dammed-up water would usually be muddy until the following year. Then boardwalks and diving boards would be erected and sand brought in from elsewhere. A lot of people brought picnic lunches and families would spend entire afternoons at the old swimming hole.

Then along came the environmental do-gooders in the 1960s and the American swimming hole tradition went down the pipe. We were convinced by people with college degrees and new ideas about fun and health and the environment that we were stupid hicks who needed to be shown. These folks also had the elected or appointed authority to enforce the laws that other do-gooders with even more power had signed into law. Nobody could legally swim in a stream, creek or river anymore because of so-called concerns for the public health and the environment.

As a mere boy in the 1960s, I don't recall anyone being harmed by a swimming hole or a single fish being injured or killed because of a kid or a mom or a dad or even an uncle swimming in the water alongside it. But then I never understood why these same do-gooder types tore up all the rural railroad tracks in the 1960s and built concrete highways to replace them. Concrete super highways that were built at the cost of millions of acres of natural woodland and fields. Wild places that used to be homes for countless animals living in their rightful and natural environment. So much for the environmental issue there.

We were convinced by the people in power that swimming in a chlorinated concrete pool would be a lot safer for us. Herding us into big community concrete pools became mainly a public health issue when these goody-goodies realized that we weren't buying the "good for the environment" lie. At least nobody in my state gave a damn about the environment back in the 1960s. That was obvious after the interstates were built. But what they did care about was money. The bottom line.

Before the environmental and health officials let the water out of our swimming holes, we all swam for nothing. Now we all pay for the privilege of walking on blazing-hot surfaces and swimming in fake-blue water that smells like toothpaste and tastes like medicine. This is a sad but true American saga where the winners were the cash registers and the losers were everyone else.

Milton Berle in a Thimble

Milton Merle was a sickening, lip-heavy, nasty, lewd, unfunny comedian who was known as "Uncle Miltie" and "Mr. Television" during the so-called "Golden Age of Television".

Milton Berle's idea of stand-up comedy consisted of insulting people and cross-dressing, as though both were the most natural and inoffensive thing in the world.

American TV viewers west of the Hudson River eventually proved his theory about comedy to be wrong.

20th Century Decades in 10 Words Each

1900s – Like the Gay Nineties but with more cars than horses.

1910s – Except for the Great War, it was the 1900s again.

1920s – Moguls made money while workers drank, fornicated and celebrated peace.

1930s – Americans lost everything they had because of stock market speculators.

1940s – Men fought World War II while women did everything else.

1950s – People made babies by the bushel while Detroit made cars.

1960s – The Beatles, Hippies and Vietnam put the kibosh on America.

1970s – People forgot how to dress properly but no one cared.

1980s – People didn't wear enough clothing but no one cared again.

1990s – Angry youths terrorized the world with electric guitars and drums.