Daily Archives: December 8, 2010
I’m doing the Winners And Losers radio show tomorrow and Friday…
John Case is going to be away and I’ll be doing the show (7:30 to 9:00 AM) Tomorrow and Friday. For those who haven’t tuned in, it’s on WSHC FM in Shepherdstown, 89.7 FM… or you can listen to it on line at http://www.897wshc.org/listen_live/index.html.
The phone line will be open during the show and if you want to call in and discuss politics or Zappadan or whatever, call 304-876-5369. I love your participation.
– Bill
A Zappadan view of Frank and what he stood for…
Boy, I miss Frank.
Let’s start with his comments on Crossfire when he made sure people realize that we shouldn’t censor “words”:
…and we’ll top that off with Frank’s cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”:
Did I say I missed Frank? I’ll bet Robert Plant misses him, too.
Wednesday morning as we proceed down the drain…
Here it is, 30 years to the day, the anniversary of the death of John Lennon at the hands of a young loony. Thirty years! We still listen to Lennon’s music (iTunes has just released all the Beatles stuff for the first time – including the later Lennon stuff) and kids who weren’t even born when Lennon died are just discovering the Beatles and Lennon and buying it up.
From my point of view, it brings me back to a time when we were trying to Give Peace A Chance because All We Need(ed) Is Love. But it didn’t happen. We went into war after war… we blew our budgets and debt up like Macy’s Parade balloons… we put ourselves into a split society which is killing itself (and not slowly any more.) For example: this week we are working as hard as we can to sell our bodies and souls to China and Saudi Arabia by increasing our debt and getting little in return.
This morning I’m watching the comments of Representatives (mostly Democrats) who are pretty pissed off. I hear that Joe Biden is meeting with the House Dems today to tell them that “the deal’s not sealed.” Yeah, sure. This is how they are going to hold Nancy Pelosi off.
The Senate is going to spend a big part of their morning with the ongoing Impeachment Trial of Judge Thomas Porteous. This has 
been taking up their time all week and, of course, is not taking care of the things the people need to get down to. Only 8 days left, guys.
As to what the Senate is going to do with the Tax Cut Extension legislation, seeing they have to get 60 votes to do anything (thanks to the Republicans requiring the filibuster level vote for EVERYTHING), I’m not sure what’s going to happen. And there are a 
bunch of Democrats, and the Independent Bernie Sanders, who will do what they can to keep the Obama agreement from going through as well. If we get through December 31 without the Congress passing on this, then the Tax Cut is ended and the taxes go back into play across the board.
And what are we going to do. As the voters, the population as a whole, and 98% of us not rich enough to benefit from what’s going an 
and all of us split into groups that are designed to not get along with each other by the political controllers who the rich have put into place, what can we do? We write blogs, send letter, call offices and everything else we can do to get our two cents in, and it doesn’t seem to matter.
And as I write this, Judge Porteous seems to be being found GUILTY by a unanimous Senate (at least on article 1 for having a “corrupt financial relationship” with a law firm and failing to recuse himself from a case). Watching these concerned Senators stand up 1 by 1 to vote “guilty” is pretty impressive, considering how many of them, to me are just as guilty of covering up so many things and flat out lying to voters during their campaigns. It reminds me of the lyric from Fiorello, “the only crime is to be caught.”
Have a nice day, folks.
Related Articles
- Senate Begins Impeachment Trial of Federal District Judge Thomas Porteous (volokh.com)
- Taxes, What Taxes? Senate Starts Impeachment Trial (blogs.abcnews.com)
- The Caucus: And Over in the Senate, An Impeachment Trial for a Judge (thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com)
- Senate to hold rare impeachment trial for judge (politico.com)
- Imagine | 30 Years Later (onemann.blogspot.com)
- John Lennon Death Anniversary: John Lennon Quotes, Facts, Videos (nowpublic.com)
- “Socialist Bernie Sanders Threatens to Filibuster Obama Tax Deal With Republicans” and related posts (nalert.blogspot.com)
- Remembering John Lennon, by the numbers (cleveland.com)
- The Day John Lennon Died (mirror.co.uk)
- Millions mark John Lennon’s death (mirror.co.uk)
- You: Lennon: Forever young 30 years after death (france24.com)
Keith Olbermann did a Special Comment on Obama’s compromise with the Republicans last night…
Here it is… worth listening to:
Thank you, Keith. I hope everyone listens.
Related Articles
- Keith Olbermann Special Comment: Obama Turned His Back On His Base + Rachel Maddow: Baseless (dandelionsalad.wordpress.com)
- Keith Olbermann did an amazing Special Comment this evening… (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
Hilly Elkins died… just saw it in the NY Times.
Veteran producer Hilliard Elkins, the man who brought us “Oh! Calcutta!” and made sex both funny and available in the American Theatre in 1970, has died of a heart attack at his home in Los Angeles… age 81. From the NY Times:
Hillard Elkins - 1970
After forming his own company, whose clients included Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Robert Culp and Mel Brooks, he set up as a producer and in short order developed a string of notable plays and films, including the musical “Golden Boy,” the film “Alice’s Restaurant” and the Broadway premieres of two plays by Athold Fugard. With Al Goldin, he made his Broadway debut in 1962 with “Come On Strong,” a Garson Kanin comedy starring Carroll Baker and Van Johnson.
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Mr. Elkins went on to write his own chapter in the history of the 1960s counterculture when he produced “Oh! Calcutta!,” Kenneth Tynan’s musical sex revue, and, with Mr. Penn as director, produced the film version of Arlo Guthrie’s shaggy-dog song “Alice’s Restaurant” (1969).
“Oh! Calcutta!” made by far the bigger splash. Consisting of sexual fantasies sketched by notables like Samuel Beckett, John Lennon, Sam Shepard, Edna O’Brien and Jules Feiffer, it offered copious nudity and simulated sex acts.
It opened at the Eden Theater in the East Village in 1969 and two years later transferred uptown to the Belasco, where it became an enormous hit, running for more than 1,300 performances despite often withering reviews.
Clive Barnes, dismissing it as “witless,” “doggedly sophomoric” and “soporific” in The New York Times, wrote in his review of the Off Broadway production, “To be honest, I think that I can recommend the show with any vigor only to people who are extraordinarily underprivileged either sexually, socially or emotionally.”
When I was in New York shortly after graduating with my MA in Theatre from Northwestern (and after a year of Prep School teaching), Hilly Elkins employed a number of my friends and he was the one I really wanted to work for (along with Hal Prince, who none of my friends worked for). I didn’t get to… and Hilly took off for Hollywood shortly afterward.
Oh well… another part of my NY Theatre world is now gone for good.
Under The LobsterScope 