Billy Preston

Posted on 02 Sep 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1946, the great musician Billy Preston was born. People know him mostly for his hits like “Nothing From Nothing” and “Will It Go Round in Circles.” But he was a great keyboard player who started playing professionally by the age of ten. At 16, he was playing organ for Little Richard. At 22 he was working with Ray Charles.

He really came to prominence for his work with The Beatles. And most notable about that is his Fender Rhodes part on the song “Get Back.” In fact, according to Wikipedia, the song was credited to, “The Beatles with Billy Preston.”

Shortly before his death, I saw him perform at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. He put on a great show. He was quite a showman in addition to being a great musician. He died much too young.

Here he is at the height of his fame doing “Nothing From Nothing”:

And here he is doing Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come”:

Happy birthday Billy Preston!

Just for Labor Day: Walter Reuther

Posted on 01 Sep 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1907, the labor leader Walter Reuther was born. He was the man that turned the United Automobile Workers (UAW) into a major political force in the country. He was also a very important supporter of the civil rights movement. Unions were often impediments to racial equality. Reuther understood that workers are workers.

One of the maddening things about Americans is the way we allow special interests to turn us against each other. This is almost a founding principle of the country. It’s the reason we had the slavery of African Americans. At first, it wasn’t a racial issue. But black and white slaves had this nasty habit of ganging up and revolting against the rich. So the rich came up with a great idea: make the Europeans free so no matter how bad their lives were, they would feel okay because at least they weren’t slaves. And indeed, that did put an end to the poor seeing themselves as a single group.

Reuther understood this. But it is so ingrained in who we are. And so many American myths (for example, the rugged individual) have been crammed into our minds that it is very hard to fight. But Reuther tried and succeeded to a large extend. As I noted last year:

He had what I think was a very common political arc for people of his time. He started as a socialist (even a communist) but after the New Deal came in, he became a liberal. Conservatives tend to vilify FDR for bringing socialism to America. That isn’t true, of course, and that thought is typical of the conservative “all or nothing” mentality. If they thought about it for a moment, they would realize that what FDR did was save capitalism from revolution. People like Reuther thought they wanted socialism, but all they really wanted was a more fair and equitable political and economic system. Is a safety net to avoid the worst excesses of capitalism so much to ask?!

Reuther turned the United Automobile Workers (UAW) into a major force in the United States. He also integrated it with the Democratic Party — where he was a major figure until his death. He was also a prominent supporter of the civil rights movement. He was on stage with Martin Luther King Jr during his “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs. He also took part in the Selma to Montgomery March. Unfortunately, he died in a plane crash with his wife and others at the age of 62.

Happy birthday Walter Reuther!

Julie Brown

Posted on 31 Aug 2014 by Frank Moraes

Today, the comedian Julie Brown is 56. But she started as a regular stand-up comedian working primarily in the gay clubs around Los Angeles. This led to her making short films. By the early 80s, she began working in television and film. And in 1984 she released a five song EP, Goddess in Progress. This is primarily what I know her for, because Dr Demento picked up on some of the songs and played them quite a lot. Yes, I was one of those guys: people who listened to Dr Demento each Sunday. I’m not proud, it’s just the truth.

One of the songs on the EP was, “Earth Girls Are Easy.” It is produced in an annoying New Wave style but with enough charm to overcome it. It’s a story song about a UFO that crash lands in her swimming pool. Love ensues. Brown later leveraged it into the film, Earth Girls Are Easy. I found it very amusing when I in college, but that shouldn’t be taken as a recommendation.

The film included a number of Brown’s songs, including “‘Cause I’m a Blonde.” I could do without the song’s The Romantics production, but it is funny:

In 1992, she finally got around to doing a full-on Madonna parody, Medusa: Dare to Be Truthful. But otherwise, she mostly does small projects. I’ve been very interested in some of her political things. For example, she did “The Ex-Beauty Queen’s Got a Gun” — a reworking of her classic “The Homecoming Queen’s Got a Gun” for Sarah Palin. And she did the very funny “Victoria Jackson Reacts to the Election!” — a reaction to Jackson’s Twitter meltdown on election night 2012. Here’s another one, “Victoria Jackson Tea Party Spokesmodel.” Vote for Romney: R-O-M-K-N-E-E!

Happy birthday Julie Brown!

Jacques-Louis David

Posted on 30 Aug 2014 by Frank Moraes

Jacques-Louis David - Self Portrait - Detail On this day in 1748, the great French painter Jacques-Louis David was born. He is one of the greatest of the neoclassical painters. Unfortunately, his reputation has been tarnished because of his involvement with the French Revolution. This attitude is especially strange in the United States. Certainly things got out of hand. I’m not in favor of killing people and certainly killing Louis XVI was counterproductive. But no one today who is concerned about this regicide seems terribly concerned about the low life expectancy of the poor.

What I found most interesting in the Wikipedia discussion of David’s involvement with the revolution was its tone of surprised that David would be involved, “It is uncertain why he did this, as there were many more opportunities for him under the King than the new order…” Really?! Based upon this theory of psychology, people only do what it is in their best economic interests. This sounds like it was written by some economist from the Chicago school. It’s pretty clear David believed in the cause, how ever much it was mismanaged.

Regardless, we should give David credit for even surviving. His two notable revolutionary friends, Jean-Paul Marat and Maximilien de Robespierre, both died rather young as a result of their revolutionary acts. He was eventually exiled, although Louis XVIII offered him a royal position as an option because, you know, a great painter is hard to find. Instead, David moved to Brussels. That alone should explain why he was involved in the revolution: because he believed in it. He lived, worked, and taught in Brussels until his death in 1825.

Here is David’s great painting The Death of Marat, done shortly after Marat’s assassination:

The Death of Marat - Jacques-Louis David

And to show you just how great he was throughout his life, here is his last painting, Mars Being Disarmed by Venus, which he completed at the age of 76:

Mars Being Disarmed by Venus - Jacques-Louis David

Happy birthday Jacques-Louis David!

The Films of Preston Sturges

Posted on 29 Aug 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1898, the great film writer and director Preston Sturges was born. It is best to think of him as a writer, although his films were energetically shot and edited. But his scripts are really some of the best ever. He wrote exclusively comedies that are generally considered screwball. And they were very often that, but I think that is a bit tight a fit for what he did.

His first film as writer-director was The Great McGinty. It tells the story of Dan McGinty, a man who rises through the ranks of the state’s corrupt political system to be governor. Along the way, he marries his secretary because he needs to be married for appearances. The problem is that he falls in love with her, decides to be honest, and has his political life fall apart. It is one of my favorite films.

Sturges next film is equally silly but more conventional, Christmas in July. Then came one of his best, The Lady Eve. It stars Barbara Stanwyck as a con artist who falls in love with her mark played by Henry Fonda:

And then came what is widely considered Sturges masterpiece, Sullivan’s Travels. I’m not that fond of it, but I do love Veronica Lake.

It tells the story of a famous comedy director who wants to travel the nation undercover and find out what life is like for the poor souls who aren’t famous movie directors. Eventually, he actually finds trouble and learns important lessons about life. The film is mostly interesting for a few references to it in O Brother, Where Art Thou?

The Palm Beach Story is perhaps the perfect screwball comedy. It is silly in the extreme with a wonderfully preposterous ending. It is a whole lot of fun:

Sturges next did one of the most bizarre films ever, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek. Basically, it is all one big exercise in making a film about premarital sex without getting stopped by the censors.

But it is well worth checking out. Betty Hutton in the lead is irresistible. And Akim Tamiroff and Brian Donlevy reprise their roles from The Great McGinty in it.

After that came another excellent film, Hail the Conquering Hero. Sturges made a couple of films after that but I won’t talk about them because (1) they are generally not considered all that good and (2) I haven’t seen them.

I highly recommend getting, Preston Sturges—The Filmmaker Collection. It includes all his major films with the exception of Morgan’s Creek.

Happy birthday Preston Sturges!

C Wright Mills

Posted on 28 Aug 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1916, the great sociologist C Wright Mills was born. He is best known for his book, The Power Elite. Regular readers of this site will know that I use that phrase “power elite” a lot. But this is mostly because conservatives have been so good at redefining the word “elite” to mean academics and basically anyone who is in favor of liberal ideas. What’s more, elite is a general term. The power elite are my primary interest in politics.

Mills considered the power elite to be the military, corporate, and political leadership of the powerful countries. You know: the people who have actual power. He was arguing that this group was effectively an aristocracy. I would add that it is anti-democratic. As we’ve seen in recent studies, the opinions of the poor and middle classes have almost no effect on how politicians act. If Mills saw this problem in 1956, you can image what he would think today.

When the book was published, it was widely criticized. But over the years as things have become so much worse, the reputation of the book has gone up. But I don’t see the problem even then. His inspiration for the book was Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism. That book argued that Nazism was the result of the unchecked aspirations of certain groups. Well, in United States now has the same thing, although those who have destroyed our democracy are already ridiculously rich and have a very public philosophy that claims it is necessary that they accumulate ever more if the rest of us are to have nice things. There is no need of terror.

Mills wrote quite a lot more than this one book. Most notably he wrote, White Collar: The American Middle Classes. It was about the new middle-manager class in America. Of course, it too has gotten far worse as evidenced in Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream. It doesn’t really matter how depressing a book you wrote about class in the 1950s, things have gotten almost unimaginably worse. And with that cheery thought:

Happy birthday C Wright Mills!

Rebecca Clarke

Posted on 27 Aug 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1886, the great violist and composer Rebecca Clarke was born. Sadly, she didn’t write all the much—her longest piece is the twenty odd minute Rhapsody. But because of this, it is all the more notable just how complex her tonal pallet is. The Rhapsody is especially intriguing given the way it supplements her traditionally impressionist style with atonal elements. But unlike Schoenberg, these elements come and go—adding to the dramatic structure of the piece. It’s quite an amazing work:

Clarke faced what can only be described as comical sexism. In 1918, she performed a recital with a number of new pieces by her. One of the pieces, Morpheus was credited not to her, but to “Anthony Trent.” The critics all praised it and ignored the ones she had put her own name to. Now, it is true that Morpheus is a heartbreakingly beautiful piece, but undoubtedly it would have been criticized for that very fact had it been presented under Clarke’s own name. Here it is; it is a wonderful piece:

The following year, she entered her Viola Sonata into a composition competition. She ended up tying with the great composer Ernest Bloch. There was much speculation at the time that “Rebecca Clarke” might be a pseudonym used by Bloch. According to Wikipedia “or at least that it could not have been Clarke who wrote these pieces, as the idea that a woman could write such a work was socially inconceivable.” Of course, even at that time there were great female composers, most notably (for me), Germaine Tailleferre. But facts never stand in the way of prejudice.

Here is a performance of the Viola Sonata with Molly Carr on the viola and Yi-Fang Huang on piano:

Happy birthday Rebecca Clarke!

Rufino Tamayo

Posted on 26 Aug 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1899, the great Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo was born. He is from that great period of revolutionary art in Mexico. But he rebelled against it. This was not because he was conservative. But any clear-eyed view of revolution shows that it almost always most hurts the people it is intended to help. Certainly during his early years, Tamayo was criticized for this although no one seems to have ever questioned the brilliance of his work.

As a result of this, he left Mexico in 1926 to live and work in New York. In 1949, he moved to Paris for a decade. But after that, he returned to Mexico for the rest of his long life—he died a couple months short of his 92nd birthday in 1991.

It’s hard to categorize Tamyao’s work. Wikipedia calls it “figurative abstraction,” which I suppose is as true as anything. But his work is quite varied over his long career, so any one description is certainly insufficient. I see a lot of Paul Klee in his work—especially in Tamyao’s use of colors. See, for example, Watermelons. But I’m fascinated by this painting that is rather different, Hombre Mirando Pajaros (“Man Looking at Bird”):

Happy birthday Rufino Tamayo!

Dorothea Tanning

Posted on 25 Aug 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1910, the great surrealist painter Dorothea Tanning was born. Sadly, she is probably better known as Max Ernst’s wife than as a painter. But her work is amazing. And she was basically a self-taught artist, which is remarkable given the classical aspects of her work. Before she was recognized for her serious work, she supported herself as a commercial artist in New York.

I called her work surreal, but that’s only because that is what she is best known for. Her later work is more abstract. I can see the the surrealism in it, but probably just because I know her earlier work. It is supremely confident and beautiful. She was also a poet and short story writer. You can read more about that and see an example of her later work in, With Our Souls in Our Laps.

Tanning only died two years ago at the age of 101. You can check out a number of her works at, ArtOdyssey. Here is one of my favorite of her paintings:

Happy birthday Dorothea Tanning!

Stephen Fry

Posted on 24 Aug 2014 by Frank Moraes

Today is the 57th birthday of the brilliant comedian Stephen Fry. I celebrated his birthday last year in the birthday post. But I didn’t talk about him much. (That was the way with birthday posts at that time.) So he deserves a real birthday.

At 17, he stole the credit card of a family friend. If you believe Wikipedia, this was a mistake. Listening to Fry talk about on a fairly dreadful documentary, I didn’t get the impression that it was such a naive act. But it could be that Fry has an incentive to make it sound worse than it was—like reformed Christians who claim to have been Satanists before they found God. Regardless, he spent three months in jail for the crime.

But unlike, say, a young black man in the United States, Fry was given another chance. Plus, he’s incredibly smart. So after a bit of time at City College Norwich, he got a scholarship to Queens’ College, Cambridge. That was where he met Hugh Laurie, who doesn’t have nearly as interesting a back story (his father has five names). The rest, as I say all the time, is history.

Here is a sketch from A Bit of Fry and Laurie, “Welcome to the Private Police Force.” It is making fun of the privatization of services and the Americanization of Britain. It’s very funny and brilliant satire:

Happy birthday Stephen Fry!

Sarah Frances Whiting

Posted on 23 Aug 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1847, the science educator Sarah Frances Whiting was born. She is best known for starting the physics department at Wellesley College and building the Whitin Observatory. (Note the different spelling: the observatory is named after the woman who provided the funding, Sarah Elizabeth Whitin.) Her father was a science teacher, but did not provide her with a formal education. She learned a lot, however; at 18, she received a Bachelor’s degree from Ingham University, the first women’s college in New York.

For a decade after graduating, she taught at the Brooklyn Heights Seminary for girls. She also became known among the scientists in that region. Today there are relatively few women physicists. At that time, there were almost none. So after Henry Fowle Durant started Wellesley College, it was logical that he turned to Whiting to set up the physics department.

Although primarily an educator, Whiting was very much a scientist. When Wilhelm Roentgen discovered x-rays in 1895, she put together the equipment to take the first x-ray photograph in the United States. It was of coins inside a change purse. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to find the image online. But this is a telling moment. The best scientists are the ones who jump at new opportunities.

She was a member of the American Physical Society at a time when women weren’t even allowed at their banquets. She was later elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. And in 1905, Tufts College gave her an honorary PhD for her contributions to science education.

Happy birthday Sarah Frances Whiting!

Addition information from: Women in Meteorology Before World War II

One Perfect Dorothy Parker

Posted on 22 Aug 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1893, the great writer Dorothy Parker was born. She is best known today for her clever sayings like, “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think” and her proposed epitaph, “Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.” But she was far more than this. She was quite an accomplished writer of poetry, short stories, screenplays, and nonfiction.

In her mid-20s, she became a replacement theater critic for Vanity Fair where she met people like Robert Benchley and Alexander Woollcott. Their lunches at the Algonquin Hotel became known as Algonquin Round Table. Basically, it was just a meeting place for clever and urbane people. But it was through this group that her work got a wider audience. According to Wikipedia, she published 300 poems during the 1920s. And she was on the board of editors of The New Yorker at its founding in 1925. During this period she also wrote a number of short stories, book reviews, and co-wrote the Broadway play Close Harmony.

In 1934 she went to Hollywood where she did quite well doing what we would now call “punching up” scripts. She did have screenwriting credit, however—most notably on A Star Is Born. In the 1950s, she was blacklisted because of her involvement in left wing politics. The executor of her will, for example, was Lillian Hellman and she bequeathed her estate to Martin Luther King Jr. So of course she was blacklisted!

What I still find interesting today is that no one went after former or even current fascists. And you can see just how radical Parker was by the fact that nothing she believed in is considered radical today. But the point is that anyone who stands up for the people against the power elite is attacked by whatever media and political organs are controlled by the power elite. And today, that means all of them. Of course, Parker was fine. She had money from all of her writing and was still employable in the magazine industry at places like Esquire.

She drank to excess in later years—especially after the suicide of her second and third husband, Alan Campbell. She died of a heart attack in 1967 at the age of 73. Here she is reading her poem “One Perfect Rose”:

Happy birthday Dorothy Parker!

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