Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Paco gumbo

I'll be offline for a few days, so here's a little bit of everything.

Chuck Berry rocks with "Run, Run, Rudolph".




Jerry Clower tells the story of his pessimistic barber.



A wrong turn goes about as wrong as it can go (language alert).

Pressure cooker fail...



Veeshir's got the end times covered.

Facts, shmacts. Global warming requires faith, baby (H/T: Common Cents).

Scientists in New Zealand have discovered fossils of a giant species of penguin. Based on an artist's reconstruction, they probably looked something like this...



Whew! What's that smell? Is that a landfill? No, it's the Mueller investigation.

Immigration minus assimilation equals disaster.

Jimmy Pruitt was a country swing and rockabilly musician active in the 50's and early sixties, and, although born blind, and largely self-taught, he had a great ear and a pair of magic hands that made him equally at home with the guitar and the piano. Here are a couple of performances from the old Town Hall Party TV program.






My guess is it's a secret Obama-era surveillance satellite.


14 comments:

RebeccaH said...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all the Paco clan, and all the Pacoistas.

Mike_W said...

Yeah, Merry Christmas all.
Jimmy Pruitt was very talented.
When I was much younger I used to play drums and believe it or not, sat in as practice drummer for a band called Ol' 55, when they were starting out.
The guys I was hanging with loved the style of music in the first Jimmy Pruitt video.

JeffS said...

Merry Christmas, Paco!

Deborah said...

Best wishes, Paco! If you're journeying, may it be safe and good. Since Rebecca started the Christmas wishes, let me add ours. Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours and the Paconistas!

bruce said...

Very Happy Christmas all.

We've been eating okra lately, yum. Jambalaya!

'Ol 55' may be singing at Carols in Sydney tonite. You'd be from 'the Shire' or thereabouts then Mike W? I'm from the Inner West.

Mike_W said...

Yes, Bruce, from Sutherland Shire.

Ol' 55 were a cool band.
Lots of clips on YouTube, ,"Ol' 55 - Time To Rock & Roll" is a good one.

Jimmy Manzie was the dux of Sydney Grammar and gave up a promising law career for music. He's the tall blonde guy. He always had a girl hanging off each arm.

The rest of the guys were budding professionals also; one was an architecture student at uni.

Mike_W said...

The Ol' 55 rendition of "Ruby" is also great.

Mike_W said...

I always beat Jimmy at chess, but Jimmy always beat me at picking up girls, blindfolded.

bruce said...

My mate 'Skip' managed the Mentals.

Our theme song was Cicada that ate Five Dock.

Actually a school friend of mine was Geraldine Brooks the novelist. Don't think she deserved a Pulitzer, much as I like her work and personality. Another friend is Deb Spillane, a hard core ABC leftist type unfortunately, memories are all we have in common. My wife is from the West Indies with lots of USA based relatives so that's where I heard so much about that part of the world and its food and culture. Anyone want to email just write to Paco and I'd be happy to respond.

Mike_W said...

Outline Cicada That Ate Five Dock 1981

Five Dock was always a weird suburb :)

Mike_W said...

The Cicada that ate Fivedock 32 years later.

Who says geriatrics can't rock?

bruce said...

Yes I had a role in promoting that revival, Glenn Baker was MC that nite.

Originally it was the Drummoyne Cicadas football team war cry done like a Hakka: 'ick! ick! ick! ick!' to terrorise the other team. We got in to the rock business because it attracted girls. Mr Trump was right, when you're a star they let you...

I'll tell you what was weird: when we went to Cronulla on the train as a bunch of inner west sharpies with mullets and tight pants with braces, with our surfboards.

bruce said...

Geraldine lived in Ashfield which she wrote a book about - 'Foreign Correspondence' - but then she lived in Burwood just around the corner from our rehearsal studio where we experimented with the crazy riffs which later went into 'Cicada'. (Some Greek Bouzouki influence too)

Geraldine started as a brave journalist who was with the Kurds in Iraq being bombed by Saddam, reporting for the WSJ. Lovely lady but also smart. In our school's production of The Tempest she played Miranda, with the lines 'Oh brave new world that has such people in it!'.

The bass player in my band is now an engineer in the US who does some military work. But he's also a Russian Orthodox priest, rich and married (to a Russian of course). Crazy world. He grew up in Housing Commission.

Mike_W said...

"I'll tell you what was weird: when we went to Cronulla on the train as a bunch of inner west sharpies with mullets and tight pants with braces, with our surfboards."

Bruce, that whole Westie/Surfie rivalry thing makes me laugh.

I'll wager you guys thought you were being totally outrageous and would provoke some sort of riot in Cronulla; the reality would have been that the Cronulla surfies would have been too busy surfing and throwing beach parties for their blonde girlfriends.