LEGENDARY MAINE SINGER - SONGWRITER DAVE MALLETT DIED AT AGE SEVENTY-THREE

 

Coincidences, creating a strange connection with a person you don’t actually know, at pivotal times in your lifetime, can leave you with a feeling of kinship.

 

At forty-one years of age, my wife at twenty-eight, we bought an old farmhouse for ten thousand dollars.  We had no electricity, we carried our water from the creek behind the house, read by lamplight and heated with firewood – and became freshmen at the University of Maine.

One night after a late class we found there was to be entertainment at the commons.    That was the first time we heard Dave Mallett.

 

 

Just before graduation, we blanketed Alaska rural school districts with applications for teaching positions.  A week before graduation, we celebrated by making dinner reservations at 1 Stanley Avenue in Kingfield, Maine.  A historic old house, the owners prepared gourmet meals by reservation only for a limited number of guests.  After the meal, we went into the parlor and Dave Mallett and his bass player performed for ten of us.

A week later we loaded up in our small Toyota pickup, and as we pulled out of our yard headed for Alaska, I popped in a tape of Dave Mallett singing North to Alaska.

 

One summer we returned to New England on vacation and found Dave Mallett performing at a bar in Bar Harbor, Maine.

 

After teaching for eight years in the Alaska bush, we decided to return to the lower-forty-eight.   As we approached the border between Alaska and Yukon’s Alcan Highway, Alaska Public Radio announced a song by the Maine artist Dave Mallett, and as we physically left Alaska Dave Mallett was singing on our radio.

 

Several years later we returned to Maine.   The first summer back we attended the Common Ground Fair, one of the largest organic farming fairs in New England.  On the events list, we found that Dave Mallett was going to play that night.  So that night we got a blanket from our car, sat on the ground, and listened to Dave Mallet.

 

CELEBRATION

We have attended two other Dave Mallett concerts when he performed in our area.

 

Two nights ago, Dave Mallett died at his home at the age of seventy-three.

NOTHING BUT A LONG GOODBY

 

Though we never actually knew him, it has come as a shock to both my wife and I.

GOOD BY DAVE 

the Ol’Buzzard

 

THE STRAND MAGAZINE

 

 If you are a mystery buff or a Sherlock Holmes devotee you must check out the Strand Magazine. 

 

 

 

The website is www.strandmag.com 

 

The Strand is not a cheap diminutive magazine; it measures 11x8.5 inches and the pages are slick quality paper.   These are magazines you will wish to collect. 

Each issue features an interview with a major mystery writer and includes short stories by and about well-known writers.  

 

The Strand Magazine is known for publishing the original Sherlock stories,

 and each issue contains a Holmes adventure.

 

There is a downside.   Reviews contained many complaints about missing or later responses to orders:  I placed an order and promptly received an email acknowledging the order.  Ten days later nothing.  I tried to call the 800 number and discovered, after many tries over three days, that they don’t answer their phone, but send all calls to voice mail.  In frustration, I made a complaint on their Blog.  The next day I received an email that my order was in progress and a shipping date.  I have received the order and am satisfied. 

 

The magazine is worth the annoyance.

 

the Ol’Buzzard

 

 

WHY DOES AMERICA HAVE A FIXATION ON GUNS?

 

 

The answer is easy. We are a warrior nation. In our 249-year history, 150 years have been spent fighting declared wars. When we add peacekeeping missions, invasions, naval campaigns, rebellions, occupations, operations, and interventions, it would be safe to say that there has never been a time when American military forces were not in combat status somewhere on the glove.

 

American Revolution: 1775-1783

Barbary War: 1801-1805

Mexican-American War: 1846-1848

Opium War: 1856-1859

Civil War: 1861-1865

Spanish American War: 1898

Philippine War: 1899-1902

Boxer Rebellion: 1899-1901

Mexican Border War: 1910-1919

WW-I: 1914-1918

WW-II: 1939-1945

Korean War: 1950-1953

Vietnam War: 1965-1975

Gulf War: 1990-1991

Afghanistan War: 2001-2021

Iraq War: 2003-2011

 

The Indian Wars alone lasted 81 years, from 1817-1898

We glorify our military and celebrate our veterans.  They are our heroes, our knights of the realm.

Is it any wonder that posers, insecure in their manhood, line up to purchase AKs and dress up in military garb?

In this society, the gun is the man.

 

 

the Ol’Buzzard

  

1,460 DAYS

 

 

One thousand four hundred sixty days; that is how long Donald Trump will legally be president.  

If I live to see the end of Trump’s presidency, I will be approaching ninety years old. 

I do not want to waste four years of the last years of my life focusing on outrageous or outright idiotic machinations of Donald Trump.

This country may go to hell in a handbasket over the next four years (as my grandmother might have said), and I don’t want to be carrying around the basket.

So don’t give me no bad news:

 You can fuck me silly with a Handy Billy

But don't give me no bad news.

the Ol'Buzzard

 

 

A BUDDHIST PERSPECTIVE ON ANOTHER TRUMP PRESIDENCY

 

I haven’t watched the news since Donald Trump won the election.  Have I missed anything?   I think not.  I know I haven’t missed my morning shot of aggravation with Morning Joe.

 

The Buddha taught that life is chaos, but everything is impermanent and will pass.   Many, if not most, things are out of our control.  Focusing on things we cannot control brings stress into our lives.

 

We are the cause of our own dissatisfaction. 

 

We are creatures of modicum intellect, living in a meaningless world. We should not squander our precious time on this earth focusing on the chaos that our species causes in this world,  but instead focus on the beauty around us in the time we have.

Donald Trump will pass, I will pass, you will pass.

“Alas, poor Yorick!  I knew him, Horatio…”

the Ol'Buzzard

ON THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES PUBLISHED 165 YEARE AGO

 

 

To deny objective truths is to be scientifically illiterate, not to be ideologically principled.

(Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Starry Messenger perspectives on Civilization.)  

 

 

On this day, November 24^th, in 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, which ignited the sometimes violent controversy over the origin of man.

Today, the evolutionary tree of life has been so well documented that scientists consider it an ‘objective truth.’

 

Yet, one hundred and sixty-five years later there are still people, tying their personal beliefs to a two thousand years old book that was the impetus of the Dark Ages, a time of scientific ignorance and religious persecution - and with their banners flying high demand that Creationism be taught to children in school, in place the scientific objective truth of Darwinian Evolution.

Ignorance abides

the Ol’Buzzard

MAGA RETRIBUTION AND COVID-19

 

 

Yesterday my wife and I took our COVID-19 boosters.   When we got home my wife commented on the life-threatening treatment that Dr Fauci experienced by Donald Trump and his MAGA followers. 

 

I think it is undeniable that MAGA is a cult following of a charismatic con man.    You can disagree with people, but only cult members would see a disagreement with their Dear Leader as a call to violence and persecution.

 

Dr. Fauci is a scientist who was head of the Center for Disease Control. You may disagree with Fauci, but during the COVID-19 epidemic he gave his best scientific advice, based on years of experience and scientific data on how pandemics behave.

 

People have every right to disagree and even to ignore his recommendations; but threatening his life, stalking him, sieging his home, and pillorying him on the internet is the act of extreme reaction that you find in cult members.

 

Swatting, showing up armed at a person’s home, threatening family members, threatening physical harm just because you disagree with someone, these are not the actions of civil disagreement, they are not the actions of responsible people, these are the actions of people who have drunk the Kool-Aid.   These are dangerous people, and unfortunately, they make up a considerable percentage of the MAGA base.

 

Not all people who voted for Trump are MAGA cult members.  They are people who voted their conscience.   Though their politics differ from mine, they are neighbors and friends.

 

Trump was elected.  He will be our President.  I am not thrilled about it, but I am not going to take up arms against his followers.

 

 I can’t help but wonder, had he not been elected, what kind of violence would the Nation have experienced from his MAGA cult followers?

 

the Ol’Buzzard

 

THE BEST MOVIES EVER MADE

 

 

So says the Ol’Buzzard

There are approximately 258,000,000 adults in the United States and likely 258,000,000 different opinions on what movie would rank on top in each genre.

Movie critics get paid big bucks for their opinions, but who the hell are they to tell us what we should like and dislike?

So here is the Ol’Buzzard’s opinion of the best of the best.

ADVENTURE MOVIE

It would have to be: 

1996 film Ghost in the Darkness 

ROMANTIC MOVIE

Not big on Romances, but this…

1965 film Dr Zhivago 

 

HORROR MOVIE

A lot of good Stephen King stories have been butchered by movie producers, but this one was good.

1980 film The Shining

 

DRAMA MOVIE

I love this one.

1986 film The Name of the Rose

WESTERN

Eastwood’s best performance.

1992 film The Unforgiven

CRIME MOVIE

This is an easy one: 1972 The Godfather

Leave the gun.  Take the cannoli

 

DETECTIVE MOVIE

Any of the British productions of Sherlock Holmes movies with Jeremy Brett.

 

THE BEST CLASSIC MOVIE:

1951 The African Queen

 

I am leaving out some of my favorites:

1999 The 13^th Warrior (from the Book Eaters of the Dead)

 

1967 The Fearless Vampire Killers

Sci-Fi movies: no opinion

 

Perhaps a person’s favorite movie list is a view into who that person is.

The Ol’Buzzard

 

 

THRONE OF GRACE

 

As a child, I fantasized about the mountain men of the old West.  I have always felt that had I been born in that era …

 

One man against the wilderness, running trap lines, bringing furs to rendezvous, independent of the world. 

 

But it wasn’t that way.

 

When I graduated from high school, I had no money and no future, so at age nineteen, I enlisted in the military.

 

It was much the same for mountain men: Travel to Missouri; enlist with one of the fur barons; be outfitted and transported in groups of hundreds into wilderness areas ripe with beaver; spend the winter trapping, and in the spring return to a designated area and be paid by the pelt by the company.

  

Not as glamorous as is made out to be.

You wore the same clothes all winter, didn’t bathe, subsisted on a meager diet, and endured harsh weather.   From daylight to dust you ran traplines, and prepared skins; all the time in danger from the local Indian tribes.   If you survived the winter, you got paid a fraction of what your skins were worth – then the option of signing up for another winter.

Mountain men opened the hostile environment of the West, which led to the Western expansion.

 

If you are interested in the real history of the mountain men, then Throne of Grace is a must-read: a history laced with adventure, and a story of amazing men of endurance and bravery. 

Kid Carson

Jim Bridger

Jedediah Smithy

James Beckwourth

Joseph Walker

Hugh Glass

Jim Baker

John Colter

Grizzly Adams

Respect

the Ol'Buzzard

 

ALIENS DO EXIST, AND THEY ARE WALKING AMONG YOU!

 

 

 

HOW DO I KNOW?

BECAUSE I - AM ONE.

The planet I came from exists in a time warp, in another space-time continuum, with a world population of just over two billion people.  

Our citizens adjusted to the end of a massive world war.  The economy was returning, but prices for necessities were still high.  A quart of milk costs twenty-five cents, a loaf of bread is fifteen cents, and gas is almost a quarter a gallon. 

Men controlled our world – white men.

As directed by the Bible, men were the head of the family and women were mothers and housewives.  Men smoke and drink alcohol for relaxation.   Male life expectancy was nearly sixty years.  Unlike your world men didn't wear shorts and sneakers, men wore long pants and leather shoes; feet tend to sweat in leather shoes leaving men with stinky feet.  There were numerous products available for foot odor. 

We were advancing in technology.  We had long been able to use a telephone with the aid of a telephone operator.  In some cities, phones were automated and could be dialed for direct connection.   Of course, we could mail letters for the price of a three-cent stamp, and our recipient will receive the letter in five or six days.   An airmail stamp will cut the delivery time to three days.

Transportation for us was train, bus, or automobile.  Automobiles require constant tune-ups and were difficult to start in the winter.  Flat tires and blowouts were common, but everyone who drove was proficient in changing a tire.

Our world had no television and family entertainment was centered around radios.  We could listened to news, mysteries, comedies, and even children’s programs. 

Air conditioning didn't exist.   We had fans to cool us, and in summertime we slept with our windows open.  At night, in the summer, we sat on our front porch and spoke to our neighbors as they strolled by.

Technology was advancing.  We had commercial air for those who could afford it, and our planes could fly over one hundred miles per hour and to almost ten thousand feet without oxygen. 

The military was experimenting with rockets and there was talk of sending man to the moon.  It concerned me that a military project developed an atomic bomb that killed two hundred and fifty thousand civilians 

That was the world of my childhood.  Now I find myself in your world.  I have been transported through a wormhole. through time and space. It seems to have happened very fast. 

Over eight billion people populate your world, and the number increases exponentially. 

  The technology of this new world is mind-blowing, and I struggle to keep up, 

 Otherwise, this world is as fucked-up as the one I inhabited.

 Instead of overt racial animosity, there is political animosity;

 the natural environment is much worse, your air is bad, your water is polluted, and few unspoiled wilderness areas still exist;

 

hunger, war, and poverty are tolerated by your government and citizens; 

there is a massive financial gap between the haves and have-nots;

 the availability of guns has turned your country into a war zone, where even children are not safe in schools;

 extreme fundamentalist religious cults still influence public discourse; ignorance still abides.

The human beings of my world seeded your world.   Though quantum leaps in technology would have you perceived as an advanced civilization in my world, your humanity has not changed.  You still share 98 percent of your DNA with lower primates, which inserts its dominance.

Yes. I am an alien from another world.  Everyone who looks at me can tell that I am an alien, and identify others just like me.

By the way, flying saucers don’t exist.

the Ol’Buzzard