Former Socialist, Former Republican, Former Contributor to The American Spectator, Former Resident of Canada, Back in Boston Area After Stints in New York City & Atlanta, Current Mustache Wearer & Aficionado of Baseball, Bowling in All Its Forms, Cats, Music & Healthy Living
(The Band from left to right: Richard Manuel, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson & Robbie Robertson)
Among my earliest childhood memories are album covers.
A few which comes to mind:
The Beatles Abbey Road
Bob Dylan Blood on the Tracks
Bob Dylan Nashville Skyline
Simon & Garfunkel Bridge Over Troubled Water
America America
Blood Sweat and Tears Blood Sweat and Tears
The Moody Blues Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
Gordon Lightfoot Sit Down Young Stranger (later retitled If You Could Read My Mind)
Ozark Mountain Daredevils It'll Shine When It Shines
Carly Simon Greatest Hits
The Band The Band (a.k.a. The Brown Album)
It is this last album on which I wish to focus at this time as all five members of The Band have left our mortal coil with the passing of Garth Hudson on January 21st.
Yet in some way when I first saw this picture as a wee lad, I thought these guys were already dead as they looked like they had lived during the Civil War. Mind you, I don't think I knew anything about the Civil War when I was four years old. Nevertheless, they looked to me as if they were from another time.
I remember The Brown Album being played sporadically during my formative years. But it wasn't until about 1985 that I really began to listen to it in earnest. While The Brown Album is best known for "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and "Up on Cripple Creek", my favorite track was and remains "Whispering Pines", the closing cut on side one.
"Whispering Pines" is the gentlest yet most somber song on The Band with Richard Manuel's wailing, at times faint pleading vocal which is held onto with dear life guided by Hudson's Lowrey organ. Manuel is accompanied by Levon Helm on the third verse:
Standing by the well Wishing for the rains Reaching to the clouds For nothing else remains Drifting in a daze When evening will be done Try looking through a haze At an empty house, in the cold, cold sun
I could hear the anguish in Manuel's voice. A voice silenced when Manuel took his own life on March 4, 1986, a month shy of his 43rd birthday. Of all the subsequent passings, it is Manuel's which I remember the most. Aside from "Whispering Pines", the songs on this album which resonated with me most deeply are "Across the Great Divide", "Jawbone" and "King Harvest" all of which were sung by Manuel. The fact that he could not bear to share his voice for all eternity is something which has stayed with me for nearly 40 years and will continue to do so for as long as I shall live.
As life progressed, I learned about their debut album Music from Big Pink, their formative years backing up Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan and The Last Waltz. I even saw them play once (without Robbie Robertson) during Canada Day festivities on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in the early 1990s.
Notwithstanding that negative impression, Robertson will always be part of The Band and The Band will remain an integral part of my musical upbringing. The Band might be gone but the Brown Album will play on for as long as I have ears to hear.
Despite the fact the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) hadn't begun its investigation, President Trump wasted no time in telling us what led to the crash - DEI.
The President claimed, "A group within the FAA determined that the workforce was too white, then they had concerted efforts to get the administration to change that and to change it immediately. This was in the Obama administration.” Trump also claimed former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg ran his department "right into the ground with his diversity."
When challenged to back up his assertions, Trump maintained he has "common sense."
If you go back to just some of the headlines over the past 10 years, you have many hundreds of people suing the government because they would like to be air traffic controllers, but they were turned away because of the color of their skin. That policy ends under Donald Trump's leadership because safety is the first priority of our aviation industry.
But they're not supposed to add up. The Trump Administration has created a story, and they are sticking to it. The reason they are sticking to it is because they know there is a significant segment of the country which will accept what they say at face value and will repeat it because that is what they want to hear.
Meanwhile, 67 people are dead and instead of consoling the families of those who perished and providing reassurance, President Trump and his quislings are disregarding their grief so they can use their deaths as a cudgel to scapegoat DEI.
The second Trump Administration is scarcely 10 days old. Today's display of cruelty is but the tip of the iceberg which runs colder than the depths of the Potomac.
Scherzer, 40, is among the greatest pitchers to ever toe the mound.
He enters the 2025 season with a career record of 212-116 with an ERA of 3.16 striking out 3407 batters in only 2878 innings pitched while walking a mere 756. His 3407 strikeouts are 11th on MLB's all-time list only 9 strikeouts behind former Detroit Tigers and New York Mets teammate Justin Verlander. Scherzer also has two World Series rings (2019 Washington Nationals and 2023 Texas Rangers) and three Cy Youngs (one in the AL with the Tigers in 2013 and back-to-back honors in the NL with the Nats in 2016 and 2017).
However, injuries to his back, shoulder and hamstring limited him to only 9 starts with the Rangers in 2024 which saw him go 2-4 with a 3.95 ERA. What are the chances he stays healthy in 2025?
But let us assume Scherzer is healthy and returns to form. If the Jays aren't contenders at the All-Star Break, his tenure north of the border shall be short-lived.
The Blue Jays are Scherzer's seventh MLB team. Scherzer has spent his career with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Detroit Tigers, Washington Nationals, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets and the Texas Rangers.
Then came release of the seven remaining hostages - Israelis Arbel Yehoud and Gadi Mozes along with Thai agricultural workers Thenna Pongsak, Sathian Suwannakham, Sriaoun Watchara, Seathao Bannawat, and Rumnao Surasak.
The release of Yehoud and Mozes, who were held by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, proved to be the most difficult. Both hostages were forced to walk through a crowd surrounded by angry Palestinians eager for Hamas or Islamic Jihad to kill them on the spot.
I don't know if it will be sufficient for Hamas to release the next group of hostages in a more humane way. After all, there is nothing humane about Hamas. They demonstrate whether they take a person hostage and when they release that hostage from captivity.
Yes, there are 8 more hostages who now get to live their lives, and this is a very good thing.
I have an awful feeling that one of these days, ceasefire agreement notwithstanding, that one of the living hostages is going to be killed by a Palestinian mob while Hamas looks on while looking the other way.
When such inquiries are established, its members are appointed by the Chief Justice of Israel's Supreme Court as was the case with the Agranat Commission following the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Shimon Agranat was then Israel's Supreme Court chief justice.
However, with the Netanyahu government at war with the Supreme Court, it plans to come up with its own inquiry which would be appointed by the Knesset consisting of government and opposition members. Of course, this defeats the whole purpose of having an independent inquiry. A government-controlled inquiry would minimize any responsibility for any intelligence and military failures leading up to October 7th on Netanyahu and his coalition.
Of course, Hamas bears the blame of what happened on October 7th. It planned the attack and carried it out. An independent inquiry would not change that fact. Nevertheless, it must be determined if the attack could have been prevented or at least mitigated and identify steps as to how such an attack is to be prevented from happening again.
Then again, Netanyahu is all too aware of what happened after the Agranat Commission. Golda Meir resigned as Prime Minister. This is exactly the last thing Netanyahu intends to do whatever responsibility he might bear. Certainly, so long as Donald Trump is in the White House.
Musk's appearance at this rally comes only days after making a Nazi salute during President Trump's inauguration rally at the Capitol One Arena in Washington, D.C.
Frankly, I'm surprised Musk wasn't sporting a mustache by now.
Even if AfD doesn't win the election, I have a feeling it will play an influential role in the next German government and so too will Musk.
It's bad enough that Musk has power in the Trump Administration. It will be even worse if he has power in Germany where he in a position to tell Germans to forget about the Holocaust and go ahead and persecute Jews once more.
On Saturday night, I went to the Somerville Theatre to see The Brutalist starring Adrien Brody. Earlier this week, The Brutalist was nominated for 10 Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actor (Brody) and Best Director (Brady Corbet).
It was my first time in over a year at the Somerville Theatre. I could have seen a later showing of the film at the Kendall Square Cinema. But a film as grandiose as The Brutalist not only must be viewed in a movie theatre, but in an old movie theatre. The Somerville Theatre which will turn 111 this year fit the bill.
Indeed, like the movies of yesteryear, The Brutalist featured an overture at the beginning of the film and an intermission in the middle. However, unlike any movie I've seen, the opening credits were presented horizontally while the closing credits were presented diagonally.
In between the opening and closing credits was a 3½ hour story about the life of a Jewish architect named Laszlo Toth (Brody) and his life in post-WWII America. The first part of the film covers the period between 1947-1952 as he struggles to find his foundation in America while trying to bring over his wife and niece who remain in Europe. The second part of the film covers the period between 1953-1960 where Laszlo is reunited with his wife (played by Felicity Jones) and niece (played by Raffey Cassidy). During this period, Laszlo has been commissioned to build a vast center of creation and activity for a wealthy benefactor (portrayed by Guy Pearce in what was the most dynamic performance of the film). Pearce has received a Best Supporting Actor nomination while Jones has also been nominated for Best Supporting Actress. The epilogue of the film is set in 1980 where a now wheelchair bound Toth is a guest of honor at an exhibit of his work in Venice.
One thing that will stay with me was the first line on the closing credits - In Memory of Scott Walker.
Scott Walker is among my favorite musicians from his tenure with The Walker Brothers and his solo albums during the 1960's and 1970's. Over time, however, Walker's music became more avant-garde featuring blocks of sound without a formal song structure. While I was aware that Walker had done some film work, I was not aware that Walker's final works before his death in 2019 were on Corbet's films The Childhood of a Leader and Vox Lux. During the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, Corbet spoke of Walker's influence on his work, his collaborations with Walker and how composer Daniel Blumberg's music for The Brutalist was a continuation and an evolution of Walker's work.
As for Brody, this performance puts him back on the A-list. Brody has enjoyed a fine career since becoming the youngest actor to win Best Actor for his performance as a Holocaust survivor in The Pianist with his collaborations with Wes Anderson in films like The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch and Asteroid City, this is his most critically acclaimed role in more than decades. There's something about Adrien Brody playing a Holocaust survivor. I will say that Brody appears as though he has hardly aged over the past quarter century.
The Brutalist is a stark, modern epic which one ought to see once in your lifetime.
