Blog Archives

Willie Nelson

9/26/2019

Willie Nelson is arguably one of the greatest music artists of all time. When he signed with Atlantic Records he had a lot of success but he didn't like how they were influencing his music; basically, they were attempting to bend him to the market and make him more commercialized. This isn't how Willie rolls.

When Willie got the opportunity, he signed with Columbia Records and the contract gave him much greater control over the production of his albums. The very first one he wanted to do was pretty much just him in a studio with his guitar and a couple other people. Columbia was scared to death about investing in an album like this that was almost completely stripped down of other musical instruments or even recording gizmos to make the sound quality better, not authentic, but better in their opinions.

When Willy handed the executives a tape they listened to it and said it wasn't a very good demo tape to which Willy replied, "That ain't a demo, that's the album." Willy was adamant about creating the album "old school," so to speak, so the executives at Columbia were livid but they figured they'd allow Willy to crash and burn with his album then he'd be ready to listen to them the next time around.

The album was called the "Red Headed Stranger," and it was released in 1975. It was a concept album about a fugitive on the run from the law after killing his wife and her lover. Not only did the album reach number one and Willie was featured on the cover of The Rolling Stones, but a movie was released in 1986 called: "The Red Headed Stranger," and it led to a television series and a comic book called: "Preacher," which is one of the songs on the album.

By the way, the album became a cult classic and remained on music charts for over five years! It opened the door to a new brand of country music called: "Outlaw," which meant the artists weren't going to follow the mainstream and instead just play their music.

Maybe you remember one of the songs from this award winning album? If you don't, then you're just blue eyes crying in the rain. :)

For All Have Sinned

9/19/2019

If you're not into spirtual stuff, just mosey on down to the next article. :)

When Jesus was crucified he had one man on both sides of him. Both men were of bad enough character for the citizens and Roman officials to want them killed. One of the men was ashamed of the life he led and he told Jesus so and he also said that he believed that Jesus was the son of God. Jesus told this man that they would be together in heaven. A very short and simple interaction.

Don't think it's too late to be saved and try to turn your life around, and please don't think you're too bad a person to deserve forgiveness; not from the people around you as that is never guaranteed, but by Jesus who has shown himself to be loving and merciful and definitely in the business of loving the worst of the worst.

Never give up. Never stop trying to do the right thing. We'll always fail. We'll never be perfect. We'll never live up to righteousness. Don't wait until you think you might be good enough to accept Christ, he takes you as your are. The church is filled with sinners, there's not a righteous person in there, just a bunch of flawed people who appreciate God's love and mercy. If any of them think they're better than someone else, and there are some, it's just another flaw of many that we all have. We have a human tendency to focus on the sins of others, basically the bad stuff they do is worse than the bad stuff we do, but that's not how God works. The verse in the Bible that tells us judge not lest we be judged, scares the heck out of me.

It's an awesome thing to realize that someone is there who knows just how sick we are mentally and physically, but loves us unconditionally. Would those who do love us still love us if they knew our thoughts? God does. It's amazing grace and it is a sweet sound! May true peace and joy be with you always.

Love,
Brother John

Celebrity Politicians

9/19/2019

Rumor has it that Taylor Swift is considering getting into politics (I don't know when); she says she's obsessed with it. It appears that although she had her roots in conservatism and country music, that she's probably going to run as a Democrat.

What these celebrities don't get is that they're surrounded by people who make money off of them so everything they say or do is going to be brilliant. Their jokes are funny. Their ideology is genius. Their sycophants hang on their every word so these celebrities form an opinion of themselves that isn't based on reality.

They get even more support when they appear at events like award shoes, when they go off on Trump and other Republicans; but, it's not the real world. They are preaching to a liberal choir. Celebrities aren't challenged, they're not in a format to be challenged and show their ignorance of various topics. A majority of the country wouldn't cheer their political ideology. A majority of Americans would recognize the fluff and no substance in what these celebrities are saying.

Contrary to their beliefs, most of them don't know much about the Constitution, economics, history, and political science, but it doesn't stop them from explaining these topics to everyone. They won't know the truth about themselves until they're no longer paying people who have every reason to flatter them about everything. They're living in a pseudo world, they just don't know it yet.

Bogus New York Times Article

9/18/2019

So The New York Times in reference to their discredited article about Supreme Court Justice Kavanagh, is blaming an editor for the "mistake." The authors of the article handed over their story to the Times and clearly listed that they couldn't collaborate the story with any witnesses beyond the one whose statement wasn't confirmed and who had worked for the Clinton Administration. The article lacked everything it would need to be legitimate. They've already been on a few shows sharing what the NYT's did to them.

This hasn't stopped Democrats for pushing to impeach Kavanagh. He isn't guilty of anything. The New York Times has even apologized for the article, but Dems are trying to make their constituents think that Kavanagh is guilty. They are so shameless. They lie without any hesitation. Our country is in huge trouble because its moral fabric has been torn to shreds. .

Rick Ocasek (1944 - 2019)

9/17/2019

Rick Ocasek, who was the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the group: The Cars, just passed away at the age of 75 from heart disease. Not only did his group have awesome songs which mostly Rick wrote such as: “Drive,” “My Best Friend’s Girl,” “You Might Think,” “Shake It Up,” and “Good Times Roll,” they also won the very first MTV Music Video Award for Best Video. They were a very artistic/creative group, so their videos were often fan favorites. They couldn't be compared to any other group as their sound was unique.

He loved music but didn’t have many people around him as excited about it as he was so he was kind of lost in high school. His parents made him attend college at Bowling Green State University but he couldn't stand being there so he dropped out to pursue a career in music. As you can imagine, his parents weren't thrilled.

Rick spent the first six years back in the early 70’s trying to get a band up and running but had several failures. He finally found the right mix of talent and The Cars were formed in 1976 in Boston. They were officially touring and putting out albums beginning in 1978. During this process, they found that Rick had a lot of talent in the production studio and he ended up producing records for other artists. By the way, his first album titled: “The Cars,” stayed on Billboard’s Top 200 Chart for over two years.

The Cars disbanded in 1988 after a great ten-year run. Rick went on to dabble in putting out some solo work, but he had other passions as well including art and poetry. He released a book of poetry in 1993. In 2012, Ocasek released Lyrics and Prose, a complete collection of lyrics from his solo and Cars' albums. The book also contains prose and poetry never set to music, as well as previously unpublished photographs and artwork. There were many offers during these years for The Cars to begin touring again but Rick wasn’t interested; he did tell the other band members to go ahead and he recommended a good lead singer to replace him. Going out on the road again touring had no interests to him.

Rick was married three times, once when he was very young, and they had two boys. He divorced her in 1970. He then remarried (Suzanne), in 1971, and they had two boys. During filming of the music video for the Cars' song "Drive" in 1984, Ocasek met 18-year-old supermodel Paulina Porizkova — while he was still married to Suzanne. Five years later he divorced her after 18 years of marriage and married Porizkova. They had two boys so at this point Rick had six sons. His oldest son became a music artist as well and his music was featured in the movie: Pretty Woman. After around 29 years of marriage, he and Porizkova separated in 2018. It was a friendly separation and they were still doing things together up until Rick passed away.

Rick’s music was amazing, but the bottom line is that he was an artist with many creative outlets. He dreamed of playing in a band and he got to live his dream for ten years, but after this, he wanted to express himself in other ways. If you're having trouble remembering what Rick looked like, picture Howard Stern as they could've been brothers; they even sounded alike. :)

An Unseen Danger

9/15/2019

Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis (1818 – 1865), was a Hungarian physician and scientist, now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Semmelweis proposed the practice of washing hands with chlorinated lime solutions in 1847 while working in an obstetrical clinic, where doctors' wards had three times the mortality of midwives' wards. Semmelweis investigated what midwives were doing differently and noticed they had a greater concern for cleanliness such as washing their hands.

Semmelweis's observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. He couldn’t offer an acceptable scientific explanation for his findings even though he was able to show that midwives had a much better success rate. Some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they weren’t clean and should wash their hands. He was being ridiculed by many doctors and scientists. Keep in mind that the impact of bacteria/germs wasn’t common knowledge at the time.

In 1865, Semmelweis supposedly suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to an insane asylum by one of his colleagues. In less than two weeks, and at the age of 47, he died from complications due to being beaten by guards.

Semmelweis's theories earned widespread acceptance years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory and the famous Sir Joseph Lister from Britain, began using hygienic methods during his surgeries, with great success. Not unlike some artists, Dr. Semmelweis didn’t become famous until after he died.

A Creative Movie

9/15/2019

One of Universal Studios most profitable films was a sleeper hit in 1995. Someone showed studio executives a "short," science fiction film from the 60's and they loved it so they had two screenwriters turn it into a motion picture.

Even though the script was definitely different, they were able to get Christopher Plumber, Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, and Madeleine Stowe to star in it. The movie ended up winning awards and Brad Pitt was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and he won a Golden Globe Award.

The movie is called: Twelve Monkeys, and although it's about 25 years old, it's still worth watching because the storyline is so creative. It's not the type movie that you can step away from for a moment, too much is going on so you should remain focused to get the most out of the movie.

If you haven't seen the film and you like Sci-Fi's, you should check it out. If you saw it a long time ago, you should see it again. Although the movie hasn't changed, inevitably you have. :)

Biased Debate

9/15/2019

The mainstream media gets so mad when people call them out for being biased but they prove it again and again. Here's a couple of pieces of evidence as to their liberal bias instead of asking hard-hitting questions at the presidential debate:

1) Beto O'Rourke said he's going to confiscate certain weapons from U.S. citizens. Any legitimate news organization would ask a very important question that pretty much everyone listening to the broadcast would want to know, and that is: "How are you going to confiscate them?" Think about it, why in the world did they not pose this follow-up question? I guess they could be just that bad of a news agency or maybe it's something else, like their political ideology?

2) There were no questions about the economy.

3) With all the promises of various new social programs, ABC didn't ask how they were going to pay for them? Biden was the only one who brought it up. Even if they did ask, and received the usual answer that the rich were "finally," going to pay "their fair share," there's an even more important question to ask, and that's how they're going to get their legislations passed through the House and Senate? Even if these new programs were miraculously passed, Trump would veto them and there wouldn't be a 2/3rds majority to overturn his veto. In other words, they could've called these politicians out for making promises they can't keep but they didn't. A real, unbiased, news organization would've taken that step, that's their job. They say they're in business to look out for us, but they're not. They're now in the business of propagating.

The bottom line is that it's ridiculous for the mainstream media to try and portray themselves as unbiased. How can anyone trust news from them regarding politics? If someone wants to read or watch the mainstream media for entertainment then that makes sense, but if they're going to use these sources as legitimate insight, they're being naïve. It's certainly working for them as this is why we hear so many crazy things out of some in the far-left that lack common sense and logic.

Dave Thomas (1932 - 2002)

9/14/2019

Fifty years ago, Dave Thomas founded Wendy's restaurant, named after his daughter. Her real name was Melinda Lou but Wendy was her nickname and it definitely sounded better than Melinda Lou for the name of a restaurant.

Dave was adopted when he was around six weeks old thus why out of his many charities, he was very committed to helping children. His adoptive mother died when he was five and he and his dad moved around a lot. He couldn't remember a time when he wasn't working but he got into the food business when he was twelve and did every job possible from bussing/cleaning tables, cooking, running the cash register, ordering supplies, waiting tables, washing dishes, etc. He was closing the restaurant and knew how to manage the books, by the time he was 15. Because he was working so much, school wasn't a priority and he never received his high school diploma. Around 23 years after he started Wendy's, he received his GED.

When the Korean War broke out in 1950, he was 18 years old and he volunteered to serve. Because of his expertise in the restaurant business, the military sent him to a special school where he learned to feed in masses. Dave ended up on a military base in West Germany where he was responsible for feeding over 2,000 soldiers a day. Can you imagine how talented he must've been at that young age to accomplish this? He achieved the rank of staff-sergeant in just three years, which is amazing.

After the war he became the head cook at a family owned restaurant (the Klauss family), in Fort Wayne, Indiana. One day a man by the name of Harlan Sanders came into town and convinced the Klauss' to buy into his Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise. They ended up owning several. It was a great experience for Dave because the restaurant owners let him run that part of their business.

Dave ended up leaving the Klauss' restaurant business because Colonel Sanders wanted him to be his director of franchise operations. Dave's specialty was getting franchisee's up and running and to help restaurants that were struggling. Sanders had given Dave a few shares of KFC when he joined his company and then one day Dave told him he wanted to go out on his own and start a new kind of fast food restaurant to compete against McDonald's. Colonel Sanders bought Dave's shares for $1.5 million dollars ($11 million in today's dollars). He used this money to open his first Wendy's one year later; now there are over 6,000 restaurants.

Dave died in 2002 at the age of 69, from cancer. He was married to his wife, Lorraine for 47 years and they had five children. He's one of the greatest entrepreneurs and philanthropists in U.S. history.

Top Five Television Shows in the 70's

9/12/2019

1970: 1) Marcus Welby, M.D. 2) The Flip Wilson Show 3) Here’s Lucy 4) Ironside 5) Gunsmoke

1971: 1) All in the Family 2) The Flip Wilson Show 3) Marcus Welby, M.D. 4) Gunsmoke 5) ABC Movie of the Week

1972: 1) All in the Family 2) Sanford and Son 3) Hawaii Five-O 4) Maude 5) Bridget Loves Bernie

1973: 1) All in the Family 2) The Waltons 3) Sandford and Son 4) M*A*S*H 5) Hawaii Five-O

1974: 1) All in the Family 2) Sanford and Son 3) Chico and the Man 4) The Jeffersons
5) M*A*S*H

1975: 1) All in the Family 2) Rich Man, Poor Man 3) Laverne and Shirley 4) Maude
5) The Bionic Woman

1976:    1) Happy Days 2) Laverne and Shirley 3) ABC Monday Night Movie 4) M*A*S*H 5) Charlie’s Angels

1977:    1) Laverne and Shirley 2) Happy Days 3) Three’s Company 4) 60 Minutes
5) Charlie’s Angels

1978:    1) Laverne & Shirley 2) Three’s Company 3) Mork & Mindy 4) Happy Days
5) The Ropers

1979:    1) 60 Minutes 2) Three’s Company 3) M*A*S*H 4) Alice 5) Dallas

Side note: 60 Minutes has been around for 51 years and during that time, they were typically in the Top 10. An amazing accomplishment.

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Author: John Mann

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