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Gunsmoke and James Arness

11/28/2019

I was a huge fan of the television show: Gunsmoke, and of course James Arness as Matt Dillon, a role he played for 20 years. Arness was raised in Minnesota where he barely graduated high school due to his lack of interest in schoolwork. Not many people know that Peter Graves from the television show: Mission: Impossible and the hilarious movie: Airplane, was James’ younger brother. When Peter went to Hollywood, he changed his name from Arness to Graves.

James was interested in becoming a fighter pilot in WWII, but he was too tall (6'7"), for the cockpit so he joined the Army. He was shot in the leg during a battle and was sent to a military hospital back in the states. He received an honorable discharge in 1945 and had a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. His leg bothered him throughout his life and jumping on and off horses was very difficult for him.

When he was discharged from the Army, he enrolled in college but then quit shortly after and hitchhiked to Hollywood. He spent 10 years doing mostly bit parts in over 20 movies and was also on an episode of: The Lone Ranger, before landing the leading role on Gunsmoke in 1955. It was John Wayne who recommended Arness for the part. When the show ended in 1975, Arness took a break for a year and then starred on the television show: How the West Was Won which ran for three years. There were also a couple of Gunsmoke movies after the show ended.

On a personal level, Arness was married to actress Virginia Chapman for 12 years. They had a daughter and son together. He adopted Virginia’s son (Craig), from a previous marriage and he went on to become a photographer for National Geographic. Sadly, Virginia died at 56 years of age from a drug overdose. His daughter Jenny, who was a child actor on Gunsmoke, died of a suicide when she was just 25 years old. His other son, Rolf, is still alive and is best known for winning the World Surfing Championship in Australia. Eighteen years after his divorce from Virginia, he married Janet Surtees whom he was married to for 33 years until his death at the age of 88 in 2011.

Taxes in California

11/26/2019

No state taxes its citizens as badly as California. It doesn't matter what it is (i.e. hotels, property, rental cars, sales, income, etc.), California gouges those who live there. In Republican run states such as Oklahoma and Texas, taxes on a gallon of gas are around $.20 while in California it's three times this amount. What makes this even worse is what are the citizens of California getting for their money? Their infrastructure is in terrible shape. Gang-related crime is horrific with much of it involving illegals. They have a terrible homeless population.

So what is all the tax money being spent on? Well, if you want to be wealthy in the state of California, work in the public sector. On average someone working for the state government makes approximate 28% more income than someone who doesn't. Add to this the high number of public sector employees in general because California is a socialist oriented state, and the costs begin to skyrocket. Even the cost of housing prisoners in California is more than twice that of an average state. Taxpayers are getting exploited by the outrageous costs of everything associated with the government.

The bottom line is if you live in a highly liberal state such as California, Illinois, New York, and Washington, the government owns you. You must work several months out of each year just to pay various state taxes. The sad part is that most of the citizens in these states continue to vote people in who continue to make them work harder and longer for the state. They take away even more of their discretionary income each year and for some strange reason, they're okay with it.

There's no question, because the data is readily available, that Democrats at every level of government increase the cost of living of their constituents more so than in Republican controlled districts. Just something to keep in mind if your financial livelihood is important to you.

Vinyl Records

11/26/2019

The "78," vinyl record was introduced in 1858 and was phased out in the late 1950's. The reason it was called a "78," is that the record would turn 78 revolutions per minute. It was generally either a 10" or 12" record so it wasn't very portable. The biggest problem with it is that since it was slow-turning, it could only offer one song that ran about four minutes. When the "45," vinyl came along to replace the "78," it could hold four songs on each side but in order to do it, the songs still had to be mostly under four minutes. This worked well for radio DJ's as they could pick and choose songs off an album and know they'd be consistent in length so they could program in their advertising.

When CD's came along in 1989, thanks to a collaborative effort by Phillips and Sony, a unique situation occurred. The CD's could hold a lot of songs, more than what a record producer would want to put on an album because they didn't want to give away the store so to speak. In other words, if they could make $10 by offering 10 songs, then why give consumers 20 songs for $10 especially since it costs money to record each song. The alternative was to charge more for an album which record companies didn't want to risk.

When all is said and done, most songs are still less than four minutes in length because the fact is, radio stations make or break artists and the record industry must offer them a product which meets their needs. Most CD's have around 10 to 12 songs even though a CD could hold seven times as many but whose going to pay $80 for a CD filled with 70 songs from the same artist?

Some products and services come and go, but throughout history, the music industry has remained highly popular. Last year it brought in over $50 billion in revenues.

Hall & Oates

11/24/2019

Out of all the musical duos over the years, the one who became the most successful record sales wise, is Hall & Oates (Daryl Hall and John Oates). Singles such as "I Can't Go for That," “Man Eater," “Kiss on My List," and "Private Eyes," were all chart toppers among many more.

One interesting thing about Daryl and John is that they met at Temple University in 1967, in an extraordinary way. They were both in bands on campus but didn’t know each other, and one night there was a "Battle of The Bands," competition, when suddenly shots rang out. Two rival gangs who were attending the event began shooting at each other and everyone took off running. Daryl and John found themselves near a service elevator and that's where they met. They became great friends and ended up sharing an apartment together. The tag on their mailbox read: "Hall & Oates," and this is where they came up with the name of their band.

It took eight years of experimenting with various types of music before they struck it big. Daryl was the lead singer and John mostly played guitar and sang harmonies. Once they settled on what became “Pop Music,” they wrote songs that fit the genre and that's when the hits began coming. I find it amazing that they were pretty much able to put out at least one huge hit for 13 years straight.

They still tour from time to time and have had the honor of being inducted in both the “Songwriters Hall of Fame,” and the “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.” I love their music but admit that before I began researching this duo, I had no idea that they were more successful than Simon and Garfunkel.

What Is The Truth?

11/22/2019

ABC Nightly News said that there’s now clear evidence of President Trump being guilty of a quid-pro-quo through demanding an investigation of Joe and Hunter Biden if Ukraine wants financial aid. The person who testified to this said everyone knew about it including Pence and Pompeo. Then as ABC went into the story it was revealed that the statement wasn't a point of fact, it was an assumption the witness made. ABC didn’t care one bit about using facts, this is how bad it has gotten.

He had to admit through questioning by the Republicans, that he wasn’t told directly by anyone, including Trump, that we need to hold back aid to Ukraine unless they investigated. As a matter of fact, throughout this entire hearing, no one has said that there's direct evidence that President Trump demanded in any way, that the Ukraine investigate, or they wouldn't receive foreign aid.

One of the many things that disgust me about how Democrats have attempted to make it appear Trump is guilty, is that they made it appear that holding back foreign aid was unheard of which is a complete lie. Trump changed foreign policy from the very beginning, and he talked about it before he was elected. He said we’d begin holding back foreign aid until it was clear what the objectives were for the money. Previous presidents were terrible about throwing money away. We were paying countries the same amount of money each year, in the same timely installments, without questioning what we were getting in return. So, when Democrats said that when Ukraine didn’t receive aid for 55 days and that this was evidence that Trump was up to something, wasn’t true, it holding aid was happening with many countries this year alone.

The bottom line is that Democrats and the mainstream media have done everything they can to shape public opinion and they aren’t moving the needle. People took sides from the beginning and it’s not changing much at all. If anything, it has fired up Trump’s base and the Republican Party in general, even more than ever.

After all this madness, Trump will not be impeached because Republicans don't believe their voter base believes he should so it will never pass the Senate. But I guess that some Democrats are okay with this, they’re primary goal was to have an open venue to attack Trump in hopes of negatively impacting his 2020 campaign.

What I find interesting is that there are some democrats who are furious with the hearing because they’re in swing states and they’re being painted as highly partisan when they ran campaigns of working with the Republican Party. They also have a major problem of making their constituents believe they don’t believe in a large part of the Democratic platform (i.e. no border walls because walls are immoral, free healthcare for illegal immigrants, paying off student loans, free college tuition, getting rid of private healthcare insurance, etc.). These ideas don’t play well in swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. I find it sad that these particular politicians are stuck in this situation considering all they want to do is represent their constituency.

At the end of the day, and once again, we’re stuck with hearings that will bear no fruit. There’s so much that is needed to be accomplished in D.C., and our representatives are so busy playing politics for their own ambitions, that our country is suffering for it. What can we do about it? Don’t vote in any incumbents regardless of the political party. We’ll force term limits. Once they get the idea that it’s a waste of time working on building their own influence and power on Capitol Hill, they’ll finally get around to conducting the peoples’ business.

Who Wouldn't?

11/19/2019

Can you think of any friends or family members who you’d be able to stand living with you for a month or two? For most people, having visitors for more than three or four days is difficult; quite frankly, they tend to get on our nerves.

The fact is, if we spend a lot of time with other people we end up with problems. Things they say or don’t say, things they do or don’t do, inevitably there’s going to be conflicts; it’s human nature. This could happen even if someone is our best friend and staying with us.

I mention the above because if you agree with me that these things are true, then why in the world do we expect more out of our spouses? Of course, they’ll make us mad, who wouldn’t? Of course, they’ll say and do and not do things that we’ll make us very angry, who wouldn’t? I’m shocked that Maggie has put up with my idiosyncrasies for around 37 years. That’s what is so amazing about spouses, they’ve seen and heard our worse, and they keep coming home.

So, the next time one of our spouses sends us through the roof, remember, who wouldn’t? :)

Where Does Violence Come From?

11/19/2019

It would be very difficult finding a credible psychiatrist who says that violence in movies and video games (even some rap music), doesn't cause us harm, sometimes death. Being that pretty much all of it is protected by senior members of the Democratic Party because the entertainment industry is truly their bread and butter, the mainstream media rarely says or writes a thing about how these things hurt our country. There's countless research on the topic that isn't shared.

A huge case in point, and just my opinion, but most Americans couldn't believe the terrorists of 9/11 hijacked planes and used them as bombs. Just five years before the 9/11 terrorists' attack, a blue print of how to do it was provided by the popular movie: "Executive Decision," produced by Warner Brothers. It starred both Kurt Russell and Halle Berry. Terrorists hijacked a 747 airplane with the intent of making it a suicide mission killing the passengers on board and those on the ground. The thing is, our movies are distributed around the world; some are still on VHS tapes.

There's no doubt in my mind that this movie gave these terrorists the idea. They had roughly five years to work their people in place including getting them pilot's licenses. Now this cause and effect could've been a huge story, but it wasn't. Neither is the truth behind the violence seen and heard every day because of the entertainment industry. Democrats like to make everyone think they're the Party for the people, but the fact of the matter is, even violence towards U.S. citizens takes a backseat to their love of campaign contributions.

Top 10 Movies of All Time

11/18/2019

Ranker is a popular website for finding out how a variety of things rank, in this case I'm going to cover movies because it's that time of the year where more people can sit down and watch a video or two. These are the Top 10 according to Ranker's Poll of over five million people: 1) The Godfather 2) Casablanca 3) Schindler's List 4) The Godfather II 5) Star Wars 6) Pulp Fiction 7) Forrest Gump 8) Citizen Kane 9) Titanic and 10) The Shawshank Redemption.

Hard to pick the top ten out of all the amazing movies but what really fascinates me is that so many were from decades ago; "Casablanca," and "Citizen Kane," were released to theaters in the early 40's. Evidence that some things truly are timeless.

The Impeachment Hearing

11/14/2019

Regardless of where you stand in reference to the impeachment of Trump, the hearing so far has been a ridiculous circus and here's why:

1) Right of the bat, Adam Schiff lied about not helping the whistle blower blow the whistle. He lied about his staff not having meetings with the whistle blower before the whole thing started. He kept hidden that the whistle blower not only didn't have first-hand knowledge of the conversation Trump had with the president of Ukraine, but that the person who was at first speaking on behalf of the whistle blower was involved in politics and was an active member of the Democratic Party. In other words, he stoked a fire with false information but that's certainly not unusual for him as he is a systemic liar.

2) One of the witnesses said what Trump did was crazy. If he were an unbiased witness, he'd never say anything like that nor would the "honorable," panel allow such testimony. It certainly isn't allowed in a court of law as it would've been struck from the record and jurors couldn't use it in their deliberation. He should've been chastised but he wasn't.

3) Democrats asked both witnesses what they think Trump's motive was. This is also ridiculous and would never be allowed in a court of law. I mention this because they were sworn in and if the judicial process isn't followed when it comes to testimonies, especially in a case this important, then witness testimonies across our judicial system should allow prediction of motives by those testifying so there wouldn't be double-standards in D.C. If your thought process is that the hearing doesn't take place in a court of law, then you're incorrect by its very definition. What happens to people who lie during the proceedings? They perjure themselves. The proceedings have witnesses. There's a judgement.

4) Without firsthand knowledge the judicial system doesn't allow hearsay; there's actually a Hearsay Evidence Rule. There can be exceptions but most judges are afraid of verdicts being overturned so they don't allow it in their courts. One of the Democrats on the panel made the crazy claim that hearsay evidence is just as important as firsthand knowledge. It was a ridiculous attempt at trying to make the testimonies more legitimate. Many people probably caught on to this and realized that what he said was a lie, but there are always some who drink the Kool-Aid of their Party; this happens with both political parties.

5) I flipped around to different channels and the mainstream media was spending a lot of time building up the credibility of the witnesses. I find it funny that every time witnesses share what the mainstream media wants to hear, they're credible witnesses, but if they don't, then they spend time trying to tear them down. James Comey was credible then he wasn't because he made negative comments about Hillary. Then in a reversal of fortune, he's credible again because he attacked Trump. This is blatant bias. It shows a total lack of integrity.

I don't know if Trump is guilty of anything but quite frankly Democrats are way too short-sighted because the worse thing that can happen to them is for a stable politician like Mike Pence to take over as President. More legislation would get passed because Democrats wouldn't be able to use Trump as a reason to not do what's right for the American people. The mainstream media would have to dig deep to find other stories to cover because they couldn't spend as much time as they are now, attacking a conservative agenda because President Trump is attached to it. It would be great to get some actual news about what's happening around our country and the rest of the world. Democrats wouldn't be able to use Trump to fire up their base.

Let's see how they do in 2020 when they push socialists' ideas. Let's see how many Americans believe Democrats are right and that we shouldn't build more border walls because they're immoral and racists. Let's see how many Americans don't believe the middle-class are doing better now. Let's see if most Americans believe in free healthcare for illegal immigrants. Let's see if Americans believe that in increasing our budget eight fold to pay for the "free," stuff, that the middle-class won't get hammered with tax increases. There are certainly some who believe in the Democratic Party whole-heartedly but they are beyond out of touch with mainstream America and the elections will prove it. I'm just surprised that a bunch of elitists who believe they are so smart, don't get it.

Jimi Hendrix (1942 - 1970)

11/14/2019

It would be difficult finding a singer/songwriter/musician that had such a tremendous impact on the music business in such a short period of time, as Jimi Hendrix. To this day, out of all the guitarist that have come and gone, in most circles Hendrix is considered the greatest.

He was born in Seattle, Washington when his father was in the Army and stationed in Alabama. His mother had alcohol problems so he and his four younger siblings were in a constant state of flux being passed around to family members and friends to be taken care of because his mom couldn’t hold it together.

When his father was honorably discharged from the Army things became even worse because he ended up with an alcohol problem as well so horrific fights between his parents were added to the mix. Because of both parents were struggling with alcohol and couldn’t hold jobs, they had to move around a lot to various apartments and hotel rooms because they couldn’t pay their bills. Eventually, Jimi and his siblings ended up in Foster Care with family members pulling them out from time to time.

Jimi had a fascination with guitars when he was just a boy, but no one could afford to buy one for him. He started carrying a broom around like a security blanket and mimicked playing guitar. When he was 15, he found a Ukulele with one string on it in someone’s trash and not being able to afford strings, he played songs on it anyway through improvising. He was hooked on playing so he went around doing odd jobs and when he had saved $5 (around $45 in today’s cash), he bought his first acoustic guitar.

About a year later he formed a band that would play anywhere that would let them, but Jimi got in trouble several times by the way he played; it was considered showboaty at the time. He wasn’t too concerned since they weren’t being paid anyhow. One thing that did bother him is that his guitar wasn’t loud enough and was limited in what he could do with it; quite frankly, he wanted to be noticed on stage and not just someone in the background.

Jimi was playing in small bands across the Seattle area and found himself in trouble a lot with the authorities. He wasn’t making much money, so he’d get mostly involved in petty crimes to get quick cash to pay his rent. The second time he was caught in a stolen car, the judge told him he could join the Army or serve jail time, so he decided to enlist. He ended up pretty much in the last place you’d want to be if you weren’t exactly Army material and that is the 101st Airborne Division located in Kentucky.

The discipline that was required and the immense physical requirements weren’t up Jimi’s ally. He just wanted to play guitar and there were a couple of other musicians on base, so they’d get together and entertain some of the troops. His constant dereliction of duty and complete lack of desire for being in the military led to his commanding officer letting him go and he did Jimi a great service by allowing him a honorable discharge after only serving one year.

There was a bit of a scandal during Hendrix’ music career as he lied about his service and said he received a medical discharge after breaking his ankles during a parachute jump. It didn’t negatively impact his career since the demographics of his audience didn’t care about his military service.

After leaving the Army, Jimi travelled to Los Angeles in hopes of launching a music career. His desire was to be the front man for a band but the only offers coming in were to be a guitarist. He knew that he had a huge obstacle to overcome because he wasn’t a great singer. Even when he made it, he’d hide behind the patrician in the music studio so no one would watch him sing. He had no problem having them watch him play guitar.

He played for the Isley Brothers and Little Richard. Little Richard was a good mentor in that Hendrix saw how to entertain an audience. He also did studio work for various record labels, basically playing guitar for someone else’s album. This is one of the areas that Hendrix got in huge trouble for because he didn’t care about contracts. He’d sign anything and didn’t really worry about following through as he’d just move on to the next offer. He’d collect the upfront money, blow it, then go after another contract. He was burning a lot of bridges in an industry that didn’t have that many to burn.

Hendrix wasn’t at all happy with where his career was going because whether he was working in a recording studio or performing with a band, no one was allowing him to release his potential. It’s difficult finding a band that allows the guitarist to be the star. Jimi wanted to show off his electric guitar playing skills which included playing it with his teeth, playing it behind his head, playing it upside down, and playing it with one hand, but he was told to step back and let the lead singer be the star. He even smashed his guitar on stage and lit it on fire, decades before other artists did it. The more Jimi was being held back the worse he became psychologically so alcohol and drugs were what he used to cope. For two years he went from one band to the next usually in Los Angeles or New York City. The entire time he was being hit with lawsuits from his previous employers, but he didn’t care, he had no money for them to take.

One night a band member from the London musical group Cream, heard Jimi play at a small venue. He told other people about it like Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger so Hendrix was invited to London so they could hear him play. He became a huge hit over there, unlike in the U.S., so his manager put together a band that starred Jimi and it was called: The Jimi Hendrix Experience and his first album was recorded. His first two songs, “Hey Joe,” and “Purple Haze,” were huge hits. He was just 24 years-old at the time.

After two years of success in touring around Europe, Jimi made his way home because he was missing his friends and family and he had to know if he could be successful in the U.S.. Keep in mind that it wasn’t that Hendrix’ records were all that successful, it’s that he was filling up concerts because everyone wanted to see him play, not exactly hear him sing. He was a phenomenal performer.

What he needed was a great opportunity to relaunch in the U.S. market and the event to perform at was the “Monterey Music Festival,” which included pretty much all the top groups. Since Jimi wasn’t popular in the U.S., it took Paul McCartney telling the event organizers that they needed Hendrix to make it a successful event, so they obliged.

The crowd went crazy for Hendrix during the festival and his band got the opportunity to be the opening act for Jefferson Airplane when something amazing happened. At each of the concerts the audiences didn’t want Hendrix to leave the stage so during the fifth concert they changed the billing and had Jefferson Airplane open for Hendrix. I don't think this has happened since in the music industry.

Jimi was getting burned out, so he moved back to London where he got the call to perform at Woodstock. In 1969, he was the highest earning rock musician, but he didn’t have much to show for it as people had taken advantage of him. Many people borrowed money they never paid back, he was constantly paying attorneys to address lawsuits regarding recording contracts, and he was given bad investment advice.

After a short trip to the U.S., Hendrix flew back to London to live with his girlfriend. He put on a few shows but just dabbled in performing when he felt motivated. He said that the music business wasn’t what he’d hoped. He wanted to grow as an artist and try out new things, but everyone wanted him to stay where he was musically because it was bringing in the crowds. He stated that he glossed over the word “business,” when it came to the "music," business and had just dreamed of performing without giving much thought to the junk that came with it. Having money wasn’t what he’d hoped and he felt less stress when he was just getting by and no one wanted a piece of him..

It was when he lived in London that at the age of 27, he died from an accidental drug overdose. A few weeks later another superstar who performed at Woodstock, Janis Joplin, also died at the age of 27 from a drug overdose. Neither case was determined to be suicide, just accidental overdoses.

It’s been around 50 years since Jimi’s death, and it would be difficult to find anyone who didn’t think that watching him perform wasn’t one of the greatest experiences of their lives. This post on Hendrix just scratches the surface so if you’re interested in learning more, Netflix has a documentary of his life including a lot of his live performances which is truly the only way to know just how tragic it was that he died at such a young age.

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Author: John Mann

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