This morning I was reading the news and saw a link to “Today in History.” It mentioned Gerald Ford, the 38th president and one of only five presidents in US history to have never been elected. He stepped up in 1974 when Nixon resigned, and held office until his loss in the 1976 election. (Funny…he could beat Ronald Reagan, but not Jimmy Carter.)

I saw Ford in person on one occasion. I was in Philadelphia on 4 July, 1976 — our nation’s bicentennial. Ford gave a speech (I didn’t hear it) and rang a replica of the Liberty Bell (I didn’t hear that, either). But I saw him from a distance in the parade. It was crazy.

Imagine a bunch of high school students in Philly, on the most important celebration day in the last hundred years, with probably one chaperone to every thirty kids. I don’t remember ever seeing my chaperone until that night. Can you fathom doing that with students today? Wow. Wake up and smell the litigation. (But boy did I have fun…heh.)

Anyway, looking at this photo got me thinking about the Liberty Bell, which I did see when I was there. Some cursory research at ushistory.org revealed interesting facts about it:

• The bell cracked the first time it was rung.
• Its pitch is listed at concert E-flat, but the replica that they rang in 2006 to commemorate the Allies’ invasion of Normandy sure sounds like E-natural to me.
• On the writing across the top of the bell, “Pennsylvania” is misspelled “Pensylvania.”
• I don’t remember this! In 1996, Taco Bell took out a full-page ad in the New York Times, claiming that it had “bought the Liberty Bell” in an effort to decrease the national debt. The joke ranks #4 at the Museum of Hoaxes’ website on the “Top 100 April Fools Day Hoaxes of All Time” list. Heh.
• Check out this cool 3D view of the Liberty Bell.

I hear the Mavismobile in the driveway. Time for coffee with sissy. Then it’s dinner with Kay & Bob, and then to the theater to watch Dark Knight. No foolin’.

Fink out.

Reading reports about the resources and personnel dedicated to security at the 2008 Olympic Games in China made me think this morning about a time when security was almost non-existent at the Olympics. Specifically, 1972, in Munich.

Who can forget this picture? I remember everyone being glued to their TVs as ABC’s Roone Arledge fed the horrible news into Jim McKay’s earpiece, giving him the unenviable job of telling the world, “They’re all gone.”

An actual terrorist attack had played out on live TV. It was surreal. Olympic athletes were taken hostage, and none made it out alive. The rescue effort still stands as one of the biggest, most tragic screw-ups of its kind on record.

I don’t actually remember watching a lot of the live coverage as it happened, but I remember my dad talking about it at dinner, and seeing it later on videotaped reports on the news. Just like when Lawrence Taylor broke Joe Theismann’s leg — they played it over and over and over.

Many have told the sad story very well; better than I ever could. There’s an excellent pictorial summary here, and a surprisingly well-researched account at Wikipedia. If you don’t know what happened on that September day in 1972, you should really go look. It’ll give you some clarity on the long-standing Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as well as shed interesting light on the predicament in which the German government found itself (that is, deciding how to deal with hostage negotiations when the hostages were Jews — many of whom had relatives who died in the Holocaust, just 30 years before).

In 2005, Steven Spielberg directed a film about the aftermath of the Munich massacre, tracing the experiences of the five men selected by the Israeli government to avenge the slaughter by assassinating key members of the Black September terrorist organization. The film, Munich, was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars the following year. Trailer here:

On a brighter note — the party for the Thriller’s birthday was fabulous. We had 18 people in for dinner and laughs. And now…back to Bach. Reality bites.

Fink out.

Photo © 1972 The Associated Press

Last night I was cleaning out some files on the server for my school website (I am the web drone for my district) and ran across a unit I’d done for my music history class on the crucial influence of the Delta blues artists on the pioneers of rock and roll, jazz, R & B and soul. Where’s the Delta, you ask? And what are “Delta blues?” It all started where the Southern crosses the Dawg.

It’s surprising to me how few rock and roll musicians nowadays know who Robert Johnson was; even fewer know of his legacy to the art form, and therefore, the debt of gratitude they owe him (and others). If you are a rocker and you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’ve come to the right place.

In the history of the blues, no one artist is more shrouded in myth and shadows than Robert Johnson. Eric Clapton called Johnson “the most important blues musician who ever lived,” even though all that remains of Johnson’s entire existence is 29 tracks he recorded in 1937, and the two photographs you see on this page. That’s it.

He had a sound, a playing technique, and an overall style that was different from any other musician on the minstrel-type juke joint circuit that black musicians played in the early decades of the 20th century. He was a drifter; he confided in no one, and had few friends. He married twice, but had no children with the women. [However, he did have a son with someone else -- and Claud Johnson was awarded Robert's estate in 2000.]

He had an uncanny ability on the guitar (check out the freakishly long fingers). The legend says it was at an abandoned crossroads on legendary Highway 61 that Robert sold his soul to the Devil in order to be able to play the way he did. In fact, Robert wrote a song called “Cross Road Blues” (audio clip here), and 30-some years later, Clapton covered it in his version, called, simply, “Crossroads.”

Many modern artists have covered Johnson’s songs (Led Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers, John Fogerty, Clapton, Bob Dylan, to name just a few). But more important was Johnson’s influence on the very beginnings of rock and roll. Chuck Berry — before he was singing about Johnny B. Goode and No Particular Place to Go — was a blues artist, recording on the old Chess Records label. People like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Son House (who actually knew Johnson and played gigs with him) paved the way for what we now know as blues and gospel, and indeed all the offshoots of those styles: rock and roll, soul, hip-hop, rap, etc. All of them were in some way influenced by Robert Johnson.

Nobody really knows exactly how Robert died. His death certificate listed the cause as “no doctor.” Some say it was poisoned whiskey (Robert was good at making women’s husbands insanely jealous), others say it was syphilis. But look at this interesting theory in the British Medical Journal. Having one’s heart tissue rip in half would most certainly make anyone get down “on his hands and knees and howl like a dog.”

By today’s standards, Johnson’s high, reedy voice and singular guitar accompaniment would sound strange. But I submit that without his contribution and influence, people like B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Keb’ Mo’ and Stevie Ray Vaughan would have sounded awfully different…if they’d even picked up guitars at all.

Fink out.

I was always under the impression that the volatile properties of the hydrogen used for fueling the giant dirigible Hindenburg caused its terrible fate on 6 May, 1937.

The real cause of the fire and explosion was not the hydrogen (which did burn moments later), but rather a static-electric spark hitting the fabric skin of the ship, and the fabric happened to be coated with paint containing two chemicals found in rocket fuel.

Hmm. This I did not know.

In fact, according to the “Hindenburg Myth” at the Rocky Mountain Institute website:

The clean hydrogen flames swirled above the occupants of the passenger compartment, and all those who rode the airship down to the ground survived. 35 of the 37 casualties perished from jumping to the ground, and most other injuries resulted from diesel burns.”

Well, whaddya know.

You might be wondering (as I sometimes do myself) how I arrived at today’s topic. Last night, I watched World News Tonight on ABC — first time I’d had television on in a long, long time. During one of the commercial breaks, BP Capital Management CEO and multi-gazillionaire T. Boone Pickens came on. I thought he was stumping for McCain or something, but no: he bought 2 minutes of network time to drop bait for his Pickens Plan, designed to steer the US over the next ten years to fuel its cars with natural gas, and use wind power for electricity.

Ever the skeptic, I wanted to see the other side of the story. So I searched and found Greg Blencoe’s blog at Hydrogen Discoveries Inc. Interesting stuff. I wonder what you all think. [I wonder what David would think...hmmmm.]

Anyway, that’s where I linked to the page about hydrogen myths. And there was the article about the Hindenburg.

And now, alas, I must fly. So much time, so little to do. Stop — wait — reverse that.

Fink out.

It’s an interesting story, and unfortunately, completely believable on all sides. So what really happened to the Tucker Automobile Company?

Preston Tucker (1903-1956) was a car nut and entrepreneur who wanted to cash in on the post-World War II glut of factories and steel being sold off at a discount by the US government.

His mission: build a car that would be sporty, powerful and affordable. He hired a designer and gave him exactly one hundred days to come up with an idea.

What ensued was a period of what could be seen as Teslian setbacks; that is to say, the man had some innovative ideas that presumably posed a threat to the “Big 3″ automakers, like rear-mounted engines, disc brakes and fuel injection. Many think that Ford, GM and Chrysler conspired to shut him down. If that was the case, they succeeded. He was out of business in little more than 2 years.

The story centers around this car: the Tucker 48. Of the 51 made, 47 still exist and are on display all over the country. [This one is at the Blackhawk Auto Museum in Danville, California.] Click the photo for a better view.

In order to raise cash, Tucker sold parts, accessories, and even dealership franchises — before the car was even in production. Somebody tipped off the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the investigations began. [A version of the story can be found here, ironically, at the Henry Ford Museum site.] Tucker was indicted but acquitted. The shame of it is that it was all too late; by the time he was declared innocent of any wrongdoing, his company was bankrupt.

He died of lung cancer a few years later, while working on a new design to be produced in Brazil.

There have been several theories postulated about what transpired behind the scenes. Why is it that the newspapers knew about Tucker’s SEC indictment before he did? Why was he reportedly able to trace money and influence relating to his demise back to Big 3 higher-ups? Why he didn’t go for broke and name names in this open letter to the public in the New York Times, I don’t know. [Ok, there is that little issue of slander.] Confusion persists to this day about the whole affair.

Years ago, I remember seeing a movie called Tucker: the Man and His Dream, with Jeff Bridges in the lead role. I can’t remember a whole lot about it, except that it was a Francis Ford Coppola thing. I might need to rent it. What I do remember is that Tucker was depicted as a victim, and indeed, maybe he was. The SEC had egg on their faces because they couldn’t produce a shred of evidence against him. But if the prevailing conspiracy theory is true, they got what they wanted, which was Tucker out of the picture, and out of the hair of the auto makers whose money lubricated the machinery of more than a few Washington offices.

So there you have it. Another story of a regular guy, trying to make it in this world by building a better mousetrap, only to be cornered and choked by Big Brother. Or not. Still, it’s interesting reading. I might try to find a book about him.

Speaking of books — I just finished the first book in the “Anita Blake” series by Laurell K. Hamilton. Ka-reepy.

Fink, enjoying this rainy Wednesday morning.