Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
Most of you have seen or read that some Iranian boats buzzed a few of our ships that were steaming in international waters near the Straits of Hormuz. The US ships were a cruiser (USS Port Royal, CG 73), a destroyer (USS Hopper, DDG 70) and a frigate (USS Ingraham, FFG 61).
Here is some raw video of the incident:
Weekend in the mountains:
1. Lex goes downhill rollerblading. His band follows in the video car.
One of my friends finds country depressing. Kevin Fowler portrays life on the edge; so does Gretchen Wilson. They remind us of the rawness of the old Sun recordings; they portray (and perhaps are themselves), as Waylon Jennings put it, working without a net. But the danger & the fear in such highwire acts produces an energy we also feel. Lyrics after the jump.
If Weird Al Yankovic did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
The old gospel songs seem right on occasions like this; here is Wagoner with the Willis Brothers doing I’ll Fly Away.
After eighty years, fifty of them on the Grand Ole Opry, Porter Wagoner has died. Tom Spaulding eulogizes: “He lived the life, sang about the life, and he went down swinging.” That life was full of hits; this year’s album, Wagonmaster is reviewed here. CMT notes that: “Porter Wagoner, the Thin Man from the West Plains, is a case of an artist often ahead of his time who has always appeared hopelessly behind the times.” And here’s Wagoner’s “Green, Green Grass of Home.”
For this (and so much else) I’m indebted to the husband I found in the days of Dripping Springs. He introduced me to the music of those tough old singers who perform – writing, singing, playing – until they die because they want to – and because they have to. Impelled by whatever lies in that hard stubborn core within, they have to be who they are – in Nudie suits, maybe, but always, really, themselves: authentic sounds and authentic words clothed in sequins and huge belt buckles.
