NEW: Merc union says no to concessions
Mercury Marine workers in Fond du Lac, Wis., today voted no on a new wage and benefits proposal offered by Mercury Marine. The no vote signals that Stillwater operations could continue with possibly 600 more jobs infused into the community within the next two years. Union negotiators had said before the vote they would not support the concessions the company sought. Mercury Marine is looking to combine its Wisconsin and Oklahoma operations.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
New anthem recorded for OSU Cowboys
John Martin is the writer and singer for OSU's new introduction song, "Cowboys Forever." Preston Bezant/For the Tulsa World
By BILL HAISTEN World Sports Writer
Published: 8/23/2009 3:26 AM
Last Modified: 8/23/2009 3:44 AM
Listen to John Martin’s “Cowboys Forever.”
STILLWATER — A former Baylor Bear has composed and recorded an Oklahoma State anthem to be featured during the Cowboys' pregame video for home football games.
John Martin, son of OSU associate athletic director Dave Martin and a Baylor wide receiver in 2000-04, is a 27-year-old singer-songwriter. When he was approached by OSU athletic director Mike Holder about the possibility of producing the 2009 Cowboy pregame video, he and a friend, Taylor Bolding, accepted the assignment.
Martin decided also to write a song that would accompany the video. He attended Bruce Springsteen's April 7 show at Tulsa's BOK Center. About a week later, influenced by the sing-along quality of Springsteen's anthems, Martin began to write "Cowboys Forever."
The three-minute, 20-second song would best be described as a pop-rock hybrid. A sample of the lyrics: "In bedlam we will rise and stand ... with strength and honor to defend our land."
"A couple of people have told me that it reminds them a little of Springsteen," Martin said. "It's a big-sounding song. That's what I wanted. When coach Holder heard it, he was singing along with it by the second listen. That's powerful. That's the effect you want the song to have on the fans."
Said Holder: "I look forward to seeing the reaction of the fans out here in our stadium. I think we can do some chants off of it. You can use it at various times during the game. You can listen to it when you're driving to the game."
When Nike's promotional specialists learned of Martin's song and video (which features Zac Robinson, Dez Bryant and Kendall Hunter), the Nike machine got involved.
Nike personnel did the editing on the video, and Nike is about to launch a line of "Cowboys 4Ever" apparel. During the recent Fan Appreciation Day autograph event, OSU players were clad in black "Cowboys 4Ever" T-shirts.
"Cowboys 4Ever" gear soon will be available at the Boone Pickens Stadium merchandise store, Dave Martin said, and also in various Stillwater, Tulsa and Oklahoma City shops.
Within a few days, the "Cowboys Forever" song will be available for purchase attulsaworld.com/osusports.
"If you listen to that song more than once or twice, you'll be humming the song," Dave Martin said. "It gets into your head. That was John's intent. He wanted a catchy song, and I think he wrote one.
"When John sings about Bullet (OSU's mascot horse) riding across the plains, that might mean nothing to some people, but it certainly means something for Oklahoma State people."
Nike's production team put the finishing touches on the video last week.
"All I can say is that it's really cool," John Martin said.
OSU officials are being extremely guarded, not wanting copies of the video to be leaked before the Sept. 5 opener against Georgia.
Martin's three-day song-writing process was completed on April 17. Five days later, he was in the Tulsa-area home of country-music superstar Garth Brooks, a former OSU track athlete. The first time that Martin performed the song for anyone, he performed it on an acoustic guitar for Brooks.
"It was a huge deal for me to take the song to Garth, to get his opinion and see what he thought about it," Martin said. "I gave him the lyrics first. He loved the title 'Cowboys Forever.' He kneels down on one knee, up against the coffee table, and says, 'Let's hear it.' He was tapping along with the song, and when I finished, he sang the chorus melody back to me. It was a chance of a lifetime to go to his house and play it for him. I'll never forget it."
A self-taught guitarist and vocalist who fronts a band known as August Rose, Martin resides in Stillwater, only a couple of blocks from the OSU campus.
His songs can be sampled at tulsaworld.com/cowboysforever and iTunes.
Last year, the Big 12 Conference hired Martin to write a theme for the league. Martin wrote and recorded "Live Your Dreams," a song that was featured prominently during the bowl season and during Fox's BCS championship telecast.
In December, Martin sang the national anthem before the Oklahoma-Missouri Big 12 championship game at Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium.
"That was a great experience. Awesome," said Martin, a 1999 All-State football player at Stillwater High School. His Baylor career was tarnished by injuries (a broken collarbone and concussions).
Backed by an A-list collection of studio musicians (including Alanis Morissette's drummer, Sheryl Crow's bass player and Shakira's guitarist), Martin recorded "Cowboys Forever" in May.
The recording took place in Hollywood, Calif., in the same Sunset Sound studio where the Rolling Stones recorded "Exile On Main Street," and in which such artists as Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, The Doors and Tom Petty recorded classic albums.
"It was a mind-blowing thing," Martin says.
It’s in our veins
The feel of the reins
.45’s, chaps, bandannas and spurs
We are cowboys forever
Stay here today, gone tomorrow
The open range is our home
All that we own lives inside our soul
We are cowboy to the bone
Hang ‘em high, pistols to the sky
We ride, we ride, ‘cross the line
It is in our veins
The feel of the reins
.45’s, chaps, bandannas and spurs
We are cowboys forever
Riding Bullet across the plains
To avenge our kin’s blood and name
In bedlam we will rise and stand
With strength and honor to defend our land
Hang ‘em high, pistols to the sky
We ride, we ride, ‘cross the line
It’s in our veins
The feel of the reins
.45’s, chaps, bandannas and spurs
We are cowboys forever
We are, we are
Cowboys forever
Bill Haisten 581-8397
bill.haisten@tulsaworld.comBy BILL HAISTEN World Sports Writer
John Martin is the writer and singer for OSU's new introduction song, "Cowboys Forever." Preston Bezant/For the Tulsa World
By BILL HAISTEN World Sports Writer
Published: 8/23/2009 3:26 AM
Last Modified: 8/23/2009 3:44 AM
Listen to John Martin’s “Cowboys Forever.”STILLWATER — A former Baylor Bear has composed and recorded an Oklahoma State anthem to be featured during the Cowboys' pregame video for home football games.
John Martin, son of OSU associate athletic director Dave Martin and a Baylor wide receiver in 2000-04, is a 27-year-old singer-songwriter. When he was approached by OSU athletic director Mike Holder about the possibility of producing the 2009 Cowboy pregame video, he and a friend, Taylor Bolding, accepted the assignment.
Martin decided also to write a song that would accompany the video. He attended Bruce Springsteen's April 7 show at Tulsa's BOK Center. About a week later, influenced by the sing-along quality of Springsteen's anthems, Martin began to write "Cowboys Forever."
The three-minute, 20-second song would best be described as a pop-rock hybrid. A sample of the lyrics: "In bedlam we will rise and stand ... with strength and honor to defend our land."
"A couple of people have told me that it reminds them a little of Springsteen," Martin said. "It's a big-sounding song. That's what I wanted. When coach Holder heard it, he was singing along with it by the second listen. That's powerful. That's the effect you want the song to have on the fans."
Said Holder: "I look forward to seeing the reaction of the fans out here in our stadium. I think we can do some chants off of it. You can use it at various times during the game. You can listen to it when you're driving to the game."
When Nike's promotional specialists learned of Martin's song and video (which features Zac Robinson, Dez Bryant and Kendall Hunter), the Nike machine got involved.
Nike personnel did the editing on the video, and Nike is about to launch a line of "Cowboys 4Ever" apparel. During the recent Fan Appreciation Day autograph event, OSU players were clad in black "Cowboys 4Ever" T-shirts.
"Cowboys 4Ever" gear soon will be available at the Boone Pickens Stadium merchandise store, Dave Martin said, and also in various Stillwater, Tulsa and Oklahoma City shops.
Within a few days, the "Cowboys Forever" song will be available for purchase attulsaworld.com/osusports.
"If you listen to that song more than once or twice, you'll be humming the song," Dave Martin said. "It gets into your head. That was John's intent. He wanted a catchy song, and I think he wrote one.
"When John sings about Bullet (OSU's mascot horse) riding across the plains, that might mean nothing to some people, but it certainly means something for Oklahoma State people."
Nike's production team put the finishing touches on the video last week.
"All I can say is that it's really cool," John Martin said.
OSU officials are being extremely guarded, not wanting copies of the video to be leaked before the Sept. 5 opener against Georgia.
Martin's three-day song-writing process was completed on April 17. Five days later, he was in the Tulsa-area home of country-music superstar Garth Brooks, a former OSU track athlete. The first time that Martin performed the song for anyone, he performed it on an acoustic guitar for Brooks.
"It was a huge deal for me to take the song to Garth, to get his opinion and see what he thought about it," Martin said. "I gave him the lyrics first. He loved the title 'Cowboys Forever.' He kneels down on one knee, up against the coffee table, and says, 'Let's hear it.' He was tapping along with the song, and when I finished, he sang the chorus melody back to me. It was a chance of a lifetime to go to his house and play it for him. I'll never forget it."
A self-taught guitarist and vocalist who fronts a band known as August Rose, Martin resides in Stillwater, only a couple of blocks from the OSU campus.
His songs can be sampled at tulsaworld.com/cowboysforever and iTunes.
Last year, the Big 12 Conference hired Martin to write a theme for the league. Martin wrote and recorded "Live Your Dreams," a song that was featured prominently during the bowl season and during Fox's BCS championship telecast.
In December, Martin sang the national anthem before the Oklahoma-Missouri Big 12 championship game at Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium.
"That was a great experience. Awesome," said Martin, a 1999 All-State football player at Stillwater High School. His Baylor career was tarnished by injuries (a broken collarbone and concussions).
Backed by an A-list collection of studio musicians (including Alanis Morissette's drummer, Sheryl Crow's bass player and Shakira's guitarist), Martin recorded "Cowboys Forever" in May.
The recording took place in Hollywood, Calif., in the same Sunset Sound studio where the Rolling Stones recorded "Exile On Main Street," and in which such artists as Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, The Doors and Tom Petty recorded classic albums.
"It was a mind-blowing thing," Martin says.
Cowboys Forever lyrics
The prairie wind touches our skin Another maverick morning begins Wild west eyes rise before the sun We are young guns on the run Hang ‘em high, pistols to the sky We ride, we ride, ‘cross the lineIt’s in our veins
The feel of the reins
.45’s, chaps, bandannas and spurs
We are cowboys forever
Stay here today, gone tomorrow
The open range is our home
All that we own lives inside our soul
We are cowboy to the bone
Hang ‘em high, pistols to the sky
We ride, we ride, ‘cross the line
It is in our veins
The feel of the reins
.45’s, chaps, bandannas and spurs
We are cowboys forever
Riding Bullet across the plains
To avenge our kin’s blood and name
In bedlam we will rise and stand
With strength and honor to defend our land
Hang ‘em high, pistols to the sky
We ride, we ride, ‘cross the line
It’s in our veins
The feel of the reins
.45’s, chaps, bandannas and spurs
We are cowboys forever
We are, we are
Cowboys forever
Bill Haisten 581-8397
bill.haisten@tulsaworld.com
Saturday, August 22, 2009
From my friend Missy comes this insight into ... TAPS
If any of you have ever been to a military funeral in which taps was played; this brings out a new meaning of it.
Here is something Every American should know. Until I read this, I didn't know, but I checked it out and it's true:
We in the United States have all heard the haunting song, 'Taps.' It's the song that gives us the lump in our throats and usually tears in our eyes.
But, do you know the story behind the song? If not, I think you will be interested to find out about its humble beginnings.
Reportedly, it all began in 1862 during the Civil War, when Union Army Captain Robert Ellicombe was with his men near Harrison's Landing in Virginia . The Confederate Army was on the other side of the narrow strip of land.
During the night, Captain Ellicombe heard the moans of a soldier who lay severely wounded on the field. Not knowing if it was a Union or Confederate soldier, the Captain decided to risk his life and bring the stricken man back for medical attention. Crawling on his stomach through the gunfire, the Captain reached the stricken soldier and began pulling him toward his encampment.
When the Captain finally reached his own lines, he discovered it was actually a Confederate soldier, but the soldier was dead.
The Captain lit a lantern and suddenly caught his breath and went numb with shock. In the dim light, he saw the face of the soldier. It was his own son. The boy had been studying music in the South when the war broke out. Without telling his father, the boy enlisted in the Confederate Army.
The following morning, heartbroken, the father asked permission of his superiors to give his son a full military burial, despite his enemy status. His request was only partially granted.
The Captain had asked if he could have a group of Army band members play a funeral dirge for his son at the funeral.
The request was turned down since the soldier was a Confederate.
But, out of respect for the father, they did say they could give him only one musician.
The Captain chose a bugler. He asked the bugler to play a series of musical notes he had found on a piece of paper in the pocket of the dead youth's uniform.
This wish was granted.
The haunting melody, we now know as 'Taps' used at military funerals was born.
The words are:
Day is done.
Gone the sun.
From the lakes
From the hills.
From the sky.
All is well.
Safely rest.
God is nigh.
Fading light.
Dims the sight.
And a star.
Gems the sky.
Gleaming bright.
From afar.
Drawing nigh.
Falls the night.
Thanks and praise.
For our days.
Neath the sun
Neath the stars.
Neath the sky
As we go.
This we know.
God is nigh
Didn't know there were words to this tune. I am blown away!
Cowboys are No. 9 in preseason AP poll
Cowboys are No. 9 in preseason AP poll
NEW YORK (AP)—The Oklahoma State football program continues to make history. The Cowboys were ranked No. 9 in the Associated Press preseason poll, released Saturday. It's the highest preseason ranking ever for the school. The previous best was No. 16 in 1985 when Thurman Thomas was running the ball for the Pokes.
Even at No. 9 the Cowboys are third in term of Big 12 teams in the poll. Texas is ranked No. 2 and Oklahoma No. 3,
No. 23 Nebraska and No. 25 Kansas are the other Big 12 teams in the poll.
As Tim Tebow and the Florida Gators prepare to make a run at their third national title in the last four seasons, the defending champions have already made some history of their own.
Florida is No. 1 in The Associated Press’ preseason Top 25 released Saturday, followed by Texas, Oklahoma, Southern California and Alabama. But the Gators are in a class by themselves, the most overwhelming preseason No. 1 in the history of the media poll.
Florida received 58 of the 60 first-place votes, or 96.7 percent. Texas got the other first-place votes.
The previous highest percentage of first-place votes for the AP preseason poll, which started in 1950, was 95.4 percent for USC in 2007. Those Trojans got 62 of 65 first-place votes—and didn’t play for the national title.
Ten preseason No. 1s have won the national championship. If the Gators can become the 11th, they will have put together one of the great runs in college football history. Only one program since 1950 can claim three national championships in four years; Nebraska won it all it 1994 and 1995, then earned a split title in 1997.
With expectations soaring in Gainesville, Fla., coach Urban Meyer has been on a mission to keep his team’s eyes on the small prizes—to heck with history.
“There’s a lot of guys getting patted on the back and being told how good they are,” Meyer said in a recent telephone interview. “Their only focus is on survival to the next day and working hard in practice.
“I don’t want them to even think about that kind of stuff. Our goal is to get to Atlanta” for the Southeastern Conference championship game.
The rest of the top 10 includes two Big Ten powerhouses (No. 6 Ohio State and No. 9 Penn State) and the defending Atlantic Coast Conference champion (No. 7 Virginia Tech).
No. 8 Mississippi is in the preseason top 10 for the first time since 1970, when the Rebels were ranked fifth.
Oklahoma State is tied with Penn State.
Florida is preseason No. 1 for the third time (1994 and 2001), and the Gators are the 20th defending national champ to start the season on top.
From the moment Florida wrapped up its 24-14 victory over Oklahoma in the BCS championship game in January, talk of a repeat started.
And when Tebow a few days later announced at a rally on campus celebrating the national title that he would come back for his senior year, there was no doubt the Gators would be the runaway preseason No. 1.
Florida’s rugged, multidimensional quarterback won the Heisman Trophy in 2007 and finished third behind Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford and Texas quarterback Colt McCoy last year.
As good as Tebow is—he has a chance to end his career as the most decorated player in college footbal history with three national title rings and two Heismans—Meyer sees areas for improvement.
“I’d say in the passing game he can certainly improve some things,” Meyer said. “Leadership-wise he used to get angry when he felt other guys weren’t working as hard as he was. Now he gets those players to play at that level.”
While Tebow leads an offense with plenty of speedy gamebreakers, All-American linebacker Brandon Spikes—another guy who passed on a chance to enter the NFL draft to return for his senior season—leads a defense that has potential to be the best in the country.
All 22 players on the defensive depth chart for the BCS title game are back. Among the standouts are defensive end Carlos Dunlap and cornerback Janoris Jenkins and Joe Haden.
All that experience will allow defensive coordinator Charlie Strong to good deep into his playbook.
“Our defense has been installed at a much greater pace than ever before,” Meyer said. “That allows you to put in a lot more different packages, three down (linemen) and four down.”
The Gators are one of five SEC teams ranked in the Top 25, matching the Big 12 for the most from any conference. Joining Florida, Alabama and Ole Miss are LSU at No. 11 and Georgia at No. 13.
Utah, which finished No. 2 last season and was the only undefeated team in major college football, is ranked 19th to start this season. But the Utes aren’t even the highest ranked team from the Mountain West Conference.
That distinction belongs to No. 17 TCU, while No. 20 BYU gives the MWC three ranked teams to start the season, as many as the Big Ten and Pac-10 and three more than the Big East, which was shut out.
No. 14 Boise State is the highest ranked team from a conference that does not automatically qualify for the Bowl Championship Series. The Broncos, the champions of the Western Athletic Conference, play the season’s first big game, facing No. 16 Oregon on Sept. 3.
Notre Dame is back in the rankings for the first time since the final poll of the 2006 season. The Fighting Irish, coming off a 7-6 season, are No. 23.
Danny Williams and Ronnie Kaye
| Danny and Ronnie |  |  |  |
Danny and Ronnie By Michael Dean
 In the truest sense of that word, both Danny Williams and Ronnie Kaye set and continue to set standards which all who come after them will have to meet. Both hosted top-rated programs on WKY-TV, now KFOR-TV, and both were enormously popular DJs on WKY radio for more than 20 years. And both have found that their talents and the music they originally played have not lost a step in the intervening years – Kaye is still on the air playing “Oldies” on KOMA-FM, while Williams retired just a year ago from the same station. Williams’ story begins with the end of World War II. After serving in the navy in 1944 and ‘45, he headed to Austin at attend the University of Texas. There, he graduated with honors in three years and worked at KTXN radio telling, of all things, children’s stories. His next stop was KTBC radio in the same city, where he was the play-by-play voice of the basketball and baseball teams. In 1949, Williams landed a job at KTSA Radio in San Antonio, again – believe it or not – telling children’s stories. One can imagine Williams being asked if it was his life’s calling to put Bobby and Sissy to bed every night to “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and he would have answered, “What, and quit show business?” However, that great storyteller in the sky and a certain media mogul in Oklahoma City had other plans for Danny Williams.  In 1950, he was hired by WKY in Oklahoma City to do a children’s show on their new television station. Here, his radio versions of “Mother Goose” paid off… he used his immense talent and creativity to portray such characters as Spavinaw Spoofkin, "Chief Spoof Spinner" on the "Gismo Goodkin Show." E.K. Gaylord, owner of both the WKY radio and television stations, knew he had landed a major talent. Later that year, Danny was given the “Danny Williams Show,” a program in which he interviewed survivors of the Land Run of 1889 and other historical figures in the state capital. That same summer, he also began hosting “Championship Wrestling,” a show that continued until 1973. One Friday in 1953, the manager of WKY-TV told Williams that starting Monday, he would star in a space adventure show. “I had the weekend to dream up a name for the show as well as concepts and scripts for the show, and even costumes,” Williams explained. He called the program “The Adventures of 3-D Danny,” and it aired through 1959. Meanwhile, in 1956, a skinny kid from Cooter, Mo., landed a job as a disk jockey at KLCN Radio in Blytheville, Ark., and immediately felt he had found his calling. Just as importantly, the following year, Don Hodges, an airman from the nearby base, was hired at the same station. In the summer of 1958, ratings for WKY Radio had dropped and their NBC radio programming was moving to NBC-TV. Simultaneously, the lower powered KOCY radio began playing rock and roll music. DJ’s like Dale Wehba and Bill Miller were gaining big ratings. That summer, Todd Storz, inventor of “Top 40” radio, announced plans to buy KOMA radio. A meeting was held at WKY to determine what competitive response they should take. The decision was made to drop the network programming and begin playing Oklahoma City’s top 40 songs.  Williams had begun hosting a morning “Time and Tune Parade” on WKY radio about the same time, and was gaining in both popularity and ratings. Shortly after WKY radio went “Top 40,” he was promoted to program director and, in 1959, left television.In October, 1958, the FCC approved the transfer of KOMA to Storz; however, the station’s new format wasn’t to hit the air until early December. That gave WKY a five-month head start to rock and roll. In all the years the two stations battled each other, KOMA never hit number one in the ratings. WKY was the rock and roll juggernaut of Oklahoma City. Enter Don Hodges, who had left Arkansas for the greener pastures of Lawton, Okla. There, he offered his former co-worker Ronnie Kaye a position at his station, KSWO. But the big city called, and Danny Williams hired Ronnie Kaye. Such was the carousel world of radio in the earlier days of the medium. ”Danny saw in me something I never saw in myself,” Kaye said, “and he taught me many things over the years. But, I think the single most important lesson I ever learned from him is this – radio isn’t about entertaining, it’s about making money. It’s a business.” Recently, Williams said of Kaye, “I think Ronnie is the most technically perfect DJ I’ve ever known.” Williams recalls what could be the golden age of radio. “I think the best lineup we may have ever had on WKY was me from 6 to 9 a.m., Wilson Hurst from 9 to noon, Don Wallace from noon to 3 p.m., Jimmy O’Neal from 3 to 7 p.m., Chuck Boyles from 7 to midnight, and Ronnie Kaye from midnight to 6 a.m.,” he said. In the mid-1960s, Jimmy O’Neal hosted the nationally broadcast “Shindig” on ABC-TV. He is just one of many DJ’s, newscasters and sportscasters who were hired by Williams in his 21 years as program director.  “Danny hired the best talent in the country, let them know what he expected, and then allowed them to use their creativity,” Kaye said. “Look at the impact he had on their careers and the impact they in turn had on the Oklahoma City radio market.” Ronnie Kaye began his television career in 1966. “Dr Pepper wanted to sponsor a Bandstand-type show for 13 weeks, and I had been talking to the guys at WKY about a similar show. So, I got the deal. Several people had a number of ideas on what to call the show. I wanted to simply call it “The Scene,” Kaye said. “We didn’t have a budget to pay anyone to appear on the show, and really only once was there a potential problem. Ray Charles was in town, and I asked him if he’d be on my TV show that was taping the next morning. He said he’d be happy to. So, the next morning I picked him and his manager up at the Skirvin, and as we headed up the Broadway Extension, his manager asked me how much Charles was being paid for the appearance. I told him that I didn’t have any budget to pay anything, and started looking for a place to turn around to head back downtown. Charles turned to me and said, ‘Give me a dollar, and we’ll call it even.’ I was elated, and that made me an even bigger fan of Ray Charles than I had been before,” Kaye recalled. Williams left WKY radio in 1979. He did the morning show at KEBC from 1984 to 1986, and then took his morning show to KOMA in 1992, before retiring last year. In his radio career, he was rated the number one DJ in his time slot for seven decades. Ronnie Kaye left WKY radio in 1980. He worked at KOKH-TV from 1980 to 1991; he then joined the KOMA staff in 1992, and is still number one in his time slot. When Williams and Kaye joined KOMA in 1992, it brought the two icons of Oklahoma City broadcasting back together again, ironically at the station they had competed against for so many years. Who says there are no second acts in show business? |
Bill Homans was born in Boston 60 years ago. Some 30 years later, half a country away, Watermelon Slim was birthed in a field in Pushmataha County, entering life during the kind of stifling Oklahoma summer that can peel paint from a barn.
Watermelon Slim and Bill Homans may be the same guy, but certainly something profound happened to Homans on that day, when he experienced a heat-enhanced epiphany he compares with the biblical Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus.
“I was in my field of watermelons in the middle of July in 1980, which was a very hot year,” he recalls. “It was 105 degrees in the shade, I know, and I was standing in the sun. I had a D harmonica in one hand – I always kept one in my pocket – and a piece of watermelon I was eating in the other hand. It just hit me. I realized I had a blues name. And I’ve been Watermelon Slim ever since that day.”
Under that moniker, the Oklahoma resident has become an internationally known blues artist, garnering, in the past few years, a very impressive 13 Blues Music Awards nominations from the Blues Foundation, a group made up of blues aficionados from across the globe. And while Slim has only been working under this name since that life-changing afternoon on his truck-patch farm 29 years ago, his music making goes a long way back.
“My first axe was actually bongos, back in 1958, when beatniks were around,” he says. “I had my own first pair of bongos and was really hip to beatniks. I do consider myself a professional percussion player, especially congas and incidental percussion. I’ve always done some percussion with the groups I’ve been in.”
A year after getting his bongos, Slim picked up the harmonica. It took a while, but he eventually played his first professional job as a blues harpist almost a decade later, at Vermont’s Middlebury College. He earned a cool five bucks for the gig.
“That was the first time I tried to go to college,” he notes. “It didn’t work. I went to Vietnam instead.”
And it was there, in a military hospital in Cam Ranh Bay recovering from an illness, that Homans added another instrument to his repertoire.
“I started playing on a five-dollar guitar from a Vietnamese commissary, balsa wood, with rusty old strings, and I used a Zippo cigarette lighter I had – with a picture of Snoopy on it – as my slide,” he remembers. “I think the very first thing I used as a pick was a quarter, but I found myself a coffee-can top, and I cut a piece out of that, out of the plastic, and that was my very first plastic pick.
“I had always been left-handed, see, so I couldn’t learn (guitar) like normal people could. My brother was right-handed, and he’d been taking guitar lessons from about the age of 11, but I was left-handed,” he continues.
“So it struck me that I would try this (slide guitar style), having been a listener and a fan and a bluesman-wannabe from an early age, listening to people like Mississippi Fred McDowell, John Lee Hooker and several others. I wasn’t allowed to bring the guitar back, but I got one when I got back over to the states, and I just started working on that thing.”
Returning to the Boston area, Slim began playing locally, but after a few years he saw a need to relocate – in part, he admits, to leave a certain part of his life behind him.
“I was really just spinning my wheels, and, well, I had a lot of shady connections (in Boston),” he says. “I left partially to get rid of my criminal connections, and I came to Oklahoma because I’d been looking all over the country for land. I’d thought about the possibility of getting a truck, but ’79 was the year of one of the great attempts to start a truck strike, and fuel was very high. So I got some land in Pushmataha County (in Oklahoma).
“I became an independent farmer, and I was kind of naïve about it. I figured I might be able to actually make a living on what little land I had truck patching, but I figured it out after several years. If I had to look back on it, I’d say it probably would’ve taken a helpmate, and I didn’t have one of those.”
Throughout his farming days, Slim continued to play music, although performing took a back seat to making a living. For several years, Slim drove trucks and worked in southeastern Oklahoma sawmills in addition to raising everything from cantaloupes to Jerusalem artichokes. Watermelons, he says, were one of the crops he didn’t lose money on during his years with the truck patch.
Then, he moved again.
“I didn’t get to playing steadily with anybody until about 1984, up in Oregon,” he says. “That’s where I first started playing with professional groups that amounted to something.”
Emboldened by that experience, Slim headed for Europe, where he tried to establish himself as a musician. When that didn’t work out as planned, he returned to Boston and truck driving. In 1993 he came back to Oklahoma, and he’s been here ever since, playing gigs both solo and with his band, the Workers, made up of Ronnie McMullen Jr. on guitar, Cliff Belcher on bass and Chris Stovall Brown on drums. With fans (known as Melon Heads) all over, and six discs released since 2002 (with another, produced by Delbert McClinton’s longtime songwriting partner and producer, Gary Nicholson, on the way), Slim finds himself so busy these days that he hasn’t been able to devote the time necessary to growing watermelons or any other crop. He’s also trying to carve enough time out of his schedule to finish several paintings, one a commissioned piece.
And even when he’s not on stage – where a typical show finds him playing harmonica, guitar and percussion in addition to singing – Slim attracts attention. In a March 12, 2009, Norman Transcript article, writer Doug Hill penned a review of the Bonnie Raitt show at the Riverwind Casino that talked almost as much about Slim, who attended the show and was recognized from the stage, as it did Raitt. Early in the story, Hill quoted the Oklahoma bluesman:
“‘Oh, I played with Bonnie Raitt back in 1972 and ’73,’ Slim drawled. ‘She and I both had similar musical ancestors and we went different directions.’ This was a revelation but makes perfect sense as the artists are the same age (59) and started their careers on the east coast. ‘I haven’t been on any Bonnie Raitt records but we’ve been negotiating for several years to get her on one of mine. It hasn’t happened yet, but it might,’ Slim said. ‘That will be mighty lovely if it does.’”
“She and I are pretty well known as the greatest female and male disciples of Fred McDowell on the guitar,” says Slim. “She learned direct from him, and I got about as close as anybody besides that. I heard every record that Fred ever did. One of the things that inspired me to play when I was back there in Vietnam was trying to make that sound, the sound I heard from Mississippi Fred.”
A couple of months after the Riverwind concert, Raitt and Slim met up again, this time for the May 8 dedication of the Mississippi Blues Trail Marker honoring their shared hero, McDowell.
“We were both there in Como, Mississippi, for the unveiling ceremony,” he explains. “Afterwards, me and my publicist, Mike McClune, and my biographer, Michael Kinsman, went to Fred’s grave, where I did something I’ve meant to do for 37 years. I stood on his grave and sang ‘Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning,’ which I learned from him all those many, many years ago. There’s a picture of Fred there (at the grave site), some kind of high-durability laminated thing, and so I was able to look at him the whole time I was singing this song to him, standing on his grave. And we were the only ones there, except for an old boy who was tending his mother’s grave.”
It was a powerful moment for the artist known as Watermelon Slim, a way of finally recognizing the man whose music started a guy named Bill Homans on the road to blues stardom. McDowell’s slide-guitar style, as Slim readily acknowledges, was “the actual guitar sound I tried to be fluent in first.”
And does he believe he’s finally learned it?
“Oh man, if I had to be really scratched about it, I would say I probably have,” he answers. “But I’ve passed by merely getting someone else’s style down. I’ve incorporated Fred’s style with everybody else’s I’ve ever heard. At this point, I’m Watermelon Slim.” from okmag.com
This will make you stand proud... especially if you voted democratic... your man spent a week in Mexico not long ago, and look what he brought home..
Mexico decriminalizes small-scale drug possession
Aug 21 04:58 AM US/Eastern
By MARK STEVENSON
Associated Press Writer
Associated Press Writer
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico decriminalized small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and heroin on Friday—a move that prosecutors say makes sense even in the midst of the government's grueling battle against drug traffickers.
Prosecutors said the new law sets clear limits that keep Mexico's corruption-prone police from extorting casual users and offers addicts free treatment to keep growing domestic drug use in check.
"This is not legalization, this is regulating the issue and giving citizens greater legal certainty," said Bernardo Espino del Castillo of the attorney general's office.
The new law sets out maximum "personal use" amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities no longer face criminal prosecution.
Espino del Castillo says, in practice, small users almost never did face charges anyway. Under the previous law, the possession of any amount of drugs was punishable by stiff jail sentences, but there was leeway for addicts caught with smaller amounts.
"We couldn't charge somebody who was in possession of a dose of a drug, there was no way ... because the person would claim they were an addict," he said.
Despite the provisions, police sometimes hauled in suspects and demanded bribes, threatening long jail sentences if people did not pay.
"The bad thing was that it was left up to the discretion of the detective, and it could open the door to corruption or extortion," Espino del Castillo said.
Anyone caught with drug amounts under the new personal-use limit will be encouraged to seek treatment, and for those caught a third time treatment is mandatory.
The maximum amount of marijuana for "personal use" under the new law is 5 grams—the equivalent of about four joints. The limit is a half gram for cocaine, the equivalent of about 4 "lines." For other drugs, the limits are 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams for methamphetamine and 0.015 milligrams for LSD.
Mexico has emphasized the need to differentiate drug addicts and casual users from the violent traffickers whose turf battles have contributed to the deaths of more than 11,000 people since President Felipe Calderon took office in late 2006.
But one expert saw potential for conflict under the new law.
Javier Oliva, a political scientist at Mexico's National Autonomous University, said the new law posed "a serious contradiction" for the Calderon administration.
"If they decriminalize drugs it could lead the army, which has been given the task of combating this, to say 'What are we doing'?" he said.
Officials said the legal changes could help the government focus more on big-time traffickers.
Espino del Castillo said since Calderon took office, there have been over 15,000 police searches related to small-scale drug dealing or possession, with 95,000 people detained—but only 12 to 15 percent of whom were ever charged with anything.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~This makes sense, yes it does.... just imagine... if I can think of this, then anyone could have.. I wondered if they thought for one second about what happens whent the third time rolls around.. "Oh, this is your third arrest Mr. Druggie, so I Mr. Policeman will let you go if you give me 2500 dollars US!"... good God Almighty, how does this solve anything!! But makes it worse for them.. and now for us too... geeze.. and our fearless leader didn't call for a round table and "sit down and talk about this over a beer in his sans suit and tie... come on man.. you can heal the world "talking about it over a beer"...
and this helps america how... selling our american banks.. to foreign interests??? geezee louise.... we have GIANT idiots running this country??
Large Texas bank shut down by federal regulators
Aug 22, 5:19 AM (ET)
By MARCY GORDON
WASHINGTON (AP) - Guaranty Bank became the second-largest U.S. bank to fail this year after the Texas lender was shut down by regulators and most of its operations sold at a loss of billions of dollars for the U.S. government to a major Spanish bank.
The transaction approved by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. marked the first time a foreign bank has bought a failed U.S. bank.
The bank failure, the 10th largest in U.S. history, is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund an estimated $3 billion.
The FDIC seized Austin-based Guaranty Bank, with about $13 billion in assets and $12 billion in deposits, and on Friday sold all of its deposits and $12 billion of its assets to BBVA Compass, the U.S. division of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, Spain's second-largest bank. In addition, the FDIC agreed to share losses with BBVA on about $11 billion of Guaranty Bank's loans and other assets.
Tell me HOW this helps american car makers??? and these idiots want control of YOUR health... I don't think so...
Toyota Corolla still Cash for Clunkers top seller
Toyota Corolla remains atop Cash for Clunkers top sellers list
- On Friday August 21, 2009, 5:27 pm EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Toyota Corolla remained the top-selling vehicle under the Cash for Clunkers program, according to data released Friday by the government.
Asian automakers also continued to increase their share of sales under the government incentive program that offers car buyers rebates on new vehicle purchases of $3,500 or $4,500 in return for turning in older, less fuel efficient vehicles.
Toyota vehicles accounted for 19.2 percent of the 489,269 sales recorded through Friday morning, while General Motors had the second spot at 17.7 percent.
The Honda Civic was the second best-selling vehicle, followed by the Ford Focus in the third spot. The Ford Explorer was the most traded-in vehicle under the program.
Cash for Clunkers is scheduled to expire Monday at 8 p.m. EDT. As of Friday, the program had used up $2 billion of the $3 billion Congress set aside for it.
OH MY GOD... HERE IT COMES.... WONDERED WHEN THIS CRA* WOULD START!
Paterson Brings Up Racism for His Low Standing
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Gov. David A. Paterson said on Friday that the chorus of people who believe he should not run for election next year want to keep him out of the race because he is black.
“We’re not in the post-racial period,” said Mr. Paterson, according to an article posted on The Daily News Web site, which cited an interview the governor provided to a radio program hosted by Errol Louis, a Daily News columnist.
“My feeling is it’s being orchestrated, it’s a game, and people who pay attention know that,” he said. “We have a media that doesn’t report the news. We have a media that wants to make the news.”
Mr. Paterson — whose approval ratings and support even among fellow Democrats have dipped this year — also mentioned Deval L. Patrick, the Massachusetts governor and the country’s only other current black governor, and suggested that criticisms leveled against him are based on race.
“The reality is the next victim on the list, and you can see it coming, is President Obama, who did nothing more than trying to reform a health care system,” Mr. Paterson said.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe,
"Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it
can achieve. Thoughts are things! And powerful things
at that, when mixed with definiteness of purpose,
and burning desire, can be translated into riches."
— Napoleon Hil
can achieve. Thoughts are things! And powerful things
at that, when mixed with definiteness of purpose,
and burning desire, can be translated into riches."
— Napoleon Hil
Pull the Plug on ObamaCare
It's the best cure for what ails the Obama presidency.
By PEGGY NOONAN
Looking back, this must have been the White House health-care strategy:
Health care as a subject is extraordinarily sticky, messy and confusing. It's inherently complicated, and it's personal. There are land mines all over the place. Don't make the mistake the Clintons made and create a plan that gets picked apart, shot down, and injures the standing of the president. Instead, push it off on Congress. Let them come up with a dozen plans. It will keep them busy. It will convince them yet again of their importance and autonomy. It will allow them to vent, and perhaps even exhaust, their animal spirits. Various items and elements within each bill will get picked off by the public. Fine, that's to be expected. The bills may in fact yield a target-rich environment. Fine again. Maybe health care's foes will get lost in the din and run out of ammo. Maybe they'll exhaust their animal spirits, too.
Summer will pass, the fight confined to the public versus Congress. And at the end, in the fall, the beauty part: The president swoops in and saves the day, forcing together an ultimate and more moderate plan that doesn't contain the more controversial elements but does constitute a successful first step toward universal health care.
That's not what happened.
It all got hotter, quicker than the White House expected. The many plans of Congress congealed in the public mind into one plan, and the one plan became a poison pool. The president is now immersed in it.
Associated Press
President John F. Kennedy walks with humility after his Bay of Pigs fiasco.
***
Here's another thing that didn't work. (I write as if health-care reform or insurance reform or whatever it's called this week is already a loss, a historic botch, because it is. Even if the White House wins, they lose, because the cost in terms of public trust and faith was too high.)
Every big idea that works is marked by simplicity, by clarity. You can understand it when you hear it, and you can explain it to people. Social Security: Retired workers receive a public pension to help them through old age. Medicare: People over 65 can receive taxpayer-funded health care. Welfare: If you have no money and cannot support yourself, we will help as you get back on your feet.
These things are clear. I understand them. You understand them. The president's health-care plan is not clear, and I mean that not only in the sense of "he hasn't told us his plan." I mean it in terms of the voodoo phrases, this gobbledygook, this secret language of government that no one understands—"single payer," "public option," "insurance marketplace exchange." No one understands what this stuff means, nobody normal.
And when normal people don't know what the words mean, they don't say to themselves, "I may not understand, but my trusty government surely does, and will treat me and mine with respect." They think, "I can't get what these people are talking about. They must be trying to get one past me. So I'll vote no."
***
In a more beautiful world, the whole health-care chapter could become, for the president, that helpful thing, the teachable moment. The president the past month has been taught a lot by the American people. It's all there in the polls. He could still step back, rethink, say it didn't work, promise to return with something better.
When presidents make clear, with modesty and even some chagrin, that they have made a mistake but that they've learned a lesson and won't be making it again, the American people tend to respond with sympathy. It is our tradition and our impulse.
Such admissions are not a sign of weakness. John F. Kennedy knew this after the Bay of Pigs. He didn't blame his Republican predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower, or the agencies that had begun the invasion's tentative planning under Ike. JFK made it clear he'd learned a great deal, which increased confidence in his leadership. His personal popularity rose so high that he later wryly noted that the more mistakes he made, the more popular he became.
I suspect the American people would appreciate seeing Barack Obama learn from this, and keep going. He's their president. He will be for the next few difficult years, which will no doubt contain moments he will have to lead us through. They also probably wouldn't mind seeing a wry, modest, very human and self-critical stance from a new president who doesn't strut and doesn't swagger but does have a level of 1950s cool, Old Vegas cool, of supreme and confident smoothness that one wouldn't mind seeing ruffled a bit by that old ruffler, reality. Critics of George W. Bush will say here, "Did he ever show wry self-criticism?" No, he didn't. And that's why it ended so well for him.
Modern presidents are always afraid to show anything so human as modesty or doubt. They're afraid of the endless cable-news loop of "I think I was wrong, I think I misjudged, I didn't get it right." They're afraid of death by soundbite. Which is understandable. But they should get over it, especially when it comes to a bit of self-criticism, and even a bit of self-doubt. Modesty is one of the prevailing moods of the moment, it's part of where the American people are and have been since at least a year ago when the economy tanked. We all lived through the abundance, made investments, not only financial ones, that turned out good or bad, made mistakes of judgment, and are wondering about the past decade, and its mistakes, and our part in its mistakes.
It shouldn't become a wallow, but there's nothing wrong with self-reflection and trying to learn from everything we did that was wrong, and right. It wouldn't be so bad to see a president echo this.
***
A final factor contributed to the mess of the health-care debate, and that the White House might ponder it. Looking back, what a lucky man President Clinton was to have—to help bring about after his own health-care fiasco—a Congress controlled by the opposite party. What a great and historic team Mr. Clinton and Newt Gingrich were, a popular Democratic president and a determined GOP leader with a solid majority. Welfare reform, a balanced budget, and a sense the public could have that not much crazy would happen and some serious progress might be made. If Mr. Clinton pressed too hard, Mr. Gingrich would push back. If Mr. Gingrich pressed too hard Mr. Clinton pushed back. Two gifted, often perplexing and always controversial Boomers who didn't even like each other, and yet you look back now and realize: Good things happened there.
Right now Mr. Obama's gift is his curse, a Congress dominated by his party. While the country worries about the economy and two wars, the Democrats of Congress are preoccupied with the idea that this is their moment, now is their time, health care now, "Never let a good crisis go to waste," the only blazingly memorable phrase to be uttered in the new era.
It's not especially pleasurable to see history held hostage to ideological vanity, but it's not the first time. And if they keep it up, they'll help solve the president's problem. He'll have a Republican congress soon enough.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
hummmm
Okla. City fire station catches fire
The fire, which primarily affected the station's living area and kitchen, started about 3:20 p.m. Several pieces of equipment was pulled from the building, but it does not appear any fire trucks caught ...
borrowed from Heather.... Andrew and Madison... heading off to school...
First Day of School!!
After three shoe changes this morning so that her flower on her big toes showed we ended up in sandles, I was praying that she did not want to change clothes :)Well I thought I was going to be ok about taking my little baby to PreK, boy was I wrong I did just find until I got to the car and then lost it...She was very excited and then nervous when we got there. I have better pictures on the camera these I snapped with my phone waiting to get in the school. Hoping I get no calls today from the school...
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