Saturday, July 27, 2013

BIG AL'S JOVIAL JUKEBOX #14: JOHN FOGERTY, "Hot Rod Heart" 1997

 
 
I wonder what ol' John meant by "big ol' gator puttin' on the zoom!" 
Great cruising song from the classic BLUE MOON SWAMP album. Enjoy!
 
 

Ooh, let's go ridin'
Cruisin' down the open road
We can put the top down
Listen to the radio
Big ol' Buick
And a big ol' sky
Wheels on fire
And I'll tell you why
I got a hot rod heart

Ooh, let's go prowlin'
Sneakin' like we used to do
Way back in the country
Cut across the cornfields too
Big ol' Harley
And a big ol' moon
Big ol' 'gator
Puttin' on the zoom
I got a hot rod heart

[Chorus:]

Got a one-way ticket to the open road
Come on
Got a red line engine
And I'm rarin' to go
Put the pedal to the metal
If you want to ride
If you want to ride
Let's go

Ooh, let's go ridin'
Rollin' down the open road
We can put the top down
Listen to the radio
Big ol' Buick
And a big ol' sky
Wheels on fire
And I'll tell you why
I got a hot rod heart
 
 
PEACE

COOL STUFF FROM LIBRARY BOOKS #28: "Who Cares For Your Soul?" by DeWitt Talmage

Albie's Note: Although few have heard of him today, T. DeWitt Talmage [1832-1902] was one of the most famous American preachers of the 19th century.  Pastor of the huge Brooklyn Tabernacle [Presbyterian], he was in many ways the "American Spurgeon," and his written sermons are at times a marvelous mixture of eloquence and plain spoken emotion.  here, in an excerpt from the 1883 sermon collection "The Masque Torn Off," Talmage gives a remarkably plaintive answer to the anguished cry of Psalm 142:4--
"I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul."
Good readin' ahead:

  
No one cares for your soul? Have you heard how Christ feels about it?
I know it was only five or six miles from Bethlehem to Calvary—the birth-place and the death-place of Christ——but who can tell how many miles it was from the throne to the manger? How many miles down, how many miles back again?
The place of his departure was the focus of all splendor and pomp. All the thrones facing His throne. His name the chorus in every song, and the inscription on every banner.
His landing-place a cattle-pen, malodorous with unwashed brutes, and dogs growling in and out of the stable.
Born of a weary mother who had journeyed eighty miles in severe unhealth that she might find the right place for the Lord’s nativity——born, not as other princes, under the flash of a chandelier, but under a lantern swung by a rope to the roof of the barn. In that place Christ started to save you. Your name, your face, your time, your eternity, in Christ’s mind!
Sometimes traveling on mule’s back to escape old Herod’s massacre, sometimes attempting nervous sleep on the chilly hillside, sometimes earning his breakfast by the carpentry of a plough.
In Quarantania, the stones of the field, by their shape and color, looking like the loaves of bread, tantalizing his hunger.
Yet all the time keeping on after you!
With drenched coat treading the surf of Genessaret. Howled after by a blood-thirsty mob. Denounced as a drunkard. Mourning over a doomed city, while others shouted at the site of the shimmering towers.
All the time coming on and coming on to save you!
Indicted as being a traitor against government, perjured witnesses swearing their souls away to ensure his butchery. Flogged, spit on, slapped in the face, and then hoisted on rough lumber, in the sight of earth, and heaven, and hell, to purchase your eternal emancipation. From the first infant step to the last step of manhood on the sharp spike of Calvary, a journey... for you!
Oh, how he cared for your soul! By dolorous arithmetic add up the stable, the wintry tempest, the midnight dampness, the abstinence of forty days from food, the brutal Sanhedrin, the heights of Golgotha, across which all the hatreds of earth, and all the furies of hell, charged with their bayonets, and then dare to say again that no one cares for your soul!

From THE MASQUE TORN OFF by T. DeWitt Talmage, Fairbanks, Palmer and Co.; 1883
PEACE

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

UNUSUAL WESTERNS DEPT.: "The Beginning Of The End" from Charlton Comics, 1955


Albie's Note:  NEVER AGAIN was a title from Charlton Comics that saw only 2 issues back in 1955.  Oddly, there were only a #1 and a #8 issue with the run having different titles for the issue numbers in-between.

Even more oddly, NEVER AGAIN-- from Charton, the company one comic historian has called "the junk dealer of the comics world" [kind of an unfair assessment to begin with if you ask me]--  was a very intelligent, almost philosophical, war comic that pre-saged in tone the ponderous, conflict-weary "Make War No More" comics of the '60s and '70s by at least a decade or so.

In this story from issue #1, our narrator-- "The Unknown Soldier" himself--takes us through the true story of the final stand of Chief Joseph [1840-1904] and the Nez Perce tribe as they were pursued by vastly larger U.S. Federal Forces back in 1877. I could find no info as to who wrote and drew this tale, but it is a remarkably truthful recounting of a sad incident in our nation's history.

Please note that "Nez Perce" is correctly pronounced "Nay Per-SAY"-- it is French for "peiced nose"-- even though you almost never hear it rendered that way.

[Many thanks for images and issue info are due to Professor Fester at the wonderful CHARLTON COMICS READING BLOG. ]











PEACE