Consider this a placemarker...

...for a proper remembrance of George McGovern, who, weeks after returning from Vietnam, I got my first campaign job with, and who I cast my first Presidential ballot for.  A lot of who I am, personally and politically, comes from my early association with that great man.

Actually, that may be all there is to say. 

Maybe not. It's a lot, though, and enough for now.

R.I.P., Senator.
br>

He was a Pal of mine...

...and later in life a customer. As nice a man as you could want to know, nose or not.

R.I.P., J.P..

The Queen is dead.

Kitty Well's dresses
Modest and sweet
Gingham and ribbon
Tied up so neat

They weren't made of satin
Or silk from Paris
But everyone knows they were
Robes of the Queen

Kitty Well's dresses
Every girl's dream
From five-and-dime fabric
Robes of the Queen...

R.I.P.

Doc Watson, 1923-2012

Doc was a pilgrim, but no stranger
'Cause he was every picker's friend
Now he's gone to yonder city
To sit and play with Merle again.

His only son, before his time
Had traveled down that road before
Now Doc has gone to join him
Over on that other shore...

R.I.P.

Lest we forget...

The sports and entertainment headlines are full of noteworthy recent passages, but I can't let today pass without noticing the anniversary of the death of the greatest and, the damned war be damned, the most progressive President of my lifetime.

Your life is better today because Lyndon Baines Johnson served as President of the United States.

That's a fact.

Word.

Kent Jones...

Soul music is not background music. It is not music to shop to. It is not music to eat dinner to. Soul music is not something that plays while a service representative gets back to you.

Soul music is Etta James.

Not just another...

...random ten, because there are twelve, and a couple of them aren't random at all. Here's the usual...

Harry Belafonte - Man Smart (Woman Smarter)
Jefferson Airplane - Triad
The Blues Brothers - Rubber Biscuit
Mother Love Bone - Come Bite The Apple
Wilco - I Must Be High
Gillian Welch - Pancho And Lefty
Dusty Springfield - Mama Said
The Four Tops - It's The Same Old Song
Muddy Waters - Rollin' Stone
Lucy Kaplansky - Ring Of Fire

...and here's a pair of memorial selections by two irreplacable R&B legends we lost this week...

Johnny Otis - Harlem Nocturne
Etta James - Tell Mama

R.I.P. Johnny & Etta.

Like, it seems, everyone...

...I've read this morning, I have a Christopher Hitchens story. I met him at the Democratic National Convention in 1992, in a corridor behind the seating area for the Washington State delegation, where he was hanging out with Dick Cavett and offering a running commentary on the proceedings that far surpassed anything I saw on the networks that week.

I didn't see Cavett again that week, but Hitchens hung out nearly every day, never disappointing the line of delegates who approached in hope of a handshake and a quip, who he greeted with a level of charm and patience that belied his legendarily acid wit and formidable wrath. I later got the chance to chat with him for the best part of an hour at a party hosted by The Nation and he was, if anything, even more charming in that setting.

Sure, he went a bit nuts after 9//11, but weighing the totality of his life and work in the balance, that's just a few feathers on the scale. He was wrong about the Iraq war, but many were. He was also one of the finest writers, most eloquent oraters and sharpest wits of our time and he'll be missed.

R.I.P.

The usual...

James Brown & The Famous Flames - Think
Alison Krauss - Can't Find My Way Home
Kate Wolf - These Days
Bill Withers - Better Off Dead
Sonia Rutstein - Is There Anybody Here?
Charley Pride - Is Anybody Goin' To San Antone?
The Byrds - Eight Miles High
Donna The Buffalo - Mississippi
The Proclaimers - 500 Miles
Big Star - I'm In Love With A Girl

And one in memory of Brother Gil…

Gil Scott-Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

R.I.P.

'Bout time…

…for the random ten.

Hayes Carll - Girl Downtown
Hank Williams - I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive
Clarence Carter - Funky Fever
George Jones & Willie Nelson - I Gotta Get Drunk
The Delfonics - Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time
Les Paul & Mary Ford - Tennessee Waltz
The Itals - Brutal
Black Sabbath - Sweet Leaf
Lyle Lovett - All My Love Is Gone
James Taylor & Alison Kraus - How's The World Treating You

Pretty diverse set this week. That last is a Louvin Brothers cover, which popped up at random as always, but is fitting given the recent loss of the surviving Louvin, Charlie. R.I.P.

Since you're here...

...how 'bout a nice random ten?

Carbon Leaf - Raise The Roof
Neko Case - John Saw That Number
6 Day Bender - Miss Linda
Emmylou Harris - Crescent City
Alison Brown - Everybody's Talkin'
Frank Sinatra - By The Time I Get To Phoenix
David Grisman, John Hartford & Mike Seeger - Maybelline
Wilco - Can't Stand It
Josh Ritter - The Curse
The Limeliters - The Hammer Song

…and a not so random tribute to the late, great Don Van Vliet...

The G.T.O.'s -The Captain's Fat Theresa Shoes

R.I.P., Cap.

R.I.P. Senator Byrd

I don't have a lot to say beyond that. What he was right or wrong about over the decades will fade. His devotion to the people of West Virginia and the institution of the US Senate will be his legacy.

Again, R.I.P.

The last Clancy Brother.

Liam Clancy
September 2, 1935 - December 4, 2009
R.I.P.

O, all the comrades e'er I had,
They're sorry for my going away.
And all the sweethearts e'er I had,
They'd wished me one more day to stay.
But since it falls unto my lot,
That I should rise and you should not,
I gently rise and softly call,
Goodnight and joy be with you all.

So long…

…and thanks for all the pies.



Milton "Soupy Sales" Supman
1926-2009
R.I.P.
As another fan wrote, "It was Soupy who inspired my generation to anarchy." Yes, it was, and we loved him for it.

"Why are we born?"

"We're born eventually to die, of course.
But what happens between the time we're
born and we die? We're born to live."

And man, did he.

Studs Terkel
1912 - 2008
R.I.P.

Damn.

George Carlin
1937-2008
R.I.P.

R.I.P.

Tim Russert.

Can't say I was a fan, but he was an institution. I guess it's a measure of how old I am that I find myself surprised at how young he was.

Don't imagine.

Remember. And organize.



If you want it enough, you'll work for it.

In Memoriam.

Eternally.



John Fitzgerald Kennedy,
Democrat

"A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on."

Sad news.

Karen Marchioro, a powerful and prominent Bellevue Democrat credited with reshaping the state party in the early 1980s, died this yesterday morning from cancer. She was 73.

Karen and I crossed paths a lot over the years. I got to know her best while she was State Party Chair and I was State Young Democrats Chair. Over the next couple decades she was variously a mentor, an ally and an adversary. She was always a Democrat, without apology, and she was always a friend.

R.I.P.