Category: Culture

This is part of a fascinating story about trying to integrate performance halls in Houston in the 50s:

The full story is here (with a higher res picture), do read it. They were performing to an integrating hall and were arrested in between sets for “gambling”. The venue owner warned the police there’d be a riot if he had to cancel the show, so they brought them to the station, made them pay a fine (while signing autographs) and got them back in time for the next set.

In Dizzy Gillespie’s out-of-print autobiography, To Be, or not … to Bop, Granz stated that when he rented the Music Hall, he added a non-segregation clause to the contract. Granz removed the racial signs denoting the “white” versus “black” restrooms, and refused to pre-sell tickets in case patrons attempted to section off parts of the venue for whites only

Amazing story of the times. I love Dizzy sitting there in jail, looking great, completely relaxed.

Stephen King referencing Frog and Toad is why I’m still on Twitter…

A great simple post from Seth Godin:

Fabled author Ursula Le Guin had a sign over her desk:

• Is it true?
• Is it necessary or at least useful?
• Is it compassionate or at least unharmful?

Not a bad place to begin.

Because I follow a lot of the old school bloggers and because after all these years, they all seem to follow each other, I ended up with an RSS feed for the Lefsetz Letter. Bob Lefsetz has been a music industry analyst for ages and while I don’t follow the blog super closely, I do find it interesting.

This week he did a post about his 70th birthday. Being a big number, his wife got a bunch of folks to record birthday wishes on video and she combined it. There are many more famous people (starts with Donny Osmond) than I would get for my 70th birthday. Paul Anka sings new lyrics to “My Way” (which Paul Anka wrote). There are many older artists that had me going, “wait, who is that”, but it’s an impressive list regardless. The whole thing is 30 minutes long, so skim through it, but it’s fun. The person in the YouTube preview still is Seth Godin, who I follow and often link to.

I would be super happy with something anywhere close to that on any birthday. Btw, there’s a Marvel like post credits scene with Elton John…

This is a good post on the many things money can’t buy (87 of them). Some highlights farther down the list:

• 33: The spontaneous, unplanned happenings (which become the best stories and memories) that result from being with the right people at the right time.
• 53: A bond with your dog.
• 68: People who actually want to listen to your advice.
• 69: Advice actually worth listening to.
• 75: Wit.
• 83: A bias towards action.

It’s a good list.