Burning The Beatles

    Birmingham disc jockeys Tommy Charles and Doug Layton 
started a "Ban The Beatles" campaign
(AP photo)

In late July, five months after its original publication, a U.S. teen mag called Datebook republished the interview with Lennon. Turning to the tried and true method of generating scandal to gin up sales, Datebook put the "We're more popular than Jesus" part of the quote on the cover. Woo-boy. Two Birmingham DJs picked up on the quote, vowing to never play the Beatles and on August 8th, started a "Ban the Beatles" campaign. (From "Burn your Beatles Records!" Mother Jones magazine)

   

Tim Lennox reminded us this week that August 8th marks the 50th Anniversary of a controversy about The Beatles in Birmingham, Alabama. “Radio DJ's Tommy Charles and Doug Layton banned the group's records,” Lennox wrote, “and urged teens to burn theirs. They scheduled a mass record burning for August 8, 1966. It all started because of Lennon's comment to a reporter that The Beatles were ‘more popular than Jesus.’ “

Although the “mass burning” did not actually occur in Birmingham, a clip from Tommy Charles’ radio broadcast calling for the record burning made its way into the documentary  film about John Lennon’s life, Imagine: John Lennon.  

Turbulent Times

I well remember the controversial statement and the uproar it caused. I was eleven years old and about to enter the sixth grade. Looking back, it was almost like an inaugural moment into the tumultuous times that marked the coming of age of many of us boomers.

The Vietnam War was escalating and would soon lead to demonstrations across the country. Racial unrest would continue to arise as the country resisted civil rights reforms. We would see the Watts riots with neighborhoods burning in Los Angeles, protests on college campuses over the war with draft cards being burned. In 1968 we would see the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

Ironically, in the years following the hyped record burning, The Beatles would morph from a boy band singing “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” and “Love Me Do” into musicians who would be experimenting musically. They would chronicle the times along with other musicians of the day. Johnny Cash would become known as the Man in Black, wearing black in mourning for the young soldiers dying in war. In 1970, he would sing, “And the lonely voice of youth cries, What is truth?” That same year, Crosby, Stills & Nash would record “Ohio” in protest of the Kent State shooting; Simon & Garfunkel would bring us the anthem, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” while The Beatles would add their voice with “Let It Be.”

Fifty years ago, some adults told some teenagers to burn Beatles records. As it turned out, we would see a lot of burning and that burning would define an era. When we saw the draft end, the war sputter to a halt, and Richard Nixon resign in disgrace, we took a deep breath and were finally able to exhale. We hoped for some solid ground to walk upon. 

Some of us thought that the war was behind us, but unfortunately war has become far too commonplace. We no longer have the draft, but we instead have a “warrior class” of citizens and a leaner, professional volunteer fighting force. Instead of peace, we are a nation too quick to go to war, but that is another story.

New Uncertainties

Now our children are facing their own uncertainties. I could try to quote our songs for the youth of today, but the truth is, they will tell it for their own day better than we boomers can. I will say to the young folks though, don’t burn your records – oh, that's right – you don't have records, do you? In that case, do not diss your music! Listen to the poets and artists of your day. Just keep singing your songs and holding our leaders' feet to the fire.

In the meantime, sit back and listen to one of The Beatles' hits from 50 years ago: “We Can Work It Out.”

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Smart Cookie Award

I was recently surprised and honored to receive the Smart Cookie Award from Rick Watson who has a popular blog, Life 101. Thanks, Rick!

I understand that there are some rules that go along with this award. Here are the rules:

           1. Thank the award giver and link back to them in your post. 

           2. Share 4 little known facts on anything.  
           3. Pass this on to other "smart cookies" you may know. 

Here goes:
1. Thank the award giver and link back to them in your post.  (See above)  
2. Share 4 little known facts on anything. 

• The commonly used idiom, “spitting image,” was originally “spit and image.” I, like most, had heard the phrase as “spittin’ image” and just assumed that it was that habit of dropping the ‘g’ that is so often done in the South. When I learned of the “correct” phrase, it just made life more frustrating. That’s the problem with being a grammar geek – you are frustrated by all the incorrect grammar going on all about you. 

• Cholesterol actually performs a vital function in your body. Any student of anatomy knows that cholesterol forms a protective sheath around every nerve fiber in your body. Without that protective sheath, your nerves become damaged – leading to muscle pain and atrophy as well as declining mental function. That’s the problem with being an anatomy geek – you are frustrated by the pharmaceutical companies that make millions of dollars by foisting drugs on the public to reduce cholesterol which in turn can damage important neural pathways. It’s unnerving, really. 

• Groundhog Day is an American substitution for Candlemas, or the Feast of the Presentation, which was traditionally the time to announce the dates for Good Friday and Easter. This was important in the olden days, because those dates marked the coming of spring and the days of planting. Of course, the date for Easter is lunar based and varies. It can be as early as March 22 or as late as April 25 (hence the question of early spring or 6 more weeks of winter posed to the groundhog). That’s the problem with being a history geek – you get frustrated by people not knowing why they do the things they do. 

• Light roast coffee actually has more caffeine than dark roast due to the roasting process.  Once I was in Starbucks at three o'clock in the afternoon and requested their light roast blend of the day. The person behind the counter countered, “We don’t brew that one in the afternoon, it has too much caffeine for this late in the day.” That’s the problem with being a coffee geek – you get frustrated by other coffee geeks telling you what kind of coffee you need to drink when.

3. Pass this on to other "smart cookies" you may know.
Here are three from my blog reading list that I always enjoy visiting:

• David Brazzeal at http://davidbrazzeal.wordpress.com/. David is an artist/writer living in Paris, France. I'm always interested to see what he is posting.
• Tim Lennox.com at http://timlennoxonline.blogspot.com/. Tim is a journalist who blogs from the state capitol of Montgomery, AL. I like the way he provides a daily concise presentation of interesting items in the news. 
• Language or Parole?, at  http://langueorparole.blogspot.com/, by Jeremy Patterson is a fascinating read. Sometimes he writes in French of Japanese, so I have to skip over those, but the ones in English are always interesting.

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Why Occupy Wall Street?

Is it about jobs? Is it about equity? Is it about distribution of wealth? I posted my musings about OWS on Sunday. We are now being flooded with news and information about Occupy Wall Street. These two things came my way that I find of interest. Tim Lennox posted the link to this article on his blog. The article, “Occupy Wall Street: More popular than you think” has an interesting chart showing how wealth is distributed, compared to how people think it is distributed vs. how most people would like it to be distributed across society. You can read the article here.

Darrell Grizzle, who blogs at Blog of the Grateful Bear, attended the Occupy Atlanta version of OWS. He has some interesting things to say in hie post titled, "On Occupying Wall Street and Taking Action Locally." You can read his post here.

And one of my friends posted this photo and caption on his Facebook page with the heading, “Why Occupy Wall Street?”: