A Note From Roger Glass Re: UFOs and Flying Saucers

Note From Stogie:

I received the following email from Roger Glass, thoroughly rebutting what I didn't say or mean in my article about Flying Saucers.  I specifically exposed certain known fakers of UFO phenomena, discussed their possible motivations, and described some credible tales of alien abductions.   I did not and do not deny the possibility of extraterrestrial visitations to earth.

However, Roger ignored my specific points of discussion and inappropriately launched into a blanket defense of all UFO phonomena. I do not and did not deny the reality of UFO sightings, and did not deal with that in my article at all.  Unidentified Flying Objects exist and are continually being sighted and reported, but how many of them (if any) are alien spaceships?  That has not been determined or proved. (What part of "unidentified" does Roger not understand?)  It is safe to say that most UFOs are weather balloons, planets, stars, kites, planes, helicopters, blimps, birds, weather inversions, swamp gas, northern lights, meteors or optical illusions.  All of Roger's links point to people who saw strange lights or objects in the sky.  Big deal.

I am publishing his thoughts here for anyone who wants to follow Roger's links.

From Roger Glass:

You and your correspondents go round and round on the same old popular culture fluff and chestnuts. Why don't you address the serious evidence?

Cmdr. Edward P. Stafford wrote of his flying saucer incident in the October, 2004 issue of Naval History (not exactly a flying saucer magazine), published by the U.S. Naval Institute (hardly a flying saucer organization). You can find a reproduction of the article here.

The flying saucer account of Cmdr. Stafford is unambiguous - either he was lying, or his air crewmen were lying, or they saw flying saucers. So what sort of man was Cmdr. Stafford?

He served as technical advisor on the Pearl Harbor movie Tora, Tora, Tora. In the wikipedia article on WWII aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, he is cited multiple times in the footnotes, because his bookThe Big E (see what Amazon reviewers have said about it here) is the definitive reference text on this ship. You can go also to Amazon.com and see what readers have written about his other works. One of them (Little Ship, Big War) can even be read for free at openlibrary.org.

Would a man of this caliber concoct a flying saucer tale? Over his long and honorable career, there is no record of any conduct that would cast doubt on the excellent reputation he earned. And except for the one incident, he had nothing to do with UFOs.

As another example, there's Deke Slayton's account of his sighting, as an air force P-51 pilot, beginning at page 49 in his autobiography; there's also a youtube clip of him recalling the experience. He tells his story without embellishment. Major Slayton himself was noncommittal as to his encounter. And rightfully so, given what he thought he saw. Nevertheless, the narrative, taken as a whole, undeniably leans heavily toward the "exotic flying craft of unknown origin" explanation.

And yet additionally, there's the O'Hare Airport sighting.

The Stafford, Slayton, and O'Hare incidents are noted first, because all the necessary information is immediately accessible online, and the Stafford account is particularly compelling.

But these are only three out of thousands of incidents experienced by military and commercial pilots, crews, and radar operators, as reported in mainstream publications big and small. The witnesses recount exotic flying craft performing evolutions beyond the capabilities of known vehicles - instantaneous acceleration from standstill to thousands of mph, 90 degree turns at extreme speed, etc. Many of these encounters involve both close and extended pilot and crew sightings, in combination with radar confirmation.

Of course there's radar malfunction and visual misidentification. But to this extent? At what point do such prosaic explanations stop being reasonable?

Actually, every ten or twenty years or so, some meticulous compiler (Leslie Kean, Richard Hall, Allen Hynek) publishes a new collection of such encounters. And in fact Hynek's book, as can be seen by clicking the above link, is also available for free at openlibrary.org.

And particularly as to Leslie Kean, she was a reporter for the Boston Globe. In 1999 a group of French flag officers and senior scientists issued the COMETA Report, a UFO study concluding that some of them are extraterrestrial vehicles. Among the contributors were four-star General Bernard Norlain, former commander of the French Tactical Air Force and military counselor to the prime minister; General Denis Letty, an air force fighter pilot; and Andre Lebeau, former head of the National Center for Space Studies, the French equivalent of NASA – not to mention a three-star admiral, the national chief of police, and weapons engineers. Considering the credentials of such participants, Ms. Kean thought that the publication of this report would be an earthshaking development. Apparently, not so much.

But she was moved to look into the matter herself. The result was the book already linked above - UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record, an exhaustively researched account of some of the best UFO cases. Elsewhere Ms. Kean writes about one of the incidents from her book:

"As an example, Brig. Gen. Jose Periera of Brazil, commander of air force operations until 2005, reports on an 'array of UFOs' observed over his country in 1986. Two pilots chased one of the objects for 30 minutes. Numerous other pilots saw the objects. Radar recorded them. Six jets were scrambled from two Brazilian air force bases to pursue them. Some of the pilots made visual contact corresponding to radar registrations. Both military and commercial pilots were involved. Onboard as well as ground radar systems confirmed the presence of the objects.

“'We have the correlation of independent readings from different sources,' Periera writes. 'These data have nothing to do with human eyes. When, along with the radar, a pilot‘s pair of eyes sees that same thing, and then another pilot‘s, and so on, the incident has real credibility and stands on a solid foundation.'”

Any reasonable and objective person who considers the evidence for flying saucers must conclude that they are real.

"Flying saucers are real. Too many good men have seen them, that don't have hallucinations."Eddie Rickenbacker

Curtis LeMay warns Barry Goldwater to shut up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPFBg1NNUBU

Admiral Lord Hill Norton, former British CNO, doesn't suffer fools

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E_SFwrh8wo

Deke Slaytonhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E_SFwrh8wo

Police from multiple jurisdictions successively track UFOhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhdTs4UnL1g

Sick Freak Murders Nine in Black Charleston Church; Irrational Outpouring of Outrage Ensues

Another freakazoid has murdered people with a gun.  This time the perpetrator is one Dylann Roof, who resembles another mass murderer, Adam Lanza, who shot and killed 26 people in 2012, including 20 children in their classroom.  Come to think of it, he also resembles Jared Loughner, the mass murderer of Arizona.  All of these freaks remind me of the in-bred banjo player of "Deliverance" fame, but only in appearance.  They are nuts, crazy psychopaths -- and they can't even play the banjo.

Roof shot and killed nine parishioners in a Charleston church on June 17, 2015.  His apparent motive was that he hated black people.  The killing has invoked passionate debate, about gun control, the Confederate flag, and the collective guilt of white people for racism.

Now for some points that will prove unwelcome in the frenzied search for culprits in the aftermath of the crime.

1.  White people are less "racist" (I hate that overused word) than black people.  Some black people have been calling for a race war for some time, on Twitter and elsewhere.  Blacks have been shooting cops since Michael Brown was killed in the act of assaulting a white police officer, and expressing hatred of whites and advocating murder of policemen everywhere.

2.  Blacks commit murders and other crimes against whites in far greater proportion than the opposite.  Bad attitudes, racial prejudice and an inability to be held accountable for these things are endemic within the black community.  These facts are bound to increase prejudice against blacks by others, not only by whites, but also by Hispanics, Asians and Jews, who are frequently the victims of black violence and crime.

Colin Flaherty writes in the American Thinker, in an article titled The War on Black People in South Carolina: the First Casualty is Truth:

In Charleston, locals know racial violence is far more widespread than that. Only it is far more likely to be black on white.

And:

A black person is 50 times more likely to assault a white person than the other way around. The black on white rape numbers are even more out of proportion when compared to white on black sexual assault.

And also:

Violent crime in Charleston, like the rest of the country, is a black thing: Black on white violence is wildly out of proportion. The latest killings do not change that. Nor do the efforts of local and national reporters to ignore, deny, condone, excuse, encourage and even lie about it.

3.  The Confederate flag had nothing to do with the crime.  However, the Daily Kos and other leftist sites are calling for the flag to be removed from public display in South Carolina.  Lindsay Graham has defended the flag and stated that it will not come down.  Graham is right.  Confederate descendants, and there are millions of us, love the flag for other than "racist" reasons.  It's not coming down, and those who don't like it can self-copulate.

4.  Dylann Roof's crime is not a factor of his political leanings.  Whether he is a Democrat or a Republican is irrelevant.  The little punk is nuts, crazy and insane.  Insanity is not a political persuasion.  Rabid political partisans on either side should stop trying to make political hay out of the tragedy.

5.  There are many good black people who have thrown their lot in with the forces of tolerance and civilization.  Many blacks in the South identify with the Confederate flag and are aware that the Northern Myth (of fighting the Civil War to free the slaves) is a lie of Biblical proportions. The criticisms in this post are not directed towards them.  Every man and woman is an individual, to be judged on his or her own merits alone.

6.  We will not give up our guns, and become helpless against a central government that seeks greater and greater control over our lives and liberties, as well as defenseless against violent criminals.  It is a shame that insane people periodically murder innocents with guns, and solutions must be sought to alleviate this.  However, such tragedies will have to be endured until solutions are found that do not remove guns from law-abiding citizens.

That's the way I see it anyhow.

Flying Saucers: the Need to Believe; Why People Fake It

I'm interested in all sorts of things, UFO's being one of them.  However, I am a skeptic on the subject, possessed of an open mind but not a gullible one.

For almost seventy years now we have been reading and hearing about strange spacecraft and weird-looking aliens, traversing our skies, landing in our fields, and even capturing people for medical tests.  I remember as a child, circa 1952, seeing a Clovis, New Mexico newspaper with the headline, "Don't Worry, Saucer Men Fear Us Too."  There was a picture of a flying saucer at the top of the page.  I remember being astounded by this news, and very confused by it.  Even as a child, I knew that there was "true stuff" and "make-believe," and now the two were merging.  I felt very uncomfortable with this.  Fantasy and fact were now seemingly interchangeable.  Even then, however, I was not totally convinced.  Somewhere in my psyche I felt this tug of doubt.  I would believe it when I saw it for myself.

Half-Way Credible Stories of Alien Abductions

I again felt this cognitive dissonance, of fact vs fiction, belief butting up hard against skepticism, when in 1961 the Betty and Barney Hill story broke.  The Hills were a married couple who were returning from a motor trip.  When they arrived home, they noticed the time of their arrival was all wrong.  They were somehow missing several hours of time, for which they had no memory.  They sought the help of a psychiatrist.  He hypnotically regressed the Hills to remember the missing time period.

The Hills both recalled being stopped on the road by strange looking humanoids who took them aboard a spacecraft to medically examine them.  Barney expressed great terror and anxiety during his hypnotically induced recollection -- even screaming -- he wasn't faking.  The psychiatrist was convinced that the Hills truly believed these recollections to be true; however, that alone does not prove them scientifically.  There could be another explanation, as yet undiscovered.

Nevertheless, the Hill story remains, in my mind, one of the most believable tales of alien abduction on record. Their story is in book form as "The Interrupted Journey."  I have read it more than once.

The second abduction story that holds any credibility for me is "Fire In The Sky," the story of a woodman, Travis Walton.  His abduction allegedly occurred in Arizona in 1975, when his work crew sighted a hovering saucer in a forest.  Walton left his group's pickup to approach the craft, and was zapped by some kind of energy beam.  His fellow woodmen workers high-tailed it out of there, leaving Walton to his fate.  When they later returned to the scene, Walton was nowhere to be found.  Organized search parties scoured the woods but found no trace of Walton.

Walton claims he was examined by the extraterrestrials and released five days later.  Five of these men who were with Walton later passed a lie-detector test, with one inconclusive, about what they had witnessed.  Some time later, all seven passed lie detector tests.

Walton writes:

I looked past the upper edge of the device. I could see the blurry figures of the doctors, leaning over me with their white masks and caps. They were wearing unusual, orange-colored surgical gowns. I could not make out their faces clearly.
Abruptly my vision cleared. The sudden horror of what I saw rocked me as I realized that I was definitely not in a hospital.
I was looking squarely into the face of a horrible creature! It looked steadily back at me with huge, luminous brown eyes the size of quarters.

UPDATE:  I must add one more credible alien abduction story to my short list.  That would be the Allagash Abduction, which occurred in 1976.  I just read the book, "The Allagash Abductions" by Raymond E. Fowler.  The incident involved four fishermen/campers in the Allagash wilderness (on the east coast) who were allegedly abducted right out of their canoe by an alien spacecraft, then subjected to the usual medical examination.  The aliens are described as taking skin scrapings, blood and semen samples, as well as hair, urine and feces.  All four men were hypnotically regressed separately, and all related the same story and set of facts.  All passed lie detector tests.  Their abductors were the usual suspects, skinny, short humanoids with big heads and large, oval eyes.  Their faces resembled those of insects, e.g. ants.

The abduction stories that hold any credibility for me are those that
1.  Involve witnesses or multiple abductees, who can corroborate the story of the others;
2.  Involve abductees who can be hypnotically regressed to remember details of the experience;
3.  Involve abductees who successfully pass lie detector tests;
4.  Involve credible abductees and/or witnesses of good character with no history of fraud, trickery, mental illness or delusions.

There is other evidence of strange phenomena that holds little credibility for me.  The tired old story of Roswell, New Mexico, for instance.  Big Foot.  Area 51.  The Loch Ness Monster.  Crop circles.  Chupacabras.  Fairies.  A million YouTube videos of blurry things in the sky.  Rubber aliens on operating tables. Yawn.  There are many credulous fools who will believe any sort of nonsense.  As for me, I demand my nonsense be more sophisticated than that.

Famous Fakers:  How and Why They Do It

Lately I have been fighting boredom by poking around UFO stories on the Internet and YouTube.  I have become aware of several apparent fakers.  Two of the most egregious are described below.  

Stan Romanek.  One is Stan Romanek.  I read his book "Messages," and he claims he has been monitored, studied, mentored and guarded by space aliens from a very early age.  For some reason, space aliens are just enchanted with this guy.  They visit him at home.  They write him letters and call him "Star Seed."  They follow him to a fireworks display on the Fourth of July.  They sneak inside his house and snap pics of themselves with his digital camera.  They peek in his front window at night, and are videotaped by a camera Stan set up for other purposes (check it out on YouTube). These "aliens" are just cleverly-made puppets.  Reading or watching Romanek's stuff, my bullshit detector goes off the scale. 

Billy Meier.  Billy Meier is a citizen of Switzerland.  In the late 1970's he made quite a splash by showing stunning pictures of (alleged) alien spacecraft around the area of his home, as well as some videos and audio recordings of the eerie sounds made by the spacecraft.

I watched a pro-Meiers documentary from 1978, wherein Meiers was interviewed about his claimed friendship with space aliens from the Pleieades star system.  His photos and videos are impressive, in that they were made at a time before Photoshop and CGI were available to fake such things.  The documentary shows his photos, videos and audios being subjected to 1978 technical, scientific analysis, with the verdict that they are authentic, not manipulated, not obviously fake.  He is given a kind of simplified lie-detector test which he passes.  

Some years later, various debunkers showed how Meier's photos and videos could be convincingly reproduced with models, held aloft with fishing line, using Bonsai trees as background to make the models look much bigger.  The weird sounds in Meier's recordings of the space ships was only the whining of the fishing line, producing an acoustic effect in the wind, with the model UFO's acting as natural amplifiers.  

Sorry Billy.  I call Bullshit.

The "spacecraft" at left is the Type 4 craft identified and photographed by Billy Meier.  Something about it always bothered me.  It was those metal teeth sticking up around the circular edge.  There was something downright industrial about them. 

Then I remembered.  Years ago I worked in a chemical company.  We shipped samples of product in 5 gallon metal drums.  The lids had these metallic teeth, for use with a crimping tool, to secure the lids to the drums.  Some hubcaps from automobiles also have similar teeth, to hold them in place.   The metal teeth on Meier's saucer appear to be an industrial drum lid turned upside down, either that or a hubcap.  Upon thinking about it, I think it is probably the latter.  Somewhere in Switzerland, a 1951 Packard is missing a hubcap.

Meier was caught earlier using a trash can lid for his "wedding cake" saucer.  He forgot to disguise the lid's handle.

Why Do Fakers Fake It?

I'm not a psychiatrist, but it seems to me that fakers do it for the following reasons:

1.  To feel special and important.  If a highly advanced civilization from outer space considers me to be the spokesmen for humankind, well then, I must be vastly superior mentally and morally to all you other slugs.  Billy Meier, for instance, claims to have been given important forecasts for the future, prophecies which must be heeded if mankind is to survive.  He thus has used his UFO shtick to elevate himself to the level of a prophet, seer or sage, a savior of mankind. 

2.  To get attention, praise and acclaim.  I notice that many of these UFO fakers are not particularly impressive in their real lives.  Not much accomplishment:  no higher degrees, no high paying jobs.  They weren't heroes of the grid iron or the battlefield.  They aren't great-looking sex symbols by any means.  They were largely invisible to society prior to their "visitations."  Now, however, they are famous, at least somewhat.

3.  To make money.  Money can be made by selling books and pamphlets to the UFO community, as well as through speaking fees and public appearances.

Another Case:  Pier Fortunato Zanfretta; closing thoughts.  I am currently reading about another "abductee" from the same time as Billy Meiers, an Italian citizen named Pier Fortunato Zanfretta.  I started reading this book because of the hype that it was the most perfect abductee case on record, solid, unassailable.  I'll reserve judgment for the end, but my BS Detector needle is starting to quiver.  Zanfretta has been abducted four times by the same group of tall, green monsters.  It is he, a security guard, that they want to carry information to earthling leaders for them.  This, in spite of his reluctance and strong protests.  He only wants to be left alone.  The aliens give him a special device for communicating with them, and ask him to give it to Dr. Hynek, the famous UFO researcher with Project Blue Book. But the surly Zanfretta throws the device at the wall, breaking it.  Still, the aliens refuse to see anyone other than Zanfretta, even though a team of scientists have asked Zanfretta to recommend them as substitutes.

Suspicious.  However, there is evidence in Zanfretta's favor.  He is hypnotically regressed, like Betty and Barney Hill, to remember his abductions.  His descriptions are consistent and non-contradictory.  He expresses great fear under hypnosis, as he relives the incidents.  Further, when found immediately after his first encounter with the aliens, very large footprints are found around his car at the scene (the aliens are about 12 feet tall), as well as a large circular imprint in the grass, perhaps the outline of the spacecraft.  There is other physical evidence and eye witnesses who also saw UFO's in the area.  Okay, I'll keep reading.  Maybe the aliens are just dumb-asses, preferring as their contact a security guard to learned scientists.

We'll see.

Update:  I finished the Zanfretta book.  The conclusion was disappointing, and I count myself with the disbelievers of this story.  After several hypnotic regressions, the hypnotist notices that Zanfretta no longer responds to hypnotic suggestions or commands.  Some people cannot be hypnotized.  Was Zanfretta faking hypnosis the whole time?

Other disturbing facts:  the aliens promise to give Zanfertta a new communication device (described as a metal pyramid encased in a glass ball), to replace the one he smashed.  However, this is never accomplished.  The aliens also promise to reveal themselves to the scientists working with Zanfretta, but they never do.  The story just peters out and dies.  Later psychological examinations of Zanfretta indicate that he may be prone to delusions.  Like all stories of dubious authenticity, no one except the abductee ever sees the aliens, their ship, or any other physical proof of their existence.

This article has been updated and edited since its first publication.

Nike of Samothrace: a Photoshop Reconstruction of Winged Victory #samothrace, #Nike #WingedVictory #Photoshop

Nike was the Greek goddess of victory.  In 1863, archaeologists found a shattered statue of Nike on the Greek island of Samothrace.  It was carted back to the Louvre Museum where it was reassembled.  The head, arms and the right wing were missing.  A reverse plaster cast was made of the left wing and attached as the right wing to give an idea of what the statue originally looked like.  In 1948, the right hand was found, missing all but one finger and the thumb.  It too is displayed in the Louvre.

The statue was constructed around 150 - 250 BC, and was originally displayed on a marble base, made in the shape of a ship's prow.  It is believed that the figure was constructed to celebrate some long-forgotten Naval victory.  The name of the very talented artist has also been lost to history.

A couple of years back I attempted a Photoshop reconstruction, and received comments from several people who have viewed the statue in the Louvre.  Based on their comments and suggestions, I updated and improved my reconstruction.  It is below, showing the statue as it now exists, and what it might have looked like when new.  I based my reconstruction on various other statues of Nike.  She is holding a laurel wreath, symbol of victory.

Egyptian Fantasy: LOOK MA! ART! (#photoshop #sphinx #egypt)

One of the neat things about Photoshop is that you can reuse your creations to make new ones.

I did this Photoshop art this morning just for fun.

The Identity of the Great Sphinx Revealed! Maybe. #Sphinx #Archaeology

Archaeologists have been arguing for many decades about the identity of the Great Sphinx of Egypt.  Was he Khufu, the ancient Pharoah who built the Great Pyramid, and who ruled Egypt around 4,500 years ago?  Or was he Khufu's son, Khafra?  Or somebody else?

I've stared at pictures of the Sphinx's battered face for some time now, trying to interpret it, Photoshop it, make it resemble its original appearance, whatever that was. Or whoever that was.  But who was that?

This past week I saw yet another documentary on the Sphinx, and it provided fairly convincing evidence that the Sphinx was made by Khufu's son, Khafra, in honor of himself.  Khafra is the man depicted by the Sphinx.  It is not Alfred E. Neuman, no matter how much you want to argue.

I found a fairly good image of Khafra and Photoshopped his face onto that of the Sphinx.  It seemed to fit.  Khafra had a slightly chubby face, big nose, high cheekbones, and full lips.  Khafra's ears also closely resembled those of the Sphinx.

Once I got Khafra's puss onto the Sphinx, I was astounded at how real it looks, how well it fits.  Now I can believe this version of the Sphinx.  This might well be what it really looked like 2,500 years before Christ.   Once again, I present the current condition of the Sphinx's face for comparative purposes.  It's on the right.  Don't pretend you didn't know.

Here's the Khafra image I used.  I like this guy.  I could have a beer with this guy and puff a few cigars too.

Jurassic World #Jurassic #Dinosaurs

I went to see the new film "Jurassic World" today.  It is yet another sequel to "Jurassic Park," which debuted in theaters in 1993 -- more than twenty years ago.  I always watch these films because I like dinosaurs, am fascinated with how they might have looked, moved and behaved.  However, I expected the latest installment, "Jurassic World," would be derivative, predictable and a bit  clichéd.  In this I was correct.  It is the usual scenario:

1. A bunch of irresponsible scientists and capitalists create one big-ass dinosaur, hoping to make money or get famous;
2. The dinosaur escapes his pen and eats people, who run amok, waving their arms, screaming and yelling.  

 All these movies have a recipe:  

A.  Insert a dash of cute (this one a 10 year old boy with a mop-top, along with his older teenage brother) --  oh please.  This is boring but necessary from a marketing standpoint: you want to draw kids to the movie and make young mothers say "Awwww!"

B.  Make the two main characters one Virile Man and one Hot Babe, to create some sexual tension (well you have to have that, otherwise, no story);

C.  Insert typical plot device:  the babe disdains the Virile Man until he saves her sorry ass from the dinosaurs;

D.  Throw in some good dinosaurs too, to offset the mean, vicious ones, relieve tension, provide comic relief, and avoid stereotyping extinct lizards.  This time, the raptors are on the side of the angels, as well as the T-Rex, as they join forces against the evil synthetic monster, a hybrid dinosaur created in the lab in an effort to draw more crowds to the park.

E.  There is a villain who wants to weaponize the dinosaurs, sell them to the military and teach them to eat terrorists.  This meme is a familiar one -- it was used in the first "Alien" film 36 years ago.  Yawn.  Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with that.  Turning ISIS into dinosaur dung would be an amusing solution to Islamic terrorism -- and probably fun too.

Some memes that are happily absent from the film:
1.  There are no professional victims to stoke guilt and shame among white heterosexuals, feign social relevance or cheerlead some asinine leftwing cause du jour.
2.  The obligatory gay character, inserted to satisfy GLAAD and Hollywood moguls who are fixated on homosexuality, is nowhere to be seen.  I was very pleased by its absence, as I hate the constant preaching from this interest group.

The Moral of the Story:  If you're going to genetically engineer dinosaurs and bring them back to life, don't make them larger than their pens.  Then, genetically engineer them some more and make them vegetarians, except maybe for the weaponized ones.

If the profound philosophical implications of the Moral are lost on you, you may want to see the film anyway.  CGI (computer graphics) are better than those of 1993.  Dinosaurs are always fun, even when presented in a highly predictable and clichéd film that is a modern rehash of the same old story.

A Swingin' Safari! Great Jazz From 1962 #jazz #swing

When I was in high school, I lived in San Jose, California with my parents. They ran a music school for guitar in Salinas, California, and on Saturdays would drive there to teach. One Saturday in 1962, I tagged along. There is a stretch of highway there that is lined with tall Acacia trees, and which was featured in Alfred Hitchcock's movie "Vertigo." As we were cruising through these trees in my father's 1961 Cadillac, a song came on the radio that I had never heard before. It was called "A Swingin' Safari." I loved it immediately and was thoroughly enchanted by it. Now, all these years later, I still hear it playing in my head whenever I drive that tree-lined highway.

Thanks to YouTube, there are several good versions of this song in video, but I like this one best. Cute early 1960's girls don't detract a bit. See and hear for yourself.  If you can listen to this song and not feel happy, there is something wrong with you.

 

Sally's Blues and the Lost Cues (Music!) #vinceguaraldi #jazz

This is jazz, baby.

"Sally's Blues" is part of the "Lost Cues," songs and snippets that were recorded for "Peanuts" television specials, but some didn't make the cut and get into the final film.  Having never heard some of these songs before, I was very surprised to see (or hear) just how great and how timeless they are.

Have you ever heard of these Guaraldi tunes:  Play It Again Charlie Brown, Centercourt, African Sleigh Ride, There's No Time for Love Charlie Brown, Woodstock's Dream, or Pitkin County Blues?  This is jazz at its best.  I purchased both albums of The Lost Cues from iTunes.  They cost $9.99 each.

 They are often quite different from what you would expect for a Charlie Brown theme, but at the same time, very cool, very hip, very melodic, very inspiring to the musical part of your soul.

A Celebration of Vince Guaraldi's Sacred Concert of 1965 - Grace Cathedral #jazz #vinceguaraldi, #peanuts

As a Vince Guaraldi fan, I have met and made contacts with other fans through articles on this blog. I received an invitation from jazz pianist Jim Martinez to attend the 50th anniversary sacred concert of 1965. Jim's jazz quartet will be substituting for the Vince Guaraldi trio/quartet, as alas, the great Guaraldi is no longer with us. Vince Guaraldi was the jazz pianist whose jazz trio provided much of the theme music for Charles Schultz's "Peanuts" television specials.  Some of Vince's most famous hits include Oh Good Grief, Linus and Lucy, and Christmas Time Is Here.   His biggest hit, not related to "Peanuts," was undoubtedly Cast Your Fate to the Wind, a jazz piece that in 1963 became a cross-over hit in popular music.  I still love that song, and it remains one of my favorites of all time.

Vince Guaraldi died of an aortic aneurism (not a heart attack, as is so often wrongly reported) during a gig in Menlo Park, California, on February 6, 1976. He was only 47, and could have given so much more to American music. Every Christmas, the hits on this blog linking to Guaraldi increase dramatically. "Peanuts" Christmas themes are played on television, and many folks note that the music is attributed to someone named Vince Guaraldi. They google the name, and begin a search for who he was and how he died.

Among Vince's accomplishments is playing for a sacred concert in Grace Cathedral Church in San Francisco. His sacred concert took place on May 21, 1965.  A couple of years ago I drove by Grace Cathedral while doing some accounting work near it.  I thought about Vince's sacred concert, and felt sorrow that I had not been there and did not hear it.  Now, however, I can experience a worthy facsimile of it, by attending this celebratory concert on August 15, 2015.  So can you.

You can read more about it at the website All About Jazz.

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, please come and hear this musical tribute to a very great musician.