NATURAL HIGH

HURTS SO BAD : LITTLE ANTHONY and THE IMPERIALS

I'M YOUR PUPPET : JAMES and BOBBY PURIFY

OVER YOU : GARY PUCKETT and THE UNION GAP

GOIN' OUT OF MY HEAD: LITTLE ANTHONY and THE IMPERIALS

FRIDAY ON MY MIND : THE EASYBEATS

STICKY FINGERS by JOE HAGAN : CHRISTINE TRZYNA BOOK REVIEW

STICKY FINGERS : THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JANN WENNER and ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE by JOE HAGAN    (A Biography of Jann Wenner and his Magazine...)

I'm going to start by dropping names : Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Yoko Ono,  Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, Bono.   Michael Douglas, the actor.  Annie Leibovitz, the photographer - a whole lot about her.  Writers - Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolf.

Some of these people had far more influence over the magazine than I would ever suspect.  Jagger is unafraid to have his influence and an idea person.  Lennon and Ono become friends but also expect to be treated as celebrities.  Mitchell get's pissed off but eventually forgives.  Leibvitz is - perhaps - having a lesbian affair with Jann Wenner's wife, Jan, but is depicted as a serious drug addict whose talent manages to make it through despite the effects.

This is not to diminish at all the story of Jann Wenner's magazine's endurance, the stops and starts, the move from San Francisco to New York, and the fact (unknown to me) that he also started and succeeded with other magazines. So if you're interested in the history of the magazine don't let the name dropping turn you off. Rolling Stone magazine is not just a music magazine but part of pop culture and so are those people who star in pop culture including the artists - that actors, singers, songwriters, musicians, and the record companies that believed in them and earned millions on their talents, who made it onto the magazine's pages. Writers and editors were assigned. Careers were made but also, opinions could hurt.

 And as a disclosure, I've never been a regular reader. In fact, I have barely read it at all.

I've been thinking about this since I realize some of you may think that's odd, considering how often I post YouTube videos of classic rock and soul music especially. The book may explain that, without my especially noticing it, pop culture was marketed to me, my people. Knowing that there are so very many talented people in the music business, knowing that getting a record contract for even one album is rare enough to be considered a miracle, one wonders how much luck has to do with success and popularity and becoming a public personality, and how much was and is having acquired the best management and marketing.  Articles in magazines, profiles and interviews, photos - especially the cover of a magazine...

This book is simply excellent, so perhaps I should mention that it does include the personal life of Jann Wenner, his long marriage that produced children, to a woman who was very much a part of it all yet who mostly lived a life separate of her husband. Jan Wenner is depicted as someone who was "bisexual" (like Elton John) but, having had many a sexual adventure with men while married heterosexually, ends happily married to a younger man, with whom he has children by surrogate. After he was official with his new partner, he did not divorce for another seventeen years.  So there's the coming out story - but, importantly, this is not one of those books that exists to prove someone is "really gay."

I listened to this book as an audio book and it was well read.  I've been doing that sort of listening- reading more these days, in part because I'm also sewing and crocheting.  The real treat was at the very end when the author himself talked about how he got the assignment and the cooperation, and the people he thanked, including a list of the women who had cooperated, women who were there.

C 2023  Christine Trzyna

THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT : THE SMITHS

Thinking of Christopher....  I don't care. I don't care. I don't care.

HOMELESS STUDENTS STRUGGLE LA UNIFIED and I GET UP ON MY SOAP BOX

AP : HOMELESS STUDENTS LOS ANGELES : LA UNIFIED 

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Read this story and weep - if you're human - because it's the story of thousands of LA Unified school students and millions in America.  And I hate to say it because I'm no Republican, but illegal immigrants swarming into our country where our strained resources will help them somewhat - but not enough - will only make it worse.  Shit hole apartments.  Street homeless - mentally ill - room mates. Women sexually exploited.  I have already heard of a situation where a building manager in North Hollywood was expecting immigrant women he rented to, to have sex with him as part of the deal.  Come to America and become a sex slave to keep a roof over your head for you and your children. This is why abortion can be a sacrament.  What if one or all of those women ends up pregnant with this building manager's fetus?  I would rather see him dead.

Excerpt: The majority of students the government considers “homeless” do indeed have a place to sleep, but it’s precarious and often shared with roommates, according to federal statistics. In Los Angeles, more than 13,000 students are homeless and 2,000 of them stay in shelters, the city’s superintendent said last spring.

López says she was assaulted while the family stayed in a shelter after getting evicted three years ago. That’s why she’s determined to find her own housing. The scarcity of affordable housing in Los Angeles has given anyone with an apartment lease in their name the power to take advantage of people like López who don’t have the saved cash, references or savvy to compete for their own place and are desperate to avoid shelters.

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And the shit hole apartment that is too chaotic for study or true deep sleep - the kind of rest that is needed to recharge and take on the next day - can mean that the person is NOT CONSIDERED HOMELESS.  As one women I met walking dogs told me, No Matter How Many Places You Sofa Surf, You Are Not Considered Homeless.  She had been living going from one friend's place to another for three years and the local homeless services place had done nothing for her. Why not?  Because she is healthy, sane, not pregnant, not addicted, not just out of jail - not a priority.

So besides our corrupt City Hall - especially the Housing Department - that pretty much sucks the cocks of greedy multimillionaire developers - there are the priests and ministers - the churches - that are also pretty much bullshit.  They are just as obsessed with the value of their real estate and rarely help even the most faithful of parishioners.   

I recently met a woman who is legally blind who was a member of her church for seven years - in the choir - the whole bit - when she lost her housing.  As she tells it "They not only knew I was a woman alone but a disabled woman and not one of them helped me in the smallest way."  (That's "Christians" for you, I thought.)  I said, "I hope you aren't having anything to do with that religion any more."

She and a friend scraped together the money to buy a van to live in. And she got herself a boyfriend, one who, like she does, believes that sex has to wait for marriage. When the van broke down and she and her woman friend were unable to repair it or keep it, her boyfriend, now a fiancee, managed to get her into a sober living - even though she has never used or had a problem with booze or drugs - for which she is grateful for. But now he is on the street, using a walker, waiting for housing help offered by so called homeless outreach people who drive around talking to people on the street.  Their wish to marry has been suspended. Every morning during the week she gets out of bed and buses to a senior center where she spends her days.  He, meanwhile, battles for the housing that would allow them a normal life, busing around while on that walker. So here you have two people who are White (and therefore now assumed to have White Privilege) and who have lived decent lives, are now in their sixties, and applying for housing lotteries and wait lists.  

This housing crisis took YEARS to develop and those who allowed it to happen HAD NO INTEREST IN THE FUTURE. By then they would be out of office or dead, and it would be someone else's problem.  That too, goes for our Presidents of the United States - a long story of inheriting the last administration's daring do.

C 2023 Christine Trzyna

BERNIE SANDERS TELLS IT LIKE IT IS : ISRAEL and PALESTINE BEFORE THE TERRORIST ATTACKS

 

Listen well, my friends.

Those of you who consider yourself Bible based and worshipers of Jesus should ask yourself just what Jesus you adore and wish to follow.