My Summer 2021 Night Table Reading List

If you are an Achilliad frequent-flyer, you know I was an English/Communications (double) Major at the university and that I review or report on books I read, from time-to-time. Its much more pleasurable to read for fun and information than for a grade, by the way! So this season, I have a new reason to try a different angle: letting you VIPs see what is on my bedside bookshelf reading list this summer!

I don’t promise to review or report on all of these, but in any event, they caught my eyes at the library long enough to bring home for a closer look!

Of particular note is “A Boob’s Life”, by Leslie Lehr, which hooked me – maybe because I’m a “breast man” – long enough to tap into my curiosity about how women really feel (no pun intended) about their titties. I am into it already and the author seems kind of angry with historic purpose.

The other hottie at my bedside is Daniel James Brown’s “Facing The Mountain”, which is about the mistreatment of Japanese Americans in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack on us during World War II. Fascinatingly relevant on so many levels to our American circumstances even here in the summer of 2021.

“Little Fires Everywhere”, by Celeste Ng, is a novel that just cannot seem to snag my attention long enough to finish – it drags a bit, despite excellent reviews when it came out. I want to see it through, but may have to purchase it if I run out of library renews.

On the historical tip is Ronald C. White’s “Lincoln In Private”, which are the written etchings of the man who many hold up as our greatest American President, Abraham Lincoln. It is a kind of “behind-the-scenes” look at the notes he wrote in-between crafting and delivering his lectures and speeches about the issues during his times; some of it resonates to our collective current calamities.

So that’s IT! As the public service announcement used to say, “Reading Is FUNdamental!”Have a good reading summer, wherever your travels take you, and maybe we can compare notes and opinions in the Autumn.

He’s Not “@POTUS45” But He “@FLOUTSUS45” Everytime

flout
verb [ T ]
“to intentionally disobey a rule or law, or to intentionally avoid behavior that is usual or expected.”

[They think they can flout the law and get away with it.]
[He conducted business in his pajamas to flout convention.]

As we honor Veterans Day, 2018 and The Holidays begin again in earnest, I especially honor those of World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam this year. They fought for what the “Father of Our Country” lead his men into war over: Freedom and our Declaration of Independence, which led to our American Constitution.

When I was raised, not so long ago, we were taught that there are three things you do not talk about in polite company: your religion, your salary and who you vote for. If more people followed these traditional tenets instead of flouting them, there would be less contentiousness these days. It is the main reason I mostly refrain from writing about politics here.

I am of the opinion that ever since we noticed it – I say “we” meaning my good buddies and I who used to look out over and settle our world from a high-terraced apartment in the north Bronx – the “GOP” planned to dumb-down a significant portion of our nation, specifically those not in traditional big cities and urban areas, so that they could capture the less-educated, disenfranchised and less questioning gun-owners, often in the wilds, and turn them into supporters of whatever pablum they fed them. It hasn’t worked as well as they hoped.

This toilet paper to his shoe photo typifies FLOUTUS45’s term and character:

Attacking public education and family unity by encouraging single parenting, they almost have achieved this with a trumped-up Oval Office. We who know better can take it back – and we better before we have a DICTATOR on our hands in the “good ole USA”. I won’t dignify him by mentioning his name in my blog, but this fake “President” speaks to flouting all of the norms we have become accustomed to as a nation, including our Constitution, whether you agree with all he says or not, on a daily basis! This needs to end soonest. IMO, he is a third-party candidate that got in because both major parties laid-down and especially the “Donkeys” ran a weak horse in the race who didn’t challenge @FLOUTUS45 when she had opportunities to be a bitch. The “Elephants” were no better; remember Jeb Bush cowering and almost kneeling without a come-back when Casino Man played the dozens on him during a televised debate? It was shameful!

Someone please give FLOUTUS45 some lukewarm milk with a double-shot of his favorite bourbon whiskey – I recommend 114-proof “Old Granddad”, because it befits his style and is concocted in Kentucky, the state of his fellow good old boy Senator – maybe adding some Fruit Loops to it in a bowl, as homage to the many zanie things he “tweets” all the time would be good. Then put him on ice and to bed for a long winter’s nap in a cave somewhere, before he listens more to his closet advisor, Russia’s Putin (who wants our land by any means), and flouts us into World War III.

Where are our collective manners, common sense, etiquette, patience and respect? Not that far away, but we need smart leadership which teaches the masses to embrace “The Golden Rule”. Wake up, “to play a trump on (a card or trick) when another suit was led”! House wins…you LOSE.

Sincerely,

Tired of the Embarrassing Current Foot-in-Tweet Daily Scandal Circus

PickHitt: Ignore the Tweets from @POTUS45/FLOUTUS45 and #unfollow him. No other President has ever spoken to the nation less on TV. I think that we should check Trump’s BIRTH CERTIFICATE! Maybe he was born in Russia! It increasingly looks like a possibility. He should produce the real one!

A Lyrical Tune Wedgie Haunting Me, “Now, I’m The Loneliest man in town”

1972 – Any University, metro New York; dormitory:
The Soul music singing group, Black Ivory, better known for the classic, “You And I” and “Don’t Turn Around” is heard in the hallways regularly.  However, this is a personal Kraterfullojointzmusik mission I write about tonight. Hauntingly, I share it with thee as it teases me, for your obvious non-judgmental amusement.

The best lyric of all, in my opinion and dominion is the one this post is following. Maybe because I am an elf or maybe due to my status or fungus, but it is, “Now, I’m the loneliest man in town”. None-no-fun, as we used to say back in the day.

I am often that and morosely in-perpetuity. So, what? Need a hot fox to keep me company. One with the bosom of classic actress, Ann Margaret; maybe a red head, like I saw in the supermarket yesterday. Butt (lack of ass) who knows?
They say a supermarket is the best place to meet a chick! Nyet. Please bring your discount card! Didn’t work; couldn’t think up something to say to her. Now (again) “I’m the loneliest man in town”.
And so it comes to me that I am again making new friends and acquaintances in a distant city and where the crutch is the bible belt and the women are not as forthcoming sexually.

Fast-forwardly I, the Master, came to the Carolinas to rid myself of the cold and to be near the ocean, initially. Yet it is not the main reason, because retirement looms.

I am only lonely because [use your imagination or fill in the blank] And If it didn’t, I would fly, marry her according to their rules and bring her back to the USA, so that I would finally have the companion I need to walk up to the sun together with now. Damn…

Nevertheless, Sing, Brothers, Sing! Perform my comfortless burg’s principles!

Check out my musik-only blog for the latest reviews at https://achilliadsmyvinylrecordshoppe.wordpress.com/

End “Racism” In America? Easy. News Directors Do Not Cover Negativity; Promote Tough Father Parenting! Especially With The New Crop of Third World-Influxed “African”- Americans

Recently, Starbucks unsuccessfully launched this “unity” campaign.  They just slapped a slogan on their coffee cups without a lead-up promotion and there should have been a brown hand under this cup (at least, or several shades) – in my opinion – that is why it failed.  Today’s media must be captained by fools who did not do their homework visa v ethnic relations in the United States over the past century-plus.  It is why, even though I held-back, I am compelled to post this… Back in 2008, I met my first Slavic woman girlfriend, who convinced me that watching television was largely a waste of valuable time – especially the “news” and sports. I bought into her mentality and ended up spending much more quality time with her, much to my delight and relaxation – and she liked it also.  Unfortunately, she had two young sons via two different men; widely separated in age to raise and that, along with her, cranky insecurities, and  suffering from panic attacks (something I had never heard of at the time) which caused her to take many undesclosed -to-me pills, soon put the kibosh on our relationship (her decision) after nary a bit over one year. I digress only to say, she had a POINT about watching the ratings-game known as the “news”; truly I’d wasted too many hours watching millionaire athletes do their thing at the expense of me pursuing my goals and dreams. Her cautions have stayed with me! Unfortunately, the general populace of the USA did not receive the same memo, and it speaks directly to the overkill that today’s news directors now give to stories of a racially dividing bent, which capitalize (for ratings, IMO) on reigniting the recently-dowsed embers of racial hate in continental USA.  Having daily hosts on the airwaves such as Bill O’Reilly, Al Sharpton, and of course the legendary, Rush Limbaugh does not help matters of cultural ethnic manners and build unity either.  They only propagate hate instead of educate good news!  Why do there have to be “Red” and “Blue” states on the Election Day maps – or even the Weather Channel maps?  ‘Still fighting the Civil War, eh?  Very tragic. As for today’s children, not raised by two parents, who imitate the “news”: Do not cover and promote young chicks wanting to “join Isis”!  By doing so, you are helping Isis recruit! Don’t you News Directors understand and see this? Witness how terrestrial radio of today plays new, “cover” versions of past classic hits without the announcers back-selling the origins of the songs in-order to educate within the entertainment as people like the late Frankie Crocker, Vaughn Harper and those of us privileged to perform along side them did.  Who wrote and performed it first? Under what circumstances?  News and music media should return to making the “tease” incite these successive generations to want to learn their history of our collective past! Rap/Hip-Hop music also must clean its act up (if it can without losing the very identity it has embraced in recent decades since 1999) and de-emphasize weapon violence in their lyrics and performances. They reinforce negative male stereotypes that we once had quashed! The whole Third World is here in many cities of the USA now. They only look the same as we Black Americans of the civil rights days of the 1960s and 1970s skin-deep. These are different “Blacks” – they are “Afro-Caribbean-Americans” who look a wee bit like black Americans – but I can tell the difference without them saying a word.  Islanders have more Neanderthal, simian cheek-boneed features and lips. They also do not have the same playbook nor history as we Black Americans who are descendants of American slavery and they look down/talk disparagingly about us!  Imagine that!? I heard an African guy on his phone, sitting only a foot away from me at my bank do this very recently! They shunned our history and take advantage of the gains, pain and achievements we endured only to arrive in the wake of our victories to miscegenate among us and further confuse the European Caucasian base that the United States Of America was founded upon. The generation of “lookalike” black people who came to the USA beginning in the 1980s are so late to the party and were labeled as  “African Americans” via the Clinton Presidency and the silly advent of “political correctness”  that we Black American men, who did the heavy lifting of the movement which ultimately resulted in the success of “we Shall over come”, decades ago of, but nobody apparently passed the memo on to them, and these crop of coconuts, IMO. The feminists and queers also have ridden upon our coattails, as if the perceived discrimination is similar – not. It is also time to end this enabling of children who can run to a social services agency or the cops after they get a needed parental disciplined spanking!  This action was unheard of during my generation or the many prior generations. We could not go running to some outside of the family “agency” and say, “Oh my Daddy spanked me! Please put them in jail!”  Bullshit. Everything was kept in-house – and we should return the same power to the parents asap!  A spanking or two growing is not “abuse”!  We are all born as  little animals that need training – some tough physically judicial parental love, that is – in our formative years. I use former NBA Hall Of Famer, Charles Barkley’s video on part of this topic because it is in-line with the fact that most of my generation’s parents migrated from “the south” (southern USA states where slavery emanated from). Finally, these discipleship ideas also apply the offspring American Caucasian clans in the USA, who have embraced the “thug” lifestyle. “Ya heard??”

Back to Starbucks, as I commented on a piece about the attempted campaign on LinkedIn.com, “I would have built advance promotion and publicity about this idea long before slapping “Race Together” on the coffee cups and in a different manor using more medias, for one thing…In the USA we are still the victim of the negative messages about race that our own news Directors, channels and parts of the music entertainment industry reinforce and advertise (for ratings, IMO) ad-nausea. This must change for us to catch-up to the rest of the world.” As my acquaintance from Belarus would say, “C’MON, People!” ~~  your comments, solutions and suggestions are welcomed, as alwaze here.

Review: Davidzon “Rooshkie Radio” Speaks Russian and Ukrainian Community’s Slant On The News; Music Eclectic; Helps My Russian Lessons!

And now…I will unleash my over three decades as a radio broadcaster upon a review of a radio station that is the only one I currently like to listen to…, “Rooshkie Radio, WSNR”, Jersey City.

The first time I ever heard of Russians, “Boris and Natasha” were cartooned Russian agent caricatures I used to watch on “Rocky, The Flying Squirrel” show as a boy. On the nightly news back then, Chet Hutley, David Brinkley or Walter Cronkite would talk about the “cold war threat” from them and quote the newspaper, “Pravda”. Simultaneously, the movie, “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming!” premiered to my young consciousness and then, linguistically via the Cuban Missile Crisis during President Kennedy’s administration in the early 1960s, when then, First secretary of The Soviet Communist Party and Prime Minister, Nikita Khrushchev performed his shoe-pounding rant at the United Nations’ General Assembly.

Then came the dancers at club “NV” Nashville and my meeting my fiancee`Inna via our “Cafe Skype”.
All of which obviously begat these days when I listen daily in the car on my commute to work and my laptop to “Rooshkie Davidzon Radio”, WSNR 640. The AM radio station’s music has a wide variety and very cool, often hip playlist; the Russian talk is helpful to my learning the language of my fiancee` who lives in Ukraine, but is part of the Russian speaking population there (there are two linguistic factions in Ukraine). I bet the old communist establishment of the Soviet Union is turning in it’s grave at the sound of this American-style, non propagandist radio station’s format!

Listening to this station daily (and appreciating their radio elements) augments my Pimsleur Approach Russian CD lesson learning that I began in April of 2012. They have a full spot (commercials) load and the many telephone numbers of the advertisers, spoken in Russian, has helped me learn to count from zero (“нулевой” or “nul”) to twenty (“двадцать” or “dvadtsat'”) in Russkiy!
Their production is entertaining; the image elements enlightening and even when the automation fucks-up, it doesn’t take away from this very American-style terrestrial “Rooshkie” radio station. They have a featured traffic reporter girl, Natalia Bystritskaya, who is bubbly, humorous and in a “good mood” always!

The all-important morning show is anchored by a man who I call “the Russian Frankie Crocker” because of the jazzy background music bed that he does his talk over, Vadim Yarmolinetska.
His laugh and self-deprecating way of handling caller and topics makes him easy to listen to even if you cannot translate or understand every word. I always get the “flavor” of what they are discussing!

Another notable listenable is Alexander Grant who, I determined a “sleuth” journalist personality without the benefit of understanding all of the words in Russian. It is awesome how with the power of just a few linguistics and a background in radio formatics I can decipher subject of their talk shows.

I love their production, the spontaneity of how they handle callers and even when the automation burps. Their image liners and fill bumpers are really the creative “radio” that I learned to love when bitten by the bug back in 1972 at Adelphi University’s WALI/WBAU.

When not talking, WSNR is eclectic;(boring) especially after seven o’clock U.S. eastern time and on weekends. Weekdays, the live over-the-air broadcast ends at 7p.m. but can still pick up the stream of music online. Sundays they are over-the-air all day until seven p.m., including a sports talk show Sunday evenings. The music mix is eclectic where you’ll hear everything from traditional Slavic folk and acoustic tunes to Barbara Streisand, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Abba, Tina Turner and any electronica club jams that slip-in, (much less than when I first found this station, by-the-way) remind me of the hot Russian chicks I played for at club NV in Nashville, TN, circa 2004! I do not have to understand every single word in order to know what is going on due to my radio intuition and knowledge of the radio clock and vocal inflections! I notice a dearth of male American R&B or dance vocalist artist on WSNR’s musical playlist, however. How about some Sylvester from the disco days?!

** My advice to Mr. Gregory Devidzon, President of “Davidzon Radio” is do not sell-out to any U.S. radio corporations like Clear Channel! Please! пожалуйста!! Also, Advice: Please install and use the “cough switch” more! I hear too much coughing over the air! WTF? It is needlessly rude and unprofessional.

If you do, you will lose your radio station’s unique identity, political posture and entertainment values. Take it from someone whose radio career was abruptly discontinued by the corporatization, deregulation and automation which hit us beginning back in the early 1990s.
This is their website url, http://www.davidzonradio.com/index.htm and you can also dial them up streaming on any number of sites like tunein.com/radio/
As one of my LinkedIN.com comrades, Yuri Neshitov put it regarding my Russian learning methods, “You are at better position with learning Russian because love is the best teacher, tutor and assistant in this job… you a lucky man!”

Pickhitt: I give WSNR Four stars **** out of a possible five for live radio content in this day and time as a former radio personality. This is likely a brokered deal with WSNR.
One thing I recommend is that they add a PLAYLIST or “now playing” to their website so that we what tunes we are listening to after talk hours on line and so we can support the artists whose music they play! As a former radio junkie, I love that I cannot understand all of the bad news of the day and commercials! Otherwise they would be just another cookie-cutter station I would not listen to as a professional. lol I dig their hourly station ID production and choice of filler music also!

I pay particular attention to understanding the words that I can make-out when I hear the word “Ukraine” mentioned during their hour or half-hour news updates these days, knowing that my Inna, is in Kiev and political turmoil is spreading via a corrupt Russian-puppet regime “President” who should resign….

Eli’s Story: Saving A Child From “Falling Off The Rails”

For over forty years, she saw difficult students come through her elementary Special Education classroom doors in Mt Vernon, a northern suburb of New York City.  Mrs. Jones became known as an outspoken educator who trains emotionally needy, behaviorally challenged kids.  Many of them went on to become surprisingly well-adjusted citizens as adults, but when Mrs. Jones took them on they were a “handful”, as she was accustomed to describing them.  Once she had a child who would assigned for him to disrupting by breaking his assigned seating desks. As Jones described, “He would lock his big feet on both sides and rear-back until the furniture came apart. He could have injured other children in the class, so I had to put a stop to it.  I was a control freak.”

 

Her experience began as a teacher of handicapped and blind children and those years in the school wing of a mental hospital in Queens, New York honed her for the day that the principal at Garden school was trying to place for Eli, a particularly energetic and mischievously troublesome boy who had “sparkling eyes”, as Mrs. Jones would later describe them.  The secretary in the main office suggested,” I bet Mrs. Jones could handle him!”  So when the principal presented this new assignment of adding Eli to her class by saying, “I know Eli will be a challenge for you, but I think you are up to it…” Mrs. Jones replied, “A challenge to me? NO, I will be a challenge to him! Bring him on!”

 

Graham School, MT. Vernon, N.Y.

Eli was a foster child in a group home who, when confined to his room as punishment in because of his many mischievous acts, would escape by climbing out of the window using the cord of one of the electric lamps! He was also a petty thief, as were several of the Special Education children, preying upon the teachers, of all people, whenever they got a chance they would rifle the desk and try to steal their purse!  One particular time, Mr. Jones caught Eli just about to reach his hand into the drawer as she returned from the hallway.  “Alright now”, she admonished, “You’re going to have to come over and meet the ‘Board of Education paddle’…” Back in those days, a teacher could, with intelligent restraint, use a bit of corporal punishment, usually with the yard stick ruler. Eli submitted to three whacks on his thieving hand from Jones and that was that – he never tried it again.  She recalls the time that she brought her daughter to school with her and let her read to the class.  This apparently fascinated Eli, as he watched and listened intently, looking up at her daughter and then back down to his book back and forth.  “I gonna learn to read like that”, Eli said in his gruffy little voice.

George was also part of Eli’s class and that year, Mrs. Jones gave a February lesson about the first U.S. President, George Washington, which included the famous “I cannot tell a lie” cherry tree incident. This must have made such an impression on George that he decided to act it out in reality.  So he went home, found a hatchet and proceeded to hack down a neighbor’s scrawny tree.  I’m not sure if it was a fruit tree, but the neighbor was not too happy about it and called the police who took the hatchet away after George enthusiastically admitted that he did it!  What else could they do (again, this was back in the 1970s when knee-jerk overkill punishment was not the rule as it is often these days).

Years later, Mrs. Jones and her husband were shopping in downtown Manhattan, New York City when a well-dressed young man in a black sharkskin suit and fedora hat walking on the sidewalk ahead of them suddenly turned around and said, “You’re Mrs. Jones! I didn’t know that I could see you here! Do you know who I am?”  

“Yes of course, you’re Eli!”, Mrs. Jones replied, extremely proud of how well her former charge spoke and looked.  She introduced Eli to her husband, and he was nothing short of polite as he shook Mr. Jones’s hand before they went their ways after brief pleasant conversation and a couple of hugs.

 

I am particularly proud of Mrs. Jones and happily authored this piece about her because Mrs. Jones is now a retired eighty-eight year old lady – and my Mum.