Time travel occurs often on this here internets deal. I can sit in relative comfort here at my desk and move backwards and forwards thru time, which is both exhilarating and disturbing, makes a person kind of queasy shifting thru time.
Medieval texts are available online, or you can join the birthday parties held this week in 33 countries celebrating the 45-year history of human space travel, "90 global space parties", complete with temporary Yuri Gagarin tattoos. See, right there is a name that has a bookmark in my own mind, a name most people under the age of 40 just don't know at all. I still recall the brilliant and jaw-dropping achievements of space travel and exploration and wonder why now the nation yawns or groans with tax-despair if you mention a space program.
But the Web is grabbing up all manner of information and media and thankfully I can skate over to that moment in the past as easily as I cross the room to get my coffee cup. Names like Yuri G. arre stuck in my past, just like "Hud" and "Midnight Cowboy," and yeah, I can find places where people write about them, too.
What set my thoughts this direction was the following link to a performance by the Cowsills band doing Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison". Two of the four brothers in the band died recently, Barry was killed during Hurricane Katrina and frontman for the Cowsills, Bill, died in Feb. 2006. The band was all wholesome supposedly, and served as the inspiration for the "Partridge Family" TV show - though I never blamed them for that.
And I was never even sure at the time when they were all over TV how they had this squeaky-clean image, since their biggest hit was a cover of the tune "Hair", from the counter-culture musical (and isn't that a contradiction in terms -?). And yeah, "Folsom Prison": early gangster rap, except most good country and bluegrass tunes are about someone getting killed or dying from heartbreak at least. On the link above, you can also find a performance they did for Playboy After Dark, and if my own weak memory serves, they used to play Vegas all the time - the old, dangerous Las Vegas.
Why did the Cowsills band get stuck in my brain as I traveled in Time from there to here? Maybe it was that little Susan Cowsill on the bass that captured my attention.
It's the Wonder Twin power thing again, Joe.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I get this a little too much.
Go Cowsills. Although, when I was a kid, my mom played the Cowsills constantly.
I think that helped me along the grain more than folks will ever know.
Ah, the Cowsills.. leading to the Partridge Family.
ReplyDeleteGod, I'm old.