First of June, Random stuff glimpsed through the smoke from Quebec afire

Whatever happened to the Indy 500? Or is it me?

It only just occurred to me that the race was yesterday. It used to be ALL over TV, and other media, but I don't recall seeing a single item about it. Not that I watched very much TV over the long weekend, but it seems to me that there woulda been mention of it during the "run up" during which I watched my usual glom of worthless nonsense. Is it just me, or has everyone's interest in Indy flagged over the past few years? In favor of NASCAR maybe? Interestin' ...


So this 13-year old climbed Mt Everest with his Dad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Romero

It's to be expected, I guess, that there are folks carping about it. Recently, a 16-year old Australian girl became the youngest person to sail around the world solo,

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/05/15/australian-teen-youngest-person-sail-world/


I think it's great, and would be the last one to criticize; I do however wonder what they're gonna do for encores.


I got sick of hearing about the Gulf oil this morning, so on my way to work I listened to Ramblin' Jack Elliott.

The Wreck of Old '97 -

He was coming down that slope
doing ninety miles an hour
when his whistle broke into a scream
They found him in the wreckage
with one hand on the throttle
scalded to death by the steam.

This song was based on another, The Ship That Never Returned by Henry Clay Work (who also wrote "My Grandfather's Clock" and a lot of us Great Scare Folkies know the tune of this old chestnut better as the Bob Gibson's fun "Super Skier" (which the Chad Mitchell Trio ended with "Get poor Charlie off the MTA" which of course is a reference to ANOTHER song that uses the tune - ain't the Folk Process grand though?)

(Oh they called him Super Skier,
as he sat around the sundeck,
he swore that he would never take a spill,
when they finally got him down
they had to use three toboggans
to carry all the pieces off the hill....

He was coming down that slope
doing ninety miles an hour
when he caught an edge of his ski...)

Seemingly on a roll with railroad songs, Jack follows this with The Wabash Cannonball, a song done so many different ways by so many different artists it's practically a genre in itself (my favorite cut of it is by the Limeliters, on a live album, where Glen Yarborough crescendoes & glissandoes a whistle leading into the chorus)

Later on the side he returns to the Age of Steam with Hobo's Lullaby & Rock Island Line, so the side goes from trad to early country/bluegrass to straight country to Lead Belly via Weavers and Lonnie Donegan. Ramblin' Jack would be the last one to claim himself as a great singer or guitar picker, but I have never heard him when it didn't sound like he was having fun doing what he loved to do, and that always makes entertainment - he's fun to listen to. I plan to get to see him before he leaves us.