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Tube City: Musings
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Saturday, February 14, 2004
More things I found on the Internet while looking for other things: The Old Car Manual Project --- Owners' manuals, service data and even commercials for cars and trucks from the 1900s to the 1970s. I kid you not. The perfect entertainment before you attend this weekend's Pittsburgh Auto Show. Friday, February 13, 2004
I got a bad scare earlier this week from James Lileks, who found an unusual piece of music on Usenet:
Lileks wrote that his "jaw was on the floor" when he discovered this and he urged readers to "remove all traces" of Johnny Horton from their hard drives. I was stunned. Not only do I own several Johnny Horton records --- not that he recorded many --- I've played them on the air regularly. I even get requests from listeners. After all this, I suddenly learn that Johnny Horton had a second career as a white power balladeer? I mean, I believe in free speech, and certainly blatant white supremacists have the right to express their views, too. But I have a right to say they're doggone idjit galoots, to quote the great civil-rights leader Yosemite Sam, and to ignore them. And I certainly don't intend to start spinning their records on the air in between Drifters tunes. If I've been playing Johnny Horton for all of these years, and it turns out he was a racist, I'd have some heavy-duty mea culpas to start handing out. So I did some Googling of my own, couldn't find a definitive answer, and decided to go to the experts: Paul the Mockster, host of WRCT's "Viva la Mock," and Jason B., host of "Does Your Hometown Really Care?" Both have forgotten more about Americana, underground country and folk rock than I know. The Mockster got back to me Thursday night: Here's what I found out for you: Johnny Rebel was decidedly NOT the late, great Johnny Horton. The Mockster passed along a link to a New Orleans alt-weekly that wrote a lengthy article last year about Johnny Rebel. It turns out that he was a fair-to-middling country singer from Louisiana whose career had stalled until he began singing about desegregation. Let's just say that Johnny Rebel --- aka C.J. Trahan --- was agin' it: Johnny Rebel's first release was a 45 rpm with "Lookin' For a Handout" on the A-side and "Kajun Klu Klux Klan" on the other. Trahan followed with five more 45s, each with a B-side, bringing the complete Johnny Rebel catalog to 12 songs. His subjects: the laziness of blacks. How blacks and whites were meant to be kept separate. How a black would lose a spelling bee to a donkey. And you just know that there has to be a Pittsburgh connection: He is now in league with Johnny Ells, a Greensburg, Penn.-based disc jockey who features his music and interviews on his online radio show. Ells has posted a new Web site to market Johnny Rebel. The site also features Ku Klux Klan insignia and art. Charming. Excuse me while I wash my hands. OK, now here's the thing: the man who calls himself "Johnny Rebel" didn't start recording until the late 1960s. His first record wasn't released until 1966. Johnny Horton --- and I didn't know this --- was killed by a drunk driver on Nov. 4, 1960 while on his way home from a concert --- ironically at the same dance hall where Hank Williams Sr. had played his last gig before his untimely death: About 2 a.m., near Milano, Texas they were crossing a bridge when a truck came at them, hitting both sides of the bridge before plunging into Horton's Cadillac. He had practised avoiding head-on collisions, by driving into verges, but on the narrow bridge he'd had no opportunity. He was still breathing when he was pulled out of the Caddie but died on the way to hospital. Bizarrely, his recording career didn't stop. Columbia Records had several unreleased demos in storage. Johnny Cash and his Tennessee Three overdubbed instrumentation onto Horton's versions of "Rock Island Line" and other songs. Horton's last hit was "All Grown Up" in February 1963 --- two-and-a-half-years after his death. How did the rumor get started that Johnny Horton was "Johnny Rebel," who is apparently something of a legend in the white power music scene? In the late 1950s, after singing a lot of conventional rockabilly to mixed results, Horton covered Jimmie Driftwood's "Battle of New Orleans" ("In 18-and-14, we took a little trip") and scored a monster hit. His Columbia A&R people and his manager convinced him to record a whole series of history-themed ballads in hopes of duplicating "New Orleans'" success: "North to Alaska," "Sink the Bismarck," "The Sinking Of The Reuben James," "The Battle Of Bull Run," "Comanche," "Young Abe Lincoln," "The Passage of the Taft-Hartley Act," "God Bless J. Edgar Hoover" ... OK, I made the last two up. But one of those history songs --- a minor hit --- was called "Johnny Reb." (Chorus: "You fought all the way Johnny Reb, Johnny Reb ... You fought all the way Johnny Reb.") Released as Columbia 45 Number 41437, it went as high as Number 77 on the Cash Box Hot 100 in 1959. Other songs on the charts at the same time included Eddy Arnold's version of "Tennessee Stud," Jerry Wallace's version of "Primrose Lane," and Homer & Jethro's spoof of "Battle of New Orleans" called "The Battle of Kookamonga." Somewhere along the line, the rumor apparently got started that the singer of "Johnny Reb" and the man who called himself "Johnny Rebel" were the same person. T'ain't so. Can't be. Unless Johnny Horton faked his death in that car crash, and I have a hard time believing that he faked the fracture of his own skull with a Cadillac windshield. As for the voice on the Johnny Rebel track that Lileks says sounds like Johnny Horton? The only explanation I can propose is that, apparently, and again referring to the New Orleans newspaper article, more than one person used the moniker "Johnny Rebel" to record white power songs. There is even an ongoing copyright dispute over some of the (and we use this word loosely) "classic" Johnny Rebel tracks. (Hard to believe anyone would want the copyrights, let alone fight for them.) Perhaps one of those "Johnny Rebels" was imitating Johnny Horton. Could Johnny Horton have had a secret recording career on the side? There's a fairly complete discography and list of recording sessions at the Rockabilly Hall of Fame website, along with an exhausting tour itinerary. It seems that Horton --- like many musicians I can think of --- was constantly broke and was almost always on the road. The gig that got him killed paid only $800. Given the crush on Johnny Horton's time, I somehow doubt he would have dashed off some mediocre underground music when he had a thriving trade in mediocre pop. So, to recap --- Johnny Horton is not Johnny Rebel. I have no idea how you can get some Johnny Rebel music --- and I don't intend to look --- but you can buy Johnny Horton CDs at finer retailers everywhere. (Go through the PBRTV Mall, and a portion of your purchase will benefit Eric O'Brien's Pittsburgh Radio & TV Online.) Which reminds me that I have a PBRTV column due Monday. Tune in next week, when you'll learn what that column is about. Since I don't know yet, either, we may both be surprised. Have a happy Friday the 13th! Thursday, February 12, 2004
My favorite New York Daily News headline of recent memory appeared on yesterday's paper: DR. FATKINS? Inside, the proponents of the Atkins Diet frantically ground their gears, trying to explain away the news that their hero was overweight and in poor health when he died: Veronica Atkins and Stuart Trager, chairman of the Atkins Physicians Council, bristled at the notion that Atkins' menu of steak, eggs and butter was to blame. They insisted Atkins' heart problems stemmed from cardiomyopathy caused by a virus, and that he had never had a heart attack --- only a cardiac arrest episode in April 2002. Now, let's see ... among the principles of the Atkins Diet, as reported by the News, is that it stablizes blood sugar and lowers insulin production, which reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes. Yet according to the autopsy report, Dr. Atkins was suffering from ... wait for it ... cardiomyopathy, congestive heart failure, a history of cardiac arrest and hypertension. But, hey --- at least he didn't have diabetes! Apparently Dr. Atkins misinterpreted his Hippocratic Oath. He thought it meant that he had to be a hypocrite. I'm sorry. That was a cheap shot. And while mocking Dr. Barnum ... I mean, Dr. Atkins ... is fun, I can hear you asking, "So, what's the Western Pennsylvania connection?" Well, toward the end of the News' story, Our Guy Cy makes the scene: As for his 258-pound weight --- obese under federal guidelines --- Trager said Atkins normally weighed between 180 and 195 pounds. During his nine-day coma, he packed on another 60 pounds in water weight, he said. But some experts questioned whether such a sudden weight increase is possible. "It is amazing how much weight can be gained as a result of fluid retention, but I find it difficult to accept he gained 60 pounds in nine days," said forensic expert Dr. Cyril Wecht, the coroner of Allegheny County, Pa. From my limited understanding of physiology, the brain needs complex carbohydrates to survive. The Atkins Diet specifically forbids carbohydrates. Which leads me to the conclusion that if you're not stupid when you start the Atkins diet, you will be when you're done. OK, that was another cheap shot. Far be it from me to denigrate the late Dr. Atkins, who no doubt had the better welfare of his fellow man --- particularly those fellow men who bought his books and nostrums --- in mind. But if it looks like a quack, and it walks like a quack, and it quacks like a quack ... well, surf on over to Dr. Stephen Barrett's terrific Quackwatch web magazine, and you'll see where I'm coming from. Now, if you'll excuse me, I hear a doughnut calling my name. Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Once again it's time for a regular feature here at Tube City Online that we call ... GOOD GOVERNMENT ON THE MARCH IN THE MON VALLEY! (Music: "March of Time" theme on kazoos, up and establish, then under.) Our first stop is the nearby municipality of Penn Hills, population 47,000, second-largest in Allegheny County, where, according to the Post-Gazette, council is inadvertently testing the libertarian theory that the government that governs least, governs best: Council has not been able to muster the quorum of three needed to hold a meeting since the beginning of January, which has brought several needed municipal functions to a halt and angered hundreds of residents ... As a result, because the previous council did not adopt a budget or a tax structure by the end of December, the lack of quorum has meant that Penn Hills is a municipality without a spending plan or a tax rate ... Penn Hills has a stack of unpaid bills and is facing several lawsuits -- from residents sick of the inaction and from (former solicitor August) Damian, who says the municipality owes him more than $60,000 for work previously performed. It gets better. More than 100 residents are petitioning a county judge to remove a councilman who they claim lives in Venango. They allege that he listed his brother's residence as his own to skirt pesky laws that require councilmen to live in the borough they're supposed to be governing. Hey, folks: You think it's easy to govern Penn Hills from Venango County? Give the man a break! Now, let's turn to our next true tale of GOOD GOVERNMENT ... IN ACTION! (Or maybe this one is a tale of government inaction.) Updating an earlier story, we learn (also from the P-G) that one of the four Mon Valley boroughs that settled a police brutality lawsuit for $50,000 has agreed to make the settlement public: Edgewood, through the borough's insurance company, paid boxer Ramont "Monty" Clay $5,000 to settle a police brutality lawsuit. Braddock, Rankin and Swissvale also paid Clay to settle the suit, but they are trying to keep the amounts secret. The Post-Gazette is making the flimsy argument that the settlement must be made public because it was made by a public entity, using public tax money. What? You mean that residents should know where their money is being spent? Heretics! Terrorists! Liberals! Next thing you know, they're going to want hiring decisions to be made on merit, not on family or political ties --- and that leaves the door open for Communism! Or worse, metropolitan government! And finally today, in our final tale of GOOD GOVERNMENT ... IN ACTION!, we bid farewell to a beloved public servant, as we learn in this morning's Observer-Reporter that jurist Ronald Amati has resigned his seat as a district justice in Monongahela City. District Justice Amati hasn't been able to hear cases recently. He just spent 28 months in federal prison for gambling and obstruction of justice. (It would have been a long drive for the local constables to drag the prisoners all the way up to federal stir so that the magistrate could hear their cases.) The state Board of Judicial Conduct has been considering a petition to remove Amati from office, but they haven't taken any official action yet. So Amati, who was under indictment in 1999 when he won re-election, isn't ruling out the possibility that he might run for the seat again. "I've had overwhelming support from my constituency, and I'd like to thank all of them," the jurist told the O-R. "The people are great." If that doesn't restore my faith in the democratic process, I don't know what will. What's next for Judge Amati? Says the O-R: "I've been involved in other business matters for the past 10 to 15 years, and I've decided to pursue other business matters that are doing well," Amati said. I hope these aren't the business matters that landed him in the hoosegow in the first place. And that wraps up another episode of: GOOD GOVERNMENT ON THE MARCH IN THE MON VALLEY! Join us for another episode the next time that the workers here at the home allow us off of our medication. (Music: Up and out.) Tuesday, February 10, 2004
To quote South Park: If irony was strawberries, we'd all be drinking smoothies right now. According to The Times of London: Dr. Robert Atkins, creator of the famous low-carbohydrate diet, was clinically obese at the time of his death, according to medical reports made public today. The New York medical examiner's records, which have been published by the Wall Street Journal, state that Dr. Atkins weighed 18 and a half stone when he died last April after being injured in a fall on an icy New York City street. ... The examiner's report said that Dr. Atkins had suffered a previous heart attack, congestive heart failure and hypertension, all conditions that are related to obesity. Former McKeesport Mayor Wayne Kucich --- if you'll pardon the expression --- isn't letting any grass grow under his feet, as Pat Cloonan reported in last night's Daily News. Kucich has been named a local government liaison for the state Department of Environmental Protection, with the job of focusing on redevelopment of brownfields. Kucich will be the DEP's chief outreach person for business and government leaders in Allegheny, Westmoreland and eight other counties covered by DEP's Southwest Regional Office in Pittsburgh. "He understands the Mon Valley," Regional Business Alliance Executive Director Constance Yarris said. "A lot of folks within the 10-county region don't understand the Mon Valley, so I think it's a good idea, a good appointment." I have no doubt that Kucich will do a good job, but considering his stormy relationship with the new mayor of McKeesport, James Brewster, I have to wonder if he's the most politically appropriate choice. Here's hoping they can set aside their differences and work together to make the McKeesport and Duquesne riverfronts as vibrant as the Homestead and Munhall riverfronts --- with the caveat that I'd like to see more light industrial and corporate uses, rather than the low-paying retail jobs that "The Waterfront" features. In other business, folks in Washington County are getting that sinking feeling again, as Scott Beveridge writes in the Observer-Reporter: Longwall mine subsidence buckled a road and forced two Fallowfield Township families from their homes Monday. High Quality Mine, which undermined Route 481 and surrounding areas, summoned a work crew to repair the road that morning, workers at the scene said. Longwall mining machines are used extensively by coal operators in Washington and Greene counties. The controversial mining method removes large panels of coal nearly 600 feet below the surface, resulting in almost immediate subsidence. More than 100 homes in Fallowfield, which is near Charleroi and Mon City, are scheduled to be undermined soon, according to a township supervisor. Longwall mining is different from traditional mining. In traditional mines, tunnels are carved through coal seams, and pillars are left behind to support the ground on the surface. In longwall mines, giant machines chew out big panels of coal and ground, which causes the surface to collapse several feet, and causing damage to surface structures. Why, you ask, do the coal companies want to do that? Traditional mines are more expensive to operate --- they require more manpower and they leave coal behind. Also, coal company executives don't live in places like Charleroi and Mon City, so really, what do they care? And, under state and federal law, this is all perfectly legal. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the coal mining lobby has donated more than $13 million to federal political candidates --- nearly $11 million to the Republicans, who, as you may have noticed, now control the Senate, House and White House. (You didn't know? Seriously, it was on the news.) Before 1994, state law didn't permit longwall mining, but --- funny thing --- on the day before Christmas, the state legislature passed a bill approving it. Another funny thing --- the bill was written by coal industry lobbyists. Isn't that funny! Ha, ha! Perhaps you're asking yourself: How can I stop longwall mining? It's very simple. Donate $14 million to the political candidates of your choosing. Or, you could write your elected representatives a strongly worded letter. I'm sure they'll pay just as much attention. Now, perhaps you're wondering, what will happen if someone buys the coal rights under your house? Here are some helpful clues to watch for: -- Your dog suddenly disappears down a sinkhole in the backyard -- Your in-ground swimming pool develops a waterspout -- Your first floor and basement swap positions If this happens, do not panic. Assuming you can climb out of the smoking pit that was your home and find a working telephone, contact the state Bureau of Mining and Reclamation. They know what to do. They have forms to fill out and everything. Within two years, the coal company is obligated to compensate you for structural damage. In the meantime, you get to live in a cool motel! Wow! Frankly, it's a small price to pay to reduce our dependence on foreign oil ... What's that, you say? Um, so this doesn't reduce our dependence on foreign oil? Hmm. Well, it's a small price to pay to ensure that we generate energy from clean, renewable resources and ... Oh, so burning bituminous coal isn't clean, and it's not a renewable resource? Hmm. It's a small price to ensure that Consol Energy maintains its annual revenues of $2.2 billion dollars and its 14 cents per share dividend. Now, don't you feel better? No? What are you, a damned terrorist? An embarrassing low number of people --- |
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