Blog Archives
Hattie’s Leap
On February 29, 1940, Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Academy Award…. Stay Awake! Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Counter Culture posts.
Huey’s Day
On February 17 we celebrate the 1942 birthday of the founder of the Black Panther Party, Huey P. Newton. Anyone paying attention to Black Lives Matter can’t help but see parallels to the same challenges that faced the Black Panthers way back in the 1960′s. Here’s a 1968 documentary film made by the Panthers: Huey! [...]
Galileo: Science and Sorcery
Getting started on the blog a day late this week. Spent the day yesterday driving back to Nashville from a visit to Asheville, NC. We had a gloomy, but pretty-in-a-melancholy-way drive through the Smokies on Friday, but yesterday low temps and rain made it a pretty slow, tense drive, and didn’t leave a lot of [...]
AKA Tania
On February 4, 1974, the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped Patty Hearst. What followed depends on your point of view: Was Hearst isolated, raped and brainwashed into becoming a soldier for the army’s revolutionary cause or was she a rich brat playing revolution who would never really suffer the consequences of her actions? Maybe Guerilla: The [...]
Dick VS Dick
When the Watergate scandal first broke, it didn’t really break at all. Initial notices about the burglary appeared in news papers but TV mostly ignored it. Of course, Woodward and Bernstein famously bit and wouldn’t let go of the story in the Washington Post, but on television Dick Cavett’s entertainment talk show became the unlikely [...]
Keef Hunter
Took a break from the blog for about a week while I was celebrating the holidays. I’m still celebrating the holidays, but I’m also back at this illuminated scroll, revealing the secrets of the sacred and the foibles of the fearsome. And sometimes — like today — I’m just posting cool little videos like this [...]
Happy Buckday
Today we celebrate the long strange life of actor, writer and director Buck Henry whose contributions to Saturday Night Live and scripting of The Graduate were crucial contributions to the countercultural voice that paved the way for the best of today’s contemporary comedy. Buck is 85 on December 9. Here he is discussing his twisted, [...]
Fred’s Dead
In Chicago, on December 4, 1969 police murdered Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. Here’s The Murder of Fred Hampton… Stay Awake! Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Counter Culture posts.
Pryor’s Place
I posted a notice about Richard Pryor’s birthday to my Facebook page and got enough action on it that it seemed more attention was due for the clown prince’s special day. Pryor would have been 75 this week (born December 1, 1940). Pryor started his career modelling himself on the clean style of Bill Cosby, [...]
King Kill Kennedy
On November 22, 1963 John F. Kennedy was gunned-down in Dallas. More than 50 years on the event still undermines trust in government authority, and continues to fuel conspiracy theory culture like nothing else except maybe 9/11. My favorite JFK conspiracy theory is generally referred to as King Kill 33 which claims to unravel the [...]
