(1515) Hope you survived that rain just then. VJ day is today or tomorrow or in September, depending where you are.

 

19. On a journey here, folks

Once you start delving into long-gone things, inc. songs, all sorts of spectres reappear, skeletons. Of late, I’ve been concentrating on three years … 1963 and the death of innocence, musically but also look at world events … Bay of Pigs, JFK gone, Vietnam starts for real … now tick the clock over to January 1968 and my own finale to youth but who had come out just prior to this?

In fact one year earlier, January 1967? The Doors’ debut album with the strangest diabolical themes … and who produced it? Wikipedia says:

“Paul A. Rothchild serving as producer.”

Uh huh. Starting to see a pattern? And that iconic, dystopic eleven minute last song The End, about death and destruction. Kids lapped it up, it overcame all attempts at banning it. Some Millennial just now reacted to the whole album, did not understand Backdoor Man, certainly did not understand The End, though he disliked the lyrics, loved the funky boppiness of the music … the hook for the kids.

Fast fwd to August 2025 and where we are right now. 1968 kid would understand today easily. 1963 kid would not have. 2025 kid is only just starting to.

He may have been too young, as I’d been in 1963 … but in 1968 I was exactly the age range, the demographic … this was designed for my mates and me. Now, I’ve already told you about a Damascene moment in 1964, right at the start of the Stones and Beatles. It may have kept me from many an abyss but there were plenty of others I rushed into, headstrong and unpredictable. Yet not over the edge.

And now here we are, mid August, 2025, at the brink again.

18. Toodles and the chain of command

Just what are these people doing there?

17. Luggage trucks and wives

16. Alaska

15. YouTube suddenly recommended this

Won’t inflict the follow up song so here it is.

14. Ireland

13. Downunder

12. Digital IDs experiment on MPs first

11. The other Charlie

10. Seizing defeat from the jaws

(1334) Afternoon all. Running this as a polit-post, not as a separate feature.

Things significantly changed between 1963 and 1964

… especially in music. Question is … what exactly? We could start here:

The song itself is not my style, a bit too girlie for mine but still better than the next year and the two after that … innocence of the west gone forever.

Bear something else in mind … which Penseivat wrote on Chubby Checker:

“Sadly, his career seemed to revolve around that atrocious activity called The Twist, and it didn’t last, as did (not) those who failed to adapt to music tastes…”

My thing about dancing was always for the male and female to be physically joined for most of a dance … shirley that was the whole point of it … contact with the girl … dancefests today at least concentrate on that aspect, though the “binary” is wonky and garish today … awful.

No, what had started around 1960 and Chubby Checker was largely responsible for it was male and female separating, showing off at each other their own individual moves … that was me gone for a start. 1963 was almost the last hurrah for real men, real ladies. You call The Stones men? Jagger prancing and mincing? The Beatles with their women’s hairdos? I warr but a lad in 1963, it was way before “my time”, which was 1968.

Plus the drugs insinuated themselves back in, post-Leary … not just grass but the hard stuff especially. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Controversial statement from me now, not in 1964 of course as a kid … but the sweeping away of innocence in The British Invasion was no advance for the west. Older style “fun” music, danceable, no longer required by “the kids”?

The angry, aggressive “hope I die before I get old” (The Who) … you call that an advance? What forces were behind such savage changes? Go to Laurel Canyon to find out.

……

Fast fwd five or six years … in fact to January 68. One year later, the long (best) album version of Crimson and Clover came out. 👇🏻 The Sep before Jan 68, I’d had my first close encounter of the female kind, now it was reprised … in fact she and I were only discussing it a couple of days ago (2025).

So that song, though it did not emerge for another year, was soooo appropriate for the situation. What I might call the end of the time of romances, courtships … thereafter, everything was only about sex as it is today … can you see Paul and Paula (the song) selling today?

……

And lastly, looking at the song itself … yes, one more time but not the uninterrupted version … it’s a reaction video. Now, I’m going to be waycist here … I’ve heard all sorts … black, white, male female … it’s the blacks who get best what the band is trying to do … and the younger the reacters, the better … these two seem late millennial to me.

Just remembering myself in Jan 69, hypothetically listening as a reacter: “Er not bad, we like the song, a bit complicated, a bit overthought.”

These two though start analysing the instruments, the mixing … mixing in 1968/9? Always fascinating to me to hear what the young have to say about what we did and heard.

 

(0811)(0902)

 

8. Without further comment from me

🇷🇺🤝🇺🇲 pic.twitter.com/80s01bnlmy

— Aleksey Berezutski 🇷🇺🎖 (@aleksbrz11) August 13, 2025

7. Housekeeping

As of tomorrow, we’ve temporarily lost another vacationer, in this case DAD, who has family biz. My attitude is … go for it, chaps and chapesses … look after your own and yourselves first … refresh, recuperate, renew, strengthen.

As for me, I’m on perma-vacation here … everything works well, the views are lovely from the windows, the food good … though I should be physically training more … once we lay off, the troubles start.

6. Famliar? And yet it’s from downunder

Same thoughts from me, as with item 5.

5. Please support the new generation of “right thinking people”

… no matter how ruined they were by the evil “education” industry … and Charlie was indeed almost ruined, saved at the last moment. Maybe you can follow her @astor_charlie if you’ve not already done so … this is the new generation now making the running … they need our support. There’s also a male Charlie connected with Rupert. A society which neglects its youth has truly lost them.

(0528) Heavy, low cover of poison cloud out there. (0608)

 

4. Not totally sure what this is about

… but looks good anyway:

3. Where did this money or even Newsom’s go?

Or into pollie pockets or squandered on madcap schemes.

2. Britannia Hotel, Canary Wharf

Sadbutmadlad, at X:

That a door is open doesn’t stop someone being charged with breaking and entering. It’s still entering with intent to commit burglary. 14yr prison sentence if the property is a home/dwelling/residence. https://legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/9

This was covered elsewhere as well:

1. DAD at 1131

a) The highly controversial La Peyratte wind power project has suffered its first setback. The measuring mast, installed in April 2025, was vandalised and destroyed….

b) France’s online anti-tax revolt rattles Macron’s Elysée … The “Nicolas picks up the tab” online campaign evokes uncomfortable memories of the Yellow Vests protests.

c) In the UK today, it’s sometimes safer to be the criminal than the victim of crime.

d) UK police forces will disclose the ethnicity and nationality of a suspect when it could reduce the risk of disorder, there are high levels of false information about an incident or there is significant public interest.