ANSWER: Austrians love to socialize, either at wine taverns or cafés where they hang out. Austrians love to ski, snowboard and even ice-climb in winter and hike/walk in the Austrian Alps and bicycle in Summer. They are also avid theater, concert and opera goers and even the small villages have bands, choirs, and folklore groups.

Photo courtesy: Austrian Tourist Office / Ascher

Photos courtesy: Österreich Werbung / J. Mallaun / Himsl

What’s one thing the public probably does NOT know about Austria?

ANSWER: Austria is over 1000 years old and up until the 20th Century was one of the world’s largest empires. Austria became a European power not by warfare, but by strategically marrying into the other royal families of Europe thereby neutralizing any enemies. A good example of this is Empress Maria Theresa’s daughter, the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, who married King Louis XIV and ended up losing her head.

Top Photo courtesy: Austrian Tourist Office / Trumler
Bottom Photos courtesy: Österreich Werbung / Trumler / Lammerhuber

Share some aspect of Austria as regards to what it has contributed to the world.

ANSWER: In the field of music alone, composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Strauss, Josef Haydn, Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Anton Bruckner, Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg brought great joy to the world.

Photos courtesy: Österreich Werbung / Gruenert / Trumler

Photo courtesy: Austrian Tourist Office / Mayer

For further information about Austria, click-on: www.austria.info/us

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My mother always made a big deal about spring cleaning, even though the house was always kept neat and clean, thanks to my sister and me.  Every Saturday, the two of us cleaned the house — she’d clean the downstairs and back porch; my job was the upstairs and front porch.  And it had to be thorough — no dustmop or wet mop on the floors — we had to dust the wood floors on our hands and knees, and we also cleaned the linoleum floors on our knees with a bucket, rag, scrubbing brush, and Fels Naptha soap. I was the only kid at school who had what was called ”housemaid’s knees.” Truly, they would become swollen.

Eventually, my mother bought rubber mats to put under our knees. But back to spring cleaning. The mattresses were taken off the beds, taken outside and beat to get rid of the dust (and mites, I’m sure, but we weren’t aware of them). Then we would clean the coil springs on the beds with a cloth. These procedures changed when we got an Electrolux vacuum cleaner. Those were the days when some door-to-door salesmen were welcomed into our homes – the Fuller Brush, Electrolux, and Encyclopedia Britannica salesmen, for example. When he was a teen, my husband bought a set of encyclopedias from a door-to-door salesman, getting one volume at a time, paying a dime a week. Our neighbor bought one of those new-fangled Electrolux vacuum cleaners and after she showed my parents all the marvelous things it could do, they purchased one.

With its extendable hose, we could use our new Electrolux to vacuum the mattresses and springs. Obviously, these were the days before the springs were enclosed. The carpets were cleaned with some mixture of soapy water with vinegar, I think. If they weren’t considered dirty enough to require this method, the smaller ones were taken outside, hung, and beaten. The wood floors around the edge of the carpets and the wooden furniture were cleaned with soap and water and given a coat of wax, using paste wax or Simonize (which every household had in the garage to use on the car to keep its finish looking like new). Then came the hard part: buffing the wood until it shined. Sidebar: Our living room carpet had fringe around the edges, which created a challenge when using an upright vacuum cleaner, because the fringe would get caught in its roller. When this happened, the machine would be turned off so that the fringe could be carefully untangled from the roller. I seem to remember some bald spots in the fringe because of these instances. After the carpet was vacuumed, it was my responsibility to straighten the fringe, a job that was given to me when I was a toddler. I loved that I was helping to clean the house. Little did I know! But I digress – back to spring cleaning.

Dresser scarves were laundered, starched, and ironed. Lace curtains were laundered and then put onto a curtain stretcher, which was a wooden frame with tiny nails with the points sticking up, placed close together all around the edge of the frame. The frame could be adjusted to fit various sizes of curtains. The edges of the curtains were meticulously stuck onto the tiny nails, and painstakingly removed from the nails after the curtains were dry. We went through closets and removed clothes that no longer fit (why this was a part of spring cleaning baffles me). My sister’s clothes were handed down to me, which is why my clothes were never the latest fashion. My outgrown clothes were given to charity or to my young friend, who still reminds me how much she loved the pink organdy dress with ribbon trim that my mother had made for me, which she inherited.

Things were removed from cupboards, which were cleaned and then the objects were put back. In going through the kitchen cupboards, Mother would have us deep clean the pots and pans. This was another job that I couldn’t understand. Why not just clean them thoroughly each time they were used? I can visualize my mother scorching a pan and scrubbing it a bit and then telling herself, “That’s good enough for now; we’ll take care of it when we do our spring cleaning.” One year I was given the muffin tin to clean. It was in terrible condition, with caked-on grime. There was no way I was going to spend my time on this distasteful project. I surreptitiously discarded the muffin tin. Then I took part of my meager allowance and bought a new one, which I sneaked back into the cupboard. Since this was a baking item that was seldom used, I never knew when my mother discovered the substitution. I wonder whether she was grateful for the new muffin tin or upset with me for throwing away a “perfectly good pan that just needed some elbow grease.”

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Four Ladies and Me

If you don’t want to ponder, move on to the Jokes below.

Last week, my wife had a board retreat in Palm Springs so I tagged along. Most of the time, when I join my wife’s work activities, I just stay in our hotel room. You see, I’m not really into traveling and I don’t really care for the long rides — be it on a boat, or in a float … in a train, or on a plane … on a van or on a tram … I do not like them, Sam I am! Nope, hate wasting my time like that. I can’t wait for Elon Musk to invent a teleportation machine and say — “beam me up Scotty!” But we are not there yet. This time I rode a tramway to the top of the world with four sweet ladies.

These ladies were the wives of the other board members who, like me, had nothing better to do. They invited me to join them ride the famous Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. So famous in fact, I had never heard of it. Although the tram is one of those slow modes of transportation, I did accept the invitation and I did enjoy their company.

As I sat in the SUV, I recalled the many occasions I had been the only male surrounded by women. I dunno, they’re comfortable with me and I’m comfortable with them. And, remarkably, it’s usually four of them. I grew up with four sisters — maybe that’s why. But being comfortable wasn’t always the case. I used to be an introvert … especially when it came to women.

GROWING UP IN AN ALL-BOYS SCHOOL
In Grade School, boys were supposed to hate girls. Remember those days? Boys were not supposed to be interested in girly things. But that changed dramatically when we hit the puberty years in High School. Those were the crazy years. We fought for independence and coolness. The rebellious ones started smoking and drinking. Suddenly I (and the rest of my pimpled classmates) started noticing the other gender. As a whole, we were truly ignorant of the female species. We didn’t know what they were interested in. How did you start a conversation? Surely they liked basketball and boxing and Kung Fu movies, right?

This is how innocent we were: I remember planning for our first dance party. Yup! We were going to meet the “enemy.” We didn’t know how to dance so the weekend before, we decided to practice. Naturally, nobody knew how. However, my best friend, Fernando, came up with this weird dance move where we created an imaginary square and where we stepped on the edges of the square in a clockwise motion and just wiggled our arms around. We thought that was better than nothing. You should have seen us on the actual dance floor counting 1-2-3-4 … 1-2-3-4 … like robots. I think the girls thought it was a new dance craze.

First year of college was exciting. For the first time, we were going to school with these mysterious creatures. Many of the girls had similarly come from all-girl schools so both sexes were discovering the other. You could have seen the hormones flying. And this was the first time I found myself with 4 women friends. I don’t know how it happened but it did. They were the pretty “mean girls” and I was the token boy. There was no romance. We just enjoyed hanging out. I have long lost my connection with any of them. In later years I’ve had similar clumps of women friends — also without any romance. And I have no idea where they are now. Do you know of any other groups like mine? Was this common?

BACK TO THE PRESENT
You would think that, with all my “extensive experience” with women friends, that I’d be an expert in understanding these creatures, but no. Women are still as unpredictable as ever. In fact, I just recently lost a dear friend because of something I said. Not even sure what I said but it hurt her deeply. Instead of helping, I made things worse. Some “expert,” right? (Or is this not a guy and gal thing but a “people” thing?) One of the problems is men want women to be more like men and women want men to be more like women. And, when men treat women like men, they find out they should have treated them like women. Confused? Well, so am I.

It’s Mother’s Day this coming Sunday. To all you mothers out there (in behalf of all of the men) thank you for putting up with us. We may not understand you and you may drive us crazy but you did a heck of a job raising our kids (better than we could have alone) and you make the world fun and exciting!

TGIF people!

If you subscribed to my email blast, you should know that I am trying out this new mailing program. I’m still adjusting to the system. Please let me know if you are having any problems receiving this email. And, if you receive this email by mistake, please accept my apology and let me know you wish to unsubscribe. Thank you!

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” — Genesis 1:27

“Men are like a fine wine. They all start out like grapes, and it’s our job to stomp on them and keep them in the dark until they mature into something you’d like to have dinner with.” — Jill Shalvis

“When women are depressed, they eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It’s a whole different way of thinking.” — Elayne Boosler

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.” — Joseph Conrad

“Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” — Genesis 2:18

“However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” — Ephesians 5:33

JOKE OF THE WEEK

Thanks to Joe of Los Angeles, CA

MEMES of the Week

Thanks to James of Los Angeles

Thanks to Kathy of North Dakota

Thanks to Art of Sierra Madre, California

Thanks to Norm of Encino, California

Thanks to Barbara of Pasadena, California

I found these:

My good friend (and jokester) Terry and I came up with these:

Got any good jokes? Come share it with rest of us!
Know someone who enjoys a laugh? Share this website.

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Porotos Granados is the national dish of Chile. The basic ingredients — pumpkin, cranberry beans, corn and tomatoes — are all indigenous to the New World, pre-dating the arrival of Europeans.

Vegetarians will be delighted to find that there are no meat products in the dish, and that the recipe is heart-healthy and absolutely delicious. A popular summer dish in Chile, you can prepare this recipe year-round, substituting with white or navy beans.

You can also spice it up a bit by using a hot green chili pepper, seeded and minced. Sometimes it is garnished with sweet basil. Keep in mind this is a stew – sometimes called Chilean Bean Stew in English – and like all stews the recipe can vary to your liking. I once devoured the sublime dish with a family who served it with a fried egg on top.

Serves 4-6.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup chopped onion
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons oil
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 cup pumpkin, peeled and cubed (acorn or butternut squash can be substituted)
• 2 cups fresh sweet corn kernels
• 1-2 cups water
• 1 large tomato, chopped
• 2 cups beans – shelled fresh cranberry beans (again, you may substitute with white or navy beans)

Preparation:

1. Simmer the fresh cranberry beans gently in water for 30-45 minutes, or until tender. Drain and set aside.
2. Heat the oil in a heavy saucepan and add the onions and garlic. Cook until translucent. Add paprika, pumpkin, tomato and corn, stirring until vegetables are soft and fragrant.
3. Add 1 cup of water, covered for 5-10 more minutes. Add the beans (and more water if necessary) and simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until pumpkin is very soft and begins to fall apart and thicken the stew. Simmer even longer, uncover to thicken the stew, or add more water if a thinner stew is desired.

Buen apetito!

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May 10, 1946 – April 19, 2026

Story and pictures by author.

Waking to the news that Dave Mason had passed set off a flood of memories for me. Fifty years became yesterday recalling my first tour through Asia as a young Navy journalist. One of my very first assignments for Armed Forces Radio in Tokyo was to seek out and interview touring musicians for broadcast to our troops stationed overseas. As luck would have it, Dave Mason was just wrapping up his tour through Japan and after I reached out, he graciously agreed to sit and talk.

To say that Mason was an exceptional musician, singer-songwriter and stage performer is factually correct, yet an understatement of massive proportions. And it wasn’t an act that was just Dave Mason; he wasn’t flashy or attention-seeking, just straight forward and down-to-earth. ‘This is what I do so let’s just play and enjoy the time we have.’ Case in point – Mason performed and recorded with literally, EVERYONE! Iconic collaborations with Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder, Leon Russell, Fleetwood Mac, and of course, Traffic…you get the point. And yet in our conversations when pressed on those accomplishments, he’d just smile. “Well, that was just the 60s in London…everybody was just hanging out…the Beatles, the Stones. We’d all hang out together or be in a club somewhere together.”

Make no mistake Dave Mason was different, but what made him legendary was his generosity. He would contact Armed Forces Radio every time he came back through Tokyo just to say hello, come on the air and talk about his tour or new projects directly with our men and women in uniform throughout the Far East. He didn’t have to, he just did. The following interview came from two of those encounters; the first in 1977 and again in 1980.

Let’s go back to the beginning for you, that area of the UK map around Birmingham-Worcester produced an incredible amount of musical talent. “It started in Worcester which is only 25 miles from Birmingham and Jim Capaldi lived about 12 miles away in a place called Evesham. Mick Ralphs who played with Bad Company lived about eight miles from me. Robert Plant and John Bonham come from Kidderminster, about another ten miles away.”

Tell us about the Jaguars. “The Jaguars was the first band, when I was 16. It was mostly all just instrumental; Shadows stuff, the Ventures and things like that. And Jim (Capaldi) was in another group called the Sapphires. He used to do a great Elvis Presley with the black shirt and the pink tie and the white jacket.”

When I look at your touring schedule, it’s unreal. What is it about the road; do you still enjoy it or ever tire of it? “Yeah, you need to keep touring. I like to tour anyway, because I like to play to people. I don’t like the traveling, but I like to play and it keeps me in touch with what’s going on with audiences. Especially, there’s a lot of people who grew up with me, you know together, the same ages…so I think it’s good to keep going out there letting everybody know once they get past thirty, they don’t have to stop rock and rollin’!” (laughing) “It’s okay to have a good time, folks!” (laughing) “In fact the keyboard player that’s playing with me now, is Mark Stein who used to be with the Vanilla Fudge. And we do ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’ on stage. We’re going to go and rehearse this afternoon and I think we’re going to add ‘Dear Mr. Fantasy’ to the set too, I think.”

It seems your playbill has no limitations. “About a month ago I was in New York and I got to meet this guy, Tom O’Horrigan who did all the choreography for ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ and the original ‘Hair’ and the Lenny Story. And I’m going to put together a musical collage and the title of the show is going to be ‘Dear Mr. Fantasy.’ It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, to put music and dance together with a group and music. Not to make a point just something to enjoy.” (laughing)

What do you remember about the Basement Floor, wasn’t it like a cottage or rehearsal space? “The Basement Floor, that was when Traffic was first starting and we used to go to London and this guy, Paul Medcalf…on the original ‘Dear Mr. Fantasy’ cover there’s a guy leaping around with the white Kabuki face, that was him and we’d go down to London. He was just a struggling artist then and a few nights we’d be sleeping on the floor.” (laughing)

Prior to Traffic, you and Jim Capaldi had a project, ‘Deep Feeling?’ “Oh yeah, a couple of years before that, actually…we used to do a lot of Nina Simone songs and Oscar Brown, Jr. songs. Very obscure stuff for those days. Martha and the Vandellas stuff, Bob and Earl the Harlem Shuffle, things like that. They go way back.”

Also in those early days, is it true you did some ‘roadie’ work? “Yeah for a couple of months, I was.” And didn’t you play on a few Spencer Davis recordings, ‘I’m A Man’? “Yeah, I’m singing on that and in fact I’m singing on ‘Somebody Help Me’ with Steve, ‘I’m A Man,’ ‘Gimme Me Some Lovin.’ And Traffic was happening then, it was more or less starting.”

Traffic was so groundbreaking for its fusion of Jazz and Psychedelic Rock n’ Roll. “Yeah, it was. It was kind of strange because that was the first group that I, once that I started writing; the things that I was writing about were not the things I’m writing about now. They were the hit songs at the time for the band and it caused a little rift which eventually led to them not wanting me to be in the band anymore so that’s why I left. I don’t know, my things they said were a little too pop-oriented. But I wasn’t even thinking of it that way, I figured if you’re out there making music for the people you might as well make things you can enjoy. I don’t know, sometimes people try to be too hip. I like music to be happy, just have a good time.”

Do you feel your solo efforts reflect more of that? “Yeah, I just sort of talk about or sing about things that everybody goes through, but this isn’t the end of the world approach to things.” (laughing)

When you left Traffic the first time, you started producing more? “Yeah, I did ‘Music in a Doll’s House’ the Family’s album. They were definitely a cult following and it was all done on four-track, that whole thing. Yeah, that was 1968 and I knew all those guys and they wanted me to do the album so I thought it would be a good chance for me to learn that part of the whole thing, you know?”

You worked on some of that generation’s most inspired and iconic sessions…The Stones ‘Beggars Banquet…’ “Well, that was just the 60s in London, which was great. Everybody was just hanging out…the Beatles, the Stones. Anybody that was in that place and we’d all hang out together or be in a club somewhere together and I just got to know all these people. That’s how playing with them came about, you know? Hendrix and I used to hang out a lot. We’d sit up all night and play. Actually, ‘All Along the Watchtower’ came out of listening to that Basement album (Bob Dylan) that he put out with ‘The Mighty Quinn.’ And the John Wesley Harding album was out and we were listening to that at somebody’s house one night; me, Jimi and Brian Jones and he wanted to do ‘All Along the Watchtower.’ That’s when I wasn’t with Traffic and Noel Redding had left Jimi’s band and I was actually going to play bass with Hendrix and the band, but management put a stop to that.” (laughing)

What is it with you and management? (laughing) “I have a thing with all middle men. They become the mouthpieces for things, you know? Probably should have nothing to do with what really should be happening. I don’t know, they just want to protect their interests, I guess.”

Let’s talk about ‘Feeling Alright?’ “That came about pretty easily. I was just trying to write the simplest song I could and the simplest was just two chords that just kept changing back and forth; which is what the song really does. Musically, that’s why I wrote it, lyrically was to do with a lot of other things.”

Seems everybody has recorded that song, from Joe Cocker and Three Dog Night to Mongo Santamaria and Gladys Knight. “I know. I know! I wish I’d have been older and wiser and kept the publishing on it!” (laughing)

After Stevie Winwood left Traffic, didn’t you get together with the other members briefly? “Yes, Mason, Capaldi, Wood and Frog (laughing) ‘Wooden Frog’ was the name of the band. (Keyboardist Mick Weaver was Frog) That was a real short-lived thing.”

You wanted to mention something else about Hendrix? “There’s going to be another movie coming out on Hendrix from the Albert Hall in London. We did the show with him and there’s a sequence with me playing with him on that, and Chris Wood, too. I think that’s coming out next year sometime. I’d like to see it, I haven’t seen it. A blast into the past as Hendrix would say.”

(Editor’s Note: That film ‘The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Live at the Royal Albert Hall was recorded February 24, 1969.)

Gram Parsons. “Yeah, we played together. Gram, when I first moved to L.A. in ’69 and he introduced me to Cass Elliot. Everybody would go and hang out at her place, you know? That’s how that album came about. She lived on Woodrow Wilson (Laurel Canyon) in fact it was the house that Ringo had that just burned down last year. So, that’s gone.”

Can you talk a little about Delaney and Bonnie. “Well Delaney and Bonnie was when I first went to America, the person that was managing me then, was managing them. I wasn’t doing anything so I went and played guitar with them. It was on that tour in ’69. Clapton wasn’t in the band, he was with Blind Faith. Delaney and Bonnie were the opening act for Blind Faith.”

You release your debut solo album, ‘Alone Together’ in 1970. “I don’t remember too much about doing that album. (laughing) I really didn’t know what I was doing, I just wanted to make an album, you know? All these people like, Leon Russell, Larry Knechtel, who else was on there, Jim Gordon, Jim Keltner and so many. All these guys were up from Tulsa, they were all the session guys and then they all became famous, which then split all of them up, which is what happens. Everything’s fine until success comes and then for some reason it just all goes…psthfft. But I guess that’s just the way it goes.”

You did a few shows with Cass Elliot and then the album. “We did just two dates with Cass, really, and the album. We did a couple of shows, one in New York and one in L.A.”

Your productivity in 1971 was amazing. ‘Welcome to the Canteen.’ There were live recordings from the Troubadour in L.A. and the release of ‘Headkeeper.’ “‘Welcome to the Canteen’ again was when I was back in England. I thought we could give it one more shot and put the band back together again. And ‘Headkeeper’ was really something I didn’t want out. That was a record company trip. It was an unfinished album; it was supposed to be a double album. One original studio album and one live album and we ended up putting one side live and one side studio but they were all unmixed tapes, they weren’t even mixed. They took some rough copies and slapped an album together and threw it out there. There are some good things on there, but I never got to really finish it. I really wanted it to be a double album.”

You’ve performed with so many artists over the years, is there anybody you’d really like to play with that you haven’t had the opportunity as of yet? “God, a lot I suppose! Most of the people I want to play with are a little out of my league, I think. I don’t really think of myself as a musician at all. I’m very limited in terms of what I can do on guitar. I go for a sound; I know how to put it all together to make up a whole thing. Jim Krueger is what I would call a guitar player (laughing) with my band. He’s a great guitar player; I don’t really think of myself that way at all.”

Michael Jackson played on your album ‘Old Crest on a New Wave.’ “They put out ‘Save Me’ with Michael and they hit the R&B charts with it too.”

How did that even happen? “Well, I gave him an award with Bonnie Pointer on the American Music Awards, and that’s where I met him. And he was in Studio B in the Studio where I was cutting this record and we were doing this track and I needed somebody to hit a high note, so I thought I’ll just go ask him if he wants to sing on it. He said, ‘Sure, I’d love to sing on it!’ He just popped in out of the session, stood there and bopped away. It sounds like a real odd combination, but it works.”

Let’s go back just a minute because the last time we talked you had just released your sixth solo album “Let it Flow.” That album was on the Billboard charts like 49 weeks and the track ‘We Just Disagree’ peaked at #12 in the U.S. “That was a good album, a big album.”

Then the album before that ‘Certified Live’ I think you mentioned had been mixed aboard a ship? “Yeah, we mixed the album on a boat. Yeah, we took a boat for ten days down to Mexico, anchored near an island somewhere. It was great, it was perfect. No phones, no one to bother you, no hassles.” (laughing)

Mike Finnigan played on your latest album too. He was touring with you the last time you came this way. Finnigan has also been playing with Les Dudek and Jim Krueger in DFK. It’s like six degrees of Dave Mason. “Dudek wrote one of the last songs on the album, ‘Get It Right.’ I played with Les before and Finnigan is playing with Stephen Stills now. He’s been playing with him for a couple of years. Finnigan had a real good time over here.” (Tokyo) “A big six foot Kansas boy. (laughing) It was funny; I never thought he would enjoy it as much as he did, but he loved it over here in Japan. I don’t know how he got on the beds at the New Otani…I imagine his legs hanging off the end of the bed!” (laughing)

Last thoughts on Old Crest on a New Wave. “I really tried to make something that was appealing or commercial if you want to use that word, but not selling out. Simple and just back to the guitar and the band playing, just make it fun…just fun. It’s just everybody’s got to have a point. Whatever happened to just having fun? (laughing) I don’t know, you know? I guess when I was 17 or 18 it was more important to do that, then. Now it’s just, let’s make some music and have a good time, you know?” (laughing)

Speaking of creativity, is it easier to write music now? “Well, it used to be easy. I think it was easier when I had something to prove to myself, when I was younger. It doesn’t matter that much now, there’s a lot of good songwriter’s around and there’s a lot of good songs. I just like to perform and I like to play and I like to sing good songs. And if someone has a good song that I can relate to, I’d love to do it. Its like ‘We Just Disagree’ it could have been something I could have written. It fit right in the framework of Dave Mason. I don’t feel like it has to be all my material at all. Every one can’t be a great song.” (laughing)

When you prepare for recording, what’s the mindset? Wired up? Laid back? Hectic? Crazy? “All of that! (laughing) You know, all of those things.”

You’ve spent decades now as an artist, seeing all the changes taking place in the performing arts and music industry, what do you think the future holds? “I don’t know, I mean…I don’t know where it’s all going quite honestly. (laughing) It’s going down the toilet. (laughing)

But you’ve been doing it so long and so successfully…“But also that’s why I don’t have the pressure of having to constantly be on ALL the time. There’s always going to be a point that I can always make a good song and put it out. I like to do things that are timeless, I don’t know. That’s what I feel is important, more than making the money, more than having the fame if you can make a piece of music that leaves people feeling something. It’s like when I put out ‘Alone Together’ I used to get a lot…” Dave pauses to reflect. “When you write a song and go into the studio and you put it onto tape and the tape goes onto the wax and the wax goes into a piece of cardboard and gets sold…I would get letters from guys who were back from ‘Nam and goin’ nuts and they’d tell me, ‘boy I’d put on one of your songs, man and just sort of…’ Dave just shakes his head. “You know that’s, to me, it just made everything…something like that makes it feel it’s worthwhile. To know that a little relief can be brought in that hellhole that somebody sitting out there…from just something that I did. So that makes it really worthwhile.” Dave grins. “Or that somebody could fall in love, two people fall in love…it’s like when anybody has a certain song that happens at a specific time of your life so you relate and you can always go back to that moment.”
They’re playing our song. “They’re playing our song! (laughing) Right! Like those old classic movies, they’re playing our song! (laughing)

After this tour, what’s next for Dave Mason? “I’ve been through a lot of hassles with business and stuff. I’ve got to get back to myself a little bit. It’s been fourteen years of keeping this up, you know? And there’s not that many people around that have been doing it as long as I have. And it’s been hard, you know? So I have to try and just pace it so I don’t lose myself somewhere along the line. I’m going to try to put this show together for Broadway. The Beacon Theater, they’re going to let me use to do the show, so I want to put this together. I want to take the time to get back to writing a bit more and I think I’m going to be coming out this way (Tokyo) more. All I’ve been doing is playing in America for the last ten years and nowhere else. I’d like to go to some other places and then come back here and work in the Far East a little bit more. From here maybe jump off and go to Australia where I’ve never played. Just go to some places where it’s new for me. So going to some fresh places would be good for me. Sort of rejuvenate myself a little bit.”

As these snippets of time reflect, Dave Mason was not only a skilled and talented musical storyteller but a kind and caring individual. Long after these conversations, Dave continued to give back to the military community. In 2015, he co-founded ‘Rock Our Vets’ with Ted Knapp in support of veterans, their families and the families of fallen first responders. He also collaborated with the non-profit organization WVFV – Work Vessels for Veterans that provides direct services in support of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thank you Dave: for your heart, your humanity and the soundtrack of our youth. Rest in Peace.

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If I had to pick a favorite Southern California hotel for family fun and culinary delight, the Hyatt Regency Irvine would be near the top of the list. With a sprawling pool complex featuring two kid-friendly waterslides, a standout signature restaurant, and some of the most imaginative family suites in the region, the hotel delivers everything a family needs for a memorable getaway.

On our recent return visit, we checked into one of the property’s luxurious bunk-bed suites — an 850-sq-ft retreat designed with both kids and parents in mind. The main room features a king bed, a large TV, a stylish bathroom, and a full balcony overlooking the resort and cityscape. But the real showstopper is the private kids’ bedroom: a bunk setup with a queen mattress below and a full on top, plus a sleeper sofa, mini-fridge, large TV, and pool views. The kids loved it so much that we’re already planning another stay this summer. While the kids reveled in their “fortress,” the spacious living room became our own sanctuary — a place to catch up on sleep in the plush king bed or unwind on the balcony with views of the Irvine skyline.

When the kids weren’t in their room, they were at their favorite spot: the Pool Oasis. This family-centric area features two waterslides and a massive 20-foot LED video screen. The shallow play zone was perfect for our three-year-old, giving him a safe space to splash while we relaxed nearby.

On our first night, we stumbled into a bit of dive-in-movie magic, watching the original Muppet Movie — complete with Steve Martin — right from the water. Families laughed, splashed, and floated under the glow of the giant screen, creating one of those rare, effortless vacation moments you hope your kids remember.

For dinner, we headed to Warehouse 72, the hotel’s signature restaurant. The space itself is an experience, with 80-foot digital art walls displaying rotating scenes from cherry blossoms to Mediterranean coastlines. Executive Chef Jaime Salazar’s menu leans modern American with global flair. Our meal included pork belly kimchi fried rice and a 14-ounce Double R Ranch ribeye with bone marrow bordelaise, followed by the restaurant’s famous Frozen S’mores — torched tableside for a bit of theatrical fun.

The next morning, we drove to Irvine’s Great Park, a 1,300-acre urban playground built on the former El Toro Marine Base. Nearly twice the size of New York’s Central Park, it offers a huge range of free and low-cost activities. Our kids loved the Great Park Carousel and the Farm + Food Lab, an outdoor classroom where they learned about gardening. The highlight, though, was the Great Park Balloon — a bright orange helium balloon that rises 400 feet above the city for panoramic views.

We spent our final day back at the Hyatt pool, this time in a private cabana equipped with a fridge, TV, and comfy couches — the perfect shaded home base. Lunch came from the hotel’s Market Cafe: burgers, smoothies, and snacks enjoyed in the comfort of our cabana.

As the sun set, the kids retreated to their beloved bunk-bed suite while we relaxed on the balcony, watching the Irvine skyline light up.

The Hyatt Regency Irvine stands out as one of the area’s most refined full-service hotels. Its 516 newly renovated rooms lean into a “thoughtfully modern” aesthetic, with curated artwork and high-end finishes that feel more like a luxury residence than a standard hotel. The property also features a 24-hour fitness center and 56,000 square feet of event space, all just two miles from John Wayne Airport and centrally located for trips to Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, or Newport Beach.

For families planning a summer getaway, now is a great time to book. World of Hyatt members can often find early-booking savings of up to 25% for summer stays, and the Hyatt Family Rate may offer a second room for kids at a significant discount when booked by phone. With its blend of luxury for parents and pure “fortress fun” for kids, the Hyatt Regency Irvine is an ideal home base for a Southern California summer.

Hyatt Regency Irvine is located at 17900 Jamboree Rd, Irvine, CA 92614. For more information or current specials, call 949.751.1234 or visit hyatt.com.

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DISCLAIMER: This is just one opinion. Consult your financial adviser before you invest.

Considering AI Technology, where is the best place to invest time and money this early half of 2026?

ANSWER:
1. Best places to invest MONEY right now (focus on infrastructure & enabling layers)

The AI boom has shifted from pure hype/chips to the physical constraints of building and powering it all. Data center capex is exploding, but power access is the biggest choke point—delaying projects and creating new winners. Analysts and investors (including BlackRock surveys) are increasingly favoring energy and supporting infrastructure over big tech for 2026 upside, while chips remain core but more competitive.

Tier 1: Core AI infrastructure (still strong but maturing)

•  NVIDIA (NVDA): Remains the dominant pick for GPUs and full-stack AI solutions. High demand persists, but growth is now more “expected” and valuations reflect that.

•  Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM): Essential foundry for advanced AI chips. Benefits from rising complexity and volumes; often seen as a steadier play than pure chip designers.

•  Broadcom (AVGO) and AMD: Custom chips, networking, and inference gains. Micron (MU) for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) is another memory play gaining traction.

Tier 2: The emerging sweet spot — Power, Cooling, & Data Center Enablers (highest relative upside in 2026) Power demand from AI data centers is forecasted to surge dramatically (up 175% in some projections by 2030, with near-term shortfalls). This is where greed-fueled spending meets real bottlenecks, creating opportunities in energy and adjacent infrastructure:

•  Energy plays: NextEra Energy (NEE), Vistra (VST), NRG Energy, Bloom Energy (BE—for on-site fuel cells), and natural gas infrastructure like Energy Transfer (ET) or Williams (WMB). Nuclear and off-grid solutions are also gaining attention as hyperscalers explore direct power deals.

•  Cooling & Power Equipment: Vertiv (VRT) — frequently called one of the safest/most direct AI infrastructure bets for data center cooling and power management.

•  Networking & Connectivity: Lumentum (LITE), Ciena, Amphenol (APH), Corning.

•  Construction & Broader Infra: EMCOR (EME), Comfort Systems USA; data center REITs like Equinix (EQIX) and Digital Realty (DLR) for the physical buildout.

Strategy tips:

•  Diversify with a basket or AI-themed ETFs covering chips + energy + infra rather than single-stock concentration.

•  Hyperscalers (Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Google) are still solid long-term but more “priced in” compared to the power bottleneck plays.

•  Risks: Delays from permitting/power shortages, policy shifts, or valuation compression if capex slows. This isn’t financial advice—markets move fast; DYOR and consider your risk tolerance/time horizon.

The greed dynamic we talked about is clearly visible here: massive private capital is pouring into solving these constraints, potentially accelerating abundance but also concentrating gains among those who own the “picks and shovels” for the buildout.

2. Best places to invest TIME (skills & learning — your highest-leverage bet)

In the AI/robot world, time invested in skills that let you orchestrate, direct, and apply AI (rather than just use basic tools) will compound fastest. Pure prompting or rote coding is becoming table stakes. The shift is toward agentic AI — autonomous systems that plan, reason, use tools, and handle multi-step workflows. WEF and McKinsey analyses emphasize that AI will transform most jobs by 2030, but human + AI hybrid skills (judgment, domain expertise, orchestration) create the biggest advantage.

Top skills to prioritize in 2026 (ranked by current demand and future-proofing):

1.  AI Agents & Agentic Workflows — Building, deploying, and orchestrating goal-driven agents (planning, memory, tool integration, evaluation). This is repeatedly called the most in-demand emerging skill. Tools/frameworks: n8n, LangChain/LangGraph, or no-code platforms evolving into agent builders.

2.  Advanced Prompt Engineering + Context/Workflow Design — Moving beyond basic prompts to structured instruction design, RAG (retrieval-augmented generation), and reliable multi-step orchestration.

3.  AI-Assisted Development & Automation — Using AI to code faster while understanding architecture (Python remains key; pair with JavaScript for web/agents). Focus on integrating AI into real business processes.

4.  Domain-Specific AI Application + Data Literacy — Combining AI with your existing expertise (e.g., AI in healthcare, finance, manufacturing, robotics maintenance). Turning outputs into actionable insights.

5.  AI Ethics, Security & Governance — Especially for enterprise/sovereign deployments: bias mitigation, responsible use, secure/private AI.

How to invest the time practically:

•  5–10 hours/week: Build projects (e.g., an agent that automates parts of your work or a personal workflow). Free/affordable resources include Coursera specializations, YouTube/agent-building tutorials, and open-source experimentation.

•  Pair technical skills with human strengths: Critical thinking, creativity, ethical judgment, and adaptability—these amplify AI and remain scarce.

•  Long-term mindset: Focus on lifelong learning and “AI + [your domain]” rather than becoming a generic AI generalist. This hedges against the job reset and positions you to thrive in (or create) the abundance era.

Tying it back: Investing in infrastructure captures the capital/greed wave enabling the robot/AI reset. Investing in these skills makes you the human who directs that abundance—overseeing agents/robots, innovating applications, or solving the new scarcities (like energy or complex judgment). It’s the best way to participate in the shift from “grind for survival” to purposeful creation.

This landscape is evolving quickly with new capex announcements and tech releases.

Are people actually making money using tools like Claude?

• You can’t directly invest in Claude yet
• The smartest investors are betting on the ecosystem around it
• People are making money with Claude—but mostly by building businesses, not trading stocks with it

Short answer: not directly (for most people).

• The company behind Claude, Anthropic, is private
• Shares are mostly limited to institutions and accredited investors
• It’s currently valued around $380B+ and growing fast

👉 That means:

• You can’t just buy it on Robinhood, Fidelity or Vanguard or Schwab (yet)
• A potential IPO is expected around late 2026, but not guaranteed.

💡 How people actually invest in Claude indirectly

Since you can’t buy Anthropic directly, investors go through:

1. Big Tech backers (most common strategy)

These companies have exposure to Claude:

• Amazon (AWS partnership + billions invested)
• Google (multi-billion investment)
• Microsoft (OpenAI, but same AI race)

These are the real “AI picks and shovels”.

2. AI infrastructure plays (arguably more important)

The biggest money so far hasn’t been chatbots—it’s infrastructure:

• Chips (NVIDIA, AMD, Broadcom)
• Cloud (Amazon, Google, Microsoft)
• Data centers & networking

👉 In fact, hyperscalers are spending $700B+ on AI infrastructure

That’s where a lot of investors are focusing.

3. Private funds / pre-IPO exposure (advanced)

Some investors use:

• Venture funds
• Secondary markets
• Funds holding private tech (like Fundrise-style vehicles)

But:

• High minimums (often $50K+)
• Illiquid
• Risky

This is where things get misunderstood. People aren’t getting rich just by “using Claude.”

They’re making money by using it as a tool, not an investment.

💼 Real profitable use cases

People are using Claude for:

• Coding (automation, SaaS tools)
• Copywriting / marketing agencies
• Legal / finance document analysis
• Business process automation

Anthropic already has:

• 1,000+ enterprise clients paying $1M+ each

👉 That’s where the real money is: business productivity gains

🤖 AI trading / investing with Claude?

This is overhyped.

• AI models can assist with analysis
• Some research shows AI-driven trading models can outperform markets in controlled settings

BUT:

• No consistent retail “Claude trading strategy” exists
• Markets are competitive and unpredictable
• Most “AI trading gurus” are selling courses, not results

🧠 What Reddit investors are saying (real sentiment)

From discussions:

“There’s no direct way for retail investors… people invest in Amazon/Google instead”

“Valuations assume massive future cash flows… still burning billions”

👉 Translation:

• People are excited
• But also cautious about hype and valuations

⚠️ The Reality Check (important)

AI investing is real—but not easy money:

What’s true:

• AI is a massive long-term trend
• Companies like Anthropic are growing insanely fast
• Enterprise adoption is booming

What’s risky:

• Valuations may be overheated
• Profitability is still unclear
• Competition is intense

🧭 So where should YOU look?

Instead of chasing “Claude,” think in layers:

🥇 Safer / long-term

• Big Tech (cloud + AI platforms)

🥈 High growth

• AI infrastructure (chips, networking)

🥉 Speculative

• Pre-IPO AI companies
• Small AI startups

We invite you to join the discussion. You can also submit your questions to Mr. Robot. Send them to ra***@**********oy.com.

The post Where to Invest Considering AI Tech? appeared first on Traveling Boy.

Garage Door Repair

If you don’t want to ponder, move on to the Jokes.

Today’s topic is a little bit different because I put on my repair hat and I think it’ll be good for you (who own a home with a garage door) to know what is involved in its expensive repair. Hopefully, I will save you some time and money.

THE DO-IT-YOURSELF PHASE
My garage door suddenly died. I clicked on the remote — nothing! I clicked on the wall switch — nothing! No lighting … no sound … nothing! That began my adventure to the wonderful world of garage door repair.

Off the bat, I knew it had to be the circuitry … ie. an electronic problem (and not a mechanical problem) because if it were mechanical, the light would have turned on and I would have heard the motor running. I stared at the garage circuit box overhead for a long time. “How do I open you up? Where will I find the circuit board and will I be able to pinpoint the defective diode (resistor or capacitor)?” I’m hoping it’s just a simple fuse. And then I reminded myself that I’m a senior citizen now and falling off a step ladder would most certainly bring death by a thousand slings of arrows of outrageous fortune. In plain terms, “do I really want to do this?”

A neighbor recently had to replace her garage door remote and it cost her $800. Shock! Being the legendary cheapskate that I am, I boldly went where no cheapskate had gone before. I accepted the challenge! I mean, how hard could it be?

My Dad inspired me to fix things ever since I was a kid. I was his reluctant weekend assistant whenever our blue Chevrolet station wagon broke down. Our garage was full of opened radios,TVs and broken electronic trophies that I tinkered with to discover their inner workings. I also went to the Don Bosco Technical Institute (a private High School for boys) and took vocational mechanics – I learned how to arc weld and acetelyne torch … how to operate a lathe machine and a milling machine. I learned drafting and understood schematic diagrams — so I knew a thing or two about repairs. With all my illustrious technical achievements, no garage door apparatus was going to scare me.

It was a strain on my aging muscles to unscrew that overhead case but I finally got that circuit board out — a marvelous piece of wired-up, worthless junk. I did a visual and sniffed for anything burned — nothing! But I was dead certain it was the culprit … it was the only logical explanation. I got the model number and surfed the web but that part was “discontinued.” I called numerous repair shops but nobody carried it and there were even some hostile garage companies that dropped the phone saying: “We don’t sell parts! We only replace garage doors!” For ordinary DIYs (Do It Yourself-ers) that would have been enough discouragement. But not stupid ol’ me. No, I am of a different breed of stupidity!

My last hope was Ebay and suddenly, there in this lonely shop 10 miles away from me, was the illusive part! The model number checked out. The picture was identical … and all for $50! That looked like a real bargain! I purchased it and drove to a dinky grage room in a motor home. The Mexican owner was an electrician with his own cluttered trophies of opened TVs and electronics. “No hablo ingles, pero aqui tiene su Circuit board!” I made sure there weren’t any snooping federal agents, dug into my trench coat and handed him the cold cash. The “drug deal” was complete.

Back home, I slid the new circuit board in and voila! When I hit the remote, the light turned on and the motor started turning, I imagined a parade of angels started marching down the garage, a clarion of trumpets played “Oh When the Saints Come Marching in” … but the fanfare stopped when I noticed that the gate was still not moving up. Something else was wrong!

I figured (this time) it was a moving part. Searched Youtube University for other desperate souls that shared their garage nightmare and came to the conclusion that the culprit was a white plastic gear the size of a top that was worn out. Unfortunately, my internet search proved once again that the part was also “discontinued.” Alas, that was the end of the road. Even though I had the energy to continue the repair, the gods of garage parts no longer smiled at me. Reluctantly, I called the one shop that would send over a technician right away.

THE PROFESSIONAL
Ivan came with a red truck carrying all sorts of parts. I sized him up. He did the same. “I’ll charge you $700.” I said “$500.” He said “no.” I said “see ya!” He pondered and said he didn’t come all the way here for nothing. So we shook at $600. Later, I searched for the price of the garage kit and it was less than $300. Doing the math, this guy’s 2 hour labor was going to cost me $350. For a cheapskate like me, that’s a lot but I was desperate to get it done. (Commentary: Why go to college for a non-existent job to eventually get paid $20 an hour to flip burgers and straddle a student loan when you can learn a trade and get paid $150 an hour? Think about that!)

The repair was so simple. You replace everything but the side rollers. You replace the wall control, the two side sensors, the horizontal belt drive, the 2 remote controls and the garage circuit box. I could have done it myself … maybe not as fast but I could have figured it out. It was done in 2 hours.

REAL TIPS:
Next time your garage door malfunctions, learn from my mistakes. Don’t even try finding parts (they make new models ever so often) so they do not stock up on discontinued parts. Just buy the garage door opener kit which costs $250. Fix it yourself or buy the kit and haggle for labor cost. You’ll sleep better, you’ll keep the missus happy and you won’t die a Shakespearean death.

TGIF people!

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Quotes of the Week

“Measure twice, cut once, swear silently.” — Anonymous

“When in doubt, use more duct tape.” — Anonymous

“No Worries, I watched the safety video.”— Anonymous

“The acknowledgment of our weakness is the first step in repairing our loss.” — Thomas a Kempis

“For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?” — Luke 14:28

“The masons and stonecutters. They purchased timber and blocks of dressed stone for the repair of the temple of the LORD, and met all the other expenses of restoring the temple.” — 2 Kings 12:12

Joke of the Week

Thanks to Tom of Pasadena, California

Parting Shots

Thanks to James of Los Angeles, CA

Thanks to Art of Sierra Madre, CA

Thanks to Barbara of Pasadena, CA

Thanks to Jacob of Whittier, CA

Thanks to Fred of Long Beach, CA

Thanks to Norm of Encino, CA

I found these:

My good friend (and jokester) Terry and I came up with these.

Got any good jokes? Come share it with rest of us!
Know someone who enjoys a laugh? Share this website.

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Story and photo by Ed Rampell, a Los Angeles-based film historian and critic.

The recently revived Committee for the First Amendment, begun in 1947, during the era of anti-communist hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, took the struggle against censorship to the belly of the beast, Washington, D.C. There, original committee member Henry Fonda’s daughter Jane Fonda, along with folksinger Joan Baez, singer and actor Billy Porter, and other free speech champions took to the streets in protest.

They raised their voices to draw attention to and resist the Trump Administration’s increasingly authoritarian efforts to censor the arts, news reporters, and media organizations, epitomized by the takeover of the nearby Kennedy Center, recently renamed the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. They did so by harkening back to another dark time in U.S. history, eighty years ago—the purges and persecutions of the McCarthy era.

The March 27 demonstration, which took place on a drizzly afternoon just prior to the “No Kings” Day mobilizations in the nation’s capital and elsewhere around the country, drew members of the press with television cameras perched on risers. Other journalists and supporters—all of whom had to first pass through security screening—sat on about 150 folding chairs in a gated area, facing a specially constructed stage in front of the Kennedy Center that was festooned with pro-freedom-of-speech signs and next to the Watergate Complex.

One attendee, Miles Taylor, said he came because he was “a big fan of what Jane Fonda has done with the Committee for the First Amendment, resurrecting a free speech organization from the McCarthy era for a moment that is arguably vastly more dangerous for democracy.” Taylor,  a former Department of Homeland Security official, is embroiled in his own free speech battle, as he told The Progressive: “Trump accused me of treason and opened up a federal investigation” because of an anonymously written 2018 op-ed in The New York Times critical of the first Trump Administration. 

The original Committee for the First Amendment actually predated the rise of Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anticommunist witch hunt, which began in 1950. 

“The Committee for the First Amendment is a recreated organization that was first formed in 1947 by Hollywood actors and directors rallying in support of a group called the Hollywood Ten,” James Lardner told The Progressive at the protest. His father, screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr., was summoned before  the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), along with others, “to testify about their political beliefs and associations.” 

Asked by the Congressional inquisitors if he was a member of the Communist Party, Ring Lardner Jr. famously quipped: “I could answer the question the way you want . . .  but if I did, I would hate myself in the morning.” Lardner, who had won an Academy Award for co-writing the 1942 Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy comedy Woman of the Year, was imprisoned and fined for contempt of Congress along with the other members of the Hollywood Ten. 

His son James, who is involved in the climate action group Third Act and distributed No Kings Day leaflets at the event, believes threats to free speech today are “worse [than in the times of the Hollywood blacklist]. We are spiraling towards dictatorship, a white nationalist police state, to a degree that wasn’t true in the late 1940s.”  

From 1947-1960, the Hollywood Ten and about 300 other Hollywood talents who refused to provide to HUAC the names of others accused of leftwing politics, were labeled as “un-American” and blacklisted from working in the film and television industry. But none of them were ever charged with espionage or sabotage: Their real “crime” was publicly expressing viewpoints disapproved of by the U.S. government.

At 2:00 p.m. on Friday, March 27, Crys Matthews kicked off the program, saying, “I’m Black, a woman, lesbian, and a folksinger,” after which she sang her 2025 anthem “Sleeves Up.”. Next, activist and actor Jane Fonda took the stage, explaining why she was reestablishing the committee which her father had been an original member of in 1947, together with other movie stars such as Fredric March, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Judy Garland. 

“The attacks from the government are far more comprehensive today,” Fonda told the gathering. “Books are being banned, plaques and monuments depicting historical events this administration wants to forget are being removed [from] museums, the National Endowment of the Arts [and] state arts councils” are under attack, contends Fonda, who decried Trump’s seizing control of the Kennedy Center, where “fifty more people were fired just today. Some of them are with us [at this event].”

The two-time Oscar winner went on to condemn media mergers that the Trump Administration has been approving, while “he goes after artists. We can model courage, and courage is contagious . . . . The general public may think all this doesn’t affect them, but it does. If we don’t fight back, the news will be increasingly fake, and we won’t be allowed to know what’s happening. Our children’s academic curriculum will be actually censored and ticket costs for cultural events will go up while the quality will go down.”

Fonda proclaimed that “the bedrock of our democracy is the First Amendment,” which, she noted, “suffers greatly in times of war” as the government “works to crush internal dissent.” Fonda should know: She was surveilled by the FBI and persecuted for her outspoken opposition to the war in Vietnam, where she intrepidly traveled as U.S. bombs dropped. She was pejoratively nicknamed “Hanoi Jane” because of her relentless advocacy of peace with the Vietnamese people.

Novelist Ann Patchett spoke next, warning that “Book burning is a terrible thing; 300 books have been pulled from bookshelves. It’s not just Lady Chatterley’s Lover, it’s Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” She was followed by former MSNBC and CNN hosts Joy Reid and Jim Acosta, both of whom spoke out against news censorship, denouncing the arrests and court cases against Don Lemon and Georgia Fort. Reid, who is a woman and  Black (two populations unable to vote for much of our nation’s existence), defended the First Amendment, saying: “You can fault the framers [of the Constitution] without faulting the frame.”

A highlight of the afternoon’s program was a reenactment of the June 12, 1956, HUAC hearing of Black activist, actor, and singer Paul Robeson, portrayed by Billy Porter. Robeson delivered what is probably the most defiant testimony in the annals of the blacklist, which the performers reenacted using the actual HUAC transcripts. 

“The reason that I am here today . . . from the mouth of the State Department itself, is: I should not be allowed to travel because I have struggled for years for the independence of the colonial peoples of Africa . . . . The other reason that I am here today, again from the State Department . . . is that when I am abroad I speak out against the injustices against the Negro people of this land . . . . I am being tried for fighting for the rights of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America.”

Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers then performed, followed by legendary activist and musician Joan Baez, who sang Bob Dylan’s classic “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ” and the Civil Rights Movement freedom song, “Ain’t Gonna Let Anybody Turn Me ’Round.”  

Other speakers and performers included poet and author Rupi Kaur; Emmy-nominated writer and author Bess Kalb; Katie Bethell, executive director of  MoveOn and a No Kings organizer; Jessica J. González, co-CEO of the media reform group Free Press; and Logan Keith, national communications coordinator of the 50501 movement and an organizer with No Kings. 

Finally, the crowd heard from Kristy Lee, a self-described “gay, legally married folksinger from the South” who pulled out from a scheduled performance at the Kennedy Center over concerns about Trump’s “political branding” of events there. “Playing there would have cost me my integrity, which is worth more than a paycheck,” she explained. Lee called Fonda, Baez, and all of the other performers and speakers to join her onstage for a rousing rendition of her song “Free Love.”

The Los Angeles-based Fonda, still spry at age eighty-eight, later announced that she was leaving to attend the flagship No Kings rally in Minnesota. It was a moment that reminded this film historian of her father’s speech at the end of 1940’s film The Grapes of Wrath, when, during the depths of the Great Depression, Henry Fonda’s character Tom Joad leaves his family to join the struggle to unionize farmworkers, explaining: “I’ll be all around in the dark—I’ll be everywhere. Wherever you can look—wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there.”   

The post Hollywood Stars Join Together to Defend the First Amendment appeared first on Traveling Boy.

What are some of the “things” or activities that people in Norway do for fun?

ANSWER: Friluftsliv, directly translated as “open air living”, is the Norwegian way of outdoor recreation and an important part of the Norwegian cultural legacy.

What’s one thing the public probably does NOT know about Norway?

ANSWER: Norway has evolved from the poorest nation in Western Europe to the wealthiest – yet we don’t boast or show-off and still live a frugal lifestyle. Of course, we’re the only nation in the world who goes shopping in Sweden for bargains.

Share some aspect of Norway as regards to what it has contributed to the world.

ANSWER: I think the Trampe (Norwegian: Sykkelheisen Trampe) is the first and only bicycle lift and is absolutely more fun than anything else. The prototype was built in 1993 in Trondheim, and still in service today. Trampe is a Norwegian verb meaning “to stomp”. We also invented the Cheese slicer.

For further information about Norway, click on: www.visitnorway.com

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