Give Peace a Chance

All we are saying is...give today's hot takes a glance, plus music from the Stones (isolated guitar), Miles Davis (with Trane), Marianne Faithfull (debut), and John & Yoke (in bed).

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News & Politics

The Onion: “Republicans Worried Blind Worship Of Trump Overriding Traditional Values Like Blind Worship Of Reagan.”

What’s the Matter With Kansas? AP reports from Topeka: “A high school student reported that a Kansas House member working as a substitute teacher manhandled him and kicked him in the testicles during class, and the lawmaker told authorities that God told him to do it, according to a sheriff’s deputy’s written statement.”

Going Mobile: With masks off and socializing growing, what we’re buying, according to Wall St. Journal: “Deodorant, teeth whitener and condoms are in high demand. Sales of perfume, nail polish, swimsuits, sunscreen, tuxedos, luggage and alarm clocks are climbing fast….Beauty products were big sellers during the most recent quarter at Walmart Inc.”

After Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene doubled, then tripled, downin comparing mask mandates and “vaccine passports” to a requirement that Jews wear “gold stars” in Nazi Germany, some Republican finally denounced her, but there’s no censure move on the horizon\. And, idiot, the stars were yellow. The Wash Post’s Aaron Blake put it straight: "The GOP has no clue what to do about Marjorie Taylor Greene..."

24 horrendous hours in Tulsa: As 100th anniversary of anti-black riot approaches, NY Times with interactive feature showing what was destroyed.

Land Grant: Snopes has checked out and confirmed this quote as accurate:

Trump Stakes: NY prosecutors have convened a grand jury to consider whether to indict former President Trump and Trump Organization execs as part of a criminal investigation. A Trump adviser tells Wash Post: “I think the Weisselberg involvement and the wild card of that makes the particular situation more real, because there’s no sort of fluff and made-up fictional circumstances around the guy….The fact that they’re dealing with a numbers guy who just has plain details makes people more nervous. This is not a Michael Cohen situation.”

Former Sen. John Warner of Virginia died last night.

Da-do-Rand-Rand: Singer Richard Marx appeared on Colbert show last night related to this, and now this update from Politico newsletter this morning:

Twitter has now removed a tweet from ’80s pop singer Richard Marx for violating its rules after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said it encouraged violence against him. (The tweet came days before someone sent a suspicious package with white powder to the senator’s home in Kentucky.) But that hasn’t stopped Marx from spreading the message in his original tweet — that if he ever meets the neighbor who assaulted Paul in 2017, he will “hug him and buy him as many drinks as he can consume.”

Watergate from the inside out: First photo, below, released from filming of upcoming HBO series on Nixon’s “plumbers.” That’s Justin Theroux as G. Gordon Liddy at left—and Woody Harrelson as E. Howard Hunt. Gary Cole, Kathleen Turner, among others, in the cast.

Exiting longest war: US troops and their NATO allies intend to be out of Afghanistan by early to mid-July, well ahead of President Biden’s Sept. 11 withdrawal deadline, military officials said.

Total Non-Recall: New polls show that the Newsom recall in Calif going nowhere, as I predicted.

Of over 100 million Americans fully vaxxed, only 10,262 have reported a “breakthrough” infection to the CDC, representing just 0.01 percent of the fully vaccinated population, according to a new report by the agency.

Covid has inside lane: Tokyo Olympics must be shut down, declares a key sponsor today, the giant Asahi Shimbun newspaper. Others have joined in call. Over 70,000 active Covid cases there and only 5% of the population vaccinated.

Auto erratic: A few years back some in and out of Silicon Valley expected that self-driving cars would be common by 2021. Now the industry is settling in for years of more work.

Music

Moving on from Bob Dylan’s birthday earlier this week, today we mark one for Miles Davis (1926). Here’s his classic “So What” live—with Trane.

On this date in 1965: The Stones hit #1 in the UK with “Paint It, Black.” They would like you to know that it was the record company who added the damn comma. Here is an amazing isolated guitar version—which is all you really need. Includes Brian’s sitar, first on rock record, it is alleged.

On this day in 1966: The Beatles recorded “Yellow Submarine.” That underwater John Lennon moment was captured via shouting while blowing bubbles in a bucket of water.

One year later: Sgt. Pepper’s was rush-released in the UK—a week later in the USA.

On this date in 1969: John and Yoko began their eight-day “Bed-In for Peace” in a Montreal hotel room. Paul McCartney got co-credit for “Give Peace a Chance” even though he had nothing to do with it. John later said he should given it to Yoko instead (some say John had wanted to reward Paul for helping him with “The Ballad of John and Yoko”). This month’s new “ultimate” box actually includes a demo recorded and shot in another hotel, watch here. And if you haven’t seen the original video in awhile, see below, it’s fun. That’s Crawdaddy founder Paul Williams in glasses in front of camera at very start and then later. Then look for Tommy Smothers, Tim Leary, Petula Clark, and others. Their backing voices are all on the record—but it later came out that additional voices not in the room were added.

And on May 26 in 1990: For the first time ever the top 5 spots in U.S. singles charts were occupied by women. Can you name all five?

Film/TV

Five more days to view my film Atomic Cover-up—for free—via festival site in Rio. Here is direct link, 52 minutes, with brief intro by Rod Lurie, director of The Outpost. Here is more on film and responses to it from numerous top writers and film folks.

Books

Before they were famous: “John Updike on Parenting, Agatha Christie in the Gossip Pages: First Mentions of Famous Authors in The Times.” Have you ever wondered when your favorite writers first appeared in the pages of the paper? It might be earlier than you think.” For example:

In 1916, while he was at Princeton, Fitzgerald co-wrote a play with Edmund Wilson. Since the college only admitted men, men would often play women’s roles in university productions. The Times featured a photo of Fitzgerald in character for his role, calling him “the most beautiful showgirl in the Princeton Triangle Club’s new musical play, ‘The Evil Eye.’

Song Pick

Also on this day in 1964: Marianne Faithfull recorded the Jagger-Richards song “As Tears Go By,” accompanied by future Led Zeppers Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. This clip finds her being introduced to U.S. audiences on national TV by a rather awkward fella named….Brian Epstein. Then he chats with her a bit at the end. Instant “It Girl.”

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Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including the bestseller The Tunnels (on escapes under the Berlin Wall), the current The Beginning or the End (on MGM’s wild atomic bomb movie), and The Campaign of the Century (on Upton Sinclair’s left-wing race for governor of California), which was recently picked by the Wall St. Journal as one of five greatest books ever about an election. His new film, Atomic Cover-up, just had its world premiere and is drawing extraordinary acclaim. For nearly all of the 1970s he was the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. Later he served as longtime editor of Editor & Publisher magazine. He recently co-produced a film about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.