AUGUST 21st - Wouldn't You Love...



On this day in 1972, Jefferson Airplane had a gig at the Rubber Bowl in Akron, Ohio. I’m not really sure how it went, because I was negative years old at the time, but I’d imagine that Grace Slick wasn’t exactly picturing things going down as they did. At some point that evening, after Grace sang about wanting somebody to love and the trippy Alice-in-Wonderland tale of “White Rabbit,” ole Grace got maced in the face. Apparently Akron cops don’t take too kindly to being called “pigs,” which is what JA’s equipment manager called the attending coppers. Now Grace taking some mace in the face is a pretty Rock N Roll thing to occur. However, taking said mace in said face because your equipment manager, not even somebody in the band, called some cops “pigs” isn’t exactly metal. It’s kind of like soft rock. It’s like when Creed thought they were all drugged out because they used to take shots of Jager before going on stage. Really, Scott Stapp? I’m pretty sure Keith Richards has no nasal septum from all the coke he snorted, while you and the boys bragged about acting like freshmen pledging a fraternity. Arms Wide Open with self-aggrandizing, self-righteous, over-compensating ridiculous crap. Am I Right? Not to stick Jefferson Airplane in the same category as Creed, because that’s just mean (though Jefferson Starship gets pretty close to Stappian territory--they built a whole city on rock n roll? And I’m pretty sure Grace Slick rolled a little harder than Jager. “White Rabbit” is super trippy, and if Grace had been in a hallucinatory haze while calling a copper a pig herself before taking mace to the face--hard core rock n roll. Of course I’m not condoning drug use here. That’s just a substitute for what everyone is really looking for anyway. Grace had it right. We just want somebody to love. Though probably not when you get maced in the face. I think you’re gonna want milk at that point.

This day has been Marked.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

AUGUST 22nd - Don't Drink the Kool-Aid

On this day in 1911, somebody working at the Louvre discovered that the Mona Lisa was missing. The previous day, a Monday--meaning the museum was closed to the public, Vincenzo Peruggia, a maintenance worker, brazenly walked out of the Louvre with what would eventually become the most famous painting in the world. Vincenzo basically sat on the painting for two years until he was caught trying to “return” it to his homeland of Italy in a misguided demonstration of Italian patriotism. The theft itself is quite interesting, mostly because of the lack of planning and preparation that went into it, but equally intriguing is the part it played in making the Mona Lisa so famous. Many historians feel that the painting reached new heights because it was stolen. It kind of makes sense in that whole “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone" kind of way. Not that I would suggest staging a kidnapping to allow your significant other to realize how much he/she loves you, because that’s jus
Read more

AUGUST 23rd - History of the One-Way

Image
On this day in 1617, the idea of the one-way street was supposedly introduced in London in the alleys near the River Thames. I’m not sure why London was on the cutting edge of traffic direction, though Albemarle Street, which is acknowledged as the first one-way street, was designated as such because the scientific lectures given there in the early 1800s were so popular. Why wouldn't they be? I can’t really imagine why a one-way street in 1617 would be necessary, but then I can’t really imagine what London in 1617 was like at all. I’m fresh out of people to interview too. Unless the Highlander is real. Just as well. Interviews take a long time. And the person inevitably goes off on tangents. Look, I’m sure the story of how you “accidentally” ingested psychedelic mushrooms while trekking across the Pacific Northwest in your hippie days and met your first wife, Wind Lover, is an incredible story, but I merely asked if you were currently married. It’s a yes or no question. Without the
Read more

OCTOBER 23rd - A Blink of the Cosmic Eye

On this day in 1977, American paleontologist, Elso S. Barghoorn, announced the discovery of some algae microfossils, complete with some super-scientific name and some super-scientific qualifiers, that were 3.4 billion years old. In layman’s terms--really freaking old. Interestingly enough October 23 was also thought, for a long time, to be the day on which the Earth was created. In 1650, church leaders interpreted that the bible documents Earth’s creation on October 23, 4004 BC. Also a long time ago. Not quite the 3.4 billion years of the first life-forms, or the 4.5 billion years most scientist believe the Earth has been around for. So old Barghoorn may have been giving a little nod there, as in “I’ll take your 5700 years and raise you a few billion.” In any case, it shows that we are here but for a blink of the cosmic eye. Stuff has been around so long that if you really start to think about it, you start feeling like you are watching first 30 minutes of The Tree of Life and wonderi
Read more