Cat’s foot iron claw– King Crimson

and my DOG OF THE DAY

or rather DOGS

As they were all hanging together along a street in

COCOA VILLAGE

last Saturday

Neurosurgeons scream for more

Want to listen to my featured song—just click here and then read on

Welcome to 1964—-the beginning of the end for the USA as we knew it–for better or worse it was coming and it was ushered in very interestingly by 4 young men with British accents and suits (Nero Jacket) with out lapels—and hair while conservative by latter examples–was revolutionary on it’s own….and “Get a hair cut” became a staple for the older generations and the not so hip younger around the world.

Jan Margolias called 1964 “The Last Innocent year. It was the year Cassus Clay gave up his “slave” name and joined the Nation of Islam to become Mohammad Ali and he also became the Heavy Weight champion when he knocked out Sonny Liston. Meanwhile activist Malcom X broke with–you guessed it–the Nation of Islam.

While Broadway gave us “Glorious” Carol Channing in HELLO DOLLY, DR. STANGE LOVE with the always bizarre Peter Sellers taught us “how to stop worrying and love the bomb” (yes that bomb–obviously never far from the national consciousness) and Arnold Palmer showed us that an average, white man would still excel in sports by continuing to win at golf.

At paranoia’s poison door

The year started good for us younger generation with the Beatles arriving in the US and performing on 2 Ed Sullivan shows 1/9 & 1/16–all of it accompanied by screaming girls—it was not a phenom that I had seen before—in fact when Sullivan announced them—and there was some of those screams—though in a much lower level than usual–Ed admonished “You promised” as if that worked—but like I said they were much less screaming than the average appearance–on or off stage of the FAB FOUR Handsome Paul, Quiet George, Crazy Ringo and Sarcastic John,

But thing showed no sign of improving elsewhere when in January there was a coup in Viet Nam with the military of that country overthrowing the government resulting in the country’s 3rd government in about that many months.

Oh and then there was the DUH factor–on January 11th the Surgeon General gave us a report stating that smoking was hazardous to the health….and several major magazines stop taking ads for Tabbaco products..we just shook our heads—hadn’t we been calling them cancer sticks most of our lives?

Twenty first century schizoid man

1964 gave us the 24th amendment which outlawed a poll taxes in several (5) southern states which was used to prevent voting by the black minority.

The African-American cause continued to progress and leaders Malcolm X, a black Muslim, met with Dr. King, a black Christian. Malcolm also went on to found a Muslim Mosque which was a religious organization for Afro-American unity. While King would be awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in October.

By June of the year we had entered Freedom Summer, which was organized to increase voter registration and build a grass root party in Mississippi. Soon (6/22) 3 of those working on this effort: Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney disappeared. Their bodies were found in August and 21 people were arrested and by 1967 7 –all Klan Members were found guilty of conspiracy in their deaths. But that wasn’t the end of it and justice ground slowly as we’ve seen before in these racial cases and it wasn’t till exactly 41 years (6/22/05) that Edgar Ray Kellens was convicted of murder for masterminding the killings.

But on 7/2 the Civil Rights Act Legislation was passed–one of those things the Johnson Administration got right–It outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or nationality.

Blood rack barbed wire

It was the year that we first saw the Ford Mustang—I liked them better then—too boxy now. And we laid eyes on the Beatles’ first movie Hard Days Night in a epic that some compared to the Marc’s brothers—All we knew was we got to see them being funny for a much longer time than Sullivan had shown them playing.

The Best movie that year was TOM JONES while the best actor was Sidney Poitier (LILLIES OF THE FIELD)–with best actress Patricia Neal (Hud). The Rolling Stones released their debut LP in the UK in April and we had it here by May. It was the only Stone’s LP ever not to have placed in the top 5 in the US.

In August Disney gave us a movie that would give us a title for people that we didn’t think looked at things seriously–MARY POPPINS with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke was released. And for the more adult viewers there was the 3rd 007 still with Sean Connery.

Politicians’ funeral pyre

But it had so many other things happening like in March when an earthquake hit Alaska by a 9.2 magnitude earthquake (moment magnitude scale)and was the 2nd most powerful ever recorded. Resulting in the death of 131 people: 119 of those died in tsunamis–the tallest tsunami wave height was 219 feet (67 m). The damage totaled about $300 million in 1964 dollars (over $2.3 billion present value). https://www.livescience.com/44412-1964-alaska-earthquake-facts.html

Papa Doc in Haiti expelled the Bishop and proclaimed himself Dictator for life. While the Chinese debuted as a nuclear power when it tested its first atomic bomb in August.

Back here we had 2 days of race riots in Philadelphia.

Innocents raped with napalm fire

In August in the Gulf of Tomkin off the coast of North Viet Nam one of our ships was attacked by a North Viet Nam ship…a second attack was also reported but has since been determined to be fiction. The item above label of 1965 is incorrect it should be 1964. This happened 30 miles from Viet Nam, well into international waters. The Congress totally into the war thing moved to let Johnson attack the country without a full declaration of war and the flood gates were open and the rush of troops and supplies would become seemingly endless after this.

This was also an election year–for as you might remember Johnson held the office having inherited it when Kennedy was assassinated and not by popular vote….I do not remember this election well, perhaps because I was not yet of age to vote—nor were the hundreds of American boy rapidly pushed to men that were being drafted at 18-20 years of age. Interestingly enough Johnson ran on a stance of cutting back on the war’s current escalating course against Goldwater who ran as the Hawk candidate pushing to get in there and get this war done with. Johnson won the election with 60% of the popular vote–many attribute to the hiring by the Democrats of a top 10 ad agency to help present their candidate and issues in the best possible light. Johnson’s body count for the next 4 years of his presidency was to show just how insincere his campaign rhetoric really was.

And that had set us up for 1965’s slaughter and the rise of the student protestor–free love, and no war campaigns. But never fear–’64 did give us the introduction of Pop Tarts (Kellogg’s) to the Breakfast table and George Bush (Duh) to Yale