Spread Kindness by Peter Reum

It is said that life cannot be fair

That to believe in fairness is naive
Cynics boast that to show you care
Brings heartbreak with no reprieve

Earthly desires shine with brightness
They sparkle with a persistent glow
The holidays promise the generous kindness,
Giving gifts supposedly can show

Why do we sequester human civility
To a brief period called holidays
People should manifest magnanimity
Year 'round, not 11 months of malaise

Daily empathy offered beats the holidays
Taking a few minutes of listening
Builds a sense of newborn sunshine rays
Open kindness leads to smiles glistening

Consider the possibility of holiday kindness
Becoming a twelve month reality
Putting into practice humanity's finest
Daily holiday spirit consistently

Copyright 2017 by Peter Reum
All rights reserved

Mike Love's Unleash the Love by Peter Reum

This new set from Mike Love and his touring band is an album that will undoubtedly rekindle the old comparisons between solo music recorded by Michael and his cousin Brian. Fortunately, the latest album set from Michael offers a pleasant and understated listening experience. For Michael, the songs on the first of two cds in this release, Unleash the Love, are generally well produced in a subtler tone than in past recording projects. Certain songs are from earlier years. This will not matter to casual fans of Michael's.

The annotation from Mr. Love in the booklet that accompanies the two albums is helpful, offering background on some of the tunes. If the listener is expecting a Beach Boys harmonic sound,  the reader is encouraged to go straight to cd 2, which highlights the Brian Wilson and Michael Love songwriting partnership. Michael has cut twelve Brian Wilson and Mike Love compositions previously recorded by the Beach Boys.

In this package, the songs on cd 2 are generally performed by Michael's touring band, with support from guest musicians. It seems that these songs are done similar to the touring versions, but in the studio. Regardless,  the listener will get a good idea of the sound of Mike Love's band, billed as the Beach Boys. In addition to Mike, long-term Beach Boy Bruce Johnston also is a veteran member of Mike's band.

For purposes of this review, most of the coverage will pertain to Unleash the Love. A quick review of musicians playing on this album reveals a few guests. John Stamos appears on two tracks. Michael's daughter and sons appear as lead and background vocalists on several songs on both cds.

In a brief introduction to Unleash the Love, Michael points out that violence, pollution, drug abuse, and income inequality persist as problems plaguing the world. Themematically, the tunes on this cd highlight these issues, but not overwhelmingly. A Beach Boys tune from the 1985 eponymous album, Getcha Back, presents itself as the second tune one hears. Perhaps it is here as a bow to the cousins and friends who first cut the song.

The lead off track, All the Love is Paris, is a gentle opening track, perhaps signaling Michael's long term affection for Paris. It is a mildly pleasant track, continuing a theme begun with Bells of Paris from 1978's M.I.U album.

Some of the tracks on Unleash the Love were first assembled into an album titled Mike Love, Not War. That collection of tunes did not see release. That bootleg was mostly derived from Mike's debut album, entitled First Love. One positive difference with this set is a more polished sound. Daybreak Over the Ocean is another tune from Mike Love Not War that has been redone for Unleash the Love. It has a pleasant melody, but suffers from "moon-june lyrical disease."

I Don't Wanna Know is one of the tunes also cut for Mike Love Not War. It was one of the better tunes then, and this is also true here. Too Cruel is one of the better tracks on Unleash the Love, offering a more edgy sound than many of the songs in this set. Glow Crescent Glow was written perhaps with an approach derived from Transcendental Meditation. It is not one of the better tracks in this set, sounding insular toward the TM population.

Cool Head,Warm Heart is a track again derived from Mike Love Not War. It has a pleasant melody, yet the lyrics are dated and the overall sound of the tune seems fairly weak compared with some of this album's song repertoire. I have a hunch that Mike felt some kinship to George Harrison when he wrote Pisces Brother
Both men were overshadowed by other members of their respective bands
Michael has lived in the shadow of one of the titans of popular music during his entire tenure with the Beach Boys.  Brian Wilson's talent is matched by few if any of his peers. George Harrison for many years was fortunate if he was able to place one or two songs on Beatle album's with Lennon and McCartney writing songs that stood high above most of their peers. Michael felt some connection to George Harrison also due to their time spent together in Rishikesh with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Living in the shadow of the Lennon and McCartney songwriting partnership must have frustrated George Harrison at times as well.

The album's title track, Unleash the Love, is, of course a play on Michael's surname. This track offers some simple suggestions for bringing love to our world. It is a strong track. And it stands out as one of Michael's better performances. Ram Raj is unusual enough to spark my interest musically. It again seems to be a track derived from Hindu traditions. It is somewhat jarring in this album's track sequence. It would benefit from a better placement in the program of songs on Unleash the Love.

John Stamos plays drums on the next track, 10,000 Years Ago. The song is for me, the most interesting tune on the album. It again is derived from the sessions for the unreleased Mike Love Not War album from 2006. Almost a chant, it is a tune that almost sounds like a Dennis Wilson approach production wise. A tune that is important  lyrically is Only One Earth. The tune throws light on the growing ruination of our planet through use of methods that deplete the most important  life preserving resources of our Earth. Among these are the ozone layer, use of mineral mining methods that poison ground water aquifers, and mass extinction of our fellow creatures on Earth through ignorant alterations of sensitive interdependence of environmental systems.

Finishing the album is Make Love Not War. This song seems important for one big reason. Every war on this planet further harms our own species, other life forms,  and shortens the time we have to cease armed conflict and human suffering. Unleash the Love is probably the most commercial of all of the solo work Michael has done outside of the Beach Boys.

The average listener on first blush will find this work by Michael to be derivative, and will most likely write it off. This would be a mistake, because the points each of these tunes make fit together to be a recipe for a more peaceful and caring world. As Michael correctly points out, the problems of this Earth will not be solvable unless we come together to resolve them. No amount of money will ever "fix" the social ills of our planet. Guess we'd better unleash the love.

Childhood Rape: Innocence Lost by Peter Reum

The subject of sexual molestation and rape has been brought to the awareness of our country. A number of adults who were molested in childhood have spoken in the media and have expressed themselves in an angry manner and have identified their assailants, some famous, some not.

The experience of childhood violation is a subject that I have had to come to terms with as an adult. When I was 7, I was violated by a teenage neighbor who passed off what he was doing as a "science experiment." I did not fully comprehend what was happening to me, I only knew that I DID NOT like the feeling I was experiencing. I was asked to participate in another "science experiment" but instinctively declined the invitation.  It just felt WRONG.

The latest Hollywood sexual scandals seem to me to be the only time that public attention is focused upon this societal plague that shrivels the souls of young boys and girls and adults of both genders. The confusion regarding the differences between childhood and adult rape/molestation and acceptable consensual intercourse leads many people to equate rape and molestation with gay and lesbian consensual intercourse. The key word here is consensual. At least here in The United States, the historical page has been turned regarding same sex lovemaking and relationships. That the religious right wing still uses Old Testament Biblical verses to condemn same sex love and marriage between adults is a travesty that is being exposed for the silliness that it is. That there are many sensational cases in extramarital affairs  and hidden same sex relationships among the religious right is not surprising.  Outward piety bears no relationship to repressed but undeniable sexual drive.

I have had the chance to read an excellently researched book concerning  heterosexual and same sexual rape and molestation by Jon Krakauer entitled Missoula.  The first dozen or so years of this new century are the background setting for the drinking and drugging culture at the University of Montana in Missoula. Missoula is a beautiful small city, located in a valley carved by the Clarks Fork River. The University of Montana's student body, and their partying culture unfortunately led to a disregard for consensual sex at the University. Missoula is a town that enjoys microbrewery beers, and parties are often held after sports events on campus, especially during the autumn football season.

Without trying to summarize an excellently researched book that is presented factually, I will say that this volume is a focused and fair summation of several alleged rapes that occurred when students at the University of Montana were drinking or drugging, and incidents alleging rape or molestation led to destruction of the lives of some students at UM.  The women who were raped and molested were often highly intoxicated, as were the men who were accused. There was somewhat of a ho hum approach when these sexual incidents were reported by women to various authorities. The intoxication levels of the victims was used as a mitigating factor that the authorities deemed applicable pertaining to the question of whether the intercourse was consensual or not. In several cited cases, Mr. Krakauer documents an attitude among authorities that casts a doubt as to whether various victim's allegations were valid. When the alleged perpetrators said that they thought they had the consent of the accusing individuals because there was little to no resistance from highly intoxicated women regarding how the sexual incident proceeded.

For children, the idea of consensual intercourse is, of course, absurd. For especially young or mentally impaired children, the possibility of informed consent is impossible. For hundreds of thousands of  younger boys and girls, the incident may be perceived by the child as a chance to please the adult, a chance to obtain some sort of promised reward in exchange for sex, or to prevent an adult from physically beating the child. For me, it was a one time experience that just felt wrong. I did not tell my parents because I was ashamed of what happened, and I was worried that the incident would ruin our family's relationships with neighbors if I reported it. I buried the incident in a dark and dank section of my mind, and did not think of it, until 19 years later, when a female employee at the record store I was managing tearfully recalled the horrible emotions and feelings of being violated and unclean since the rape happened. All of a sudden, I recalled the rape I experienced and blurted it out to the employees of mine sitting at the table. I was trying to empathize, but the people at the table just sat there silently, wide eyed and shocked.

I will digress briefly to say that after I  became a therapist, my experience with rape seemed to help my efforts to assist men and women who had experienced molestation and/or rape to process and work through their grief, anger, and sense of shame that cast a long shadow over their lives. It is a powerful result of research in chemical dependence that 80 percent of women and 50 percent of men who enter chemical dependency treatment have a history of unresolved sexual violation-either rape or molestation.

As a chemical dependency therapist, it became a boilerplate approach that I would inquire as to whether my new addiction group members had a history of being sexually violated. Once, when I had a group of 6 women and 1 man in an outpatient group I was leading, all six of the women shared experiences of sexual violation in their presentation of their life histories. To help my readers here to understand the depth of anguish and violation these women experienced, each was able to recall the  body odor (smell), the sounds, the anguish of the experience in real time, and the shattered feelings each woman experienced for years afterward that they tried to forget. As time went on, their anger deepened, and the unresolved anger that festered became harder to numb with chemicals. For myself, having repressed the experience I had for over 30 years, as the women graphically described the noises, smells, violence, and environmental location of the rapes triggered my mind to open itself to the same memories which for me came roaring back.  I could not disclose these feelings to the group as it would have messed with the positive sharing that these women were using to heal themselves and to end their chemical dependence. I instead sought private therapy for myself.

Group therapy had the cumulative impact of helping these women to process the jumbled feelings they had concerning the sexual violations they had experienced. To this day, some 12 years later, when these women cross my path in the community, they thank me for allowing them the risk of sharing their pain with each other and the resulting group support they still have. Some of them have gone on to become employees of shelters for female victims of  physical, mental, and sexual abuse.

The answers to the problem of sexual violation of minor children and vulnerable adults are still in their early development. There is an excellent array of literature available for any child or adult who is struggling with the memories of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. In larger communities, obviously the resources are greater than in rural communities.   Peer support groups, therapists, and bibliographic resources are excellent sources of support.  Obviously, the initial and tentative first steps into disclosing and feeling the emotions lying under the anger and shame are the hardest. As time goes on, most victims empower themselves, and some even enter the field of service to those people who are in need of professional assistance because of their being violated.

Here are a few online resources:

Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse - Adult Resources for Child Sexual Abuse
Adult Behavior as a Result of Childhood Sexual Abuse - Effects-child-abuse-neglect-adult-survivors/
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - Effect of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder on Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual and Physical Abuse - https://www.recoveryranch.com/articles/trauma-and-ptsd-articles/child-sexual-abuse-as-a-cause-of-ptsd-post-traumatic-stress-disorder/

Text copyright 2017 by Peter Reum - All Rights Reserved

Indigenous Artists: Kevin Red Star - Apsaalooke Interpreter by Peter Reum

Here in Montana, there are numerous Indigenous People organized culturally into tribes. Every tribe has strong traditional beliefs that guide the manner in which the tribe interacts with the world both internally and externally. Tribes that are recognized as sovereign nations have a history of living in what is now Montana for centuries. All tribes have unique languages, spiritual beliefs, and a land area they call their homeland. Numerous tribes have interacted with each other either as allies or as enemies, usually because of a conflicting claim for lands that both historically have occupied. The current cohesiveness of Indigenous People is a strength that all tribes value and strive to maintain. In my opinion, central to each tribe as far as having a unified population revolves around at least four factors that must be present partially if not completely.

The first factor is having land that is  historically inhabited by the tribe. There are numerous tribes in the American West who occupy at least a portion of the area they consider their ancestral home. Perhaps the tribes that excel in this factor the best are the Pueblos, Apaches, and Di'neh tribes of the Southwestern United States. Other tribes that at least partially occupy their historical homelands are the Seminoles in Florida, the Cherokee in North Carolina, the Blackfoot, Apsalooke, and Northern  Cheyenne in Montana, and the Tlinget and Inuit Peoples of Alaska.

A second factor is the quality of life of members of a given tribe. There are several factors that can be placed into consideration regarding quality of life. The first could be the quality of education of children in the tribe. A sense of identity and unity should be present in young people who are tribal members.  There should be a shared language that is traditional. Although the English language is the most utilized in the U.S.A., the heritage of any given tribe begins in the shared culture that avails itself only in a tribe's traditional language. A tribe's spiritual traditions rest in their oral traditions as expressed in their shared beliefs. The closer a given tribe is to the landmarks that it considers sacred, the more likely they are to express traditional spirituality. Hence, there are traditional spiritual sites that various Indigenous traditional tribes believe are sacred.

The third factor that could be considered as a factor germane to quality of life is the economic and collective physical and mental health of a tribe. This particular factor is probably the one that can be most useful in helping other parts of quality of life flourish. If a tribal member's employment is reliable and predictable,  many of the other elements of a healthy quality of life will be better off. The rural nature of many tribes'  homelands makes year round employment elusive, with tribes' scrambling to identify lucrative businesses to locate on tribal lands. Rural healthcare of various tribes is difficult due to several years of healthcare funding on reservations and larger cities nationwide.

The fourth factor, which is somewhat elusive to describe, is the expression of fine arts and music for any given tribe. Fine arts reflect what any given tribal member perceives is his or her view of how healthy or unhealthy the tribe's existence is. Through all of the tribes in this country, art, dancing, and music are the spiritual glue that unify the tribes' picture of themselves. The artists in each tribe bring a vision of life that reflects a collective picture in real time. The importance of fine arts in tribal life has been recognized at the federal level through several forms of expression or training that reflect the quality of life in a given tribe. Music, dancing, pottery, jewelry, paintings,  and textile weaving are examples of this quality of life factor. At times, the differing art forms reflect how a tribe views themselves.

My personal interests in different tribes' quality of life has centered upon appreciating the spiritual traditions that make each tribe unique. While there are many tribes that share common ideas, they are more related on a macro level than a smaller, microcosmic level. As an example, nearly every tribe has a belief in a creator. This is not necessarily a belief in a god who demands prayer and adoration in exchange for life blessings. The role of the Creator in Indigenous life varies from tribe to tribe. Some tribes venerate their ancestors, believing that their presence is constant, and that their presence brings blessings or hardships. The evil spirits are seen to be the source of illness or life setbacks to the whole tribe, families, or individuals. Dancing and drumming is prayer to the Creator.

The art that any tribe produces is a function of spirituality. There is no dichotomy in place between the sacred and the profane. Even if a type of art is produced for people outside the tribe, the spirituality of the art that is created remains with the piece of art itself. These are somewhat gross generalizations,  but many non Indigenous artists hold similar beliefs. Some writers or composers experience writer's block, and see their problem as a symptom of blocked spiritual creativity. Although this sounds somewhat off kilter in Western Thought, the experience these creative folks feels like an internal voice or spirit has gone silent. For many Indigenous artists, the connection between spiritual creativity and prayer to the Creator is unbreakable.

The government saw that creative artists among the Indigenous tribes were self-taught. Some were  extremely successful, and many were not. This was not a measure of the value of the art itself. The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) was established in Santa Fe, New Mexico  for the expressed purpose of helping talented Indigenous artists to channel their talents into one or more media forms that marry their creative spirit with the possibility of making their art talent into a career path. Needless to say, the commercial or business side of the artistic process is often the most disliked aspect of the creation of works of art by young writers, composers, and fine arts creative people. This aspect of "selling myself as an artist worth taking seriously" is addressed in courses taught at IAIA.

One Indigenous artist who was in the first cohort of young people to enter IAIA is Kevin Red Star. Mr. Red Star has distinguished himself as an imaginative interpreter of Apsaalooke (Crow) life. Mr. Red Star has been focused upon the lifestyles of the Apsaalooke People, both in the present time, and in the past. Mr. Red Star's work medium is usually paint, and his artistic pieces have nearly all been depictions of past and present tribal life in the Apsaalooke Nation. He is the subject of a book by Daniel Gibson and Kitty Leaken entitled Kevin Red Star - Crow Indian Artist. The book may be ordered through Gibbs-Smith Publishers. They have a website at www.gibbs-smith.com. It is also for sale on Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites.  The book opens with several breathtaking paintings by Mr. Red Star, all of which are depictions of past and present tribal life. The art in the book reflects the strong spirituality present in Mr. Red Star and the Apsaalooke tribe.

Cover of Kevin Red Star Crow Indian Artist

The opening sequence of full page color reproductions of Mr. Red Star's art is simply stunning. His work is lavishly presented in color throughout the rest of the book. His use of earth tone colors is striking. The subjects of the opening sequence are either studies of Apsaalooke (Crow) tribal members in various natural settings or in ceremonial dress. Some of the works of art are full facial studies, others depict tribal members on horseback or in studies of tribal members entire bodies with minimal background. Here are some examples of Mr. Red Star's work, some of which may be found at Mr. Red Star's web site:

Mr. Red Star at work in his studio 

Kevin Red Star - Crazy Dog's War Party

Kevin Red Star - Mr. and Mrs. Choke Cherry

Kevin Red Star - Crow Dance at Midnight

Benefit Print for Zoo Montana and Beartooth Nature Center

Kevin Red Star - Yellow Moon

Kevin Red Star -Crow Full Moon Riders

Kevin Red Star - First Snow

All of these paintings depict Mr. Red Star's studies of Apsaalooke Life. The pictures I have shown here are representations of his tribe's culture and daily life in what seems to be a depiction of the Apsaalooke tribe's lifestyle in the late Nineteenth Century and recent times. The tribe was primarily centered in the mountains of South Central Montana, (e.g. Beartooth Range) and life on the Great Plains at a time when tallgrass prairies were common, and hunting for bison was a regular event.

Mr. Red Star is a graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts and the San Francisco Art Institute. His support of several charities in the Mountain West has been consistent and gracious. The Institute of American Indian Arts is currently benefitting from the sale of prints of his paintings. People who are interested may go to kevinredstar.com, his official website. He also exhibits his work at several art galleries in the Mountain West. He is an example of an artist whose vision goes beyond his own perspective, and reflects the best characteristics of Indigenous People.

Text copyright 2017  by Peter Reum

All rights reserved

Voices of Indigenous People 2 - Music for the Native Americans-Robbie Robertson and the Red Road Ensemble by Peter Reum

The question I am occasionally asked about my articles on Indigenous Peoples is "why are you as a Caucasian so interested in Indigenous matters?" The answer is that my adopted sister was Indigenous by birth, and my family lived in the heart of the Northern New Mexico Pueblos in Espanola. To walk an Indigenous Path was very hard on my sister. She was in both the Indigenous world and the Caucasian world. Her feet were firmly planted in both cultures, and the experiences she had with Indigenous people were very mixed.

The album I would like to discuss highlights a man with a similar dilemma, Robbie Robertson, whose history is equally in Judaism and Indigenous peoples. When I call Mr. Robertson's situation a dilemma, I mean to say that his own history as a child and during manhood mainly covered his history as a musician with Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, then later with The Band. Lyrically, Mr. Robertson chose to speak to a music audience hungry for the experience of American Life. Mr. Robertson was especially perceptive in his songwriting, reflecting perhaps his time spent with Bob Dylan on the road, and later at Big Pink, the home in rural New York state that hosted the famous experimental songs known as The Basement Tapes.

After the the Last Waltz, Mr. Robertson entered into the world of soundtrack production, often for the distinguished American Director  Martin Scorcese.  These experiences seemed to lead Mr. Robertson into a profession that was an excellent match for him, as he is an aficionado of film, dating from his teenage years on through to his adulthood.  What was not as well known was Mr. Robertson's heritage as an Indigenous Member of the Mohawk Nation from Ontario, Canada. Mr. Robertson spent summers on the Six Nations Reservation southwest of Toronto.

Mr. Robertson was asked to supervise the soundtrack for the Ted Turner historical documentary series The Native Americans. The miniseries was the first major video work that was Native American centered rather than a dominant cultural view of Indigenous America. The documentary's influence was more widely accepted by Indigenous Nations because of the presence of Native Americans working in the series, including Mr. Robertson. Mr. Turner chose not to copyright the film, making it accessible to educational and cultural populations.

In making the Music for The Native Americans album, Robbie Robertson actively sought out other Indigenous musicians to perform their music. In this way, a wider sampling of the music being recorded by Indigenous artists could be shared. There is a tendency to think that Indigenous music consists of  drums and hand carved flutes. The diversity of Indigenous Music reflects the various cultures making up Native America.

The album begins with coyotes howling over the chants of a sacred dance. The tune is called Coyote Dance. Ethereal synthesizer sounds accompany the chants, tastefully highlighted with echo, moving across the stereo perspective. The entire recording communicates the complexity of the Indigenous perspective on Nature. Nature is host to the various  forms of life in their infinite diversity, and many tribes consider the Earth to be a living entity itself. This track includes Delphine Robertson, who is Mr. Robertson's daughter. Montana's own Apsalooke (Crow) chief, Plenty Coups is quoted: "...Our dust and bones, ashes cold and white,  I see no longer the curling smoke rising, I hear no longer the sounds of  the women...."only the wail of the coyote is heard."

Cover Art for Music for The Native Americans

Mahk Jchi is a breathtaking prayer from the Cherokee Nation. The three women singing on this track are Cherokee.  The song is termed a heartbeat drum song. The drum is beaten by Benito, the famous drum player from New Mexico's famous Taos Pueblo. Accompanying him is Mazatl, of Aztec blood. Robbie Robertson plays keyboards here. Three distinguished Indigenous women sing the song. One of the women is Pura Fe, an Indigenous singer and instrumentalist. There is an article I wrote covering her early in my blog's entries.

From times long gone come the traditions of Indigenous tribes working together in cooperation for each other's benefit. In the last decade of the Nineteenth Century, a movement, The Ghost Dance, began.
Ghost Dancers believed that the Caucasians would be driven from the Indigenous tribes' traditional land and soldiers would  die. The various tribal members came together to worship and to drive out the settlers and soldiers who had stolen their lands. Tragically, like Crazy Horse before him, Sitting Bull was assassinated at the site called Wounded Knee by several of  the US
Army soldiers. I hope that you can read to your kids about the liquidation policy of the U.S. Army. Every American should read about history of the extermination efforts made by White Americans. Over 300 Indigenous Lakota men, women, and children died that cold day at Wounded Knee, and it was the largest number of Indigenous people killed at one time at the same site in U. S. A. history. Robbie Robertson narrates over traditional Lakota drums on this piece.

A Sioux Ghost Dance Prayer is quoted
"The whole world is coming
A nation is coming, a nation is coming
The eagle has brought the message to the tribe
The father says so, the father says so
Over the whole earth they are coming
The buffalo are coming. The buffalo are coming
The crow has brought the message to the tribe
The father says so, the father says so"

The fourth selection on the album is entitled "The Vanishing Breed. It is again a meditation on the dire condition of Indigenous people in the United States and also the entire Western Hemisphere. Lovely Indigenous flute is played over a beautiful synthesized string track. The music is authored by Douglas Spotted Eagle and Robbie Robertson.

The fifth track is especially moving, as it is entitled It is a Good Day to Die. The title is a quote from Lakota Warrior Crazy Horse prior to the Little Big Horn battle, in which the entire 7th Cavalry contingent led by Colonel George Armstrong  Custer died. Custer made the error of taking 200 soldiers into battle against an estimated 10,000 Lakota and Northern Cheyenne men, women, children, and elderly people. The battle is estimated to have lasted under 20 minutes based on interviews with Indigenous warriors some 40 years after the battle. The narration, written by Robbie Robertson,  contains one of the most sensitive and insightful set of lyrics Robbie ever wrote.

Black Elk, one of the most famous seers and mystics of Lakota medicine men, was a witness of the Little Big Horn battle. He is quoted as saying "Then another great cry went out in the dust--Crazy Horse is coming  Crazy Horse is coming!" Off toward the West and the North, they were yelling, " Hoka Hey" like a big wind roaring, and making the tremelo: and you could hear eagle bone whistles screaming...."

Golden Feather, the next track, was inspired by the yearning of the Cherokee to return to their North Carolina and Virginia home. Written by Robbie Robertson, the song hints at the religious symbolism that a golden eagle feather has that underlies its significance to traditional tribe members. In many tribes the eagle is sacred because it flies higher than other birds. Eagles are in some tribes considered messengers to the Creator carrying prayers from tribal members. Background vocals are by Laura Satterfield, and Rita and Priscilla Coolidge.
In some tribes, when a tribal member finds a golden feather or a stone shaped like a heart, it is considered a blessing from the Creator.

Akua Tuta, the next selection, is a song in the native language of the Innu tribe in Quebec, Canada. Kashtin, the performer's name, is also from their native language. The lyrics are translated:

"Take care,
Take care of your someplace,
Take care of your grandmother,
Take care of youself"

The two men who make up Kashtin spontaneously began dancing when they were singing.

Words of Fire, Deeds of Blood, a song written by Robbie Robertson,  puts into musical form one of the most eloquent chief's  speeches in Indigenous history. After being pursued by the USA cavalry for over 1500 miles, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe, exhausted by the tribe's flight, surrenders his remaining tribe members and is taken to the Colville, Washington reservation. His eloquent statement to his tribe and the Caucasian soldiers who guarded him is perhaps the most moving of speeches by an Indigenous tribal leader.

The Cherokee Morning Song again features Rita and Priscilla Coolidge. The song is performed here with instruments that are used  in prayer to the Creator. Also singing here is Laura Satterfield. Many tribes have a ritual that is dedicated to the sun. In some tribes, a certain clan or two run or dance to help the sun rise at dawn. The song is usually done in the tribe's own language.

The Di'neh people are the largest tribe in the United States. Their reservation sprawls over 3 states. The art, healing rites, singing and chanting, and other traditional practices are very old. The tribe has ceremonies that are practised privately  away from prying eyes. When praying, the tribe believes they are open and vulnerable to evil spirits. The skinwalker is an evil presence that can take the shape of any animal or human it wants by slipping inside the body of the vulnerable person that is praying. Skinwalkers usually seek host bodies at night. Vision Seekers go to great lengths to avoid being overtaken by evil spirits.

Ancestor Song, the next track, highlights the importance of respect for deceased relatives. In most Indigenous tribal beliefs they have great influence over living tribal members.  Many tribes believe that their deceased relatives are always present, living in the clouds floating overhead.

In the ancient ways, those living dance in complex dress complete with masks that cover the dancers' faces. They believe that the ancestor's spirits enter the masked dancers. They bring the gift of rain in the parched desert climate that would be uninhabitable without rain if the ancestors did not come to enter the body of their living descendants. They believe that if you lift the mask of the dancer, no one is visible, including the dancer who put on the mask.

Hopi tribal members believe that our planet has entered the fourth and final time in its existence.  They believe that the world will again be destroyed as it was three previous times. They believe that the only way to prevent this eventuality is to live in peace with each other and the animals.

Sandy Kewanbaptewa, a traditional believer offers this prayer to the ancient one: "And now grandfather, I ask you to bless the white man. He needs your wisdom, your guidance. You see for so long he has tried to destroy our people, and only feels comfortable when given power. Bless them, and show them the peace we understand. Teach them humility. For I fear they will destroy themselves and their children as they have done so with Mother Earth. I plead, I cry, after all, they are our brothers."

The final selection on this beautiful album is entitled Twisted Hair. The song is written by Jim Wilson and Dave Carson. The song is written as a prayer to the Creator, and asks for the ways of love of Mother Earth return.  The chorus that you hear in the background of this song is the sound of crickets slowed down. The beautiful voice is by Lakota opera singer Bonnie Jo Hunt. At this album's end, an album of prayer and benevolence, this Crowfoot prayer is quoted: " It is the flash of a firefly in the night-It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset..."


This article is copyright 2017 by Peter Reum excluding quoted material from Capitol Records copyright 1992 by Capitol Records
All rights reserved by Capitol Records and Peter Reum

This article is respectfully dedicated to my adopted sister Susan whose struggle with living in two worlds destroyed her.

Hey Stevie! Chris Made a Film About You.... by Peter Reum

There are folks who are among the best in their chosen field. People who are open to new experiences find the exhilaration that begins when they empty themselves and soak in the wonder of a master of their craft. I have been blessed in this life to listen to the creativity that flows from an inspired soul several times. People at the pinnacle of their fields shine like lighthouses for anyone who suspends ego and lets those who are inspired share their wisdom.

Two guys who radiate and shine their light are Stephen Kalinich and Chris Allen. Stevie is a person whose poetry flows from him like a mountain spring. Chris Allen is a film maker who sees stories...real people stories that HAVE to be told.

I first encountered both of these guys in a visit to Connecticut in 2002. The occasion was a Beach Boys/Brian Wilson fan convention put on by Susan Lang. David Marks and his lovely wife were also there. We traveled over to David's place the day after the convention, and I spent the day with Susan, Jon Stebbins, David and his wife, and Stevie who was writing with David.

Being around these folks was a very nice diversion from my Montana life. In Montana, I was in therapy sessions daily, working with EBD youth. These boys could really test staff patience, and I had my share of being twisted by the tail most days.

When I spent time with with Stevie, I was touched by his earnest and sincere approach to getting to know new people he met. He had a kindness that radiated outward to me and other people that came from a deep self-acceptance of himself. Stevie radiated strength and compassion in an intensity matched very few people I have seen.

For Stevie,  poetry and art are as essential to him as water is to a trout. Stevie has little if any of the self-doubt that people who write as a form self - expression have. His reason for what might be seen by some folks as networking avails him new opportunities unlike most poets. For diverse artists,  the door opens wider if poetry is the base of  understanding of our approach to be here with you. Stephen is a wordsmith. This is a rare and precious gift.

Stephen is a person who is capable of finding the most essential qualities in every person he meets.  He has the gift of moving past small talk into learning what inspires people. He is not a judgemental person. If he senses that a person he meets is unwilling to talk about certain subjects,  he will share examples from his own life to draw the person out.

Stephen is a loyal friend. This part of him surfaces in his poetry. If he decides a person is benevolent, he will share examples of kindness he has received. His insights about people are trustworthy. His life experiences tell his story.

Chris Allen has the ability to meet people where they are comfortable and to use film to illustrate their life's mission.  He has had the chance to tell his viewers about some of the most unique personalities in the arts community.

When I worked with Chris on an article I wrote entitled Light the Lamp, based on my reaction to Brian Wilson's Smile concerts, his input turned that article into a longer reflection on Brian Wilson as a musician and composer. Chris helped change a good article into one that people found insightful.

The artistic urge has to be scratched. If you have the good fortune to meet people like Chris and Stephen, take time to get to know them. You will be a better person for the efforts you make.

Playback: The Brian Wilson Anthology by Peter Reum

Brian Wilson's latter day solo career began in the years he was treated for mental illness by Eugene Landy, a psychologist who slimmed a half-dead Brian from 340 pounds to a vital and fit 180 pounds. Brian began working with the late Gary Usher in the mid Eighties, but their collaboration was crippled by the constant meddling of Landy and Brian's keepers, who Brian called "the Surf Nazis." Usher and Brian's work resulted in roughly a dozen songs, many of which have remained unreleased.  One 45 emerged from the sessions, Let's Go to Heaven in My Car. It was only the second single ever released by Brian up to that time, the other being Caroline No from the Beach Boys Pet Sounds album.

One of Brian's rare public performing appearances in the Eighties led to an offer of a record contract from Seymour Stein of Sire Records. Brian's conflicted feelings about recording with Landy and the unending presence of a contingent  of Landy's "handlers" which Brian called "The Surf Nazis" became evident early on in some of the songs that Brian was trying to write with Andy Paley. Paley was recruited by Seymour Stein, and his role was fairly fluid during the sessions he did with Brian. Paley has mentioned in interviews that he wrote over 100 songs with Brian. Four songs from the Wilson/Paley songbook are present on this album's playlist.

Paley is a fine songwriter whose work style was compatible with Brian's. Their collaboration on Brian's first album was a major reason the album turned out so well. Landy's frequent interfering created a high degree of anxiety during the Brian Wilson album sessions. Paley helped calm a shaken Brian when Landy interfered. Brian had a number of songs which were top notch, despite the interference of Landy's numerous phone calls and arguments with anything that messed with his ideas for Brian, including being credited as a dubious "co-writer" on numerous songs.

The Brian Wilson Anthology draws four tunes from the eighteen on the album entitled Brian Wilson.  That first solo album is represented on the Brian Wilson Anthology strongly. The album sessions seemed to drag on, mostly due to ultimatums from either Landy or his bushy minions, the Surf Nazis. Complicating the album's public image was the 1988 single that the Beach Boys released. Kokomo was a catchy tune, and it rose to the top spot on the Billboard singles chart. Over several months, Brian's work on the album grew. Russ Titleman co-produced most of the album with Brian, Rio Grande was produced  by Brian Wilson and Lenny Waronker. Landy had production credit as well, but the credit was removed as were songwriting credits on several other tunes on Brian Wilson.

Love and Mercy leads off the album program, and deserves that honor easily. The tune has been recorded by other artists who also valued the song and it's message. The song is a standard at Brian Wilson concerts, and closes the show as the last song in the encore. The tune's lamentation on the violence in the world is a universal message. Recently, a young woman from Afghanistan recorded it, and was set to come to the USA. Her visa was denied by the Trump Administration.  She was moved by the song's lyric about there being too much violence in the world. Brian had planned to meet her, but it couldn't occur due to a ban on visits from several Islamic countries, including Afghanistan.

The second song culled from Brian Wilson is Surfs Up. The versions from the 1966 and 1967 recordings are remarkable, almost breathtaking. They lack the world weariness of the tune on Brian Wilson Presents Smile. Lionized by Leonard Bernstein, David Oppenheim, and Paul Williams, this version on the Anthology album offers an older and perhaps wiser vocal from Brian that beautifully reflects the worldwise emotions of an older Brian Wilson which better matches the message in Van Dyke Parks' lyrics. To say it bluntly, Brian's vocal from 2004 sounds more appropriate to the song's lyrics than the version from the 1971 Surfs Up album with Carl and Brian. For some Brian Wilson fans, this idea may sound heretical.

Heroes and Villains was one of the major compositions by Brian and the mercurial Van Dyke Parks. The song was to appear on the shelved Smile album in 1966. That the song is brilliant has never been questioned. Heroes and Villains was recorded in short musical pieces that Brian wanted to sequence in a matter similar to how Good Vibrations was put together. Brian's use of short snippets of sound, which were then spliced together was termed "modular production." The modules of Heroes and Villains were reworked for the Brian Wilson Presents Smile album. Thanks to Darian Sahanaja, Brian was able to listen to all of the aborted 1966-7 Heroes and Villains modules, and together Brian and Darian worked to assemble the beautiful version from 2004.

Melt Away is a solo composition, and Brian's lyrics on it perfectly reflect the instrumental track, which has an almost church hymn feeling to it. As Brian has matured and grown older, his ability to commit his thoughts and feelings to his songs has mushroomed. It is a great love song. For my money, it is one of the top 3 or 4 tunes on Brian Wilson.

If you are a follower of Electric Light Orchestra, you will no doubt recognize the sound of Jeff Lynne in Let It Shine. Brian had worked with Roy Wood, a bandmate of Lynne's on It's Ok during The 15 Big Ones sessions. Lynne is a fine producer in his own right, and co-produced Let It Shine with Brian on the Brian Wilson album sessions. For myself, this tune is one of the most upbeat and almost sounds like the beginning of an old fashioned Christian Revival evening. Of course, it is not sacred in its theme.

Some Sweet Day is a previously unreleased tune from Brian's work with Andy Paley. It is a tune that could have fit on some of the Beach Boys mid Sixties albums. It offers a peek into Brian and Andy's sensibilities. The tune's track is a song that is almost a dead ringer for Brian's tune from the Carl and the Passions tune He Came Down. It would be nice to hear a double or triple cd set of the best Wilson/Paley songs.

So much has been written covering Brian's work with Andy Paley on Rio Grande. Having grown up less than half a mile from the Rio Grande in New Mexico, as a kid, it was for me the river that fired my imagination. Lenny Waronker of Warner/Reprise took time out from his busy schedule as WEA president to coax Brian into writing a long form composition "like Cool Cool Water. "  Brian was reluctant initially when asked to record a long form composition.  The song's evolution from a sound sketch into an 8+ minute mini rock opera is covered on Rhino/Warner's extended reissue of Brian's first solo album. The song's Western theme pulls together a number of Brian's song fragments and was revised several times before the released version was completed.  One obvious song fragment is the earworm melody called Night Blooming Jasmine. The song's winding course mirrors the Rio Grande River itself. The input from Andy Paley was invaluable in the stitching together of the various song parts into a coherent song. It is a masterpiece, and boosted Brian's confidence in his own music and lyrics.

The Imagination album offers two songs on this anthology. The collaboration of Brian Wilson and Joe Thomas began with this album. As an overall album, Imagination was more polished and adult oriented than some of Brian's other work. The two songs on this anthology's program are Cry and Lay Down Burden. There are at least 3 other tunes that could fit here, Your Imagination, She Says That She Needs Me, and a sassy collaboration with Jimmy Buffett, South American. Cry offers a somber musical mood that borders on penitent. The tune is an apology to his wife, after he picked a fight with her when he was in a bad mood. The track for the tune literally exudes his sorrow after the fight. Lay Down Burden is a message to his brother Carl when Brian learned that Carl's cancer was terminal.

The two songs that follow Lay Down Burden are songs that appear on the Brian Wilson Live at the Roxy album that is excellent but long ago deleted until this anthology. The First Time is a song that Brian wrote for a Flintstones movie. This Isn't Love was initially written with Brian's Pet Sounds lyricist, Tony Asher for the Wilson Sister's 1997 album without Chynna Phillips. It also appeared as an instrumental on  a Windham Hill label album. The tune could have been a part of a new Wilson/Asher album, but the collaboration ended shortly after This Isn't Love.

As the years went by, Brian's next studio album was titled Gettin' In Over My Head. The album is represented on this anthology by two songs, Gettin' In Over My Head (the title track), and Soul Searchin', the product of an aborted Beach Boys album that was quickly shelved in favor of a Beach Boys and Country Music album with Country Music artists singing Beach Boys songs backed by the group. Soul Searchin' was recorded with a Carl Wilson lead vocal that was blended with Brian's 2004 vocal. The song oozed an earthy feeling track with Brian's vocal parts added. A version was later cut by Solomon Burke. The title track, Gettin' In  Over My Head, is an excellently produced melody, with lyrics that convey the questions men and women ask themselves when a new relationship proceeds more rapidly than the new lovers anticipated.  Both tracks are quite strong in an album that is uneven.

The Like I Love in You is one of two unfinished melodies composed by George Gershwin that the Gershwin family asked Brian to finish in 2010. The exceptiomal overall quality of the album, Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin, makes it my favorite Brian Wilson solo album other than Brian Wilson Presents Smile. The two Gershwin fragments of songs that Brian and his band completed are highlights of a project that Brian and his band were very enthused about. The album is a joy to listen to, and honored Brian's favorite composer and lyricist, George and Ira Gershwin, in a manner that was respectful to the Gershwin musical legacy. Any listener who listens to this album will find the range of human emotions that makes Porgy and Bess an American classic.

After playing Pet Sound live in 2002 and Smile in 2004, the Royal South Festival Hall commissioned Brian to compose the another long form concert to be performed at the hall where the earlier shows were played. The result was an extended performance which centered on a collection of songs themed around the life of a youth centered environment--Southern California. The song cycle was humorous,  even silly until it was revised. One song stands out the best, a biographic tune entitled Midnight's Another Day. Scott Bennett wrote the lyrics with Brian, and they as autobiographical as Brian has ever been since Pet Sounds. The entire theme is a musical portrait of the people, places, and activities that make Southern California special.

The second album that Brian recorded for Disney collected a set of songs taken from Disney motion pictures. Colors of the Wind originally appeared in Pocahantas, a movie about  an actual indigenous person from the 17th Century. The song works beautifully in the story told in this animated movie. It offers a theme of learning to live with our natural world instead of depleting limited energy that sets back Earth's ability to heal itself. For millennia, indigenous people worldwide have lived on Earth working with nature instead of trying to control it.

The first of two archival tunes is a Brian Wilson and Andy Paley composition most likely from the Gettin' In Over My Head sessions. Some Sweet Day is a bouncy and cheerful composition that seems to fit better in this set than it would have fit on the Gettin' In  Over My Head album. The song is bouncy and cute in a first relationship type of thinking. It fits the theme of many of the Wilson/Paley songs that center on first love types of relationships, with their corresponding happy naivety and innocence. The music for Some Sweet Day is cheerful and optimisticaslly forward looking. It fits this album well.

Run James Run is somewhat of an enigma as to when it was written. Clearly, it most likely dates from sometime recent. Some of the tunes that Brian and Joe Thomas wrote date from the year Brian lived in Illinois, around 1997. The tune is a light and bouncy song that fits well as an optimistic album closing tune here on Playback: The Brian Wilson  Anthology.

The album's strengths:

*The album flows very  nicely from beginning to conclusion
*Nearly all of the solo albums Brian has recorded since his 1988 solo album are represented
*This anthology on first blush can be considered an album that focuses on Brian's best solo work
*The musicians on this album are generally from Brian's touring band, and there is a feeling of continuity as a result.

The album's weaknesses:

*Some songs that this writer would have considered a "must" on this album are left out. Please refer to the list below
*The booklet that comes with the album is very well written. It would have been nice to have some observations from Brian for each track
*There are numerous one off types of tracks that have come out intermittently throughout Brian's solo career. Some of them are excellent and need the further exposure that they deserve
*A bonus DVD would have been helpful to show some of Brian's work

Appendix I

Some possible tracks that could be valuable in an expanded version of this anthology

Brian Wilson (1988)
* There's So Many
* Meet Me in My Dreams Tonight

I Just Wasn't Made for These Times (1995)
* Do It Again with Carnie and Wendy
* Still I Dream of It (demo)

Orange Crate Art (with Van Dyke Parks 1995)
*Orange Crate Art
*Palm Tree and Moon
*San Francisco

Imagination (1998)
*She Says That She Needs Me
*South American
*Your Imagination (vocals only)

Brian Wilson Live at the Roxy (2000)
*Caroline No
*Friends (from Japanese issue)

Brian Wilson Pet Sounds Live (2001)
*I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
*Pet Sounds - title track

Gettin' In Over My Head
*Desert Drive
*Don't Let Her Know She's An Angel
*The Waltz

Brian Wilson Presents Smile (200I4)
*Entire Second Movement
*On a Holiday
*Mrs O'Leary's Cow
*In Blue Hawaii

What I Really Want For Christmas  (2005)
*Joy to the World
*What I Really Want For Christmas
*Christmassy

Lucky Old Son (2007)
*Oxygen to the Brain
*Going Home

Brian Wilson Presents Gershwin (2010)
*Nothing But Love
*I Loves You Porgy
*I Got Rhythm

In the Key of Disney  (2011)
*Dwarf Medley

No Pier Pressure (2015)
*Half Moon Bay
*Our Special Love

Brian Wilson and Friends (2016)
*Marcella
*Heroes and Villains

One Off Songs for bonus material:

Live Let Live
He Couldn't Get His Body to Move
Being With the One You Love
Rodney on the Roc
Too Much Sugar
Let's Go to Heaven in My Car
This Song Wants to Sleep With You Tonight
Good Vibrations (live)
Our Prayer (live)
Our Prayer (Freeform Reform Mix)
Sweets for the Sweet
This Could Be the Night
God Only Knows (BBC version)
Surfin' USA live @ Bridge School Benefit
Goodnight Irene
What Love Can Do
In My Moondreams with Andy Paley
Listen to Me
Wanderlust
My Sweet Lord
California Feeling
California Sun
Country Feelin'
The Spirit of Rock and Roll
Speed Turtle
You Are So Beautiful with Carnie Wilson
Til I Die with Carnie and Wendy Wilson
Monday Without You with Carnie/Wendy
Everything I Need with Carnie/Wendy
Miracle with Carnie and Wendy
Friends live

Demos exist for a number of Brian Wilson songs with the Beach Boys and as a solo artist. This is a fertile source for other solo efforts by Brian.

For a single cd anthology, Playback is a fine introduction to Brian Wilson's solo recordings. I can honestly recommend it with few if any reservations.



Essay copyright 2017 by Peter Reum - all rights reserved

In Memory of Wade Blank by Peter Reum

When people ask how life changed for people with severe disabilities in the last 40 years, the organization most often mentioned is ADAPT. When you ask who was instrumental in the beginning of the Disability Rights Movement, one name always comes up, Wade Blank. When I was involved in the board of directors, and later the executive directorship of the Northern Colorado on Disability and Deafness, The Atlantis Community, the birthplace of ADAPT, was the lightning rod for disability rights activism.

ADAPT grew like a weed as the obvious need for getting people with severe disabilities out of nursing homes became as obvious as the moles on a witch's nose. As the flicker of a flame for a disability rights movement became a bonfire, the role of the Reverend Wade Blank in kindling that flame in the hearts of institutional young people with severe disabilities cannot be underestimated.

This evening on our national evening news, there was ADAPT disrupting the only open meeting/hearing for a Republican Party plan to drastically cut the adult Medicaid program so violently that even governors and state legislators decried the cynical harshness of the bill. ADAPT was in the meeting room, loudly chanting against the utter inhumane treatment that people with severe disabilities would receive under the   Republican Piece of Shit masquerading as a healthcare bill. It was classic ADAPT strategy. The old fart running the meeting, a Senator from Utah who is a living example of why term limits for Congress are desperately needed, kept calling for order, and ADAPT just got louder.

As has happened hundreds of times before, the shouters were evicted from the meeting room, with several ADAPT members being arrested. When the DC Police Department discovered that they would be responsible for personal care in the jail, e.g. empty urine bags, take care of catheters, and handling excrement, they released ADAPT members, like dozens of police departments before over the last 40 years.

When Wade Blank helped Mike, a prisoner of a Boulder, Colorado nursing home move into community living in his own home, the paradigm shift regarding  personal care provision began. Until that moment, people with severe impairments either lived in their family home or in a nursing home. Wade Blank created a movement that stressed empowerment over compliance...choices over following medical provider's rules. Nursing homes in the early Seventies were populated by elderly people and "medically fragile" people with mobility  and progressive condition types of impairments.

As documented on ADAPT's online museum, Wade Blank was a participant in the Civil Rights Movement of the Sixties, working with a number of people who led the fight for African American desegregation in the Fifties and Sixties. By learning these tactics, Wade was moved to use similar strategies with people with severe disabilities who the Atlantis Community, the parent organization of ADAPT, helped move out of nursing homes into community based apartments. In doing this shift from nursing home living to community based living, a number of services were reinvented for freedom from doing whatever the nursing home services did that was dehumanizing in a nursing home setting.

The shift in residential service philosophy for people with severe disabilities in a broader sense was grounded in an empowerment model instead of a compliance orientation.  From these pioneering efforts, the people who were previously considered medically impossible for community residential living came to feel that their life had meaning through the choices that they made once free from the medical compliance model of nursing home life  and living in their own home.

From these strands of restructuring of living with a severe disability, people with severe disabilities became an everyday presence seen in Denver. This opened a door for ADAPT to assist individuals with various types of disabilities to protest and fight for personal liberties that people without disabilities took for granted. Wade Blank's planting of the empowerment seeds led to the world's first law guaranteeing people with disabilities the same rights enjoyed by other United States  citizens, the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In 1983, ADAPT turned their advocacy to the inaccessibility of city busses in Denver, Colorado. The rights to live in a community were diminished by the lack of accessibility of Denver's people with disabilities to adequate transportation.  The city of Denver was resistant to making regular city busses accessible to people  with mobility impairments, citing costs of adapting their regular bus fleet.  The ADAPT people, used their protest tactics to disrupt the movement of the city of Denver's system.

The city grew weary of ADAPT's messing up the busses travel routes by blocking  bus stations, lying in front of busses, and shouting down bus system managers in open public meetings. A new mayor, Federico Pena, met with Wade Blank and ADAPT to seek an agreement to get the busses back to running on time. Denver's city accountants were tasked with putting a realistic cost for conversion of the ENTIRE bus fleet. Mayor Pena was able to generate the projected costs for making Denver busses accessible to people with severe disabilities. A timetable was negotiated with ADAPT, and Denver became the first big city in the world to have a completely accessible municipal transit system. If you go to the site of the first disruption of Denver's busses by ADAPT, you will find a historical marker that commemorates Denver's feat of making their busses accessible. Prominent among the names on the plaque is Wade Blank.

As the debate began on the drafting of the Americans with Disabilities Act began in the United States Congress, the Disability Rights groups took a good cop/bad cop approach. Some of the mainstream groups like the Disabled American Veterans and the National Rehabilitation Association were  examples of the good cop approach. The ADAPT group,  which by then had spread into fully operating branches in nearly all major population centers in all of the many major cities inUnited States. Members of Congress would meet with the good cop after Wade Blank and ADAPT had scared the crap out of the more intransigent senators and representatives. Most books covering the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act credit people like Justin Dart, Robert Dole, and many quiet but effective advocates for the educating of Congress regarding salient issues needing to be addressed in the ADA. The same books credit ADAPT with providing the protesting aspect of the population of people with severe disabilities which communicated the disability community's impatience and urgent need for the ADA.

As the years went by, Wade Blank continued to assist new recruits to empower themselves through the ADAPT national community. Always a devoted husband and father, Wade Blank brought the same quiet enthusiasm to his family that he did in disability rights advocacy and negotiation. At the dawn of the Nineties, he turned 50 but never stopped showing people with disabilities that through self-advocacy and assisting them in identifying what they wanted in life. In turn, they would empower each other and raise the quality of life for themselves and others.

In 1993, on a vacation in Baja California, Wade Blank drowned in the Pacific Ocean trying to rescue his 15 year old son, who also drowned. Though his voice was silenced, the thousands of people with severe disabilities who learned to self-advocate and occasionally disrupt the routines of stubborn people and organizations, by continuing to pass on to new advocates the principles Wade Blank showed members of ADAPT 45 years ago. Like many  leaders, Wade, through his efforts to teach self-advocacy and living in the Community, had succeeded in passing the torch to a new group of people with disabilities, thereby making his leadership evolve into more of a consultation role. The leaders of the many disability rights groups who followed ADAPT owe a debt of gratitude to Wade. In a sense, this orientation toward self-advocacy and empowerment is a living memorial to Wade.


This author is indebted to the ADAPT
online museum, who lovingly maintain a memorial page for Wade Blank. The history of many of  the issues ADAPT has tackled over  the 40+ years of its history is displayed through a progression of newspaper articles through the decades. To read the historical news articles through the years is a powerful testament to ADAPT and other disability rights groups.

Copyright 2017 by Peter Reum - All Rights Reserved 

Whose National Parks and Monuments Are They? by Peter Reum

People tend to think of public lands as being set aside for recreation, energy development, and wildlife protection. The answer to that question is not as simple as it might seem. There is constant clashing over public land purposes, especially when precious metals, oil, ranching, and recreation and wilderness are at odds. The National Parks are designated as such by an act of both houses of Congress with the recommendation of The Executive Branch. A law called the Antiquities Act of 1906 permits the President to set aside unique national landmarks and natural areas for preservation and visitation by the general public. Interestingly, many current National Parks began their existence as National Monuments first. In addition to these designations, there are wildlife refuges, national forests, wilderness areas, and other minor designations for public lands that have to do with the general public and are for public use.

Under the Obama Administration a number of National Monuments were designated for public use. The Trump Administration has questioned the status of 27 of these new National Monuments, and has designated Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke as  the person to complete these reviews. Zinke is a former Congressman from Montana, and was an early Trump supporter during the 2016 elections. He is someone who said that he is a person who will support the National Parks System while serving in Congress. The overall orientation of the Trump administration  has been very pro oil, natural gas, and mineral extraction in its first six months in office. The review of the 27 National Monuments has been whittled down from 27 monuments to 20, with 7 monuments being designated for retaining their status as it has been. There is also a review recommending privatization of all hotel and camping facilities in the National Park System. There is strong opposition to the review, with 1.2 million citizens submitting signatures demanding that the designated 27 monuments for review be retained as National Monuments as they currently are. The Trump Administration is actively contemplating a judicial review of the 1906 Antiquities Act, and Zinke's review is the first phase.

A source inside the Interior Department recently leaked a copy of Zinke's recommendations for Trump to the press, and at least 10 of the National Monuments were targeted for either downsizing, road buildings, or mining. The topography of the targeted monuments is near wilderness quality. Among the National Monuments targeted are 2 in New Mexico, 2 in Utah, 1 in Nevada.

If you so inclined, you can send letters to President Trump, and should he be inundated, the unpopularity of Zinke's report, may lead to more pristine types of land preservation. This effort by Trump to privatize the National Parks and Monuments and open them to mining or downsizing. Once compromised, this horrible list of Zinke's recommemdations leading to the gutting of these national monuments may be made irrelevant. Thank you for whatever efforts you choose to make to halt these mush headed recommendations.

Honey is Sweeter Than a Smile by Peter Reum

 Honey is Sweeter Than a Smile by Peter Reum

After the Beach Boys shelved Lei'd in Hawaii, the pressure for new Beach Boy music increased manyfold.  The trend in popular music to create increasingly ornate albums with elaborate production became pretentious and unlistenable for many listeners, bands, and even record companies .

Following the Gettin' Hungry single, which was a modest hit in some countries, but did not chart in America, Brian seemed to have some energy to write new songs with Mike Love, fulfilling a promise he had made to Mike before beginning work on Pet Sounds with Tony Asher. In essence, Brian decided to record Smile with Van Dyke Parks, and did not write with Mike Love as he had told Mike he would.

Mike was disappointed that Brian did not record songs written by him with Brian on the album following Pet Sounds (Smile) as he had understood the agreement he made with Brian when the Pet Sounds album was being recorded. Mike was not happy with the wordplay Van Dyke Parks had written for Smile songs, and expressed his frustration to Brian and the other Beach Boys. He asked Van Dyke Parks what certain parts of Smile's lyrics meant. Van Dyke, already unhappy with Smile, left the Sessions permanently in April 1967. Brian held a few sessions in early May, and then gave his attention to the Heroes and Villains single as released.

After Smiley Smile's reception in the summer and early fall of 1967, the abandonment of the Lei'd In Hawaii album, and Capitol's proposal to release Smile as a 10 track album, The Beach Boys realized that they were having a slow down in demand for domestic record sales of their lps and singles.  The Beach Boys kept their approach to Wild Honey straight forward and the album reflected a desire to dial back the elaborate productions of the past and to record tunes that were soulful and funky (for 1967).

Carl and Brian both understood the roots of Rhythm and Blues, the basic boogie woogie piano that Brian refers to in numerous interviews throughout the years--hence the track 'Boogie Woodie' from the Surfer Girl album. Carl, Brian, Dennis, and Mike had been singing rhythm and blues from the radio airwaves since the days at Mount Vernon and Fairway. There was Johnny Otis on the airwaves in LA. The production values in the released Wild Honey album reflected a desire to showcase another new major lead vocalist in the group...Carl Wilson. His prominence on the released Wild Honey is a bow to the need to let Brian take a rest.

In an attempt to help fans realize why Wild Honey was recorded the way it was, Stephen Korthoff (Brian's cousin) and Arny Geller wrote a warm and accurate assessment of Wild Honey that appeared on the album's back cover that is still true 50 years after it was released:

Honey, of the wild variety, on a shelf in Brian’s kitchen, was not only an aide to all of the Beach Boys’ health but the source of inspiration for the record, “Wild Honey.”

Soon after the R&B-flavored “Wild Honey,” came eight other new songs, and a Beach Boys version of “I Was Made To Love Her.”

We think this is a great album. We love to listen to it. We might just be biased because we work for the Beach Boys.

Please see what you think.

– STEVE and ARNY

As for Brian Wilson, the unmedicated mental health concerns he had were not very obvious to his family and the Beach Boys. For this reason, Carl was quoted as saying "Brian was still too spacey to produce an album." Brian recorded some tracks for the early version of Wild Honey, identified as being on the Brother Records label with the catalog number 9003. His production chops were still amazing, and he showed that ability on then unfinished tracks such as I Love to Say Dada and Can't Wait Too Long (also known as Been 'Way Too Long). The preliminary track list as submitted to Capitol Records named 11 songs.

It is quite possible that the solo version of Surfs Up, which turned up as not identified on a master tape and then was released on the 2011 Smile release, was another track cut in the early days of Brian's beginning of production of the Brother Records 9003 version of Wild Honey which was incomplete.  The new Capitol double cd set Sunshine Tomorrow includes the tracks from Brother 9003, and gives listeners an idea of when Brian ceased producing and Carl Wilson steeped into the production role.

Sometime between Brian's early attempts to produce the album, and Carl's stepping in to finish it, the album's focus took on a snappy  Stax sound that baffled critics and long time fans. To quote David Leaf's excellent liner notes from the1990 combined Smiley Smile/Wild Honey cd:

"It seems that almost everybody…the public, the critics, the record industry and maybe even the Beach Boys themselves…was baffled by Smiley Smile. Shortly after it was released, the group returned to Brian’s house to record Wild Honey, the record that marked the birth of the second era of great Beach Boys music. For Wild Honey, given Brian’s disinterest in making a studio statement, the Beach Boys consciously decided to make a “simple” record."

For the touring group, Brian's more complex music, such as Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations, was a  major headache to perform live with just the touring group of 5 members. The group gave Brian that feedback during the latter days of the Smile Sessions, and it may have been a factor in his shelving that project. 

Sometime between Brian's early attempts to produce the album, and Carl's stepping in to finish it, Wild Honey's focus took on a snappy  Stax sound that baffled critics and long time fans. Brother 9003, the first "Wild Honey,' had some quite personal music of Brian's begun and then left behind. Wild Honey became an album different than perhaps what Brian originally conceived.

The original track lineup for Brother 9003, was submitted by Brian and Carl. Wild Honey became an album different than perhaps what Brian originally conceived. Brother 9003, the first "Wild Honey,' had some quite personal music of Brian's begun and then left behind. In my travels, I turned several Capitol memoranda which revealed that 9003, the great lost Wild Honey album begun by Brian, had the following track lineup: Wild Honey, Here Comes The Night, Let The Wind Blow, I Was Made To Love Her, The Letter, Darlin', A Thing Or Two, Aren't You Glad, Cool, Cool Water, Game Of Love, Lonely Days, Honey Get Home. Wild Honey became an album different than perhaps what Brian originally conceived.

It is apparent that this aborted album, Brother 9003, was for the most part, an album about love and being in the cycle of a relationship. Consider that Wild Honey is a discussion of a woman who is viscerally attractive....a woman who turns you on. This feeling is also expressed in A Thing Or Two, Here Comes the Night, and I Was Made to Love Her. The invitation into a true sexual and emotional relationship may be expressed by The Game of Love. Love in full bloom, perhaps marriage, is addressed in Darlin' and Aren't You Glad. They are both expressions of feelings of beneficence, that is, the rewards of being in a reciprocal loving relationship. While the relationship is in bloom, all is well and balanced. When things begin to crack, perhaps Lonely Days and Honey Get Home are expressions of the feeling of fear of loss of the intimacy, both emotional and sexual, which can be gone in a struggling, on-the-rocks relationship. The Letter potentially expresses the confrontational moment when one partner in the relationship expresses the feeling that the relationship is broken, and the other person rushes to his partner's side to try to salvage what is lost. Finally, Let the Wind Blow is that moment when the partner who didn't sense his partner's unhappiness pleads with fate to save the relationship.

It is no wonder that Cool Cool Water was shelved....it had no topical relationship to the rest of the songs on the original album's theme. Thus, the released Wild Honey bears more resemblance to an album of 11 songs, not necessarily connected by an overriding theme. The  “new songs’ consisting of Country Air, I’d Love Just Once to See You, How She Boogalooed It, and Mama Says (from Smile) changed the feel of the overall album to being more humorous, placing less focus on the relationship theme, and replacement of Cool Cool Water with a song focused on Country Air.

Whereas the early Wild Honey (Brother 9003) had some tunes that were at times more complex in approach, Carl's production role on what became Capitol T2859 evolved into the harder edged rhythm and blues sound that Carl loved and produced. Like many Beach Boys albums post-Smile, there was more than a listener might initially perceive to Wild Honey. Fans wondered if it was an essential album by the Beach Boys or a creative misfire. If the reader wonders why Carl stepped in for Brian, here is a Brian quote from 2015 which answers that question: In a January 2013 interview in Uncut Magazine, Brian shared that "It was always a challenge for me to live up to my name. It was a really big thing for me. People expected me to come up with great orchestral stuff all the time and it became a burden. I was getting tired of it. It still happens, too, but you just learn to live with it.  So the other guys started getting more into the production side of things. Carl [Wilson] really got into that. And we decided to make a rhythm ’n ’blues record. We consciously made a simpler album. It was just a little R’n’B and soul. It certainly wasn’t like a regular Beach Boys record. It was good to go back to the boogie-woogie piano I’d grown up with. Dear old Dad [Murry Wilson] taught me how to play that stuff when I was young. In its way, it’s very nostalgic. And we used the theremin again for 'Wild Honey'. Carl had fun singing on that." So Brian saw it as it turned out, to be a chance to let the other Beach Boys, particularly Carl, channel their creative energy in the studio, and to let Brian’s role be mainly singing and songwriting. To quote David Leaf again:

"It was Wild Honey’s lack of artistic pretension that bewildered the growing serious role of rock critic as well as the rapidly shrinking legions of Beach Boys fans. For a year, they had patiently waited for Smile. Smiley Smile had hardly mollified them, and many of those who decided to give the Beach Boys another chance were only further alienated by Wild Honey. Among other reasons, for Wild Honey, given Brian’s disinterest in making a studio statement, the Beach Boys consciously decided to make a “simple” record.

Seminal rock critic Paul Williams, who, like many fanatical Brian Wilson supporters, at first wasn’t crazy about Wild Honey, put his reaction in proper perspective in this excerpt from his classic 1969 book, Outlaw Blues: “We expected more (from Brian) than we would expect from any other composer alive, because the tracks we’d heard from Smile were just that good. Smiley Smile was…a confusion…and Wild Honey is just another Beach Boys record, which is only to say that it’s not Smile and it was necessary for us to forget Smile before we could appreciate what came later…I love Wild Honey because it is new and fresh and raw and beautiful and the first step in the direction of even greater things than what was once to be. I celebrate Wild Honey as a work of joy, and one more gift of music from probably the most creative musician alive.”

Unfortunately for the Beach Boys, Paul Williams was in the minority. Bruce Johnston had a humorous but insightful quote regarding rock critics' opinions of the musical approach to production of late Sixties Beach Boys' records: "We can't really keep our approach we have been taking musically if the only people who love it are 5 guys at Crawdaddy Magazine." As far as most rock critics were concerned, Smiley Smile and Wild Honey, released within months of each other, confirmed that the Beach Boys were musical lightweights. To the “hipster” crowd, the group had become passe. Yet, it’s a fact that in 1968, after Wild Honey had already come out, Bob Dylan released John Wesley Harding and the Beatles cut “simpler” records like “Lady Madonna.” And much of that year’s White Album was very basically produced. While there’s no evidence that either Dylan or the Beatles were following Brian’s lead, they certainly were all heading down the same path. Brian was the first to pull back from the production “race,” and to most of the Beach Boys long-time fans, or the recent converts who had been blown away by Pet Sounds, “Good Vibrations” and Sgt. Pepper, that wasn’t acceptable. They expected more “high” art from Brian because very few producers  could “play” the studio with the virtuosity of a Brian Wilson.

However, as Brian was  relinquishing his role as a cutting edge artist, Wild Honey could only reflect the new and baffling simplicity of his home based approach to music and life. Much of the late Sixties production work was done by converting Brian and Marilyn's living room into a home studio. The only problem was that the Brother Records mixing console traveled with the touring group whenever they were on the road, leaving Brian without an essential tool of his converting his raw songs into coherent and enjoyable productions. However, Brian did manage to somehow turn that low key approach into a new art form (best exemplified on Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, Friends, and on the first Paul McCartney solo album). It is hard to discuss live versus recorded performance without considering the psychology of musical experience. As with Smile, there will be those who argue that Wild Honey as a complete multisensory live experience would transcend any passive listening experience to these songs, even with headphones. For long-time Beach Boys fans like myself, hearing the entire Wild Honey album live would be a more complete experience….if Brian was present. To quote David Leaf again:

"More than anything, maybe the essential truth is that the Beach Boys really didn’t set out to produce either Smiley Smile or Wild Honey as major artistic efforts. Smiley Smile was a scramble, a struggle to piece together musical fragments to make songs. And Wild Honey was a new beginning…the Beach Boys rediscovering the joy of just making good, solid R&B based rock music. The piano lines in Wild Honey are, in their own way, as inventive as Brian’s more textured records…Brian happily going back to his roots, the boogie woogie piano that he had loved as a teen."

In 2017, Wild Honey sounds like nothing more than a band that, having lost their hip musical identity by using the environment sonically to be the ultimate studio instrument, instead, looking for its old identity as a rock group, trying to bury the resentments. The Beach Boys, for the first time since 1965, played on most of the instrumental tracks on the album. While the primitive feel of Wild Honey is part of its charm, that same lack of production is the reason it didn’t initially wear as well as the group’s mid-60’s albums. From a 2017 perspective, Wild Honey is a Beach Boys record that is looked back upon very fondly. Even though Wild Honey may not be rock music “high art,” it’s an album that has steadily grown in reputation as one of the Beach Boys' musical "jewels" that were released from the post Smile to the Holland album.

In thinking in a retrospective manner, there’s a lot of great music on Wild Honey, which meant that when hardcore Beach Boys fans, who had listened to Smiley Smile muttering "wtf!" to themselves, first heard Wild Honey, they at least saw that The Beach Boys were innovating again .” Is Wild Honey’s recent critical re-appraisal deserved? As a production transition album, Wild Honey often is thought to be slight, with good songs that were under-produced. Taken on its own merit, Wild Honey offers a new Beach Boy experience, as did every Beach Boys album up through Beach Boys Love You. That is, it is the same group, but there are new and exciting twists, turns, and blind curves that make each new Beach Boys album that one hears for the first time a revelation. That is like the joy of exhilaration that comes when you see your first Georgia O’Keefe painting in person, or discover a novel that takes you to a new world like Dune or the Harry Potter series. In my own perspective in looking Wild Honey 50 years later in 2017 - It has become my favorite "all-weather lp.

Here are two perspectives from group members:

Bruce Johnston: “I loved Wild Honey because I thought it was getting us back on the track again. It was probably the funkiest Beach Boys album, very little production, but a lot of music without any complications. I just remember we wanted to be a band again. The whole (Smile) thing had wiped everyone out, and we wanted to play together again.”

Carl Wilson offered another angle: “Wild Honey was music for Brian to cool out by.”

Billboard Chart Performance:

Wild Honey single: Recorded September 26-27, 1967
Charted at #22 in USA Charts
Flip Side: Wind Chimes (on Smiley Smile album)
Lead vocal by Carl Wilson

Netherlands Wild Honey/Then I Kissed Her Single Picture Cover

Please note the Smile Booklet Photos!

Darlin' single: Recorded October 27, 1967
Original Melody appeared on 1964 Thinkin' Bout You Baby Single in June 1964
Charted at #19 in USA Charts
Flip Side: Here Today (on Pet Sounds)
Lead vocal by Carl Wilson

 

USA Beach Boys Darlin'/HereToday Single Picture Cover 

Beach Boys-USA Wild Honey Album-Released December 18,1967

Recorded September to November 1967

Charted at #24 USA Album Charts

 

USA Wild Honey Album Front Cover

 

USA Wild Honey Album Back Cover

 

Artwork for the Beach Boys Sunshine Tomorrow Vault Release

Tracklist:

1 Wild Honey (Stereo Mix / Remastered 2017)

2 Aren't You Glad (Stereo Mix / Remastered 2017)

3 I Was Made To Love Her (Stereo Mix / Remastered 2017)

4 Country Air (Stereo Mix / Remastered 2017)

5 A Thing Or Two (Stereo Mix / Remastered 2017)

6 Darlin' (Stereo Mix / Remastered 2017)

7 I'd Love Just Once To See You (Stereo Mix / Remastered 2017)

8 Here Comes The Night (Stereo Mix / Remastered 2017)

9 Let The Wind Blow (Stereo Mix / Remastered 2017)

10 How She Boogalooed It (Stereo Mix / Remastered 2017)

11 Mama Says

12 Lonely Days (Alternate Version)

13 Cool, Cool, Water (Alternate Version)

14 Time To Get Alone (Alternate Version)

15 Can't Wait Too Long (Alternate Version)

16 I'd Love Just Once To See You (Alternate Version)

17 I Was Made To Love Her (Vocal Insert Session)

18 I Was Made To Love Her (Long Version)

19 Hide Go Seek (Backing Track Master Take - Instrumental)

20 Honey Get Home (Backing Track Master Take - Instrumental)

21 Wild Honey (Session Highlights Instrumental)

22 Aren't You Glad (Session Highlights Instrumental)

23 A Thing Or Two (Track And Backing Vocals)

24 Darlin' (Session Highlights Instrumental)

25 Let The Wind Blow (Session Highlights Instrumental)

26 Wild Honey (Live In Detroit / 1967)

27 Country Air (Live In Detroit / 1967)

28 Darlin' (Live In Pittsburgh / 1967)

29 How She Boogalooed It (Live In Detroit / 1967)

30 Aren't You Glad (Live / 1970)

31 Mama Says (Session Highlights)

Disk 2

1 Heroes And Villains (Single Version Backing Track)

2 Vegetables (Long Version)

3 Fall Breaks And Back To Winter (Alternate Mix)

4 Wind Chimes (Alternate Tag Section)

5 Wonderful (Backing Track / Instrumental)

6 With Me Tonight (Alternate Version With Session Intro)

7 Little Pad (Backing Track / Instrumental)

8 All Day All Night (Whistle In) (Alternate Version 1)

9 All Day All Night (Whistle In) (Alternate Version 2)

10 Untitled (Redwood) (Instrumental)

11 Fred Vail Intro (Live / 1967)

12 The Letter (Alternate Mono Mix - Live / 1967)

13 You're So Good To Me (Live / 1967)

14 Help Me, Rhonda (Mono Mix / Live / 1967)

15 California Girls (Mono Mix / Live / 1967)

16 Surfer Girl (Mono Mix / Live / 1967)

17 Sloop John B (Live / 1967)

18 With A Little Help From My Friends (Mono Mix / Live / 1967)

19 Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring (Mono Mix / Live / 1967)

20 God Only Knows (Mono Mix / Live / 1967)

21 Good Vibrations (Live / 1967)

22 Game Of Love (Outtake / Live / 1967)

23 The Letter (Alternate Stereo Mix - Live / 1967)

24 With A Little Help From My Friends (Stereo Mix / Live / 1967)

25 Hawthorne Boulevard (Instrumental / Live in Honolulu / 1967)

26 Surfin' (Live In Honolulu / 1967)

27 Gettin' Hungry (Live In Honolulu / 1967)

28 Hawaii (Rehearsal Take / Live in Honolulu / 1967)

29 Heroes And Villains (Rehearsal Take / Live In Honolulu /
1967)

30 California Girls (Live In Washington, D.C. / 1967)

31 Graduation Day (Live In Washington, D.C. / 1967)

32 I Get Around (Live In Boston / 1967)

33 Surf's Up (1967 Version)

34 Surfer Girl (1967 A Cappella Mix)

Text Copyright 2017 by Peter Reum - All Rights Reserved

Copyright 2017 by Peter Reum - All Rights Reserved