Category: True Stories

Saturday Matinee – The Great East Japan Earthquake 2011, Steve Gibbons Band, Keb’ Mo’, Juzzie Smith & Jeff Beck’s Killer Lineup

11 March 2011 – The Great East Japan Earthquake (video at Sendai Airport) measured 9.0–9.1 on the Richter Scale. It moved Honshu (the main island of Japan) 8 feet east.

It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, and the fourth most powerful earthquake in the world since modern record-keeping began in 1900. The earthquake triggered powerful tsunami waves that may have reached heights of up to 40.5 meters (133 ft) in Miyako in Tōhoku’s Iwate Prefecture, and which, in the Sendai area, traveled at 700 km/h (435 mph) for up to 10 km (6 mi) inland. Residents of Sendai had only eight to ten minutes of warning, and more than 19,000 were killed, many at evacuation sites, more than a hundred of which washed away. [Wiki]

[Watch the whole thing. Video found here, via here.]

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That’s a tough one to follow, but let’s try this.

Long intro, good story by The Steve Gibbons Band (1977). If you don’t know who he is, check out his credentials. I bought one of his albums for his cover of Chuck Berry’s “Tulane.”

Keb’ Mo’ plays Son House‘ “Walkin’ Blues” (1930), accompanied by musicians from six countries. It’s part of the “Playing For Change” video series.

Juzzie Smith introduces his One Man Band, and it’s amazing. I can play harmonica and guitar, but my brain won’t let me do both at once.

Jeff Beck (guitar), Tal Wilkenfeld (bass), Beth Hart (vocals), Lizzie Ball (violin) and Jonathan Joseph (drums) crank out Freddie King‘s 1971 classic “Going Down”  at Crossroads Guitar Festival 2013. What a lineup.

That should hold y’all for a bit. See you back here tomorrow for something or other.

Bone Cold.

Egyptian bone figurine, 3700–3500 BC (somewhere in that 200 year window). Her eyes are made from lapis lazuli, and she looks cold. She doesn’t look very happy and apparently she was quite hirsute.

[Found here.]

“It’s A Colorful Day In The Neigh-Bor-Hood”

Damages could run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“He obviously has a drug issue or something going on, [neighbor] Klawans said. “I have just never seen anything like this in my life.”

The Collier County Property Appraiser’s office says the house belongs to 40-year-old Jeffrey Leibman, who neighbors said did the damage over the course of a week.

[Image & story (with video) found here, via here.]

Rum Runners 1920s

In October 1919, Congress passed the National Prohibition Act, overriding a veto by President Woodrow Wilson. And so began the so-called noble experiment of Prohibition.

[Found here.]

The 1968 Dustbuster Manta

“Built from Bizzarrini parts, the Manta was one of Giorgetto Giugiaro’s first independent designs as an independent consultant. He used it to promote and launch Ital Design in Turin. The Manta is remarkable as it was built up from an ex-Le Mans racer and it is one of the first cars the world to use a triple seat arrangement.

Inside the cockpit is an odd layout that seats the driver in the middle of the interior with a passenger on either side. The idea was copied from a Ferrari 365 prototype built in 1965 and it was later, more popularly revived with the mighty McLaren F1. With three people seated side-by-side it must be a particularly tight squeeze as much of the available passenger foot space is occupied by intrusive wheel wells.”

[Images found here. More about the 1968 Bizzarrini Manta here.]

Head (bread, kneaded)

[From Hans Prinzhorn’s Artistry of the Mentally Ill (1922).]

The Dorque of WTF

Arthur William Patrick Albert, aka Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, circa 1874.
That photo wasn’t good enough for him, so he upped the ante.

Yeah. That rocks. Much better.

[Found here.]

The Back Of Peter Falk’s Head Board Game

“My favorite part about the Columbo Board Game is that they wouldn’t pay Peter Falk what he wanted to be involved, so they had to work around showing his face.”

[Found here.]

7 December 1941 – Pearl Harbor

Always Remember: The declaration of war was issued AFTER the attack.

This film is interesting.

That’s my late dad’s stamp that he put on most correspondence.

Klaus-Günter Jacobi’s Contribution To The World

If socialism is such a great economic system, why have so many people died trying to escape it?

Risking imprisonment, torture and death, Klaus-Günter Jacobi modified a BMW Isetta to help his friend escape the oppression of East Germany in 1963. Nine others were able to escape using the same method.

[Escaping East Berlin in a 1961 BMW Isetta [via]. Short vid here.]