Afternoon folks!

This week we're starting off with a late 60's album from James Cotton, when apparently his producer was going for a jazzier sound. After that there's a live album of Stax artists performing at the Apollo Theater (I think in 1964) including Otis Redding, Rufus Thomas and Ben E. King.

We've got a bunch of blues-rock with Delaney & Bonnie with Eric Clapton (I think that the gods of copyright blocked the last tune, a nice Little Richard medley), followed by Steppenwolf's first throwing in the towel album (Rest In Peace), followed by Dr. Feelgood's first album.

Then there's a hard to classify album by Tom Ball and Kenny Sultan, respectively a very talented harmonica player and a very talented acoustic guitarist.

We finish off this week's bounty with some Oakland soul from Tower of Power.

Enjoy!

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso

Only 4 hours late. not a great start to the day.

The pattern of taking over societies, nations, tribes and loosely structured groups over the centuries has not changed dramatically. The technological tools have changed. One of the essential elements has been ignorance of the pattern by the targeted group.With the current level of information technology around the world it is harder to find naive populations to exploit with the simple concept of trust us we are only here to help you.

Soldiers of fortune were an essential part of Europe's success of taking to the seas to build worldwide empires.

Happy Friday everyone. I hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

Last Saturday I drove up to Mount Palomar and toured Palomar Observatory. The observatory sits at about 5600ft elevation and has 4 telescopes, 18-inch, 48-inch, 60-inch and 200-inch. All but the 18-inch are still in use today. It's amazing how large a 200-inch telescope is. It makes my 6-inch Celestron telescope look like a child's toy.
The weather was beautiful, the drive in the mountains was enjoyable and the tour was informative. All in all a very good day.

Here's a few links that can explain things better than I can.
https://sites.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/about/history.html
https://sites.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/about/telescopes.html

The seal was safely released back into its familiar environment.

Gotterdammerung -- It's Not Just For Germans Any More

From another message board at the start of the end of the world:
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Definition of Götterdämmerung
: a collapse (as of a society or regime) marked by catastrophic violence and disorder
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Pizza? At Pompeii?

Archaeologists at Pompeii have uncovered a wall painting which seems to show a pizza, or something like a pizza; a pizza precursor, pre-pizza, or maybe a pizza-oid type of entity. The pizza, foccaccia or bread in the image doesn't have tomato sauce on it, of course. Tomatoes are a new world fruit/vegetable and weren't brought Europe until the 15 or 1600s at the earliest and the first evidence of their being used in cooking in Italy wasn't until the late 1600s. But still... It's bread, with a topping of maybe fruit and/or vegetables, and/or pesto, and spices and it sure looks like pizza!

Pizza at Pompeii, from the BBC article linked below