Afternoon folks!

This week we've got albums from Chicago blues guys Lil' Ed and the Imperials and Johnny Littlejohn. There's blues-rock from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers (with Mick Taylor), Johnny Winter and most of a Steppenwolf album (the gods of copyright were not entirely pleased). Following that we've got the country-ish stylings of Leon Russell, a bluesy/jazzy collection of songs from Phil Alvin, some great 50's guitar music from Santo & Johnny and we finish up with an album of Trinidadian steel pan music from Boogsie Sharpe.

Enjoy and have a great weekend!

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

A few highlights from the international news this week.

Once upon a time, when I was a teen, some school teachers and rich students went to the USSR. My parents could not afford for me to go. I heard how the KGB followed them closely. The food was hideous. If you flushed a commode in room 231 in a 10 story hotel, every floor room of that 31 number, 431,531, 631, etc...flushed as well. So, nobody could sleep because of the flushing commode noise.

And about 6 years ago, I made that trip to Russia I had always, since a teen, wanted to make.

Let me start with my general impressions.

American tourists were treated like we were precious. I made forever friends with the guides.

An elderly guide taking us through a WWII military installation, a converted church to house soldiers, said this:" With our history, what we know is that we will accept reality and deal with it. What we hate is sudden change. We love consistency, even if it is very difficult."

I learned public drunkenness, the caricature Russian wobbling down the street full of vodka, is loathed. I actually saw one. Vodka is their pride, but for them, it is expensive, penalties for over doing it is great.

Religion was verboten, but now, Russians are militantly Christian, and tolerant of other faiths, because they finally got to practice theirs, let others know that freedom.

Moscow is nationalistic. St. Petersburg is European. Totally different atmospheres.

USSR is gone, Russia is capitalistic, no trace anywhere of communism. Part of Red Square that was under construction was that part where they took Stalin's tomb away, had to repair the floor.

Beets are easily pickled, as at example. Any food pickled will get people through the ferocious Russian winters. That elderly guide at the military facility stressed, "The real Soviet General that defeated the Germans in WWII is never mentioned. His name is General February."

We were a gang of 4, and we joined a tour group to travel from Moscow, down the Volga, ending the tour at St. Petersburg.

I am a strictly amateur photographer, and these were taken to trigger my memory.

Here we go down memory lane...

A nice picture from Red Square:

An Amazing Animal:

Recently, while going down a rabbit hole about current research into the origin and domestication of dogs (I will probably write about that later) I branched off a bit into researching hyenas and I learned about a very interesting type of hyena. It is called the aardwolf (and here's a bit from National Geographic about them) , which is, in itself, an intriguing name. It means 'earth wolf'. Aardwolves are native to south eastern Africa and live in the grass and scrublands there. They are about 20 (10-30 for outliers) lbs in weight, long, skinny, with a lovely thick tail. They are nocturnal.

from: https://animalia.bio/aardwolf#description

And...

written by Maggie Jackson

Albert wrote these words way back in the year of my birth. A lot has changed since that time.