Jimmy Stewart western, still shot from

The Man From Laramie (1955)

The film, which one critic called a “brilliant psychological western reminiscent of Shakespeare’s King Lear.”

 This one did not make the cut:

This one did, 1966-1983

 SORELY MISSED

It is fitting here that McDonald's is in the shadow of the mighty Giant Burger from Andre's

 The Great Gary Paxton

 The Best Box Set Ever

 The Maddox Brothers and Rose had nothing on Buck and the Buckaroos when it came to costuming, as evidenced here.

Photo thanks to Eileen Sisk sending

 

Ad from trade publication, Cash Box, 1974

 

My daughter's home in California's San Diego County, built on a huge lot near the ocean. If she were to sell, and she does not intend to do so, it is valued a few dollars short of 1 million.

Merle is pictured here with one of his Toy Fox Terriers. His dog "Tuffy" is memorialized with an abalone inlay in the headstock of the Fender Custom Shop Merle Haggard Signature Tribute "Tuff Dog" Telecaster guitar.

Jim Marshall photo

 GAWD! I love this movie!

 

1956 Bakersfield map

You've come a long way, Baky

 

CONWAY TWITTY'S 1957 STUDEBAKER GOLDEN HAWK

 

Ted Forse's Funny Farm beer joint. Harold Cox led the house band for years. 

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King Louie brand, medium size.

 
1941 baseball magazine

1941 baseball magazine. Many such baseball magazines have come and went over the years

The leader was The Sporting News. It was all baseball. It was. 

After many years, SN, first published in 1887, added other sports and regular baseball fans and readers protested mightily. Readers slowly accepted.

The Sporting News dropped its print issues in 2012 and went digital. 

I believe that is Stan Hack on the cover

 

This was the motel owned by Roy Gabe in the mid-1960s. It was located in Argus, but we referred to the entire area as Trona, where the large American Potash chemical plant stood. Roy, though, worked at the smaller plant, Stauffer Chemical, in Westend where he was a shipping department foreman.

be's motel in the mid-1960s

 1976 Newsmaker

 GOOD RIDDANCE, THE CRAZY LIBS AND WOKETOPIA

Hi, this is Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning. My name is Sasha Stone. A farewell address to a woketopia gone wrong, and not a moment too soon. Joe Biden said goodbye. He wanted to mirror Eisenhower, who once warned of the military-industrial complex. But Biden saw something equally alarming, the big tech oligarchy.

.

0:28

He sees Zuckerberg and Bezos attending Trump's inaugural. He greatly fears the power of Elon Musk. He realizes that his side lost control of it, and now he wants all of us to be afraid. Well, I'm sorry, Joe. I can't play that game anymore. It's time to say goodbye. Goodbye.

0:53

farewell joe Biden farewell democrats farewell hysteria farewell to mandated preferred pronouns in everyone's bio farewell to being forced to lie about whether or not masks work farewell to not being allowed to give people the benefit of the doubt farewell to being too afraid to ask questions about an experimental vaccine

1:17

farewell to critical race and gender theory in elementary schools Farewell to the ruling oligarchy. Yes, Joe, you were the front man for it. You can't fool me. I was part of it too. It was like a daisy chain of paper dolls. Hollywood, all major corporate and cultural institutions, big pharma,

1:37

and all of the ads they pumped into the veins of Americans that showcased the American utopia in all of its splendor. Just take this pill and you too can be with us in the happy place. farewell to a government censoring speech via social media, farewell to the absence of masculinity,

1:57

farewell to worrying about every word that comes out of our mouths, what we drive, what we wear on Halloween, what we buy, what we eat, what we watch, what we desire. Farewell to being made to hate ourselves and everything we know to be true but can't say out loud.

2:13

Farewell to being the oppressors and the oppressed, defined only by the color of our skin. Farewell to hating our history, hating our country, hating our heroes. Farewell to virtue signaling our goodness. Farewell to always being told that it's better to keep your head down and say nothing about any of it.

2:35

Farewell to never being able to take a joke. Farewell to seeing problematic content in every movie and farewell to the warning labels now affixed to all of them. Farewell to seeing all men as predators and all women as victims. Farewell to a country ruled by fear because our leaders can't see it any other way.

2:56

Farewell to a president who called half the country ultra-fascists, ultra-MAGA, and extreme MAGA Republicans. Farewell to a government that believes its biggest threat comes from the people of the United States. Farewell to life inside the doomsday cult, where every single day is the end of the world.

3:15

Farewell to every word taken literally and seen as another chapter of Mein Kampf. Farewell to repression and sanctimony. Farewell to the long, dark winter. Farewell to lawn signs. Farewell to pretending Kamala Harris wasn't a terrible candidate installed by the deep state. Farewell to ever having to worry about speaking the truth. Farewell to the unshakable hopelessness,

3:41

the unending sadness, the mourning of the long-forgotten old left. It's never coming back. Everything has to be rebuilt. Welcome to the beginning of the rest of your life. At least now you can have a life. Bringing it all back home. Watching the confirmation hearings brought it all back. Adam Schiff was still out of his mind,

4:07

braying like he's Cotton Mather and the Oyer in Salem; demanding Pam Bondi say Joe Biden won the election. Why did it matter so much to him? Are there really that many Americans out there who need to hear those words said out loud? The nominee's worth depended on whether or not they would stand up to the tyrant,

4:26

fascist, rapist, racist dictator that they impeached twice, indicted four times, convicted on a bogus felony charge, and all of which eventually landed in the fevered dreams of a washed-up surfer hippie from Hawaii who got himself a gun and tried to kill the president to save democracy? And they still lost.

4:48

They lost the Electoral College, and they lost the popular vote. I never get tired of saying that. Talk about owning the libs. What can we do except quote Marlon Brando in A Streetcar in Desire?

5:00

You hear me?

5:07

That's how much America hates them. After all, how hard could it possibly be to beat Hitler? The problem with utopias is they can't last. They either must become more authoritarian and thus less utopian, or they collapse. By the end of our utopia, anyone we knew could be one of those things. A bad person, a sexist, a racist,

5:32

a homophobe, a bigot, a transphobe, toxic masculinity, white feminism. Everyone was either an abuser or a victim. The weaker we were, the more we were celebrated. We'd snuffed out all independent thought. We were under constant surveillance by the government, advertisers, AI, algorithms, and each other. We began to wonder what real life even was anymore.

5:59

It was like Winston and Julia in 1984 trying to carve out some love and lust from the dystopia under Big Brother's ever-watchful gaze, with children spies at the ready to tattle and cancel those who break the rules. So if you say Joe Biden won the 2020 election like you say 2 plus 2 equals 5,

6:19

then democracy might have a chance. But if you dare think for yourself and you start looking behind closed doors and see things you aren't supposed to see, well, now you threaten democracy. When I pushed open the door of the doomsday bunker and I escaped, I knew there was no going back.

6:39

I also knew I couldn't save anyone, much less the once great culture I used to love. There is no saving whatever it is we used to call the left. There is only saving America from what it had become so that all of us can at least have a fighting chance. No, it won't be perfect.

6:59

Yes, it might be chaos. Entertaining chaos. But chaos, all the same. We'll have to learn how to tolerate each other again. Live together somehow and learn this new way of life suddenly foisted upon us with the internet. Because now we know what it looks like to shut ourselves off from people and ideas we cannot control.

7:20

If the Democrats on blue sky and in the Senate confirmation hearings are any indication, nothing much has changed on the inside. They're still transfixed by the one guy they couldn't cancel. The one guy they couldn't destroy. 1984 Part 2. Quote, if there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there and those swarming disregarded masses,

7:46

85% of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the party ever be generated. The party could not be overthrown from within. Its enemies, if it had any enemies, had no way of coming together or even identifying one another. Even if the legendary brotherhood existed, as just possibly it might,

8:08

it was inconceivable that its members could ever assemble in larger numbers than twos and threes. Rebellion meant a look in the eyes, an inflection of the voice, at most an occasional whispered word. But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire.

8:31

They need only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they choose, they could blow the party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely, sooner or later, it must occur to them to do it." George Orwell, 1984 And maybe now we're about to find out what happens in the sequel.

8:55

Does Big Brother find a way to regain power by destroying Elon Musk to retake X and make it Twitter again? Do those of us exiled and canceled remain on the outside? Does the New York Times beg Barry Weiss to come back? Or The Atlantic to throw themselves at the feet of Walter Kern? Or Rolling Stone magazine,

9:15

the crap rag it has become, offer Matt Taibbi millions to write for them again? Can those on the inside who have speciated with a whole new language and belief system learn to live with the unwashed masses again? Can they tolerate offensive speech? Can it all be one big happy dysfunctional family? On the inside,

9:39

the news that Carrie Underwood and the village people were playing at the inaugural birthed a fresh new crop of mass hysteria and rage. So, I'm guessing Saturday Night Live won't have Trump back anytime soon. The Oscars won't ask him to attend, and those who still believe they control this country will hold on to their

9:58

collapsing empire until ashes, ashes, it all falls down. I don't know, but it doesn't matter because today we say farewell. And oh, how sweet it is. Thank you for listening to my podcast, sashastone.substack.com. Don't forget to leave a review if you like the podcast. And remember to thine own self be true.

10:30

If I had wings Norah's dove, I'd fly up the river to the one I love Fare the well morning drizzling rain and, in my heart, I felt an aching pain Won't be long You'll call my name And I'll be gone Fairly well Oh honey Fair, fairly well

12:06

If I had wings like Nora's dove, I'd fly up the river to the one I love.