Happy Bastille Day!

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On this date, in 1789. members of the newly-formed National Constituent Assembly stormed the Bastille, a prison, which also contained weapons and ammunition. An effort with motivations similar to those of the raid on the Harper's Ferry Arsenal by John Brown sixty years later.

Exactly a century ago, Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was born in Okemah Oklahoma.
Check out the sticker on his git-tar.

His best-known song, the inclusive and patriotic This Land is Your Land was written as a fuck-you to the sappy and complacent America the Beautiful by Irving Berlin.
That alone is enough to redeem him for the blatant rip-off of the tune from the Hobo folksong, Wabash Cannonball (used in Grand Coulee Dam).

Besides, the hobos probably nicked the tune from somewhere else as well.

And since he died when he was only fifty-three, we'll also forgive him for Arlo.



"I don't want a pickle

I just want to ride on my motor-sickle...

And I don't wanta die

I just want to ride on my motor-sy."



Motorcycle Song 

By Arlo Guthrie.





My point, such as it is, is made.



Also, on this date, only fifty years hence, the members of the World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band were recovering from the hangover occasioned by the drunk that was intended to kill the hangover resulting from the earlier drunk which followed their first gig: at he Marquee Club in London.

I'm reaching on the dates. Deal with it.

The world's greatest rock and roll band is/was/and ever shall be the Rolling Stones for those slow on the uptake.



1881, Par Garrett killed William Bonney.



Richard Speck killed eight nursing students in Chicago on 7/14/66.



Harry Dean Stanton was born in 1926.

Best Harry Dean quote:



"Repo man's life is always intense"



We've been all over the map vis-a-vis timeline.

We have, like Billy Pilgrim before us, "...come unstuck in time."

Bonus (meaningless) points for any getting that reference.



In 1959, on this date the, USS Long Beach was launched.

One could say that she was in a class by herself which was indeed the case.

She was the last cruiser built on the traditional, cruiser hull.

She was nuclear-powered.

She was also designed to be an "all-missile" ship; later amended, at Pres, Kennedy's suggestion, to include some five-inchers.

I saw her more than a few times at Subic Bay.

A weird-looking boat to be sure.

Here's the beauty part:

She's up for grabs.

As scrap, on a per-pound basis. The nukes are long since gone as is most of the superstructure but, you can pick her up!

Just go here.

She's set up for conversion to... big-ass cabin-cruiser, bitchin' cool party boat.

You name it.

Remember: Marion Michael Morrison used a converted mine-sweeper as his private yacht.

And she may look a little rough but, think of her as a blank canvas.

Go nuts.