Been cleaning out our e-mails and came across this pic from a few years back when me and fellow Goodboys “The Funny Guy” and “Doggy Duval” crossed another item off of our “bucket list” and ponied up $500 smackers to play the golf course at Wynn Las Vegas.

Wish I could say it was a great time out there but my smile hides the fact I was suffering from food poisoning when I arrived in Vegas and was barely able to hold it together (literally!) while we worked our way around a very nice and difficult golf course. Of course, the question begs, “Was it worth $500?” Of course not, I don’t think any golf course is worth half a grand to play. But $500 in Vegas is not only not a lot of money when compared to elsewhere, but you can spend and lose a heckuva lot more dough-re-mi than $500 over four hours in Vegas engaging in a variety of other pursuits.

…If you know what I mean.

The 18th hole was particularly tough, but that waterfall fronting the 18th green looked especially nice against the Vegas backdrop. None of us played particularly well that day, but I’m glad we did it and the pic brings back some great memories. All of a sudden I wish I was there.

So it’s the 50th anniversary of the so-called “Summer of Love”. Me? I was too young to remember much about that summer except that “Impossible Dream” team, but this article in The Weekly Standard reminds me that, outside of some damned good music, the whole San Francisco – Haight/Ashbury thing was all pretty much bullshit.

Even a Beatle who saw it first-hand thought as much:

George Harrison and his wife visited San Francisco at the height of the Summer of Love. They wanted to see Haight-Ashbury. They walked the streets and quickly drew a crowd of flower children. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band had been released just weeks before and, as was said, blown minds the world over. And here was one of its creators come to bestow a Beatle blessing on the counterculture of the Haight. The perfect alignment of man and moment, prophet and place: The photos taken that day, writes the rock music historian Joel Selvin, “became the single most enduring image from the city in the Summer of Love.”

From behind Harrison’s famous heart-shaped sunglasses, however, things looked different from what he’d been reading in the press.

“I went there expecting it to be a brilliant place,” Harrison said years later, “with groovy gypsy people making works of art and paintings and carvings in little workshops. But it was full of horrible spotty drop-out kids on drugs. . . .

“I could only describe it as being like the Bowery: a lot of bums and drop-outs, many of them very young kids who’d dropped acid and come from all over America to this Mecca of LSD. It certainly showed me what was really happening in the drug culture. It wasn’t what I’d thought — spiritual awakenings and being artistic — it was like alcoholism, like any addiction.”

The Harrisons wandered toward the park. The crowd grew and pressed in. When Harrison declined a joint from one of the hippies, he sensed a rising air of menace. “You’re putting me down, man,” said the offended flower child. Harrison’s limo appeared and his party ducked in, headed for the airport to fly to L.A.

“That was a turning point for me,” Harrison said. “That’s when I went right off the whole drug cult.”

You look back at that time and it’s hard not to see that, outside of The Beatles, who were the real deal) everything else associated with “The Sixties” nothing like Scott MacKenzie’s tune would have you think. And, as that Weekly Standard article says, we’re still dealing with its aftermath in terms of the socio-political.

If you really want to think of “The Sixties” as a political movement, with the “Summer of Love” as its apex, while lots of sociologists mark its beginning with JFK’s assassination and its end with either Kent State or Richard Nixon’s resignation, it’s my view that the end of “The Sixties” finally came with Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump last November. Think about it: Hillary was really just another Sixties feminist running on the oh-so-high-minded ideals of that era: equality, fairness – all that bullshit crap. Heck, if you wanted to see what happened to the “Women’s Movement” of the “The Sixties” all you had to do was look at the people knocking on doors on her behalf – all older women who still believed the dream and the possibilities of the “Age of Aquarius”. Unfortunately (actually, fortunately for the country) people didn’t buy the message because they didn’t buy the messenger.

Old legends take a while to die hard, I guess.

As Paul Mirengoff notes in this Powerline blog piece, not everything that summer of 1967 was about love and peace. And it’s not as if the lessons of peace and love had much of an impact – if it had, you wouldn’t have had that most violent of years, 1968.

It’s reading stories like this that remind me just how much I’ll never travel to Mexico again, not even if it’s on a cruise ship. It wasn’t always that way: I remember our very first cruise back in 1988 when our ship was the first ship allowed to dock at Playa del Carmen following Hurricane Gilbert. It was like taking a step back in time – back then Playa del Carmen had just a few restaurants and a few storefront tourist shops. We walked all around the town after it got dark and I remember a few street lights and strands of brightly-colored party lights across a few intersections. Another cruise, had to be twenty years ago, we stopped in Cozumel. We rented a Jeep and drove all around the island, stopping at a bar on the beach where a thunderstorm was blowing up offshore, turning the sky an ominous deep blue-black against the gorgeous turquoise-colored water. We ended up getting lost but were still able to scramble our way back to the ship with a half hour to spare. On yet another cruise, working our way down Mexico’s Pacific coast, we took a school bus on a tour way up into the mountains on dirt roads into a village above Mazatlán. It was a great excursion, but even back then I couldn’t help wonder what would stop a gang of thugs from stopping the bus and ripping us all off. I guarantee you neither is anything I would try in this day and age!

Frank would be disappointed, but he was part of a by-gone era – one I’m grateful for having lived through. Nothing stays the same, it’s all going to hell.

A number of items while wondering when the rain is ever gonna stop in Texas:

Nothing like a natural calamity to bring folks together. The fact is, while the mainstream media loves to focus on what divides us in America, we American have much more in common and are always willing to lend a hand when needed.

Me? I spent Sunday following the commenters at Weather Underground in between chores. This comment came in Sunday night and is absolutely chilling:

The reservoir’s being released is going to displace close to 100 thousand likely. Bayou’s are going to rise another ten feet around Houston, and rain to the tune of two more feet is coming for Houston. This disaster is only beginning to take shape. We have not by any means seen the worst to come yet. We could be looking at over a million people displaced for weeks or longer when this is said and done. The dire consequences yet to come can not be understated. This is by no means fear mongering, this is a heads up that this disaster is far from done and will get worse. Perhaps far worse.

Continued prayers and best wishes for all the folks in Texas. What’s going on there is truly unbelievable.

Last week it was Nancy Pelosi about crying “wolf” in a theater, this week it’s California senator and 2020 presidential hopeful Kamala Harris saying kids need to have a voice in how government works. Honestly, Democrats, is this the best you can come up with?

This is why anyone trying to predict a football team’s performance for the upcoming season ought to have their heads examined. Injuries are more a part of life in the NFL than any other sport; it’s as much about attrition as it is about talent. Sure, the Pat will probably be OK, but Julian Edelman was a very talented player and important cog in the Pats offense. How they adapt will be interesting to watch. It’s an opportunity for someone, that’s for sure!

Mmmmmmmmmm… summer and fried clams: a pair that will beat any full house. Personally, I think Markey’s in Seabrook is worth a nod.

True: “White supremacist” has become a catch-all epithet for anyone the Democrats don’t like.” But that’s what anyone should expect from Democrats these days – when you’ve run out of ideas, all that’s left is the race card. Problem for them is, most Americans recognize bullshit when they see it. Which is why millions of blue-collar Democrats voted for Trump and will again in 2020.

Save the sharks, kill the humans. It’s the latter that are screwing up the earth.

OK, it’s painfully obvious that while the Red Sox are undoubtedly a talented team, they’re pathetically weak when it comes to baseball fundamentals. Their base-running sucks, and there are way too many cut-off throws that don’t go the right base. You can get away with miscues like that during the regular season, but it will come back to haunt them in the playoffs. And that you can lay on the doorstep of manager John Farrell.

Chelsea Clinton is a dimwit. Jeepers, hasn’t anyone taught her about the use of quotation marks?

A few thoughts while offering up prayers for the folks in Texas:

Joe Bastardi at Weatherbell.com is still saying Harvey is going to circle back around and make a second hit on the Texas-Louisiana border next week. This could truly be a once-in-a-lifetime storm.

…but don’t get me started on the idea Harvey is the result of climate change. But mark my words: you’ll get any number of so-called experts blaming Trump for everything, because he dropped the U.S. out of the Paris climate change accord. As if committing billions of dollars to some third-world, tin pot dictatorship in Africa would make a difference.

The back story behind a very cool song and performance.

So what if John Farrell is a lousy manager, the Red Sox are a hot team right now, right? Maybe so, but his continually-poor in-game managing will cost them in the playoffs.

Good for President Trump. This is about right:

Arpaio was accused by the Obama Justice Department and other left-wingers of targeting Hispanics. Indeed, the legal case that led to his conviction arose from claims of racial profiling. But in Maricopa County, the illegal immigrant population is overwhelmingly Hispanic. Had the County been plagued by mass illegal immigration by Koreans, chances are Sheriff Joe would have targeted Asians. And he would have been right to do so. Sheriffs shouldn’t be expected to check their common sense at the door.

The libs will go crazy over his pardoning Sheriff Joe, but at least he wasn’t a traitor or a terrorist. Sheriff Joe was a controversial figure, but you could never say that he wasn’t doing his job. I miss his annual Father’s Day roundups of deadbeat dads.

There is no other way to put it: Hillary Clinton is a pathetic loser. Thank God she never became president.

David Bowie was wrong when he sang, “We can be heroes”. Truth is, not all of us can. But these men were.

Mark my words: when all is said and done it will be revealed that everything associated with the Charlottesville protest-melee-riot will be revealed as a highly-orchestrated plan to humiliate the conservative right that went awry. I don’t think anyone expected things to get as out of hand as they did, and now the lawsuits will be flying, as well they should. There was no excuse for what happened, but Virginia governor Terry MacAuliffe made sure plenty of leftists got a free shot at the alt-right protestors, and the truth is all starting to come out. When fingers start getting pointed, you know is jig is just about up.

So when Guitar Aficionado magazine asked George Harrison to select his favorite guitar solo ever, and he picked this. Maybe George was just having a laugh of it, but it got me thinking, and I don’t think you can beat either of these: the snarling solo he played during the album version of Let It Be, the melodic, virtuoso part during “The End” (George’s part is the second four-bar piece sandwiched between Paul and John’s), “Marwa Blues”, from his posthumously-released Brainwashed, and my all-time favorite performance of his, the outro in “Cheer Down”. But you can also hear George’s deft touch on Badfinger’s “Day After Day” and two cuts from Lennon’s 1971 album Imagine: “How Do You Sleep” and “Gimme Some Truth”. As the years have gone by Harrison’s star has done nothing but shine more brightly as folks discover just how gifted and (in the case of his Beatles years) how underrated he was as a guitarist and musician.

A first-hand account of President Trump’s Phoenix rally this past Tuesday. Just goes to show when law enforcement is done smartly people have the freedom to express their views as long as they don’t get stupid.

That’s right, Democrats – this is what your Party leadership in Washington sounds like.

It was two weekends ago while watching the PGA Championship that I felt it: the first itch to get back out there and start hitting balls. And that itch only got a little bigger while watching the ladies compete for the Solheim Cup last weekend. I was actually thinking about hitting balls this weekend, but the temps are going to be back up around 110, and the spirit is just not willing enough to have to lube up with sunscreen in order to do it. Instead I’ll work on hose organizing in air-conditioned comfort!

But the feeling is there, and I’ve already started figuring out what I want to work on when I get back out there. I’ve had enough time since Goodboys Invitational weekend to reflect back on my play that weekend, and I have to say that, unlike other years where if I played kind of well I wasn’t exactly sure why I did and when I didn’t I wasn’t able to diagnose the reasons why, this year all the work I put in the two months prior made a huge difference. Could I have played better? Sure. But there were times both Saturday and Sunday where, unlike in the past I would fold my tent and collapse after hitting a rough stretch, this year I was largely able to work my way through them. I made some mistakes managing my way around on both days, but I feel I struck the ball better than I had at any Goodboys Invitational weekend before. So I’ve got a good place to start from.

Of course, what lost it for our team (“Skeeta” Clark and me) was my putting, which was as atrocious throughout the weekend as it has been throughout the year. We finished second by five strokes; I three-putt six greens on Sunday and four-putt another. As they say, do the math. I’m not exactly sure why my putting has gotten so bad, but I’m very certain about not being willing to work on it. Sure, I could traipse over to the Kokopelli Golf Club putting green ten minutes from my house and practice putting for an hour every day for the rest of my life, but every golf course has different greens and different speeds, so I’m not sure what exactly that would get me.

Much more important in my view is trying to get my 5-wood and my 3- and 4-hybrids figured out. Those are the clubs that on par 5s and long par 4s can get me closer to approach shot range, and with shorter irons. I think I’ll give them one more try at the range and if they still don’t cooperate I’ll send up a flare to my swing instructor Alex Black and see if he can diagnose what’s going on. And, of course, I need to improve my short iron play. While I hit a number of good shots from 120 yards out during Goodboys weekend, I know that’s an area that could still see some improvement. Because, going forward it’s all about hitting fairways and greens, and greens in regulation.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my goal over the next year is to try and lop six strokes off my handicap so that I’m somewhere around an 18 by next year’s Goodboys Invitational. Hitting more greens in regulation would take the pressure off of my short game and putter, so making better swings with the 5-wood, hybrids, and short irons could (emphasis on “could”) take the pressure off my putter and allow me to post better scores.

Not sure exactly when I’ll get back out there again, but hopefully it will be soon because the itch is back.

In my view ESPN ceased to be an entertaining sports channel a long time ago, but yeah.

…just like the Weather Channel ceased to be an entertaining source for weather when they started doing global warming specials and naming winter storms dopey names just because they spewed a little snow and ice.

Have to agree with this. I wish Golf Channel would focus on the ladies a bit more and the seniors and the Web.com Tour a little less. The golf is more fun to watch, and in the case of the Web.com Tour, if I wanted to watch a bunch of soulless, colorless, mindless robots I’d just watch CNN and MSNBC all the time.

Go ahead and wear your MAGA hat with pride. Here’s the money line:

The people filled with hate are not the ones in MAGA hats, but the ones screaming at people for wearing them.

Yeppers on that.

Shark 1, poor seal, 0. Of course, these terrified swimmers probably stopped at a burger joint on their way home.

Not that I trust the polls, but I’m guessing this is on the low side. Can you imagine what would happen if the mainstream media at least tried to at least give the President a chance? Even after nearly a year’s time they still haven’t come to terms with just how badly they, their fellow Beltway elitists, and the pollsters all got the 2016 election so wrong. And now they’re all pissy and indignant and lashing out at everyone and anyone like a bunch of spoiled children. They’ve tried everything they can think of with Trump: sexism, his taxes, Russia and now racism, and nothing sticks to him. So the next target will be the very people who hold them in such low regard: Republicans and conservatives. Good luck with that.

This will be the year that folks will look at on as the end of the Democratic Party as a governing force. They’ve got nothing left in the tank, idea-wise. Their party has been taken over by a bunch of radical, leftist kooks and they stand by and do nothing. And they deserve everything that’s coming to them in 2018.

That was quite a trade the Celtics pulled off. Would have loved to hear the sports radio channels in Boston yesterday! I don’t follow a lot of basketball, but it seems to me they got equal, if not better, talent as far as Irving vs. Thomas goes, and if they weren’t committed to giving Thomas a monster contract when he becomes a free agent next year, better to take advantage of Irving’s situation in Cleveland and make the hard decision now. Just like I trust Bill Belichick from afar, so do I Danny Ainge.

Finally, my pic of the day:

Honestly, folks, you can’t make this stuff up! Thank God the weekend’s almost here. You know something? I might just make some time for hitting a bucket of balls.

I work from home and its just me and the rabbits, so after Tracey trudges off to work and the beasties have been fed the big question of the day is what kind of music to put on. It’s morning, so I’m just looking for a way to be coaxed into the day without anything I have to concentrate on too much since I’m in problem-solving and trouble-shooting mode. Classical is an obvious choice, but listening to WCRI (southeastern Connecticut / Rhode Island) and KBAQ here in Phoenix over the internet, well, it’s amazing how much stuff you hear over and over. Besides, they don’t play enough Boccherini for my tastes – I wonder what they have against the cello! Sometimes I’ll mix it up with music from my Hawaiian music collection, but even that can perk up my interest if something I really like comes on and it will distract me from my work. So I’ve been thinking about some natural music – music that combines the sounds of nature with acoustic instruments – and thus decided to put together my latest collection: “Natural Spa”.

The source of this collection is a series of offerings out on Amazon Digital Music under a series called the National Park Collection, featuring musicians that are no slouches in their own right: Tim Heintz, Dan Higgins, Grant Geissman, Melissa Hasin, and Dan Goldblatt, among others (they all have web pages, you can look them up). But it’s the kind of music I imagine hearing when I walk into the Spa at Wynn Las Vegas after a round of golf (always a good memory!).

Maybe it’s just that I’m getting too old for what’s going on in this country and around the world, but music for me has always been a place of refuge, a sanctuary where I can leave the world behind and retreat into another place. It could be my past, it could be a place back in time or a state of mind to what Jimmy Buffett created in “Margaritaville”, but it’s vital to my health and well being – as important as the air I breathe and the water I drink, and now more than ever. I thank my parents for giving me the love for music – my mom (may she rest in peace) and dad were always humming a tune when she’d be doing stuff around the house; I do the same thing (I think it drives Tracey crazy). In this day and age, I swear my music (and my wine) is the only thing that keeps me sane.

One thing I will just never understand is music that is discordant and angry. Sure, back in the late ’60s and early ’70s there was protest music, but listening to The Beatles’ “Revolution” or some of the psychedelic music of the time sounds like Beethoven compared to some of the rap and hip-hop you hear played at deafening levels in cars passing by you. Notice I said “some”, not “all” – I’m no prude, I just think music ought to be an instrument that brings folks together in harmony, not discord.

But I digress.

Some of the selection in my “Natural Spa” collection have already appeared in my other collections. Two Sounds of Hawaii offerings add color and mellowness to my “Hawaiian Style” collection, and music from Sounds of the Caribbean and Sounds of the Everglades appear in my massive “Tropical Breezes” collection. It’s all great stuff, perfect for listening to as I dip into the corporate e-mail wondering what the workday will bring.

“Natural Spa” is just the latest addition to my burgeoning music collection. In addition to artist-specific collections like The Beatles, Beach Boys, The Sandals, Gordon Lightfoot and George Harrison, I now have:

* “Tropical Breezes” a massive collection bigger than Margaritaville itself, containing everything from Jimmy Buffett to Bob Marley to Antonio Carlos Jobim to Ibrahim Ferrer to Herb Alpert, with lots of steel drum and retro Cuban music and everything in between

* “Bayou Country” – All kinds of Louisiana-themed music including Cajun music and Delta blues

* “Exotica” – retro and modern Exotica, everything from Les Baxter and Martin Denny to the Tikiyaki Orchestra and the Waitiki 7

* “Zen Surf” – a massive collection featuring sixty years of surf music of any and all types from all over the world

* “Surfear Tranquilo” – a subset of “Zen Surf”, focusing on the more mellow stuff

* “Ragtime” – Scott Joplin and other ragtime artists

* “Palm Springs Lounge Lizard” – think “Rat Pack”-style music from the ’50s and ’60s, perfect for highballs, martinis, and manhattans out on the patio

* “Mood Indigo” – a subset of “Palm Springs Lounge Lizard, focusing on the more mellow stuff

* “Hawaiian Style” – all kinds of music by Hawaiian artists, old and new

All available for download from GreatWhiteShankMusic.com (now there’s a thought!) – just kidding!

I know I’ve got to get around to a ’50s “Doo-Wop” collection and “Mexican Restaurant”, featuring all kinds of (what else?) classical Mexican and mariachi music, but first I think I’ll be rebuilding my “Flower Power” collection of late ’60s / early ’70s stuff that got destroyed when all the stuff I had downloaded from another music site to create the original collection got destroyed when we suffered a hard drive crash a bunch of years ago. But that’s something I’ve got to get in the mood for – I have to wait until the spirit moves me!

So Solar Eclipse Madness is over for at least another seven years. Here in Phoenix, while we didn’t get a high percentage of coverage, it was still a very cool thing to watch. The sun stayed out throughout, and while it remained bright outside, everything took on kind of a hazy, eerie look. At its height I somehow was reminded of and played this very exotic and obscure Paul McCartney and Wings tune because it seemed to capture the mood perfectly.

…it’s hard to believe, but there actually was a time when Paul McCartney created some truly outstanding rock. “Junior’s Farm”, “Give Ireland Back To The Irish”, and “Hi Hi Hi” were exciting 45s. As for his albums, Ram, featuring the smoldering, raucous “Smile Away” (1971) was probably his best, but Wild Life (1972), Red Rose Speedway (1973), and Band On The Run, featuring the rocker “Jet” (1974) were also quite good. Of course, with McCartney you always had to sift through mushy, cloying love tunes, but they weren’t always embarrassing: “Maybe I’m Amazed” has a surprising ensemble-like, Beatle-esque sound, “Tomorrow” from Wild Life is saved by a rockin’ tag, and “Little Lamb Dragonfly” from RRS is lovely, with a lush, shimmering arrangement. But he lost me with Venus and Mars (1975) and the insipid “Listen To What The Man Said”, and it only got worse from there. By that time I had discovered The Beach Boys and re-discovered surf music and I never went back.

Very cool and not-so-cool: Oval offices through the years.

I guess lots of folks are rightly split over President Trump’s Afghanistan speech last night. Like a lot of people – on both sides of the political aisle, I’m guessing – my first impulse is that should get the hell out of there and leave it to whatever future awaits. But I get what the Prez is saying: if we leave, the country becomes an even greater haven for terrorists (which it would) and a further destabilizing force in an already-unstable region of the world. But if we’re gonna stay there, I like his approach using Pakistan as a wedge against the Taliban in Afghanistan (just as he’s trying to use China as a wedge against the nuclear aspirations of North Korea); if, in a year’s time, a lot of Taliban are dead and terrorists come to realize neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan offer a safe haven for their radical ideologies and terror-related goals that would be a very good thing. We’ll see.

And while we’re on the subject of terror: no, I won’t be attending the President’s rally in Phoenix tonight. Would like to, but I don’t feel getting punched and crap thrown at me by the leftist loons that you can bet will be out in force. I know that’s giving in to the mob, but I just don’t need the hassle. It could very well be a bad scene. Of course, you can bet the mainstream media and cable networks will skip the rally and cover only the protests and protesters, which only serves to feed the beast’s appetite for attention and violence even more. Modern-day so-called “journalism” is a disgrace.

I knew it. I knew it. Told y’all a while back David Price wouldn’t pitch again for the Sox this year, and I’m sticking by it. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m betting he’ll still end up getting Tommy John surgery sometime in the near future. What a bad signing…

…and speaking of the Sox, I watched last night’s Cleveland game on the MLB Network and knew – just knew – as soon as John Farrell brought in Matt Barnes to start the eighth inning the game was over. What Farrell sees in that guy is beyond me. I realize you need to use everyone in the bullpen over the course of a season, but I thought they brought that Mets guy in at the trading deadline for situations just like this, and where was he? I know Barnes (and Joe Kelly, for that matter) have had their moments, but I would never, ever put them into situations where you have to throw strikes right off the bat because neither of these guys do. What a waste of a game after a great comeback.

In honor of today’s totally racist solar eclipse (even though here in Phoenix we’re not going to see much, if any, of it), I give you the best song ever associated with the word eclipse. No, it’s not Bonnie Tyler’s abysmal “Total Eclipse of the Heart” (a truly awful record!). And it’s not Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” (a fine tune back when she could sing edgy pop). It’s not even Iron Maiden’s “Total Eclipse”, which is actually pretty good.

No, compadres, the ultimate winner winner chicken dinner has to go to Pink Floyd – turn it up! For a truly cool live version check this out (skip to 3:45).

“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and all of us nothing more than the imagination of ourselves. And now, here’s Tom Aiszen with today’s weather.” (Hat tip: Marlyn)