Monday Music "You don't want me" by Steel Breeze

I remembered hearing this group on MTV back in the early days when MTV played music video's.  I had forgotten this song until my Sirius/XM Played it and it jogged my memory.  Well I almost went with Johnny Horton "Sink the Bismark" but decided to roll with an 80's song.  I will probably go with Johnny Horton next week though. 

Steel Breeze is an American rock group that had a popular video on MTV with "You Don't Want Me Anymore" in 1982, followed by "Dreamin' is Easy" the following year.

Taking their name from a phrase in Pink Floyd's song, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", the six-member band from Sacramento, California comprised- in its "classic" lineup- of Ric Jacobs (vocals), Ken Goorabian and Waylin Carpenter (guitars), Rod Toner (keyboards), Vinnie Pantaleoni (bass guitar), and Barry Lowenthal (drums) released their self-titled debut album in 1982 on RCA Records. "You Don't Want Me Anymore," the first single from the album, quickly jumped into the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 supported by a video that was a favorite of early MTV, and peaked at #16. The next single, "Dreamin' Is Easy" also made it into the Top 40, but could not go higher than #30.

 

They had originally gotten together a few years earlier in a different lineup and had enjoyed some local success with "You Don't Want Me Anymore" with the hard work of manager John Wiseman, before catching the ear of producer Kim Fowley and attorney David Chatfield, who recorded the band's first album at Rusk studios in Hollywood and got Steel Breeze their recording contract with RCA. Casey Kasem, on the March 12, 1983 edition of American Top 40, describes how Fowley discovered Steel Breeze while going through approximately 1200 demo tapes that were about to be discarded by a local Hollywood night club, Madam Wongs. Chatfield and Fowley flew up to Sacramento and signed the band after Chrysalis Record executive Tom Trumbo told Chatfield he was looking for a band like Journey. Chatfield left Trumbo's office and went to Fowley's home where Fowley pulled out the Steel Breeze demo of "You Don't Want Me Anymore," which they both knew was a hit. 

 

The band's lineup has shifted considerably since the release of the debut album, with keyboardist Rod Toner remaining in the band the longest of anyone from the classic lineup days. In 1984, Steel Breeze (now with ex-707 vocalist Kevin Chalfant and keyboardist Loren Haas as members) released their second album, Heart On The Line on an independent record label, but the record went unnoticed despite guest appearances by Bruce Springsteen's saxophonist, Clarence Clemons and Santana's vocalist, Alex Ligertwood. Five years later, a third Steel Breeze album, Cry Thunder came out with Bobby Thompson on vocals, Rick Lowe and Robbie Bickford on guitar, Toner on keyboards and Paul Ojeda on drums. In 1991, Still Warrior was released with yet another lineup, just as Chalfant had a small hit with a similar act, The Storm. In 1994, Peace Of Mind was issued.

Google Retaliation....or Censorship..?

I check out a bunch of blogs every day or every couple of days and several of them all of a sudden are not functional.  They have the "Permission denied" unless I contact the blog owner and there is no link, or they are just "gone".   I am wondering if I need to start looking for another platform because there is a purge going one in blogger?   I blog because it is therapeutic and it allows me to concentrate the scattered neurons called my though pattern... Yes I am concerned...

    

Air Attack on the Bismark

I am taking a bit of a break from the stupidity going on from the Charlotteville stupidity and the resulting fallout.  I had watched a show on netflex last weekend and it was talking about finding the H.M.S Hood and it talked about the cruiser and the effect the sinking had on British Morale.  Well anyway the show also had them looking for the S.M.S Bismark.  They had touched about the Fairey Swordfish finding the Bismark and the torpedo attack that jammed the rudder and forced the Bismark back to the British ships that were trying to catch them.

The German battleship, Bismarck, was one of the biggest vessels ever built in the first half of the 20^th century. A marvel of advanced engineering and technology, it was the most powerful ship in the world – yet a single shot by an antiquated biplane took it down.
At 792’8” in length, and with a beam of 118’1”, it displaced 49,500 tons of water. It was also deadly with eight 15” SK C/34 guns in four twin turrets, twelve 5.9” L/55 guns, sixteen 4.1” L/65 guns, sixteen 1.5” L/83 guns, and twelve 0.79” anti-aircraft guns, as well as four Arado Ar 196 reconnaissance floatplanes.

Bismarck in 1940. Photo Credit.

Its function was to destroy Allied convoys in the Atlantic, the lifeblood of Britain. On the 18th of May 1941, it set off under Admiral Günther Lütjens and Commander Ernst Lindemann, accompanied by the light cruiser, Prinz Eugen. Three days later, they were spotted near Bergen, Norway.

The British sent out the HMS Hood. Launched in 1918, it measured 860’7” in length and 104’2” at the beam. It had been upgraded in 1939, but not enough. More had to be done, but the war’s outbreak forced the Hood to patrol Iceland and the Faroe Islands to keep the Germans at bay.

HMS Hood.

When first commissioned, it was the biggest and fastest warship in the world, securing Britain’s grip over her colonies. The Hood, therefore, represented the height of British technology, naval power, and imperial might – making it a beloved icon.
With it went the HMS Prince of Wales (PoW), which was more up-to-date. Unfortunately, the technology was so cutting-edge that much of it was untested. It had ten 14” guns, but eight were housed in malfunctioning turrets. The Royal Navy knew this, but the Bismarck’s sighting had forced their hand.
The Hood and the Bismarck were almost evenly matched. Both had eight 15” guns that could shoot 1,700-pound shells over 15 miles. But the Hood could only fire two shells a minute compared to the Bismarck’s three. The latter was also more heavily armored, while the Hood was less so because it was designed for speed.
The British tried to reach the Denmark Strait before the Germans so they could “cross the T” before them. This strategy requires positioning the length of one’s ship to the front of an enemy ship, since ships have more guns at their sides than they do at the front. The one who crosses the T can then fire more salvos than the one who gets crossed.

Aerial reconnaissance photo taken by Flying Officer Michael Suckling shows Bismarck anchored in Norway.

But the Hood and the PoW got there too late before dawn on May 24, so it was the Germans who crossed the British T off the western coast of Iceland. The Hood was sunk at a little past 6 AM and the PoW had to retreat after suffering extensive damage.
Before it did, however, it managed three solid hits – puncturing the Bismarck’s fuel tanks and flooding its front lower decks with seawater. So the Bismarck headed toward Nazi-occupied France for repairs and since the Prinz Eugen could do nothing more, it headed off toward the Atlantic. Despite the damage, the Bismarck was still heavily armed and the captain felt  confident about reaching France by dawn on May 27th.
Twenty-one British destroyers, thirteen cruisers, six battleships, and two aircraft carriers gave chase… but the German ship had vanished.
On May 26 at 10:30 AM, the Bismarck was found a mere 700 miles off the French coast. In another 500 miles, the sea and air would be filled with German ships and planes – so a British fleet closed in from the north, while another came in from the south.

Bismarck firing her main battery during the battle. Photo Credit.

At 7 PM, fifteen Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers took off from the HMS Ark Royal and split into three groups to attack. Lieutenant-Commander John “Jock” Moffat flew one of them. As he broke through the cloud cover, he was awed at the sight of the German behemoth.
The Swordfish plummeted at 115 miles per hour. The Bismarck desperately filled the air with flak, so the pilots dived even lower, hugging the water and hoping the ship’s guns couldn’t aim that low. In a worst case scenario, they might just survive a sea crash.

A Swordfish returns to Ark Royal after making the torpedo attack against the Bismarck.

At 2,000 yards, Moffat prepared to launch his only torpedo, when he heard a voice, “Not yet, Jock! Not yet!”
Moffat jerked and looked around. It was his Observer, Flight-Lieutenant JD “Dusty” Miller. The man was standing on the right wing with his butt in the air, head somewhere below the plane’s belly.
Moffat understood. The sea was rough. If his torpedo hit the crest of a wave, it could veer off course. Miller wanted to make sure it fell into a trough so their only weapon had a chance. But the longer they took, the greater their chances of getting hit.
“Let her go, Jock!”

The Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo bomber LS326 built in 1934. It has been refurbished and was photographed in flight on 1 July 2012. Photo Credit.

Moffat released his torpedo.
“We’ve got a runner!” Miller screamed.
The Bismarck turned left sharply – a mistake. The torpedo hit the left rear, tearing a hole through the hull and causing rivets to pop off the bulkhead. The ship’s twin rudders, angled for the turn, jammed. Power died, forcing the engineers to restart everything. Mechanics tried to fix the rudders, but too much water was rushing in.
With rudders stuck at 12° to port, the Bismarck turned around and headed back toward the British fleet. Within minutes, it was turning around in circles. Lütjens informed Berlin and vowed to die fighting.

Map showing the course of Bismarck and the ships that pursued her. Photo Credit.

The British showed no mercy. They surrounded the Bismarck, forcing it to fire in all directions. Unable to maneuver, it became a sitting duck and ran out of ammunition at 9:31 AM the next day. Despite the lack of return fire, the Royal Navy kept up their barrage till it sank at 10:39 AM.
They did try to rescue survivors, but a U-boat scare forced them to retreat with only 115 Germans (out of 2,092). The rest were left to their fate. Germany only found out about the sinking from a News Network at around noon. By the time they reached the scene, only five more men were alive to be retrieved. But not Lütjens. He kept his word, as did Lindemann.
Thanks to an outdated biplane, the Bismarck’s only combat mission lasted a mere 215 hours. From that moment on, naval warfare changed forever. The plane was now as important as the ship in naval warfare.

HMS Dorsetshire picking up survivors.

My Take on what happened this weekend at charlotteville

Many of my blogger friend already had posted great articles about what happened, like Old NFO, Peter and Irish among many others have already posted a lot of good material.  All I can do is touch on what they have said and give my own thoughts.  I had to calm down for several days before I could put my thoughts on the computer.  Several days ago, it was a bunch of adjectives.
     President Trump is getting lambasted by both conservatives and liberals for blaming the fracas that happened this past weekend on both the Alt Left and the Alt right.  Man people lost their mind, they wanted  Trump to repudiate only the Alt right and give the Alt left a pass like they have been getting in the media for the past several years.  President Obama and his sycophantic media gave them a pass no matter what they did. 
     I did a post on the Antifa Movement last week and I had commented, "Don't estimate them".   I was correct.  I will be bouncing around like a ....

well anyway..
      The "unite the right" got played...bad,   they got maneuvered into what we call in the Army a "Killbox".  They had to permit to march and have a rally, the ACLU forced the city to grant them one. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) reports that Jason Kessler, the organizer of last Saturday’s white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, is rumored to be a former Occupy Wall Street activist and supporter of Barack Obama.
The left-wing SPLC is often partisan and overzealous in targeting hate groups, lumping legitimate conservative organizations together with actual extremists. Therefore its identification of Kessler’s left-wing roots is significant.
MORE
 Well the Antifa didn't have permission, but they showed up anyway.  Remember Antifa mission is to deny anybody whom they call "Nazi"s" their right to have rally and meet...well because they are "Nazi's".  Well anyway from what I had seen, the VSP(Virginia State Police) maneuvered the 2 groups together, so the Antifa people can use sticks, clubs and urine and shower the Alt-right with abuse and punishment.  Remember to the Antifa, Nazi's deserve bad things because they are bad people.  And speaking of the VSP, they took forever to break up the fighting, makes me wonder of they had orders from MacAuliffe(the governor and hardcore Clintonite) to drag their feet.  And finally when they forced the rally to close, they corralled the 2 groups together.  I honestly believe that the antifa had the tacit support of the .gov.  I believe that this is a warmup for the 2018 mid term election and the 2020 presidential election.  Remember the people that were attacked at Trump rally's, well it will be much worse in 2020 because all trump supporters are "Nazi's" and they deserve to get hurt, beaten, humiliated, and run off.  A lot of the big cities are run by democrats and the power blocks will assist the antifa and other alt-left groups to harass the people.  This is what happens to people that forget their history.  In the 1920 and the 1930's the brownshirts attacked other political rally's to runoff the supporters of the other candidates.
    Speaking of forgetting their history, the same people that brought the antifa and the BLM have made a concerted run on anything confederate, from statues, plaques, and I read somewere that some people tried to dig up General Forrest remains to desecrate them.  It is funny how things are working,when cops are shot by BLM supporters, there is a concerted effort to hush any stray thought and push the narrative.  I have never heard President Obama denounce the BLM or the antifa groups while he was president.  But all these people are expecting Trump to denounce the alt-right.  President Trump blamed both sides and people lost their mind.  What the hell? 
     And the dumb bastard that drove his car into the crowd, well here is a link that shows that his car was attacked and he acted out of fear and drove the car into the crowd to get away.  the problem is that he is already tried in the court of public opinion and I doubt that he will get a fair trial. 
      Here in Georgia, there is a female "women of color" that is running for governor named Stacy Adams, well apparently she is making a push to have the image on Stone Mountain sandblasted off...

This is the same women who had her supporters heckle her fellow democratic opponent at the netroots convention in Atlanta last week

And nobody called her on it.   Democrats are totally ate up with identity politics and wonder why they are having problems connecting with the average voter.  And the GOP ain't doing any better, they are so afraid of their shadow, they spend more time kissing up to the media and the democrats rather than work the agenda that we elected them to do.

I am seeing on the news that so many congresscritters are bailing on Trump, they are more concerned about keeping their spot in the trough so they can live large rather than doing what the voters have asked them to do and elected them to do.  With democrats, they are very monolothic, the establishment GOP have no loyalty.

Monday Music "North to Alaska" by Johnny Horton

   I decided to continue with the Johnny Horton with my Monday Music.  Besides the "Battle of New Orleans" post I did last week, he also did a couple of other songs, I will probably do "sink the Bismark" next week.   I remembered hearing this song as it was played on my dads record player.

"North to Alaska" is a 1960 hit song recorded by Johnny Horton which featured in the movie of the same name. Though Horton had sung several popular movie tie-in songs, this was the first one that was sung over the opening titles.
Written by Mike Phillips, "North to Alaska" topped Billboard magazine's Country Singles chart, reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and eight on Norway Singles Chart. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
Horton died in an automobile accident shortly after the song was released.

North to Alaska is a 1960 comedic Western/Northern film directed by Henry Hathaway and John Wayne (uncredited). The picture stars Wayne along with Stewart Granger, Ernie Kovacs, Fabian, and Capucine. The script is based on the play Birthday Gift by Ladislas Fodor and set during the Nome gold rush.

The movie featured Johnny Horton's song "North to Alaska", sung during the opening titles, setting up an introduction to the story.

Are we not enertained.........?

I clipped this off Brad Torgersen's facebook page.  I don't know whether to be pissed about the post or agree with the Post. 

On average, the United States racks up between 10,000 and 15,000 homicides a year.

Which ones make the news, depends entirely on what kind of narrative the news feels like pushing.
Example: you will seldom see the national media running breathless front-page reports about black teenagers killing black teenagers in Democrat-controlled Chicago. That's not news. That's business as usual. Boring. And not conducive to the kind of narrative the media are eager to shape.

This is a big reason why I am trying (and failing, but still trying harder anyway) to switch off the media in my daily experience. Because they are manipulators. Death and blood sell. Especially if it's death and blood which can be tied to hot-button hobbyhorse topics about which the media are forever obsessed anyway.

So, when some idiot clown plows his vehicle into a crowd of other idiot clowns, during an event which seems to be nothing but an all-hands All-Clowns-Day, the media—who drive the clown car—are right in the middle of it. Shaping perception. Ensuring that the line between commentary and fact, is blurred into the dust. Pinning tails on various donkeys, cough, I mean, elephants.

And here's the sick part: the media DO NOT CARE WHO GETS HURT. Just as long as it's not one of their own. They will happily stand and film—cameras held high—while other people suffer. Then jam a mic into the victim's face and yell, "TELL US, PLEASE, HOW HAS THE PRESIDENT LED US TO THIS DARK PLACE IN AMERICAN HISTORY?"

Because to the media, it's just entertainment. Click-bait. Fodder to fill days and weeks of infomasturbatorial editorializing. They love this stuff. It is their favorite thing in the world.
We, the proles, mean NOTHING to these people. They are ruling class. We are not. They don't care when we die, unless our deaths can be used to push an agenda.

We might as well all be participants in our own gladiatorial arena, with the media up in their many-thousands-of-dollars secure skybox, aiming their thumbs up, or their thumbs down.