Category: History

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The Major’s Friday Night Disco Party

While growing up as a kid of the 1970s and 1980s we had an ENORMOUS stereo system downstairs in our family room. I think that my Dad bought it while he was stationed in the Philippines during the mid-1960s. I think that it may have actually been custom-made. I do know this. It was HEAVY – several hundred pounds. If the insides of it had been gutted out and made hollow an adult version of me would have been able to lay down inside of it rather comfortably, and you could have stacked another 9 of me on top of me inside of it.

I don’t know how it got there (because of its MASSIVE size and weight), but it was there in our 1969-1972 apartment in Greenbelt Maryland, our 1972-1975 house in Bowie Maryland, our 1975-1980 house in Lanham Maryland, and our 1980-1996 house in McLean Virginia. It did NOT make the move to Jacksonville Florida when my family moved out of the Washington D.C. area.

The ENORMOUS stereo system had a really bad AM / FM radio with no antenna and no reception, but it had a rather decent record player. Down below it all were compartments that were chock-full (a couple hundred) of vinyl records from two distinct time-periods. Half of the albums were from the mid-to-late-1960s, and they were bought by my Dad overseas and stateside. The other half were albums from the late-1970s to early-1980s that I bought via the mail from the old Columbia Record Club.

Since Disco was King back then a large majority of these albums bought by me were from the genre. It was mainstream back when it was the hottest thing going in the entire free nation. Nowadays it’s looked upon in mostly negative ways, but it’s just so very easy to criticize something that’s past its prime, or run its course, or faded out into oblivion. You can’t deny that it’s a vital part of Americana.

The Village People – currently LIVE on tour here in South Florida – released a half a dozen albums during a short period of time from 1977 to 1980, and they were one of the hottest Disco groups around. I think that I had all of their biggest albums of the time. One of them – “Go West” – included this 1979 Disco smash:

The music video was shot aboard the USS Reasoner (FF-1063) which was owned and operated by the U.S. Navy from 1971 to 1993. It is now a Turkish ship.

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Thursday Night Mini Thoughts

– It’s time to get spontaneous here.
– I’m not even thinking before I begin typing.
– I’m just typing whatever flashes across my mind in the given moment.
– I think faster than I type.
– Once upon a time I could type faster than 60 words per minute.
– Then I got old.
– How old am I ?
– Kids getting their driver’s license today were born in 1993 when I was 26.
– If I were in charge then kids wouldn’t be getting driver’s licenses.
– I just got off of the telephone with one of my favourite people on this journey.
– Her name is Ela, and we’ve been walking together for the past 30 months.
– Ela keeps track of me and ensures that I don’t stray from this journey.
– I think that God gave her that as a task to do while she’s here on Earth.
– Ela will be here with us for awhile.
– She’s on ‘God’s Kingdom Expansion Crew’.
– I went to Publix today during my Lunch break.
– It’s my favourite and most-visited store in the entire universe.
– Dude I have a weakness for these morsels of delightfulness:

Entenmann's Glazed Pop'ems
Entenmann's Glazed Pop'ems

– Publix has them as ‘Buy 1 Get 1 Free’.
– That’s 2 boxes for the price of 1 – a $3.99 value !
– That’s about 72 Pop’ems for $3.99 – or barely more than a nickel per pop.
– I may have to nab a couple more boxes before the promotion ends next week.
– Incidentally I ate Lunch at Beef ‘O’ Brady’s this past Wednesday.
– I think I found the tastiest buffalo chicken wings in all of Homestead.
– Those wings were outrageously scrumptious !
– It was shocking how big and juicy and tasty they were indeed.
– I coulda sat there all afternoon eating them there wings.
– I know that’s right ‘G’ !
– I second that emotion !
– OK we’re goin’ to the Disco tomorrow night here on the groovy blog.
– The Village People are in town, so we’ll cruise back to 1979 to join the Navy.
– Until then keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars !
– Oh yeah – and keep your web browser tuned – right where it is.
– You won’t regret it pal.

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The Major’s Friday Night Disco Party

Guys – It’s time to grab that girl and hop aboard the “Love Train”. The next stop that we make – will be love. Don’t you know that it’s time to get on board ?

This weekend at the ‘Disco Party’ I’ve got The O’Jays out of Canton Ohio. This was by far the biggest smash of their long (and still going) careers. It’s a U.S. # 1 gold pop smash from the Spring of 1973, and here’s how America danced to it on one of the hottest music television shows of the time – “Soul Train”.

Let’s kick it with the “Love Train” on the “Soul Train”:

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Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

Here’s what’s on my mind on this 3RD Tuesday night of July of 2009:

1.  My long day at work is finally complete, and I believe that my gradual transition from ‘computer geek’ to ‘financial wizard’ is now official. For nearly 10 hours today I was never too far away from a calculator and a constantly-evolving EXCEL spreadsheet. I played with more numbers (in the form of dollar amounts) today than on possibly any other day in modern recorded history. I loved every single dollar and cent of it too !

2.  ‘The debate over whether or not global warming exists is over.’ FALSE !  That’s an ‘easy-out’ statement that’s freely used by those followers of the media and the various special interest groups who believe in its existence but can’t provide any logical reasons why. There is just as much scientific evidence out there that we are experiencing global cooling. It is simply politically correct to join the ‘we must save the Earth from global warming’ bandwagon. I don’t join bandwagons. I start them.

3.  Speaking of bandwagons I have never ever in my entire adult life accessed the Facebook web site, and I have no plans (or urge) to do so at this time. Facebook is the new Myspace which was the new Yahoo which was the new AOL. In a couple of years everyone on Facebook will gradually abandon it and move on to whatever else is hot at the time. Meanwhile I’ll still be here blogging.

4.  I saw an excellent hour-long special on Discovery Channel last night entitled “When We Left Earth: 40th Anniversary Special”. It was a great historical presentation of all of the various Apollo missions that led up to Apollo 11 that finally landed a Man on the Moon before the close of the decade that was the 1960s. Good show. Very educational.

5.  Exactly 30 months ago today – on the 21st of January of 2007 – I became a part of Life Pointe Church. It was not when I went to church for the first time in some 30 years, but rather when I became the church for the first time in some 30 years. The church is not the building. The church is the living and breathing body that follows, obeys, and loves Our Lord Jesus Christ. I am the church. We are the church. Let us be the church. Forever and ever. Amen.