Playlist Date & Time: 8/23/2008 12:00AM - 3:00AM
Program: Blues in the Night with Jamie Dell'Apa
The Theme For Tonight is:
Premature Evacuation!
(and other over-reactions)
Audio for this show is archived at:
(Look for the photo of the Mississippi River rising over the Moonwalk stairs during Gustav's peak.)
Chapter One:
It was twenty years ago today, Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play....
It was almost three years ago today, Hurricane Katrina taught us to not stay. For the last couple years, the Gods of the Gulf has been kind to us but sometime during tonight's show our first tropical storm since 2005, Fay, should reach New Orleans. In tribute to our uniquely New Orleans way of always over-reacting to everything and anything, we'll welcome Fay with a musical tribute to leaving town. Featuring plenty of traffic jam and car songs but also a handful of train songs and some leaving home songs. But the real treat is the series of video links to traffic jams in China, Iraq, Houston (for Hurricane Rita), and the familiar parallel of army ants on the march. My New Orleanian conclusion - a liberal conspiracy of the ants and our country's enemies. Which takes us to Chapter Two.
Chapter Two:
Alright, I admit I over-reacted, but when I read the headline that the Russians had invaded Georgia I didn't even finish the article. Instead, I immediately flew to Atlanta to do my patriotic duty. I was a bit miffed at the lack of alarm from my fellow travelers but I blinded myself with patriotic self-congratulations and pressed on.
I finally realized my mistake when (while handcuffed), the Macon, Georgia cops explained their state-wide security situation and then provided me some helpful geography lessons. Overall, I think they appreciated that I as a New Orleans citizen was willing to help Georgia in return for the help they gave our evactuees after Katrina. Just to make sure (and as a condition of my release) I'll play a bunch of songs about Georgia both for my fellow cell mates and as an apology for sabotaging enemy supply lines.
Okay, for the shy folks in back who are afraid to ask, I think the best single video link is off the Aimee Mann selection. Click on that link and your eyeballs will bleed from watching James Brown giving dance lessons. Best series of videos are also the capstone to tonight's theme:
Tonight's Big Concluding Story Line is Video
The seven consecutive links beginning at Cadillac Boogie are a case study of the over-reaction impulse. The first two links are hurricane evacuation traffic for New Orleans and Houston). Next two are of traffic in countries we recently treated to big wars (Iraq and Vietnam) "in defense of America." The twist is the fifth video of army ants moving in the same traffic patterns as the preceding four videos. For you, these patterns talk to benign collective behavior principles but to the conclusion deficit disorder types; America is about to be attacked by Iraqis!
To break this conclusion, try substituting the dangerous conclusions with benign conclusions. For instance replacing the nut job video attached to Kay Adam's "Little Pink Mac" with barely discernible science fiction movies trailers. We gotta get the fringe back into being abducted by aliens and (maybe even) killing fire ants.
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Earl King
I am your dog and Happy Little Nobody's Waggy Tail Dog
If we get a storm this year expect to see this sight - hitching up the FEMA trailer and leaving town.
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Dan Hicks
I Scare Myself
Striking it Rich
Blue Thumb
Fear and greed, the emotions that lead to the darkest irrational behavior and a great springboard for Chapter One - that panic before a hurricane that can lead to premature evactuation. Video looks like it is from Austin City Limits
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Lee Dorsey
My Old Car
Lawdy!
Video is Lee lip syncing in the 1960s with this great second line inspired, coal mine dance step
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Mitch Woods
Juke Box Drive
Video is of the hockey-playing Mitch Woods instead of the piano-playing Mitch Woods. The hockey player is much better represented on youtube.
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Warren Smith
Red Cadillac and a Black Moustache
Sun Rockabilly
Sun
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Hal Willis
Pink Cadillac
Rockin Bones
Rhino
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Sonny Burgess
Big Black Cadillac
Sonny in Europe
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Cadillac Boogie
The following links are of traffic videos from New Orleans and Houston to Iraq to Saigon to an ant trail. It is striking how traffic seem to follow the same patterns regardless of whether the nationality. In fact, even ants seem to follow the same patterns.
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Joyce Green
Black Cadillac
Rockin Bones
Rhino
Houston's Rita evacuation traffic which was actually more disorganized than New Orleans' first tries at contra-flow evacuation. Katrina's contra flow was very well organized.
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Roy Brown
Cadillac Baby
Iraq traffic and some big vehicles
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Vince Taylor and his Playboys
Brand New Cadillac
Rockin Bones
Rhino
Saigon traffic and some dinky vehicles
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Mitch Woods
Solid Gold Cadillac
Solid Gold Cadillac
Gabon traffic with some really microscopic vehicles. Ants.
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Kay Adams
Little Pink Mac
A robotic-voiced religious conspiracy video that the conclusion-challenged might accept as reasonable. For us public radio types, this sounds like the next video.
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Sam Mc Gee
Chevrolet Car
Good For What Ails you
Link is to the movie Them! trailer which sound too much like the previous link. All along, our country's enemy was not the Vietnamese or Iraqis, or our own government but ants. Fire ants.
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The Jesters
Cadillac Man
Sun Records Collection
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Gene Vincent
Pink Thunderbird
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Drop Top
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Collins Kids
Hot Rod
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Tillman Franks
Hot Rod Shot Gun Boogie
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Charlie Ryan
Hot Rod Hades
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Curtis Gordon
Draggin
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Charlie Sayles
Highway Man
None
self
Sayles working Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C.
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Rufus Thomas
The Memphis Train
Beg Scream and Shout
Rhino
This is the last video you ever want to see as this was the greatest audience-participation dance performance ever recorded. WattStax in the aftro hair days with Rufus inviting the entire stadium to join him in the dance. This video is truncated but the performance goes on and on and the audience keeps it up.
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Mitch Woods
I Got a New Car
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Dr. John
Loup Garou
Mos Scocious Anthology
Link is the closest I've come to finding the Loup Garou that everyone was trying to shoot after Katrina.
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Tin Men
Werewolf
Freaks for Industry
self
Link goes to the Canadian/Quebec folk tale about the Loup Garou. Very much a French Cajun New Orleans-ism
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Cowboy Mouth
Hurricane Party
All You Need Live
The link goes to the origin of the band's name - a Sam Shepard play,
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Dr. John
Down The Road
Mos Scocious Anthology
Go look at my previous playlist for double super cool out Dr. John video.
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Little Sonny Jones
Further Up the Road
New Orleans R&B Gems
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Dan Hicks
Traffic Jam live
Dan Hicks' contemporary in Southern California was Arthur Lee and his band Love. Both Hicks and Lee were great musicians playing relatively non-controversial music. However neither could break though America's blood/brain barrier of in-crowd acceptance. The link is to Love doing My Little Red Book.
I've been looking for a link to Dan Hick's performance on Merv Griffin and/or Johnny Carson's talk shows of the time. They are hilarious and as irreverent as a Dylan or Airplane performance/interview but with self-deprecating humor. Maybe the 1970s culture vultures were either too serious or too goofy to adopt Hicks or Lee.
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Aimee Man
Driving Sideways
Magnolia
When you're stuck in that endless evacuation traffic, sing this song to yourself and everything makes sense. You're still dancing after that Rufus piece! Here, take some dance lessons from the master, James Brown.
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Tom Waits
Wrong Side of the Road
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8 Days on the Road
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Sister Rosetta Tharp
The Lonesome Road
The Original Soul Sister
Proper
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Tiny Bradshaw
Train Kept a Rollin
King R&B Box Set
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Slim Gaillard
Lookin For a Place to Park
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Louis Jordan
Leave you on the outskirts of town
Bear Family
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Lloyd Price
Carry Me Home
Cosimo Matassa Story
Proper
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Una Mae Carlisle
Blitzkrieg Baby
Lester Young Story
Proper
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Danny Gatton
Sweet Georgia Brown
The Humbler
2008
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Lucky Millinder
Georgia Rose
Apollo Jump
Proper
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Georgia Grind
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Brook Benton
Rainy Night In Georgia
Atlantic 30 years of R&B
Atlantic
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