Bar Crawl Radio

Complete performance of the Scott Munson Jazz Quintet at the West Side Community Garden on June 16, 2024.

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Hair Love won a 2020 Oscar in the Animated Short category. It seemed appropriate to think about the many ways that hair invades and controls how we spend our time and shapes our sense of self. And if you start to think about it -- as I did -- it is a lot.

Throwing in a caveat and a correction -- and then a note. Correction: Matthew Cherry directed the heart-tugging Oscar winning animated short "Hair Love" -- not what I said. Caveat: For my relatives in Israel who might still be listening to our podcast -- the choice by some Jewish women to wear a hair wig [sheitel] over one's hair to hide it from the male-gaze, just seems strange to me, and, for me, it's not attractive, as the wigs are clearly wigs; maybe that's the point. Note: This is my observation of a style choice -- not a judgement of a religious choice. It's part of this episode's theme -- humans are weird about hair. Added Note: How about a Jewish Orthodox version of the Hijab as a substitution for the sheitel?

We recorded this BCR episode at 5Napkin on W. 84th Street. James, a dancer and bar keep, told us about a new burger item on the menu -- it was delicious -- and he gave us a lesson in articulation -- it's "man-HA-ten" -- not "man-HA-EN."

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Lincoln Mitchell is a New Yorker and San Franciscan, a political scholar and avid baseball fan. He loved the Yankees first. but, when his family moved to San Francisco, he adopted the Giants. His recently published book -- San Francisco Year Zero: Political Upheaval / Punk Rock / and a Third-Place Baseball Team -- weaves a most readable set of social, political and sporting threads about the tragedies and joys of living in 'the city by the Bay' in 1978. It was the year that Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor and gay rights leader, Harvey Milk, were murdered by a disgruntled nobody -- Dan White, who received a few years in prison for the double homIcide. Despite his limited time in government, Milk's legacy has grown; we explored how he and Moscone could have changed the fate of this city.

In that same year -- 1978 -- the murders in Jonestown devastated the city which had been the home of most of the 900 killed in Guyana.

And -- We talked about baseball with Yankee season ticket holder and fine actor David Bachrach.

BCR 73 ended with a most sobering prediction by Dr. Mitchell in which he laid out his most reasonable arguments for why Trump will never leave the presidency -- even if he loses the 2020 election. This is a must listen -- it comes at the end of another fascinating conversation at a neighborhood bar -- Gebhard's Beer Culture Bar.

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I am writing these program notes before the recording -- later today at Mexican Festival. This episode needs to be posted tomorrow by 10am -- our self-imposed posting time. Well -- I could get up early, but I am inspired -- now.

You know that SAT test analogy question -- THIS : THAT -- where the colon means "is to" and then you are given several choices of similar analogies, and you have to find the one that is the closest matches to the original -- and they all look right? That is the game we will be playing when we record today at the side bar at the Mexican Festival. OK -- that is the second time I mentioned the Mexican Festival. Why? We could not find a bar to do this week's recording. Our regular go-to bars were not returning our emails. So I called Mexican Festival and the manager -- who we know and have had on BCR -- said "yes," and then, she said, "None of your listeners have come by -- why is that?" And I mumbled something like, "We'll let them know. See you at 5pm." And she said, "We'll go over our promotions." BTW -- we are not sponsored or receive anything from Mexican Festival, and we pay for our drinks. We do like their margaritas and freshly made "guak."

Last weekend, we attended a podcast conference -- MAPCON. We sat through hours of sometimes interesting presentations and some great networking. We love our fellow podcasters -- but this conference was a bit of a slog. BTW.2 -- our team won the Create-a-Podcast Contest -- for the second year in a row. [Listen to the winning entry on this episode -- Be Careful] AND ... it was held at the Ocean Resort Casino [ORC] on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. AND ... it occurred to me as I woke up this morning that our efforts at podcasting are quite similar and entirely different than what we observed in AC as the "walking dead" moved around the enormous ORC in their red scooters. OK -- the "scooting dead."

So here are my choices as the best analogy to the title of this episode:

Gambling : Podcasting*

1. Sponge Bob : A dishrag
2. Donald Trump : Any of the Democratic candidates.
3. Jumping Jack Flash : A flash drive
4. Cotton Candy : My mother's Lemon Meringue Pie.
5. Left : Left out

One more thing -- will all our BCR listeners who live on the Upper West Side get over to the Mexican Festival bar and restaurant and tell Lara you heard about the Mexican Festival on Bar Crawl Radio. It's really a fun bar and restaurant, and we recommend it. Thanks, Lara.

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*Ans. - #4. But #2 is a close second

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We have talked with the peace activists of the Catholic Worker movement on several BCR episodes [#29 & #46 with bonus material] and knew that the seven men and women who broke into the U.S. Kings Bay Naval Base at St. Marys, Georgia would be in court in Brunswick in mid-August. This submarine base is where the U.S. military stores its Trident nuclear missiles. We wanted to talk with four of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, who were under house arrest and on bail, about the hearing and how they were doing.

That week was also the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, and there were protests going on outside the Kings Bay Naval Base. So, while Becky and I sat at her brother's dining room table in Santa Maria, California, we called south Georgia.

We first talked with Kathy Kelly, Brian Terrell, and Anthony Donovan while they were fasting and holding a vigil outside the gates of the Kings Bay Naval Base.

The next day we spoke with four of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7. The day before they had argued in the Federal Court in Brunswick Georgia that the case against them be dropped based on RFRA – the Religious Freedom Restoration Act – which requires the government to prove a compelling state interest if it restricts a person’s free exercise of religious beliefs – a defense successfully used by the Religious Right. We talked with Carmen Trotta, Martha Hennessy, Clare Grady, and Patrick O’Neill.

Here are some resources that were mentioned during our conversations:

• Anthony Donovan recommended -- "Warheads to Windmills: How to Pay for a Green New Deal." A report that relates spending on nuclear warheads to ending the dangers of Global Warming.
• The Doomsday Machine. by Daniel Ellsberg (2017).
• No Immediate Danger? : Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth. by Rosalie Bertell (2006).
• Planet Earth The Latest Weapon of War: A Critical Study into the Military and the Environment. By Rosalie Bertell (2000)
• Nuclear Issues Study Group -- "Dismantling the Nuclear Beast". nukewatchinfo.org
• Treaty for the Prevention of Nuclear Weapons
• ICAN -- International Campaign to Abolition Nuclear Weapons

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