Welcome to The Orracle Blogsite! While this blog is about a variety of things, I now have a focus on wellness, health and fitness. I spent four weeks in April 2011 at Hilton Head Health and am living this new lifestyle to the fullest now! Come, read and live it with me!
Orracle and Family
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Living Live! with Smokey!
Here is the least likely Rat Packer to get my nod, Sammy Davis, Jr. I read a book on the crew once that said it best and if I had read it first, I could have skipped the rest of all of the books I have read on the Rat Pack....
"Sammy wanted to be Frank, Frank wanted to be Dean and Dean just did not give a damn!"
Sammy had the most talent in the group hands down. I think this is true vocally as well in dance, performance and overal ability. Sammy could do impersonations, sang beautifully and could dance like few others.
Here is Sammy doing some impersonations in song. Fun stuff!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
On The Day You Were Born....Living Live!
I am curious to know what the songs for your birthdays, etc are. My songs of note...
- Birthday: Tears of a Clown by Smokey Robinson - somewhat fitting for me I think.
- 21st Birthday (What we did shots to....): Black or White by Michael Jackson (cool video)
- Wedding Day: Take a Bow by Madonna....I don't even know this song.
- Day I started at LTCG: Everything You Want by Vertical Horizon....again, I don't know this song and LTCG is NOT everything I want....not yet anyway.
Here is Smokey doing the LIVE cut of my song!
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Living Live Swimming In Tears!
I am a Minnesotan. I bleed purple. I just happen to live in Wisconsin. That changes nothing.
There's this guy...named Brett Favre. He is an OK QB that has retired twice. (Al might argue that he is starting to look like Garth Brooks). Editor's note: The Orracle likes to imagine what Al might think.
Anyway, this clown, whom I have never liked cannot make up his mind. He wants to retire, he wants to play. He cries when he retires. He cries when he decides to come back. He needs therapy.
Commuting to the cities, I see so many Cheesehead Rubes (not to be mistaken for "The Rube") with the "G" license plates. I think they need a new plate for Packer fans with a tear on it next to a number 4. Honestly Brett, grow a pair and stop the sniveling.
So, for the crybaby Brett, here is Roy Orbison singing Crying. P.S., I looked for an old 80's one hit wonder song called CRY but could not find it because I do not know who sings it. Oh well, Orbison is the bomb.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Living Live Going Cold!!
Newsweek, just a couple of days ago (practically in "earth" time) reported widespread GLOBAL COOLING. That artical was published on April 28, 1975. 33 years ago. WOW! You can read that article by clicking HERE.
Hey ORRACLE - this is not a Living Live post! YES IT IS! In honor of the 1975 article, here is Foreigner with Cold as Ice LIVE! I will post the Newsweek article below the youtube box as well.
Over and out....the Brrrrrracle.
NEWSWEEK ARTICLE FULL:
There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”
A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.
To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age” conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 – years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.
Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.”
Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases – all of which have a direct impact on food supplies.
“The world’s food-producing system,” warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.” Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.
Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.
—PETER GWYNNE with bureau reports
Friday, June 20, 2008
Living Live! On DRUGS!
Today's Living Live! takes us to one of my first concerts. My official first was the Del Fuegos, Georgia Sattelites and Tom Petty at the Met Center in Bloomington. Shortly after that, I wanted to see Huey Lewis. Who didn't? (Probably Al). Anyway - the Fore! tour was on and I bought tickets. This video is circa 1985 so very similar to what I saw then. I remembered Delbert McClinton opened for him. Amazing that he still has a career even though he was a nobody then and to many still is.
Here is Huey doing I Want A New Drug....BTW, is that Michael J Fox on Sax?
Monday, June 9, 2008
Living Live!
This recording is not very good but has them covering the greatest Garth song ever, Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old) (even Al agrees with that).
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Living Live! Take 2!
My overall favorite will always be New York State of Mind which will undoubtedly get its day in the Living Live spotlight. As a piano player, NY State of Mind is great but not too hard to play. This piece is a different story and really shows Billy's depth of writing and playing ability. The Saint Paul show's video is also on YouTube but the Dallas bootleg is much clearer.
Presenting....the one and only Billy Joel performing Root Beer Rag!
Thursday, May 15, 2008
LIVING LIVE! James Taylor and Joe Walsh - Steamroller
Back on Feburay 18th, I mentioned that I wanted to emulate (a.k.a. "copy") a them used by another blogger. He posts a theme called "Way Back Wednesday" which shows a YouTube video of some older song. I liked the idea but wanted to share live songs. I think I want to call this "Living Live" since no days of the week start with "L". Plus, to even begin to think I could do this with any sense of schedule is simply a joke.
Here is my first one. I know Al would assume Garth might be my first post but it is not. I am hitting 2 great musicians here. Joe Walsh and James Taylor. Steamroller live is a great song. I have one recording where James even scats a "MFer" in the end which is classic. Add in the great blues riffs by Joe and you have a hell of a live performance.
One more note to this song (and any others), I have a sincere love for the sound of a Hammond B-3 organ. When played right, it will instantly pulsate chills up and down my spine. There is a nice B riff at about 2 minutes into this song. I have always wanted to compile a CD with the best B-3 solos.
EDIT: When I added my tags, etc - I lost the inserted YOUTUBE view. Until I figure out how to do that on my own, here is a link to the video.
The ORRacle!