Month: April 2021

Goodnight everyone, and have a lively weekend and then some!

/ This Just In... From Franklin, WI / Leave a comment

Every Friday night we smooth our way into the weekend with music, the universal language. These selections demonstrate that despite what is being passed off as art today, there is plenty of really good music available. Come along and enjoy.

Normally there’s a single theme built around this weekly mega-music feature. But this week I had three to choose from. So I went with all of them. Let’s get started!

You can almost hear the trumpets blaring.

Grantland Rice wrote about the Derby 86 years ago: “Those two minutes and a second or so of derby running carry more emotional thrills, per second, than anything sport can show.”

The Kentucky Derby (when it’s pandemic-free) typically draws a crowd of 155,000 people. It is the longest continually held sporting event in America, and it is one of the most prestigious horse races in the world.

The Derby is a top rank, Grade I stakes race for 3 year old Thoroughbred horses. Colts and geldings in the race carry 126 pounds, and fillies in the race carry 121 pounds.

20 horses compete, but they must enter into  a series of 35 races taking place at tracks across the country and the world. Points are awarded to the top 4 horses that finish in each of those 35 races, and the 20 horses with the most points earn a spot in the starting gate in the Kentucky Derby race. The Kentucky Derby winning purse is $2 million.

2021 Official 147th Kentucky Derby Mint Julep Glass — Horse and Hound Gallery

About 120,000 Mint Juleps are served over the two-day period of Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby weekend at Churchill Downs Racetrack. That requires more than 10,000 bottles of Old Forester Mint Julep Ready-to-Serve Cocktail, 1,000 pounds of freshly harvested mint and 60,000 pounds of ice.

Our first performer could play piano, organ, sax, clarinet and trumpet. His musical interests ranged from gospel to country to blues. He was a pioneer of soul music.

https://i0.wp.com/images.45cat.com/ray-charles-one-mint-julep-1961-3.jpg
https://i1.wp.com/cdn.liquor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mint-Julep.jpg

Wanna make one of those gems?

In the late 1960’s Cliff Nobles had a big hit that just about every high school and college band has played at one time or another: “The Horse.” It went all the way to #2 in 1968.

Not long after that single’s success the group released “Horse Fever.” But not even American Bandstand could help as the instrumental bombed, peaking at #68.

https://i1.wp.com/millionairesconcierge.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/kentucky-derby-1-1024x503.png

The Fischer Family at Churchill Downs in November of 2018.

Pat Forde wrote on ESPN.com in 2006:

“It’s a very competitive, dangerous sport — and you can’t eat,” said mega-trainer Bob Baffert, a former rider in his youth. “You don’t see many 40-year-old bull fighters; this is the same thing. You can’t live a normal life.”

Normal is a long way from the day-to-day existence of a jockey. Here’s the basic job description:

Hold a thin strip of leather in your hands and balance your feet on a pair of inch-wide steel bars. Use your knees to hug the sides of an animal 10 times your weight, while hurtling along in tight quarters at 35 mph. If you fall off or your horse goes down, something will break. Hopefully not your neck, spine or skull.

“You can go out and ride a race and not come back, or get paralyzed,” said retired jockey Patti Cooksey, the second-winningest female rider in history behind Julie Krone. “That’s just a fact.”

OK. That’s Saturday.

Let’s move to Tuesday.

May 4, or Star Wars Day has become a global phenomenon. “May the Fourth be with you” was first used in an article published in The London Evening News back in 1979 on May 4 when Margaret Thatcher first took office as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Her political party ran ad that read, “May the Fourth Be with You, Maggie. Congratulations.”

In the first Star Wars film chronologically, Padmé Amidala was a courageous, hopeful leader, serving as Queen and then Senator of Naboo — and was also handy with a blaster. Queen Amidala’s loyal protector during the Trade Federation invasion crisis was Captain Panaka who possessed attention to detail and was dedicated to the safety of the Queen.

The Tragic Star Wars Governor: A Look at General Panaka | DisKingdom.com | Disney | Marvel | Star Wars - Video Game News

Collider.com ranked every Stars Wars film, from worst to first.

“George Lucas’ minor miracle ( A New Hope ) remains the best film in the franchise. One of Lucas’ most brilliant touches was to essentially tell this story through the eyes of two slaves, R2-D2 and C-3PO. The main point of view of A New Hope isn’t Luke or Han Solo—it’s these two droids who find themselves smack dab in the center of a growing rebellion against an oppressive government. They are, by design, impartial players, but as the droids come to be embedded with the reluctant journey of Luke Skywalker, so does the audience. Moreover, in Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia, Lucas gives us a female heroine who can hold her own and, in many cases, saves the necks of her male companions.”

Will Star Wars Reveal The Tragic End of The Cantina Band?

Star Wars fans created Star Wars Day. And May 5 has now come to be known as “Revenge of the Fifth” which is a play on Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. May 5 celebrates that Dark Side or the Sith lords in the Star Wars Universe.

Part 3 of this week’s trilogy isn’t “Revenge of the Fifth.” But it does fall on Wednesday, May 5th, Cinco de Mayo, a holiday that celebrates the date of the Mexican army’s May 5, 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War.

Mariachi Divas was founded in 1999 by musical director and trumpet player Cindy Shea. Known for its innovative and eclectic array of music ranging from mariachi classics to jazz and pop, Mariachi Divas is the official premier all-female mariachi of the Disneyland Resort. They’ve won two Grammy Awards, including this album.

May be an image of 11 people, people standing and text

That’s it for this week.

Goodnight.

Sleep well.

Rest up. You’ve got a busy week headed your way.

We close with a song about…

Yes. A swimsuit.

In 1964 Ruben Fuentes composed a Latin classic, “La Bikina.”

Sources say the song was written after a stroll along the beach where his son told him that the women wearing bikinis should be called “bikinas”. So the song title is a made up word.

Lonely walks “the bikina”
and the people start to murmur
they say that she has a sorrow
they say that she has a sorrow that makes her cry 

Haughty, beautiful and proud
she doesn’t let anyone console her
she walks by, showing off, her royal majesty
she passes by, walking, and looks at us without ever seeing us 

“The bikina” has sorrow and pain
“the bikina” doesn’t know what love is

Luis Miguel is considered a Mexican superstar.

ICYMI…Last week’s installment!

Friday Night Forgotten Oldie: They were going to be bigger than the Beatles

/ This Just In... From Franklin, WI / Leave a comment

“Rollermania.”

Do you remember that phenomenon, ever so brief as it was?

“Rollermania” was a take off on the term “Beatlemania.” In the mid-70’s there were extremely exaggerated predictions that the Bay City Rollers potentially could be as big as the Fab Four.

The Scottish band (above) became popular for their calf-length pants, tartans, and upbeat songs. Screaming teenagers mobbed them, a la John, Paul, George, and Ringo.

They had the first #1 hit on the Billboard chart in America’s bicentennial, hitting the top spot on January 3, 1976.

Not long after, a founder of the group, bass player Alan Longmuir left because the pressure was just too much.

“I was getting depressed. I couldn’t take it anymore,” he told the BBC in a 2015 documentary, but he re-joined the group many years later for a short reunion.

Longmuir died in 2018 at the age of 70. He had been receiving medical treatment in Edinburgh after being flown home from Mexico, where he fell ill while on vacation.

Les McKeown, the group’s lead singer, died last week of unspecified causes. He was 65.

“When we sort of started getting famous in the UK we sort of stole little bits of ideas from other bands, one of them was a band called Slade, they use to wear rolled up jeans with a Doctor Marten boot,” said McKeown. So, we kind of copied the rolled up jeans but we wore Adidas trainers instead of those big boots and so that was part of the image done. Then of course in Scotland we were Scottish so we thought we’d put some tartan on our shirts and that became an instant success and that’s the way we were dressed for a little while.” 

The Bay City Rollers chose their name by tossing a dart at a map of the United States. It landed on Bay City, Michigan.

The group split up in 1978. They sold 120 million records.

Related image
Image result for image, photo, picture, bay city rollers
Related image
Related image

Chris Wallace fails at reading the tea leaves

/ This Just In... From Franklin, WI / 1 Comment
Daily Memes Archives - Page 72 of 376 - Politically Incorrect Humor

No surprise. Lefty Chris Wallace who was no fan of President Trump naturally gushed all over Joe Biden’s address to Congress the other night.

“You know, I think this is going to be a popular speech with the American public. He offered a lot of stuff. So offering a lot of stuff and saying you aren’t going to have to pay for it is pretty popular.”

Today is Biden’s 100th day in office. And sorry, Chris. The American people aren’t drinking your Kool-Aid or the president’s.

Take a look.

UPDATE: I told the Franklin School Board, “Requiring children to wear masks is cruel and unnecessary and it needs to stop ASAP”

/ This Just In... From Franklin, WI / Leave a comment
Pandemic Parenting Poll: Anxiety tops confidence about return to school - Raising Arizona Kids Magazine

Previously on This Just In… In my testimony before the Franklin School Board Wednesday night I stated, “Know this. There’s a movement building momentum across the state. Parents and students who feel they’re being oppressed are telling their elected school representatives in no uncertain terms these stringent restrictions have gone too far for too long.”

The update: It’s actually a nationwide movement. It’s growing, and getting intense.

I told the Franklin School Board, “Requiring children to wear masks is cruel and unnecessary and it needs to stop ASAP”

/ This Just In... From Franklin, WI / 6 Comments

Tonight I testified before the Franklin School Board. Here’s a transcript:

My name is Kevin Fischer. I’ve been a Franklin resident since 1992. I’ve built two new homes here meaning I’ve paid my fair share of property taxes in nearly 30 years, most of which has supported our public schools.

My daughter currently attends Forest Park Middle School and loves the school, her teachers, and fellow classmates. Overall I find the school district to be a very good one, but it is not without warts.

Recently the district announced it would not only continue requiring masks for the remainder of this school year, but would also require them during the 2021-2022 school year, even though the Governor’s mask mandate was shot down by the state Supreme Court.

The district made its mask proclamation with no prior public notice. There was no survey taken of parents. There was no public hearing. There was no vote taken by the school board.

If nothing changes, one year from now our kids will still be forced to wear masks in school. That’s insane.

When does this madness end? When you folks wake up some day and arbitrarily decide it’s over? Three months from now? Six months? A year, a year and a half, two years? When?

The obsession with masks is ridiculous. At a Franklin Common Council meeting last July the city’s own health director, Courtney Day said and I quote:

“Masks by themselves do not prevent anything. The best practice is to make sure you’re washing your hands and staying physically distant from someone. By and large there are far, far, far many things that people do that are a little bit riskier when they’re wearing masks because they forget about washing their hands or they get hot so they pull it down or pull it up, or they wear it around their ear or take it off with their hands and then lick their hand, all sorts of things that you’re not thinking about because you think the mask keeps me safe.”

The jury is still out on just how effective masks really are. But we do know the damage mask requirements can inflict, both physically and mentally. Requiring children to wear masks is cruel and unnecessary and it needs to stop ASAP.

Parents are frustrated. Kids are frustrated. Unfortunately our society is now filled with COVID hypochondriacs. We as citizens have also become slaves to unelected bureaucrats who seem to relish their newfound ability to control. And we’ve had enough. For many, requiring masks until possibly June of 2022 was the final straw.

One of my biggest frustrations with living here in Franklin has been the refusal of every single school board since I’ve been a resident to comprehend that the school district works for you, not the other way around. So I’m respectfully challenging you to think and act outside the box for a change. Do it, not for the system or the district, but for the people you truly represent, Franklin parents and students.

Stand up for them. Stand up to the district and say the lengthy extension of the mask mandate is wrong. It’s an absurd overreach.

You can do this if you have the courage. If changes need to be made, then make them. Get rid of the mask requirement. Make it voluntary.  Then if people want to wear them they can. That would be a win-win situation.

Know this. There’s a movement building momentum across the state. Parents and students who feel they’re being oppressed are telling their elected school representatives in no uncertain terms these stringent restrictions have gone too far for too long. Hopefully you’ll hear, you’ll listen, and take the proper measures, not for the district, but for the parents and their children. Because they are your top priority.

Thank you for your time and your consideration.



Today’s highly interesting read (04/28/21): Growing number of black leaders embrace voter ID

/ This Just In... From Franklin, WI / 1 Comment
US Election 2016: Voter ID laws threaten lifelong voters - BBC News

Today’s read is from John Solomon, award-winning investigative journalist, author and digital media entrepreneur who serves as Chief Executive Officer and Editor in Chief of Just the News. Here’s a brief excerpt:

Mark Robinson knows a thing or two about the political appeal of voter ID. After all, he became North Carolina’s first ever African-American lieutenant governor last November running as a Republican who vowed to restore voter identification for the state’s elections.

And he won, even as the GOP’s top of the ticket fell to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.

So Robinson chafes when he hears national Democrats like Joe Biden and Stacey Abrams claim that asking for an ID to vote is as disenfranchising as the voter suppression tactics of the Jim Crow era.

“That black people can’t get an ID to vote — and quite frankly, a free ID, which the government has offered, to vote — is just absolute nonsense,” Robinson told Just the News.

Read the rest here because you won’t find it in the MSM.



Got a letter from President Biden

/ This Just In... From Franklin, WI / 2 Comments

Tonight President Joe Biden is expected to call for $4 trillion in new federal spending during his joint address to Congress. Biden’s forthcoming $1.8 trillion American Families Plan is the follow-up to his $2.25 trillion American Jobs Plan, which is focused on infrastructure improvements, universal broadband and creating new union jobs. 

Yesterday I received the following (form) letter. You’d think stumblin’ fumblin’ bumblin’ Joe was some kind of savior.

Now for other perspectives on the job Biden has done thus far.

Kevin Grieve is a retired Fortune 250 executive and consultant having spent 30 years as a business leader in the private sector. He writes:

Biden’s campaign promise was to unify the country and rule via bipartisanship. Instead, he has ruled by executive fiat. He issued 40 executive orders, the most of any recent president in this amount of time, and of those EOs, 19 revoked prior orders. Providing air cover for packing the Supreme Court, ending the filibuster, and adding DC statehood is tyranny of the majority.  Biden’s other actions do not bode well for the future.   His inaugural action included rejoining the Paris Climate accord. That, along with his “green” infrastructure bill, is the ominous foreshadowing of higher energy costs.  Low income Americans will be hit the hardest.  He is re-opening up talks with Iran, putting in jeopardy Trump’s successful Middle East peace accords.  He is getting pushed around and is being tested by Russia and China.  He is proposing higher taxes just as the economy is getting ready to recover.  Biden has further deteriorated race relations with his divisive rhetoric, support of critical race theory, and cancelling of Trump’s 1776 project.  And while Joe campaigned as a center-Left, moderate candidate, he received his greatest accolades from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who praised Joe’s first 100 days as having “exceeded progressive expectations.”

There’s more.

Also from Gary Bauer: 100 Mistakes, Missteps, and Misstatements in Biden’s First 100 Days

And Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) writes, “In his first 100 days, President Biden’s foreign policy has made the United States less secure, alienated our allies on the front lines against a fanatical terrorist regime, and rewarded authoritarian states with cooperation and summitry. Contrary to President Biden’s claim that ‘America is back,’ the reality is the Biden Administration has significantly weakened America’s position on the global stage.”

You can bet the mainstream media will glorify Biden’s first 100 Days with the rosiest of report cards. From The Epoch Times:

Biden’s approval ratings have fluctuated between the high-40s and mid-50s during his first three months in office, according to Rasmussen, the only pollster conducting daily presidential approval surveys. The media may be contributing to that outcome. A recent Media Research Center study showed that evening news coverage of Biden was 59 percent positive during his first three months in office, compared to just 11 percent positive coverage during the same period in Trump’s presidency.