Minor Wisdom

4th of July edition of SEB

When the 4th of July coincides with Saturday-Evening Blues, this song must be posted.

See also WAC?, where you’ll find Robert Johnson’s Crossroads performed by John Mayer and Eric Clapton.

Congratulations to a fellow law blogger

Apparently this blogging thing can enhance one’s legal career. Steve Dillard, chief instigator of my favorite conservative blog, Southern Appeal, has made the short list for nomination to the Georgia Supreme Court. Congratulations, Steve. (And if it’s possible to pull the Ga. Supremes farther right—please don’t!)

The Black Keys will do Voodoo

Today I learned that my favorite band from Akron, Ohio, the Black Keys, will be in New Orleans to perform at the Voodoo Experience on Halloween weekend (Oct. 30, to be precise). In case you’re deciding whether to see them, here are a couple of videos to help you out. Both come with commercials, but both are pretty good, so consider the commercials as the price of admission. Both videos are from this DVD, so if you want to watch and listen to more of same, well, you know what to do.

First up: “10 a.m. Automatic.” You may have to sit through a short Baccardi commercial to watch it. It continues with a couple of minutes of another song, “Thickfreakness.”

Watch The Black Keys Live in Sydney 2005 in Music  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Next up:“Grown So Ugly.”

The Black Keys - Grown So Ugly
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Separated at birth

So let’s say that New Orleans Council Member Stacy Head bleaches her hair, has some cervical orthopedic problems, and gets caught (without makeup) committing some petty offense. Her mug shot might look like this.

Bad stuff in 3s

I know that “bad stuff happens in threes” is B.S.—three of anything will happen if you wait long enough. But Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett (the ultimate 70s poster girl—see left), and Michael Jackson in 3 days? Spooky, especially for someone like me, who came of age in the 1970s.

Lost and found

My friend Dan Hull is plugging The Lost and Found Family, which he describes as “a poignant, uplifting, instructive and remarkably powerful family film set in the American South.” Personally, I think Dan just has the hots for the star, Ellen Bry.

Who knew?

Professor John Guillebaud (University College, London) claims that the main cause of population growth is sex. (Hat tip to Improbable Research.)

Ain’t no cure

Happy Summer Solstice, everyone. Here in New Orleans, it’s hot as hell, and we have about three months more of the same to, uh, look forward to. So today is as good a day as any to post Eddie Cochran playing Summertime Blues.

How to love

Today’s daily mediation from HenriNouwen.org is worth sharing:

Often we speak about love as if it is a feeling. But if we wait for a feeling of love before loving, we may never learn to love well. The feeling of love is beautiful and life-giving, but our loving cannot be based in that feeling. To love is to think, speak, and act according to the spiritual knowledge that we are infinitely loved by God and called to make that love visible in this world.

Mostly we know what the loving thing to do is. When we “do” love, even if others are not able to respond with love, we will discover that our feelings catch up with our acts.

Because I care about you, the reader

This edition of Saturday Evening Blues was inspired by an experience I had during the last Easter Triduum. I was practicing with the choir in the church sacristy, and I noticed the super-cool keyboard that the music director had brought along in case we needed it for rehearsal. It had a lot of gizmos and gadgets on it, so I joked with the music director that she could play it while channeling Billy Preston. The response: a blank stare, along the lines of “Billy Who?” After a few conversations with a few other choir members, it became apparent that in the entire room, I was the only one who knew who Billy Preston was.

Oh dear! What to do about such a tragic situation? The answer came to me today: Post a Billy Preston double feature for Saturday Evening Blues. If you’ve never heard of this man, please peruse the Wikipedia article about him and his official web site. Or just watch these videos of two of his many hits. The first is Will It Go Round in Circles, complete with old-school ’fro. The second is my favorite Billy Preston song, Outta Space.

Now you have an idea who Billy Preston was and is. My work here is done.

Lawyers, depression, and spirituality

You may or may not be a lawyer who wrestles with depression. You may or may not sometimes wonder whether your life is out of balance. If you fall into one of those categories, or if don’t, but are interested in reading a blog written from the heart, one with a spiritual bent, then check out the Lawyers With Depression blog. It’s by Dan Lukasik, editor of the Lawyers With Depression web site. That is all.

Apparel for the LSU baseball fan

The LSU Tigers and Rice Owls are opponents in the College World Series Super-Regional playoff in Baton Rouge. LSU fans in attendance may covet this item from the Onion Boutique.

Of course, I would not wear such a thing; I’m more of a Tulane fan.

Pedal to the metal

At the most recent Jazz Fest, one of the best sets I saw was Sonny Landreth’s. For those unfamiliar with him, Sonny is simply the best slide guitar player in the world. I happened to be in the front row on the right side of the stage, right in front of the big video screen. I spent half the time watching Sonny in the flesh, and the other half of the time watching him on the big screen, trying to see how he does what he does.

The guy who posted this Sonny Landreth video calls it “the best video of him on YouTube.” Certainly the video quality is first rate, and most of the time, the camera focuses on Sonny’s amazing hands. So if you want to see how he does what he does, this is as good as it gets on YouTube.

Blues with twang

For no particular reason (except that I like this song), here’s Jeannie C. Riley doing the Back Side of Dallas, accompanied by a nice photo montage. Notice, at the end of each line, how she slides up to the note, playing her voice like a slide guitar.

p.s. (June 3, 2009): The exchange of comments with Bill makes me realize that I was remiss in not saying how I discovered this song. It’s on one of the CDs accompanying the most recent music issue of Oxford American. The magazine and the CDs are both worth your while.

Another root of the family tree

A year or two ago, my sister Kendra gave me copies of pages from a book on the Ward family’s genealogy. Recently, I finally got around to digging into it.

The story starts with William Ward of Sudbury, Massachusetts. He was born in England around 1603. In the spring of 1638, he emigrated to the Colony of Massachusetts with his second wife, Elizabeth, and five children. He and Elizabeth had eight more children born in Sudbury, including Samuel Ward.

Samuel Ward was born on September 24, 1641 in Sudbury, Massachusetts and died on November 15, 1729 in Marlborough, Massachusetts. His first wife was Sarah Howe. They had seven children, including Joseph Ward.

Joseph Ward was born in 1670 in Marlborough, Massachusetts, where he died on June 30, 1717. He married Abigail Wheelock, and they had seven children, all born in Marlborough, including Phineas.

Phineas Was was born August 5, 1705 and died on October 19, 1756. He married Mary Wright, and they had six children born in Marlborough, Massachusetts, including Reuben.

Reuben Ward was born on December 28, 1746 and died January 8, 1800. He married Sarah Kendall, and they had eleven children, among them a son named Levi.

Levi Ward was born on April 12, 1785 in Marlborough, New Hampshire. He married Nancy Whitney, and they had six children, including a son named Daniel.

Daniel Ward was born on February 1, 1818 in Keene, New Hampshire, and died on August 30, 1894 at Indian Falls, New York. He married three times. His first wife was Catherine Phelps, with whom he had two children, including a son named Albert Wesley.

Albert Wesley Ward was born on November 8, 1842, in Pavilion Center, New York, and died on February 13, 1923, in East Pembroke, New York. His first wife was Lydia Jane Austin, with whom he had five children, including Roy Albert.

Roy Albert Ward was born on March 14 in either 1873 or 1874 (the book says 1874, but a handwritten correction says 1873) near Indian Falls, New York. He married Ida Mae Keller and became a pharmacist. His oldest son was Kenneth Roswell.

Kenneth Roswell Ward, M.D., was born on May 26, 1897 in Batavia, New York, and died in January 1976. He and his wife, Gladys Smith, had two sons, Robert Barnett Ward and Roderick Sartwell Ward.

Roderick Sartwell Ward was born on May 3, 1928, and died on August 2, 1977. He was an Episcopalian priest. His first wife was Molly Jean Landis, with whom he had four children. Among those four was yours truly, born October 7, 1957 in Corning, New York.

For some family-tree roots on my mother’s side, see this post.