The Real Derby?

Derby Day, 2012—a good day (as if any day's not!) to read some Hunter S. Thompson.

Click HERE to read The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved, HST's 1970 article for Scanlan's Monthly that depicts the derby as a "jaded, atavistic freakout with nothing to recommend it except a very saleable 'tradition.'"

Also: "Anybody who wanders around the world saying, 'Hell yes, I’m from Texas,' deserves whatever happens to him.”

Love you Hunty.

Blues for Adults

Of a rainy night, I sat down to watch Bruce Springsteen's entire keynote speech at this year's South By Southwest. As it turns out, it's a fine way to spend 50 minutes. Look, I mean it's the Boss. Giving you a mini-music-culture history lesson. And more.

Things covered in said speech:

•The tragic unknowability of women.

•The sheer ugliness and honesty of The Animals.

•Honing his craft, from zit-faced then to silver foxed now.

•The grit and spit of the blues. "These were soul men and women—not teen idols."

•The way things that are the "best ever" to you still SUCK to someone else.

•The way country music is like "blues for adults."

•Bob Dylan: "He is and continues to be the father of my musical country."

•The small and big things in life that keep us putting one foot in front of the other.

Below are just two snippets, but go HERE to watch the whole thing. WELL worth your while.

Mortals

"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people — first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.” — Albert Einstein

Yessssss.