In his 1974 autobiography, Clive Davis, then president of Columbia Records, described his initial impression of David Clayton-Thomas singing at the Café Au Go-Go: “He was staggering… a powerfully built singer who exuded an enormous earthy confidence. He jumped right out at you. I went with a small group of people, and we were electrified. […]

Associated Press, Dec 21, 2021 – “I was expecting low growth but nothing this low,” said William Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s metropolitan policy program, Brookings Metro. “We have an aging population and that means fewer women in child-bearing ages. We see younger people putting off having children and they’re going to […]

Hi Indy,Last week you posted that great image from Grant Wood that is about to be auctioned. FYI – Grant Wood was from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His lifelong patron was the Turner Family who owned Turner Mortuary. Grant lived in a studio apartment provided by the Turners on the mortuary property. I grew up in Iowa […]

“Feliz Navidad” written by José Feliciano in 1970 is a classic known around the world. “Feliz Navidad, próspero año y felicidad,” is “Merry Christmas, a prosperous year and happiness.” It’s followed in English by, “I want to wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart.”

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?  In what distant deeps or skiesBurnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire?  And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began […]

Helen Palmer Geisel met her future husband, Ted “Dr. Seuss” Geisel, in class at Oxford. She had a profound influence on his life, starting with her suggestion that he should be an artist rather than an English professor. She later said, “Ted’s notebooks were always filled with these fabulous animals. So I set to work diverting him; […]

OBITUARYRenay Mandel Corren A plus-sized Jewish lady redneck died in El Paso on Saturday. Of itself hardly news, or good news if you’re the type that subscribes to the notion that anybody not named you dying in El Paso, Texas is good news. In which case have I got news for you: the bawdy, fertile, […]

According to Bob Dilenschneider, most people are only “life interns” until they are 25 years old. So roving reporter Rotbart enlisted his daughter, Avital, (who turns 25 this week,) to help interview Dilenschneider! (Sounds fun already, right?)  As Avital points out, there is a great deal to be learned from history, no matter your age. Dilenschneider agrees, and […]

I believe Tolstoy was talking speaking, in part, about the writers of songs, of poems, and of books. “This is a place of mystery, Daniel, a sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed […]

In an interview in 2003, Depp explained how Pepe Le Pew is driven by his own objectives and goals and has a tendency to drift in and out of other people’s lives. And of course, there’s that unshakeable confidence. “What I loved about Pepe Le Pew was this guy who was absolutely convinced that he’s a great […]

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,We people on the pavement looked at him:He was a gentleman from sole to crown,Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed,And he was always human when he talked;But still he fluttered pulses when he said,“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich — […]

Out walking in the frozen swamp one grey dayI paused and said, “I will turn back from here.No, I will go on farther and we shall see.”The hard snow held me, save where now and thenOne foot went down. The view was all in linesStraight up and down of tall slim treesToo much alike to […]

Summer Wine · Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood · The James Bond “da-dum, da-DAHHHH” happens just after 2:30 NANCY: Strawberries, cherries and an angel’s kiss in springMy summer wine is really made from all these things LEE: I walked in town on silver spurs that jingled toA song that I had only sang to just […]

This work of art by the legendary Grant Wood will be auctioned on New Year’s Day. The wizard will not be bidding.

Which billboard do you like better, and why?   Billboard “A” is above. Billboard “B” is below.Send your reply to indy@wizardofads.com

Time Travel My friend Don has a time machine. He takes me with him sometimes. You should come, too! Every person who rides in Don’s time machine is changed by it. The United States Department of Justice has booked passage on Don’s time machine for countless prison inmates. State and local governments and hundreds of […]

Today’s workforce is no longer white, male, straight, able-bodied, Christian, and upper-middle-class. So why do so many companies continue to design their systems, processes, products, and services as if it were? Listen and learn as Minal Bopaiah – an expert in diversity, equity, and inclusion – calls “bullshit” on the traditional ways of treating employees [quote] “equally.” […]

I learned the truth at seventeenThat love was meant for beauty queensAnd high school girls with clear-skinned smilesWho married young and then retired. The valentines I never knew,The Friday night charades of youth,Were spent on one more beautiful.At seventeen I learned the truth. Songwriter: Janis Ian At Seventeen lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

When I was seventeenIt was a very good year.It was a very good year for small town girlsAnd soft summer nights.We’d hide from the lightsOn the village greenWhen I was seventeen written by Ervin Drake

“Kathy”, I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh,“Michigan seems like a dream to me now.”It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw.I’ve gone to look for America.   Laughing on the bus,Playing games with the faces.She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy.I said “Be careful, his bowtie is […]

  At the age of 17, Helô Pinheiro became the inspiration for the song “The Girl from Ipanema” when songwriters Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes saw her walking to the beach in Ipanema, her neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro.

<a href=”https://morethanfolkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/bitter-root-magpie”>Bitter Root & Magpie by Autumn Shade</a>

<a href=”https://morethanfolkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/bitter-root-magpie”>Bitter Root &amp; Magpie by Autumn Shade</a>

The world’s most successful investors are some of the happiest people on earth. But it’s not because they are rich — money won’t buy happiness — but because they are able to think rationally. Listen as William Green talks about interviewing financial superstars like Sir John Templeton, Peter Lynch, Michael Price, Ed Thorp, and Charlie Munger. The concepts he shares […]

Frank Pooler wrote the words to “Merry Christmas, Darling” in 1946 when he was 19 years old. Twenty years later, Pooler was Professor of music at California State University. Richard and Karen Carpenter were in his choir. When Richard asked Professor Pooler if he knew of any new and different Christmas songs they might sing, Pooler […]

On January 10, 1988, Dolly Parton explained why she wrote “Jolene”: “Now this is a true story. I wrote this song about 20 years ago about this woman down in Nashville that worked at the bank. She was trying to take care of my husband while I was out on the road. Well, that didn’t […]

Speaking of sons, the video below was crafted as a 50th anniversary tribute to Creedence Clearwater Revival. John Fogerty says, “It’s about rich men making war and poor men having to fight them. So it was the Vietnam War going on… Now I was drafted and they’re making me fight, and no one has actually defined […]

Floyd was in his 60’s and 70’s in the twenty years I knew him. He was a slim, tall man. He walked the mile to his law office nearly everyday, rain and snow notwithstanding. His walk took him across a long bridge high above the Illinois river. It was a brutal walk in the rain […]

This is Kerry Livgren, the guitarist who in 1976  wrote “Carry On Wayward Son” at the last minute, giving his band, Kansas, no time to rehearse it. The song became a massive hit. According to Livgren, “It’s an autobiographical song. Parallel to my musical career I’ve always been on a spiritual sojourn, looking for truth and […]

Carry on, my wayward sonThere’ll be peace when you are done.Lay your weary head to rest.Don’t you cry no more. Once I rose above the noise and confusionJust to get a glimpse beyond this illusion.I was soaring ever higher,But I flew too high.Though my eyes could see, I still was a blind man.Though my mind […]

On February 10, 1968, Berry delivered “A Statement Against the War in Vietnam” during the Kentucky Conference on the War and the Draft at the University of Kentucky in Lexington: “We seek to preserve peace by fighting a war, or to advance freedom by subsidizing dictatorships, or to ‘win the hearts and minds of the […]

More than one billion copies of the Bible have been sold, but I have no idea how many people are actually reading it today. Here are some other numbers: 25 Best-Selling Books of All-Time #1 – Don Quixote (500 million copies sold) by Miguel de Cervantes #2 – A Tale of Two Cities (200 million […]

Do you want to visit the Livraria Lello website to see more of this amazing place?

Indy, every year twixt Thanksgiving and Christmas I have the privilege of hosting a Christmas show that runs on a bunch of Westwood One stations. This year there is a new tune by Ingrid Michaelson and Zooey Deschanel that I wasn’t familiar with so I looked it up: “Merry Christmas, Happy New Year.”   As I kept […]

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate.Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimmed;And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;But […]

I bought this old pencil sketch of a farmer with his hands on his hips shortly after I purchased the unpublished manuscript of Don Keehan, Marshall of Manchon from the estate of John Steinbeck. Everyone in the Cervantes Society assumed that Stanford University was the winning bidder, but the head of the Department of Spanish and […]

I’ve been saying for 20 years that I’m going to write a buddy movie about Jesus and the 12. I’ve got the whole thing in my head. But who am I to put words in the mouth of Jesus? The idea of creating a fictional Jesus who does and says things that are not in […]

“You see?If Mrs. Trent had not so perfectly mastered the art of roasting, the young lieutenant might have kept his attention on the Princess instead of washing down a third helping of beef with an eighth glass of wine. If the temperature that night had not dropped six degrees in as many hours, the ice […]

“Let us not confuse ourselves by failing to recognize that there are two kinds of self-confidence—one a trait of personality and another that comes from knowledge of a subject. It is no particular credit to the educator to help build the first without building the second. The objective of education is not the production of […]