The Ambassador Club (For St. Patrick’s Day)

The year was 1951. According to Myrtis Smith, they were running numbers and gambling down at Ambassador Billiards on Avery Street. Bob Null, the Justice of the Peace, dutifully took the complaint, carefully transcribing Myrtis’ words: “something that happened in her family in relation to the losing of some money” by her husband, Emerson. Null […]

The Felt Necessities of Time (#OWH)

Judge Katanji Brown Jackson, prematurely referred to as KBJ here, is being feted at Congress this month after her SCOTUS nomination. Much is made of her being the first black woman nominated. But she would also be the first public defender appointed in a generation or two. At her press announcement, she name-checked my favorite […]

Happy Day, George Washington!

So continues our calendar run of Founder and President Birthdays. “I heard the bullets whistle, Washington proclaimed, “and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound.” George Washington in the Cumberland Gap during the Wilderness Expeditions, 1748. The cherry tree story may be fake news. Here is a link to a post from 2018 […]

Take Me To The Bridge

James Brown took to the bridge. Robert Plant, too, was looking for the “confounded” bridge when Jimmy Page borrowed a James Brown riff on Led Zeppelin’s song, The Crunge. In music, a bridge represents a change that separates and connects the front and back ends of the song. For the listener, it adds variety and […]