Midnight
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3YmqX0EZQ4
?


--Steve

Wrong Earthwood. I'm glad LOL did you see they were cheered off the stage? We did shows with Hootie at some of the colleges before they hit the big time. Our music sounded a lot like theirs. WE sang a lot of 3 part harmony and always ended our shows with Suite Judy Blue Eyes. I'm from Winston Salem. We traveled up and down the East Coast. I couldn't go too far, I worked 37 years for RJ Reynolds. Back in the 70's I made more money making music than making cigarettes. The 80's sucked. DJ's and Disco's. That's when we switched to army bases and made some money there. By then the we had lost one member and changed the name of the band to Steel Blue and went all electric. Earthwood played a lot of acoustic music, CSN, America, Dan Fogelberg, Jim Croce etc. Theres several military bases in NC and SC so that worked out good. I hated playing the officers clubs because they were a bunch of old farts and all they wanted to hear were oldies, some of which are OK and Beach Music which I hate!!. They always fed us good, the chef would prepare us a meal before the show and open bar which got me into trouble sometimes LOL. Its not the life people think it is ,loading equipment,,setting up, tearing down, reloading equipment and pulling in the driveway at sunrise. It was hard work but I was doing what I loved. Now that the chemo has loosened my fingers up at least enough to play bass (I normally play guitar) I hope Artemus shows up tomorrow and I wanna see what he's got planned. I'd like to make one more round now that I'm not working and don't have to be at home.

I hope the old man don't bore you to death with his old stories. One of the wildest things I ever did was run sound and lights for an all male review. Before your mind jumps to the wrong conclusion remember I was the only male in the club with a bunch of drunk horny women. A lot of people don't realize it but most strippers are gay. After they danced they didn't want anything to do with the women. It was a dirty job but someone had to do it. I'd have women fighting over who I was going home with. They didn't pay me a fortune but the benefits were great. I had a lesbian stripper keyboard and sax player in one of my bands. She lived with me for a year between marriages. I let her cook and clean and do laundry, housework, etc for rent. Everyone thought I was one hot love machine living with a stripper. I never told them she was a lesbian. I didn't have but one bed but she drew a line down the middle of the bed and told me Mikey you had better not cross the line or I'll rip it off. I still stand when I pee. I flew hang gliders for 13 years, paddled White water kayaks on the roughest rivers on the east coast and skydived along with my music. RJReynolds paid me a lot of money and I blew every penny of it. Maybe that was the way it was supposed to be. If I had a truckload of money right now it wouldn't do me anygood because the Lupus is eating me alive. We talk too much about money when we should be concentrating on living. I've had as much, probably more fun than the guy with th 10 million $ yacht. Made a lot of great friends, pissed a lot of people off LOL. In the 70's my first wifes uncle had a Cessna 150 Aerobat. It was just like the one Tom Cruise flew in Top Gun. He was in his 60's and his sight was going so he got a friend of his named Charlie(don't remember his last name) to teach me how to fly so I could fly him around every now and then Charlie was a WWll ace with 6 confirmed kills. WE did everything that little plane would do. My wifes uncle kept it at a small grass strip inside a shed. I didn't know who the FAA was back then. Never got my license, I just fueled her up and flew her. I flew more by myself than I did with Unc. Came in several times with corn stalks in my wheel pants. I thought I would buy a book on beginning flight, I wanted to learn all I could. Dammit I forget the name of the book but it was written by a guy named Jerry Eichenberger. A lot of you are probably familiar with him. I bet I'm the only one on this forum with his book. Jerry and I disagree sometimes but  I'll never argue with him over airplanes and flight principles. I found out a long long time ago just how intelligent the man is and he deserves all my respect. What I read in that book could have saved my life. The Lupus has kept me from riding the last 2 years. I have so much stuff I get behind trying to keep it all up and the grandsons get my quality time. I sold my Savage, it was for my wife and when our first grandson came along she quit riding. Mick steered me towards a 250 Ninja, probably the most fun bike I ever owned. It steers like its on rails and you can twist the throttle without worrying about dying. She'll do 100 and that's too fast now with my eyesight . She's set now, not been cranked for 2 years. I know the carbs are stopped plum up. Sri was gonna come over and help me tear the carbs apart and clean them. The carbs are tiny and with my eyesight I could have used a good pair of eyes. Sri told me he was moving and I haven't heard aword from him since. That's probably been 6 or 7 weeks ago. He's not the guy with the smartass comments on this forum he's a different person in person.. I've PMed him twice and I've lost his ph #. (I just hope hes OK)He knows a lot about motorcycles and builds a lot of parts from scratch. I have a few regrets, making cigarettes is not exactly contributing a lot to society but it provided the funds to keep me and my "families" going in above average style. My boat has set also. Its only 3 years old and Its set 2 years. I'm gonna try to get the money to get the boat and the bike going again. Grandsons are getting old enough to enjoy my boat, Its a Lund, its my 2nd boat and the one I always wanted for a fishing boat. I would like to make the Dragon Trip again.Four years ago I had a ball and putting a face with a name makes a big difference.You guys ride safe, stay healthy and whether I agree with you or not really in the long run who gives a sh!t LOL

Midnightrider wrote on 09/19/13 at 20:30:02:

Including the first Bishops and Popes, or...?
From "The Decline and fall of the Roman Empire" by Gibbon:
" the Empire as a whole had initiated major cultural and political transformations since the Crisis of the Third Century, with the shift towards a more openly autocratic and ritualized form of government, the adoption of Christianity as the state religion, and a general rejection of the traditions and values of Classical Antiquity."

Quote:


If I have ever read an insult from a snotty, cave-dwelling, nearsighted ignoramus, this must be it.

Rome did not try to rule the world, they ruled what world they had concquered;
- the Germans were left to their own means, east of the Rhine;
- the Persians were acknowledged to be more than a handful to deal with and proved interesting commercial partners;
- the Indians (from India) we were quite familiar with, and traded with to buy silk;
- we knew of the Chinese because our trading routes were protected.

THIS was the Roman Empire, conquered by hand-to.-hand combat and administered with Codes of Law. We had no laser-guided boblets released at 30.000 ft.



What ruined the Roman Empire were excessive stretch of lines of communication, and "native recruitment", in other words, Roman Legions were under Roman Officers but were manned by "barbarians".

The Goths, Visgoths, Vandals in the South... Franks and Normans and Frisii in the North of the Empire... they were anything but "barbaric".

"Barbarus" meant, as it did to ther Greeks, "someone who babbles when speaking in my language".

Now, my friend, I do not babble in your language, but you certainly do babble when aping mine, so who is the barbarian, Midnight ?  

Incidentally, look up the "Byzantine Empire in Ravenna", they had finer roads than London did under Queen Elizabeth (who couldn't even afford to pave the roads of London in cobbles - hence the "rise, SIR Francis Drake"... they were muddy messes!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exarchate_of_Ravenna

Rome still rules today, at 2800 years old. How ? Leaf through any Encyclopaedia (a printed one) and see how many terms and definitions come from Latin, and how many come from Saxon.

Starting from "motorcycle" and ending with, quite possibly, your own 1st name.

When Washington gets to be that old, let me know. Even the Principality of Monaco is older than you - by 500 years...

Get yourself some culture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_Roman_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_rome

Officially, the Roman Empire terminated with the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1918 when Austria lost WW1.
That's what major historians say.

Your call.

Is it just me or does anyone else think mpes should look up the definition of the word pretentious....

WebsterMark wrote on 09/23/13 at 10:24:21:


Pretentious ? Me ?

Etymology

From French prétentieux, from prétention, from Latin praetensus (“false or hypocritical profession”), past participle of praetendō.

Adjective

pretentious (comparative more pretentious, superlative most pretentious)
1.Marked by an unwarranted claim to importance or distinction. 2.Ostentatious; intended to impress others.
(liberally copied from the Wiktionary)

If one were to say "My family name is Smith and my Grandad is the richest man in the County", yes, that would be pretentious.

If one were to claim lineage from the Allertons of Massachussetts, and Others were to say "so?"
they would be humbled to learn the Allertons of Massachussetts actually discend from the original Pilgrim Fathers.

In my case, I am merely defending my lineage and my Heritage.
I do not believe I actually called anyone names, although I do plead guilty to using a bit of sarcasm.
I believe I was entitled to.

Whereas everybody your side of the Atlantic firmly believes Europe was saved by the Allies in WW2,
it is just as true that more civilians were killed by Allied carpet bombings in 1944-45 than in the five years 1939-1944 by the Germans.

There is the tendency to judge a People by its latest feats, rather than by its overall history.

What has Italy given to the world? Read history, look up "Humanitarian Law" and the name "Cesare Beccaria".
He was a jurist and wrote an essay fundamental for modern law.
Under his influence, the GrandDuchy of Tuscany was the forst modern state to abolish the Death sentence in 1769,
and to pass a law on the mentally ill in 1774, which recognized mental illness as an illness to be treated, not as a criminal condition worthy of jail (or worse).

Italy boasts the most ancient universities in the modern world (not including those in the Islamic Near-East)
Of the 56 Universities founded before 1500 (just to provide a date) 21 (twentyone !) were in Italy. Among these:
- the first School of Medicine (Salerno, 1088),
- the first secular University, the University of Naples, where you didn't have to study Theology "just because", in 1224,
- and my own, the University of Turin 1404.

Italy's Monte dei Paschi di Siena is Europe's oldest surviving bank, dates back to 1472.

An Italian Templar Banker invented "Bankers' checques".

My Heritage includes scientists such as Leonardo, Galileo, Marconi, Fermi and Volta.
And Meucci. Who was he ? A poor yet genial thinker who invented a means to convey "voice over a wire".
He was too poor to patent it, so he emigrated and found a job working for a Mr. Alexander Graham Bell.
The rest is known history.

An obscure Dr. Tagliacozzi was the first physician to theorize skin grafts in the 16th Century, but the Church thought this to be blasphemous.

It all comes to one principle: Heritage and cultural identity.

So, pretentious or not, I am PROUD my people and my ancestors have shaped the world as we know it today.

edited to correct some grammar here and there

Thank you JOG.

I admit it is difficult to set oneself free of stereotypes, and I do admit I feel offended by what I read, sometimes.

Most of the time I just shrug and pass to the next thread, sometimes I do not.

Although I still feel "American" in many many ways, because of my childhood (and even this is difficult to acknowledge by some Forum members) I have learned to refrain from discussions which address purely domestic issues.

However, when "world trends" are discussed, I feel I am entitled as anyone else.

Going back to the "stereotype" with which I opened my post, I have found Northern Europe still entertains many stereotypes on Southern Europe, most of which are over 100 years old.
Unfortunately, the same applies to what many people in the US believe.

Once I was browsing through the computer section at Walmarts in Portsmouth, Va., and a lady asked : "really? you have internet in Italy?"
to which I replied : "No, I have to truck it up to Switzerland and ask somebody to lend me their PC"  

How many of you knew the very first programmable electronic calculator was designed in Italy by Olivetti ?
De facto, the very first desktop PC ? in 1964 ?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivetti_Programma_101

10 of these were bought by NASA for the Apollo Project  
Anybody who was aircrew on a USAF B-52 knew them well  
Unfortunately, Olivetti's founder and CEO insisted "we produce typewriters, not electronic gimmicks" and sold the blueprints and lot to IBM.
In fact, if you look at the Programma_101 and at IBM's 5100 10 years later, you can clearly see the timeline



It was copied by Hewlett-Packard and sold as the HP-1000

Other stereotypes ?

Hollywood blockbuster productions such as "Troy" (with a blond and clean-shaven Achilles")
or "300" (with a clean shaven and pierced King Xerxes - when only slaves were pierced and/or clean shaven)
or "Gladiator", where "evil" Emperor Commodus was actually a very reasonable man, and certainly did NOT murder his father!
or "Braveheart", where hero William Wallace is depicted as a fiery yet hillbilly rebel, when he was actually a learned aristocrat...
...or the nickname "Braveheart" itself, which did not belong to Wallace but to his counterpart Robert the Bruce
or "10.000BC", where effemminated Egyptian sorcerer-priests had trained mammooths...   Mammooths?   In Egypt? Hellooo?

Gotta go now. I have to discipline a few snotty-nosed, garlic eating Frenchmen...  

Thanks Web. First time I've ever been called a babbling, snotty, cave-dwelling, nearsighted, ignoramus, barbarian.