Journal, News, Guests by Jim Fitting
The Coalburner
Those old boys had something right...laying tracks from here to who knows where; running on dirty sooty fire, steam power, electric lines overhead or whatever works.
But by the time you and I was born they had ripped a lot of them tracks up, at least back home in LA. It wasn't until Roger Rabbit that I saw any streetcars downtown there, and that was a cartoon fer godsakes! Well way back when general motors didn't like the competition so...well let me get quotational for a brief moment:
"The disappearance of the nation's trolley systems in the 1950s was caused by automobile interests acting secretly. General Motors, Firestone Tire, Mack Truck and Standard Oil formed a holding company named the National City Lines that from 1936 to 1945 conspired to buy and dismantle street car lines in 45 cities. In each city, steel-wheeled transit systems were replaced with General Motors buses. The Justice Department brought suit against the companies and the conspirators were eventually found guilty."
(Supertrains, Joseph Vranich, St Martins Press 1991)
...ah what a country! What amnesia! And ain't karma a bitch. I ain't got nothing against GM except all them Hummers. And Cadillacs (well they do look good), and SUVs, and that thing with killing the electric car a few years ago, and then there's the fighting higher MPG standards tooth and nail for the last 20 years. But other than that I wish them the best of luck!
Personally I feel lucky just to have a job these days,
and then throw in having a regular gig! Heh heh hee...where people pay to come see us? Ho ho!
Somebody told me the other night we should raise the cover price so it don't sell out. Well I don't know about that but I do know that when Herr Staples was over in the fatherland a couple weeks ago we had Jimmy Ryan holding down his chair. Yeah, it's rough. He sang a song so new it didn't have a name but it was about his tattered tongue. And he played mandolin too. Freddy Griffin was doing the San Francisco Bay blues with Lyle on guitar, I swear I know all about that. Then I moved something heavy but I think I hurt my back. No that was the case of wine that kicked me to the curb. Or was it Sarah Borges saying I killed her with a case of wine in Six Feet Under because it rhymed with swine. Or was it vice versa? I do know that Aoife did Angel From Montgomery because I was floating. Then I saw a ghost when Katie sang Hank and Dinty was Born Again. Oh the shape I'm in. Oh Dinty and those College Girls, Bunny and Lawrence on the strings. The next week it might be Jessie Dee or David Jacobs-Strain. Pshew! Well we can keep it all on track, if you all can just keep shoveling the coal.
But by the time you and I was born they had ripped a lot of them tracks up, at least back home in LA. It wasn't until Roger Rabbit that I saw any streetcars downtown there, and that was a cartoon fer godsakes! Well way back when general motors didn't like the competition so...well let me get quotational for a brief moment:
"The disappearance of the nation's trolley systems in the 1950s was caused by automobile interests acting secretly. General Motors, Firestone Tire, Mack Truck and Standard Oil formed a holding company named the National City Lines that from 1936 to 1945 conspired to buy and dismantle street car lines in 45 cities. In each city, steel-wheeled transit systems were replaced with General Motors buses. The Justice Department brought suit against the companies and the conspirators were eventually found guilty."
(Supertrains, Joseph Vranich, St Martins Press 1991)
...ah what a country! What amnesia! And ain't karma a bitch. I ain't got nothing against GM except all them Hummers. And Cadillacs (well they do look good), and SUVs, and that thing with killing the electric car a few years ago, and then there's the fighting higher MPG standards tooth and nail for the last 20 years. But other than that I wish them the best of luck!
Personally I feel lucky just to have a job these days,
and then throw in having a regular gig! Heh heh hee...where people pay to come see us? Ho ho!
Somebody told me the other night we should raise the cover price so it don't sell out. Well I don't know about that but I do know that when Herr Staples was over in the fatherland a couple weeks ago we had Jimmy Ryan holding down his chair. Yeah, it's rough. He sang a song so new it didn't have a name but it was about his tattered tongue. And he played mandolin too. Freddy Griffin was doing the San Francisco Bay blues with Lyle on guitar, I swear I know all about that. Then I moved something heavy but I think I hurt my back. No that was the case of wine that kicked me to the curb. Or was it Sarah Borges saying I killed her with a case of wine in Six Feet Under because it rhymed with swine. Or was it vice versa? I do know that Aoife did Angel From Montgomery because I was floating. Then I saw a ghost when Katie sang Hank and Dinty was Born Again. Oh the shape I'm in. Oh Dinty and those College Girls, Bunny and Lawrence on the strings. The next week it might be Jessie Dee or David Jacobs-Strain. Pshew! Well we can keep it all on track, if you all can just keep shoveling the coal.
