JOE BIDEN WILL BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE USA

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Summary:  Bad, very bad.

Joe Biden won the first presidential debate last month.  All he had to do was survive standing, even if he lost the debate itself to Donald Trump.  Surprisingly enough, most polls show that Biden beat Trump in the second showdown last night.  

CNN had eleven undecided North Carolina voters watch the proceedings, and asked them at the end who won.  Nine picked Biden and two said no one.  Not materially significant, but just the overwhelming difference was convincing.  One interesting comment by a non-committal person who was leaning to voting for Trump was that, if Amy Barrett is confirmed as the next Supreme Court justice, he would then comfortably vote for Biden, for he has the better character.

For Fox News and Trump  fans, the performance of the President was a relief.  They felt good that he was not as insane as they thought he was.

The one key October surprise that probably helped Trump beat Hillary Clinton four years ago was FBI Director James Comey announcing eleven days before the election that he was re-opening the case against Clinton.  This is exactly what Trump is trying to do.  That is, get his FBI director or Attorney General to indict Hunter Biden now.  First, if that actually happens, voters will largely dismiss the matter as politically instigated by Trump against his opponent.  Plus, Trump has so many legal and character flaws that nothing he can do can particularly, on balance, reflect that badly on Biden.

If nothing particularly monumental comes up over the next 11 days, Joe Biden will become President of the USA #46.  The next key question is, can Democrats take over the Senate?  If Biden wins on a landslide, that would be the major factor to reverse the course of what has happened these past four years.  Trump further said during this second debate that Republicans will this year win the House.  He not only is a serial liar, but also seriously delusional.

Can't leave without a Trumpism or two.  In the debate he again excoriated wind energy, something that he loves as much as Pelosi and masks.  Watch this clip.  Now I truly understand why.  Hard to stop at one.  Here, a second to be expected with a Biden victory:

Favorite song #68 has to do with cowboy songs.  While I long have not identified with country and western music, after watching Ken Burns' PBS series on the subject, my attitude has completely reversed. I'm now trying to learn a few of these songs for my future karaoke career.

So the finalists are:

• The Ballad of Davy Crocket:  Bill Hayes
• I Fall to Pieces:  Patsy Cline
• Always on My Mind:  Willie Nelson
• High Noon:  Tex Ritter and Frankie Laine
• Ghost Riders in the Sky:  Vaughn Monroe
• Stand By Your Man:  Tammy Wynette
• I Walk the Line:  Johnny Cash

Disney had a miniseries in 1954 starring Fess Parker as Davy Crockett.  The coonskin cap  became something even I owned.  An American hero, Davy Crocket was a colonel in the militia, became a Congressman and died at the Battle of Alamo.  While Fess Parker released this song, on came Bill Hayes, with Archie Bleyer, and they were the ones who hit #1.  In Back to Future, it is the Parker version that you hear.

Bill Hayes was more an actor than singer, having initiated the Days of Our Lives character.  He and his wife Susan Seaforth, who was also in the series, were on the cover of Time in 1976.  They started the daytime soap opera genre.

I Fall to Pieces was released by Patsy Cline in 1961.  My link to her is that I have a niece who is a professional Patsy Cline impersonator.  Cline was involved in a major car accident just when this song was becoming popular.  Nevertheless, she made it to the Grand Ole Opry and the following year recorded Crazy, written by Willie Nelson. 

Willie Nelson did not write Always on My Mind, which was first released by Brenda Lee and Elvis Presley in 1972.  However, Nelson's version in 1982 won a Grammy.  My equally favorite version  came from the Pet Shop Boys in 1987, commemorating the tenth anniversary of Presley's death.  Their version reached #4 on Billboard, edging Nelson's at #5.  Elvis' only got down to #20.  I identify with this song because it kept coming  back, and relates to my relationships, in the past and now.

I just wrote about High Noon, and need to make a correction.  I previously said that Frankie Laine sang the song in the movie, which won the Oscar in 1952.  It was Tex Ritter.  However, the Laine record sold more and reached lower on the charts.  As I think about it, though, I remember more the Ritter record in my youth.  Remember his son, John?  Anyway, I might only be slightly exaggerating to say that Tex acted in around a hundred cowboy films.

I mention Riders in the Sky, but will only say little at this time except that it will return later in December.  The song was written in 1948 and tells a folk tale of the west with visions of:

...red-eyed, steel-hooved cattle thundering across the sky, being chased by the spirits of damned cowboys. One warns him that if he does not change his ways, he will be doomed to join them, forever "trying to catch the Devil's herd across these endless skies".  

In 1982 Tammy Wynette and Billy Sherrill wrote Stand By Your Man in 15 minutes, winning  her a second Grammy,  It currently stands at #1 in the Top Country Music Songs.  This photo came from a PBS program featuring Johnny Cash and Tammy.

#68 is Johnny Cash's I Walk the Line, which he wrote in 1956, becoming his first #1 hit on Billboard C&W.  In 1970 came a film I Walk the Line, with Gregory Peck and Tuesday Weld, which had nothing to do with Cash's life, but featured a soundtrack of his songs.

Walk the Line was a 2005 biopic (Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 82/90) of Johnny Cash, played by Joaquin Phoenix, with Reese Witherspoon as June Carter.

Phoenix's performance in the film was startling.  He won an Oscar for Best Actor,  The soundtrack is in my iPod, and I can't tell the difference between Cash and Phoenix.

Ring of Fire is an equally momentous song, written by Carter watching Cash's descending into drug addition.  They sang Jackson as a duet, but did not write it.

I earlier reported on the 1956 serendipitous conjunction of Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and John Cash with Sam Phillips at Sun Records.  I saw the Million Dollar Quartet in Las Vegas.

In that Vegas show was an exotic girl, who has long been a mystery woman.  More than half a century later, here is the story of Marilyn Evans, the simple girl from Fresno who Elvis brought to the session.  After two marriages, Marilyn Knowles-Riehl at the age of 71.

What has all this to do with Johnny Cash?  Well, he was there.

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