Tag: Popular Culture

Poem: Is Johnny Crawford from “The Rifleman” in Your Company?

Posted in Blog, Poetry1 Comment

Chuck_Connors_Johnny_Crawford_The_Rifleman_1960

Is Johnny Crawford from “The Rifleman” in Your Company?

We pressed our faces up against the chain linked fence.
We were supposed to be playing soccer during physical education class.
But we ran to the chained linked fence that separated our school yard from the dirt road.
We stared at the young soldiers marching to training.
They looked so army soldier in their fatigues, helmets and carrying their rifles at right shoulder arms.
They looked like a scene out of “Combat” that we watched each week on our televisions.
While barely just four or five years older than us, they looked all grown up.
A pretty seventh grade girl got up he courage and yelled,
“Is Johnny Crawford from “The Rifleman” in your company?”
There had been a news story of Johnny Crawford’s arrival at Fort Bliss for his basic training.
A kind three stripe sergeant responded,
“No miss, he’s in a different training company.”
“You boys going to Viet-Nam after basic?” asked the P.E. coach who had walked over and joined us.
“Maybe so, but first we got to survive this!” said a smiling boyish faced trainee.
“Quiet in the ranks!” screamed the drill sergeant.
The dust was getting thicker as the soldiers continued marching by.
Most of the seventeen and eighteen year old troopers were looking at the pretty thirteen year old blonde girl.
Some were thinking of their younger sisters back home,
Some were thinking the thoughts seventeen and eighteen years old young men have when seeing a pretty, young teenage girl, and
Some were wondering if they would live long enough to fall in love, marry, and ever have a daughter of their own.

Copyright © 2008 by Jimmie A. Kepler
Originally published in http://www.johnnycrawford.com, February 2008.

Photo credits:

Top photo: Photo of Chuck Connors as Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark, from the television program The Rifleman. This work is in the public domain in that it was published in the United States between 1923 and 1977 and without a copyright notice.

Why I Write

Posted in Blog, Books I've Reviewed, WritingLeave a comment

George_Orwell_in_Hampstead_-_geograph.org.uk_-_432863Today is Thursday March 21, 2013. 

In 1946, George Orwell (his real name was Eric Arthur Blair) wrote an essay titled “Why I Write”. It detailed his personal journey to becoming a writer. Orwell lists “four great motives for writing” which he feels exist in every writer. He explains that all are present, but in different proportions, and also that these proportions vary from time to time. They are as follows:

1. Sheer egoism – Orwell argues that many people write simply to feel clever, to “be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown-ups in childhood, etc.” He says that this is a great motive, although most of humanity is not “acutely selfish”, and that this motive exists mainly in younger writers. He also says that it exists more in serious writers than journalists, though serious writers are “less interested in money”.
2. Aesthetic enthusiasm – Orwell explains that present in writing is the desire to make one’s writing look and sound good, having “pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story.” He says that this motive is “very feeble in a lot of writers” but still present in all works of writing.
3. Historical impulse – He sums this up by simply stating this motive is the “desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.”
4. Political purpose – Orwell writes, “No book is genuinely free from political bias”, and further explains that this motive is used very commonly in all forms of writing in the broadest sense, citing a “desire to push the world in a certain direction” in every person. He concludes by saying that “the opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.”

After reading the essay, I came up with my list. They are as follows:

1. Ego/Hubris – I love to see my name listed as the author. I enjoy when my name appears on the cover of a magazine and in the table of comments of a magazine. I wish to see my name on the spine of a traditionally published book.
2. Educating People – I have loved when I have published a magazine article then get a telephone call, letter, or email asking for more information on the subject. Sometimes because of my writing, I have received job offers and speaking engagements. I enjoy informing people about historical events, writer’s lives, and the backgrounds of people and events.
3. Desire to influence others and be held in esteem by others – Maybe this goes with number one – Hubris. I recall the pride my oldest son had when he went to college and found several of my traditionally published magazine articles while doing research. He said it was somewhat cool to quote his father’s published work in a research paper. He said some of what I wrote for journals would be in the library forever.
4. Sharing my faith – I remember reading the late musician and former Beatles guitarist George Harrison’s memoir, “I, Me, Mine”. In the book, he says he purposefully wrote songs to share his beliefs and faith in Hare Krishna. I do the same to share my faith and belief in Jesus Christ. I try to do it in the normal flow of life as opposed to clobbering someone with the Bible.

If you write, why do you write?

Encourage your friends, keep reading and write.
Jimmie A. Kepler

Photo credits: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. English: George Orwell in Hampstead On the corner of Pond Street and South End Road, opposite the Royal Free Hospital. The bookshop has long gone. Date: 11 May 2007. Source: From geograph.org.uk

Devotional: You Are Never Too Old To Go For Your Dream

Posted in Blog, Writing2 Comments

Jeremiah 33:3. It reads, “Call upon Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know!” Has God placed in your heart the desire to share His truth through writing? God has never called a person without providing him or her with the ability to complete the task or the place to excercise the call. Maybe, like me, you have a few years of life experience under your belt (coade for getting up there in years). It’s never too late to begin. Here are a few examples of older people made a big impact or accomplished remarkable things (with a few years under their belts).

“The world stands aside,” said David Jordan, “to let anyone pass who knows where he is going.” Having a goal or dream applies to those, who learn where they are going late in life as well as for the young.

At age 40, James Michener published his first book. He authored more than 50 titles – 26 historical fiction novels, 31 nonfiction books, and 13 of his works were adapted into TV mini-series or made into movies.

At age 53, Margaret Thatcher became Britain’s first female prime minister.

At age 65, Winston Churchill became British prime minister for the first time and started the epic struggle against Hitler. Churchill received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 at age 79 for his many published works, especially his six-volume set The Second World War. He wrote the six volume set when he was in his 70s without any assistance or ghost writers. The photo is of Sir Winston Churchill.

At age 69, Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States. He served two terms. He was 77 years old when he completed his second term in office.

At age 70, 80 and again at 90, former President of the USA George H.W. Bush parachuted out of an airplane.

At age 72, Golda Meir became prime minister of Israel.

At age 75, Ed Delano of California bicycled 3100 miles in 33 days to attend his 50th college reunion in Worcester, Massachusetts.

At age 80, Grandma Moses, who had started painting in her late 70s, had her first one-woman exhibit.

At age 80, Winston Churchill returned to the House of Commons as a member of parliament and also exhibited 62 of his paintings.

At age 81, Benjamin Franklin skillfully mediated between disagreeing factions at the U. S. Constitutional Convention.

At age 90, Sarah had a son named Issac. God found Sarah and her husband Abraham useful to His cause. See Genesis 17:17 KJV, “Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?” God promised Abraham and Sarah that they would have a son, and Isaac was born.

At age 96, George C. Selbach scored an 110-yard hole-in-one at Indian River, Michigan.

On his 100th birthday, ragtime pianist Eubie Blake exclaimed, “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.”

How about you? Have you slowed down, packed it in, given up, and checked out? If I know the Heavenly Father, I know that He has something wonderful still in store for you! It’s never too late. Why don’t you call God up and ask Him what that might be. His number is found in The Bible in Jeremiah 33:3. It reads, “Call upon Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know!”

Encourage your friends, keep reading and write.
Jimmie A. Kepler

Picture Source: Churchill V sign HU 55521.jpg This artistic work created by the United Kingdom Government is in the public domain. This is because it is one of the following: 1) It is a photograph created by the United Kingdom Government and taken prior to 1 June 1957; or 2) It was commercially published prior to 1961, or 3) It is an artistic work other than a photograph or engraving (e.g. a painting) which was created by the United Kingdom Government prior to 1961.

Dallas and North Texas Pictures and Places

Posted in Blog, Writing1 Comment

Today is Saturday March 16, 2013.

Dallas and north Texas is a special place. It attracts people like a picnic attracts ants. The population of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan region soared faster in a one-year period than any other in the country, with the Houston area coming in second, according to new figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Census estimates released Thursday show nearly 132,000 people were added to the Dallas-Fort Worth area from July 2011 to July 2012. Since April 2010, the region’s population has grown by nearly 275,000 people.

Let me share five pictures of the Dallas area.

Number one: Downtown Dallas from the Flower Market.

Dallas Flowers
This photo was taken on January 31, 2009 using a Nikon D3X by Trey Ratcliff. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-ShareAlike 2.0 License. Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/3280044703/ – Some rights reserved

Number Two:

Trolley Car “Rosie” in Uptown Dallas. The M-Line’s air-conditioned and heated restored vintage trolleys run 365 days a year, providing safe, clean, reliable, and convenient public transportation free of charge (except charters) in Dallas’ vibrant Uptown Neighborhood.

 Trolley Car Rosie

Number Three:

McDonald’s near the Dallas Zoo

Mickey D's

Number Four:

The Trailing Longhorns – The Dallas Convention Center is in the background.

 Longhorns

Number Five:

Recognize this place? It is the South Fork Mansion Drive over at the South Fork Ranch. The Ewing Mansion is to the right in the picture. It is about 25 minutes from my house.

 Southfork Ranch

I’ll share more about Dallas in the weeks ahead.

Encourage your friends, keep reading and write.
Jimmie A. Kepler

Poem: I Get Up In The Morning

Posted in Blog, Poetry1 Comment

I Get Up In The Morning

I get up in the morning
A new day begins
I go the mirror
And shave my face again

The years show my age
But my eyes still shine
I think of my lady
I’m so glad she’s still mine

I go to my workplace
And I do my thing
I listen to Pandora
And I start to sing

The day passes quickly
My tasks all complete
I drive to the restaurant
And order tea that’s sweet

The evening meal is fine
As fine as fine can be
And my desert
Is something for all to see

I return to my house
Now the day is done
I sit on the porch
And watch the setting sun

The day is now over
And I go to bed
I say my prayers
And meditate on Scripture in my head

I pray that my dreams
Have me thinking of you
And in my slumber
My dreams come true

I get up in the morning
A new day begins
I go to the mirror
And shave my face again.

Jimmie A. Kepler
© 2008

Originally published in:
WORDS..RHYMES..POETRY & PROSE!

Meet the Poets: Bob Dylan – 2008 Pulitzer Prize: Special Awards and Citations

Posted in Blog, Poetry, WritingLeave a comment

The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2008 awarded Bob Dylan a special citation for “his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.”

PERSONAL INFORMATION
Birth: May 24, 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota, United States.
Occupation: Singer, musician.
Family: son of Abe Zimmerman and Beatrice Rutman; m. Sara Lownds (or Lowndes), Nov. 22, 1965 (div. June 19, 1977); children: Jakob, Jesse, Samuel, Anna, Maria; m. Carolyn Y. Dennis, June 4, 1986 (div. Oct. 1992); 1 child, Desiree Gabrielle.
Education: self-taught; student, U. Minn., 1960; Music Dept., Princeton U., 1970.
Avocations/Research/Interests: Achievements include devising and popularizing folk-rock.
Addresses: Office, Columbia Records, 550 Madison Ave, New York, NY, 10022-3211.

AWARDS
Named to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1988.
recipient Lifetime Achievement Award, Grammy Awards, 1991.
Prince of Asturias Arts award, Prince of Asturias Found, 2007.

WORKS
Musician: (albums) Bob Dylan, 1962; The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, 1963; The Times They Are A-Changin’, 1964; Another Side of Bob Dylan, 1964; Bringing It All Back Home, 1965; Highway 61 Revisited, 1965; Blonde on Blonde, 1966; John Wesley Harding, 1967; Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, 1967; Nashville Skyline, 1969; Self Portrait, 1970; New Morning, 1970; Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2, 1971; Dylan, 1973, Planet Waves, 1974; Blood on Tracks, 1975; Desire, 1976; Hard Rain, 1976; Street Legal, 1978; Masterpieces, 1978; Slow Train Coming, 1979 (Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for “Gotta Serve Somebody”, 1980); Bob Dylan At Budokan, 1979; Saved, 1980; Shot of Love, 1981; Infidels, 1983; Real Live, 1984; Empire Burlesque, 1985; Biograph, 1985; Knocked Out Loaded, 1986; Down In The Groove, 1988; Oh Mercy, 1989; Under the Red Sky, 1990; The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3: (Rare and Unreleased 1961-1991), 1991; Good as I Been to You, 1992; World Gone Wrong, 1993 (Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album, 1994); Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3, 1994; MTV Unplugged, 1995; Time Out of Mind, 1997 (Grammy Award for Album of Yr., 1998, Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, 1998; Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for “Cold Irons Bound”, 1998); The Best of Bob Dylan, 1997; The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: The Royal Albert Hall Concert, 1998; Essential Bob Dylan, 2000; The Best of Bob Dylan, Vol. 2, 2000; The Very Best of Bob Dylan, 2000; Love and Theft, 2001 (Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, 2002); The Bootleg Series, Vol. 5, Live 1975; The Rolling Thunder Revue, 2002; The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6: Live 1964, 200;, The Bootleg Series, Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack, 2005, Live at the Gaslight 1962, 2005; Modern Times, 2006 (Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, 2007); musician: (with various artists) The Concert for Bangladesh, 1971 (Grammy Award for Album of Year, 1973); Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration, 1993; musician: (with The Band) Before the Flood, 1974; The Basement Tapes, 1976; musician: (with Grateful Dead) Dylan and the Dead, 1988; musician: (with Traveling Wilburys) Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1, 1988 (Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, 1990); Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3, 1990; musician: (soundtracks) Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, 1973; The Last Waltz, 1976; Wonder Boys, 2000 (Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Things Have Changed”, 2001); Masked and Anonymous, 2003.

Composer: (songs) Like a Rolling Stone and over 500 more.
Dir., editor: (films) Eat the Document, 1972.
Appeared in: (documentaries) Don’t Look Back, 1967; No Direction Home, 2005
Actor: (films) Pat Garret and Billy the Kid, 1973; Hearts of Fire, 1987; actor, composer, dir., editor, writer (films) Renaldo and Clara, 1978; actor, composer, writer Masked and Anonymous, 2003.
Actor: (TV films) The Madhouse on Castle Street, 1963.
Author: Tarantula, 1971; Writings and Drawings, 1973; Tarantula: Poems, 1994; (book of sketches) Drawn Blank, 1994; (memoirs) Chronicles, Vol. 1, 2004 (Quills award-biography/memoir, 2005).

SOURCE CITATION
“Bob Dylan.” Marquis Who’s Who™, 2008.
http://www.pulitzer.org/biography/2008-Special-Awards-and-Citations

Writer’s Life : My Writing Report Card

Posted in Blog, Poetry, Writing1 Comment

My writing report card for July: I was rejected by: Poetry Magazine, The New Yorker, and Asimov’s Science Fiction. I was accepted by: vox poetica. The poem Urban Pigeons will be in their August 26, 2012 issue. I had a book review in this month’s Front Row Lit magazine. I have four submissions currently pending with other publications. Note – you will never get rejected … or accepted if you don’t write and submit.

Poem: Basketball

Posted in Blog, Poetry, WritingLeave a comment

Basketball

He fakes it
He shakes it
He bakes it
He takes it
He makes it!

© January 26, 2011
by Jimmie A. Kepler

Review: Chronicles, Volume One

Posted in Blog, Books I've Reviewed1 Comment

I received this book from my son Kristopher for Christmas way back in 2004. The book is a lot like Bob Dylan … different and genius. We start in 1961. We witness some history in him signing his first record contract.

It is an odd memoir that is as inspired, impulsive, and to a degree as eccentric as Dylan’s greatest music. He never tells us what he is about.

Biography lovers will find it wanting. You get near, but not close to Dylan. He chases “rabbits”. It reminds me of someone talking in to a tape recorder and then having it transcribed – word for word.

With a title of “Chronicles, Volume One”, when will we see Volume Two? Save your money. Borrow the book from the library, unless you are a big Bob Dylan fan. Read in January 2005.

Poem: Classic Rock

Posted in Blog, Poetry, WritingLeave a comment

Classic Rock

Classic rock takes you back in time
Back to when the music rhymed
Singing of love and feeling good
We’d see them in concert if we could

It transports you back to the drive-in scene
Dancing popcorn boxes on the movie screen
Singing let’s go to the snack bar
Trying to get your money and you out of the car

Each song reminds you of a special girl
Holding hands and soft serve ice cream with a swirl
Her hair in a pageboy flip
From one Cherry Coke with two straws you both would sip

Classic rock keeps you forever young
Some of the best music ever sung
It carries you back to a simpler day
Before life’s responsibilities got in the way

© Jimmie A. Kepler 2007
Originally published in:
WORDS..RHYMES..POETRY & PROSE!