"Blog housekeeping" and The Shaggs -- Perhaps one of the most notorious bands and albums ever made.

 

Greetings, welcome back. 

Here you will find an interesting moment in the history of rock and pop music, but first an update on the state of this blog and my so-called writing career, and then a bit on the nature of doing history in the year 2020. I recently finished a book, I think it's my sixth so far, and it's on Donald Trump. If you have not heard of him, Donald Trump was a man who was born into money and enjoyed appearing on television and in the press. He did some television and some cameos in movies. Sort of a "Hollywood Squares" kind of guy, but sort of, mostly after "Hollywood Squares" went off the air. (If you don't know what "Hollywood Squares" was google it or leave a comment below.) At one point in his career, in what may have been the world's biggest publicity stunt gone awry, he ran for president and much to the surprise of many, got himself elected. And the rest, as they say, is history. 

And, while in my opinion, he's doing a terrible job as President, he is doing a good job of manipulating a large segment of the population. And my book discusses how, exactly, he manipulates them. 

Buy "Scams from the Great Beyond --The Presidential Edition" here.

If you are interested, and even if you are not, aside from the many blog posts here, I have another blog that I do not use as much that discusses things other than history. You can find it here: http://peterhuston.blogspot.com/  It basically discusses things other than history. If you liked the recent Donald Trump posts, there are a few others over there too. And I have created a Goodreads author's page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/339311.Peter_Huston  The Amazon,com authors page is coming as soon as they and I straighten out some confusion over some paperwork issues. They tell me this should happen tomorrow. 

So that's it about me, at the moment. 

Second, my thoughts on the state of doing history in the year 2020. For the record, I believe that one of the reasons we now have such an unusual president (if nothing else, he is the first president we have had who has never served in the military or public office) is due to changes in society and the flow of information caused by the internet. And this changes history too. 

When doing history, arguably, the primary factors are the amount and type of sources. And the internet information explosion has often resulted in a huge deluge of sources available, literally, at the touch of a few fingers on the nearest linked in computer keyboard. Which changes the way we do history for many subjects. Often, instead of going to great trouble to obtain sources, any sources, one now finds oneself with an overwhelming number of sources and a need to sort them for research value. And one needs to sort them, and weigh and analyze them, often before determining how to use them. 

And sometimes one finds a subject that looks really cool, and you decide you want to dig into it, learn as much as you can, hoping to share it with others, only to discover that all the research has already been done before. 

And thus it is with the Shaggs  .  ,  , 

Such an interesting story, alas, it's all been told before. 

 So, here we have a primary source: 

You can listen to it, and if you hear just a little bit, you should be intrigued. If you hear the whole thing, well, congratulations to you. You've accomplished something many people find difficult. Either way, you will probably be wondering what it is and where it come from and how it came to be.

And if you are wondering where the above album came from, the answer is available in the video below. 

Of if you prefer you can go to the follow sources: 

NPR news: https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2017/02/17/515775669/the-best-or-worst-band-of-all-time-is-back  

Lester Bangs, the famous rock critic, wrote about them: http://www.keyofz.com/vvoice.htm 

The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1999/09/27/meet-the-shaggs

Rolling Stone: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/shaggs-dot-wiggin-reflects-on-divisive-philosophy-of-the-world-album-115348/ 

Or you can watch this video: 

And that's kind of how research is done, at least on some projects, in the year 2020. 

To do it right, one should dig in, try to find more verification of fundamental facts. Perhaps something I will do later. 

Finally, my books . . . 

Yeah, I've written books. Please check them out and see if they interest you.

  

Not my book, but if you buy it here, you support this blog: 

Great people of history, Tommy Page, lived 1967-2017

One of the joys of history is discovering people who had extremely interesting lives. And with that I present Tommy Page (lived 1967-2017), an obscure American pop singer who somehow managed to gain a big following in Taiwan around 1990 when I was teaching English and living there. For those who wish to truly understand the . . . um . . . incredibleness of this historic East-West relationship, let me offer this incredible video. 

Here we see Tommy as he appears on Taiwanese TV where they praise him as someone whose star is shining so bright it is making all the other American pop stars disappear. Then they demonstrate. 

Now the truth is I was never a fan of Tommy Page's singing or his lyrics. I always felt that they were much improved if one spoke Mandarin or Taiwanese as a native language, had a few years of high school English, and were not only translating the words of his songs into your native language as you listened but also were thrilled to pieces to realize that you were able to do so. To illustrate I offer these fine videos.  

Tommy Page, I'll be your Everything (reportedly a Billboard #1 Hit. Ouch!!) 

Despite the fact that I really did not like Tommy Page's music, I did envy him.  Believe it or not, there are people out there who have thought I was famous. (Something I wrote more about in my short story collection in the section on pop stars -- see 

here for details on this fine, fine, fine publication. ) and I've never been quite comfortable with it. Therefore I envied the way Tommy Page could travel to Taiwan any time he wanted, have a few shows, do radio interviews, be met by cheering crowds and adoring fans, and then go home and back to anonymity and a normal life. To me, that would be the perfect set-up, a far away country where I was famous matched by anonymity at home. 

Another Tommy Page hit, one I always felt was much more appreciated 

by people whose brains were translating the lyrics into Chinese as they listened.

He appeared on an episode of the American TV sitcom "Full House" in 1992 where he sang at a character's 10 year old birthday party and reportedly was also on the cover of many magazines as a teenage heartthrob. 


Later in life, Tommy Page when on to become an executive at Warner Brothers Records, and a co-publisher at Billboard Magazine. 

He reportedly died at age 49 (although some reports say 46) of suicide (dumb way to go IMHO) and was survived by a husband (yeah, that's right) and three children. 

Sources and Links for more Information

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7710182/tommy-page-ill-be-your-everything-singer-and-former-billboard-publisher-dies-at-46

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Page

https://variety.com/2017/music/news/tommy-page-dead-ill-be-your-everything-singer-music-executive-dies-1202002219/ 

[From Singapore and gives an Asian perspective on his career and overseas, Asian success. Includes links to several videos where he sang with Asian Pop-stars of the time. ] 

https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/entertainment/singer-tommy-page-dies-7-things-about-the-1990s-teen-heart-throb

If you like this post, please tell your friends and leave a comment. 

Gwar Miniatures

This blog is intended to be about history and historical miniature wargaming, from time to time, when the miniatures are there, non-historical wargame miniatures will be featured. Or is Gwar, the surreal speed metal band of the 1990s and beyond somehow history?  (the band has been performing for over thirty years, since 1984, but still performs today although the line-up has changed with the death and retirement of different band members as well as the characters they portray.)

Three band members of the 1990s in 28mm scale miniature, from Left to Right, Oderus Orungus, Balsac -the Jaws of Death, and Beefcake the Mighty  (All figures on this blog were painted by yours truly.)

More 1990s era Gwar band members in 28mm miniature. From Left to Right. Flattus Maximus, Slymenstra Hymen, and Jizmak the Gusha. These three and the above figures were the band line-up at the time the figures were released. 

According to its own mythos and band background materials,  Gwar had originally been a band of galactic mercenaries and space pirates called "The Scum Dogs of the Universe." They had come to Earth millennia ago, killed the dinosaurs, destroyed Atlantis, and accidentally set the template for the Roman Empire when primitive humans had copied Beefcake the Mighty. Ultimately, however, the Scumdogs of the Universe had become frozen for centuries in the icy wastes of Antarctica. 

Somehow Sleazy P. Martini, down-on-his-luck band manager, stumbled across them, thawed them out, and convinced them to form a band and create music and bloody spectacles for the people of late 20th Century Earth. 

Sleazy P. Martini, band manager extroadinairre

The result has to be seen to be understood. As someone once wrote, "skip the recorded music. Just go to the videos." 

And thusly I offfer you . . . 

I saw them live myself twice in the 1990s and even wrote a write up and review of the show in a local publication called The Source, --not to be confused with the later hip-hop publication, the source. You find a copy here: https://web.archive.org/web/20030905065751fw_/http://capital.net:80/~phuston/GWAR1.html

In the 1990s, a company called Demon Blade Miniatures released the Gwar Miniature and Role Playing Game (really a miniature skirmish game) and it included a rule book and the above figures (minus Sleazy P. Martini who had to be bought separately) and many figures to represent the Gwar Slaves. Mindless and unimportant human scum who the band brought with them from place to place to work as roadies or be killed on stage for the entertainment of the crowd,

Gwar Slaves in 28mm scaled. 

The Rule Book

Of course, a band needs opponents to fight. One of these was Cardinal Syn, a giant robot who worked with the Morality Squad, a group that, within the mythos, tried to put an end to Gwar and force the closure of their stupid and gratuitously violent shows. Sometimes during a Gwar show these enemies of Gwar would invade the show and need to be dispatched in a violent fashion as fake blood sprayed all over the audience.

Cardinal Syn and Oderus Orungus in 28mm scale.

Other enemies of Gwar of the period included 

Enemies of Gwar in 28mm scale, from Left to Right Scroda Moon, Techno-destructo, and the Sexecutioner. 

The figures and the rule book are now long out of print and fetch collectors prices on ebay. Exactly how this strange range of miniatures came to be is uncertain, but rumor (unconfirmed rumor) had it that one of the band members took a job sculpting figures for Demon Blade Games (a company that has closed its doors sadly) and this range grew out of that collaboration. Regardless, it's kind of cool how the Gwar Miniatures range was released and thus the world became a little more interesting.