Stream of Consciousness

Where does the Music I play come from?

It comes from the air. It comes from all the experience I've had. No, I didn't really study classical music. That was a temporal hoop I had to jump through, and it helped my fingering and my technique to go to the Peabody Conservatory all those years.

But it's not really responsible for my clarity of expression.

Yes, I practice. But I never do it too much.

Sometimes I play 14 or 16 hours straight at home. Then there are days I don't play at all.

I don't want to let all the notes out before I perform a concert, so I usually touch the piano not at all on the day of the concert.

I'm from Baltimore. I grew up, really, in Philly. But California is a beautiful state, and a state of mind. It's just stupidly, obscenely expensive. You can't easily live a sustainable life in CA, and the stress is increasing.

But I couldn't live in a place that didn't welcome African Americans and Jews and Native Indian Americans and gay people and Jamaicans and Hispanics and, well, everyone.

I need the water too. The Pacific Ocean is a direction, a gravity well, a womb, a presence I feel and see out of the corner of my eye. I can't be away from her for too long.

I wonder about the desert sometimes, though. A different kind of beauty.

Back east, I learned to lay back from the beat and stay ahead at the same time. Like Lee Morgan and Dexter Gordon. All laid back and leaning forward.

I don't rush that beat. THE TIME IS SACROSANCT.

It's the bedrock of jazz, of all great music.

Am I afraid to go out in front of a thousand people and play poorly?

No.

Everyone has 'one of those days.'

Monk came off the stage one night unimpressed with what he had just played, and while the audience was on their feet and applauding in appreciation, he said to the stage-hand, 'I played all the WRONG mistakes.'

Those people know what I'm doing. I'm working it out. I'm looking for God. When I hit that place of fluidity and serendipity that I call the Sacred Ground, everyone seems to know it.

It's also called the 'luminous ground'.

It's worth the wait and it's worth the risk.

It gets old just playing what you KNOW. I get old playing what I know.

I have to play what I HEAR and FEEL. If that isn't what I prepared for, tough for me. I go for it, as long as the audience is with me, and they usually are.

People are really way nicer than the media would have us believe.

People in America, for the most part, are absolutely wonderful people. Some are very unhappy, and troubled, and over-worked. Some are very angry, and lost, and frightened.

All the things that you and I have been and may be again. Because they're us. The whole world is like us, and we like them. Don't feel superior. If you're in a warm house with food to eat, you're doing OK. If you have someone to love, you are doing GREAT.

If you have 19 BMW's, you are probably NOT as OK as you might think.

I don't think too much of those Bosendorfers with the 97 keys. It's like owning two swimming pools.

I like things to be the way they are supposed to be. A piano with 97 keys just confuses me. I'll take a Bleuthner or a Knabe or a Steinway any day.

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There are petty fabrications. Harmless ideas that help us live our lives. Whether it's the tooth fairy or the comfort of a certain belief system or the use of anti-depressant medications, some people really need help getting through this life.

No harm done.

And then there are the evil lies. These are the lies that cause pain to others, illness to the inner self, and can even cause rampant genocide if left unchecked.

One such lie is that of racial superiority.

It's pretty obvious that our country has a long way to go before anything like racial parity and equality is reached.

Martin Luther King's great speech

He speaks of Jews and Gentiles, White and Black, ALL of the world's people. Getting together. Loving one another.

His dream is MY dream. It is the dream of billions of people.

When I play, I'm told that lots of people can HEAR what I believe. Just by listening.

This dream, this desire is so great and so deep, that it breaks through in all great Art and Music. I hear it in Coltrane. I hear it in Jarrett, and I hear it in Miles.

I hear it in Beethoven.

I think the Music is my way of working for FREEDOM.

MY MUSIC IS MY MINISTRY, I said recently to a packed house in Yakima, Washington. I said that again in Seattle.

I said it last year at the Kennedy Center, and I'll probably say it this year when I'm there.

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Cannonball Adderley said this. He said:

"I don't much like crowds 'less they came to see old Cannonball."

I am DOWN with that!

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I found out that George Clooney has back problems. he said so on a talk show.

I like him for that.

If you've seen him in some of those action flicks he's made, he does a GREAT job of hiding his pain. Back pain isn't something you can hide easily.

Take it from someone who knows (about L5-S1 and lamenectomies and paralysis and sciatica...)

You can't just take a Vicodin and act normal. It messes with your movements and your balance.

He's always great to look at, and now I really like him. I admire him for that. And, given some of the roles he's played, I think he can actually ACT!

George Clooney is OK.

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Michael Jackson is NOT OK. I hope he stays away. I became very weary of seeing him and listening to him explain himself ad nauseam. He should go very far away and leave the children alone. I think he's ill. And he hasn't made any music at all for many years.

Good riddance to bad luggage.

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I miss The Beatles. I miss Strawberry Fields Forever!

"Living is easy with eyes closed,
Misunderstanding all you see...
it's getting hard to be someone but it all works out...
it doesn't matter much to me.

Let me take you down, 'cause we're going to...
Strawberry Fields...
Nothing is real...
And there's nothing to get hung about...

Strawberry Fields Forever!"

Rapper G just doesn't get it for me. No aspersions.

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I listen to the waves pound the shore. I think of that really bad movie that Marlon Brando made. It was a western. He was sitting on the Pacific Shoreline. Not far from where I live right now.

His line was, "Les' go rob a bank or suppem'. Ah'm sicka listenin' to these here waves flopping."

Flopping.

Imagine that. A cinematic moment to remember.

And then a good movie, recommended to me by my good friend Andy; Peter O'Toole in My Favorite Year. His friend tells him "Two things Jewish folks are really good at. The first is suffering...and the second is finding Chinese food at 4 am."

Worthy of Woody Allen. Great flick.

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And I saw The Big Sleep with Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart a few nights ago. It was wonderful.

Bogey says to Bacall "all these people with all these crazy ideas...so what's wrong with YOU?" and she says without a pause "nothing you can't fix."

They don't write lines like that any more. Nobody would believe them.

Truth is, there's still some of us who actually talk like that. And we mean it. Life's fun when you're coming up on sixty and feeling like you're twelve.

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War is wrong. Torture is wrong. Killing is wrong.

Lying, deceit, treachery, murder, torture, rape, molestation and abuse, human rights abuse, civil rights violations, illegal detentions in undisclosed locations, racial prejudice...all these things are WRONG.

Years from now, these words will seem silly. (A silly restatement of what every sensible, healthy human being knows in their heart and in their biological core.)

Now, at this moment in our history, these words would be considered treasonous.

Now, at this moment in our history, these words are considered wrong.

So NOW, at this moment in our history, these words are NECESSARY.

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I will always play the Music that is in my heart, with all of my heart, and never veer from that course.

I will never change my Music to fit the whims of a record producer or a music promoter. I will never let a record producer or music promoter tell me who to play with, how to play, what to play, or when and where to play.

I will never accept less payment than what I think I am worth for my Music. My Music is a Force that has healed and brought happiness to many thousands of people, and to have it maligned or reduced in value is an insult and a moral crime that I will not allow.

Each of us sets their own value based on their intimate knowledge of their Art and their feelings of self-worth. No one has a right to set these values for another.

I will play always out of love; never out of fear. If my environment is antithetical to the creation of Art and love, I will do everything in my power to turn the poison into medicine and to turn the fear into love.

My primary goal is to heal people and to report on the personal primacy of my own experience as a maker of Art in this world. My first goal is to heal and enlighten; my motivation is to capture my experience and express it truthfully and lovingly.

I will never compete. I will never play through my ego. I will always play through my heart (meaning the Music will play itself and I will listen and facilitate it.)

I already do all of these things. Those who take issue with this way can be of no concern to me. Anyone who has experienced the river flowing knows that I am not its source and that the source amazes me as much as it amazes others. It's not my job to explain the source.

I just let it flow.

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Beautiful things everyone should know about:

• How cute bulldogs and terriers are when you get to know them.

• Green Tea ice cream, like they serve in some Japanese and Chinese restaurants. You can get it in organic yogurt form at our health food store, and oh is it good.

• How great the new PowerMac G5 Dual Core Processor computer is. I don't have the MacIntel for Universal Binaries yet, or Boot Camp (the ability to run Windows software on a Mac) but I will. Meanwhile, with David Lanham's or Dave Brascaglia's icons running and the Tiger Aqua Blue desktop picture plus a flat screen 21" Samsung moniter and a 9800SE Radeon Graphics Card, it is so easy just to sit here and look at it! It's so pretty. I'm no materialist, but this machine is a good machine to have.

• Like a Rolling Stone from 40 years ago, sung by it's writer, singer and poet Bob Dylan, and accompanied by "The Band"...

Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't feel so proud
After havin' to scrounge up...your last meal...

How does it feel?
How does it feel?
To be on your own?
With no direction shown?
A complete unknown?

Just like a rollin' stone?

...and then his harmonica comes in, and the organ player plays that little line behind him, and it's in my brain forever. If I should die (G-d forbid) I might even hear that as I fade away. That would be nice.

• That CD Mingus Plays Piano on Impulse

• How great it feels to play solo piano for a beautiful, quiet audience, especially if the instrument is one of excellence.

• How wonderful it is to see the sunsets on the Central Coast of California, looking out on the Pacific. To be able to see that, every evening. Then to hear the waves, all night long.

• To look into the eyes of a person who sees the lines like I do. There are a few, but not many. Less all the time. I treasure that.

• Listening to Miles or Coltrane and hearing the intent, seeing the ghosts, feeling the haint (the haunting). Sorcerers.

• The Fourth Symphony by Pyotr IlyichTchaikovsky

• Sheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

• Any painting by Odd Nerdrum

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Do your best

When you do something, anything, do your best. Or don't do it.

Sometimes, it's important NOT to do stuff. Things that you know might be bad for your spirit. You should be careful about your spirit, but most people will think you're hiding out or avoiding "having experiences"...that seems to be it in this society...having experiences means doing anything to fill up the hours. Otherwise you're somehow missing something.

Reality shows are like that. Eating a bowl full of living, writhing, South American Viper-eels while everybody stands around yelling and cheering and going "yuuuuk". Having experiences. I call it having a psychotic episode. Then they rush you to emergency and vacuum your small intestine.

Getting back on the track, do your best. Don't try to do BETTER than you always do, Then you'll TRY, and nothing will happen.

You'll fizzle out.

I know. I've fizzled more than once.

When you play, this can easily happen. You challenge yourself and you don't often meet the challenge. I've gotten very used to seeing musicians destroy themselves on the stage.

The secret to playing? One is don't try. Just do what you do and it will do you back.

That's doing your best, no more, no less.

And don't eat anything that writhes.

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Ghouls

When I play, I don't often think. When I think, it's a different part of my brain I'm using. Not the part that lets the Music happen.

When I try to read Music, my ocular segment occludes my auditory segment. Eyes on, ears off. Never trust music made by people reading from the page. Even in a symphony, everyone should know the piece, every nuance and note, by heart. Heart.

Hands? We don't play Music with our hands. We play Music with our heart.

If we read sheet music when performing, we lose the Magic by looking at notes on paper. Mingus (like Duke, like the Count) had big bands. Little was written, or if it was, it was learned and discarded. The band members were chosen for their "voice": Booker Ervin was a strong voice and so was Jaki Byard.

Mingus would sing the parts. The musicians would embellish the parts to make a whole.

If you think or read, you might as well take a novel on stage and read it while you play. That might even be better. At least if it's a good book it might inspire the music.

Because Music is Magic, I enter a trance. It's a place beyond common thought or feeling. It's a still place away from any madness. Even if the notes are flying, it's still and quiet in the center. The sacred ground is solid. I know where I stand. And the Music? IT IS WRITTEN. Meaning: it is there for me, every idea that is spontaneous. It's spontaneous but it is there if I listen to the silence, and it is as if it is WRITTEN (not on paper), WRITTEN in the way people speak of religious prophecies being WRITTEN. In stone. Everytime I play it is different, and yet it leaves no doubt. When you follow the lines, you know the next note instinctively, like you had learned it before, somewhere, someplace, from a very wise seer.

The broken part of Jazz Music is the player who believes that technique and ego is the center and the fulcrum of making music. It's not music. It's ego. It's technique. And, like Barry Harris said, it's like listening to someone talk who never stops, just rattles on and on and then takes a big breath and starts again, with no pause or respite.

A good speaker, a good storyteller will pause for effect, for drama, for reflection. A fool will talk incessantly. And never learn a thing.

It's only through listening that we learn. And every time we play we should LISTEN. I mean playing alone, solo, we should be listening to the silence in our souls and the stillness in our hearts. If there's no silence and stillness in us, there's no Music in us.

A few people have gotten very angry with me because I would not engage in "noise" (not necessarily in the musical sense). I mean even the "noise" that people make when they use each other to make personal gains. Many people's only purpose in playing music is to appear creative and gifted. I say "appear". They need this for their egos.

So it's noise to make music or conversation or plans or friends with them. They are there for THEM. They aren't there for YOU, or MUSIC, or LOVE, or other PEOPLE. When you walk away from noisemakers, when you shut them out of your life, they get violently angry, because they are almost always passive-aggessive. They can be very very dangerous.

They tell you at first how wonderful you are, thinking that you'll get them on stage, or get them a record deal, or get them into a circuit, or introduce them to the right people. If you do this, you never play Truth and Beauty, you never make Magic.

You make noise with other noisemakers.

They are trying to steal your Power, your Magic, your Thunder, your SOUL. They don't know they are. They have been doing this forever. It's what they do.

What you do is your business. You can NEVER let this kind of person be with you. It drains away all the Magic until the notes hurt you, and the Music becomes noise too.

If someone comes in to your life and says awful things about others, they will say awful things about you to others, too.

If they say you are so special and wonderful and unique and amazing, over and over, this is a sign to step away, to get away as you would get away from a rabid dog.

It is dark and evil magic that they carry. It is anti-life, and not only that, it can be as powerful as your beauty. It can destroy beauty. No one can do this if you are courageous and brave. They can scream and yell and talk about you...they can even hit you or try to kill you. But they will NOT be able to steal your SOUL.

When you play, you are doing an act that is the mortal equivalent of a Sacred Spirit on earth. It's an act of GRACE. It has been with you since before you were born. It is the roots of the tree that is visible to others: it is the roots of your life, invisible to others, that goes down into the soil of your soul. And up out of the top of your head and into the universe, like a beacon. It's light.

Carrying this is a TRUST. Will you defend a trust, or will you allow others to define it, defile it, use it, disrespect it, crush it, dirty it, and destroy it? Some will, and the more powerful your Magic is, the more people will gather to try. They are jealous, but they are also drawn to the LIGHT. They want it. Not being able to possess and control it makes them dangerous and violent.

This is a law, and like any TRUE law, it must be respected.

True ART and MUSIC and LIFE = BEAUTY and TRUTH and MAGIC.

They can NOT be bought or learned or developed or stolen. Only with your permission can they be taken from you and used against you.

Some say that I ramble when I talk. One man shouted during a concert "shut up and play the &^%$*&^ piano!" I believe that when I talk during a concert of mine, it is part of the Music. I may not know what I have to say. I never know what I have to PLAY! I find it out by playing, and I find out what I have to say by talking. I wander when I play. People who LISTEN wander with me. If I say too much, I have not committed a crime. I have been annoying, at the most. If I play too much, I may become tiresome. But not often. It doesn't matter.

I always do the best I can, no more or less. If I tried to top myself, I'd be trying. And when you TRY, you defeat yourself. It's like having a contest with yourself.

All of this is a part of playing for me. But I never think of it.

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March 17th, my birthday

Having been born on March 17th, the date best known as the holiday of green beer, most folks will just assume I'm Irish. And it's half true. On my daddy's side, I'm Irish as a Shamrock, green as a Leprechaun, and as prone to alcoholism as anyone alive today, given the need for anesthesia just to read ones' monthly phone bill. Being sober for a decade has been great for me, as my liver was about to give up the ghost anyway. I never liked the green beer. But even with my life of sobriety, I miss the Guinness. They say that pregnant women in Ireland drink Guinness for the iron. It's like liquid bread. I certainly liked Guinness. In Ireland, it's different. It's the real thing. They keep the best for themselves.

I can't say I blame them.

On my mother's side I'm Jewish. Not that she was having any of that. As anti-Semitic as any repressed German housfrau, she figured that being Jewish was just one more thing to cause trouble for her in life. And it's true. After the big war (the big 20th century war, there being a bigger one in store for us in the 21st), I'm told there was quite a bit of anti-Semitic feelings in America. Seems to me now as if there always has been. I've never seen a more maligned and misunderstood group of people (of which I'm one) and I've never been able to get a grip on the why and the wherefore of it. I know it's partially about killing our Lord and Savior, but I didn't do it, honest.

And when that little wrinkled and leathery old woman on Alaska Air flight 375 to Seattle said to me, the very first time I wore my beautiful new gold-and-silver Star and Shim around my neck, "you killed Christ", all I could think of to say was "sorry".

And then I thought of what I should have said...we all do that.

I should have said "thank you, Mel Gibson."

Of course, Mel Gibson had just released his big blockbuster The Passion of Christ and it had all the rabid fundamentalists frothing and foaming.

I always thought Mel Gibson looked like Pat Metheny. (Or vice-versa).

Incidentally, Pat Metheny can really play the guitar. He's a genius. He's just not a diplomat.

And, equally incidentally, the scientists in the UK reconstructed, from skeletal remains found at old archeological digs, a model of what the real Christ probably looked like.

They say he looked like Mel Brooks.

(I think that that's just grand. I think it's a perfect look for the Savior of Humanity.)

I always thought that Pat Metheny was way out of line by coming down so hard in his blog and in interviews on Kenny G. I always said that Kenny G made me cry once, at Christmas-time, in an antique store with my honey. He was playing Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire. I think it's really called the Christmas Song; I said to my honey that if 'Trane would have heard that, he would've said that Kenny G had a great control of the soprano sax, and that his tone production was wonderful. And that he was right in tune.

He also has a "cool crib" in Beverley Hills, which is probably why the jazz musicians hate him so much. Pure jealousy. "Sour grapes", it's called.

So I didn't like Mel Gibson because he looked like Pat Metheny (or vice-versa). And because he (Mel Gibson) seemed to be blaming the Jews for killing Jesus Christ. I'm not sure which carried greater weight with me. I certainly didn't think his Lethal Weapon movies went very far to dispelling his guilt in the matter. Danny Glover I love, but even he couldn't save Mel from himself. And I don't think that 'Trane would've particularly liked what Pat Metheny had to say about Kenny G, or what Mel Gibson had to say about the Jews, either.

My birthday has thus been a source of discouragement for me. Being Jewish and being born on Saint Patrick's Day (I won't even investigate his credentials) seems slightly uncomfortable, somehow, as if I should be wearing Shamrocks instead of Stars of David. But it's not something one can control.

It's just my own Irish guilt at work.

And we all know about Irish guilt.

-

Thank you, Wikipedia, for the info below

Births on MARCH 17th

1948 - Jessica Williams Citizen of the World (d. not yet)

1231 - Emperor Shigeo of Japan (d. 1242)

1473 - King James IV of Scotland (d. 1513)

1628 - François Girardon, French sculptor (d. 1715)

1676 - Thomas Boston, Scottish church leader (d. 1732)

1725 - Lachlan McIntosh, Scottish-born American military and political leader (d. 1806)

1777 - Roger Taney, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (d. 1864)

1780 - Thomas Chalmers, Scottish pastor, social reformer, author, and scientist (d. 1847)

1804 - Jim Bridger, American trapper and explorer (d. 1881)

1820 - Jean Ingelow, English poet (d. 1897)

1834 - Gottlieb Daimler, German engineer and inventor (d. 1900)

1846 - Kate Greenaway, English children's author and illustrator (d. 1901)

1862 - Silvio Gesell, Belgian economist (d. 1930)

1866 - Pierce Butler, Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (d. 1939)

1870 - Horace Donisthorpe, British entomologist (d. 1951)

1880 - Sir Patrick Hastings, British barrister (d. 1952)

1881 - Walter Rudolf Hess, Swiss physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)

1883 - Urmuz, Romanian writer (d. 1923)

1884 - Alcide Nunez, American jazz clarinetist (d. 1934)

1892 - Benjamin Drake Van Wissen, Australian Engineer.

1894 - Paul Green, American writer (d. 1981)

1901 - Alfred Newman, American film composer (d. 1970)

1902 - Bobby Jones, American golfer (d. 1971)

1908 - Brigitte Helm, German actress (d. 1996)

1912 - Bayard Rustin, American civil rights activist (d. 1987)

1914 - Sammy Baugh, American football player

1916 - Ray Ellington, British singer (d. 1985)

1919 - Nat King Cole, American singer (d. 1965) (a true favorite of mine)

1920 - Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Prime Minister of Bangladesh (d. 1975)

1926 - Siegfried Lenz, German writer

1930 - James Irwin, astronaut (d. 1991)

1936 - Ladislav Kupkovic, Slovakian composer

1936 - Ken Mattingly, astronaut

1938 - Rudolf Nureyev, Russian-born dancer and choreographer (d. 1993)

1938 - Keith Michael Patrick Cardinal O'Brien, Northern Irish clergyman

1940 - Mark White, American politician

1941 - Paul Kantner, American musician (Jefferson Airplane)

1942 - John Wayne Gacy, American serial killer (d. 1994) (boooo!!!)

1944 - Pattie Boyd, British photographer and model

1944 - Cito Gaston, baseball player and coach

1944 - John Sebastian, American singer and songwriter

1945 - Elis Regina, Brazilian singer (d. 1982)

1945 - Katri Helena, Finnish singer

1947 - James Morrow, author

1948 - William Gibson, American-born writer

1949 - Patrick Duffy, American actor

1949 - Pat Rice, Northern Irish footballer and football manager

1950 - Patrick Adams, American record producer and songwriter

1951 - Kurt Russell, American actor (Wasn't he great as Snake Pliskin?)

1953 - Filemon Lagman, Filipino communist revolutionary (d. 2001)

1954 - Lesley-Anne Down, English actress

1955 - Gary Sinise, American actor

1956 - Patrick McDonnell, American cartoonist

1957 - Mal Donaghy, Northern Irish footballer

1957 - Michael Kelly, American journalist (d. 2003)

1959 - Danny Ainge, American basketball player and coach

1961 - Casey Siemaszko, American actor

1962 - Clare Grogan, Scottish actress-singer

1963 - Nick Peros, Canadian composer

1964 - Rob Lowe, American actor

1967 - Billy Corgan, American musician

1967 - Barry Minkow, American businessman

1969 - Mathew St. Patrick, American actor

1971 - Bill Mueller, US baseball player

1972 - Mia Hamm, American soccer player

1972 - Melissa Auf der Maur, Canadian rock musician

1973 - Caroline Corr, Irish singer and musician

1973 - Rico Blanco, Filipino singer (Rivermaya)

1975 - Justin Hawkins, British singer (The Darkness)

1975 - Andrew "Test" Martin, Canadian professional wrestler

1976 - Stephen Gately, Irish singer, musician, and actor (Boyzone)

1979 - Andrew Ference, Canadian hockey player

1983 - Alfred "A.C.E." Jones, Hip Hop Star, Producer

1990 - Katie Zenner, Queen of the Galaxy

(Queen of the Galaxy???)

Deaths on MARCH 17th

45 BC - Titus Labienus, Roman leader (in battle)

45 BC - Gnaeus Pompeius, the Younger, Roman general (executed) (ouch)

180 - Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor (b. 121)

493 - Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland

1040 - Harold Harefoot, King of England

1058 - King Lulach I of Scotland

1272 - Emperor Go-Saga of Japan (b. 1220)

1425 - Ashikaga Yoshikazu, Japanese shogun (b. 1407)

1516 - Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence (b. 1478)

1565 - Alexander Ales, Scottish theologian (b. 1500)

1620 - St. John Sarkander, Moravian priest, died of injuries caused by torturing (oh no)

1640 - Philip Massinger, English dramatist (b. 1583)

1680 - François de La Rochefoucauld, French writer (b. 1613)

1704 - Menno van Coehoorn, Dutch military engineer (b. 1641)

1715 - Gilbert Burnet, Scottish Bishop of Salisbury (b. 1643)

1741 - Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, French poet (b. 1671)

1764 - George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, English astronomer

1782 - Daniel Bernoulli, Dutch-born mathematician (b. 1700)

1830 - Laurent, Marquis de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, French marshal (b. 1764)

1846 - Friedrich Bessel, German mathematician and astronomer (b. 1784)

1849 - William II of the Netherlands (b. 1792)

1853 - Christian Doppler, Austrian physician and mathematician (b. 1803)

1893 - Jules Ferry, French statesman (b. 1832)

1917 - Franz Brentano, German philosopher and psychologist (b. 1838)

1937 - Austen Chamberlain, English statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1863)

1956 - Fred Allen, American actor and comedian (b. 1894)

1956 - Irene Joliot-Curie, French physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (b. 1897)

1957 - Ramon Magsaysay, President of the Philippines (b. 1907)

1965 - Amos Alonzo Stagg, baseball, basketball, and football coach and player (b. 1862)

1976 - Luchino Visconti, Italian director (b. 1906)

1983 - Haldan Keffer Hartline, American physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1903)

1987 - Santo Trafficante, Jr., American gangster (b. 1914)

1989 - Merritt Butrick, American actor (b. 1959)

1990 - Capucine, French actress (b. 1931)

1993 - Helen Hayes, American actress (b. 1900)

1995 - Ronnie Kray, British gangster (b. 1933)

1999 - Ernest Gold, Austrian composer (b. 1921)

1999 - Rod Hull, British comedian (b. 1936)

2002 - Rosetta LeNoire, American actress and producer (b. 1911)

2002 - Pat Weaver, American broadcast executive (b. 1908)

2004 - J.J. Jackson, American television personality (b. 1941)

2005 - George F. Kennan, American Cold War strategist and historian (b. 1904)

2005 - Andre Norton, American writer (b. 1912)

2006 - Bob Blue, American singer-songwriter

2006 - Oleg Cassini, American fashion designer (b. 1913)

2006 - Ray Meyer, American basketball coach (b. 1913)

Holidays and observances on MARCH 17th

Ancient Latvia - Kustonu Diena (return of the larks) observed (ah! I knew they'd come back someday!)

Feast day of St Patrick: a public holiday in Ireland (National feast) and Montserrat, widely celebrated in North America (see St. Patrick's Day) (I've seen quite a few and would rather forget most of them!)

Boston, Massachusetts - Evacuation Day (in what sense?)

Ancient Rome - the second day of the Bacchanalia in honor of Bacchus (I honored him for years, and my liver's still on the mend)

Ancient Rome - the Liberalia in honor of Liber

Other Stuff on MARCH 17th

1577 - The Cathay Company is formed to send Martin Frobisher back to the New World for more gold (Martin never returned)

1673 - Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet begin their exploration of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi river

1756 - St. Patrick's Day is celebrated in New York City for the first time (at the Crown and Thistle Tavern) (It took them until 1756???)

1776 - American Revolution: British forces evacuate Boston, Massachusetts after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery overlooking the city

1805 - The Italian Republic, with Napoleon as president, becomes the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon as King (sounds like big fun)

1845 - The rubber band is invented (now THERE'S a cause for celebration)

1861 - The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed (And lasts a whole WEEK!)

1901 - A showing of 71 Vincent van Gogh paintings in Paris, 11 years after his death, creates a sensation (I hope this doesn't happen to me)

1910 - Luther Gulick and his wife Charlotte found Camp Fire Girls (now Camp Fire USA) (formally announced in 1912) (Cookies abound!)

1917 - Delta Phi Epsilon was founded at New York University Law School

1921 - The Second Republic of Poland adopts the March Constitution

1931 - Nevada legalizes gambling (and Wayne Newton)

1939 - Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945): The Battle of Nanchang between the Kuomintang and the Japanese break out (Kuomintang?)

1941 - In Washington, DC, the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt

1948 - Benelux, France, and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Brussels, a precursor to the NATO Agreement

1950 - University of California, Berkeley researchers announce the creation of element 98, which they name "Californium" (Soon afterward, Arnold Schwartzenegger becomes Governor, and all scientific researchers are given pink slips)

1958 - The United States launches the Vanguard 1 satellite (YES! My daddy WORKED on the Vanguard Rocket. Yes, at the Glenn L Martin Company! And yes, the Russians beat us into space with Sputnik, anyway!)

1959 - Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, flees Tibet and travels to India (my hero)

1966 - Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb (Old "Nucular Ed" Teller was always misplacing stuff...his keys, his car, cadmium control rods...)

1969 - Golda Meir of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, becomes Prime Minister of Israel (Please let us have a woman prez soon)

1985 - Serial killer Richard Ramirez, the "Night Stalker", commits his first two murders in Los Angeles, California murder spree (Not cool, Rich)