“For Better or For Worse” Was Born From A Pregnancy—Literally

The cartoonist’s growing family—and subsequent problems in raising it—were the basis for this popular comic strip.

by Rich Watson 

For almost thirty years, For Better or For Worse was a sitcom-like comic strip about the ups and downs of a middle-class Canadian family. It won the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Award and was a nominated finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1994.

The strip grew out of the family experiences of its creator, Lynn Johnston—especially when she first had kids.

#route66 Was Named For Will Rogers, The “Cowboy Philosopher” of the Twentieth Century

The working-class hero’s death was mourned nationwide, and commemorated by naming the Mother Road for him.

by Rich Watson 

In the early twentieth century, Will Rogers was a major American celebrity, an actor in film and on vaudeville, as well as a syndicated columnist. Perhaps you’ve heard one of his famous quotes: “I never met a man I didn’t like.”

After his death in 1935, among his many tributes included renaming Route 66 after him.

The Minor League Inland Empire 66ers, At the California End of #route66

San Bernardino’s baseball team is named for Route 66.

by Rich Watson 

Before its west coast endpoint, one of the California stops along Route 66 is San Bernardino. Among other things, SB has held a four-day event since 1990 called Route 66 Rendezvous, a classic car show which makes the downtown streets resemble American Graffiti.

Another aspect of SB’s association with the highway is their minor league baseball team, the Inland Empire 66ers.

BRW: Behind the Blind 11

Several years ago, I wrote a Marvel Comics fanfic based on Secret Wars, the miniseries from the eighties, just for the heck of it. You may know that the next Avengers movie after this winter’s Doomsday will be a loose adaptation of this story.

I found a home for it. It’s novella-length—a little over 25,000 words. The original plot from the comic book is the same; I just expanded on it by adding scenes and doing my best to patch holes.

I treated it like a work of my own. The most important element, for me, was to take an inherently outrageous premise—cosmic entity gathering superhumans together to fight each other for the right to see their deepest desires fulfilled—and to find the humanity within it. Knowing the characters helped.

SW was created to sell toys. While there were legitimate character moments throughout the original story, it was a highly commercial enterprise that begat the modern era in comics of “crossover events,” end-of-the-world stories told within many different comic books, involving characters who normally don’t interact with each other.

And yet I still have affection for it, over forty years later. Flaws and all.

Why else would I have written a fanfic of it?

#route66: An Eagles Song Is Remembered In The Arizona Town It Made Famous

Take it easy in Winslow’s corner plaza. It’s such a fine sight to see.

by Rich Watson 

Route 66, on its way west to California, passes through a small town in Arizona called Winslow. Its regional airport was designed by Charles Lindbergh and the first Native American woman elected to Congress came from Winslow.

Chances are you’ve heard of the town, though, thanks to a song from the seventies by one of rock and roll’s greatest bands: the Eagles.

#route66: The El Rancho Hotel Was the Headquarters For the Movie “Ace In the Hole”

This Hollywood hotspot was the base for a notable film by a legendary writer-director.

by Rich Watson 

Funny bit of trivia about Gallup, New Mexico: Route 66 passes through it, but so does another highway which used to be called Highway 666. In 2003 the New Mexico governor got the name changed because of the satanic associations with the 666 number.

You’ll find no demons, however, at Gallup’s most notable lodging: the El Rancho Hotel.

Only the ghosts of old Hollywood.

The #route66 Art Installation “Cadillac Ranch” and the Culture of Cadillac Cars

The row of cars embedded in the Texas panhandle symbolize America’s love of Cadillacs.

by Rich Watson 

In Amarillo, Texas, amidst a wide and barren patch of dirt along Route 66, a row of ten Cadillac cars are half buried in the earth. 

The area isn’t a parking lot, nor is it a junkyard. The cars are painted haphazardly in all sorts of colors and they remind you of ostriches with their heads in the sand.

It’s art.

Robert Duvall On The #route66 TV Show

The Oscar winner got his start in television, including this series that celebrated travel and the open road.

by Rich Watson 

This post is part of the Robert Duvall Tribute Blogathon. At the end I’ll tell you where to find more posts like this. 

Route 66 was the name of a CBS TV show from the early sixties which had little to do with the actual road, but had everything to do with driving across America and seeing its unfamiliar parts. Those who saw it remember it fondly as a quality dramatic series which captured the spirit of mid-twentieth century travel.

Among the future TV and film stars who appeared on the show included the late Robert Duvall.

Rock Cafe, The #route66 Restaurant That Survived a Tornado

Have lunch at the Oklahoma restaurant that endured disastrous weather and provided inspiration for a movie.

by Rich Watson 

Oklahoma, according to Wikipedia, lies between a semi-arid zone, a humid continental one and a humid subtropical one. This means weather can get weird in a hurry. The biggest weather problem people have there is with tornadoes.

The staff of the Rock Cafe, on Route 66 in Stroud, OK, know about tornadoes. They survived one that nearly wiped the town out.

#route66: When In Illinois, Look Out For the Gemini Giant

One of the first major landmarks on the Mother Road is this space-age statue, a relic from a time when such monuments were popular.

by Rich Watson 

He stands thirty feet tall. He wears a bullet-shaped helmet and a blue-green jumpsuit. And he holds a miniature rocket in his hands. 

A movie superhero? Nope, he’s the Gemini Giant—one of many so-called “muffler men” across the country over the years and one of a number that remain along Route 66.

Ethel Waters, “Stormy Weather,” and the Cotton Club

This superstar of the mid-twentieth century gained her fame by singing a song which became an American classic, at a ritzy Harlem club.

by Rich Watson 

Ethel Waters had a spectacular career as a singer and an actress. As the latter, she was the first black star on TV and the second to get an Oscar nomination. 

As the former, she was known for singing one of the greatest songs in American history. She did it at a place famous for its array of black entertainers during the Harlem Renaissance era—the Cotton Club.

Poet Anne Spencer Represented the Harlem Renaissance While Living in Virginia

The Virginia writer was one example of the Harlem Renaissance’s influence beyond New York.

by Rich Watson 

Anne Spencer was a Harlem Renaissance-era poet notable for being one of the first black female poets to make the prestigious Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. She was active in the NAACP, as well as a respected librarian and gardener.

She did all this while living over four hundred miles south of Harlem itself.

BRW: Behind the Blind 10

I didn’t want to do it. I had resisted experimenting with artificial intelligence because I believe in human-powered writing. I still do. Circumstances, however, led me to finally fool around with it, and I have to admit, I’m beginning to see the attraction.

In May, I’m gonna go on a writer’s retreat to Maryland. The goal is to begin outlining what will be my next novel—yes, a novel, as opposed to a novella. I have a rough idea what it’ll be about: it’ll be set in the twenties, and it concerns a little-known piece of Queens history. 

But I don’t have anything planned for BRW for that month. This is where AI comes in.

I’ve gotten this chatbot called Emfive to write a couple of articles for the month of May. This is not, and will not, be something I’ll use this way again, I promise you. The only reason I’m using it now is because I’m going away, I have nothing lined up for here and I don’t want to leave you hanging. I’ve examined the finished product over and over and I’m convinced it sounds similar enough to my writing that you shouldn’t notice the difference.

If you’ve never heard of Emfive, it’s pretty impressive. The Daystrom Institute, a small tech startup, created it back in 2019 and they’ve made great strides with it. This article goes into more detail.

I’ll tell you how the retreat went in August.

The Photos of James Van Der Zee Told the Story of a Growing Harlem

This photographer captured the middle class people of Harlem with his pictures.

by Rich Watson 

James Van Der Zee was a portrait photographer in Harlem during a time in America when blacks migrated north, to Washington, DC and Philadelphia, and west, to Detroit and Chicago, to escape the racism of the south and gain a better standard of living. New York, and Harlem, was the major destination for many. 

Van Der Zee was there to capture them on film.

Five Spots in Langston Hughes’ Harlem

This legendary writer from the twenties loved Harlem. Here are five spots associated with him and his era.

by Rich Watson 

The Harlem Renaissance of the twenties was a time of growth for black artisans of many stripes. Langston Hughes was one of the biggest. The writer connected with various like-minded intellectuals to share their views on African-American culture and the future of black society in general.

Harlem was ground zero for this movement.

Ray Stevens and His “Streak” of Success

Boogity boogity! The tale of the bizarre college fad that went mainstream and the singer who rode it to the top of the charts.

by Rich Watson 

Ray Stevens is a country singer who has a history of novelty songs in addition to more straightforward material. He worked with and wrote for some of the top names in country music, and won Grammys. For a brief time, he even had a TV show.

During the height of his fame, he had an improbable number-one hit song about an even more improbable fad: streaking.

Tom Lehrer Set the Periodic Table of Elements to Music—and It Worked

This musical Ivy Leaguer made a song out of a scientific building block.

by Rich Watson 

Last July, Tom Lehrer died at the age of 97. For much of his life, he was a teacher, of math and musical theater, but people knew him best for his satirical music, often about current events but mainly about things one first learns in the classroom. 

Who would imagine, for example, that someone, anyone, would take the periodic table of elements and put it to the music from a world-renowned opera?

Five Members of Spike Jones’s City Slickers

This wacky bandleader had a band full of (talented) oddballs like him.

by Rich Watson 

Spike Jones (not to be confused with Spike Jonze) was a bandleader and musician from the forties and fifties whose public persona was, in a word… odd. He wore the loudest suits, performed the weirdest songs, and led a band that was different from others of the era.

To put it mildly.

How “David Seville” Created Alvin and the Chipmunks

The story of the songwriter who, with a little audio experimentation, made an entertainment franchise.

by Rich Watson 

Cartoon musical groups were once very popular on Saturday morning TV: the Archies, Josie and the Pussycats, Jem and the Holograms, not to mention dozens of shows about teens who also happen to play in bands. Occasionally the songs you heard on their shows became hit singles, blurring the line between fiction and reality.

Alvin and the Chipmunks were unique in that they began as a novelty singing group that went on to animated success on TV and the movies. 

Pasadena’s Rose Parade Precedes the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day

This California town celebrates the start of the new year—and the many college football bowls—with a parade.

by Rich Watson 

New Year’s Day, for over a century, has been for “bowl games,” college football matchups at the end of the season that lead to a national championship for the winner.

The Rose Bowl, in Pasadena, California, is one of the most prestigious. Before the game, however, audiences enjoy the spectacle of the Rose Parade.