From: owner-good-noise-digest@smoe.org (good-noise-digest) To: good-noise-digest@smoe.org Subject: good-noise-digest V5 #13 Reply-To: good-noise@smoe.org Sender: owner-good-noise-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-good-noise-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk good-noise-digest Tuesday, February 5 2002 Volume 05 : Number 013 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Flying Red Horse Trivia [ThePsyche@aol.com] speaking of covers [" Gina" ] "Then Came Bronson" ["cycle12345" ] Re: "Then Came Bronson" ["Sara Chamberlin" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 09:10:59 EST From: ThePsyche@aol.com Subject: Flying Red Horse Trivia I found this recently and know that some of you on this list are collectors of Flying Red Horse memorabilia. I thought you might find this interesting so I am passing it on for what it's worth. Adios, Bryn Pegasus: Socony's famous Pegasus - the trademark of Mobil Oil - can be found adorning a plethora of petroliana collectibles. According to Mobil Oil, the Flying Red Horse was adopted as a logo after Standard Oil merged with Vacum in 1931. The Pegasus first appeared in 1911 when a Mobil predecessor in South Africa used a white winged horse to identify its products. Japan's Mobil Sekiyu was the first to color the creature red. During the Thirties, cowboy artist Robert "Rex" Elmer revamped the horse to make it more appealing. Today, the trademark still gallops across the pump canopy at the local Mobil station and is a most popular image...the classic Mobil red Pegasus horse outlined in blue. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 20:14:49 -0600 From: " Gina" Subject: speaking of covers OK, I know that this isn't Gorka related, but it's a very good noise... I was listening to the late, great Eva Cassidy in my car today. She did almost all covers during her career. She just blows me away. I urge all of you to check her out. I have her albums "Time After Time" and "Songbird." They are both fantastic. Gina ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 00:54:43 -0500 From: "cycle12345" Subject: "Then Came Bronson" Long before David Wilcox took that brief-but-fateful Blue Ridge Parkway motorcycle trip where he dropped his friend's fast Honda CB1000 Hurricane but was inspired to produce "Eye of the Hurricane", and many years prior to John Gorka's song about the stongly independent spirit of a particularly famous "Flying Red Horse", there was a young motorcycle-riding, guitar-playing, folk-singing troubador by the name of Michael Parks who captured the imagination of a segment of the nation's population with a T.V. show entitled "Then Came Bronson". The show's closing theme song, "Long Lonesome Highway", written by James Hendricks and sung by Parks on his first album of the same name, became a "top forty" hit in 1970, and you can still hear it at http://soundamerica.com/sounds/themes/Television/A-B/bronson2.wav. The year was 1969 and the 29-year-old Parks - closely resembling the immortal James Dean - quickly developed a small but intense following of avid admirers while playing the part of "Jim Bronson" for one short season. In the two-hour pilot movie and subsequent NBC T.V. series, Bronson is a newspaper reporter who is unable to prevent the suicide of his best friend "Nick", played by none other than Martin Sheen. As a result of this loss, Bronson re-evaluates his life, quits his job, buys back from Nick's widow the Harley-Davidson Sportster motorcycle which he and Nick had recently customized, and tours the country on the bike in search of his destiny. The Sportster's red gas tank features a symbol which is found on the backs of dollar bills - an eye within a triangle - representing the eternal eye of God and placing the spiritual above the material. In the pilot movie Bronson meets a kindred spirit, "Temple" - played by Bonnie Bedelia - a runaway bride to whom he is very attracted and by whom his travel plans are nearly derailed. As you know, both Sheen and Bedelia have gone on to enjoy successful movie and television careers while Parks was not so fortunate. The T.V. series "Then Came Bronson" was canceled in 1970, after which Parks produced three record albums before fading into near obscurity for an extended period of time. A few years ago his stock appeared to be on the rise once again when Parks appeared in several productions, and in 1999 he released a fourth record entitled "Coolin' Soup". However, Parks is still best known for his portrayal of Jim Bronson thirty years earlier. Each episode of "Then Came Bronson" opens with a scene which is set in a hot summer urban traffic jam where a sweating, station wagon-driving businessman takes note of Bronson as he pulls up beside him on his motorcycle. Obviously envious of Bronson's current station in life versus his own, the long-suffering driver loosens his tie, looks out his window and enters into the following exchange with Bronson: "Taking a trip?" "What's that?" "Taking a trip?" "Yeah." "Where to?" "Oh, I don't know . . . wherever I end up, I guess." "Pal, I wish I was you." "Really? Well, hang in there . . . " The businessman smiles wistfully and nods as the traffic light changes, and Bronson guns the motorcycle out of the city toward the open spaces - and twenty-six different adventures . . . Back then, at age nineteen I was already the owner of my third motorcycle, and Bronson became one of my many heroes well before the conclusion of the pilot movie. To me and others of my generation, Jim Bronson represented the ultimate combination of ability, compassion, coolness, determination, forthrightness, independence and intellect, a true "boy scout" who belonged to no one, but who was always willing to help anyone who might request his assistance. Move the clock forward more than twenty-five years and offer me other equally enthralling and impressive individuals - David Wilcox and John Gorka - and it's easy to see why I was such "easy prey" for their messages and music. After many years of not riding motorcycles - but also having bought my tenth bike just a few months before I was introduced to the talents of these two artists - I was probably quite ready for a return to old established beliefs and values, and perhaps I was prepared to meet some new heroes as well. Guys, please allow me to introduce to you one of my earlier mentors, Michael Parks. "Jim", these are two of my newer friends; David and John. First came "Bronson", then Wilcox, then Gorka . . . Thanks, gentlemen. Steve McGraw ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 00:07:27 -0600 From: "Sara Chamberlin" Subject: Re: "Then Came Bronson" Jesus, Steve--"Then Came Bronson"? One of my favorite shows in its all-too-brief career. I would have been about 11. Of course, rather than the motorcycles, I remember episodes like the one when the kid who played "Oliver" in the movie musical played a traumatically-muted boy, the circumstances of whose life I no longer recall, but ole Bronson, well, let's just say that kid cried out to him for help--figuratively and literally--by the end. And of course, those gorgeous shots--rising, rising--as Michael Parks would take off into the sunset at the end of every episode. Whew. Sense-memory exercise. Thanks for the ride, Steve. Sara - ----- Original Message ----- From: cycle12345 Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 11:58 PM To: good-noise@smoe.org; Wilcox Open Discussion List Subject: "Then Came Bronson" Long before David Wilcox took that brief-but-fateful Blue Ridge Parkway motorcycle trip where he dropped his friend's fast Honda CB1000 Hurricane but was inspired to produce "Eye of the Hurricane", and many years prior to John Gorka's song about the stongly independent spirit of a particularly famous "Flying Red Horse", there was a young motorcycle-riding, guitar-playing, folk-singing troubador by the name of Michael Parks who captured the imagination of a segment of the nation's population with a T.V. show entitled "Then Came Bronson". The show's closing theme song, "Long Lonesome Highway", written by James Hendricks and sung by Parks on his first album of the same name, became a "top forty" hit in 1970, and you can still hear it at http://soundamerica.com/sounds/themes/Television/A-B/bronson2.wav. The year was 1969 and the 29-year-old Parks - closely resembling the immortal James Dean - quickly developed a small but intense following of avid admirers while playing the part of "Jim Bronson" for one short season. In the two-hour pilot movie and subsequent NBC T.V. series, Bronson is a newspaper reporter who is unable to prevent the suicide of his best friend "Nick", played by none other than Martin Sheen. As a result of this loss, Bronson re-evaluates his life, quits his job, buys back from Nick's widow the Harley-Davidson Sportster motorcycle which he and Nick had recently customized, and tours the country on the bike in search of his destiny. The Sportster's red gas tank features a symbol which is found on the backs of dollar bills - an eye within a triangle - representing the eternal eye of God and placing the spiritual above the material. In the pilot movie Bronson meets a kindred spirit, "Temple" - played by Bonnie Bedelia - a runaway bride to whom he is very attracted and by whom his travel plans are nearly derailed. As you know, both Sheen and Bedelia have gone on to enjoy successful movie and television careers while Parks was not so fortunate. The T.V. series "Then Came Bronson" was canceled in 1970, after which Parks produced three record albums before fading into near obscurity for an extended period of time. A few years ago his stock appeared to be on the rise once again when Parks appeared in several productions, and in 1999 he released a fourth record entitled "Coolin' Soup". However, Parks is still best known for his portrayal of Jim Bronson thirty years earlier. Each episode of "Then Came Bronson" opens with a scene which is set in a hot summer urban traffic jam where a sweating, station wagon-driving businessman takes note of Bronson as he pulls up beside him on his motorcycle. Obviously envious of Bronson's current station in life versus his own, the long-suffering driver loosens his tie, looks out his window and enters into the following exchange with Bronson: "Taking a trip?" "What's that?" "Taking a trip?" "Yeah." "Where to?" "Oh, I don't know . . . wherever I end up, I guess." "Pal, I wish I was you." "Really? Well, hang in there . . . " The businessman smiles wistfully and nods as the traffic light changes, and Bronson guns the motorcycle out of the city toward the open spaces - and twenty-six different adventures . . . Back then, at age nineteen I was already the owner of my third motorcycle, and Bronson became one of my many heroes well before the conclusion of the pilot movie. To me and others of my generation, Jim Bronson represented the ultimate combination of ability, compassion, coolness, determination, forthrightness, independence and intellect, a true "boy scout" who belonged to no one, but who was always willing to help anyone who might request his assistance. Move the clock forward more than twenty-five years and offer me other equally enthralling and impressive individuals - David Wilcox and John Gorka - and it's easy to see why I was such "easy prey" for their messages and music. After many years of not riding motorcycles - but also having bought my tenth bike just a few months before I was introduced to the talents of these two artists - I was probably quite ready for a return to old established beliefs and values, and perhaps I was prepared to meet some new heroes as well. Guys, please allow me to introduce to you one of my earlier mentors, Michael Parks. "Jim", these are two of my newer friends; David and John. First came "Bronson", then Wilcox, then Gorka . . . Thanks, gentlemen. Steve McGraw ------------------------------ End of good-noise-digest V5 #13 *******************************