Celebrating St. Patty's day I call your attention to one of the great clowns of Irish history (and America) - the magnificent Johnny Patterson. A wonderful article written in The Independent by Collin Murphy points out some of the highlights and low-lights of his life. His fellow Irish clowns wrote and performed a play to honor his life and music but other than that he is mostly forgotten. But he is not forgotten here at the KOTCB blog - Here, we consider Johnny Patterson a true brother in our battle to pull humanity up from and out of the machine. Orphan, famine survivor, drummer, circus run-away, brilliant performer, brought to America to entertain the masses, overstayed his green card by 9 years, daughter killed by an elephant while he was in the States, returned to Ireland a wealthy drunkard, continued to perform for a circus that actually shot live ammo at it's audience - This is an Irishman of the old school. We have no visual record of his gifted clowning but we do have his music and the man who wrote this song is worthy of high honor and solemn remembrance.
A few weeks ago Duke lost Coach K’s last game at Camron Indoor Stadium to the schools hated rival, North Carolina University, in an epic grudge match. It was an “ unacceptable ” finale for the maniacal ferret-faced competitor who created the 40 year dynastic Duke hoops program with 1,000+ wins and fists full of ACC and NCAA championships but for Tar Heels everywhere it was a day of retribution. Michael William Krzyzewski, is a red-blooded All-American college basketball coach of Polish and Ukrainian descent who grew up in Chicago’s famous Ukrainian Village which is (or at least was) culturally very reminiscent of the Rus borderlands. That is to say that young S h-shef-ski grew up as far away (psychology) from Dixie as is possible while still living within the borders of the USA. That makes him the perfect choice to represent Duke University and the Yankee overachievers who emigrate to Durham for 4 years of education and networking before moving back to non-Southern civilization. T
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