Videos

The Lucky Few: The Story of USS Kirk (complete film)

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The Lucky Few is an hour long documentary about the story of the USS Kirk and its crew in their incredible mission to rescue Vietnamese refugees during Operation Frequent Wind in the final days of the Viet Nam War.

As the War was coming to an end on April 29th to 30th, 1975, Operation Frequent Wind airlifted about 7100 “at risk” Vietnamese (to death from the Communist Viet Cong) and American civilians out of Sai Gon, the capital of South Viet Nam. Some lifts were scheduled. Others were not. The relative American small warship USS Kirk, a destroyer escort, and its crew suddenly found themselves in the midst of a flock of unscheduled airlifts, to which it admirably accommodated even though it was neither meant nor ready to do any such thing.

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Guitar and Ukulele Tabs for Octopus’ Garden (Ringo Starr of the Beatles)

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The printable PDF tabs below are for Octopus’ Garden, by Ringo Starr of the Beatles. However, they work for two ways of performing the song. The first is the original you know.

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Guitar and Ukulele Tabs for Blowin’ in the Wind, in 3 Keys (Bob Dylan)

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Bob Dylan

Blowin’ in the Wind is a Bob Dylan classic that is not only simple in its chording, but can also be played in 3 different keys without needing any difficult chords or capo. That means no bar chords, or even chords requiring 4 fingers! You can play and sing it in the keys of A, D or G, depending on where you vocal range lies.

Or you can do it in all three keys as I have arranged and shown in the video below! You play and sing each verse in a progressively higher key as the urgency grows in the lyrics. Notes are included in the printable guitar and ukulele tab PDFs below the video.

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Ugly Stamps: A Song by Me

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In the handful of times I have performed this song in public, I have jokingly introduced it as the song that might get me kicked out of the Commonwealth one day. That’s because it bemoans the state of the Canadian stamp with Queen Elizabeth II’s face on it on it as she ages. I don’t know why Canada Post decided to have an embossing of the Queen’s profile, like on the back of a coin, for many years during her youth, on its Queenie stamp. Then, sometime in late 80s, as the Queen started nearing seniority, Canada Post decided to put her senior face on the stamp, a face that would only wrinkle away as any other does with age.

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Researched Suggestions for Writing the Next Hit Song in America

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A new study published in the Journal of Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts suggests that the most popular songs in American culture these days are increasingly about oneself, especially one’s angry or antisocial behaviour (DeWall, C. Nathan; Pond, Richard S., Jr.; Campbell, W. Keith; Twenge, Jean M., Mar 21 2011).

See the more complete and easier to read Miller-McCune article here.

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